August news and upcoming September news

 Hi all! Sorry for the lateness - there has been much to do both in and out of gamebooks this week. 

If you want to personally berate me for being late,  I will be at Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 on the 3rd September.

UPDATE: There are now Livestream tickets available for £10 (+£1.37 booking fee)

Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 Tickets, Sat 3 Sep 2022 at 09:00 | Eventbrite

Enjoy!

New releases

Fighting Fantasy

Yes, there are two Fighting Fantasy books being released in September. Available for pre-order now.

Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone

When an ancient artifact is discovered inside Firetop Mountain, its evil magic unleashes terrifying Iron Giants upon the world. In a race against time, YOU must find the only person who knows how to defeat them. Where does he live? Will he help? Will YOU survive?

Fighting Fantasy: Shadow of the Giants : Livingstone, Ian, McCarthy, Mike: Amazon.co.uk: Books

The Secrets of Salamonis by Steve Jackson

YOU, the hero, travel to the city of Salamonis to make your fortune. But will you join the Strongarms and travel across Allansia, guarding merchant caravans, or will you study at the famous Halls of Learning? Will you enter Bu Fon Fen in search of Cauldronweed, or rid King Salamon's Mine of the pests that plague it? Will you bring Cardinal Zyn to justice, or set off in search of the horn of the Black Unicorn? And just who is the Shivering Man, and what does he have to do with the mystery of the screaming sky? It is down to YOU to uncover the secrets of Salamonis!

Fighting Fantasy: The Secrets of Salamonis: Amazon.co.uk: Jackson, Steve, Bettin, Tazio: 9781407188492: Books

Red Ruin Publishing

There is a new Dragon Warriors solo from David Donache

You've come to Hambleton following a rumour, of a beast, coming down from the tor and terrorising the inhabitants of the moor. A few choice questions around the inn confirms that the rumours are true, but the beast has yet to come as far as Hambleton, it is Brengate, the moorland village, from which the whispers come.

Suitable for characters of 1st or 2nd Rank of any Profession.

The Beast of the Black Tor by Red Ruin Publishing (itch.io)

Usborne Adventures

Curse Breaker is the second gamebook in the Usborne Adventure gamebook series. It is out on September 2022.

This magically illustrated gamebook plunges you into a story with a difference - one where the hero is YOU.

But as you stare out at the stars from your prison cell window, you're not feeling very heroic. You, a city guard, thrown in jail because someone whispered a word in your ear. Just a single word...

Then your cell door creaks open, and you're let loose on an epic adventure where every choice is yours, and your survival depends upon the decisions you make. Who to fight? Who to trust? In a world that's unravelling before your eyes, the mystery goes deeper than you could possibly have dreamt.

Curse Breaker | Usborne | Be Curious

Choice of Games

Noblesse Oblige is now available on Steam, Android and iOS with 20% off until September 1st!

Noblesse Oblige: a Crème de la Crème Adventure is a 140,000-word interactive Gothic romance novella by Hannah Powell-Smith, a standalone story in the “Crème de la Crème” universe. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Noblesse Oblige—Find romance amid secrets in a lonely estate! - Choice of Games LLC

Heart of Battle is now available on Android and iOS.

Heart of Battle is a 255,000-word interactive gladiator romance by Fay Ikin, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Heart of Battle—Battle for love as a gladiator! - Choice of Games LLC

Paranormal Preparatory School is now available on Steam, Android and iOS

This boarding school for supernaturals isn’t hell, but it is on top of it! Can you make peace between the vampire and werewolf students, close the portal to hell, and save the world?

Paranormal Preparatory School is a 340,000-word interactive comedic dark fantasy novel by David Spain. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Paranormal Preparatory School (choiceofgames.com)

A Mage Reborn: Book One is a new hosted game

“A Mage Reborn: Book One” is a thrilling 154,000-word interactive fantasy novel written by Adam Alamsyah. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

A Mage Reborn: Book One (choiceofgames.com)

Pride and Prejudice and Murder is a new hosted game

“Pride and Prejudice and Murder” is a 210,000 word interactive murder-mystery novel by Abigail Shaffer Fuller and Michael Gray, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Pride and Prejudice and Murder (choiceofgames.com)

Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure has some books available for pre-order which will be released on the 4th October.

They are:

Dregg Disaster: An Algebra 1 Gamebook

Brooklyn Mermaid

Antarctica!

COMING SOON! – Chooseco LLC (cyoa.com)

Samuel Isaacson

Samuel Isaacson has released and interactive poem.

Guilt of Years Emerging: A melancholic, interactive poem about loss, life and hope : Isaacson, Sam: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Darkness on a Foreign Shore: Unravel Your Destiny Book 1 (1) : Jordan, G R, Clarke, Jake Caleb: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Zines

Fighting Fantazine

After a 5 year hiatus, Fighting Fantazine issue 17 is out! You can get it free!

Home (fightingfantazine.co.uk)

Podcasts

Fantastic Flights 

The latest episode is Star Strider

Fantastic Fights — Haunted Phonograph

The Podcast From Firetop Mountain

The next podcast will be Appointment with F.E.A.R (to broadcast at 7pm BST on 29/08/2022)

The Postcast from Firetop Mountain - YouTube

Events

International Gamebook Day 

International Gamebook day was on 27th August (Fighting Fantasy's 40th birthday!). There were several interviews with people in the gamebook community (not just Fighting Fantasy ones!). The videos can be found at the Storymaster's Tales.

The Storymaster's Tales - YouTube

Fighting Fantasy Fest

This takes place on the 3rd September at the University of West London in Ealing. I will be there, so if you go, come and say hi!

Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 Tickets, Sat 3 Sep 2022 at 09:00 | Eventbrite

Gamebook creators

David Grophland has created a free gamebook creator called Gordian. 

Gordian Book imports a Twine game (either a Twine Archive, or a Twison/Twee version), and converts it to a gamebook output by numbering and shuffling the paragraphs, and converting links to the appropriate "turn to page x" form. Once converted, you can view the game in the browser, download as a standalone HTML file (e.g. for further editing), or export it as a simple PDF. (See Workflow notes).

Gordian: Home (gordianbook.art)

Interactive Fiction

Who better to tell us about what's going on in the world of Interactive Fiction, than Emily Short?

Mid-August Link Assortment – Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling (emshort.blog)

Adventures in social media

I found Solo Adventures with Livi on Youtube. As well as solo games, Livi also reviews gamebooks, such as Heart of Ice and The Shadows Tooth.

Solo Adventures With Livi - YouTube

July news and upcoming August news

 Hello lovelies! Here is the news for July and upcoming events for August.

Releases

Fighting Fantasy Collector is a website run by Jamie Fry - he releases a guide to the price of all the Fighting Fantasy collectables. He is releasing a new one for the 40th anniversary.

Fighting Fantasy Collector – A comprehensive guide to everything collectable for Fighting Fantasy

Here is a lovely solo RPG.

Valley of the Conquered King, a SoloRPG Adventure Hex - SoloRPG | DriveThruRPG.com

Adam Mitchell has released another gamebook!

M.I.A : A D88 Survival Gamebook: Amazon.co.uk: Mitchell, Adam C: 9798839341760: Books

There will be two new Fighting Fantasy books out in September - here are their covers!

Fighting Fantasy 1982-2022: 40th Anniversary Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks' covers revealed! (officialfightingfantasy.blogspot.com)

Crowdfunding

Expeditionary Company

Expeditionary Company: July 20 on Kickstarter.

A game of resource management and travel through a condemned world that uses 3 gamebooks with more than 3 000 sections.

Expeditionary Company by Sugaar Editorial — Kickstarter

Castle of Blackwood Moors THE GAME

Castle of Blackwood Moors is a great fantasy gamebook. Now there is a Kickstarter to make it a game.

There is a demo on Itch - The Castle of Blackwood Moors by madoverlord (itch.io)

Castle of Blackwood Moors Gamebook THE GAME by David Konkol — Kickstarter

One Night Worlds

Brian Hazzard of Insteadeath Survivor's Support Group podcast fame is preparing a Kickstarter for One Night Worlds - a solo TTRPG. 

One Night Worlds: Zero-prep, GM-less, one-page TTRPGs by Brian Hazzard — Kickstarter

YOU ARE THE HERO 40th Anniversary edition

This will be running soon! Click below to be notified.

YOU ARE THE HERO - 40th Anniversary Edition by Jonathan Green — Kickstarter

Blogs

Deathtraps and Dungeons

Deathtraps and Dungeons has started season 2 with Talisman of Death.

Deathtraps and Dungeons

Emily Short

If you aren't reading Emily Short's blog already, then you should be, because it is awesome. It is more interactive fiction than gamebook, but there are still loads of crossovers, especially this post I saw recently.

Writing for Games: Theory & Practice (Hannah Nicklin) – Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling (emshort.blog)

Zines

Voidspace

Voidspace issue 3 is out:

voidspace 3 – voidspace _ (voidspacezine.com)

Fighting Fantazine

Fighting Fantazine issue 17 will be out very soon!

Fighting Fantazine

Podcasts

There is a new podcast to be out in August. It is called the Podcast from Firetop Mountain where Alison Cybe and I discuss Fighting Fantasy books.

The first episode will be released on the 1st August and it will be City of Thieves.

The Postcast from Firetop Mountain - YouTube

You can support the podcast and all of Alison's other creations on Patreon. (and also get the episodes a week early!)

Conventions

International Gamebook Day

This is the 27th August. 

International Gamebook Day 2022 | Facebook

Fighting Fantasy Fest

Fighting Fantasy Fest! Yes, I know this is cheating, because Fighting Fantasy Fest is the 3rd September and not August, but it's Fighting Fantasy Fest!

Here are the tickets: Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 Tickets, Sat 3 Sep 2022 at 09:00 | Eventbrite

Adventures in social media

I found Storey's Stories on Instagram.

It is described as Crowd powered interactive storytelling. 

Give it a look:

Storey's Stories (@storeys_stories) • Instagram photos and videos

June news and upcoming July news

 Hello all! Here is the latest in the world of gamebooks.

Conventions

Dragonmeet tickets are live!

Dragonmeet is happening on the 3rd December. I may be going (I haven't decided yet), but tickets are live with early bird tickets available until July 31st.

Buy tickets for Dragonmeet – Dragonmeet – Novotel Hammersmith, Sat 3 Dec 2022 9:00 AM - 11:30 PM (tickettailor.com)

New releases

The world of Nimbus

Welcome to the 5e world where good, evil, and heroism MEAN EVERYTHING!

A monotheistic, human world where a crumbling empire struggles to regain its bearings Clerics have fled the continent Sorcery and magic items are rare and can lead to corruption Long rests in the Wilderness require Survival skills for success Humans are the only playable race And yet, the world is immersive, rich, and full of adventure!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/388312

David Gilson

David Gilson has released 2 new books this month:

Varney the Vampyr Book Two: Vampyr Hunter B: Amazon.co.uk: Lowrie, Mr David: 9798836415877: Books

You know that house near you, the one at the end of the road? The one that looks a bit scary. It’s an old house, set back from the road. It’s thin and tall, with tall and thin windows. In the middle is a crooked green front door, paint peeling everywhere. The mortar is crumbling from between the brickwork, and the whole house smells of damp and decay. Well, it used to.

An Unkindness of Ravens: A Shadow Thief Caper: Amazon.co.uk: Lowrie, Mr David: 9798446323210: Books

After the epic tale of the original Shadow Thief trilogy - comes something a bit different.

In this first Shadow Thief Caper: an Unkindness of Ravens, and Shadow is back doing what he should be doing- stealing. Set a year after the epic events of Heroes, then Shadow is once again working as a thief, and trying to rebuild the Jackdaws, the thieves' guild. But what happens if he steals the wrong thing from the wrong person?

Expect sneaking , climbing , creeping , puzzles , fights in the dark , taverns , beer, bar fights , mysterious women, dark magic, poisoning , familiars , assassinations , rooftop fights, voodoo dolls, and horrific deaths.

Or, as Shadow calls it, Tuesday Night

Computer games

Fabled Lands cRPG

Update 10.5 is here!

Fabled Lands - Version 1.0.5 is live! - Steam News (steampowered.com)

Sorcery! coming to the Switch on June 23rd

Steve Jackson's Sorcery! hitting Switch this month (nintendoeverything.com)

Choice of Games has more releases!

The juggernaut that is Choice of Games has made yet more releases this month.

The Golden Rose book 1

You are a recent member of The White Company, a mercenary guild on the far side of the law. Your job consists of hunting artifacts and roaming ruins that the Church has forbidden to mention. One of your expeditions, however, leads you down a path that is much deeper than you ever anticipated.

The Golden Rose: Book One (choiceofgames.com)

By Crom

The drums beat, horns blow. It is time for you to dance a warrior’s dance. You were born in poverty and raised by ambition. Now is your chance to write your own legend, will it be a tragedy or a triumph?

By Crom (choiceofgames.com)

Social Services of the Doomed—They have magic and fangs. You have red tape!

As an employee of the Department of Supernatural Social Services, it’s your job to mediate when a dispute breaks out between vampires and werewolves. Which is pretty often, these days. Tensions are rising in your city: not all supernatural citizens think that they have to abide by the law. Flocks of harpies are crowing prophecies of doom; wizards are slinging fireballs; trolls aren’t just having peaceful chats about tunneling technology anymore; there are demons in the werewolf dive bar; and something is up with the ley lines. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one standing between the supernatural factions and a city in flames.

Social Services of the Doomed (choiceofgames.com)

Crowdfunding

Legendary Kingdoms - Pirates of the Splintered Isles by Jon and Oliver — Kickstarter

Prepare for adventure in this huge open-world gamebook series. Legendary Kingdoms is a gamebook campaign, where you lead a party of adventurers in a world that adapts to your actions. Venture into ancient ruins, pick a side and lead an army into battle, sail the high seas on your own warship, defeat tyrants or restore them to power. Along the way your party will increase in skill, wealth and renown, allowing them to take on more challenging adventures. Reach the heights of power and you may uncover a dreadful threat to the world itself and go on a mission that spans all six gamebooks in the series.

So is this a Solo Gamebook or an RPG?

The Legendary Kingdoms series has been designed to be played solo, as a choose your own adventure style gamebook. However, as you lead a party of four adventurers on an epic journey in a truly sandbox world, we have had playthroughs where one person has acted as the GM (Narrator) and four friends have taken on a character each.

WORM GNOSIS, an interactive comic book by Maldragon Editorial — Kickstarter

Worm Gnosis is an interactive comic book by Boris Ramírez. In it, the reader will take the role of the main character and go on an adventure whose development (and ending, therefore) will be determined by the decisions and actions taken over the course of the story. With a plot and setting clearly influenced by Lovecraft’s Mythos and tales, the readers will dive in a fantastic and chillingly fun adventure in which they will unravel mysteries and confront dark forces and enemies from this world and from others.

Adventures in social media

I found this awesome website out on the Reddit gamebooks group. They are gamebooks specifically aimed at girls in the teens and tweens age group.

Gamebooks - Trident Gamebooks

Sorry :(

 Hi all! 

I'm sorry there haven't been any posts in the last two weeks. I've been busy with exam revision and various things, and I haven't had time to make a massive backlog of posts for times like this (ahh, the heady days of 2011!).

Normal service will be resumed soon...

May news and upcoming June news

 Hello all! Sorry I'm late again, but here is the news from May.

Black Dog Gamebooks

David Lowrie has released another book!

A brand new gamebook from Black Dog Gamebooks, written and illustrated by David Lowrie

After the epic tale of the original Shadow Thief trilogy - comes something a bit different.

In this first Shadow Thief Caper: an Unkindness of Ravens, and Shadow is back doing what he should be doing- stealing. Set a year after the epic events of Heroes, then Shadow is once again working as a thief, and trying to rebuild the Jackdaws, the thieves' guild. But what happens if he steals the wrong thing from the wrong person?

Expect sneaking , climbing , creeping , puzzles , fights in the dark , taverns , beer, bar fights , mysterious women, dark magic, poisoning , familiars , assassinations , rooftop fights, voodoo dolls, and horrific deaths.

An Unkindness of Ravens: A Shadow Thief Caper: Amazon.co.uk: Lowrie, Mr David: 9798446323210: Books

Adam C. Mitchell

Welcome to General Quarters Captain! You are about to take control of a submarine in World War II. Your mission to sink merchant trade convoy's, ships and tankers. With each ship lost the much needed resources of the Japanese War Machine will slow to a crawl. This is your mission Good Luck Captain!

General Quarters: A WW II D66 GAMEBOOK ADVENTURE: Mitchell, Adam C: 9798436451107: Books - Amazon

Dragon Warriors

Red Ruin Publishing has released another Dragon Warriors solo.

You have entered this benighted land, where you can either aid or oppose the forces of order.

In this open world gamebook, many adventures await -- explore haunted monasteries, delve into once deserted barrows or investigate cursed forests -- the choice is yours!

Scourge of the Shadows – A Dragon Warriors Solo Adventure - Red Ruin Publishing | DriveThruRPG.com

Choose Your Own Adventure

There are some CYOA releases this June:

The Flight of the Unicorn (PRE-ORDER) – Chooseco LLC (cyoa.com)

You are on a fantastic quest through medieval Scotland to find your missing pegacorn mentor, Dame Scotia. You believe she was kidnapped to steal her magic to create a pegacorn army. Can you and your newly-trained pegaorn, Liss, locate Dame Scotia in time to prevent war?

The Ghost on the Mountain (PRE-ORDER) – Chooseco LLC (cyoa.com)

You’re on a family vacation in Haiti to learn about your heritage when you discover a ghost in your room. The ghost tells you her name is Yvette, and that the mountains are calling you. Before you can answer, you meet a little girl named TiYoyo, who wants to show you her home.

Fairy House (PRE-ORDER) – Chooseco LLC (cyoa.com)

Bored and ignored by your busy parents, you decide to go outside and build a fairy house. Just when you’re sure nothing is going to happen, you meet Bert the Below Average: a real, live fairy. He’s not exactly what you had in mind. But he’ll do. Let the adventures begin!

Computer games

Fabled Lands CRPG

The beta for the entire of Harkuna (books 1,2, 4 and 5) is up now. You can sign up for the beta here:

Fabled Lands - BETA sign-up! - Steam News (steampowered.com)

You can read about it here:

Fabled Lands: Plunge right in

Choice of Games

 Freshman Magic: Spellbooks and Tangled Sheets

Freshman Magic: Spellbooks and Tangled Sheets (choiceofgames.com)

Freshman Magic: Spellbooks and Tangled Sheets] is a 263,000-word interactive gay romance novel by Raven de Hart. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

A magical duelling scholarship won you a spot at the prestigious Briarthorn University, one of the top magic colleges in North America. You expected a hard workload and even harder dueling practice sessions…you weren’t expecting your classmates to be so distracting!

Crowdfunding

This is a murder mystery gamebook. It has 28 days left and about £550 to go!

Framed by GR Jordan

UYD#2: Framed by G R Jordan — Kickstarter

"Framed" is a tale where YOU are the hero, or rather the victim, having been found beside the body of your employer with a gun in your hand. YOU don't know how YOU got there but if YOU're going to avoid jail then YOU'd better find out, and sharpish!

This gamebook is a mix of murder mystery and action adventure gamebook as you explore the island of Dr Flavius Munroe, now deceased, and try to find out which of the invited guests has landed you in the frame for his murder.

Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents

Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents (choiceofgames.com)

Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents is a 225,000-word interactive science-fiction novel by Dora Klindžić. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

The man who invented the 20th century was a queer immigrant from Serbia. Nikola Tesla dreamed of distributing free energy to all of mankind but passed away in a New York hotel room alone and forgotten. What if it had gone differently?

Life of a Space Force Captain, plus Paradox Factor is now on Steam!

User-Made Games Archive - Choice of Games LLC

Play as human, various species of alien, or even a robot. With the help of your friends and your loyal, upgradable robo-pet, you will go to school to learn skills of your own choosing before taking a position as a lowly cadet.

Destiny Quest World Companion

I've mentioned this one before and it is already funded. You can still get it here:

DestinyQuest: The World Companion by Michael J Ward — Kickstarter

Dormus is a world riven with strife and conflict, its very fabric of reality under threat from otherworldly forces and cataclysmic events. These are dark and perilous days, where fractious tensions threaten to bring down kingdoms and empires, and demonic invaders sow seeds of chaos and destruction to hasten the fall of humanity.

This is a time when great heroes will rise – legendary men and women of fame, who will spin the web of destiny anew, changing lives and history, influencing kings and nations, and becoming beacons of hope amidst a desperate world teetering on the brink of ruin.

Interactive Fiction and Gamebooks Book Club

Interactive Fiction & Gamebooks Discussion Group (Book Club) | Facebook

June's book is You Are a Filmmaker.

Amazon.com: You Are a Filmmaker: An Interactive Novel: 9781736502624: Harry, Matt, Crump, Juliane: Books

The costs and benefits of rolling dice part 2 - the benefits of rolling dice

 Last time, I wrote about the costs of rolling dice. It takes time, it might result in bad things and if the system isn't thought out properly, then it will just be frustrating.

So why do it? 

Excitement

As Radnoff said in my last post, there is excitement of the possibility of success, and if success happens in unlikely situations then it is even more exciting. 

There is also excitement from rolling dice because they offer the chance of variety.

Also, rolling dice means that you never know what's going to happen with each different read through.

 With enough random events, it is possible to read a completely different story with each read through.

It can help decide whether something happens or not

This can determine whether a wandering monster finds you or whether there is treasure at the bottom of the lake or whether the strange monster will attack you or run away.

It can be used to work out how much something happens

Instead of finding a fixed amount of treasure or taking a fixed amount of damage when something bad happens, the die roll can add some randomness to it. Sometimes, it won't make much of a difference, but it might if the treasure is needed to afford something awesome or if a certain roll could kill your character. 

It can work out what happens

A random event is going to happen to you in Fabled Lands, but it could range from finding a staff to being attacked by a wolf. 

It can be fun for stats nerds

One thing I like about gamebook systems is that I can analyse them and work out whether the system makes the game possible to win. I usually use Anydice. to analyse systems and work out how easy it is to win the book.

Champskees in the Fighting Fantazine forum includes tables or probabilities of winning certain Fighting Fantasy books depending on your stats. 

Conclusion

Rolling dice can add extra variety to a gamebook and also add extra excitement. If you do it, however, you need to make sure that the statistics have been calculated to make sure that these dice rolls are going to be exciting instead of impossible or too easy. 

The variables in the numbers need to be added in the right places so that the random numbers actually have an effect. It is more exciting to lose 1d6 stamina points towards the end when the character may only have a few stamina points left rather than at the beginning where 1 or 6 points won't make a difference.

If they are used for random events, then you need to make sure that the events will be significantly different.

Next time, I'll do...something else. Random elements is a multifaceted issue. I might do the difference between probability and consequences and how they fit together. 

The costs and benefits of rolling dice part 1 - the costs of rolling dice

Hello all! Back to my series on the good and bad points of having random elements in gamebooks. This week, I'm going to look at the costs of doing so and how these random elements might cause work for the player.

So, when I say work, I do acknowledge that rolling a few dice is nothing like doing an actual job. What I am trying to express is that the idea of getting a random result has the advantages of some tension and excitement and if too much dice rolling and number picking has to happen, then the excitement might wear off and all the dice rolling and number picking will be a chore.

So what situations does this happen in? Firstly, it does not seem to happen in skill tests. They all seem to be one die roll (for the sake of brevity, I will refer to do rolls despite the fact that it could include picking numbers at random from a square of random numbers, coin flipping, picking cards from a deck etc.) with a pass fail, if that. A lot of times, the book simply asks if you have a particular skill, so no dice roll is involved. In these cases, you either roll a number and the higher the score the better, with the skill giving a bonus (Lone Wolf) or you roll to get higher than a number and add a stat (Fabled Lands), equal to or less than a number (Fighting Fantasy) or just less than a number (Fighting Fantasy which wasn't able to make its mind up sometimes).

In the cases with trying to compare your scores to the dice roll, the tricky bit has always been what to do with the case when the dice rolls are equal to your score. In all cases, the book decides that rolling equal to the score is either a pass or a fail. This means that you don't have to reroll your dice if you get an equal value to your score. 

For some reason, in some cases, this idea goes out of the window in combat.

In Fighting Fantasy, you roll 2d6 and add to your skill, then do the same for your opponent. If the scores are equal, nothing happens. Unless there is a time limit to the combat, then all that dice rolling has resulted in nothing. That's one way to watch the excitement drain down. However, at least the chances of getting a draw in a Fighting Fantasy combat are quite low - 11% with two fighters with equal SKILLs and lower if they are unequal.

Having a draw in combat does have utility if something will happen after a certain number of rounds, but I don't think that it is worth it. The solution here is simple, though - simply state that rolling equal scores is a win or a loss for the character.

In some cases, the character needs to roll equal to or less than their skill to hit an opponent. This turns up with ranged weapons, which makes sense. There is less interaction with the opponent, so it is more like a skill roll for you than for both of you. This turns up a few times in Fighting Fantasy (Starship Traveller, Space Assassin, Siege of Sardath)

However, this has the potential to make combat drag out even longer because both combatants can roll above their skill and miss, so nothing happens. Siege of Sardath has a mechanic where if you miss with an arrow, you can test your luck to make it a hit, reducing the probability of missing (which is good, because there is a case in Siege of Sardath where you have to hit with an arrow or get an instadeath). You could also do a luck test to turn a hit for an opponent into a miss. This would be good in Starship traveller where ranged combat normally involves a one hit kill.

What about other gamebook series?

Well Fabled Lands has two scores in combat - Combat and Defence. 

To hit an opponent in Fabled Lands, you need to roll 2d6 + Combat to get above their Defence. The difference is how much damage you deal. The fact that damage is not a fixed number means that combat could be over very quickly.

The scores are linked - Defence = Combat + Rank + Armour, so the better you are at hitting opponents, the better you also are at not being hit. People used to include Combat bonuses from weapons to Defence, but that made characters unbeatable, so when book 7 came out, they decided that only your character's innate Combat would add to Defence.

However, they are not completely linked, so it is possible to have a high defence score whilst having a low combat score. 

This is where combat could get tedious because if a character is bad at hitting but good at defending and they are fighting a similar opponent, then there will be several rounds where nothing happens. 

Some people on the Facebook group have thought up ways around it. If you search "Defence", you will see what people say. One person has stated that if someone rolls a double, they deal damage equal to their combat score. Rolling a double on 2d6 has a 1 in 6 chance, so that would definitely speed up combat. 

Tin Man Games had a Gamebook Adventures system similar to this. You rolled a number of dice equal to your Attack score and compared the results to the dice rolled from your opponent's Defence score. You hit your opponent if your highest die roll was higher than their highest die roll and did damage equal to the sum total of the dice. This was find when attack was 3+ and higher than the opponent's Defence, but with low attacks, it was hard to hit. TMG had a mechanic in play where if you rolled equal to or less than your Fitness, you got a +1 to your highest die roll which made it more likely to hit your opponent.

It is Lone Wolf, however, who wins the prize for making sure something happens in a combat round. If you look at the combat table, then, whatever number you pick, someone loses Endurance points every round. That means that combat will always flow. Of course, this means making a table for such a purpose, so the solution is not the most elegant. It is up to the person making the system and the person playing it to decide if that is a sacrifice they are willing to make. For me, it is. The system is very simple, so referring to one table is not going to overcomplicate things compared to some RPGs.

So there are basic systems where we find out whether something happens in a combat round. Of course, a combat system can still have a possibility of nothing happening in a combat round, but the wasted time and effort can still be reduced if the player has options to change things about that combat round, like manipulating dice rolls or having a special attack, having an ability that deals damage every round or doing various other things. 

There can only be one winner when it comes to this and that's Destiny Quest. Seriously - look at the 9 page glossary of abilities (and that's just book 1!) you could use in combat. Combat is similar to Fighting Fantasy - roll 2d6, add your Speed attribute and the highest one wins. However, once you include all the abilities you could have (and you can have loads when you are fully kitted out), that gives loads of choices so that each combat round is less about rolling two dice and comparing numbers and more about making decisions about what abilities to use. 

And if you love Destiny Quest, remember there is a Kickstarter for the World Companion coming out on the 17th May!

So it seems that the lesson from this is that in every combat round, have something happen - at least one combatant's stats have to decrease somehow. Or at least let the player have the opportunity to decide on making something happen.