Sunday, February 20, 2022

Armour rules in gamebooks

So if you play most Fighting Fantasy books, you usually get told htat you are wearing some leather armour when you start.  There you go, what more needs to be said about armour in gamebooks?

Ok, more I guess.  Armour seems to get an inconsistent approach in gamebooks, if it is not completely ignored.  I guess the writers are following the tenet that in a gamebook you do not want to create more rules or mechanics where necessary.  If a situation comes up rarely, then you should just assign a random die roll, give some common sense consequences and forget about it rather than trying to come up with a new rule.

Which is great until you realise that armour is not a situation that comes up rarely.

Now that I'm thinking (and writing) about it, it seems strange to me that a situation that comes up quite commonly does not actually get a clear rule for it.  In Fighting Fantasy, armour could add to your skill (leading to the question that since the rules say that you cannot go over your initial skill, does it do nothing if you are at your initial skill?), it could reduce damage in certain situations, it could increase your attack strength, it could reduce your opponent's attack strength, it could reduce damage on a die roll, reduce damage for certain or reduce damage for certain, but wear out after x hits.

So armour does come up a lot, in any gamebook series that involves a system for determining combat at any rate.  So it does need a system.  Which one could we use?

Armour makes you harder to hit

Works quite well in Fabled Lands - you have to get over your opponent's defence score with 2d6 + your combat score to hit them.  Defence is based on combat + rank + armour.  This is a good system as long as it is not too hard to hit people as it will lead to stalls.  Also makes logical sense that armour makes you harder to hit and damage.  Tin Man Games has an armour system which makes you harder to hit, but does not reduce damage.  Space Assassin has a system where armour makes you harder to hit, but every hit it absorbs makes it weaker. The pitfall with this is that if one combatant has a really high armour, it might make them hard or impossible to damage, making combat a joyless slog or a frustrating dead end.

Armour as damage reduction

it makes sense that armour reduces damage and that is find when you are dealing d12 damage a blow to an opponent and plate armour reduces it by 4, but when you do 2 damage with every hit, you have very little room to play with.  You can reduce 50% of the damage or 100% of the damage.  Not really an option.  It is possible in a system where you could lose a lot a hit points in one hit (Lone Wolf could have used this system, but decided to do something else).  Ways to get around this include a limited number of uses or damage reduction only occurs on a certain die roll.  Good ways around it with a bit more book keeping.

Armour as a skill or attack strength bonus

As long as the skill bonus applies, this makes sense.  If you are harder to damage, it will make combat easier and so you will be more likely to win.  A shield can be used offensively, which is another reason it can increase your attack strength.  Increasing skill in Fighting Fantasy is a little unrealistic - if you can't go above your initial skill, then wearing armour has no effect (?).  If it can, then for some reason, armour makes you better at all the other things skill covers in Fighting Fantasy including jumping, sneaking and climbing.  Things that armour should hinder.

But a helmet is no use here :S
Armour that has a benefit in story

A more realistic approach, but one that requires more effort.  Your helmet prevents damage to the head, your shield blocks an arrow etc.  Adds a nice touch if you can be bothered to use it.



Armour as hit points

Used in Lone Wolf (combined with armour as Combat Skill increase).  A chain coat adds 4 to your endurance for example.  At first, I couldn't see how that would make sense, but there is a reason to it.

If for example, you have 20 endurance points and you lose 10, you have lost 50% of your endurance. A chain coat prevents some damage. 

If you wear armour that increases it by 5, and lose 10 endurance, you have lost 40% of your endurance.  The armour has not magically made you gain 5 points of endurance - it has reduced the damage you received by 10%.  Of course, there are flaws - it reduces damage from hunger and other things that it shouldn't.  And also healing becomes less effective as it is restoring a smaller proportion of your endurance.  however, it is super simple and no more die rolling or maths is required beyond adding two numbers.

So there you are.  What's your favourite armour system for gamebooks?

Sunday, February 13, 2022

The Warlock Returns charity auction for MIND



Hi all! 

I'm sorry for missing a post last Sunday. I was sorting out the Lindenbaum entries. I'll do an extra post this week where I release those entries.

Today, however, there is something else that would interest you. And that's a chance to get some sweet gamebook collectables whilst, at the same time, donating money to a worthy cause.

The people at the awesome Advanced Fighting Fantasy Fanzine, The Warlock Returns (which you can get on Drive Thru from Arion Games - issue 5 is the latest issue!) have put together a charity auction where the money will go to MIND, the mental health charity.

The goodies include signed gamebooks, original artwork and book bundles. You can see what's on offer here.

You can donate to MIND here: Sam Byford is fundraising for Mind (justgiving.com)

You can also watch the livestream for the launch of the auction: The Warlock Returns | Charity Auction - YouTube

The auction closes on February 28th.

Mental health is also an important part of our lives. Even before the pandemic and lockdown, a lot of peoples' mental health was not great. This is probably due to a lack of visible resources for mental health, peoples' general reluctance to talk about their mental health and also society's general portrayal of mental health issues as things to not be talked about. Most people can go out in society and seem happy and content. However, a lot of people are probably just masking their mental health issues because they might feel that they shouldn't talk about them or that they will be ostracised.


The trouble is with mental health issues is that they don't go away if ignored. They usually grow and come out in unexpected ways. Which is what I discovered when, as a teenager, when my mum lost her job and I started taking some acne medication that caused depression (and might have caused liver damage - talk about the medicine being worse than the disease) that I could power through it for a few months, but, later on in life, it clouded my outlook on things, causing problems that weren't there. At the time, no one knew, so I should have said something.

Which is why either bidding on gamebook goodies or donating to MIND is a good idea for all concerned.

So, once again, here are the links:

You can watch the livestream here: The Warlock Returns | Charity Auction - YouTube

You can donate to MIND here: Sam Byford is fundraising for Mind (justgiving.com)

You can bid for things here: The Warlock Returns auction for FF & AFF ttRPG Fans - GalaBid

The auction closes on February 28th.

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Lindenbaum Prize update

The Lindennbaum Prize is sponsored by Peter Agaopv, contributor to Lloyd of Gamebooks and owner of  Augmented Reality Adventure Games who is very generously providing the first prize.

The Lindenbaum Prize is also sponsored by Crumbly Head Games who is providing free licenses to The Gamebook Authoring Tool as prizes and also has a free version of the Gamebook Authoring Tool that goes up to 100 sections.

Many thanks to Tammy Badowski for donating her time to the Lindenbaum Prize.



Image by Pat O Neill


Entries have now closed for the 2020/2021 Lindenbaum Prize for Short gamebook Fiction. Sixteen authors have been accepted for this year's competition and their entries are currently being adapted to the standard competition PDF format.

We have an amazing array of gamebook goodness with 16 entrants!

It should be noted that as the number of gamebooks has exceeded 14, the competition rules now require an extension on time for the close of voting date will be extended to the 5th April and winner announcement dates to be extended to the 14th April (2 week’s delay). Due to the large number of entries submitted and my decision to hyperlink the books there must also be a short extension of time for all entries to be properly converted to the standard competition format. Due to this delay all entries will be available for free download and review from the 15th February.

All information regarding this year's comp including full entry guidelines, competition schedule and prize details can be found at Lloyd of Gamebooks: The Lindenbaum prize for short gamebook fiction 2021/2022