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Post by lordomnibok on Oct 8, 2018 18:21:57 GMT
...and I'm spent. Every FF book up to 67 has now been added to the Stat Book. So now this forum not only has a solution for every book, but also a percentile guide to help measure its difficulty. My computer has played over 1 billion individual playthroughs of FF in order to complete this task, insane really. I think I am going to take a break from FF for a while. That's the problem with Fighting Fantasy: the fantasy. Sometimes you get so drawn in, the imaginary worlds start to replace the only one that is real. Hopefully, Steve Jackson delivers the goods with his upcoming entry so I can return for book 68! Ciao, Jake Absolutely stunning, Jake. Well done and thank you for your efforts. |
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Post by champskees on Oct 11, 2018 11:50:04 GMT
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. The whole endeavour has blown my mind. I don't blame you for taking a break and don't mean to be demanding, but it would also be brilliant to see the table for the Wizard edition of Curse of the Mummy - I tried it and found it almost impossible! Actually the Wizard edition is the one that I own. I'm pretty sure the solution already uses the (softer) Wizard edition stat blocks. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,562
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 11, 2018 12:45:42 GMT
Thanks for doing all these Champskees, hope you stick around to chit chat about the books whilst you're on your well-deserved break from number crunching.
Anyway based on Champskees stats, here's all the books ranked from fairest to least fair in terms of dice rolls:
1. Starship Traveller
2. Gates of Death
3. Secrets of Salamonis
4. Spectral Stalkers
5. Citadel of Chaos
6. Forest of Doom
7. Moonrunner
8. Space Assassin
9. Night of the Necromancer
10. Daggers of Darkness
11. Portal of Evil
12. Keep of the Lich-Lord
13. Shadow of the Giants
14. Dead of Night
15. Demons of the Deep
16. Fangs of Fury
17. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
18. Beneath Nightmare Castle
19. The Shamutanti Hills
20. Khare: Cityport of Traps
21. Robot Commando
22. The Seven Serpents
23. The Crown of Kings
24. Scorpion Swamp
25. Siege of Sardath
26. Howl of the Werewolf
27. Appointment with FEAR
28. Night Dragon
29. Rings of Kether
30. House of Hell
31. Stealer of Souls
32. City of Thieves
33. Assassins of Allansia
34. Master of Chaos
35. Stormslayer
36. Battleblade Warrior
37. Talisman of Death
38. Slaves of the Abyss
39. Midnight Rogue
40. Rebel Planet
41. Sword of the Samurai
42. The Port of Peril
43. Deathmoor
44. Revenge of the Vampire
45. Island of the Lizard King
46. Legend of the Shadow Warriors
47. Creature of Havoc
48. Temple of Terror
49. Legend of Zagor
50. Freeway Fighter
51. Phantoms of Fear
52. Deathtrap Dungeon
53. Vault of the Vampire
54. Tower of Destruction
55. Caverns of the Snow Witch
56. Eye of the Dragon
57. Seas of Blood
58. Island of the Undead
59. Star Strider
60. Chasms of Malice
61. The Crimson Tide
62. Armies of Death
63. Magehunter
64. Curse of the Mummy
65. Bloodbones
66. Black Vein Prophecy
67. Return to Firetop Mountain
68. Knights of Doom
69. Trial of Champions
70. Masks of Mayhem
71. Sky Lord
72. Crypt of the Sorcerer
73. Spellbreaker
74. Blood of the Zombies
And the authors ranked by the average fairness of their books:
1. Charlie Higson
2. Dave Morris
3. Jim Bambra
4. Peter Darvill-Evans
5. Steve Jackson (US)
6. Steve Jackson (UK)
7. Keith P. Philips
8. Stephen Hand
9. Jamie Thomson
10. Andrew Chapman
11. Luke Sharp
12. Marc Gascoigne
13. Graeme Davis
14. Mark Smith
15. Keith Martin
16. Jonathan Green
17. Ian Livingstone
18. Robin Waterfield
19. Steve Williams
20. Paul Mason
21. Martin Allen
EDIT: Updated to include Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants
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Post by daredevil123 on Oct 11, 2018 20:33:28 GMT
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. The whole endeavour has blown my mind. I don't blame you for taking a break and don't mean to be demanding, but it would also be brilliant to see the table for the Wizard edition of Curse of the Mummy - I tried it and found it almost impossible! Actually the Wizard edition is the one that I own. I'm pretty sure the solution already uses the (softer) Wizard edition stat blocks. What does the Puffin edition look like then? I should have double-checked the solution but it would be interesting to see the two compared a la Spellbreaker. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,562
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 12, 2018 9:45:02 GMT
Actually the Wizard edition is the one that I own. I'm pretty sure the solution already uses the (softer) Wizard edition stat blocks. What does the Puffin edition look like then? I should have double-checked the solution but it would be interesting to see the two compared a la Spellbreaker. I no longer have my Puffin version but as far as I recall the giant scorpion's skill was 2 points higher and the Caarth you meet inside the temple each have Skills 1 point higher. There was also some textual changes - eg the Puffin version explains a telescope is a device for seeing things that are far away, the Wizard version spares us this.
There were probably other changes but these are the ones I can remember. The editing was pretty shoddy though. The Wizard version still asks if the Scorpion ever has an attack strength of 22 which it can't have with its reduced Skill score and when the Caarth wizard casts a spell, his Skill is different from what it is when you come to fight him.
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Post by daredevil123 on Oct 12, 2018 18:07:00 GMT
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Post by champskees on Oct 13, 2018 7:17:53 GMT
Done. Added Puffin Edition to stat book. |
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Post by daredevil123 on Oct 13, 2018 7:41:19 GMT
Done. Added Puffin Edition to stat book. Thank you. I'll stop annoying you now! |
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Post by tyrion on Oct 29, 2019 21:59:45 GMT
Just found this after following a link from another thread. Fascinating reading! Thanks for this champskees.
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tom
Squire
Posts: 24
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Post by tom on Dec 16, 2023 14:47:28 GMT
Would it be possible to add the more recent FF books - Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants - to the rankings above?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,562
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 16, 2023 17:34:25 GMT
Would it be possible to add the more recent FF books - Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants - to the rankings above? Sadly, Champskees who worked out the stats doesn't seem to post here anymore. |
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tom
Squire
Posts: 24
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Post by tom on Dec 18, 2023 1:00:54 GMT
Shame. That’s a good list above. The toughest gamebook by dice rolls Ive completed fairly is Eye of the Dragon. I’ve yet to crack Seas of Blood.
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Post by scouserob on Dec 18, 2023 8:08:11 GMT
Would it be possible to add the more recent FF books - Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis and Shadow of the Giants - to the rankings above?
I haven't done Crystal of Storms but for the two newest books...
70 Secrets of Salamonis
Has only one starting set of statistics: Skill 6 Stamina 12 Luck 6.
I've found a path through with approximately a 96% success rate.
That would give it a Fairness Quotient of 100% and place Secrets of Salamonis in 3rd Place below Gates of Death and above Spectral Stalkers.
71 Shadow of the Giants
Here are the percentage chances of success for the best path I've found through the book, using the Rune Sword:
Using all 396 starting statistic combinations this gives a fairness quotient of 387/396 or 97.7%.
With the 108 combinations Champskees uses, for a comparable match with the other books, this gives a fairness quotient of 102/108 of 94.4%
Using this second figure of 94.4% along with the minimum of 41.5% should put Shadow of the Giants in 14th position, below Dead of Night and above Demons of the Deep.
I think... |
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Post by alziel on Dec 18, 2023 11:07:04 GMT
Love this matrix! Initially, I was checking champskees' solution threads for the stats to see what sort of chance I had for completing a book fairly, but I kept inadvertently glimpsing parts of the solution, which was annoying! So, discovering this was a real boon!
I've decided to add a house rule when I play now, using this sheet as a guide. The rule is there as a time saver - the 'bookmark' rule. How it works is like this. I will give myself between 0-5 bookmarks, or save points per book and I use this matrix as a guide, with the '12/24/12' (or best chance) percentage from each table as a marker, as follows:
90-100% - 0 Bookmarks
75 - 89% - 1 Bookmark
60-74% - 2 Bookmarks
45-59% - 3 Bookmarks
25-44% - 4 Bookmarks
0-24% - 5 Bookmarks
I decided to implement this after playing through 'Return to Firetop Mountain' and getting further than ever before (YAY!) before hitting the really arbitrary 'eyeball eating contest', thinking that was really unfair (having previously fallen foul of the even more arbitrary and unfair Lizard Men crossbow bolts on my previous playthrough!) - only then on my very next playthrough to run into a completely unfair and unavoidable instant death pit trap, just by taking the wrong choice at a junction not long after I actually won the eyeball eating contest.... (yeah - I'm not going to go ALL the way back to the beginning again after all that, Sir Ian!!!)
Also - thanks to Scouserob for adding the last two books here in the previous post!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,562
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 18, 2023 11:32:44 GMT
70 Secrets of Salamonis
Has only one starting set of statistics: Skill 6 Stamina 12 Luck 6.
I've found a path through with approximately a 96% success rate.
That would give it a Fairness Quotient of 100% and place Secrets of Salamonis in 3rd Place below Gates of Death and above Spectral Stalkers.
71 Shadow of the Giants
Here are the percentage chances of success for the best path I've found through the book, using the Rune Sword:
Using all 396 starting statistic combinations this gives a fairness quotient of 387/396 or 97.7%.
With the 108 combinations Champskees uses, for a comparable match with the other books, this gives a fairness quotient of 102/108 of 94.4%
Using this second figure of 94.4% along with the minimum of 41.5% should put Shadow of the Giants in 14th position, below Dead of Night and above Demons of the Deep.
I think...Wow, nice work! I'll update the ranking above. I think that's just Crystal of Storms and the Clash of the Princes books missing now then. |
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tom
Squire
Posts: 24
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Post by tom on Dec 18, 2023 21:58:27 GMT
Clash of the princes is hard to judge as it’s dependent on the actions of player 2. Could always go by solo playing I suppose
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