My experiences of the Fool God or: Why I didn't finish writing a book when I'd finished the writing

I was very glad to have finally published a gamebook.  Temple of the Fool God contained a lot of firsts for me - first use of the Tunnels and Trolls system, first gamebook with art and my first gamebook that I published on RPGNow.  It was also the first book where I realised that once the writing is over, there is still a lot more of stuff to do with a book.  Stuff I used to consider to be less fun than the writing  but still needs to be done as it is very important such as proof reading, formatting, playtesting, inserting hyperlinks and publishing.  I used to consider it a tedious add on, but now that I've done these things a few times, I don't mind doing them now and actually even enjoy them.




The idea


I got the idea of the dungeon's theme from my thoughts and reading on the trickster.  I wanted trickster characters, trickster races and even the dungeon to act like a trickster.  I had the idea of a kingdom where the king is being advised by fools from both the idea of fools in Tudor times and the idea of the Shakespearean fool, especially the fool in King Lear who speaks to King Lear wisely yet escapes punishment because he is a fool.  There was also the idea of the wise fool in the middle ages who through their innocence and simplicity would be closer to God and could  therefore impart wisdom.

Writing

I had read a few TnT solos and most of them were either only suitable for warriors or for wizards.  Rogues weren't particularly good at either book, so I wanted a system that could incorporate both magic and fighting.  It was for this reason that I went through the spell list and came up with uses for spells that did not need to be referenced in the text.  In Temple of the Fool God, I came up with a list of spells that could be used before combat and decided that the find object spell could be used to add 1 to the treasure table roll in order to get more treasure.  That meant that there were fewer spells to reference in the text.  I managed to get at least one use for most other spells.  I gave a list of spells that weren't going to be used in the solo so that rogues wouldn't choose a useless spell.

I also came up with a talent for each stat that would be useful in the solo and stated that the player could swap their current talent for one used in the book.  In future solos, I will have a wider range of talents.

I filled the dungeon with all the references to fools and tricksters I could find.  I tried to make the logic of the dungeon quite contrary to normal thought.  I hope it worked.  I especially enjoyed the encounter before the Fool God himself.


Artwork

Thanks to Murray for introducing
me to this picture.

This was the first gamebook I wrote that I have put artwork in.  I used public domain art from the following sites:

http://karenswhimsy.com/ - Scott Malthouse directed me here.

http://openclipart.org/ -  jonny_automatic had a lot of good clipart for me to use.

http://www.pdclipart.org/

In future, have the situation fit the art. - I like working with restrictions.  I can't work with a blank slate.  Restrictions breed creativity.

Since writing Temple of the Fool God, I have discovered another public domain clipart site - http://etc.usf.edu/

Publishing


I went through Lulu and RPGNow.  They were both straightforward.  Lulu required a bit of fiddling - the font had to be embedded and the image had to be 595 by 841pixels but they gave very clear, straightforward instructions on how to get your book online.

So there we go.  You can buy Temple of the fool God from here but I would like to write more TnT solos in future.

Happy gamebooking!