> I'm thinking about fixing other flaws of the old system, namely how a huge difference in SKILL score either makes the game too difficult or too easy. Any suggestions?

Midnight Deep has a system where you have a certain amount of points, and spend points to buy Skill, Stamina and Luck (at the rate of 2 points = 1 Skill, 2 Stamina, or 1 Luck). I think it's a good idea, but the costs aren't balanced; I'd put something like 1 Skill = 4 Stamina or 4 Luck.

You could also combine equipment and gold with this system, giving them a point cost as well, so you could have a weaker character with more equipment and/or gold.

Question
Mon Jun 18 11:18:31 2007
The Diamond Key

Age of Fable:

That could work. Only SKILL is still a stat much more important than STAMINA and LUCK combined. Which means that players could still boost their SKILL where encounters become meaningless.

I think it would be possible to survive an adventure with really low STAMINA score as long as the SKILL is high.

Phil Sadler
Mon Jun 18 12:07:09 2007
The Diamond Key

Here's the damage table I used for the boss in Riders of the Storm:

Night Demon

2 It casts a Health Drain spell: deduct an initial STAMINA point
3 It trips you with its tail: deduct 1 STAMINA point
4 It bites you: deduct 2 STAMINA points
5 It smashes you into a tree: deduct 3 STAMINA points
6 It misses you: gain 1 LUCK point and you may take a potion!
7 It misses you: gain 1 LUCK point and you may take a potion!
8 It casts a Rejuvenate spell: it regains 3 STAMINA points
9 It casts a Fireball spell: deduct a die of STAMINA
10 It casts a Misfortune spell: deduct a LUCK point
11 It casts a Curse spell: deduct an initial LUCK point
12 It casts a Weakness spell: deduct a SKILL point

Al Sander
Tue Jun 19 01:06:15 2007
The Diamond Key

Re: advice in regards to creating a gamebook

Always back up your work and try to write something that you would be happy to play. That way, even if no one else likes it, your gamebook still has one fan.

Otherwise - I like to plan out the gamebook before I start with a flow chart tracking the progress of encounters. I also find that writing the introduction, then writing the end 10-20 paragraphs works really well for me.

Re: damage tables

I like them. I tend to prefer simpler more ad-hoc modifiers (such as, the giant, if it successfully strikes you, will do 4 STAMINA damage instead of the usual 2 owing to its enormous strength) but damage tables could be really interesting if done well.

Question
Tue Jun 19 02:25:51 2007
The Diamond Key

I know my encounters won't be the typical (SKILL, STAMINA) and that's it and I do want each encounter to have something special to them.

For instance, there's some SEWER RATS in my adventure. I'm thinking about creating a chart where they can transmit the plague. As it's a swarm of rats, I'm thinking that their stats could vary has more RATS join in and others run away.

Andy, could it be done, the charts?

Gaetano
Tue Jun 19 04:03:28 2007
The Diamond Key

Re: Adventure Design
I had a general idea of the adventure as a whole, but for the most part I made things up as I was writing. Or, in many cases, I had an ongoing "idea" list for encounters and situations (things tend to pop into your head at work, at lunch, etc) that I would refer to and infuse into my adventure.

I'm not one to use flow charts, but that's probably not very smart, because it makes keeping track of all the pathways in a 400 section adventure pretty difficult.

Re: Combat Design
I like your idea of having a table. As has been mentioned, the standard "1 hit = lose 2 Stamina" gets old really fast. Phil's idea of simply taking the difference in attack strength seems to be overkill, IMO, because then things would be really short and deadly. But I do like Phil's second suggestion of an outcome based attack table. Maybe include both? An outcome based table would seem to make more sense for a supernatural enemy. Personally, I like adventures with less fights (or at least less unavoidable fights).

Question
Tue Jun 19 04:25:07 2007
The Diamond Key

Thank you for your reply, Gaetano.

About the chart, something just struck me.

The way I see it, I think a difference in attack strength should determine what actually happens.

A big difference in both opponents attack strength would mean that the victor has managed to land a particularly effective blow.

Here's what I think:

I would keep the 6 categories I've mentioned before for more common enemies.

But would also make up original charts for unique enemies.

Different weapons would provide different charts for the player. I've already thought of a morning star which can end up damaging you as it's hard to handle.

For instance:

Let's say your opponent is a vampire.

If your opponent wins by a difference of:
1: grazes you (lose one STAMINA)
2-3: Causes a medium wound (lose two STAMINA)
4-5: Bites you (lose 2 STAMINA and add 2 STAMINA to VAMPIRE).

etc...

Question
Tue Jun 19 11:02:21 2007
The Diamond Key

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
The Diamond Key

I'd love to give it a try!

Question
Tue Jun 19 12:24:53 2007
The Diamond Key

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
The Diamond Key

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
The Diamond Key

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
The Diamond Key

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...

Age of Fable Wed Jun 20 10:10:44 2007 General Chat	Suggestion: it'd be pretty easy to set this site up so that it used the Palantino font, which is pretty common, and quite close to the font used in the books.
	When I made the site, which is over four years ago now, it seemed that browsers could only support a few fonts, Palatino not being one of them. Now it appears that both Firefox and Internet Explorer can display it. So I'll bear this in mind.

Question
Wed Jun 20 13:28:33 2007
The Diamond Key

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
Wed Jun 20 14:00:01 2007
General Chat

On the other hand I do agree that changing the font would be a nice addition! ;-)

ffproject
Fri Jun 22 12:24:01 2007
Wrong Way Go Back

Changes

I've made modifications to Wrong Way Go Back as discussed earlier. In particular the nightclub search is now made fairer, and there are other changes that bring the gameplay more in line with the original intent. Effectively, it's easier now if you know what you are doing, and harder if you don't.

Also, I've made some minor changes to the start of Riders Of The Storm, as requested by the author.

Phil Sadler Fri Jun 22 21:40:20 2007 Riders Of The Storm	Hey Andy. I have just tested Riders and the health potions don't seem to heal you anymore!
	Fixed.

Question
Sat Jun 23 04:04:58 2007
The Diamond Key

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
The Diamond Key

> 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.

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