tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-417337570309175061.post5173769604956865230..comments2024-03-07T13:47:29.810+00:00Comments on Lloyd of Gamebooks: What makes a gamebook stand out for you?Stuart Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100216520313336932noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-417337570309175061.post-14393487791279109072014-05-18T20:47:42.671+01:002014-05-18T20:47:42.671+01:00Being meta and self aware: Not always a good point...Being meta and self aware: Not always a good point. Some books can do this well - Herbie Brennan's Grailquest books pull it off; so does his mini-adventure in the Monster Horrorshow RPG where you 'find a sword that lights up and buzzes like one of those things in Star Wars' (I'm paraphrasing). But it's a fine line between poking light-hearted fun at the genre, and just not caring about the genre. I've read a few books that fall into the latter category. <br /><br />Interesting plot / Story and quality of writing / The "feel": Very important, and probably what can make the difference between a pretty good gamebook, and an excellent gamebook. Also incorporates...<br /><br />Strong central storyline and detailed setting: Storyline is important. Detailed setting helps, but isn't super-vital. Think of some of the SF FF books, f'rinstance. 'The Rings of Kether' doesn't have a wonderfully rich setting, but I still think it's a great book. <br /><br />Balance between plot and puzzle: The 'puzzle' part isn't necessarily so important for me. I'm really going off gamebooks where you have to 'beat the book' - I'm there for the story, which can play out in a number of different ways. Then again, it depends on the nature of the puzzle. If you look at the Choice of Games / Hosted Game 'Life of a Wizard', it's very stat-heavy, and the big puzzle sort of becomes working out how to maximise as many stats as possible. Still a fantastic game. <br /><br />Plenty to explore: Important if you want your book to be replayable. Important for books that don't have a linear route, as well (and gamebooks shouldn't have a linear victorious route, I feel). <br /><br />Getting into the characters: Kind of important, though plenty of gamebooks don't really have any friendly minor characters to interact with. But then, in a gamebook, YOU are the most important character. Getting into the secondary characters is less important than having a strong playable character (either because of a strong backstory, or plenty of possible character builds).<br /><br />Special rules: Not so important. For instance, plenty of FF books have special rules that could easily be cut out.<br /><br />Meaningful choices / Interesting choices / Having decisions that make a difference to the outcome / Depth and breadth of choices: This is really the defining characteristic of the genre. The choices are all-important. And I think that, these days - in this 21st-Century renaissance of gamebooks - that you need to include choices that impact the story, and the story's outcome. It's not enough - any more - to simply say, 'Do you go east or west?' 'Do you take the sword, or the slingshot, or the loaf of bread?'<br /><br />Art: Personally, it's not a biggie for me. The Destiny Quest books (certainly the first two; haven't yet played the third) have little to no internal art, except for the full-colour maps. And I don't think that harmed them any. They're still great books. The first time I played DQ1, I didn't even notice it didn't have any artwork...Paul Grestyhttp://pwgresty.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com