GrailQuest - General Discussion

[Draco Wolfsbane]

I really liked this series 'Back in the day' as it was a little different to all the other series's in that it played much more heavier with the humour (very British....and funny!!) and the intricate puzzles. They were/are really well written and well illustrated throughout. Any fan of Gamebooks that has not as yet checked them out, really should, as you will be in for a great time with Pip and, the slightly mighty and very annoying, Excalibur Junior!!

For full details: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grailquest

[vastariner]

Any series which features a vampire carrot has to count as being boffo.

[yvoire]

That was one of my favorite series. J.H.Brennan wrote the best death description. You could tell he really enjoyed having you die.

Splish-splash! (the sound of you wading into the river.)
Slurp-slurp! (the sound of mud gripping your feet so firmly that you can no longer move).
Munch-munch! (the sound of you being eaten by piranha.)
Follow your bones to 14

And the best of all!

Splat!
That's the sound of you losing a fight with a gorilla.
Go to 14.

[a moderator]

The 'death by self-decapitation while attempting to remove a cursed dog-collar' sequence in book 8 is one of my favourite passages in any gamebook.

[stevendoig]

Just bought a boxed set of the first three books from a charity shop this morning - £2.50 for the 3 , I thought that was reasonable! Very nice condition and the card inlays are still in place etc. Never played them afore so i'll do a few write ups over the next couple of days.

((incidentally if anyones interested, they had Green spine Temple of Terror and space assassin and the original citadel of chaos as well for £1.25 each - they were all in near mint condition! - if yer interested let me know, and if they are atill there next week I can grab them..)

[stevendoig]

Had a try of the first book last night.

a few thoughts.

Immediately I was struck by how different it was, and light hearted! I love how the book points out the silliness of fighting with two dice (well, one dice is fine, two are better!) Getting three rolls of the dice to get the best score is also great, and the fact that if you die, you start again without having to kill the enemies (coz they are dead already)

I loved the first part , meeting Merlin and realising I was getting some great weapons and boosts etc as I was thinking that the book was going to be awfy hard otherwise...


The second part was fine, but stupid me wasn't making a map (as per the instructions,) and I kept going round in circles!

I'll try again soon - but its certainly a very enjoyable style and glad I made the purchase!

[pip]

Good to see this wonderfully fun series finally got its own subforum.

[Peter]

Jul 6, 2014 10:10:51 GMT stevendoig said:

I loved the first part , meeting Merlin and realising I was getting some great weapons and boosts etc as I was thinking that the book was going to be awfy hard otherwise...

I'm glad you weren't put off by the extended introduction of book 1, that takes up the first 8 or so pages without giving you any options - hardly a gamebook at all.  I'm sure this would have worried me if this had been the first one I read.

They are definitely a humorous read.  And there is a lot more silliness to come!

[terrysalt]

This is a series I never liked as much as I wanted to. I remember getting frustrated trying to play by the rules which were rather unclear and poorly implemented. I think I was probably taking the series too seriously which in hindsight it probably wasn't intended to be.
The absolute best thing about the series was the maps though. More gamebooks should have used the idea of a map of the whole area and each location being stamped with the reference to turn to if you want to check it out. It actually felt like you were free to explore rather than being taken on a guided tour.

[kieran]

Sadly, it appears JH Brennan has passed away at the age of 83.

[pip]

Ouch. Where did you hear this? This truly saddens me.

Some years ago, I found his email address, and wrote him to tell him how much I had enjoyed his GrailQuest books growing up, and also threw in a "what's the difference between a duck?" joke for good measure. He replied quickly, and told me that he also really enjoyed writing those books, and that my email had made his day (receiving an email from him also made my day).

[kieran]

Jan 6, 2024 22:27:44 GMT pip said:

Ouch. Where did you hear this?

It was posted on Facebook earlier today.

[alziel]

I will be raising a glass in his honour.

Having been a fleeting fan of some of his occult, esoteric stuff in my younger years, I know that to the man himself, death would have been seen as the start of another great adventure, so I wish him all the best.

I might even seek out some of his Grailquest books and give them a whirl again after all these years (might need to leave the dice alone if I decide to do the Demonspawn series too!)

Thank you for everything, Mr Brennan, you weirdly quirky and wonderful man, you!

[Peter]

That is a shame. I am glad I discovered the Grailquest books. Different, and entertaining.

[CharlesX]

Jan 12, 2024 8:45:08 GMT Peter said:

That is a shame. I am glad I discovered the Grailquest books. Different, and entertaining.

I have seen Grailquest second-hand but never read\played them. I've heard they can be humorous and as you say different in terms of both the writing and audience of FF. I've also heard they have some inconsistencies\errors, but my big point is you often get restart points after you would have been killed? Does this mechanism mean games are less thrilling as well as less risky?

[Peter]

Generally, if you die you re-start with your initial equipment. So not much different from throwing out your character and starting again.

Sometimes there are "save points", so you don't have to re-do the whole book. This makes it less tedious when you are already familiar with part of the adventure but struggling to proceed further. It is still advantageous to avoid dying, so that you don't lose any potentially beneficial items.

[pip]

GrailQuest books are pretty hilarious, and really fun to figure out, but they reportedly never were playtested and it sometimes shows. So if you're a stickler to playing by the rules and refuse to fudge a dice roll now and then, they may not be for you. You can sometimes almost hear the author going: "This is a gamebook, don't take it so seriously, sucker! Fudge that roll if you want to".

Typically, they are not so easy to figure out, even without considering the dice rolls, thanks to Brennan's clever use of puzzles and secrets. The "save points" are not that common and when they do exist, they are placed to basically replace the five finger bookmark thing most players would be using in that situation anyway.

If you're going to try one, I always recommend book 3, "The Gateway of Doom", both because I think it's the best one, and also because it was the first one I tried and the one that got me hooked.

[edushie]

I've never played any of the books in this series.

Nor am I likely to, going by the prices they command on ebay.

[CharlesX]

Jan 16, 2024 14:48:38 GMT edushie said:

I've never played any of the books in this series.

Nor am I likely to, going by the prices they command on ebay.

I'm definitely not arguing with you but I can see some on AbeBooks for well under £5 and some on Ebay for £10 (I saw a few at the second-hand store I used to work for a few years back).

[edushie]

Yes there are a few copies for around £10 but for the most part, they are very expensive.

I wasn't overly impressed by Brennan's Fire-wolf series but perhaps one day, I will

take up the Grail Quest !

[pip]

Out of curiosity, I've had a look at the prices the books command on Ebay, and in my area, they're not cheap but still affordable. If you take inflation into account, most of them basically cost what they cost back then (except you're getting a used copy instead of a brand new one, of course).

I'm also not a big fan of the Fire*Wolf series, because it was Brennan's attempt at a completely serious series, so it lacks the comedy that made GrailQuest so endearing.

[edushie]

I would still have to think twice before buying one.

Generally I prefer my gamebooks to be on the serious side and

Grailquest by all accounts sounds overly comedic.