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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 29, 2017 15:55:31 GMT
There have been a couple of threads on this sort of thing - mostly harvested from TUFFF and not updated recently. Gruesome deaths (inspired by those in Phil's favourite source CoH) Humorous deathsI haven't thought about this recently, but the first thing that springs to mind is the trident in Demons of the Deep which is pretty random and therefore memorable. You pick it up to fight mermen with, only for your hand to stick to it and the trident shoot off through the ocean with you attached. The book explains that not only do you stay attached until you drown, but even after your flesh has been stripped off and ultimately all your bones except your skeletal arm. I'm not totally clear on whether there's any reason for this to happen. You'd think if the mermen left charms on all their tridents to do this whenever the wrong person picked one up that they'd lose a lot of them and the sea would be full of 'armful tridents. The whole thing is slightly comical in a 'horror film starring Norman Wisdom' sort of a way. Edit: Oh and welcome, marman.
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Post by a moderator on May 1, 2017 13:15:09 GMT
Beneath Nightmare Castle includes plenty of inventively nasty deaths, one particularly twisted one being becoming a component of the warriors' 'Stonedrop' game.
Being dropped into a bone-cluttered pit and left to die in The Crimson Tide is quite unpleasant in any case, but the context in which that death occurs makes it the most ingeniously cruel ending in the whole range.
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Post by vastariner on May 27, 2017 9:49:52 GMT
I don't have my copy to hand, but isn't there a death in Creature of Havoc where you fall into the Bilgewater, and have to test your luck - and if you're lucky you are unconscious when you die?
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Post by a moderator on May 27, 2017 22:26:09 GMT
I think you're misremembering. There are two separate instances in the book where you have to Test your Luck to avoid falling into the Bilgewater. On one of those occasions, if you are Unlucky, you remain conscious for a death which 'is not pleasant', while being Unlucky in the other one means you are knocked out and 'swept downstream to oblivion'. However, both times, being Lucky means not falling in at all.
I can't imagine that you ever got to see my gamebook 'teaser' competition entry Trial of Treachery, but that did have an ending that went
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Post by lordomnibok on May 28, 2017 9:56:37 GMT
I don't have my copy to hand, but isn't there a death in Creature of Havoc where you fall into the Bilgewater, and have to test your luck - and if you're lucky you are unconscious when you die? Well, if that wasn't in COH, it should have been. It's a good demise if it can make me laugh and grimace at the same time. I'm concerned at sounding a little sadistic suddenly... but anyway, I also liked your ending Greenspine.
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Post by Tommy on Aug 23, 2017 4:13:32 GMT
Not exactly a death but pretty gruesome. From Howl of the Werewolf, ref 491:
"Muscles contract and twist, bones melt and reform, skin become chitin ... what is left resembles an unholy cross between a cockroach and a wolf."
"You begin your new life among the vermin, as one of them."
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 4, 2017 14:44:40 GMT
Jamie Thomson is still rather proud and amused that one of his gruesome death scenes in Talisman of Death got the series into a bit of trouble: [205] As you are about to open the door, you hear a click and something thumps you in the back. Looking down you see the bloody head of a harpoon protruding from your stomach. Your hands clutch at the gaping wound as you try to stop your entrails spilling into the slime of the sewer. Mercifully, death takes you swiftly.
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Post by daredevil123 on Sept 17, 2017 11:06:51 GMT
I think the worst has to be in House of Hell where you get sucked into a book by a hypnotising eye or something. You are told you suffer an ETERNAL life of agony. That makes it infinitely worse than any other FF death because in every other death the pain actually ends at some point, rather than it having literally no end.
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Post by offm on Sept 24, 2017 22:37:53 GMT
WelliI really like this adventure, who knows where this gruesome death is taken from?
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Post by paulmc on Jan 22, 2018 22:58:33 GMT
The thread for deaths you never saw coming, you are plodding nicely through an adventure then bang and it's over. Which is the most unexpected.
p.s things you can't have... Failing an attribute test roll or a test Being asked do you have or have you done something and the answer being no Eating/Drinking, anything you put in your gobb is risky in FF Pressing a button, always a risk Anything involving crossing a river or pit or hazardous terrain Encountering a creature in the game, being given a set of options and taking the wrong one Death by stamina falling to 0 (or any other attribute that measures life, the adventure has to end there)
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Post by champskees on Jan 23, 2018 2:05:35 GMT
The thread for deaths you never saw coming, you are plodding nicely through an adventure then bang and it's over. Which is the most unexpected. p.s things you can't have... Failing an attribute test roll or a test Being asked do you have or have you done something and the answer being no Eating/Drinking, anything you put in your gobb is risky in FF Pressing a button, always a risk Anything involving crossing a river or pit or hazardous terrain Encountering a creature in the game, being given a set of options and taking the wrong one Death by stamina falling to 0 (or any other attribute that measures life, the adventure has to end there) Don't know if this falls neatly into this category, but the most surprising ending for me was in The Crimson Tide, para 107 to 400. Thought I was in safe hands. The fact that you go to 400 was even sneakier.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jan 23, 2018 5:09:09 GMT
The entry at 400 in The Crimson Tide was the first thing that popped into my mind too. Evil.
Since we're on that book, there are a couple of somewhat surprising deaths in the monastery sub-quest: picking up a bowl with excessive care causes you to be incinerated, while taking a sword in its scabbard (failing to draw it as you take it) results in you being crushed by a gigantic hand. It's difficult to imagine that anyone said "Why didn't I see that coming?"
I can't really remember many deaths which are perfect fits for this question. I'm sure someone mentioned one in AWF where you get shot by a kid who turns out very surprisingly to have a gun, but I don't know that book very well.
Another imperfect fit: the trident in DotD, which if you pick it up you stick to it and shoot off forever through the oceans until all your flesh is stripped off. There's clearly some danger in that there's a combat looming, but still.
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Post by paulmc on Jan 23, 2018 8:34:21 GMT
I've not read Crimson Tide but it sounds like a good example especially the bowl one. There should be no warning in the text of any impending doom so for example you can't have the death in Deathtrap Dungeon where you take the wrong eye from that idol because anyone who plays FF would know when faced with a choice like that one will be good and one will be bad.
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Post by hynreck on Jan 23, 2018 13:16:39 GMT
I can't think of a specific example cause it's been a while since I've played a FF book (but of course if something comes to mind...), but I do think Luke Sharp's entry should have quite a few each. So many ways to die.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 24, 2018 3:01:56 GMT
The Crimson Tide was what came to mind for me, too.
There's also the bit in Siege of Sardath where you're fighting a zombie, and the text says to turn to one section if you win the fight in two rounds, and another if the fight takes longer, but winning quickly is what gets you killed.
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Post by stevendoig on Jan 24, 2018 20:53:15 GMT
That famous one in Masks Of Mayhem where if you go the wrong way in the fog, you are never seen again.
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Post by Wilf on Jan 25, 2018 14:39:01 GMT
The boy in Appointment With FEAR is a good call.
Also the trap after the Vampire's room (IIRC)in Return To Firetop Mountain is a tad unfair.
But the top of the list must surely be the Headhunters' trap in The Shamutanti Hills, which will kill you if you Test Your Luck successfully.
Come to think of it, the Black Lotus field (the clue to avoiding it is not on the optimum path) and Gaza Moon's lightning bolt (which shouldn't be castable with Jann in the vicinity) are both sudden and unfair ways to die in that book, too.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 26, 2018 11:07:22 GMT
Trying to climb the giant's table cloth in The Warrior's Way ends rather abruptly and amusingly
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Post by vastariner on Feb 3, 2018 8:05:08 GMT
Staying behind in Kallamehr in BVP. Makes me wonder how the market dealers survived and made a living. And how long after that was.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Feb 3, 2018 16:30:05 GMT
Staying behind in Kallamehr in BVP. Makes me wonder how the market dealers survived and made a living. And how long after that was. I don't recall visiting kallamehr in BVP. Which part is it?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Feb 4, 2018 12:53:43 GMT
Staying behind in Kallamehr in BVP. Makes me wonder how the market dealers survived and made a living. And how long after that was. I don't recall visiting kallamehr in BVP. Which part is it? I think he meant SotA. Where the merchants haggle over your sword.
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Post by a moderator on Feb 4, 2018 14:52:38 GMT
Talking of BVP, getting shoved off a cliff without warning by Velkos is a bit of a surprise.
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Post by slloyd14 on Jul 19, 2018 8:45:47 GMT
Opening a door in Trial of the Champions. It's an illusion of treasure that kills you. Opening a door and dying is very unexpected.
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Post by jmisbest on Dec 21, 2018 22:13:23 GMT
A friend of mine says the 5 Gamebooks he wrote years ago then binned in a bad mood had more just in them then some third world people have had very good quality meals
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Post by hynreck on Dec 27, 2018 15:49:23 GMT
Sometimes it's good to take a moment to read back what you've just written.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Jan 17, 2019 20:08:08 GMT
Unexpected death? Demons of the Deep. Dead after the wrong choice from para 1. brilliant.
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Post by philsadler on Jan 19, 2019 13:40:25 GMT
Pretty sure Masks of Mayhem did the same thing. Genius.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 19, 2019 14:18:20 GMT
[pedant]There is no choice to be made in para 1 of Masks. Once you get to make a decision, there is an instantly lethal option on the list, but you're already at para 53 by then.[/pedant]
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Post by philsadler on Jan 19, 2019 14:20:52 GMT
Ah. I consider para like that so early on as a mere wasted reference that you will never turn to ever again ... I wonder what the point is?
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 20, 2019 11:00:46 GMT
Just speculating, of course - In a pen and paper RPG, everything conceivable by the heroes can at least be tried. I guess that the authors of DotD and MoM merely wanted to bring their gamebook as near to this ideal as possible.
So, you've just been kicked from the ship into the water. An obvious thought you could have would be to dive upwards to surprise the pirates. Therefore, there exists an option for this. Same for the lake in MoM.
Dead ends right in the beginning because the authors see themselves as GMs of a RPG and want to eliminate choices that are obvious but bring the players away from the path they want them to take. I don't like it much either, but I think that's the point.
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