105 references finished.

59 references in three days. Not bad.

At this rhythm, I should finished in a month or so.

Would anyone be interested in play-testing the manuscript first before I send it to Andy?

Phil Sadler
Tue Jun 19 11:27:03 2007

I'd love to give it a try!

Question
Tue Jun 19 12:24:53 2007

I think I'd be a bit intimidated, Phil! ha ha.

I have your e-mail address and will send you a copy once it's "finished".

There's actually a reference to Riders of the Storm, although a very subtle one.

Phil Sadler
Tue Jun 19 17:15:06 2007

I'm very flattered!

As for your book I would advise you to just have fun with it and write about the sort of things that you yourself would like to encounter in FF books (favourite creatures, items, traps etc). I guess what I'm saying is that, above all things, write the book for yourself and then let the rest of us enjoy it.

By the way I've had another idea for a simple but interesting change to the combat system, and it goes as follows. When you or your enemy win an attack round they do extra points of damage according to how much more skill they have. So if somebody with a skill of 9 hit something with a skill of 8 he would do 3 points of damage. If something with a skill of 11 hit something with a skill of 8 then he would do 5 points of damage and so on.

It's very simple and not as interesting as damage tables but I suppose it could be used in conjuction or perhaps on just a few key fights.

It's just an idea to keep dicussion going, that's all!

Question
Wed Jun 20 01:22:57 2007

I think it's a good idea (it's surprising how many ideas you can come up with about a battle system isn't?)

However, IMHO, I still prefer damage charts.

I think I would have a good time doing my book. I'm using Excel right now to keep track of the numbers of I've used, the location of item and encounters as well as where each item can be used.

I would strongly recommend this method. It takes a bit longer to add everything in Excel but then you don't have to browse through 100 pages of text to make sure whether you've already used a reference or not.

As for my book, I haven't actually settled on a final title yet, I think this will come once the whole thing is finished.

This being said I think it's hard to tell the whole thing is going to be too easy or too hard, play testing will give me feedback about that.

If I was to give a difficulty setting to the books here (from 1 to 10):

5: Allibor's Tomb
7: my book
9: Riders of the Storm
10: Hellfire

Age of Fable
Wed Jun 20 10:08:43 2007

re different kinds of damage:

this doesn't need any extra rules, only extra text in particular paragraphs. For example -

PIXIE SKILL 6 STAMINA 8

If the Pixie rolls a double 1, double 2, or double 3 for Attack Strength, turn to paragraph 100 (don't resolve that Attack Round)

100

The Pixie casts a spell and disappears...

Question
Wed Jun 20 13:28:33 2007

Age of Fable:
I hope you won't be angry if I disagree with you

I think checking out references during combat is kind of an hassle and takes away from the whole experience.

That's just my very personal opinion however, I'm not saying it's a bad idea, far from that.

I hope that you will submit your ideas even if I disagree with this one as I do think it's interesting to read different input.

With all due respect :-)

Q.

Question
Sat Jun 23 04:04:58 2007

I'm continuing my progress in my book.

I've realized there's a few references which are a page long or more.

How do you feel about that?

I know I stopped playing Lone Wolf because it just got a bore, you had fewer and fewer choices as the books went on and it was pretty much a long monologue in the end.

I'm doing my best to avoid that.

As I have no answer from you, Andy, I'll assume that you'll give it a shot (talk about positive thinking! Hahaha :-))

I'll submit the whole thing and you can then tell me whether you want me to make some changes or not (which hopefully won't be too many -_0.

The length of a reference is no problem to me. What I don't like very much are single references that would be better written as several references as they effectively contain several decisions that the reader needs to make.

By all means submit your work, I will definitely put it on the downloads page at least. Whether I do an online version depends on the usual factors (and it would have to wait until after I've finished The Diamond Key). But I should stress that any new rules, especially changes to the combat system, dramatically reduce the chances of my adapting it for online play.

That being said, I don't think you should make changes at all. I would recommend that you write your gamebook the way you want it, and accept that if I choose to make an online version of it I will make the changes that I consider appropriate myself.

Age of Fable
Sat Jun 23 07:44:44 2007

> I think checking out references during combat is kind of an hassle and takes away from the whole experience.

In the example I gave, if you turn to that paragraph it ends the combat; you're not meant to go back to the original one.

If you wanted to have special results in combat, you could have something like:

PIXIE SKILL 6 STAMINA 5

If the Pixie rolls a double 1, double 2, or double 3 during combat, you lose 1 Luck point as it casts a minor curse at you. The loser of the Attack Round loses Stamina as normal.

Question
Sun Jun 24 16:46:50 2007

Thanks Andy.

I would actually prefer if there was an «online only» version. This would prevent cheating as I would be curious to see who can finish it first.

I hope we can cooperate on the online version and reach some kind of agreement as to how to do things.

Either way, I`m 30% done so it could still be a while.

As for the single reference, it`s mostly descriptions as opposed to choices being made without the player consent.

Q.

Question
Tue Jun 26 23:32:23 2007

About 150 references done (147 to be exact)...

Phil Sadler
Wed Jun 27 15:47:30 2007

Off topic I know but I have just completed my last exam for college and will never have to go back to that God-forsaken place gain except to gain my results: yey!

Question
Wed Jun 27 22:24:58 2007

Good on you Phil! :0)

By the way, I would like to use some pictures for my book.

I've found the following website which affirms that their images are free:

http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/fantasy-pictures.html

As my book is non-commercial I figured it would be ok to use some of them.

Are you aware of other free fantasy art out there? Some that don't require any permission from the authors.

Age of Fable
Sat Jun 30 07:13:58 2007

> http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/fantasy-pictures.html

actually I doubt that the person who owns this site has rights to all those pictures - one of them is by Brom, who's a pretty famous fantasy artist.

Age of Fable
Sat Jun 30 11:53:33 2007

www.harvestfields.ca has a fair bit of usable clip art (and a lot of completely unrelated stuff).

Question
Sat Jun 30 12:29:57 2007

Thank you, Age of Fable.

I too doubted those images were free, which is why I asked.

I checked your link. Couldn't find anything useful but then again I didn't really check all the links you provided.

Thank you anyway.

Question
Wed Jul 4 18:15:58 2007

Roughly 190 paragraphs done.

Wow.. a 1000 references is really mind blowing for the Diamond Key.

Still I'm about halfway through now.

I understand why you stopped after two books, Phil, it does require a huge amount of time.

Age of Fable Sat Jul 7 03:41:59 2007	> I've realized there's a few references which are a page long or more. How do you feel about that? I'd try and break them up into paragraphs. Your job isn't to tell a story or have a great overarching plot. Remember that the most popular official Fighting Fantasy book is Deathtrap Dungeon, whose plot is "this guy's built a dungeon and you're trying to get through it."
	It's a matter of opinion. Personally, I do think that the story and plot are important - though of course complicated plots can still be conveyed using an economical style of writing. You might also be interested to know that according to Amylase, Deathtrap Dungeon is second in popularity to the much more complex Creature Of Havoc.

Question
Sat Jul 7 11:32:24 2007

Yes, thank you, something I'll definitely keep in mind.

Question Wed Jul 18 15:35:25 2007	Halfway through my gamebook, I got 700 viruses off a Chinese Website. Had to format my hard drive. Don't know what I'll do about the gamebook. I will keep you guys updated.
	I believe that it is possible to recover data from a hard drive even after it has been formatted, and that there is free software available to do this. So there is a chance that your gamebook may not be irretrievably lost.

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