My FF house rules

[Weasel Fierce]

Growing up in the 80's, gamebooks were a big part of my upbringing and probably had a big influence on how I view fantasy and RPG's to this day. Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, Bloodsword, Real Life, Grailquest and many more were a steady part of my world (and all available through the library, which was wonderful).

I've returned a few times over the years especially as I am trying to spend a bit less time on the internet and with video games, and this time, I've got a more systematic approach.
I want to work systematically from book to book, doing 3 attempts at beating each before using a solution just to see the story.
I'm not super interested in mapping to solve books, so my victory rate will no doubt be minimal, but 3 play throughs choosing different options should give me a chance to see as many encounters as possible.

Part of this is also inspiration for running RPG campaigns in the future, once our current games (Runequest and Pendragon) comes to a close.

* I'll roll my stats normally for the first try.
For the second and third try, I'll roll again for each of the stats and use the higher of the two scores. 
That way, by the third run, I should have an okay chance in those Ian Livingstone murder-dungeons

* No cheating or reversing decisions during the playthrough. I dont have strong opinions on that, do what you like, but part of the "thrill" is living with your decisions even when the outcomes are blatantly unfair.

* When I get to Sorcery, I am playing with the spellbook open though. I'm not memorizing an entire book.

* Finally, to address the long-standing confusion and irritation about Skill bonuses and Attack Strength bonuses being used in a very unclear manner, I am going to treat all Skill bonuses that come from equipment (magic swords etc.) as Attack Strength bonuses. 
In my view, this is the only way for the mechanics to actually make sense (and negate the weirdness where you only benefit from a magic sword, if you've twisted your ankle already )

I think that's it then. 
Thoughts? 
What "house rules" do you employ in your play throughs?

[schlendrian]

Sounds reasonable. Keep us informed, how your endeavour goes.

[Peter]

Good luck. All of them? That is a lot of books. I've seen several blogs that start with good intentions then trail off after 15 or 20. Do you have favourites, or any you want to skip?

[Weasel fierce]

Cheers gang.

I am not looking at blogging it (for now) though I might post here occasionally. I am probably going to start with the ones I remember playing back in the day and then see what I feel like from there.

[weaselfierce]

Playing with the kid, we also added a rule of only one provision per paragraph.
It's not a perfect measure of time but it does make it a touch more reasonable than the "Im just going to eat 6 hams" thing.

[Peter]

Can I suggest some further House Rules?

In Forest of Doom, cross off the "go back to the start" option.  One attempt should equal one play-through.  You can keep any maps or notes you have already made ("these will be invaluable in future adventures"), but you shouldn't be able to carry over equipment and so on.

In Masks of Mayhem, 

SPOILER: Click to show

reverse the outcomes for the dice roll for the vital item in the river.

In Crypt of the Sorcerer, disregard Razaak's ability to instantly kill you if he wins two consecutive attack rounds.  This won't make the book easy, but it will make it a bit less unreasonable.

Champskees, can the chances of winning with this change be calculated?

In Chasms of Malice, incorporate some sort of Skill-based test into the one-strike combats.

In Battleblade Warrior, disregard the rule that you can only eat when instructed.  It makes no sense in the context of the adventure.  If you are creeping through an enemy fortress, trying to remain unnoticed, I accept that you should not be able to sit down and spread out your picnic blanket any time you feel like it; but that is not the case with this book - why can't you take a quick smoko break while you are wandering about alone in the wilderness?  I found that my lunchbox was repeatedly overflowing while my stomach was constantly gnawing with hunger when I played this one - very frustrating as well as incomprehensible.

In Armies of Death,

SPOILER: Click to show

change the random dice roll for the vital item, into a Luck test.

These changes should improve playability, especially for the young one, without affecting the overall feel of each book.

[schlendrian]

As someone who doesn't own Chasms, but sees the term pop up quite often - what's one-strike-combat?

[daredevil123]

It's a method of fighting on narrow ledges in the titular chasms. Your opponent rolls two dice, then you roll two dice and the person with the lower score is killed automatically. Basically, it's a coin toss whether you live or die. Appalling game design.

[schlendrian]

Man, that's worse than I could've imagined!

[vastariner]

And so easy to remedy. Add the dice roll to Skill for a one-round combat. I do wonder whether that was the intention to start with and it somehow got missed out because otherwise it makes the book unplayable.