Refining my outlook - gamebook player types

Greetings, lovers of all things gamebook!

I have now come to a proud moment in my blog - the moment where I can reference my own posts.  I'm going back to my gamebook player types post.  I think I can improve upon my classification, especially the puzzle solver, which I didn't like as I thought its definition was a bit too narrow.

So I'm going to try to refine my gamebook player types.

Also, there are plenty of gamebooks that are not entirely devoted to one player type.  Some gamebooks have strategic combat and a good storyline, for example.

Also, whilst gamebook players may have a preference on their play style, it may change, depending on their mood.

Explorer

What does an explorer want?  The explorer wants to see what happens when they make different choices.

How does an explorer decide what to do?:  Explorers generally pick options that they have not tried before. Explorers are also the people who think the lease about their choices, doing them purely to see what will happen.

How would you appeal to an explorer?  Fabled Lands is the quintessential explorer's book.  Choices in explorer books involve deciding which places to go.  Each location will have a set piece.  Some explorer books make a good use of maps with paragraph numbers on them to help with this.  

How do I know if I am an explorer/in an explorer mood?  I know if I am in an explorer mood if I want to try something that I have not done before.  I also make choices that seem dangerous or illogical just out of curiosity.  Basically, I stop thinking about my choices and just choose with a completely open mind.

Puzzle solver which I will now call the Strategist

The puzzle solver was the player type I felt least happy with as the idea of puzzles in gamebooks sounded a bit narrow.  There are plenty of gamebooks with no puzzles, such as Choose Your Own Adventure books and even some dice based books.  I did mention that battle tactics came under this, but I think that battle tactics are a bigger part of gamebooks than puzzles so  I will widen this out to call the gamebook player type the strategist

This article which I found on Grey Wiz's blog sums it up nicely.  It talks about the difference between a puzzle and a problem.  To quote it (from the top of page 3):

'What’s the difference? With a puzzle, the challenge is working out how the designer wants you to solve it. A problem is something that you solve on your own. A problem can have consequences, and ones that are all the more effective because they were your solution.'

What does a strategist want?:  A strategist wants to work out the best way of overcoming a situation which can be overcome by using the information provided.  This could be a classic puzzle or a combat where you are allowed to make choices about what strategy you could employ which will lead to certain consequences or manipulate the die rolls in a certain way.  Books where your decisions affect just the narrative would not appeal to strategists unless there were some clues in the text to help your decisions.

How does an strategist decide what to do?:  In a book with a random element, the strategist's decision is based on improving their odds.  Destiny Quest is a great book for strategists as it presents a simple combat system and then offers you tons of items and abilities that give you options for combat.  Most of your choices are about which tactic to use in combat or which item you think would help the most.  Choices outside the puzzles and combats would usually revolve around finding items/abilities to help them out with the puzzles and combats.  E.g searching for all the elementals in Stormslayer.

How would you appeal to an strategist?:  You need either a puzzle element or some kind of random element in the book that can be manipulated in various ways so that the player has to work out a best way.  The satisfaction comes from beating the puzzle.

How do I know if I am an strategist/in an strategist mood?  You are wondering which ability you can use against monster x.  You are wondering when the best time to drink your potion of strength is.  You want to try a new way to beat the big monster at the end.  That's when I'm in a strategist mood.


Champion 

What does a champion want?  A champion wants to win.  They want to find the best ending and they don't care how.  It doesn't matter if they don't have to explore new lands or think something out or play a deep and meaningful character as long as they get to the paragraph that tells them that they have killed the wizard and won the treasure.

How does a champion decide what to do?:  The champion will base their decision on whether they think it will get them to the winning paragraph.  If they know a route leads to death, they will avoid it.

How would you appeal to a champion?:  Having some level of difficulty will appeal to a champion as if it is too easy, they will not enjoy the challenge.  Also, the winning paragraph has to be something that befits a champion and describe how grateful the people are and how much treasure and glory you will get.  Deathtrap Dungeon is a good champion book.

How is a champion different to a strategist?:  At first a champion seems similar to a strategist as they both want to win, but in different ways.  A strategist gets intellectual satisfaction from beating a puzzle or winning a combat through the use of their thought processes.  Winning each combat does not necessarily mean winning at the gamebook.  A champion just wants to find the right sequence of choices to get the best possible ending.  They can do this without thinking and by using trial and error and they don't necessarily get their satisfaction by overcoming a puzzle through thought but just by being able to move past it.  


Storyteller


What does a storyteller want?  A storyteller wants to interact  with interesting characters and be part of a narrative.  

How does a storyteller decide what to do?:  A storyteller thinks about their character and the characters around them and base their decisions on how they think the characters will react or how they want them to react.

How would you appeal to a storyteller?  Having a book with several named characters is a good way to appeal to a storyteller.  If you are part of a group, even better, such as Down Among the Dead Men or several Choose Your Own Adventure books such as the Race Forever.  Also ways of growth and change are good in a story, either in the narrative or through stats, though stats are not necessary and may detract from the story if they do not fit in well with it.  Many different endings, all with different degrees of success also appeal to a storyteller.  Also, storytellers may not be too worried about bad endings for the character as that is just their story that they have played out.  Bad gamebooks for storytellers are ones with one happy ending and the rest ending in your death.
Endings that appeal to storytellers have epilogues about the characters involved or are quite open, implying that there are future adventures to be had so that the storyteller can imagine what happens next (or buy the seque, if there is one).  Avenger! and Lone Wolf are good storyteller series.

  

How do I know when I'm in a storyteller mood?:  I don't want to just chop up orcs but I want to interact with some characters and see what happens to them.

How is a storyteller different to an explorer?  There is some similarity between the explorer and storyteller as they both want to take lots of paths.  An explorer does so purely to just see what happens whilst a storyteller  bases their choices on how they want their characters to play out.  

There's plenty of gamebook stuff going on - check out the Gamebook Feed for more info.

Also, check out part 2 in Grey Wiz's excellent Gamebooks are Broken series.  Part 1 is here.

April A to Z:

I have emailed various gamebook people about what they are up to for the April A to Z and I will put them in order for April.  If you would also like to be part of the April A to Z, email me at sl1605@gmail.com and answer the following questions.  I will the npost the answers with a link to your website.

• Who you are and how you got into gamebooks/solo adventures/RPGs/art. 
• What you have done since April 2012 (if you posted last year) or what you have done relating to gamebooks/solos/RPGs/art (if you didn't)
• What you plan on doing now related to gamebooks/solos/RPGs/art. 
• What you think the future of gamebooks/solos/RPGs/art  is. 

Why do we read gamebooks?

It sure is broken.  Missing all the es.

There is an excellent post at the Mysterious Path blog which is the first of a trilogy entitled The Problems with  Gamebooks.  The first heading to this post is 'Gamebooks are broken'.

It is a very thought provoking post and I look forward to the next two installments.  It got me thinking about why we all read gamebooks and what makes my favourite gamebooks.

My favourite gamebooks include such classics as Heart of Ice, Moonrunner, Necklace of Skulls, Beneath Nightmare Castle and Avenger!.

So, it's perfect if you use a
forty six sided die.

These books all have a very balanced game system whilst having some great story elements and I thought that it was the key to a successful gamebook and I have tried to emulate that.

When writing my Windhammer entries and during my random scribblings, I have been trying to come up with a gamebook system that is simple, versatile and does not involve lots of book keeping so that it will not interfere with the narrative.

After my first entry, where I used the Fighting Fantasy system (it was awful, not because of the system but because it was linear, had an error with the skill score and had very little story), I tried to come up with a GAMEbook where the system allowed me to balance the gameplay perfectly (which came at a huge cost to the narrative), then I noticed that most of the entrants that did well focused more on story, so I used a diceless system in Sharkbait's Revenge which won me the prize.

Encouraged by my success, I used a similar system in Rulers of the NOW (though I still managed to put too much book keeping into it) and then a simpler system in the gameBOOK Call of Khalris where there was only one stat which covered an array of things and I wanted the player to interact with the story by writing a journal and having a cheat score.  Turns out it was too much and it spoiled my entry).

Just keep writing and it will
be OK.

Now that I've done the extremes, I have been cooking up systems that allow a nice balance and I may use them in future gamebooks.

This is the process that I've been through and I have found it very useful, but after reading Grey Wiz's post I realised that I would never get the perfect balance.  No one could and that the balance of story and game in my favourite gamebooks wasn't really a perfect 50/50 balance.  It was more a case that there was something I liked about either the game system or the story or the setting and that the other aspects of the game did not interfere with it.

I've come to the conclusion that spending ages getting the perfect balance between the game aspect and the book aspect of a gamebook is in no way linked to how good  the gamebook will be.  There are people out there who just want the story,there are people who want to number crunch and strategise, ,there are people who want to play an RPG system they love solo and there are whole new audiences out there such as  people who want to explore different aspects of a story.  All of these people fall into the category of gamebook people, so, with such a diverse audience, no one gamebook is going to please everybody.  And so, with that in mind, I thought about the gamebooks I love and why I did so.

I think a good gamebook has to connect with the reader/player on some level.  For example, with a gripping story, or with some detailed and compelling world building or with some difficult choices or with an exciting game system.  As far as gamebooks are concerned, this is both a blessing and a curse.  There are so many aspects to a gamebook that there is probably one that everyone is good at and can use as their USP.

There's something for everyone.

On the flipside, you have to be good enough at all of the other aspects so that they do not spoil the good stuff.  Some Fighting Fantasy books with great settings and characters were let down by impossible odds or just poor editing.  Lone Wolf also suffered from this in later books (such as in book 11).

Destiny Quest - Legion of Shadow had a system full of excellent strategic choices and lots of depth but the narrative choices were a little lacking and most choices determined nothing more than what ability you get.

However, all of the above books are still popular because there are plenty of readers who are not bothered by the flaws.  I enjoy all of the above books.  I'm not a big fan of Deathtrap Dungeon due to the fact that it is just a dungeon crawl and the die rolls are impossible but it is a hugely popular gamebook (no.7 in the Fighting Fantazine survey) because of the crazy monsters and traps, and, in some cases, because it is so impossible.


So I guess the moral of the post is that I should try to find my niche and make sure that I'm good enough at the other aspects of the gamebook so that I do not spoil it.

How items can be useful and unmagical

I've done a post on how you can give out cool magical items that won't completely unbalance the game but you can also have cool and powerful non magical items.  Here are some ideas:

How can items be powerful and unmagical?

Fire powder - blow stuff up!  Also leads to...

Firearms - a powerful (even perceived as magical?) weapon.

Acid - corrode stuff away!

Telescope - see things from far away!

High energy rations - a days food that weighs very little.

Compass - help your navigation check!

Clothes and jewellery that indicate high status - pass for the mayor!

Signet of a particular organisation - show the Seal of Hammerdal to anyone in Durenor and you get anything you want.

Ancient relic of a particular people.

Tomes of knowledge – maps to places, records of historical events, manuals, star charts.

Skulls/bones of powerful animals - a sign of strength and status amongst hunters/warriors as they think you killed them.

Trophies/awards from tournaments - will give you a reputation for skill at arms.

Keys - they don't have to be key shaped.  They can be gems or strange stone shapes.

Silver weapons - harms powerful undead.

Herbs - have many healing and other effects.

A lost relic - it puts you in good standing with a particular religion or country.

Special material – mithril, adamantite, darkwood, cold iron.  If it is rare enough, people will want it!

Musical instruments that can calm animals (ape pipes, snake charmer flute).

Any more, people?

Gamebook traps #1 Only caring about the successful route

Hello all!

Today, I'll be talking about a mistake that I have made when writing gamebooks and that is only focusing on the successful route.  This involves working out hte correct path through the book and then just throwing in some other options that will lead to failure or just aren't the optimal path for the sake of giving the player more choice but then not really putting as much effort into writing them or even checking that they fit into the gamebook.

I noticed this after writing Sharkbait's Revenge.  I tried to make sure that all of the paragraphs were useful to go to if you made the correct choices to go with them.  However, that was never going to work out and there are some decisions that were worse than others.  For example, when you are breaking into a house, you have to face several guards.  Going through the middle is worse than sneaking around the edge of the house. 

What happened was, when I was playing through my Windhammer entry, I only focused on the optimal routes which means that I missed certain things, like the correct paragraph numbers.  I had forgotten that other people would not know that they were bad choices and make them.  I just made the best choices and made sure that they worked.

There were also problems with game mechanics.  Was I just throwing in some situatuins that would be impossible to beat and therefore might as well be sudden death paragraphs?  I also playtested the sub optimal routes a lot less so I had no idea whether anyone taking them could survive and win the game or whether they would be mercilessly killed much later for making one silly mistake and therefore having their time wasted.


How have I reduced this problem?

Check all of the options:  Yes - just having to spend some more time being more thorough would solve most of the problems.

Get someone else to read it:  This other person has no idea what the successful route should be, so they will make all kinds of suboptimal decisions and tell you if they work.  Also, you can ask them if they can tell if they know which route is the best one based on how much effort they think has been put in the paragraph. 

Concentrate on all the failure routes first and make the death paragraphs entertaining ways to die:  Even if the player really botched up and adventure and gets themselves killed, they still deserve an entertaining and engaging read. 

Some people care less about victory and more about the story and exploration.  Some players are probably just sadists and want to get their player killed in increasingly bizarre ways. 

All of these player types will be disappointed if they have to walk through several non-descript rooms to a two line death paragraph.  The bad routes and failures should be just as entertaining. 

Beneath Nightmare Castle and Creature of Havoc nail this idea. 

Also, from a gaming point of view, a player will have no way of working out if this is the optimal route or not based on the amount of effort put into the paragraphs.

So there we are.  Remember that even if a route is destined for failure, it still deserves your attention.

Happy gamebooking!

April A to Z 2013

Ahoy there fellow gamebookers!

I'm thinking about the April A to Z challenge this far in advance, however, because although I have a lot of real life commitments, I still want to produce a post a day for a whole month as I find the process challenging and fun and it also allows me to see lots of great blogs and for lots of people to look at my blog and, by extension, the blogs and sites of the people I talk about (I hope).

So if you have a blog and the time to devote to doing the April A to Z, I would recommend that you do in order to find some great new blogs and pick up some followers to your own blog.

This is what the format for 2013 is going to be.  Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have collected some more interviews from people in the gamebook world I missed the first time round and with people who wanted a repeat interview. 

However, if you are reading this, you haven't heard from me about an interview and you would like to feature in the April A to Z, please drop me a line at sl1605@gmail.com.

I'm anicipating that I won't have enough interviews for all 26 days so in the days that I don't have an interview, I will be posting a mini gamebook.

So there you go - news and entertainment all rolled together in one monthly challenge along with your regular serving of Sunday installments. 

I'm looking forward to it already.  I hope you are.

Happy gamebooking!

gameBOOKs vs GAMEbooks part 2 - gameBOOKs

Before you read this, why don't you read two excellent blog posts which partially or wholly talk about the smae topic of game vs book in gamebooks.

First, there is this one by Paul Gresty, author of Arcana Agency.  And then there is this one by Grey Wizard, author of the Mysterious Path comic.

Back now?  Let us continue.

So here we have gameBOOKs, gamebooks that place less emphasis on the game part and more emphasis on the book (or story) part.  Interactive fiction falls into this category.  What characterises a gameBOOK.

There may not be any victory criteria:  Whilst some gameBOOKs have a clear objective for victory, some of them involve you jsut seeing where your choices will take the story.

More than one satisfying endings:  You will probably live in most gameBOOK endings and these endings will have varying degrees of success.  It may even be up for debate as to which ending is better.  For example, in the CYOA book, The Race Forever, you could end up finding gold and becoming rich rather than winning the race.

Death is less likely:  Whilst you might die in a gameBOOK, it does not happen as often as in GAMEbooks.  There might be no hit point meter and most of the decisions you make won't be life threatening at all.

More backstory:  These gamebooks have no problem defining your age, gender, career, outlook on life and many other facets to your persaonality.  You may even get a name if you are lucky, so you are able to visualise your character.

Fewer stats:  You may even have no stats in the case of CYOA books and the stats may not measure your hit points but rather your relationships with people (see Heroes Rise.)

Choices revolve around what you want the character to do or in which direction you want to take the story:  GameBOOKS are very non linear because there is no objective to fulfil so you can take the story anywhere.  Should I become a ninja or a pirate?  Should I go to the party or play compuoter games?  Also, because there are no victory criteria, there is less agonising over which decision is the 'right' decision.  You can just sit back, decide to do what you want and see where the story takes you without fear of getting yourself killed.

Your character and NPCs are defined by their background, decisons and relationships rather than by stats:  It is more about how the story unfolds than winning, losing or getting the most points.

It may not be in the second person:  In some cases, you may not be playing a character but rather choosing how a story moves. 

Examples of gameBOOKs:  Choose Your Own Adventure, Life's Lottery, Choice of Games.

So there we are.  As you probably expected, the game/book divide is more of a sliding scale than two categories.  Next week, we can look at some gamebooks that are  and see if they are more game or more book.

Follow me on Twitter.

gameBOOKs vs GAMEbooks part 1 - GAMEbooks

A gamebook is an amalgamation of two things - a game and a (story) book.  It's all in the name, really.

What this means is that you canget gamebooks that are more game than book and gamebooks that are more book than game.  I'm going to define the game and the book part of gamebooks, state what characteristics each one has and what type of player would like them.

I will refer gamebooks that are mainly game as GAMEbooks and gamebooks that are mainly book i.e. they focus on story and character rather than stats and winning as gameBOOKS.

GAMEbooks

Here are some characteristics that make a gamebook more game than book.

Clear objective for victory:  Since there is more emphasis on game, there is a way to win and a way to lose.  The objective is usually something like kill the wizard or find the treasure or escape the dungeon.  Sometimes, the objective is revealed to you part way through the gamebook, such as in Creature of Havoc or Black Vein Prophecy but it is always there.

Few (usually one) satisfying ending:  Since there is one objective, most GAMEbooks only have one good ending where you meet the objective.  Most other endings usually result in your death, or, if they don't (for example, if you decide to spend you life being a monk in the Crimson Tide), the text usually states that you have failed in some way.

More life and death struggle:  Since in GAMEbooks, you either win or die, there are plenty of combats and life threatening situations for you to fall into.

Very little backstory:  GAMEbooks are moer likey to be the kind of gamebook with a few paragraphs about some evil wizard which aren't really relevant to the rest of the game as you then just have to crawl around a dungeon to kill them.  Warlock of Firetop Mountain is a classic example.

Use of stats:  There are more stats in a GAMEbook than in a gameBOOK.  These stats usually revolve around the abilities of the character rather than anything to do with the story, such as their fighting and magical abilities.  Characters in GAMEbooks also have some value to measure hit points as opposed to gameBOOKs, where, if death is a possibility, it is usually due to the text rather than any situation.

Choices mainly revolve around resource management rather than what you would do as a character:  Since you have a load of stats, the rules usually have a way of manipulating those stats.  Destiny Quest is the perfect example of this.  Should I use my charm ability now or later?  Which die shall I reroll?  Should I drink this potion of vanish?  Should I take the speed enhancing item or the brawn enhancing item?  These are all very interesting decisions but none of them revolve around the story.

Your character and the NPCs are mainly defined by their stats and equipment rather than by their interactions with others and their decisions: A lot of NPCs won't even have names as they are there to provide you with a combat or some other stat based challenge.  Your character will probably be defined by which stat is highest or which skills and spells they have (chosen based on their ability to win you the game rather than flavour.  It is not uncommon to pick a wizard with both healing spells and damage dealing spells.)

Examples of GAMEbooks:  Fighting Fantasy (with Legend of Zagor taking an extreme approach), Destiny Quest, Trial of the Battle God, some Tunnels and Trolls solos.