kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 25, 2024 17:45:23 GMT
While the LotR cartoon isn't really good, it's theme song is an eternal earworm for me - get it into my head at least once a month Also gotta love the orc war song at Helm's Deep.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 20, 2024 17:51:20 GMT
As a child, I played warrior more - wizard seemed like too much work! But definitely flipped now though try warrior every now and again.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 17, 2024 22:24:10 GMT
but if it's Claw of the Fleshless King (closest thing to sounding like it has a genuine SKELETON in the title), who knows how to even check whether it's a 534-section monstrosity? I remember Claw of the Fleshless King, it was very short - 50 sections I think as it was an entry for one of the competitions on the official website. Fun little sequel to Talisman of Death. Not that any of that helps us find a copy of course!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 9, 2024 21:21:08 GMT
Oh good shout about the manticore.
Another favourite of mine is the 'fight' with Karam Gruul in Moonrunner - I just love how he blasts you with random spells while you just stand there laughing - until he hits you with one you don't have protection against of course!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 9, 2024 14:29:35 GMT
Talking of meta, the query with which the unexpectedly philosophical guard bamboozles the Doctor is more or less a direct quotation from the first academic treatise on Doctor Who to be published, John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado's Doctor Who - The Unfolding Text. That certainly explains the randomness of it.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 9, 2024 12:34:41 GMT
I was often mystified by the cliffhanger where the 7th Doctor seemingly has no reason to go down a steep drop other than the sort of curiosity that is like "I've never dropped a plugged in toaster in my bath before, I wonder what will happen if I do?" Yes, that was weird. It was like he looked at his watch and was like 'Oops, time for the cliffhanger, better literally hang myself off a cliff.'
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 9, 2024 11:58:13 GMT
Series 24 definitely ramped up the wackiness quotient. I like wacky but sadly most of the plots weren't very good.
Time and the Rani After an unnecessarily frantic opening which serves as a poor introduction to McCoy's Doctor, things settle into quite an amusing comedy with the Rani pretending to be Mel. I love how hard it is for her to contain her disdain while imitating the perky Mel - she even gets away with slapping the Doctor at one stage. Doctor Number 7 adds to the comedy by being very frustrating between mixing up his words and being generally discombobulated about his regeneration (as an aside, I love how ruthless the Rani is about killing the previous incarnation - she doesn't even bother with a triumphal gloat, just straight down to business). There's also some fun with Mel crossing an island littered with deadly bubble traps. Unfortunately, the second half flagged badly. There's only so many times one can watch people crossing the same stretch of island and the bubbles cease to be frightening once it becomes clear that Mel is well protected by plot armour. A lot of the third episode in particular feels like filler - why does Beyus not just tell the Doctor that the Rani will kill his people if he doesn't collaborate rather than giving the Doctor some cryptic message which he needs to put himself in danger to investigate and whose meaning is only made clear because the Rani chooses that moment to teach the Lakertyans a lesson? Especially as Beyus just tells Mel outright later. I liked the idea of a super brain made of renowned intellects but it seems a bit silly that only the Doctor is able to confuse matters. Also, why does he help the brain at the end? I thought this was a ruse, but apparently not. Why doesn't the Rani suspect it's a ruse too? It would have made more sense for the brain to work it all out while the Doctor was still a part of it. Also, could the Rani not have been dealt with in a way where she couldn't escape easily? Apart from this, I did like the look of the Lakertyans but didn't like the Tetraps who looked more cute than scary. The ending where they're waiting in the Rani's Tardis was quite amusing however. An ok story all-in-all, and I didn't mind Mel so much this time, but I hope this opener won't represent the quality of the series as a whole.
Paradise Towers One of the weirdest stories so far - semi-feral tribes of 80s pop princesses vie against cannibalistic old ladies, death-dealing vacuum cleaners and caretakers who blindly follow an incredibly complex rulebook led by a odd fellow who feeds people to a robot in the basement who he makes call him 'Daddy'. Meanwhile, a well-meaning eejit goes around kicking doors down in case there are any people who need saving (why didn't the cannibals just eat him?). There's a lot of nice little details here - I love how the Kangs have evolved their own way of language based on adolescent playground chatter. Unfortunately, while the writers did a lot of hard work with the setting, the plot is pretty terrible. It consists of Mel and the Doctor blundering backwards and forth, occasionally getting captured and then escaping again. So many plot points are ludicrous too - why would the caretakers not think to check the rulebook when the Doctor tells them it says ridiculous stuff? It would have been far more believable and cleverer if the Doctor was able to use some genuine loopholes in the rules to escape rather than that nonsense. And why would Mel use the pool without checking it first? Tablecloths make for surprisingly effective weaponry. And was the Doctor's cunning plan really just pushing the Architect out the door? Speaking of the Architect, that was one bit of weirdness that didn't really work for me, he came across too silly once he takes over the Chief Caretaker's body. A lot of the performances are kinda bad but they work in the weird context of the setting - which means Bonnie Langford's odd delivery serves her well here while the Doctor comes off as quite bland by comparison. This story is kinda like the opposite of the Pertwee era - there the Doctor was an oddball surrounded by serious military types, here the Doctor seems the only sane person in an asylum. Overall, switch your brain off and enjoy the weirdness and this story is pretty ice-hot. Plus I checked another box in Keeping Up Appearances bingo.
Delta and the Bannermen Is this title meant to sound like 'Echo and the Bunnymen' or am I overthinking it? Anyway, this is like Doctor Who meets Hi-De-Hi with a liberal sprinkling of Heartbeat yet somehow much more terrible than that sounds. Nothing much about this works: it's not funny, the acting is terrible, the script is leaden, the plot is dull, the action is limp and no amount of Rockabilly music or blasting Devil's Galop can make scenes of people opening gates exciting. It doesn't even work as a light-hearted romp as the brutality of Ken Dodd and the tourists' deaths just kills that vibe. As for the characters, Delta is a bland space princess, I couldn't care less about her romance with Billy or the latter's decision to become an alien and I especially didn't care about Ray's unrequited feelings for him. Gavrok is an ok villain and the actor is at least actually trying, but this isn't the right story for him and those two Americans served no purpose whatsoever other than to be quite annoying - at least the bee farmer came in useful. Is there anything redeemable? Well, using the camp's intercom system to amplify the child's screams was quite clever. That's about it. Why on earth stuff like The Twin Dilemma is considered worse than this boggles my mind.
Dragonfire Yay, Glitz is back! Despite selling his crew to slavery for a negligible sum, he's still treated as a lovable rascal. Indeed, the Doctor gives him a harder time for planning to welch on his debt to the clearly evil Kane than he does for this. Whatever, he's still an incredibly entertaining character who lifts an otherwise ho-hum story. There are other good elements in the story - the dragon itself is quite cool and I liked the subplot of Kane's self-serving second-in-command ably played by Patricia Quinn. Unfortunately, not enough is made of them. The dragon gets killed off too easily and I didn't really get the point of him befriending the little girl (or indeed, any of the scenes with the little girl which never seemed to build to any significance). Quinn's character is killed off halfway through, her only impact on the plot being saving Glitz's ship which doesn't turn out to be all that important anyway. Kane himself is an ok villain - his method of killing people was quite cool (no pun intended), but his evil speeches to the camera are a bit much. I also can't fathom how it took him 3000 years to get the treasure. Even if he didn't work out it was in the dragon's head, he had plenty of mercenaries who could kill the dragon for him (as two of them manage to do fairly easily) and then he could have searched for the dragonfire at his leisure. The whole treasure hunt felt a pretty damp squib to be honest like the writers couldn't be bothered following through with the concept. I also felt more could have been made of the whole 'taking the sovereign' thing - did it actually give Kane control over those who joined him? I'm not clear. As for Kane killing himself in the end - cool effect but weak deux ex machina. Mel announces her departure - I'm not really sure why she has to go but then it was never explained why she joined in the first place so fair enough. Unfortunately, her replacement, Grange Hill reject Ace, feels like she's going to try my patience. The Doctor still seems a bit bland though I absolutely loved the scene where he tries to bamboozle a guard with philosophical musings only to find the guard is more than a match for him.
Series 24 ranking: 1. Paradise Towers 2. Dragonfire 3. Time and the Rani 4. Delta and the Bannermen
Right, time to add Mel to the companion ranking. She was underdeveloped and initially very annoying. She was more bearable in Series 24 but I still never really got any sense of her character. Better than Dodo and Susan but not by much.
1. Jo 2. Leela 3. Ian 4. Sarah-Jane 5. Barbara 6. Romana 7. Ben 8. K-9 9. Liz 10. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart 11. Peri 12. Vikki 13. Steven 14. Tegan 15. Victoria 16. Nyssa 17. Harry 18. Zoe 19. Turlough 20. Adric 21. Jamie 22. Polly 23. Mel 24. Susan 25. Dodo
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 9, 2024 10:11:17 GMT
I'd love to hear what people rank as their top 3 final boss encounters in the series. Balthus is definitely up there. I also really like the final fight in Crystal of Storms and Grool in Legend of Zagor. All three throw an element of strategy into the mix.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 7, 2024 0:04:04 GMT
Well done evilwizard and thanks for doing this again greenspine.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 7, 2024 0:02:16 GMT
Ouch. Where did you hear this? It was posted on Facebook earlier today.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 6, 2024 19:17:46 GMT
Sadly, it appears JH Brennan has passed away at the age of 83.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 5, 2024 12:22:54 GMT
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 2, 2024 10:41:43 GMT
But no more Charlie Higson messes I'd give him another chance IF he was happy to take feedback on board. Gates of Death had its moments.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 2, 2024 10:40:24 GMT
If we get new books, I hope they actually have some mutually exclusive paths to explore rather than these 'see it all in a single playthrough' books that have been dominating of late.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 30, 2023 23:02:09 GMT
Don't know if I'm making this up but didn't Ian mention a while ago that if Legend of Zagor gets reissued, he'd have Keith Martin's name on it as a tribute to his passing? Granted if that were the case, this would be the only book of his to likely get reissued. Yes, he said that in You Are the Hero.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 28, 2023 18:55:22 GMT
Port Of Peril doesn't mention starting with provisions My copy does - the 'Stamina and Provisions' section says you start with 10 provisions and the 'Equipment and Potions' section mentions your backpack contains provisions for your journey. Maybe these references were removed in later printings. I think it's more because your character is supposed to be starving despite all these provisions in their backpack.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 22, 2023 12:50:46 GMT
I never liked The Borg because such a powerful race that could learn so fast seemed grossly imbalanced. I always figured The Borg would be much more of a threat if their drones were able to react to intruders.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
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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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
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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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 15, 2023 15:34:00 GMT
Ah cool, I do indeed. It seems Britbox got a few of these but not all of them - The Faceless Ones seems the most recent one on there. I get the impression Britbox is on its last legs. I would have only got Britbox to watch old Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and a few other sitcoms. I have not heard of Britbox hits (even though I've heard of some from Apple TV and Youtube Premium) except Spitting Image, which looks like a pale imitation of the classic '80s & '90s series. They haven't even had Red Dwarf for ages! They used to have nearly every British sitcom going but the number has reduced significantly. I don't think they have any Channel 4 content at all anymore and BBC and ITV definitely seem to be supporting it less. Original content seems to have dried up too. It still has a few good things I like, it's less than half the price of Netflix and their customer service is great, so I don't resent paying for it but it's a shame because it used to be much better. Now that Doctor Who, which I understand is their Number 1 show, is all on the iPlayer, I doubt it will last much longer. Still, signing up to their free trial to watch Box of Delights three Christmasses ago made me a Doctor Who fan so that will always be in its favour in my book.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 14, 2023 23:53:46 GMT
Now, I acknowledge that it's possible that, if the video footage of the episode were ever recovered, the end of the scene might show them picking up the unconscious body and dragging it to safety on their way out. Now there's an animated version of The Underwater Menace, has the fate of the hapless technician been addressed?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 14, 2023 22:12:32 GMT
I think they are all free, well free if you have a UK TV licence, on BBC iPlayer. Ah cool, I do indeed. It seems Britbox got a few of these but not all of them - The Faceless Ones seems the most recent one on there. I get the impression Britbox is on its last legs.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 14, 2023 21:48:10 GMT
There seems to be a few stories restored as either stills or animation since I did my reviews of the Hartnell/Troughton years from what I can see. I do mean to go back and review them (if I can find them relatively cheaply) once I come to the end of the classic series.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 13, 2023 23:46:51 GMT
I've looked back at some of my earlier posts and I don't think even I knew whether I was referring to Crypt Of The Vampire or Castle Of Lost Souls as unpolished early works, Castle is very unpolished but I really like it - perhaps because of that. There's nothing quite like it - it's just such an odd way to design an item hunt and the whole thing has such a dreamlike, fairy-tale atmosphere. I don't know if it was due to the input of Yve Newnham or just because it was a rewrite of Morris' first gamebook and he hadn't developed a formula yet, but there's just something very charming about it.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 13, 2023 15:19:57 GMT
Curse of the Mummy (Wizard Edition) Sk7 St18 Lu8
Even the weaker giant scorpion was too much for me. Didn't hit it once.
Kills:1 Cultist
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 13, 2023 15:01:46 GMT
Yeah, Fellowship of Four, Knightmare: Can You Beat the Challenge? and Can You Brexit? would probably be my least favourite DM gamebooks too. The first two stick to the source material too much and the third has barely any real decisions in it. I really like Curse of the Vampire though but to each their own. Yes, Curse Of The Vampire was the gamebook I was meaning to refer to. I haven't played it for a very long time. Golden Dragon thread suggests there is a quick solution in which there is not just little but no risk of failure, if this is so this could be a criticism about it (although I agree it wouldn't be so bad if it were well done, unlike Starship Traveller or say Gates Of Death). I don't really see that as a bad thing as the trick is finding this easy path in the first place.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 13, 2023 14:31:58 GMT
Out of interest, what are the other Dave Morris books you don't like? As I've mentioned the one Golden Dragon I didn't really like was one of Dave Morris's first. I didn't like the first Knightmare book he wrote with Tim Child, which is agreed by most to have been overly loyal to the series, proasic and lacking in creativity. I thought his first Heroquest gamebook Fellowship Of Four was clumsy and failed, and I generally felt the series was very gamelike - I'm aware there are entire series based on things like Sonic and Mario but that sort of thing isn't me. I never got into his Brexit gamebook as it seemed very technical with a lot of information and reliance on one-liners\end references rather than action and decision. I recall voting for Leave, partly out of Labour sympathies, but as I've always thought Dave Morris is intelligent and I respect him some Remain\Tory handwriting was never a concern.
As a gamebook writer Dave Morris seems to me very good at writing generically rather than constructing elaborate worlds, I think this is why I like his Fabled Lands and Golden Dragon.
Yeah, Fellowship of Four, Knightmare: Can You Beat the Challenge? and Can You Brexit? would probably be my least favourite DM gamebooks too. The first two stick to the source material too much and the third has barely any real decisions in it. I really like Curse of the Vampire though but to each their own.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 13, 2023 11:12:30 GMT
I'm a huge fan of Golden Dragon series in spite of negative feelings about KOTL-L and many other Dave Morris works. Out of interest, what are the other Dave Morris books you don't like?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 9, 2023 12:45:33 GMT
Depressingly I've gone up a bracket since last time. Near enough a given with that time lapse but still hurts!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,472
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Dec 6, 2023 10:04:31 GMT
I think Dave's vision of multiple characters is in the Heroquest book, Fellowship of Four where there is no map, but a battle order. My simplified Bloodsword rules essentially play like Fellowship of Four
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