Some FF books have an incredibly narrow path to victory. House of Hell is probably the one with the narrowest path I can remember, though Creature of Havoc may win for making you cheat if you want to win. Like it's straight up impossible to win without doing something you shouldn't, and it's that way intentionally.
The two sets I'm playing, Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf, were introduced in 1982 and 1984 respectively. They are set up like CYOA, in that you'll read a section, be presented choices, and then flip to another. They are not like CYOA in that you are a character with statistics and there are RPG elements like skill checks and combat. In at least one FF book you can learn new skills, and Lone Wolf is a persistent character with each book representing a new adventure in his/her story.
Also, remember how I mentioned I'm starting with Bloodbones (#61)? Yeah, there's a lot of them.
I'm using Kai Chronicles (totally free with the original author's blessing, 10 books finished/converted) to play Lone Wolf, and Fighting Fantasy Classics for FF (Book #61 free, 9 more titles available as IAP). They are awesome.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Yeah i’ve never heard of these either. What’s a game book?
Seriously?
They're like choose your own adventure books, yeah. I dunno if CYOA books have stats you roll or if they use dice, but the FF and Lone Wolf gamebooks do, kind of copying very, very basic character creation and the combat mechanics of an RPG.
Comparing them to random covers of CYOA books the FF and Lone Wolf books have better art (often done by people who worked with Games Workshop as artists) and are more fantasy/SF focused. They were among my most treasured books as a kid and I drew maps for about forty of them, complete with terrain icons. They range all over various genres, but most are fantasy. Some are SF and a few are superhero/post-apocalypse road warrior or horror books.
The Sorcery! books were probably the pinnacle of the series, four sequential adventures that formed one huge quest, with art by John Blanche and a final volume with 800 page references. But there were other classics as well. Lots of the early ones, like City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and House of Hell, are the benchmark for gamebooks. Periodically, they revive the series, as they're doing now, with Charlie Higson's new entry to the series.
I love them so much I turn D&D [chat]s into them occasionally.
EDIT: FF books started in the early eighties, and were by the same two guys that started Games Workshop.
The Sorcery! books were released as apps as well, and they're done in a different way to the Tin Man Games adaptations of the FF series, with a more artistic angle and greater liberties taken with the source material. They're lovely to look at.
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I had some Lone Wolf books. Maybe 8-12. They benefit tremendously from having played the first book (or whichever book you get the Summersword in). I can't remember if you need it to win the last battle.
1st book was heading to the capital with some important information for the King. 2nd book was recovering the Summersword, and getting that with the appropriate roll on Weaponskill definitely helped a ton.
I just died again to the 10 Stamina 10 Skill Cat 'o' Nine Tails. He has ended a few playthroughs now.
The FF books led to kids having what the writers called the five finger bookmark, where someone reading would go to a new reference and keep a finger between the leaves of the old choice, and do this until they ran out of fingers.
Also, basically no one rolled dice for the combat, and just skipped past fights unless they were hellbent on playing fair, which no kid is.
Ok, sounds like an advanced version of CYOA with D&D added on. I had a bunch of these growing up and it was basically just A or B choices, most of which ended with you dying.
They make digital versions now though I could play on a phone or tablet? That could be fun.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
So I know gamebooks, and especially digital gamebooks, aren't board games, but I really wanna talk about 'em and I just don't know if there's enough interest for a thread.
I remember playing some of the Lone Wolf books a ton when I was a preteen and getting into D&D and all that, and there's a handy dandy app for that! I had never played any of the Fighting Fantasy books though, so I snagged FF Classics and have been playing the free book, Bloodbones (#61) for the past week.
Ho boy did I not know what I was in for! I expected to play through it, like, 3 or 4 times to find the 10 minute path to the good ending. Hahahaha no. I was a sweet summer child, and winter came for me. This is hardcore, old-school, you gotta play and study that shit and you will fail many, many, MANY times, and you will replay it and find the clue you were missing to get past the roadblock you ran into and now guess what you just opened up a whole new area and you still have no idea where to go or what to do or even how far along in the game you are.
I am hooked. I am so hooked. As soon as I beat this book, I am buying #1 and playing it, and my reward for finally finishing it will be unlocking the next torture book of murder, an so on and so on.
Oh yeah and board games are cool too I guess I love Arkham Horror and Pandemic and Ticket and I have a copy of Mice and Mystics that is just waiting for my daughter to be old enough.
FWIW, there is a similar appeal here to TIME Stories. The trick is that - and I say this as someone who has enjoyed what he has played of TIME Stories and owns all current released expansions - TIME Stories doesn't _truly pull it off_. I feel like like it's too meant to be solved, and in general a bit too jumbled in what you can expect from one box to the next. But the idea of exploring the space and learning from your mistakes is still central to the experience, so given the chance, you should check it out if you like the CYOA style of things.
If you like game books, you might like Pencils & Powers - Roll and Write. They're print-your-own adventures and are remarkably fun. The fact that they're free doesn't hurt any, either. I believe their main 'home' is on Facebook.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Thank you all from reminding me of game books. I'd forgotten all about them!
There is a vague memory I have of one book that an aquaintence had when i was a kid. I don't remember what line it was from, but all I remember for sure was that, on the last two pages, there was a picture of a throne room and you had to locate two items in the picture. One was a staff or a scepter, I think, and maybe the second was a sword. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Finished the ten scenario campaign in Massive Darkness over the weekend. Have to say that I came away really pleased with my pledge - what I wanted from CMON when I backed it was a beer and pretzel type game that was easy to set up and had a lot of variety and that's exactly what I got. We were still seeing new Roaming Monsters (Cockatrice and Hellbane) on the final scenario and that D&D-ish feel of 'here is another creature from a random page in the Monster Manual, now figure out how to kill it' went a long way with us.
Balance, as is typical for Guillotine's line of games, is completely farcical. Generally, the hardest part of any scenario is the first 1-2 levels (if you get a bad mob or are sandwiched between Roaming Monsters, you are chum for the sharks). Once you make it past that hump, you will generally cruise to victory. We found that the final bad guy, despite doing 6 automatic wounds at the start of the player's turns *and* rolling all the dice provided in the game for his attacks and defenses still wasn't very tough. Elias killed him in a single player round (dealing 18+ dmg) and even if one doubled the Dark Emissary's health so he lived through the wizard, Sibyl would have finished him on her activation (but then again, Sibyl kills pretty everything once you know how to use her correctly - I've even managed to kill two roaming monsters with her in the same activation). Level 5 characters just annihilate whatever you point them at (and it's not uncommon in the later missions for the players to have bought every skill on the character sheet).
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
edited May 2018
Had my boardgame meetup but only managed 3 games.
First was another imported dice game. The small box Dice games are all pretty similar I think? Roll for a thing. Roll for the next thing. Slightly different of course. Fun to try, but I don't think I need to own one.
Second was Welcome to... which is a 50's neighborhood planning game. You flip 3 cards with house numbers and actions on them, and you try and arrange three rows of houses 0-16. Some of the cards let you build parks or swimming pools or change the number that is flipped, some let you make subdivisions or expand a house onto the next lot. Its a multiplayer solitaire, but you compete to finish building projects first.
Then someone asked if anyone wanted to play Terraforming Mars. I had seen reviews for it but never played, wondered if it might be a fun two player game. Two people left with comments that anything above two player Terraforming Mars was excruciating. The engine building part was pretty fun, but it takes up so much space and its hard to keep track of your cards. This may be the cubeiest game ever. There are some cards for being mean to other people, but it seems that the main fights is over the medals. We didn't manage to finish the game before the store closed but it seems like fun.
Once again I left wanting to buy a game that is not out in my country.
The Sorcery! books were released as apps as well, and they're done in a different way to the Tin Man Games adaptations of the FF series, with a more artistic angle and greater liberties taken with the source material. They're lovely to look at.
I recently ran across some app with zombies in this genre, and having been a HUGE fan of the CYOA serious, I was completely intrigued! I likewise had not even heard of the genre, so I thought it was a one-off. The physical version, and the Pencils & Powers thing, is definitely something I want to try with my 6-year-old.
So kids are interesting. He is fully capable of understanding and playing a wide variety of games, is competitive, and is a still a pretty good sport about losing, but it's hard for him to have FUN with games. Incremental advantage is not his thing yet, even in "kid" games. He just wants those moments with stand-up die rolls. If a game doesn't have exciting moments, he'll get bored, so he often just defaults to Go Fish for those "I'm stealing all of Daddy's cards" moments he thinks is hilarious. Interestingly, one of the games that he's enjoyed the most recently is Azul, because he loves competing over tiles ("Nooooo! Don't take my blues!"), filling a column, or especially sticking someone (i.e. Daddy) with a pile of bad tiles ("Hahahaha! You lose SO MANY POINTS!!").
So this sounds like something right up his alley, to connect some gaming with a strong narrative. Thanks for the heads up, definitely something I'm excited to try.
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I have begun to delve into this rabbit hole now. This stuff is amazing!
I found there's an app for Android now that takes Project Aon books and helps track everything and save your spot too!
I also unfortunately discovered that the LotR books were apparently an issue and are pretty difficult to find now.
The publication of the series was plagued by legal problems. Iron Crown Enterprises, the publisher of Middle-earth Role Playing, had a license with Tolkien Enterprises to produce games based on Tolkien's work. They then forged a partnership with Berkley to publish these gamebooks. Two volumes came out in 1985 under the Tolkien Quest label, and an additional two were planned for 1986 under the new series title of Middle-earth Quest. Unfortunately, around the time that the fourth book was to be released, Tolkien Enterprises deemed the books in violation of the game license, which didn't include permission to print books. The first four books were recalled and destroyed, with the fourth book never even making it to market (though it was pictured in an advertisement published in Dragon #103). Some copies of the first three books do still exist, but they are quite rare. Several years after this incident, legal issues were resolved and publication began anew. Books five through eight were actually numbered one through four in denial of the existence of the earlier volumes. The series came to an end, however, before all of the volumes announced in the original 1985 and 1986 releases could see the light of day.
I couldn't let this game book talk go by without at least mentioning Fabled Lands by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson - these guys were two really big names in the British game book scene in the 80s and 90s. Fabled Lands was a really ambitious (uncompleted) series where each book uncovered a new section of a really large world map. 12 books would make up the entire world, but only 6 were published in the original run from 1995-1996. Crazily, it was revived recently via Kickstarter, and book 7 was just published in February.
They're really good and quite open ended. Every time I play a modern open world video game like Skyrim, I'm a little bit reminded of Fabled Lands. Do they still hold up? Who knows. But they've been revived via a recent print run and are readily available on Amazon. Worth checking out if you're at all interested in reliving that sort of experience.
It's a book that's also a board game, so it's actually a savings if you manage to rationalize it to yourself that way.
When I was younger, I'm sure I had one of these, though I can't remember the name. I never "played" it for real; I never bothered taking a pencil and a die and doing the actual dungeon wandering (the book even had random monster attacks), and I just read through it like a CYOA. I do remember that, if you wanted to, there was a whole lot of the book that dealt with all the stuff you went through before even reaching the boss's lair.
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After looking at the amazing aesthetics of the two latest Brass games, I noticed that the original Brass is digital. I don't know what I'm doing yet but the aesthetics are great.
I had so many of those game books. My favorites were Sorcery! (Which I still have, all four books AND the spell book, which you had to memorize, or you would get screwed for trying to cast a non-existant spell), the Car Wars books, the Grail Quest books (think Douglas Adams in Arthurian times), Fighting Fantasy, some 1 v 1 duel books (Kingpin v Daredevil, for example), and TSR had some great oversized ones...my favorite was a Dragonlance joint set in a tinker gnome mountain with steam-powered armor where you had to scrounge up crazy devices to help you fight a fuckload of draconians at the end of the book.
My mom gave away most of my books. Never quite forgave her.
While I still own a lot of my old RPG books from my childhood and teenage years, many have also been sold or lost over time. My original D&D books (Basic and Advance editions) being the biggest losses.
One module in particular was called Castle Greyhawk. It was a comedy adventure module that made fun of all sorts of modern (at the time) media. Some NPCs included Indiana Gnome, Poppinfarsh the Dough Golem, The Amazing Driderman, and Captain Kork. If you want to see a completely bizarre and silly take on AD&D, or just have a good chuckle, I highly recommend finding a PDF or copy of the original module.
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Just finished Flight from the Dark! Died the first time trying to be too heroic. Second time I made it through with minimal diversions.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited May 2018
Did y'all ever play ACE OF ACES ? It's been in and out of print for about 30 years and gone through many, many versions. A World War I dogfight game with two books, one for each pilot, containing only illustrations showing a pilot's relative position to his opponent and a row of maneuvers at the bottom of the page. Both pilots call out the page corresponding to their next maneuver, some algebra ensues, and then turn to the new page in their books showing their new spatial relationship to the enemy. Once you got behind your opponent the picture would show you riddling his aircraft and you'd inflict damage based on weapon and distance.
It was originally created at the Rhinebeck Air Show here in Rhinebeck, NY, where they still have functioning WW1 fighter aircraft; the authors flew in the backseats of the two fighters taking Polaroids of each other, and used those as the basis for the books' illustrations. The same concept was used for BOUNTY HUNTER, a Western gunfight game, and LOST WORLDS, a series of fantasy melee combat books which included the standard Human Warrior vs. Skeleton with Sword, a heavily armored Knight, Elf with Longbow, and a topless Amazon warrior (very hard to get that one since most game stores wouldn't carry it).
As well as all the tandard British game books mentioned I had a couple of Marvel's range of game books that all seemed to be placed at incredibly depressing periods of the various super heroes stories. The two I had were both team books so you would jump around characters - if any character died you lose.
Had Fantastic 4 and X-Men and they were both depressing and hard.
There was also a set of Asterix and Obelsik books that came with a never of neat gimmicks (decoder scrolls and such like) and were just as brutally hard as an average FF game book.
Did y'all ever play ACE OF ACES ? It's been in and out of print for about 30 years and gone through many, many versions. A World War I dogfight game with two books, one for each pilot, containing only illustrations showing a pilot's relative position to his opponent and a row of maneuvers at the bottom of the page. Both pilots call out the page corresponding to their next maneuver, some algebra ensues, and then turn to the new page in their books showing their new spatial relationship to the enemy. Once you got behind your opponent the picture would show you riddling his aircraft and you'd inflict damage based on weapon and distance.
It was originally created at the Rhinebeck Air Show here in Rhinebeck, NY, where they still have functioning WW1 fighter aircraft; the authors flew in the backseats of the two fighters taking Polaroids of each other, and used those as the basis for the books' illustrations. The same concept was used for BOUNTY HUNTER, a Western gunfight game, and LOST WORLDS, a series of fantasy melee combat books which included the standard Human Warrior vs. Skeleton with Sword, a heavily armored Knight, Elf with Longbow, and a topless Amazon warrior (very hard to get that one since most game stores wouldn't carry it).
I have a ton of Lost Worlds stuff, including the Runescape tie-ins and a few of the newer books put out by the company that picked up the rights at some point. My favorite is Wraith with Sickle but my wife is f'n deadly with Woman with Quarterstaff. We don't use any of the magic users, though, as that sub-system is a bit cumbersome. I even have a Darth Vader vs Luke Skywalker 2-pack that uses the same system but is incompatible with the other books since they're designed to be self-contained.
They also made a handful of Battletech books. IIRC I own Locust, Rifleman, Warhammer, Shadowhawk, Griffin, and I think Wasp. They're awesome but tracking heat and ammo in addition to damage makes them a lot more complicated. They also add a medium range tier to further complicate things.
Just finished Flight from the Dark! Died the first time trying to be too heroic. Second time I made it through with minimal diversions.
There's one section in there with a monster called a Gourgaz that, if your Lone Wolf is not specced for combat, will end you. Fortunately, even into the second book, a less combat oriented LW can succeed just as well. I can't remember much past that, curse the decades that have passed.
Just finished Flight from the Dark! Died the first time trying to be too heroic. Second time I made it through with minimal diversions.
There's one section in there with a monster called a Gourgaz that, if your Lone Wolf is not specced for combat, will end you. Fortunately, even into the second book, a less combat oriented LW can succeed just as well. I can't remember much past that, curse the decades that have passed.
Just finished Flight from the Dark! Died the first time trying to be too heroic. Second time I made it through with minimal diversions.
There's one section in there with a monster called a Gourgaz that, if your Lone Wolf is not specced for combat, will end you. Fortunately, even into the second book, a less combat oriented LW can succeed just as well. I can't remember much past that, curse the decades that have passed.
I think that was what killed me! Hahaha!
The Sommerswerd caused some huge complications in the Lone Wolf books later on. It was so powerful that they had two versions of each encounter: one where you had the sword and the forces of evil sent their most powerful minions/bosses, and one where you were mostly just some nobody and had a normal encounter.
In certain circumstances your game could end instantly if you even DREW the Sommerswerd, because the Darklords could sense the thing for miles and converged on your location with their armies.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Did y'all ever play ACE OF ACES ? It's been in and out of print for about 30 years and gone through many, many versions. A World War I dogfight game with two books, one for each pilot, containing only illustrations showing a pilot's relative position to his opponent and a row of maneuvers at the bottom of the page. Both pilots call out the page corresponding to their next maneuver, some algebra ensues, and then turn to the new page in their books showing their new spatial relationship to the enemy. Once you got behind your opponent the picture would show you riddling his aircraft and you'd inflict damage based on weapon and distance.
It was originally created at the Rhinebeck Air Show here in Rhinebeck, NY, where they still have functioning WW1 fighter aircraft; the authors flew in the backseats of the two fighters taking Polaroids of each other, and used those as the basis for the books' illustrations. The same concept was used for BOUNTY HUNTER, a Western gunfight game, and LOST WORLDS, a series of fantasy melee combat books which included the standard Human Warrior vs. Skeleton with Sword, a heavily armored Knight, Elf with Longbow, and a topless Amazon warrior (very hard to get that one since most game stores wouldn't carry it).
I have a ton of Lost Worlds stuff, including the Runescape tie-ins and a few of the newer books put out by the company that picked up the rights at some point. My favorite is Wraith with Sickle but my wife is f'n deadly with Woman with Quarterstaff. We don't use any of the magic users, though, as that sub-system is a bit cumbersome. I even have a Darth Vader vs Luke Skywalker 2-pack that uses the same system but is incompatible with the other books since they're designed to be self-contained.
They also made a handful of Battletech books. IIRC I own Locust, Rifleman, Warhammer, Shadowhawk, Griffin, and I think Wasp. They're awesome but tracking heat and ammo in addition to damage makes them a lot more complicated. They also add a medium range tier to further complicate things.
My favorite was the Knight with Two-Handed Sword. Slow as molasses but hard to damage and his best move, by far, was a shoulder charge guaranteed to knock you down if you weren't ready for it. As I recall they modified the rules to make knockdowns less devestating specifically because of the Knight and the Troll with Club.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I've been insanely tempted by some Meeple Realty stuff lately. As I try to buy fewer games and go for only the cream of the crop, well of course that just leaves disposable income to throw at blinging my shit out. Meeple Realty really seems to have some of the nicest insert options. It almost makes me want to buy the newer edition of Tzolk'in so I can get the insert for that with the vastly superior first player marker.
Oh also, I still have stuff to sell. Please, fund my desire to have pointless but really cool inserts. Also I might buy like ONE game. Maybe Baren Park? Part of the challenge of buying less games is I still want games, but the goal is to get stuff that is like "Wow this is excellent" or it fills some hole in the collection. I've generally gotten good at "will we like this game?" so there are very few absolute duds that we play, but just trying to kick it up that extra notch into excellence.
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I love the FF books.
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Also, remember how I mentioned I'm starting with Bloodbones (#61)? Yeah, there's a lot of them.
I'm using Kai Chronicles (totally free with the original author's blessing, 10 books finished/converted) to play Lone Wolf, and Fighting Fantasy Classics for FF (Book #61 free, 9 more titles available as IAP). They are awesome.
Yep. Same thing.
Seriously?
They're like choose your own adventure books, yeah. I dunno if CYOA books have stats you roll or if they use dice, but the FF and Lone Wolf gamebooks do, kind of copying very, very basic character creation and the combat mechanics of an RPG.
Comparing them to random covers of CYOA books the FF and Lone Wolf books have better art (often done by people who worked with Games Workshop as artists) and are more fantasy/SF focused. They were among my most treasured books as a kid and I drew maps for about forty of them, complete with terrain icons. They range all over various genres, but most are fantasy. Some are SF and a few are superhero/post-apocalypse road warrior or horror books.
The Sorcery! books were probably the pinnacle of the series, four sequential adventures that formed one huge quest, with art by John Blanche and a final volume with 800 page references. But there were other classics as well. Lots of the early ones, like City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and House of Hell, are the benchmark for gamebooks. Periodically, they revive the series, as they're doing now, with Charlie Higson's new entry to the series.
I love them so much I turn D&D [chat]s into them occasionally.
EDIT: FF books started in the early eighties, and were by the same two guys that started Games Workshop.
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I just died again to the 10 Stamina 10 Skill Cat 'o' Nine Tails. He has ended a few playthroughs now.
Also, basically no one rolled dice for the combat, and just skipped past fights unless they were hellbent on playing fair, which no kid is.
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They make digital versions now though I could play on a phone or tablet? That could be fun.
FWIW, there is a similar appeal here to TIME Stories. The trick is that - and I say this as someone who has enjoyed what he has played of TIME Stories and owns all current released expansions - TIME Stories doesn't _truly pull it off_. I feel like like it's too meant to be solved, and in general a bit too jumbled in what you can expect from one box to the next. But the idea of exploring the space and learning from your mistakes is still central to the experience, so given the chance, you should check it out if you like the CYOA style of things.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
There is a vague memory I have of one book that an aquaintence had when i was a kid. I don't remember what line it was from, but all I remember for sure was that, on the last two pages, there was a picture of a throne room and you had to locate two items in the picture. One was a staff or a scepter, I think, and maybe the second was a sword. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Balance, as is typical for Guillotine's line of games, is completely farcical. Generally, the hardest part of any scenario is the first 1-2 levels (if you get a bad mob or are sandwiched between Roaming Monsters, you are chum for the sharks). Once you make it past that hump, you will generally cruise to victory. We found that the final bad guy, despite doing 6 automatic wounds at the start of the player's turns *and* rolling all the dice provided in the game for his attacks and defenses still wasn't very tough. Elias killed him in a single player round (dealing 18+ dmg) and even if one doubled the Dark Emissary's health so he lived through the wizard, Sibyl would have finished him on her activation (but then again, Sibyl kills pretty everything once you know how to use her correctly - I've even managed to kill two roaming monsters with her in the same activation). Level 5 characters just annihilate whatever you point them at (and it's not uncommon in the later missions for the players to have bought every skill on the character sheet).
First was another imported dice game. The small box Dice games are all pretty similar I think? Roll for a thing. Roll for the next thing. Slightly different of course. Fun to try, but I don't think I need to own one.
Second was Welcome to... which is a 50's neighborhood planning game. You flip 3 cards with house numbers and actions on them, and you try and arrange three rows of houses 0-16. Some of the cards let you build parks or swimming pools or change the number that is flipped, some let you make subdivisions or expand a house onto the next lot. Its a multiplayer solitaire, but you compete to finish building projects first.
Then someone asked if anyone wanted to play Terraforming Mars. I had seen reviews for it but never played, wondered if it might be a fun two player game. Two people left with comments that anything above two player Terraforming Mars was excruciating. The engine building part was pretty fun, but it takes up so much space and its hard to keep track of your cards. This may be the cubeiest game ever. There are some cards for being mean to other people, but it seems that the main fights is over the medals. We didn't manage to finish the game before the store closed but it seems like fun.
Once again I left wanting to buy a game that is not out in my country.
I recently ran across some app with zombies in this genre, and having been a HUGE fan of the CYOA serious, I was completely intrigued! I likewise had not even heard of the genre, so I thought it was a one-off. The physical version, and the Pencils & Powers thing, is definitely something I want to try with my 6-year-old.
So kids are interesting. He is fully capable of understanding and playing a wide variety of games, is competitive, and is a still a pretty good sport about losing, but it's hard for him to have FUN with games. Incremental advantage is not his thing yet, even in "kid" games. He just wants those moments with stand-up die rolls. If a game doesn't have exciting moments, he'll get bored, so he often just defaults to Go Fish for those "I'm stealing all of Daddy's cards" moments he thinks is hilarious. Interestingly, one of the games that he's enjoyed the most recently is Azul, because he loves competing over tiles ("Nooooo! Don't take my blues!"), filling a column, or especially sticking someone (i.e. Daddy) with a pile of bad tiles ("Hahahaha! You lose SO MANY POINTS!!").
So this sounds like something right up his alley, to connect some gaming with a strong narrative. Thanks for the heads up, definitely something I'm excited to try.
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I found there's an app for Android now that takes Project Aon books and helps track everything and save your spot too!
I also unfortunately discovered that the LotR books were apparently an issue and are pretty difficult to find now.
Would have loved to dive into those.
They're really good and quite open ended. Every time I play a modern open world video game like Skyrim, I'm a little bit reminded of Fabled Lands. Do they still hold up? Who knows. But they've been revived via a recent print run and are readily available on Amazon. Worth checking out if you're at all interested in reliving that sort of experience.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Torn-Kingdom-Fabled-Lands/dp/095673720X
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Think of it more as a 2for1! You finish the book and game at the same time!
When I was younger, I'm sure I had one of these, though I can't remember the name. I never "played" it for real; I never bothered taking a pencil and a die and doing the actual dungeon wandering (the book even had random monster attacks), and I just read through it like a CYOA. I do remember that, if you wanted to, there was a whole lot of the book that dealt with all the stuff you went through before even reaching the boss's lair.
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EDIT - The trailer for the reprints are fancy as fuck. KS is long over.
Still haven't been able to play the Captain Sonar I picked up a month or two back.
My mom gave away most of my books. Never quite forgave her.
One module in particular was called Castle Greyhawk. It was a comedy adventure module that made fun of all sorts of modern (at the time) media. Some NPCs included Indiana Gnome, Poppinfarsh the Dough Golem, The Amazing Driderman, and Captain Kork. If you want to see a completely bizarre and silly take on AD&D, or just have a good chuckle, I highly recommend finding a PDF or copy of the original module.
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It was originally created at the Rhinebeck Air Show here in Rhinebeck, NY, where they still have functioning WW1 fighter aircraft; the authors flew in the backseats of the two fighters taking Polaroids of each other, and used those as the basis for the books' illustrations. The same concept was used for BOUNTY HUNTER, a Western gunfight game, and LOST WORLDS, a series of fantasy melee combat books which included the standard Human Warrior vs. Skeleton with Sword, a heavily armored Knight, Elf with Longbow, and a topless Amazon warrior (very hard to get that one since most game stores wouldn't carry it).
Had Fantastic 4 and X-Men and they were both depressing and hard.
There was also a set of Asterix and Obelsik books that came with a never of neat gimmicks (decoder scrolls and such like) and were just as brutally hard as an average FF game book.
https://gamebooks.org/Series/261 - interesting website, link to the Marvel Series
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I have a ton of Lost Worlds stuff, including the Runescape tie-ins and a few of the newer books put out by the company that picked up the rights at some point. My favorite is Wraith with Sickle but my wife is f'n deadly with Woman with Quarterstaff. We don't use any of the magic users, though, as that sub-system is a bit cumbersome. I even have a Darth Vader vs Luke Skywalker 2-pack that uses the same system but is incompatible with the other books since they're designed to be self-contained.
They also made a handful of Battletech books. IIRC I own Locust, Rifleman, Warhammer, Shadowhawk, Griffin, and I think Wasp. They're awesome but tracking heat and ammo in addition to damage makes them a lot more complicated. They also add a medium range tier to further complicate things.
There's one section in there with a monster called a Gourgaz that, if your Lone Wolf is not specced for combat, will end you. Fortunately, even into the second book, a less combat oriented LW can succeed just as well. I can't remember much past that, curse the decades that have passed.
I think that was what killed me! Hahaha!
The Sommerswerd caused some huge complications in the Lone Wolf books later on. It was so powerful that they had two versions of each encounter: one where you had the sword and the forces of evil sent their most powerful minions/bosses, and one where you were mostly just some nobody and had a normal encounter.
In certain circumstances your game could end instantly if you even DREW the Sommerswerd, because the Darklords could sense the thing for miles and converged on your location with their armies.
My favorite was the Knight with Two-Handed Sword. Slow as molasses but hard to damage and his best move, by far, was a shoulder charge guaranteed to knock you down if you weren't ready for it. As I recall they modified the rules to make knockdowns less devestating specifically because of the Knight and the Troll with Club.
Oh also, I still have stuff to sell. Please, fund my desire to have pointless but really cool inserts. Also I might buy like ONE game. Maybe Baren Park? Part of the challenge of buying less games is I still want games, but the goal is to get stuff that is like "Wow this is excellent" or it fills some hole in the collection. I've generally gotten good at "will we like this game?" so there are very few absolute duds that we play, but just trying to kick it up that extra notch into excellence.