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Post by The Count on Aug 19, 2020 11:37:38 GMT
I'd drop the Mudworm's Skill to 6, and the White Faced Monk's and Death's Messenger's Skills to 4. I'd then change how you determine your Skill - perhaps 1d6+6 then divide by two, rounding down. And I'd give it new cover art, 'cos I just don't get the relevance of the cover it got. And that's literally everything I'd change about The Crimson Tide. The actual words are perfect. Since hearing that the editor doubled the mud worm Skill to 12, I've always treated it as the 6 as intended. I'd possibly make the minimum Stamina 3, otherwise I wouldn't change anything about it.
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Post by natwa on Dec 5, 2021 19:32:01 GMT
I have one question to tha author of this book: Codewords play an important part in this book and since you were and are a friend of Dave Morris and Jamie Thompson, who made extensive use of codewords in their Fabled Lands, I wondered if they took some inspiration from your use of codewords in this book. After all, there is a lot of similarities to the way they are used in this book and the way the were used in Fabled Lands. And I don't recall there being any codewords in the pre-Fabled Lands gamebookds I've read by Thompson and Morris( their FF books, Bloodsword and Way of the Tiger).
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 19, 2022 7:45:28 GMT
I have one question to tha author of this book: Codewords play an important part in this book and since you were and are a friend of Dave Morris and Jamie Thompson, who made extensive use of codewords in their Fabled Lands, I wondered if they took some inspiration from your use of codewords in this book. After all, there is a lot of similarities to the way they are used in this book and the way the were used in Fabled Lands. And I don't recall there being any codewords in the pre-Fabled Lands gamebookds I've read by Thompson and Morris( their FF books, Bloodsword and Way of the Tiger). Sorry I didn't spot this early: might have been an idea to ping me, or whatever the method is to direct someone's attention to a post. I would love to claim that Dave and Jamie got the idea from me, but I'm certain it's not true. Are you absolutely sure that that they hadn't used codewords in any earlier books? That would surprise me very much.
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Post by terrysalt on Mar 19, 2022 20:36:37 GMT
Blood Sword definitely has code words in it. They still may have pinched the idea from Paul for all I know but if they did it was prior to Blood Sword.
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Post by natwa on Mar 27, 2022 12:15:32 GMT
I have to admit that I haven't played all of the Bloodsword gamebooks and the only one that I feel I've played/read enough times that I'd be surprised if I'd forgotten that it had codewords, is the first one. So I certainly won't insist that I'm right when it comes to that series. But could you give me some examples of the use of codewords in that series, Terrysalt? I also have to admit that I haven't tried to Golden Dragon series that David Morris was involved in, so if someone could tell me whether he uses codewords there, I'd be really happy
One thing to keep in mind, though, which I probably wasn't as clear about as I should have been, is that I'm talking as much about the similarities in how codewords are used in The Crimson TIde and the Fabled Lands series as the use of codewords as such. What is considered to be codewords is, I think a matter of definition. There are FF gamebooks that uses passwords or what amounts to glorified passwords that you need in order to find secret paths that you need to take in order to win. But both in The Crimson Tide and the Fabled Lands series, codewords seem to be used to "remember" and keep track of events in the life and in the adventures of your character at least as much as they're used as a kind of glorified passwords, in other words they seem to have a scope that is quite a bit bigger than your password kind of codewords. Of course the use of codewords in the Fabled Lands series is much more extensive and maybe also a bit more sophisticated than the use of codewords in The Crimson Tide. But they seem to work on the same principles and used in much the same way, which I find really interesting.
I haven't seen that particular use of codewords in any other gamebooks or gamebook series, so if I'm correct that it hadn't been used that way before The Crimson Tide, it does, like I said before, raise interesting questions about the inspiration for the particular use of codewords in the Fabled Lands series. Even if they were used the same way by Dave Morris before The Crimson Tide, it is interesting that, since, if I understand you correctly,Sleepyscholar, you came up with that particular use of codewords on your own, that the ones who did so(that we know of) all were friends and were part of the same Empires of the Petal Throne roleplaying group. That makes me curious if the campaign(s) in that group could have been a source of inspiration for that particular use of codewords.
I also want to say, that out of your FF gamebooks, this is my favourite, Sleepyscholar. I really like the use of codewords and find the setting really interesting and immersive and like how you make me feel that the character is growing up and developing and that in playing/reading it I feel like I'm living a person's life(or at least a part of that person's life), instead of one adventure of a hero, a life where you can choose many different paths. The hidden path to victory is quite difficult to figure out, but if you "set things up" the right way, it becomes more intuitive, and fortunately there's Champskees solutions, if things become too hard to figure out. Much preferable, anyway, to Livingstone books where you need top stats and plenty of lucky dicerolls in order to win. In general, I'd rather that a gamebook is difficult because the solution is difficult to figure out than because you need a huge amount of lucky dice rolls in order to win. Also, except for maybe one fight, it seems that your character don't need that high stats in order to reach the "happy ending", which is something that I appreciate.
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Post by terrysalt on Mar 27, 2022 20:18:21 GMT
I have to admit that I haven't played all of the Bloodsword gamebooks and the only one that I feel I've played/read enough times that I'd be surprised if I'd forgotten that it had codewords, is the first one. So I certainly won't insist that I'm right when it comes to that series. But could you give me some examples of the use of codewords in that series, Terrysalt? I also have to admit that I haven't tried to Golden Dragon series that David Morris was involved in, so if someone could tell me whether he uses codewords there, I'd be really happy I don't think there's any in the first two books but in the third one you're exploring a ghost ship, it uses mythago and speculum to record whether or not you find certain treasures before time runs out. In the fourth one, wiping your memory with the Lethean river gets you the code word lighten which determines the effects of drinking from the pool of remembrance later on. If you kill the gorgon, you get the code word fossil. If you then go somewhere else and come back, the code word prevents you from killing it a second time. In the fifth book, they're used a lot because the structure is a lot more open. At the start is a pile of gems guarded by a bat. After you kill it you gain the code word chirograph so that if you leave and come back, you can just take more gems without killing the bat every time. There's also a guardian on the bridge, kill it once and you get a code word allowing you to cross it as much as you like. There's a place where you find five chairs, each can teach you a different magic spell. Each spell gives you a different code word so that it knows to kill you if you sit in the same chair twice. The usage definitely increased as the series went on so if you only played book 1, I see why you don't encounter them.
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IoannesKantakouzenos
Traveller
Being slowly eaten alive by a Ghoul
Posts: 105
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy (Aventuras Fantásticas)
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Post by IoannesKantakouzenos on Mar 30, 2022 15:00:33 GMT
I played this book in my native Portuguese language and, for me, it was simply un-winnable - and afterwards found out it was due to poor translation: one of the codewords, "offers", was translated to a word that means "gifts", and that kinda takes away the sense of the sentence: we end up with something like "when king gifts sword turn to xxx" Other than that, it's a fairly good read, a bit harsh with the "true path" and I do enjoy the true ending (the fact that your clue-less path leads to 400 and an instant death is a cool twist) .
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Post by natwa on Apr 13, 2022 20:24:16 GMT
I have to admit that I haven't played all of the Bloodsword gamebooks and the only one that I feel I've played/read enough times that I'd be surprised if I'd forgotten that it had codewords, is the first one. So I certainly won't insist that I'm right when it comes to that series. But could you give me some examples of the use of codewords in that series, Terrysalt? I also have to admit that I haven't tried to Golden Dragon series that David Morris was involved in, so if someone could tell me whether he uses codewords there, I'd be really happy I don't think there's any in the first two books but in the third one you're exploring a ghost ship, it uses mythago and speculum to record whether or not you find certain treasures before time runs out. In the fourth one, wiping your memory with the Lethean river gets you the code word lighten which determines the effects of drinking from the pool of remembrance later on. If you kill the gorgon, you get the code word fossil. If you then go somewhere else and come back, the code word prevents you from killing it a second time. In the fifth book, they're used a lot because the structure is a lot more open. At the start is a pile of gems guarded by a bat. After you kill it you gain the code word chirograph so that if you leave and come back, you can just take more gems without killing the bat every time. There's also a guardian on the bridge, kill it once and you get a code word allowing you to cross it as much as you like. There's a place where you find five chairs, each can teach you a different magic spell. Each spell gives you a different code word so that it knows to kill you if you sit in the same chair twice. The usage definitely increased as the series went on so if you only played book 1, I see why you don't encounter them. Judging from your answer, Terrysalt, it seems to me that there are more similarites between the way codewords are used in TCT and the way codewords are used in Fabled Lands than there are between the way they are used in the Bloodsword series and the way they are used in Fabled Lands. But from the way you describe how the use of them evolved throughout the series, it's also easy to imagine how the use of them in that series might have step by step evolved into the way they were used in the Fabled Lands series. And Dave Morris has been involved in so many series, that I certainly haven't played enough of those other series to know whether he used codewords in those series I haven't tried out all.
One thing that would be interesting to find out though, is how TCT compare to the Bloodsword gamebooks you've mentioned chronologically, like finding out which one of them that was published first and which one of them that was published last. And I do think the question about what the inspiration was for the codewords and all the other whys and hows to do with them is interesting, even if the use of codewords in Bloodsword and/or Fabled Lands wasn't inspired by the use of codewords in TCT or vice versa for TCT in relation to Bloodsword.
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Post by a moderator on Apr 13, 2022 23:45:12 GMT
All 5 Blood Sword books were published before even Black Vein Prophecy, let alone The Crimson Tide.
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Post by andrewwright on Dec 27, 2022 4:13:25 GMT
There was a recent discussion about maps on the Advanced Fighting Fantasy Facebook group which brought up Leo Hartas's personal website and this amazing map attached below. I'd never seen it before. I'm guessing it was commissioned for The Crimson Tide, but never used as Puffin were cost-cutting by then, and not doing interior colour maps? Does anyone know?
Attachments:
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