Fantasy Game Book

A New Year and a New Plan

2011-12-29T14:46:00.000-08:00

This past year has been a good one for Fantasy Gamebook! This blog got started for one thing, taking a detailed look at Dave Morris’ amazing Heart of Ice adventure. Tin Man Games then released my Catacombs of the Undercity gamebook as the fifth entry in their Gamebook Adventures series on iTunes to good reviews. Finally my entry, Sea of Madness, won first prize in Wayne Densley’s 2011 Windhammer competition for short gamebook fiction.

However, it has been exceedingly tricky at times trying to balance fun stuff like gamebooks with real-world concerns like employment and studying, and the number of posts on this blog has suffered as a result. For 2012 there will be some changes, with posts being shorter, but hopefully more regular. In order to do this, I’m going to have to introduce a bit more structure to the proceedings, with posts organized into a cascading series of categories as follows:

News

Wherein I talk about a bunch of tangentially-related gamebook stuff that caught my eye over the past week or so.

Gamebooks

Where I explore some facet of gamebook lore in more detail.

Games

Whether it be boardgames, RPGs, or CRPGs, I briefly review or offer examples of play.

Books

Be they paper or PDF, I offer a few thoughts on whatever texts I’m currently wading through.

Influences

Ah nostalgia! Wherein I look at childhood influences that inspired a life-long lurch into the realm of fantastical endeavours.

Multimedia

Music, film, or (rarely) television; I post on what my eyes and ears are currently distracted by.

Science

A close favourite I’ve previously dallied with here.

That’s the plan anyway. Whether it actually happens is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish...

DestinyQuest: The Review

2011-12-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but it's probably about time to get a review done of DestinyQuest Book 1: The Legion of Shadows by Michael J. Ward. For those not in the know, this is the first in a brand new series of fantasy gamebooks, notable especially for its size (790+ pages), non-linearity, and character advancement.

Rather than drag this out into a lengthy series of posts, I thought I'd try a quicker review process where I summarize all the bits I like; the bits I think could do with more work; and a concluding statement containing my final thoughts.

For the record, I purchased my copy direct from the author via eBay as a special deal including a rare weapon card, a DestinyQuest postcard, and a set of four DQ dice in a little red velvet bag.

Things I like about DestinyQuest

The size. There's more adventure here than you could wave your character's main weapon at. Just looking at the maps that accompany the three Acts in the book (Tithebury; Mistwood and Blackmarsh; and The Bone Fields), is an invitation to continue adventuring. "Just one more quest..."
The character sheet. It's a nice, simple, easy to understand two page spread. The location-based layout for equipment is intuitive and far more comprehendable than, say, Lone Wolf.
Non-linearity. Go where you want, do what you want, when you want. It's the Skyrim of gamebooks in this way...
Travel. No endless trekking from A to B, dealing with a host of random encounters along the way. If you want to go to visit the weather wizard, turn to 66. In this way the entire map essentially functions as a hub paragraph, with all encounters and their consequences radiating out from it like a web of choices...
Equipment upgrades. Get better gear, all the time. But wait! What would you prefer? Ebon Boots or the Hood of Night? You can only pick one, so choose wisely...
Lack of hoarding. Unlike Fabled Lands where you tend to accumulate huge quantities of items and artefacts scattered across numerous bolt-holes throughout Harkuna, in DestinyQuest equipment upgrades mean losing whatever is being replaced. In other words, what you carry is all you have.
Character advancement & careers. You start DestinyQuest as a generic adventurer, but by the end of it you can pick not only a profession but also a career specialisation. Necromancer, anyone?
Character uniqueness. Again, unlike Fabled Lands where you characters tend to do the same quests, raise the same abilities and gain the same powerful items, the character specialisation and unique item upgrades means that your character is likely very different from someone else's.

Things I'm not too sure about

No pictures. Although I realise the logistics of commissioning and inserting pictures into a gamebook this size are daunting, I do miss the gamebook with pix format.
No dying. There is no character death which is a bit of a shock for someone brought up on a steady diet of books by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Instead you simply respawn and begin anew. I can see why it is like this, and I do enjoy it, but it just feels wrong somehow...
Grind. Towards the end of the book, when the opponents get tougher, the combats tend to grind a little, and all the various special abilities can be tricky to remember and implement correctly.
Bold type for choices. Sometimes choices are in bold font, and sometimes not. Consistency with this would be good.
More choices. It would be good to avoid single choice paragraphs, particularly if they lead to more single choice paragraphs. Always offer the reader some kind of choice.
No indication for legendary beasts. It would be nice o have some vague idea of how tough these critters are as the paragraph for them is an immediate combat experience. An intro paragraph highlighting some of their more gruesome achievements, followed by a choice ("Do you want to face the Jabberwocky or not?"), would be good.

Summary: Despite these minor flaws, DestinyQuest: The Legion of Shadows is possibly the best and certainly the biggest solo fantasy gamebook I've played and enjoyed! This is the absolute closest you can get to a MMORPG in dead tree format if your internet connection goes down, and even if you are online, BUY IT ANYWAY! Guaranteed hours of entertainment as DestinyQuest puts you in charge of the action!

If you haven't yet bought it, you can order it here or here.

Five Things I've Learned From The Windhammer Prize (Part 2)

2011-11-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Cover of AEsheba: Greek Africa
(Blake, Mentzer & O'Hare, 1987),
by David Cherry. Nothing to do with
Sea of Madness, except the same vibe.

Continuing on from where we left off, here are three more things I did differently this time when writing Sea of Madness.

3. Write Big
Describing his work for Fighting Fantasy, Stephen Hand once said:

One thing I myself had learned from the excellent Lone Wolf books was something I call, "writing big". Look at these two paragraphs:

1
"The Orc scowls menacingly then reaches for his club. You will have to defend yourself:
Orc Skill: 7 Stamina: 7"

2
"The bodies of the slain lie strewn across the battlefield, your position is hopeless. Realising you have no choice but to pull back and rally your forces, you turn only to see... Something bars your way. You try to face it but it eludes your stare. Your assailant is an Forgotten Shade and you will need every ounce of courage to overcome it:
Shade Skill: 7 Stamina: 7"

Paragraph 1 is very typical of your average gamebook. Events feel isolated, low key and a bit flat. Paragraph 2 is written big. It is over the top (some would say too long, verbose and melodramatic), but feels more exciting and satisfying. Structurally both paragraphs are exactly the same - there is a fight with a 7/7 creature - but contextually, they are worlds apart. We decided to write big, so every challenge (even when minor) had character. An event would be: the most evil, the most important, the most tricky, the most melodramatic, the most underhand. Every element would be part of an epic whole. I felt that there was no reason not to rise to this creative challenge, to try and create something dramatic and unique. (Hand, 1999)

So by borrowing Stephen Hand's idea of "writing big", I wanted to make every encounter in Sea of Madness feel epic in scope, as you are playing a powerful hero at large in an extensive game world. Everything that happens to you, even (or perhaps especially) your demise, should be over the top.

One problem with this approach is that it can get a bit tiring to read at times, so for a sandbox adventure like Sea of Madness it is doubly important to try and keep the paragraphs brief but evocative, so as not to bore the reader. Also, a good thesaurus is all but essential for using alternative words. Finally, although Stephen Hand alludes to it without actually mentioning it, this approach is a bit camp, with tongue planted in cheek through varying degrees of force. This is possibly the most difficult aspect to get right. I tend to try and write gamebooks on two levels: the straight, fantasy escapist theme, and the more hidden parody or satire level, where you are essentially affectionately spoofing the whole genre.

RAMPAGE! for example is an extremely obvious parody, riffing on a pseudo-Allansian theme. Sea of Madness was a bit more subtle, though the subtitle "Like the Odyssey but shorter" should be one clue, while other pointers include Star Wars quotes, Fighting Fantasy gamebook titles, and a whole bunch of related stuff crammed in with a crowbar. Feedback from Sea of Madness would suggest the spoof aspect sailed over some heads however, and in fact caused problems because there was an expectation that the adventure would be similar to the Odyssey but, aside from ripping off a few obvious tropes, the gamebook was more a mash-up of faux-Hellenic Bronze Age mayhem and classic pulp fantasy/swords & sorcery/swords & sandals. Basically though, I had a lot of fun writing it!

4. Rules, rules, rules
Given you are writing a gamebook, developing a clear and cohesive set of rules is an absolute must. The two main choices are to borrow an existing rules set, like Fighting Fantasy or Virtual Reality (which is what Per Jorner did with The Bone Dogs), or develop your own. For the former, it makes things easier to write for a familiar system, but opens your work up for comparison against the original material. For the latter, you get more creative control, but you have to ensure your system is balanced, playable, and fun, as well as logically and fully integrated into your gamebook.

For Hills of Phoros I created a 2d6 system that was simply far too complicated for the gamebook, and when I had to strip bits out to fit for length, it started to look rather patchy in other areas. For RAMPAGE! I simplified it to a 1d6 system which worked much better, and I re-skinned this system for Sea of Madness with some additional rules. One common piece of feedback is that rules are still a bit long, though clear. However, I do say in the rules section that you can pick a starting character and begin straight away, referring only to the rules when needed. I think it's also important to add some optional rules at the end, to allow the player to customise the adventure if they so wish.

5. Art of Schmooze
You want lots of people to read your adventure, and you also want lots of people to vote for your adventure as being one of the best. That's not going to happen if you simply let your adventure's PDF file hang off the Windhammer website and expect its natural brilliance to shine through. You need to get people interested in your gamebook, so they will read it, enjoy it, and vote for it!

For my previous entries I just sort of threw them out there, put a few posts on some gamebook groups and hoped it would be enough. As an approach it becomes too poorly focused and too generalistic. For Sea of Madness I tried to get specific groups of like-minded people interested. For example, I messaged all my old gaming buddies on Facebook, passed on links to my Bangkok snooker comrade, and shared details with a shadowy cabal of writers for whom I had done some editing work. This sort of tightly focussed approach to soliciting feedback and votes possibly works better than the more open-ended appeal to interested readers.

In fact, by deliberately targetting non-gamebook fans, not only are you potentially generating votes for your Windhammer Prize competition entry, but you are also stimulating an interest in the other entries and in gamebook fiction in general. If we want to revive gamebook fiction in the future (and there's certainly plenty of evidence we are currently surfing the wave of a mini-revival at present), this sort of approach is going to become more and more important, especiallly as we look at paradigm-changing formats such as tablet devices, online content, and smart phones.

References

Blake, R. J., Mentzer, F., & O'Hare, J. (1987). AEsheba: Greek Africa. Lake Geneva, WI: New Infinities Productions, Inc.

Hand, S. (3/10/1999). Personal communciation with Mark J. Popp, available here: http://www.ffproject.com/download/MJPOPP.ZIP (Thanks to Andy Spruce)

Five Things I've Learned From The Windhammer Prize (Part 1)

2011-11-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

One of the interesting things about the Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction is that Wayne Densley keeps the voting tallies secret. This is understandable for what is essentially a niche competition, as if the winning tally was known, competitors may think "Ah, I only need X votes!" and aim to amass the required number of votes rather than devote themselves to their gamebook entry.

While this hidden tally introduces a degree of mystery to the proceedings, it also makes analysing the results, in the form of a voting spread, virtually impossible. However, given that I won this year after several previous years of failure, I thought I'd share a few things I did differently this year that may have contributed to a much improved final placing. I have no way of knowing how much, if any, these changes affected my winning tally, but taken as a whole there surely must be some sort of cumulative effect.

1. Feedback
If you're lucky, you should get a decent amount of feedback on your adventure, post-competition. While recognizing that each person's feedback represents just one person's opinion (which you may or may not agree with), study it carefully. Considering the feedback as a whole, sift it for general trends, as these will identify what worked and what you need to improve.

Plenty of feedback from my first competition entry, Hills of Phoros, indicated that aimless wandering as per Fabled Lands, was tedious in a small adventure, as was excessive grind-time. Also, if you're using a certain style of character generation system, such as points-buying, implement it across the board. Based on this feedback, I added a bit more story to the still sandbox-influenced RAMPAGE! and Sea of Madness, as well as a complete points-buy system for creating characters if you did not wish to use the provided starting characters.

2. Maximum Performance
The Windhammer Prize has stated limits of 100 sections or 40 pages of A4. You should try and aim for both limits as one hundred sections is not a large amount with which to tell a multiple choice story, while 40 pages allows you around 20,000 words, or 200 words a section on average. That's a decent chunk of text, nearly half a NaNoMo entry, and will require an effective time budget to ensure your typed word count per day is ticking over nicely. While sacrificing the art of story-telling at the cold altar of mathematics may seem harsh, the reality of writing a gamebook is that you are creating a complex puzzle that requires a degree of rigourousness unknown to most short stories or novellas. Break out the calculator!

Hills of Phoros sprawled so badly I had to cut huge chunks of rules and sections to cram it into the competition limits, and this had a big effect on the final product. Conversely, RAMPAGE! was a featherlight affair set at half the competition requirements (50 sections) and probably suffered from brevity compared to the excellence and expansivenes of other entries, such as The Bone Dogs. Sea of Madness was planned exceedingly tightly, though parts still got cut. Still, it was a much more cohesive gamebook than its predecessors.

I'll present the final three things tomorrow.

Adrift on the Sea of Madness...

2011-11-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

Wow! When not battling word-heavy assignments or rising Bangkok floodwaters, I received the most welcome news that my Sea of Madness adventure has won Wayne Densley's 2011 Windhammer Prize for short gamebook fiction! Cue celebratory beers here at Fantasy Gamebook HQ where we are ever-increasingly surrounded by a deluge of stench-laden black klong-water.

As I talked about before, this year's Windhammer competition saw a lot of high quality entries and everyone who entered deserves a congratulatory pat on the back. There was also a record number of adventure downloads and votes, so thanks also to all you readers and voters who were able to enjoy a glut of interesting and adventurous gamebook fiction.

In a bid to resurrect this blog now that I've completed my studies for this semester, I plan on following this post with a series of similarly-themed entries:

Talking about all the entries in this year's Windhammer Prize, to give you an idea of the quality and variety that was present.
Looking at five things that helped Sea of Madness win this year, when previous attempts like Hills of Phoros or RAMPAGE! had failed.
Exploring the planning process behind Sea of Madness as a counter-point to the Adventure Game series I write for Fighting Fantazine on DIY gamebook adventures.
Finally, DestinyQuest the review is nearly done!

Onwards and upwards, away from the floods...

Fabled Lands Role-Playing Game (Part 3)

2011-09-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Returning to our heroes Shagar and Jarna, we find them on a mission to slay the ratmen of the sewers of Yellowport. They stand before an abandoned well in West Port, the poor quarter of the city. Apparently, the well is a gateway to the sewers below, but there is no ladder or other means of descent. Shagar ties his rope to a crossbeam and tests it for strength and secureness. It seems sound, so, with him leading the way, they clamber down the rope and into the depths...

[Climbing down into the sewers requires a Thievery roll at Difficulty 9, plus 2 for using rope. Shagar rolls 7 plus 1 for Thievery and 2 for the rope equals 10, which beats the Difficulty of 9. He makes it to the bottom of the well unscathed. Jarna rolls 7, plus 7 for Thievery and 2 for the rope for a total of 16. She clambers down the rope a good deal quicker and more dextrously than her comrade]

'Show off!' says Shagar, on seeing her rapid descent. They find themselves in a square chamber almost knee-deep in indescribable refuse that gives off an appalling stench. There are four exits, though only the northern one looks big enough for them to venture into. Jarna lights her lantern, and also pulls out a parchment and a stick of charcoal. Shagar readies his sword and shield, and they head north, into a maze of passageways, stopping often to map the various corridors that peel off and away into the darkness. There is the steady drip of water from above and the occasional skittering of rats, but little else in the way of noise...

Sometime later they are advancing cautiously down a damp tunnel festooned with cobwebs. Jarna has stashed her map in her belt and carries her wand in her other hand. The cobwebs begin to get thicker and thicker, and they bump into the husk-like corpse of a ratman, shrouded in webs and hanging suspended from the ceiling. 'I don't like this one bit,' mutters Shagar as they both hear the sound of something moving towards them through the webs. 'Get ready!' Suddenly the biggest spider either of them had ever seen skitters towards them, envenomed fans gleaming in the lanternlight!

By Russ Nicholson (from Cities of Gold and Glory)

[Combat begins! Strike orders are rolled: Shagar 8, Jarna 10, and the Giant Spider 7. Jarna goes first. She has 2 Action Points and uses 1 to Cast Pacify. This has a Difficulty of 11. Jarna rolls 9 plus Magic 7 and 1 for her wand, for a total of 17. The spider immediately stops attacking and remains quiet. Shagar decides to squeeze past it and check its lair. He spends 1 Action Point moving into the spider's lair and another searching through the remains of its victims. The spider does nothing for its turn, and will continue to do nothing for five more turns or unless attacked. The first Combat Round has ended.

Jarna continues watching over the spider while Shagar searches. The Difficulty of the search is set to 10. Shagar rolls 7 plus 4 for his Scouting, and succeeds! He finds a bag with eighty Shards, and a shortsword and shield of excellent manufacture and untarnished by being in the sewers. For the third Combat Round he gathers up the loot, and goes back to Jarna. There is a brief debate about whether they should kill the spider, but in the end they decide to leave this part of the sewers. The Giant Spider, still Pacified, watches them go with glittering eyes...]

From this brief example of play we can see that the Fabled Lands Roleplaying Game is a fast and action-packed experience. Things happen quickly, thanks largely to the simplicity of the core Difficulty test mechanic, as taken from the gamebooks themselves. At the same time, there are plenty of customizable options for character generations, as with Jarna above, who can get immediately involved in the action. I may be biased, but I think it's a great game in its own right, as well as a much-needed addition to the Fabled Lands world!

This finishes this short series of reviews, though I'll likely be returning to talk about the Fabled Lands RPG from time to time, and possibly continuing the further adventures of Shagar and Jarna...

You can purchase the Fabled Lands RPG here, and find out more here.

Why I Hate Studying

2011-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

I hate studying and the best ever articulation as to why the whole process of studying is a painful waste of both time and brain cells can be found in the first ever Red Dwarf novel:

[Rimmer] found the process of revising so gruellingly unpleasant, so galling, so noxious, that, like most people faced with tasks they find hateful, he devised more and more elaborate ways of not doing it in a 'doing it' kind of way.

In fact, it was now possible for Rimmer to revise solidly for three months and not learn anything at all.

The first week of study, he would always devote to the construction of a revision timetable. At school Rimmer was always at his happiest colouring in geography maps: under his loving hand, the ice-fields of Europa would be shaded a delicate blue, the subterranean silica deposits of Ganymede would be rendered, centimetre by painstaking centimetre, a bright and powerful yellow, and the regions of frozen methane on Pluto slowly became a luscious, inviting green. Up until the age of thirteen, he was constantly head of the class in geography. After this point, it became necessary to know and understand the subject, and Rimmer's marks plunged to the murky depths of 'F' for fail.

He brought his love of cartography to the making of revision timetables. Weeks of patient effort would be spent planning, designing and creating a revision schedule which, when finished, were minor works of art.

Every hour of every day was subdivided into different study periods, each labelled in his lovely, tiny copperplate hand; then painted over in watercolours, a different colour for each subject, the colours gradually becoming bolder and more urgent shades as the exam time approached. The effect was if a myriad tiny rainbows had splintered and sprinkled across the poster-sized sheet of creamwove card.

The only problem was this: because the timetables often took seven or eight weeks, and sometimes more, to complete, by the time Rimmer had finished them the exam was almost on him. He'd then have to cram three months of astronavigation revision into a single week. Gripped by an almost deranging panic, he'd then decide to sacrifice the first two days of that final week to the making of another timetable. This time for someone who had to pack three months of revision into five days.

Because five days now had to accomodate three months' work, the first thing that had to go was sleep. To prepare for an unrelenting twenty-four hours a day sleep-free schedule, Rimmer would spend the whole of the first remaining day in bed - to be extra, ultra fresh, so he would be able to squeeze three whole months of revision into four short days.

Within an hour of getting up the next morning, he would feel explicably exhausted, and start early on his supply of Go-Double-Plus caffeine tablets. By lunchtime he'd overdose, and have to make the journey down to the ship's medical unit for a sedative to help him calm down. The sedative usually sent him off to sleep, and he'd wake up the following morning with only three days left, and an anxiety that was so crippling he could scarcely move. A month of revision to be crammed into each day.

At this point he would start smoking. A lifelong non-smoker, he'd become a forty-a-day man. He'd spend the whole day pacing up and down his room, smoking three or four cigarettes at a time, stopping occasionally to stare at the titles in his bookcase, not knowing which one to read first, and popping twice the recommended dosage of dog-worming tablets, which he erroneously believed to contain amphetamine.

Realizing he was getting nowhere, he'd try to get rid of his soul-bending tension by treating himself to an evening in one of Red Dwarf's quieter bars. There he would sit, in the plastic oak-beamed 'Happy Astro' pub, nursing a small beer, grimly trying to be light-hearted and totally relaxed. Two small beers and three hours of stomach-knotting relaxation later, he would go back to his bunk and spend half the night awake, praying to a God he didn't believe in for a miracle that couldn't happen.

Two days to go, and ravaged by the combination of anxiety, nicotine, caffeine tablets, alcohol he wasn't used to, dog-worming pills, and overall exhaustion, he would sleep in till mid-afternoon.

After a long scream, he would rationalize that the day was a total write-off, and the rest of the afternoon would be spent shopping for the three best alarm clocks money could buy. This would often take five or six hours, and he would arrive back at his sleeping quarters exhausted, but knowing he was fully prepared for the final day's revision before his exam.

Waking at four-thirty in the morning, after exercising, showering and breakfasting, he would sit down to prepare a final, final revision timetable, which would condense three months of revision into twelve short hours. This done, he would give up and go back to bed. Maybe he didn't know a single thing about astronavigation, but at least he'd be fresh for the exam the next day.

Which is why Rimmer failed exams. (Grant & Naylor, 1989, pp. 63-65)

I don't do anything like this for my own studies but it never fails to amuse. Happy revising!

References

Grant, R., & Naylor, D. (1989). Red Dwarf: Infinity welcomes careful drivers. London: Penguin.

Lost in Bangkok...

2011-09-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the complete lack of updates but I've been totally ~~snowed under~~ flooded (via the Bangkok monsoon), with real-life tedium like work and study, and much more fun stuff like trying to get my entry in for Wayne Densley's 2011 Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction.

There's eight entries this year in Wayne's competition, which is the most in its four year history, and they all look very interesting! I plan on talking a bit more about them later, particularly once the entries are published online, but for now it's good to see some familiar faces among the entrants, such as 2010 Windhammer Prize Winner Stuart Lloyd, two-time Merit Award winner (and author of GA4 Revenant Rising) Kieran Coghlan, Merit Award winner and Fighting Fan-tales writer Zachary Carango, and regular Fighting Fantasy Project guestbook contributor Dark. A strong field indeed!

Two other things I need to get done ASAP and hopefully in the next week or two, are:

Finish off my review on the Fabled Lands Roleplaying Game.
Finally get a review up on Michael Ward's first DestinyQuest book!

Until then!

Fabled Lands Role-Playing Game (Part 2)

2011-08-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

Returning to the Fabled Lands Role-playing Game, and a summary of our newly-created character:

Shagar of Sokara (30yo Male 1st Rank Warrior)

Charisma: 4
Combat: 5
Intelligence: 3
Magic: 1
Muscle: 4
Sanctity: 2
Scouting: 4
Thievery: 1

Stamina: 11

Armour and Weapons: Sword (Combat +2), Shield (Defence +1) and Chain mail armour (Defence +3)

Other Gear: Dagger (Combat +0) in boot, Lantern, Rope, Water flask

Money: 165 Shards

Powers: Blademaster, Lore (Warfare)

Additional Notes: Shagar is a pox-scarred lesser noble of Sokara whose family has fallen upon hard times following the overthrow of King Corin VII by General Grieve Marlock. He has become a hiresword and mercenary as a result, and his large frame and mop of unruly ginger hair are a common sight in dingy taverns and on corpse-strewn battlefields across eastern Harkuna. A helpful companion to his friends in need, Shagar is also prone to keeping secrets and not entirely trustworthy. But then again, who can you trust in these perilous times?

Shagar's updated profile above includes new errata allowing him to start with 1000 Shards to spend, plus his 100 Shards for being a Noble. This manifests as an upgrade from Leather to Chain mail armour, plus an extra Dagger in his boot.

I'm not entirely convinced of Shagar's ability to brave the dangers of the Fabled Lands alone, so I create a partner in crime for him, as below:

Jarna Jewelspider (24yo Female 1st Rank Mage)

Charisma: 5
Combat: 2
Intelligence: 4
Magic: 7
Muscle: 2
Sanctity: 1
Scouting: 3
Thievery: 7

Stamina: 10

Armour and Weapons: Staff (Combat +1), Dagger (Combat +0)

Other Gear: Potion of Healing, Amber Wand (Magic +1), Lantern, Water Flask, Parchment

Money: 24 Shards, 2 Pares

Powers: Sorcery (Enchantment), Craft (Magic)

Additional Notes: Jarna was discovered as a baby, bobbing up and down in a crib floating on the waters of the Grimm River estuary. Her elfin frame, silver hair and sparkling green eyes have led some to suspect she may be a changeling from the faerie shee of the Curstmoor. However, Jarna prefers cities to rustic sylvan settings, and has arrived in Yellowport intent on seeing if the rumours of ancient Uttakin ruins beneath the city are true. Her second chosen name refers to the intricate inscriptions carved into her amber wand. Jarna is a brave companion, but an impulsive one...

In the final part of this series we'll catch up with our heroes as they explore the Lair of the Ratmen! Stay tuned for mayhem!

"Guildmaster Vernon is surprisingly eager to see you. He is a hugely fat and bejewelled merchant, and he tells you that a group of ratmen have made a base in the sewers beneath the city. They come out at night to raid the warehouses and homes of the merchants of Yellowport..."

Fabled Lands Role-Playing Game (Part 1)

2011-07-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about Greywood Publishing's Fabled Lands Role-Playing Game, by Shane Garvey and Jamie Wallis, for some time. Stuart Lloyd has beaten me to it though, and his excellent review can be found here. Instead then, I thought I'd post an example of character creation and a sample combat to give you some flavour as to how the game actually works.

Character Generation

1. Background. There are 7 choices: Academic, Commoner, Criminal, Fey-Blooded, Military, Noble and Primitive. Each has their own special rules.

Rather than choose, I roll a d8 (with an 8 being a re-roll). I rolled a 6. My character is a Noble. This means my character starts with an additional 100 Shards in currency!

2. Description. While you could presumably develop your character's own description, there are also a series of tables helping you decide things such as Height, Build, Age, Personality (both Good and Bad Traits), Eye Colour, Hair Colour, Distinguishing Features, Birthplace, and Name.

I break out more dice and begin rolling:

Height: I roll a 6. My Noble is very tall (6'7" to 7"), and gets a +1 on jumping tests, and a -1 on hiding tests.

Weight: I roll a 5. My Noble has a Large Frame, and gets +1 Stamina and -1 Thievery.

Age: I roll a 4. My Noble is Mature (30-35 years old), and gains 1 level in a Lore skill.

Good Traits (Personality): My Noble is Helpful.

Bad Traits (Personality): My Noble is a Liar!

Eye Colour: Black

Hair Colour: Red

Distinguishing Features: Disfigured by Pox-marks!

Birthplace: Sokara

Name: Shagar

3. Ability Values. You need to roll 8 dice and distribute the results among the following Abilities: Charisma, Combat, Intelligence, Magic, Muscle, Sanctity, Scouting and Thievery. If the total of all the dice rolled is 20 or less, you may roll again.

I roll the following scores: 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4 and 5. Given my character's large size, I figure I'm heading towards a warrior type, so I assign the values as follows:

Charisma: 4
Combat: 5
Intelligence: 3
Magic: 1
Muscle: 4
Sanctity: 2
Scouting: 4
Thievery: 1

(The Large Frame penalty for Thievery cannot reduce it below 1, so I'm okay there as long as I never have to do any thieving!)

4. Stamina Value. Stamina is an indication of how much damage your character can take before dying. To generate it, you roll a d6 and add 6.

I roll 4, and add 6, plus a further 1 for my Noble's Large Frame. My Noble has a Stamina of 11.

5. Profession. There are eight professions in the Fabled Lands RPG: Barbarian, Druid, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Troubadour, Warrior and Wayfarer. To choose one of the professions you need to have a score of 5 or more in the profession's Primary Ability, and 2 or more in their Secondary Abilities. Each profession also has rules on what Weapons, Armour and Skills they can choose as well as a choice of one special Power.

Given their ability scores, my Noble has to be a Warrior. They start with one skill level in Lore (warfare), and for their Power, I choose Blademaster which allows one 'super-strike' per quest.

Here's where it gets tricky. There's no mention of whether my character gets any other starting Skills, or how many Shards they start with, or even what starting equipment they have. Going through the equipment lists, I decide to award my Noble the following:

A Sword (Combat +2)
Leather armour (Defence +1)
A Shield (Defence +1)
A Lantern
A Rope
A Water flask

All this adds up to 735 Shards, which seems a trifle excessive. I decide to reduce my Noble's starting cash to 0.

That was fun! In the next post I'll summarise my character and run them through some combat from the sample quest Lair of the Ratmen and see how they fare!

Return to Titan!

2011-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Titan - the Fighting Fantasy world, by Steve Luxton
[click to enlarge!]

Steve Luxton has sent me another amazing map of the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan which you can see above. I think this map is virtually finalised in terms of land alignment, and you can see on the left that there's now a key for all the major settlements of the three continents of Titan.

There's a few corrections to be made, but the next step is to consider whether there needs to be any more information or settlements added to this map. After that, we can probably look at discussing some of the individual continental maps of Allansia, Khul and the Old World.

Comments welcome!

Iron Maiden versus Gamebooks

2011-07-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

Could there be a better gateway to Metal than Iron Maiden? Not to mention as a musical accompaniment to gamebook playing and dungeon delving? You've got a blistering twin lead guitar attack from Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, accompanied by the operatic tenor of Bruce Dickinson as he wails about mystical themes that rival anything in Spinal Tap's back catalogue. Add the tight rhythm section of band-founder Steve Harris' self-taught bass power chords and Nicko McBrain's drum assault, and you have the classic template for wholesome heavy metal goodness.

The above band lineup should give you a hint about my bias towards what I consider classic Iron Maiden, and indeed leads to our problem for today: How to compile a decent Iron Maiden mix-tape? Two straight-up rules make the process easier:

No songs from Iron Maiden or Killers. Paul Di Anno is a great singer and early Iron Maiden is fabulously punk-rock, but it just sounds weird alongside their classic epic material which is what we want to focus on here. Perhaps another mix tape, Iron Maiden: The Early Years, should be compiled?
No songs beyond Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. That's the last album I listened to before I traitorously abandoned metal in favour of cooler soundscapes. There may well be excellent material on their more recent albums, and one of these days I may even do some research on this, but not right now.

This gives us a solid sequence of six great albums: The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave, Live After Death, Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. There are still problems however!

Too many good songs! There's eight songs on Somewhere In Time alone that I'd be happy to listen to on any Iron Maiden mix tape.
The songs are too long! Most of the short songs are on the first two albums, and we've already culled those from the selection.

So we need to start thinking themes. If we're wandering the catacombs beneath Firetop Mountain battling the minions of Zagor the Warlock, we want an appropriate soundtrack of epic fantasy. This means ditching any references to Napoleonic soldiers, fighter plane pilots and futuristic cyborg assassins (which we could of course stick on another mix tape), leaving us with...

The Iron Maiden Mystical Metal Mix (c90, 2011, Bangkok)

Side A
Moonchild
The Number of the Beast
Sea of Madness
Powerslave
Flight of Icarus
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Hallowed Be Thy Name

Side B
Still Life
To Tame A Land
Children of the Damned
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (from Live After Death)
Alexander the Great
The Clairvoyant

Ninety minutes of fantasy metal awesomeness!

Finally, mention has to go to Derek Riggs whose amazing artwork of Eddie the Head for their various singles, albums and tour posters is basically synonymous with Iron Maiden. I've attached two of my favourite illustrations of his to this post, and to print out and use as covers for the mix tape.

Fighting Fantazine Issue 6

2011-07-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

Cover by Michael Wolmarans

Fighting Fantazine issue 6 came out a while back, when I was unfortunately busy, but if you didn't get it then, get it now! Editor Alex Ballingall has done another amazing job with the Fighting Fantasy fan magazine, and among the 92 pages of the latest issue, you can find:

Amazing front and back cover art by debut artist Michael Wolmarans.
An interview with Leo Hartas, the artist who illustrated many classic maps and pictures for Fighting Fantasy, Golden Dragon, and Virtual Reality gamebook adventures.
An interview with Steve Luxton, who penned some of the definitive maps of Fighting Fantasy in Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World.
Escape from the Sorcerer - a 200 paragraph Fighting Fantasy adventure written by Sunil Prasannan and illustrated by Michael Wolmarans. I've had a good look at this one and it's very intriguing!
Guillermo Parades gives us the latest rundown on gamebook happenings in Omens and Auguries.
The Fact of Fiction: Alex Ballingall enters The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - the book that started it all - in a desperate search for the truth!
Part 2 of the Fighting Fantazine survey. Good to see Brett "Jediboyy" Schofield getting ranked #1 for Favourite Fan Art, for his illustrations for Shrine of the Salamander, which itself placed second in the Favourite Feature so far category.
Chapter 2 of Ian Brocklehurst's fan fiction: Aelous Raven and the Wrath of the Sea-Witch.
Out of the Pit returns! This time it stars four hideous beasts from my Shrine of the Salamander adventure.
Ian Brocklehurst begins a new feature entitled The Magic Quest about how Fighting Fantasy became our gateway drug of choice.
Part 4 of Ed Jolley's brilliant series: Everything I Really Need To Know I Learnt From Reading Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks.
Chronicle of Heroes: Adrian Young takes us through the classic Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure A Shadow Over Blacksand.
The start of a new review column: The Arcane Archive.
Jamies Fry looks at foreign print editions of Fighting Fantasy.
Last, but certainly not least, Dan Satherly strolls through The Forest of Doom.

Phew! As you can see, it's packed with Fighting Fantasy and gamebook goodness, and you can grab a copy of it here!

Also, Alex runs the actual Fighting Fantazine blog here!

The Mud Dragon!
(by me (Andrew Wright, 2011))

Beastmen of Bangkok

2011-07-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

Minotaurs in red and blue suits

I've said before that this blog is supposedly apolitical. However, we're about to have an election over here in Thailand, site of Fantasy Gamebook HQ, and over the past month or more the residents of Bangkok have been treated to an onslaught of campaign posters, some dull and some, as you can see, completely freaky.

The Yellow Shirts, or Peoples' Alliance for Democracy, realising that they cannot capture the popular mandate, have elected for a 'Vote No' campaign, reasoning that all politicians, presumably themselves excluded, are corrupt carpet-baggers who should be kept away from parliament at all costs.

As a result they've come up with a brilliant series of posters unflatteringly comparing politicians to a range of hideous beasts. (Personally, I'm feeling a bit sorry for the beasts!) Anyway, on a completely unrelated tangent, these posters offer us an unparalleled glimpse of what real fantasy Beastmen, say from the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, might actually look like. And so, I give you:

The Beastmen of Bangkok

BLOG

[SKILL 5 STAMINA 5; 1 Attack; Blowgun (as per Dagger plus Poison) or Club]

A primitive tribe of dog-headed humanoids, BLOGS live only in the depths of the Forest of Fiends in central Allansia. Here they are greatly feared for their practice of head-hunting and preying on human travellers, whose flesh they cook in large cauldrons. Blogs are skilled trackers, moving silently though the trees before using poison darts fired from blowguns to bring down their victims with a minimum of fuss (Livingstone, 1988).

CROCODILE MAN

[SKILL 10 STAMINA 10; 2 Attacks; Club and Large Bite]

Rare, if not unknown from Titan, CROCODILE MEN have been recorded haphazardly from other locations (Morris, Gallagher & Bambra, 1986; Bennie, 1990). Primitive carnivorous fiends with a tendency to bite first and digest later, these scaly brutes are usually found living in small clan-groups in the deepest parts of the Swamplands of Silur Cha. Some are known to join the legions of the Lizard Men Empire, but they tend to form their own units of shock troops, often in the company of Mutant Lizard Men, owing to their unpredictable nature.

LIZARD MAN

[SKILL 8 STAMINA 8; 1 Attack; Spear, Sword or Crossbow]

Unlike more primitive examples from other worlds (e.g. Moldvay, 1981; Morris & Johnson, 2008), the LIZARD MEN of Titan are a terrifying race who rule a sprawling empire centred on the Swamplands of Silur Cha. Their military ingenuity is legendary, as is their slavish devotion to a host of foul deities such as the Demon Prince Ishtra and the Lizard God Suthis Cha. When they finally sack the city of Vymorna following a long siege, then the rest of the southern lands will likely fall to their savage legions and living reptilian war machines (Gascoigne, 1988).

MINOTAUR

[SKILL 9 STAMINA 9; 2 Attacks; Large Fist, Battle-axe or Club]

The large hairy bull-headed humanoids known as MINOTAURS are found on all three continents of Titan, usually at the heart of an underground labyrinth or a maze-like series of tunnels (Gascoigne & Tamlyn, 1989). Recent studies have indicated the presence of a cow-headed variant from Femphrey, known as the Mooncalf (see Green, 2009), and it may be that buffalo-headed versions of Minotaurs might be found in more tropical climes, such as Arantis and the lands of the Glimmering Sea (as seen above).

MONKEY MAN

[SKILL 7 STAMINA 7; 1 Attack; Club or Dagger]

A recent discovery resembling a man-sized monkey (Green, 2006), MONKEY MEN are believed to originate from the palm-fringed islands that dot the Black Ocean of southern Titan. Little is known of their society and beliefs, but it is thought that they may be related to the Scurrellors of the Cloudhigh Forest of western Khul, and the Wood Reavers of Far Analand (Wright, unpublished).

TIGER MAN

[SKILL 9 STAMINA 5; 1 Attack, Large Teeth]

Not to be confused with their more powerful Weretiger brethren (Gascoigne, 1985), TIGER MEN have a fairly patchy record from Titan. We do know that Shanzikuul, the Master of Chaos, kept a harem of Tiger Women in his lair beneath the ruined city of Kabesh (Martin, 1990). Also, from the far future of Titan City, the entourage of Marcus Buletta (also known as Dr Macabre the mad surgeon and pharmacist robber), numbers a Tiger Man among its members (Jackson, 1985), from which the above stats have been extrapolated.

This wraps up our pre-election coverage from Bangkok, Thailand. We hope you enjoyed the show and remember:

"VOTE NO = VOTE BEASTMAN!"

References

Bennie, S. (1990). Old Empires. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, Inc.

Gascoigne, M. (1985). Out of the Pit. London: Puffin Books.

Gascoigne, M. (1988). Battleblade Warrior. London: Puffin Books.

Gascoigne, M., & Tamlyn, P. (1989). Dungeoneer: Advanced Fighting Fantasy. London: Puffin Books.

Green, J. (2006). Bloodbones. Cambridge: Wizard Books.

Green, J. (2009). Stormslayer. Cambridge: Wizard Books.

Jackson, S. (1985). Appointment with F.E.A.R. London: Puffin Books.

Livingstone, I. (1988). Armies of Death. London: Puffin Books.

Martin, K. (1990). Master of Chaos. London: Puffin Books.

Moldvay, T. (1981). Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game: Basic Rulebook. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Hobbies, Inc.

Morris, D., & Johnson, O. (2008). Dragon Warriors Bestiary. London: Magnum Opus Press.

Morris, G., Gallagher, P., & Bambra, J. (1986). Creature Catalogue. Cambridge: TSR UK Ltd.

Wright, A. (2010). The Ascent of Man. Unpublished Fighting Fantazine article.

Metallica versus Gamebooks

2011-06-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

"Writing about music is (as they say) like dancing about architecture."
(Beaumont, 2005)

So there I was wandering through Coop's classic blog post on the influences of the British Old School and I stumbled upon his shout-out to Iron Maiden, king of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Maiden fully deserve a future blog post in their own right, but to me, and particularly my adolescent self back in the mid to late 80's, they were part of the the Big Three M's of Metal, the other two being Motorhead (and I'm not even going to attempt to find a bloody umlaut) and Metallica. Whether I was reading gamebooks, planning D&D adventures, or playing boardgames, all these guys formed the background soundtrack.

When I hit University however, I quickly abandoned Metal in favour of cooler if more obscure indie, alternative and hardcore bands such as Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Rollins Band, Fugazi, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Killdozer, Godflesh, and local stalwarts The Mark of Cain. The sounds were more ferocious, the t-shirts more subtle and yet more disgusting, and there was no bloody spandex to be seen, praise Satan!

Fast forward half a decade and I'm in Vientiane, capital of the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Laos, and discover one of my buddies has all the early Metallica albums (I only consider the first four decent - the Black Album and anything beyond that are just garbage IMHO). To get me through the tedious hedonism of expatriate life in Indochine I compile a 90 minute mix tape of all my favourite Metallica tracks that I used to listen to, back when I was playing gamebooks.

I've still got the tape (still have all my tapes being such a chronic Luddite), and I present its track listing here for your edification, so that if you too were absorbing the sounds of Metallica while battling your way through countless dungeons it may strike a chord of nostalgia. Otherwise, for those who are too old, too young or perhaps too cool, consider it a snapshot of a time fondly remembered but perhaps best forgotten...

The Metallica versus Gamebooks Mix Tape (c90, 1996, Laos)

Side A
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
The Thing That Should Not Be
One
Jump in the Fire
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Orion (instrumental)
Damage Inc.
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth (instrumental)

Side B
Fade To Black
Battery
Master of Puppets
Creeping Death
The Call of Ktulu (instrumental)
To Live Is to Die (edit - first minute only)
The Wait

Possibly the only thing I'd change these days would be to ditch For Whom the Bell Tolls and Pulling Teeth in favour of Metallica's epic cover of Diamond Head's Am I Evil?. Generally however, I feel that's a pretty solid selection of Metallica tunes, with the bulk of the material coming from their most excellent second and third albums, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. Rock and roll!

References

Beaumont, R. (2005, February 27). Fine writing and reasonable force. The Nation, p. 10A.

Return to the Catacombs of the Undercity!

2011-06-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Wow! How long has it been? I'd talk about why it's been a while, but frankly it's just tedious real life nonsense that may be of personal importance but has nothing to do with this blog. It would be good if there was now an improvement in my blogging output, but I start a Masters in August, so there may well be an ongoing struggle between what I want to do, and what I should be doing...

In the meantime, (and how is it my pageview stats have essentially doubled even though I have posted absolutely nothing?) my entry in Tin Man Games "Gamebook Adventures" series, Catacombs of the Undercity, has been accumulating some very promising and awesome reviews (and no, I didn't pay anybody - I'm flat broke!).

Firstly, Tim Harvey gave it 4 out of 5 over at Proxholic, noting:

"In many ways, the gamebook really emphasizes the game aspect, since it's all-in-all a very interactive experience. The book part of the equation is really well-done too, however, with a very well-written story and some interesting and compelling characters."

Tim also notes that the gameplay is:

"An excellent mix of compelling story, branching choices for exploration and replayability, fun RPG elements and lots of random outcomes to keep you on the edge of your seat!"

Secondly, Andy Boxall at iPhoneFreak said that it was the best in the series yet (although Al Sander's The Wizard of Tarnath Tor has since been released to some deservedly fantastic reviews)!

Andy's review went on to say:

"If you’re an experienced role-player, then the thought of battling through dimly lit tunnels will probably appeal, and it certainly did to me! Thanks to the descriptive writing, it’s easy to lose yourself in the story and even without the help of those excellent illustrations – from the same artist who worked on An Assassin in Orlandes – mentally visualizing your world is easy and very rewarding.

I’m not going to bury the lead here, Catacombs of the Undercity is the best entry into the Orlandes series I’ve played yet. It’s exciting, atmospheric and even amusing at times, plus there are plenty more beasties to battle too."

Lastly, Digitally Downloaded gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, saying:

"What makes this gamebook if anything better than Tarnath Tor is the story itself. Within the first passage of the book your character finds himself thrown down a deep, dark well, with no equipment. The goal? To survive and escape. This means the book is a classic dungeon crawl in its truest form, which is incidently a perfect fit for the form.

Given the quality of the story, this is the one of the best gamebooks I’ve ever played."

What can I say, other than I'm really happy that the amount of work I put into planning and writing Catacombs of the Undercity, and all the effort the amazing Tin Man team put into getting it into a publishable format, has been duly recognized!

You can find Catacombs of the Undercity here.

Geography of Allansia

2011-05-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Revised climate map of Titan by Steve Luxton

Althought the title says 'Geography of Allansia' I wanted to briefly talk about Steve Luxton's revised climate map of the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, as shown above. Are there any more changes we need to make to this? Off hand, I can think of only three small alterations:

The X that marks the sunken ruins of the city of Atlantis needs to be moved down to perhaps just above the Warm Temperate dotted line.
Below this, the Bird Islands, Fish Island, Skull Island and the Blood Islands need to resemble their counterparts on the original Titan map.
As Simon Osborne mentioned previously in the comments, where is Bone Island from Bloodbones? Does anybody have any idea?

Rough map of Allansia by Steve Luxton

Moving on to the classic Fighting Fantasy continent of Allansia, Steve has created and kindly shared this map based on the original from Titan. How can we improve it and what needs to be added to or changed?

A few of my suggestions:

Do we need to include the northern portion of the continent, which is quite large and basically frozen wasteland?
Do we include details for Bjorngrim's Sea based on Simon Osborne's revised map for Jonathan Green's unpublished Saga of the Stormchaser?
I think the Flatlands label needs to be spread out over the grasslands that stretch to the Sea of Pearls coastline, to better indicate the extent of this vast steppes region.
Agra, the top city on the left-hand coast of the Glimmering Sea, needs to be moved downwards in line with the map from The Riddling Reaver, which was published first and has precedence.
We could probably add detail from Battleblade Warrior, as that is a relatively blank area of the above map.
Likewise, we could add some of the settlements from Night Dragon to the Dragon Reaches region.

There you have it! What does everybody else think?

Pomp and Ceremony

2011-05-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

The royal coach of Lord Azzur
by Iain McCaig (from Livingstone, 1983)

We were given Friday afternoon off early at my workplace, so we could all go home and witness The Wedding. As a result I spent Friday afternoon sitting on the sofa watching the TV with my daughter, fielding a variety of questions concerning royalty and ceremony. Although a 'small r' republican from the Antipodes, I found myself rather guiltily enjoying the whole spectacle, and was struck by two things.

Firstly, horse-drawn carriages and coaches! How cool do they look? (Especially compared to the fleet of tacky sponsored minivans that followed them into the palace grounds.) This brought to mind the royal coach of Lord Azzur that attempts to run you down as you wander the streets of Port Blacksand in City of Thieves (Livingstone, 1983). Iain McCaig's picture of the ornate golden vehicle inspired four further thoughts:

Being covered and enclosed means surely it's a coach and not a carriage, which is what it is described as in the text.
The two horses are either mutants with extra pairs of legs, or Iain McCaig was drawing them (a bit unconvincingly I feel) in motion.
If you are foolish and unlucky enough to be trampled by the horses, the book tells you "the carriage races out of view and you set off west again, hoping that you will have another opportunity to meet the infamous Lord Azzur" (Livingstone, 1983, ref#155), which is a premise that sadly was never acted upon.

If Lord Azzur ever married anybody, it would have to be the Serpent Queen!

Secondly, all the glittering pageantry brought to mind Iain Banks' (1998) excellent Culture science-fiction novel Inversions. Inversions contains the two intertwined yet separate narratives of a bodyguard and a doctor (both alien Special Circumstances agents) who have infiltrated a medieval-tech world recovering from a recent cataclysmic disaster. The alien doctor's tale is especially interesting as she presents herself as an antipodean exile from the distant (but still in-planet) land of Drezen, engaged in the service of King Quience of Haspide. Drezen, we learn from no less an authority than Quience himself, is "where their brains seem to suffer from being upside-down all the time. Obviously all is topsy-turvy there, and the women think it fit to tell their lords and masters what is what" (Banks, 1998, p. 162).

The quote I wanted to mention however, is the following one, and it is something I always try to keep in mind when forced to endure or enjoy spectacles such as The Wedding:

Our return to Haspide was accomplished with all the usual pomp and ceremony. There were feasts and ceremonies and investitures and triumphal parades through newly built gates and dignified processions under specially commissioned arches and long speeches by self-important officials and elaborate gift-givings and formal conferments of old and new awards and titles and decorations and any manner of other business, all of it wearying but all of it, I was assured by the Doctor, (somewhat to my surprise), necessary in the sense that this sort of participatory ritual and use of shared symbols helped to cement our society together. If anything, the Doctor said, Drezen could have done with more of this sort of thing.

(Banks, 1998, p.302, bold emphasis by me)

References

Banks, I. (1998). Inversions. London: Orbit.

Livingstone, I. (1983). City of Thieves. London: Puffin Books.

Beyond the Mountains of Magnatz

2011-04-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Cugel at last extracted several gold coins from the landlord together with a parcel of bread, cheese and wine. The landlord came to the door and pointed. ‘There is but a single trail, that leading south. The Mountains of Magnatz rise before you. Farewell.’

Not without foreboding, Cugel set off to the south. For a space the trail led past the tillage of local peasants; then as the foothills bulked to either side the trail became first a track, then a trace winding along a dry riverbed beside thickets of prickle-bush, spurge, yarrow, asphodel. Along the crest of the hill paralleling the trail grew a tangle of stunted oak, and Cugel, thinking to improve his chances for going unobserved, climbed the ridge and continued in the shelter of the foliage.

The air was clear, the sky a brilliant dark blue. The sun wallowed up to the zenith and Cugel bethought himself of the food he carried in his pouch. He seated himself, but as he did so the motion of a skipping dark shadow caught his eye. His blood chilled. The creature surely meant to leap upon his back.

Cugel pretended not to notice, and presently the shadow moved forward again: a deodand, taller and heavier than himself, black as midnight except for shining white eyes, white teeth and claws, wearing scraps of leather to support a green velvet shirt…

(Vance, 1966, p. 67)

A shade over ten years ago Pelgrane Press published the Dying Earth Roleplaying Game by Robin Laws, John Snead and Peter Freeman. This was based on the Dying Earth sequence of novels by famed author Jack Vance, featuring a setting so far into the future that it effectively becomes a fantastical past. The role-playing game was followed by a wealth of supplements, of which my top three picks would be the Compendium of Universal Knowledge, the Kaiin Player’s Guide, and the Scaum Valley Gazetteer. When the game license expired two years ago there was a pre-expiry glut of orders for both digital and physical copies of the game by enthusiasts, myself included. Part of this I suspect is that while I may never run the actual game in session, its various supplements make for enjoyable reading for any fan of the Jack Vance canon and the Dying Earth in particular.

Which brings us to now. Pelgrane Press have reacquired the license and reopened the vaults to their Dying Earth stock. Better still, we have a new publication: Beyond the Mountains of Magnatz by Ian Thomson (who I once sketched some Dying Earth monsters for, a long time ago in a galaxy far away). It’s the latest in his sequence of Dying Earth scenarios entitled ‘In the Footsteps of Fools’, and is a 97 page PDF packed with gaming goodness, including:

Magnatz! The eponymous entity of said mountains.
Various encounters with bestial half-men, friendly or otherwise.
The noted sorcerer Pharesm.
The Basilisk-haunted Vale of Dharad.
Gazetteers to the village of Vull and the city of Mar.

It’s great to see the series back in action and I for one will be purchasing any new release to add to my expanding stash of Dying Earth lore. I bought my copy of Beyond the Mountains of Magnatz here.

References

Vance, J. (1966). The Eyes of the Overworld. USA: Ace Books Inc.

Gone fishin'...

2011-04-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Astral Shark

I apologize for the complete lack of recent updates - I've been alternating between bouts of study, watching late night Champions League games, and a holiday down at the beach [not to mention an absolutely useless broadband connection for the past four weeks]. It hasn't been completely wasted though, as I did take Family Fantasy Game Book to the local Rayong Aquarium where we got to see all kinds of cool stuff! What follows is a brief look at some of the denizens of the deep we encountered, along with a batch of Advanced Fighting Fantasy stats for the gaming purists among you. After this, more maps by Steve Luxton and discussion on Titan geography to follow...

First up, my favourite, the Crocodile Needlefish (Tylosurus crocodilus)!

CROCODILE NEEDLEFISH [SKILL 6 STAMINA 6, Large bite]

Nearly two meteres long and capable of launching themselves through the air to impale unlucky fishermen (Test for Luck to avoid), CROCODILE NEEDLEFISH appear superficially similar to Barracudas but are actually more closely related to the edible Garfish. A menace to all who trawl the equatorial waters of Titan!

The Pharaoh Cuttlefish (Sepia pharonis) is perhaps not as big as some of its relatives, but for Titan purposes we can always extrapolate!

GIANT CUTTLEFISH [SKILL 9 STAMINA 10, Small claw or Large bite, 4 Attacks]

As well as their more mundane capabilities, the blinding colour changes of the GIANT CUTTLEFISH function as a Sleep spell for those unfortunate enough to view it underwater! These enormous cephalopods grow to three metres in length and are among the most intelligent of their kind.

Moray Eels are snake-like reef-dwelling fish that grow up to four metres long!

MORAY EEL [SKILL 7 STAMINA 12, Large bite, (from Jackson, 1986, ref#98)]

MORAY EELS live among rocks and coral in tropical marine waters and will defend their territory aggressively with a mouth full of large needle-like teeth. Their flesh is poisonous to eat. Giant Moral Eels have been reported from the vicinity of Solani Island off the southern coast of Allansia.

Biggest of the reef fish are the enormous Groupers - huge predators that grow to three metres long and weigh over 600 kilograms!

GROUPER [SKILL 8 STAMINA 12, Large Bite, (from Jackson, 1986, ref#119)]

Despite their size, GROUPERS prefer easy prey and if they are hit twice in succession in two Attack Rounds they will usually try and Escape. However, if they roll a double 6 when calculating their Attack Strength then they have swallowed their victim, who will then take 2 STAMINA points damage per Attack Round until they are dead or they have cut themselves free.

All photos by me!

References

Jackson, S. (1986). Demons of the Deep. London: Puffin Books

Geography of Titan (Part 3)

2011-04-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

This has to be the coolest map of Titan I have ever seen (thanks Steve)! Click on it to see the big version - it really is a work of art!

A new climate map of Titan by Steve Luxton.

It's similar to the very rough climate map I made for part two of this discussion, but obviously Steve has put a lot more thought into deciding why and how the oceanic currents and atmospheric conditions actually work. Everything on it looks good and I've just got a few tentative minor issues as follows:

Atlantis (the dot on the north-western edge of the map), should be closer to Fish Island and Skull Island on the equatorial eastern edge of the map. The events of Demons of the Deep reveal that these locations are fairly close together. Also, for the final map, we have to remember to change Atlantis to a cross, not a dot, as it is a sunken city not an island (which it looks like now).
I like the Hotspot Anomaly of Allansia centred around the Desert of Skulls. Do we have anything from Fighting Fantasy canon that can confirm the Caarth snakemen are engaged in sorcery to expand the desert? I just had a look in Titan but couldn't find anything relevant.
The Hotspot Anomaly of Khul is obviously the Wastes of Chaos and the Twin Sun Desert. Case closed?
Can we reverse the currents on the east coast of Khul? This area is relatively cooler than the lands to the west (and so is the Arrowhead Archipelago). As these currents then come down from the equator they could bring warm water to the tropical northern parts of the Isles of the Dawn.
The south-eastern coast of the Inland Sea could be a shade warmer, as that's where the jungles beyond the city-states of Marad and Shurrupak lie...

What else can we add? Are there any other suggestions?

Part one of the discussion on the geography of Titan can be found here, and part two is here.

Geography of Titan (Part 2)

2011-03-31T01:11:00.000-07:00

[Part 1 is here]

Steve Luxton has now emailed me a revised map of the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan for discussion and review. I've attached it to this post below as Figure 1.

Figure 1. Revised global map of Titan by Steve Luxton.

As you can see, Titan finally has an equator and a scale! I have a few minor issues/notes with it, which you can see in Figure 2 below as possible corrections.

Figure 2. Things to check: Blood Island, the Arrowhead Archipelago,
and Tura, southernmost Island of the Dawn.

Issues to be addressed on the revised map:

We really need to sort out correct shapes for the three continents, starting with either Allansia or Khul. Allansia needs to be somewhat broader for instance, to allow for the rolling expanse of the Flatlands.
I'm not sure what the tiny island is, far to the west of Allansia. If it is Blood Island from Trial of Champions then it needs to be much closer to the Allansian mainland.
Some of the topmost islands that form the 'point' of the Arrowhead Archipelago appear to have been cropped off.
We're missing Tura, the entire southern-most Island of the Dawn. Tura can be seen here. Incidentally, do we have any idea what the climate of Tura may be like? Warren mentioned Hokkaido as a point of comparison, which seems as good an idea as any.

What thoughts do other people have about this revised map?

In addition, I did a rough mock-up of a climate map for Steve's revised version. This is Figure 3 - as per before, blue = polar regions, green = temperate regions, and orange = subtropical and tropical regions.

Figure 3. A revised idea of Titan's climate. Better, perhaps?

Again, it's not an exact map, but what do people think of this new climate interpretation of Titan?

You know the drill. Hit us with your ideas, thoughts and opinions. What works and what doesn't. After we've nailed this one down, we could probably then start looking at the individual continents themselves.

Tales from the Catacombs...

2011-03-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

There's slowly been some feedback filtering downwards to my lair concerning Catacombs of the Undercity, my adventure for Tin Man Games' line of Gamebook Adventures for the various iDevices. Firstly, it's got nothing less than 5 star reviews at iTunes! Yay!

Secondly, this awesome review was posted as a comment to the Tin Man website:

This release got me into your games, thanks! I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve played through to various bad ends more than a few times, and died countless times before even crossing the river… and I’m still finding new things to explore, and there are a few more achievements to pick up. The “roll three ones” one took the sting out of a nasty roll, and it’s been fun seeing which ones I get whilst exploring.

I also bought 2 & 3, which look awesome from the brief time I’ve spent on them. I am very happy with them all, except for the way they’ve filled my iPhone’s gamebooks folder and wrecked my beautiful organisational scheme. I guess I’ll just have to buy the rest when 6 comes out, to tidy things up.

So far, though, 5 (and perhaps the others) are among my favourite classic-style gamebooks. I can’t possibly compare them to Fabled Lands, as it’s a different style of game entirely, and Lone Wolf has the ongoing saga aspect with its pluses and (mostly, to me) minuses, but they’re better than every Fighting Fantasy game I’ve played, and my school used to have a shelf full of them. Keep up the excellent work!

Thirdly, Warren had a bash on the iPod Touch, and said:

I spent a couple of hours of unadulterated pleasure playing this last night, the perfect salve for a cold! I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the gameplay. I usually don't play gamebooks by the rules, but it was strangely liberating being made to, and not being able to flick back to the previous paragraph continuously (helped of course by knowing that you're not the sort of author who kills people for choosing one random option over another).

As for the dice, I loved them. I know it's just random number generation, but having dice on the screen made it seem less random than 'you lose/win'. And it seems to me, although I need to play a lot more to be sure, that the Tin Man system makes the most of random rolls, with players getting more random rolls the higher their stats are, so that the randomness comes down as you get better.

Looking forward to playing more. I have to work out how to power up without losing all my health and money...

Finally, a friend in Bangkok now has it on their iPod Touch, so I'll get to see my own adventure, plus all the hard work that Tin Man Games have put in, when I hang out with them at the pub tomorrow. The Undercity beckons...

[Remember, if you get stuck in the Catacombs and need some spoilers - let me know, and I'll dig out my flowcharts and see if I can help you out!]

Ian Livingstone in Bangkok!

2011-03-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Ian Livingstone
(from Digiplay, 2011a).

I’m gutted. Ian Livingstone, co-creator of Fighting Fantasy, former editor of White Dwarf, and ex-mastermind behind Games Workshop, was in Bangkok on Friday to give the keynote speech ("Capitalizing on Great Ideas: from Games Workshop to Tomb Raider", Digiplay, 2011b), at the opening of “DigiPlay: Thai-UK Digital Festival” and I had no idea. DigiPlay, held at the Thailand Creative and Design Centre until May 1 (so I can still visit at least!), is part exhibition, part trade-show, showcasing UK and Thai companies involved in game design and digital entertainment. Perhaps I should buy an iPad and get down there with Catacombs of the Undercity…

Anyway, local newspaper The Nation has reported on the opening though it doesn’t make clear whether the pull-quotes in the article from Ian Livingstone were delivered as part of his speech or an interview afterwards. Regardless, I’ll reproduce here all the comments by Ian Livingstone as follows:

DigiPlay! (from Mudlark, 2011).

“The global revenue of games sales today – both online and offline – is about US$50 billion a year – bigger than the box office, DVD, book and music industries combined. Young and old, male and female, enjoy the experience. It’s mass market entertainment industry.”

“Gaming has moved from a niche market to mainstream entertainment with many platforms available today from PCs, consoles, handheld devices, smartphones and online portals. It’s no longer necessary to have a huge team to produce a game, a small team can reach global audiences. The days are gone where you sell a limited number of games for high prices; today you can sell to millions of people for a very small price.”

“The success of Angry Birds lies in its elegant way of operation – using a touch screen device in a satisfying and simple way. It’s easy to play and deals with an emotional response and the human spirit. It generates gameplay that makes you want to play again and again. Just one more time to reach achievement – feeling yes, I can make it!”

“Among three things – gameplay, technology, and graphics, the most important thing to me is gameplay, that’s the value of replay. Satisfaction is playing the game, not looking at it.”

Online games [are the next big things]. People need a game that’s enjoyed together with friends and family rather than one that’s won as a solo experience. Rising penetration of broadband and fast processor PCs, those can make things happen. Farmville on Facebook is a great game. It promotes gameplay and is a kind of social engagement too.”

“The opportunity is open to all. Angry Birds was conceived by a small team. Thai creators are equally as capable. The game character and content should be global. It’s important to lead people to think about good things in your game like problem solving or brain training, not violence.”

(all from Pholdhampalit, 2011, p. 1B, bold emphasis by me)

Ian Livingstone interviewed in Bangkok (from Tiwa, 2011)

It’s an interesting article, and I certainly intend to visit the exhibition, but I’ve highlighted three things that stood out for me:

Replay value: Ian Livingstone’s obviously learned his lessons from Crypt of the Sorcerer or Armies of Death.

Family enjoyment beats solo experience: Fighting Fantasy strike one!

No violence: Fighting Fantasy strike two!

Of course, we’ve been here before. Back when the 25^th Anniversary Edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was released, we were told:

In 2005 the first brand-new [Fighting Fantasy] book for ten years was published. Written by Ian [Livingstone] Eye of the Dragon played on the strengths of the original series while at the same time reflecting Ian’s experience gained over fifteen years in the world of computer and video games.

(Jackson & Livingstone, 2007, p. 206, bold emphasis by me)

Anyone who thinks the above paragraph is true should consult the following reviews of Eye of the Dragon:

I've reached a saddening conclusion: despite being one of the pioneers of interactive fiction, Ian Livingstone isn't and never has been that good at writing it. I won't deny I enjoy Forest of Doom and Deathtrap Dungeon on one level, but I first read them when I was nine and expected less from books back then. Not to mention I have fond childhood memories now. Caverns of the Snow Witch and Island of the Lizard King aren't bad gamebooks, but "bland" sums them up accurately. Unlike the Golden Dragon book of the same name, which was one of the best entries in its all too short series, Eye of the Dragon is an Ian Livingstone book of the absolute worst kind. I'm not familiar with the short adventure from Dicing with Dragons this book is adapted from, but if it's anything like this, Ian should've left it alone.

I've never particularly enjoyed dungeon crawls and this book reminds me of the worst reasons why. You wander from room to room, fighting a bevy of random and frustratingly bland monsters, finding a bunch of annoying vague items where every single one is as likely to curse you as save your butt, and constantly face the soul-shattering decision of whether to choose the boring left passage or the boring right passage. And just why is there someone operating a general store in this isolated, monster-infested dungeon? If you were going to let the player buy supplies, fine, but why couldn't it have been before he got to the dungeon? The way it's done is almost [parody-like].

Besides the genius who makes a living from a shop in a hidden dungeon, what are such a random collection of creatures as a BLACK DRAGON, MASTER SWORDSMAN and even a boss monster stolen wholecloth from the underrated House of Hell -- right down to the only weapon that can hurt him -- doing in this isolated dungeon? If it were some madman's idea of a trial of champions that'd be one thing, but it's just a collection of stone rooms hidden beneath the forest floor.

Even if you're willing to put up with all this and a sidekick named Littlebig, all you've got to look forward to is a climactic battle with a dull villain and an ending full-on as lame as the one in Crypt of the Sorcerer. While I'm grateful to Ian for the fact that Fighting Fantasy exists, this book proves that if anything his powers have only dulled with age. Let's hope if Ian contributes another book to the new line it's at least something he's buckled down and done from scratch.

(Fireguard, 2009)

And here:

Nothing is better than the brilliant choices, the awesome plot and the wonderful writing and imagination that pour forth from this book.

Choosing [repetitively] between the right passage and the left passage, without knowing anything about either is what makes Fighting Fantasy books so awesome, so let's do it twenty times in a book. And other brilliant choices like when you see a plain treasure chest in the room, do you open it or leave?! It took me centuries to decide if I should open the unguarded treasure filled chest, or walk off. Other brilliant choices include deciding whether to throw 1 gold coin into a non functioning wishing well, staring into a mirror with a 50 foot IT'S A TRAP sign, and choosing whether to open the door. AGAIN.

This is deeply engaging book, and I could feel every brain cell in my head being put into full use, especially when I met other humans, and I was confronted with the thrilling attack for no reason-talk-leave choice AGAIN. WHOMG!

And the challenges you go up against are so imaginative, you’d think they were divinely inspired. I mean you will know true fear when you face the likes of a GOBLIN, a GIANT SPIDER or even an EVIL WIZARD.

And MAN the plot and writing of this book are brilliant. Some dude has found some stature in the bottom of a dungeon in Darkwood forest. The statue is worth 335,000 gp, because people in Titan like to pay large amounts of gold for crap. And naturally, rather than sell the statue and retire in luxury, the old owner decided to put in a dungeon and somehow fill it with monsters and obvious traps. No one would think to look in there!

And naturally when some guy asks you to drink slow acting poison that will kill you in two weeks, you see no problem at all with doing so. But all though he intends to screw you, he was at least courteous enough to switch his poison with grape juice, ruining his brilliant evil plan.

And of course, although you’ve been warned that touching the statue without the two emeralds will result in your death, if you reach the statue with one emerald, instead of looking down one of the exciting right/left passages, you touch anyway. SMART.

Those of you with one or more brain cells may have figured out this is something of a joke review.

Humour aside, this is a merit-less piece of crap. If anyone but Ian Livingstone or Steve Jackson had submitted this crap to Wizard Books, they'd have burnt it into little cinders.

It really is nothing more than a bunch of poorly thought out clichés meshed together. The choices are every bit as inane and stupid as I have made out, and there is nothing of any merit here. If Wizard Books publish any more new adventures, I seriously pray they're better than this.

(Paul T., 2005)

Fighting Fantasy strike three!

Of course, the moral to this story is that you can give someone an OBE or make someone Life President of Eidos, but it still doesn’t mean that they know what they’re talking about, or understand what made their initial venture so wildly successful. Therefore, as Ian himself says, the opportunity is still open to all.

If you want to read an online version of the news article, you can do so here.

References

Digiplay Thai-UK Digital Festival. (2011a). Feature Designers. Accessed from http://www.thaiukdigital.com/feature

Digiplay Thai-UK Digital Festival. (2011b). Seminars. Accessed from http://www.thaiukdigital.com/seminar

Fireguard. (2009, May 20). Fireguard’s thoughts on Eye of the Dragon. Review posted to http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=1988

Jackson, S. & Livingstone, I. (2007). The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: 25^th Anniversary Edition. Cambridge: Wizard Books.

Mudlark. (2011). Digi-Play (Bangkok). Image accessed at http://www.wearemudlark.com/projects/digi-play/

Paul T. (2005, May 3). Paul T.’s thoughts on Eye of the Dragon. Review posted to

http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=1988

Pholdhampalit, K. (2011, March 27). Gaming’s golden age. The Nation, p. 1B.

Tiwa. (2011, March 25). “w/ Ian Livingstone, tomb raider producer @tcdcconnect Digiplay exhibit launch”. Photo posted to http://yfrog.com/h8x9csj

The Geography of Titan!

2011-03-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

Titan - the Fighting Fantasy world!

Steve Luxton, original cartographer for the sourcebook Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World (Gascoigne, 1986), recently got in touch with the gang at Titan_Rebuilding. He's looking at redrawing the original maps of Titan and its various continents for Arion Games upcoming release of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy rules system. Steve wants to know what improvements can be made to the Fighting Fantasy maps to make them more accurate and remove or reduce the errors that crept into the original designs. This blog post has two functions then:

To highlight the errors and inconsistencies in the original maps from Titan.
To serve as a forum, via the comments section, where YOU state your opinion as to what should change and what should stay the same, and also to add any spotted errors that may have been missed.

For this post, we're just looking at the big map of Titan (see Figure 1), and from what I can see, most potential changes can be grouped under three main categories.

Figure 1: The World of Titan, by Steve Luxton (from Gascoigne, 1986).

1. The Shape of the Continents.

In the bad old days before Photoshop, the nearest equivalent you had to resizing images and placing them in a new image was the office photocopier. This may explain why the shapes and sizes of the various continents on the big map of Titan differ radically from their appearance in their individuals maps. Figure 2 shows the map of Titan with the individual shapes of the continents superimposed over the top.

Figure 2. The continents of Titan. Actual shape of continents as coloured overlay.

Two further points follow on from this.

a) Priorities. If we want to make an accurate map of Titan, we need an accurate map of each of the three continents developed first, so we can then downsize them and insert them into the main map. Unfortunately this goes against Steve's idea of sorting the main map out first, and then letting the rest follow on from there.

b) Scale. Accurate map scales are rubbish in the world of Titan. This is easily established, thanks to Warren M., by looking at the map of Khul the Dark Continent in Figure 3. The distance between the towns of Willowbend and Fenmarge takes one day to travel through in Scorpion Swamp (Jackson, 1984), and yet a similar distance in the Inland Sea make take a week or more of sailing in Seas of Blood (Chapman, 1986). Ironically, the scale looks a bit better on the otherwise incorrect Titan map, where the Inland Sea is larger, than the individual map of Khul.

Figure 3. Khul, the Dark Continent, by Steve Luxton (from Gascoigne, 1986).

2. The Climate of Titan.

Another problem area! Figure 4 shows an expected climate map of Titan, with a central tropical equatorial orange band, bordered by two green bands of more temperate climates, and surmounted by icy polar regions in blue, at the north and south poles.

Figure 4. The expected climate of Titan (blue: polar, green: temperate, orange: tropical).

Unfortunately, this isn't what we find when we look at both the original map of Titan and what we read about in the various gamebooks themselves. Figure 5 shows a simplified look at Titan's unusual climate where we have a narrow northern temperate band followed by a broad tropical climate area, followed by more temperate regions (in Khul), then more tropics in southern Khul, then the southern polar area! Just what is going on and what solution can we come up with?

Figure 5. The actual climate of Titan (blue: polar, green: temperate, orange: tropical).

Given that the climate weirdness of Titan is due in part to the tropical areas of southern Khul, perhaps one approach would be to invert Khul so that its tropical region lies within the main equatorial band. Figure 6 shows this, with Khul effectively becoming an upside down continent in the southern hemisphere. The problem here of course is that it disregards 25 years of established Fighting Fantasy canon.

Figure 6. Climate solution #1: Flip Khul upside down! [a.k.a "Australian Solution"]

A better approach may be simply accept the fact that Titan's climate is highly irregular and heavily messed-up. This could be due to any of the following:

The War of the Wizards, and the creation of the Wastes of Chaos in central Khul.
A lingering tectonic/magnetic anomaly caused by the Splitting of the Lands following the sinking of Atlantis.
Problems stemming from the original First Battle of the Gods, and the release of Chronada the God of Time into the atmosphere of the planet Titan.
A combination of all of the above three theories!

Figure 7. Climate solution #2: The unexplained Khulian anomaly!

What it gives us is Figure 7. This map looks almost normal, were it not for the strange temperate region of most of Khul, otherwise surrounded by equatorial tropics. Perhaps the Wastes of Chaos are somehow responsible after all...

3. The Lost Lands of Titan.

There has been a considerable amount of geological and tectonic upheaval on the planet of Titan. It would be nice to see a few references this on the main map of the world, especially since their locations will not be covered by any of the individual maps of the continents. Figure 8 shows us the location of two of Titan's major lost land-masses: Atlantis and Vangoria.

Figure 8. The lost lands of Titan (Atlantis: orange, Vangoria: green).

a) Atlantis. The sinking of Atlantis caused the cataclysm that split the great continent of Irritaria into the three lands of Allansia, Khul, and the Old World. Although its final resting place has never been shown, we know from Demons of the Deep (Jackson, 1986) that the sunken capital of Atlantis lies near Fish Island and Skull Island in the Western Ocean. Figure 8 therefore demonstrates a potential location to mark it on the map of Titan. Of course, the whole island of Atlantis does not need to be marked. Perhaps instead we could just have a cross that says "Sunken City of Atlantis" or something similar.

Figure 9. The land of Vangoria,
(artist unknown, from Jackson, 1993).

b) Vangoria. The continent of Vangoria, and its connection to the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, is a little more obscure. Vangoria was the world of Steve Jackson's collectible card game BattleCards, and Figure 9 depicts it in all its glory. An immediate link to Titan can be seen here - the Eelsea of Vangoria's eastern coast matches the Eelsea of the Old World's western coast (other links can be found here). Hence the decision in Figure 8 to place the sunken continent of Vangoria in the northern waters between the Old World and Allansia.

Obviously Vangoria was another product of the Splitting of Irritaria and existed for several centuries in the obscure period immediately following that cataclysm. However, a secondary tectonic disaster (perhaps caused by the magical wars of succession described in and by the BattleCards game itself), caused Vangoria, like Atlantis before it, to sink beneath the waves, leaving us just a few scattered islands (Dolphin Island, Compass Island, and the Cragspider archipelago) to mark its passing. One could also make the argument that survivors from Vangoria made it to both the Island of Scars and its neighbouring Isle of Despair to account for the diverse populations supported by these otherwise highly isolated places.

Given that it is much more obscure than Atlantis, if we want to record its presence on the main map of Titan, we probably would look for a dotted outline of the continent and labelled "Lost Land of Vangoria".

c) Islands of Titans. Offhand, I can't think of any other issues with the island and other lands of Titan (apart from Allansia, Khul, and the Old World, which will merit separate posts). A few small things would be to finally label the Isle of Despair (alongside the Island of Scars), and perhaps also Stayng Island (the eastern-most islet in the Arrowhead Archipelago), but that's about it. There are other islands mentioned in Demons of the Deep (Jackson, 1986), but given their size and location it's probable they make up the Blood Islands group.

Phew! That's it from me. What do YOU thing needs changing (or not)?

References

Chapman, A. (1985). Seas of Blood. London: Puffin Books.

Gascoigne, M. (1986). Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World. London: Puffin Books.

Jackson, S. (1984). Scorpion Swamp. London: Puffin Books.

Jackson, S. (1986). Demons of the Deep. London: Puffin Books.

Jackson, S. (1993). BattleCards. San Diego, California: Merlin Publishing International.

Tekumel versus Dr. Seuss!

2011-03-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

The Vipper of Vipp -
obscure Tekumel satrap?
(from Seuss & Geisel, 1975).

A while back Dave Morris recommended grabbing a PDF copy of the original Empire of the Petal Throne RPG setting. I’ve always been intrigued by Professor M.A.R. Barker’s world of Tekumel, where Empire of the Petal Throne is set, since reading about it in What is Dungeons & Dragons?, where it was introduced as:

set in the far future, but in a fantasy setting as civilization has degenerated, after a cataclysm, into near barbarism. Metal is extremely scarce, tough animal hides being used for weapons and armour. Even so, there remain some vestiges of the old technology, in the form of various ‘eyes’ or artifacts with powers which the people of the new Tekumel regard as magical. At the beginning of the rulebook there is a very extensive exposition of Tekumel’s history and society. Although the dominant race is humanity, there are a number of excellently conceived monsters, some the descendents of starfaring alien races, some originally native to the planet.

(Butterfield, Parker & Honigmann, 1982, p. 158)

So, I finally snapped up a copy of the PDF and it’s an interesting read, both as concerning the world of Tekumel and as a snapshot of RPG gaming from the mid-seventies (when I was, let’s face it, two or three years old)! One bonus as far as I’m concerned is a short primer on the Tsolyani script (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. An example of the Tsolyani script (from Barker, 1975).

Looking at this, I was immediately put in mind of Dr Seuss, and his children’s book classic, On Beyond Zebra (1955), which features a fictitious alphabet used to describe a series of bizarre and imaginary creatures:

In the places I go there are things that I see

That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.

I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends.

My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!

(Seuss, 1955, p. 7, see Figure 2 (emphasis is mine))

Figure 2. "My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!" (from Seuss, 1955).

Seuss takes this a step further in a later book, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973). Here we have a linguist’s worst-case nightmare scenario:

And how fortunate you’re not Professor de Breeze

who has spent the past thirty-two years, if you please,

trying to teach Irish ducks how to read Jivvanese.

(Seuss & Geisel, 1973, p. 30)

Figure 3. Irish ducks and Jivvanese (from Seuss & Geisel, 1973).

While instructing waterfowl in the art of reading obscure languages may seem foolish, it is made even more tricky by the fact that Jivvanese is a highly complicated series of obtuse and idiosyncratic pictograms with no apparent key or method of deciphering their meaning (see Figure 3). Nothing like the relatively structured and phonetic approach of Tsolyani then, despite superficial similarities in the intricacies of their swirling and nebulous letters. The take-home message from this post therefore, is that if you want a cool script for your RPG gaming, grab some Dr Seuss!

References

Barker, M.A.R. (1975). Empire of the Petal Throne. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: Tactical Studies Rules.

Butterfield, J., Parker, P. & Honigmann, D. (1982). What is Dungeons and Dragons? London: Puffin Books.

Seuss, Dr. (1955). On Beyond Zebra. New York: Random House.

Seuss, Dr. & Geisel, A. S. (1973). Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? New York: Random House.

Seuss, Dr. & Geisel, A. S. (1975). Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! New York: Random House.

Cartwright the Creepy

2011-03-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

The Beast!

Short post for now. I’d looked before at the artwork of Stephen Cartwright in the children’s book Dragons (Rawson, 1979), and its early influence on my appreciation for the worlds of fantasy here. There are five more books in the same series that I plan on talking about in the future, each with Cartwright’s humorous and idiosyncratic watercolor artwork. However, while ransacking the library at work for books to stock my classroom, I came upon another volume illustrated by him and thought I’d shared some of the pictures with you. Interestingly, although I was aware of some of Cartwright's other work (Roxbee Cox, 2004), I'd never seen this book before.

The Usborne Book of Creepy Poems (Emery & Cartwright, 1990) features an anthology of disturbing poetry, although disappointingly given the subject matter, a lot of Cartwright’s art is a little mundane. There are however a few wonderful gems, where both the poem and the accompanying image form a satisfyingly gruesome blend.

First up we have the Beast, from Tell Me It Isn’t by Trevor Millum, which you can see at the top of this blog. I really like this creature – colour, pose and expression are all simple but very effective:

Tell me – the movement I saw

Behind the door…

It wasn’t a paw

It wasn’t a claw

It wasn’t the Beast

About to roar

And pounce and gnaw – WAS IT??

(Emery & Cartwright, 1990, p. 2)

The Mary Celeste...

Next is Mary Celeste by Stanley Cook. Cartwright’s picture is gloomily evocative, based of course on a true story, but the poem itself isn’t up to much snuff:

On the Atlantic Ocean

The light winds blow

And the abandoned ship

Tacks crazily to and fro.

(p. 6)

The Dusk Jockey rides again!

Then we meet my second-most favourite, Dusk Jockey by Vernon Scanell, a ghoulish combination of DJ and nightmare. The picture is awesome, particularly the look of determination on the face of the Dusk Jockey's steed. This one concludes with:

And then I’ve got to go, before the blind

Of total night comes down. But don’t believe I’m through:

Dusk is the time I find most work to do.

I’ve got to groom my mount while there’s still light;

I’ll ride my mare into your sleep tonight.

(pp. 22-23)

Beware the Thing behind you!

The final poem in the book features a nameless thing in It’s Behind You by David Harmer, which would be more amusing if it weren’t for the rather disturbing image of a boy having his head torn from his shoulders by what looks like a giant green lizard. The final stanza:

Oh what a shame!

I thought you’d make it

To the door. Hard luck.

I still think it means no harm

I expect it bites all its friends.

(p. 31)

March of the Zombies! (from Dusk Jockey)

References

Emery, H. & Cartwright, S. (1990). The Usborne Book of Creepy Poems. London: Usborne Publishing.

Rawson, C. (1979). Dragons. London: Usborne Publishing.

Roxbee Cox, P. (2004, February 21). Obituary: Steven Cartwright. Accessed fromhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/feb/21/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

The Giant Turtle from the Lake of the Restored Sword

2011-03-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

Hoan Kiem giant turtle
(from Tran Van Minh, 2011).

The big news over here in Indochina is that the giant turtle of Hoan Kiem Lake in central Hanoi has resurfaced looking somewhat the worse for wear. If you're unfamiliar with this seriously cool but critically endangered chelonian, consider it the Vietnamese equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Unlike Nessie however, the Hoan Kiem turtle is definitely real, and instead of dwelling in some long, deep, mist-shrouded Scottish loch, this poor beast lives in a small, shallow, rather polluted lake smack bang in the middle of the Vietnamese capital's downtown/old city area. On a personal level, I've actually spent a not inconsiderable amount of time hanging out in nifty coffeeshops and pubs overlooking this lake, while staying in Hanoi with friends, and never once realised that those placid green waters contained a turtle of truly epic proportions.

The Turtle Pagoda in Hoan Kiem Lake,
downtown Hanoi (from Tran Van Minh, 2011).

The actual species of turtle is uncertain - some claim it is the Giant Chinese softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), others that it represents a new species (Rafetus leloii) (e.g. see Heinselman, 2000; Coleman & Huyghe, 2003, pp. 181-183; Naish, 2007; Zeller, 2007). What distinguishes it from other softshell turtles is its size - this specimen is around 1.8m long, 1.2m wide, and weights 200kg. There appears to be only one of these giant turtles living in the lake, though a stuffed specimen does exist in the Ngoc Son temple on an island by the northern lakeside.

Hoan Kiem giant turtle (the huge brown-green circular thing!),
from Heinselman (2000).

Both the turtle and the lake are important to Vietnamese history. In the mid 15th century AD, King Le Loii was boating in the lake when a giant golden turtle rose from the water and grabbed his magic sword, that he had previously used to repel a Chinese invasion. The turtle was apparently returning the enchanted blade to its original divine owners. As a result, given the rather poor condition of the current giant turtle, the citizens of Hanoi have mobilized to clean up the lake and help the enormous creature. Here's hoping the turtle's health improves and they can find a mate to propogate the species if it does turn out to be distinct from its northern Chinese relative.

References

Coleman, L. & Huyghe, P. (2003). The field guide to lake monsters, sea serpents, and other mystery denizens of the deep. New York: Tarcher/Penguin.

Heinselman, C. (2000). Hoan Kiem Turtle - A Tale of the Sword. Crypto 3(3), 15-18.

Naish, D. (2007, November 29). The goat-eating hot water bottle turtles. Message posted to http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/11/hot_water_bottle_turtles.php

Tran Van Minh. (2011, March 4). Vietnam scrambles to save Hanoi's sacred turtle. Accessed from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110304/ap_on_re_as/as_vietnam_sacred_turtle

Zeller, F. (2007, November 6). High-tech lake clean-up to save legendary turtle. Bangkok Post [from AFP], p. 14.

A Brief History of the Windhammer Prize

2011-03-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

Stuart Lloyd has reminded me via his blog that the 2011 Windhammer Prize is upon us once again! For those who don't know what the Windhammer Prize is (and if you're a gamebook fan that's almost inexcusable!), perhaps a brief explanation is called for...

The Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction was first created and run by Wayne Densley in 2008 and is sponsored by his site, The Chronicles of Arborell. This is its fourth year. Wayne envisages the competition as "a means to promote the gamebook genre, and to provide exposure within a competitive environment for aspiring gamebook authors". What it means in reality is that every year we get a bunch of cool and intriguing new amateur gamebooks that otherwise would probably not exist. I entered the first two (I was unable to enter last year as I was too busy writing Catacombs of the Undercity), and didn't win anything (grumble!), but the standards are high! I keep meaning to go back and do a detailed review of some or all of the entries but that's beyond the scope of this post. What I will do is provide a brief history of the winners of the various years of the Windhammer Prize, and some of the more notable entries.

2008 Windhammer Prize

Winner: Raid on Chateau Fekenstein by Al Sander. Tightly paced and plotted steampunk/fantasy milieu that in some way is strangely reminiscent of Blackadder Goes Forth. Recommended!

2009 Windhammer Prize

Winner: The Bone Dogs by Per Jorner. Per makes good on a previous promise to cannibalize the Virtual Reality rules system from Heart of Ice to create an entertaining take on an alternate Western genre.

2010 Windhammer Prize

Winner: Sharkbait's Revenge by Stuart Lloyd. Pirates and nautical mayhem aplenty as Stuart finally bags the big prize in his third year of entering.

Other Notable Entries

An Orc's Day by Travis Casey (2008). Personally I feel this is by far the best of the rest. An intriguing 'play-the-monster' that drags out all the standard fantasy tropes only to turn them into something new. Recommended!

Hills of Phoros was supposed to be the first
in this series but the rules need fixing!

The Hills of Phoros by Andrew Wright (2008). This is where I find that introducing a non-linear Fabled Lands style gameplay into a short 100 paragraph format, with flawed rules, adds new meaning to the term 'grind-time'. Still, I'm proud of the writing, but the rules set needs a complete overhaul.

Waiting for the Light by Kieran Coghlan (2009). Trippy and bizarre sequence of events that is more book than game, but nevertheless a very worthy read.

RAMPAGE! by Andrew Wright (2009). Another blatant plug! I had a blast writing this - it's a parody of the Fighting Fantasy world of Allansia jacked into the old Rampage arcade game. If you have a desire to stomp on Yaztromo, King Gillibran, Nicodemus or Chadda Darkmane (or their near likeness), this is as close as you will get!

The Word Fell Silent by Kieran Coghlan (2010). Kieran's put a lot of work into this epic tale set in Roman-occupied Judea, and when I get a free moment, it's a must-play for me.

If you'd like to download any of these gamebook adventures, you can find them in the archive here.

If you'd like to enter the 2011 Windhammer Prize competition, the rules and regulations are here.

Have fun!

Catacombs of the Undercity released on iTunes!

2011-03-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

Dare you enter the
Undercity of Orlandes?

Thanks to the guys at Tin Man Games, my Catacombs of the Undercity Gamebook Adventure is now available to download at iTunes! I'm totally stoked - this was huge piece of work - nearly 800 paragraphs by the time Neil Rennison had finished editing it, and I'm thrilled it's finally out in the marketplace.

Better yet, for this week it's available at the knock-down price of $2.99, so if you've got an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, and you like old-school retro-dungeon-crawl gamebook adventures, then you've really got no excuse not to download it and give it a whirl. By all means give me some feedback too!

My only dilemma now is whether to grab a cheap iPad now so I can join in the fun, or instead wait until the new one that was recently unveiled by Steve Jobs is released...

Mapping the Unmappable

2011-03-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

I love maps and I keep meaning to post something meaningful about them (as far back as here), but there just doesn't seem time. However, Taranaich over on The Blog That Time Forgot has posted about Dan Meth's amazing Fantasy World Map, which I've included here:

The Fantasy World Map by Dan Meth.

Obviously, it's not all of the fantasy worlds in literature, but it's definitely a fair stab at the genre. One of my few issues with it is that the worlds of Dr Seuss (another thing I intend to post about some time in the future!) go far, far beyond Whoville and Solla Sollew (although it's nice to see the latter get a mention as it comes from one of my favourite Dr Seuss books).

It also reminded me of this amazing second map, by Randall Munroe that was talked about recently in The Independent (Hughes, 2010). Basically, it's a Map of Online Communities (Spring and Summer of 2010), and is loaded with awesome coolness. I particularly like the Sea of Memes and the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions!

The Map of Online Communities by Randall Munroe.

References

Hughes, M. (2010, October 24). Mapping Cyberspace. Reprinted from The Independent in The Bangkok Post, Spectrum, p. 22.

Advanced Fighting Fantasy: My Default Blog System

2011-02-27T06:58:00.000-08:00

Figure 1. Dungeoneer cover
by John Sibbick
(from Gascoigne & Tamlyn, 1989).

I alluded to a bit of writer’s block recently, and in my case it usually comes about because there’s something niggling me with what I’m trying to write (I’m struggling even as I type this out). Often it’s due to the fact the overall concept isn’t fully realized, or just needs a bit of tweaking, or may even be plain wrong. Having been trying to put together an interesting post for a few weeks now, it finally hit me that I needed to include some sort of generic RPG stats to better elaborate a point and make the post more useful. However, I haven’t really designated a default RPG system for this blog. As much as I enjoy reading Old School Renaissance blogs, I left D&D behind years ago (in favour of the original Warhammer FRP), and don’t feel confident enough posting up OGL stats that represent something I haven’t actively thought about for twenty years.

Conversely, though I’ve done some enjoyable recent work with the re-released Dragon Warriors system (Wallis et al., 2009), I feel it’s too tied up with the world of Legend for me to use on a more generic level. The solution I've come up with therefore is that old gem Advanced Fighting Fantasy (Gascoigne & Tamlyn, 1989, see Figure 1), for the following reasons:

It's extremely simple to use and post stat blocks for.
Despite the simplicity, both the Special Skills and Magic Spells systems capture a lot of colour and flavour.
I've been raving and ranting about Fighting Fantasy and Titan on my Titan_Rebuilding group for years now.
Likewise, it's the default system for posting stat blocks on the Titannica wiki.

Figure 2: Advanced Fighting Fantasy reissues from Arion Games (from Bottley, 2010a).

Perhaps the best reason though, is that it is being re-released by Arion Games very soon (Bottley, 2010a, see Figure 2)! While both Out of the Pit and Titan will be straight reprints of Gascoigne's (1985, 1986) earlier work, the entire Advanced Fighting Fantasy system itself will be revised, cleaned up, and repackaged as one book (Bottley, 2010b, see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Modified Advanced Fighting Fantasy Adventure Sheet,
for use with Arion Game reissue (from Bottley, 2010b).

This is because, as anyone who has played AFF will tell you, there were some fundamental problems with the original rules. The two big issues from my point of view were:

The random nature of character generation meant that Heroes who rolled high SKILL scores would be more powerful with far more Special Skill choices (and higher Special Skill values) than those who rolled a low number for their Initial SKILL.
The method of adding your SKILL score to your Special Skills to determine their value made Heroes even more powerful than the original nameless adventurers of the Fighting Fantasy solo gamebooks, who, for reasons of gameplay, were themselves vastly superior to most of the inhabitants of Titan (Wright, 2006a).

These problems look to be solved by the new Advanced Fighting Fantasy reissue. However, as publication of these rules lies a few months away, I can't use them immediately as a default system for my blog. Instead, I plan on revisiting a few modifications I made to the AFF rules for an unfinished retro-hack system called Adventurers Limited.

Adventurers Limited was designed to be a gritty, low fantasy version of AFF, showing what the Heroes were like before they were Heroes. I couldn't be bothered to initiate a points system (probably a bad idea in retrospect), so the character generation rules for 'limited' starting Adventurers were still determined via dice, and ran as follows:

SKILL: An adventurer's SKILL score is found by rolling one die, dividing the result by 2, rounding all fractions up, and then adding 5 to the result. This will give an Initial SKILL score of 6, 7, or 8.

Example: Our sample adventurer rolls one die. The result is 3. Dividing this by 2 gives 1.5. We round this up to 2 and add 5 to give our adventurer an Initial SKILL score of 7.

STAMINA: An adventurer's STAMINA score is found by rolling one die, dividing the result by 2, rounding all fractions up, and then adding 5 to the result. This will give an Initial STAMINA score of 6, 7, or 8.

Example: Our sample adventurer rolls one die. The result is 5. Dividing this by 2 gives 2.5. We round this up to 3 and add 5 to give our adventurer an Initial STAMINA score of 8.

(Wright, 2006b)

Bear in mind though, that these were just ideas and not based on rigorous play-testing. The second major modification was to introduce large number of Professions, all modeled on characters and people from previously published Fighting Fantasy books. These Professions would dictate what Special Skills your character could choose, as follows:

Common Skills: These are the Special Skills that a starting character of this Profession must invest at least 1 point in per Special Skill.

Uncommon Skills: These are Special Skills that a starting character may possess (but see also Rare Skills below). Each Profession will tell you how many Uncommon Skills you may choose. You must invest at least 1 point in each Uncommon Skill that you choose.

Rare Skills: These are more obscure Special Skills that a starting character may possess. You may ONLY choose a Rare Skill if you have already chosen the maximum number of Uncommon Skills you are allowed.

(Wright, 2006c)

Note that if you wanted to pick Uncommon or Rare Special Skills, you had to pick your full complement of Common skills first. This was designed so that players could create characters that either had an initial broad base of skills they were reasonable at, or specialists who excelled at only a couple of chosen skills. So, for an example, if you wanted to be a mercenary, you would have the following choices:

Mercenary by Gary Chalk
(from Harris, 1985)

Mercenary

Common Skills: Weapon, Dodge, World Lore (Must have 3).

Uncommon Skills: Weapon, Unarmed Combat, Disarm, Second Weapon, Ride Horse, Heavy Armoured Combat (Choose 2).

Rare Skills: Battle Tactics, Battle Combat, Siege Lore, Siege Combat, Mounted Combat, Languages, Crossbow (Choose 1).

(Wright, 2006b)

This idea is now approaching obsolescence with Arion Games' impending release of the new version of AFF, but I may use it intermittently until then to provide a RPG stat angle on certain posts. Also, once the new AFF is published, I may start seeing if I can retrofit my Adventurers Limited Professions to the new rules framework, because I certainly had a lot of fun developing literally hundreds of them!

Note: You can pre-order the new version of AFF here!

References

Bottley, G. (2010a). Arion Games: Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Accessed from http://www.arion-games.com/AFF.html

Bottley, G. (2010b). Modified AFF character sheet. Message posted to http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=13284043&postcount=101 and taken from http://www.arion-games.com/AFF-CharSheet.jpg

Gascoigne, M. (1985). Out of the Pit: Fighting Fantasy Monsters. London: Puffin Books.

Gascoigne, M. (1986). Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World. London: Puffin Books.

Gascoigne, M. & Tamlyn, P. (1989). Dungeoneer: Advanced Fighting Fantasy. London: Puffin Books.

Harris, R. (1985). Talisman: The Magical Quest Game [2nd Edition]. Nottingham: Games Workshop.

Wallis, J., Hately, S., Kemp, J., Klein, M., Low, R., May, D., Monroe, B., Reed, J., Sturrock, I., Turley, K., & Wright, A. (2009). Dragon Warriors: Friends or Foes. London: Magnum Opus Press.

Wright, A. (2006a). Adventurers Limited (Part Two). Message posted to http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/titan_rebuilding/message/465

Wright, A. (2006b). Adventurers Limited (Part Five). Message posted to http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/titan_rebuilding/message/503

Wright, A. (2006c) Adventurers Limited (Part Six). Message posted to http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/titan_rebuilding/message/509

DestinyQuest: The Interview!

2011-02-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

DestinyQuest: The Legion of Shadow.
Cover art by David Wyatt.

DestinyQuest Book 1: The Legion of Shadow by Michael J. Ward, is an amazing new contender in the slowly rejuvenating gamebook scene. I was first made aware of it by a post on Dave Morris' Fabled Lands blog, and procrastinated about buying it before ordering one of the limited Collector's Editions from eBay. It arrived yesterday, and I must say at 534 pages it is the most impressive gamebook I have seen in a long while, if not ever. After I spent my lunchbreak wandering around the wild lands surrounding the village of Tithebury Cross, slaughtering monsters and accumulating loot, that opinion has not changed and I fired off a bunch of questions to Michael about his new book. Here's what he had to say...

1. Firstly, it’s the biggest gamebook I’ve ever seen! How many words is it, and how long did it take you to plan, plot, test, and write? What’s your writing routine like?

Yes, the size took me a little by surprise too! The finished manuscript was something like 145,000 words by the end and I could have easily carried on! Originally, it was meant to be a four act story, with Mistwood and Black Marsh existing as separate zones – but it became apparent quite quickly that the format I chose for the book (with the different narrative quests) meant that it would have made the book quite unwieldy. I had to do a fair bit of chopping and editing!

The planning happened quite quickly, maybe a few weeks. I started with the zone ideas first and then rolled that out into a plot that gamers would easily identify with. The writing took about six/seven months (which is actually quite quick for a book), the speed due to the fact that I just loved writing it. The book never felt like a chore, in fact, quite the opposite – and I did have to remind myself at times that a break can do you a world of good!

The testing of the book. Oh boy. That was a mammoth task. Writing it was the easy part… balancing 3 classes, 15 careers and umpteen gazillion items was the real challenge. Basically it involved playing the book… again and again, and then again… and again. I can’t imagine how many hours were spent on the testing. I know that, towards the end, I was doing about 13 hours a day of solid testing. That can drive you a little crazy, to be honest. I was lucky enough to be able to recruit some friends to help out – and their feedback was invaluable in making last minute tweaks. I was very conscious all along that there can be no patch for a book – no quick fix once the words are printed, so I had to do my very best to get it as perfect as I could. Obviously, with a game of this size and complexity, there will be some builds that might inevitably struggle in places – that is just the nature of the beast – but I hope that the play experience will be enjoyable, no matter what crazy hero builds people decide to experiment with!

2. What’s your background with regards to fantasy RPG games and gamebooks? In other words, what possessed you to sit down one day and think “I’m going to write the biggest gamebook ever”?

As people may already know from my website, I was a big Fighting Fantasy fan when I was growing up. In fact, once I had discovered the wonders of Dungeons & Dragons I pretty much lapped up any fantasy game I could get my hands on. I still have very fond memories of playing Talisman (which I understand has now been re-released), as well as the Firetop Mountain board game and a little known game called Dungeon (which had colour coded levels, if I remember correctly – similar to the quests in DestinyQuest). Also, like most teenagers of a fantasy persuasion, I was a regular at my local Games Workshop, playing Warhammer and Warhammer 40k.

However, my hands-on hobby was constantly competing with the lure of computer games, and I’ll confess that ultimately, the computer won. I think I must have played most computer rpgs from Dungeon Master to Diablo… to the modern day MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, LOTR online and Guild Wars. I got pretty addicted to online gaming; at one stage I was playing Warcraft 50 hours a week (and that was while holding down a full-time job!). That was back in the day of 40-man raids (Molten Core until your eyes bleed…) and I don’t regret a minute of it. In fact, many of the ‘characters’ in DestinyQuest (Nyms, Ravenwing, Sahna, Caeleb) are based on gaming friends from those days.

So, what possessed me to write a gaming book? Well, I love the aforementioned computer games and I felt that no-one had tried to attempt that in a book before (at the time, I was not aware of The Fabled Lands series, which I believe shares a similar design philosophy). I just tried to imagine the kind of book that I would like to play – away from the computer – when I needed a ‘gaming fix’. I wanted something that delivered the same instant gratification, where I was developing a hero and outfitting them with new equipment; but one that also gave me that freedom to explore a world and ultimately, allow me to take part in more of an epic narrative.

3. How do you go about plotting out a gamebook like this? Do you flowchart it out on paper, or use a spreadsheet program, or something else?

I have what I call ‘scribble pads’, that are filled with ideas, drawings, maps… you name it. I probably have about six or seven of the things for the first book alone. When I come to a quest, I simply work out what the encounters will be, the choices that will be presented to the hero, and the story that needs to be delivered. Then I roughly sketch it out as a flow diagram. However, I rarely stick to that (!) and once I get writing, I get new ideas or swap encounters around – I go with the story flow rather than restricting myself too much.

Logo by Paul Cheshire.

4. Gamebooks are commonly thought to be “over” as a phenomenon. How difficult was it to find a publisher and how did you go about convincing them to publish DestinyQuest: The Legion of Shadows?

Hmm, how long have you got? I could write a book about this! Basically, my agent loved the book and took it around major publishers. I had a couple that were very interested and, in one case, was literally about to sign on the dotted line. However, for whatever reason, they didn’t. The book industry as a whole is having a hard time of it at the moment and publishers are very wary of taking on what they would term ‘risky’ ventures. They liked the idea of DestinyQuest but simply did not want to commit the money to launching a new franchise. The bitter irony is that I know people working in the book industry and apparently commissioning editors are crying out for new and innovative projects to take on… but the struggle is to win over those who hold the purse strings.

After a year of touting the book around and getting frequent disinterest or comments of ‘I just don’t get it’… I remember having that eureka moment at about 3am one morning when I thought ‘I’ll do this myself.’ I firmly believed, for my sins, that DestinyQuest was too good an idea to just shove away in a cupboard to gather dust. I’ve worked in publishing and I’m lucky to know talented designers and illustrators… so I felt I could do this. And not only do it, but do it well.

I’ll hold my hands up and say that I am one of those people who hears the words ‘self-publishing’ and runs a mile, screaming for the hills. There is a stigma about self-published titles - that the standard of writing was ‘not good enough’ to be taken on or the ideas are flawed. The truth is, as I have discovered myself, publishers are taking on fewer and fewer books these days, and those they do take on are restricted to certain genres (if I see one more Twilight/vampire novel argh!). It is tough to get something ‘new’ out there at the moment, you almost need to ‘prove your worth’. When I made the decision to self-publish I knew that, not only did I have to do it well, but I had to make it ‘better’ than a traditional high street bestseller. What you see when you pick up that book is the result of a year of blood, sweat, tears and sheer obsession to produce the best book that I possibly could.

5. Are there any particularly sources of inspiration that have influenced DestinyQuest, such as books, films, or RPG games?

I think it goes without saying that World of Warcraft was a huge influence (and why not, it has 11 million+ subscribers, so it is doing something right!). I also love the ‘point-and-click’ rpgs like Diablo, Titan Quest and Dungeon Siege - that idea that, at any moment, some great loot can drop for your character. Of course, I am a massive film geek as well, so I think readers will spot those influences in some of the storylines also.

Limitless Possibilities, Endless Adventure!
Illustration by David Wyatt.

6. The Legion of Shadow is set in the Kingdom of Valeron. Does Valeron have a longer history (and if so, what?), or was it developed specifically for the DestinyQuest series?

Valeron is just one part of the world of DestinyQuest. I sat down and wrote a twenty-page history of the kingdom along with details on the magic system. I know gamers are a tough bunch to please (I am one myself) and they like their lore – but they also hate inconsistencies or areas that feel ‘made up’ on the fly. I’ve tried to build a backstory to the world, however, I am trying to avoid feeding too much of that into the books. I don’t want to provide a history lesson or a detailed explanation of why a pyromancer can cast fireballs… I want readers to experience the world through their actions. It always annoys me in computer games when there are books to pick up, that give you about twenty pages of lore to read. I’m just one of those people who doesn’t want to waste time reading those, I want to hit things instead!

7. Although there’s no art in the book, I do like the cover and also the website art. Who are the talented artists helping you and what’s their story?

David Wyatt did the cover art for the Legion of Shadow. We had worked together previously on some education and story materials, back in my days at Scholastic. Since then his art has adorned the covers of some really big names. When I contacted him (with my hastily-scribbled cover idea) I didn’t think I was in with much of a chance – but I was lucky. Like most people I meet and talk to about DQ, he had a strong sense of nostalgia for those old game books. He leapt at the chance – and of course, produced a fantastic cover.

Paul Cheshire produced the maps, logo and web art. He is a good friend of mine and, despite loathing all things fantasy (yes, I know….), pulled out all the stops to create some stunning visuals. He is just one of those guys who can take a rough sketch on a napkin, then literally a day or two later presents you with something that makes your jaw hit the floor. A very talented illustrator, who I hope to be working closely with on future books.

8. If you buy the Collector’s Edition from eBay, one of the extras you get is a unique treasure card for your Hero. Are there plans to produce more of these so we can acquire ones we don’t have, or are you planning on introducing some sort of DestinyQuest CCG?

The treasure card idea was something I always wanted to do with DQ – just one of about a thousand ideas that I have for developing the gaming experience beyond the book. But sadly, as I am financing this myself (for now!) then I can’t really develop my ideas further. For the moment, they are just available as part of the collectors set and at my book signing events. There are common, rare and epic cards.

9. I notice on your website you’ve mentioned an eBook version. Would this include programs to do all the Hero Sheet book-keeping for you? Have you thought about expanding your digital repertoire to include a DestinyQuest app? (I only ask because I think the different maps you use for each Act are perfect for a touch-screen device!)

No, the ebook version is just a standard version of the book. I did want to do all the stuff that you mention (recordkeeping, interactive maps, page-jumping etc) but that is app territory, which is more involved (from a programming perspective) than a standard ebook. Again, I have so many ideas for an interactive version of DQ it sometimes makes me want to scream; things that people are just not doing at the present time but would just provide those ‘geek’ moments when playing – moving more towards more of a shared experience. The digital side of things, particularly with mobile technology, offers almost limitless avenues to explore when it comes to interactive books. And I think that will help make the game book relevant once again.

But having said all that, I still love to hold a good book and flick through pages, roll dice and feel the ‘physicality’ of the game. So, I have no regrets at all in making DestinyQuest a traditional print title, but I hope I have shown the potential in the game system and concept that perhaps a larger publisher might give me the support I need to develop the franchise further.

10. What does the future hold for DestinyQuest? When can we expect a second book? How can I access the extra downloads on your website?

At the moment I am just finishing off some of the download materials (extra quests etc.). They will be available for free as PDF downloads from my website in the next week or so. Then I will start writing the next book. I think it will be this time next year (or perhaps a little later) that the next book will be out – but the website will continue to be updated before then, with the new career sneak peeks and more info on the exciting new elements that are coming to the DQ world! I hope gamers will stick by me and continue their support for this game book and for the genre in general.

Thank you!

Thank you, Michael! If you want to grab a copy, the DestinyQuest website has a purchasing page that will direct you to the online emporium of your choice. Personally though, I'd recommend the Collector's Edition while stocks last...

Your Choices, Your Hero! Illustration by David Wyatt

Unseen Sketches from Heart of Ice!

2011-02-21T06:48:00.000-08:00

Kyle Boche
By Russ Nicholson

Over on his blog The Gallery, Russ Nicholson has posted up a series of character roughs for Dave Morris' Heart of Ice gamebook. Here we get to see working sketches on some of the memorable personalities of the future Frozen Age, including:

Chaim Golgoth, the USI assassin.
Kyle Boche, future rogue extraordinaire.
Baron Siriasis, Lord of Bezant.
One of the Gargan sisters clone-group.
Vajra Singh and his mantrumuktas cannon.

Plus schematic diagrams for hover droids
And the automaton Gilgamesh.

Awesome stuff!

The Future of Gamebooks?

2011-02-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

As they do with all their Gamebook Adventure authors, Tin Man Games have just published an interview with me, which you can find here:

An Interview with Andrew Wright

I start off talking about Catacombs of the Undercity, but you could also consider the interview a sort of background on just who is this Fantasy Gamebook character! In particular, with reference to the future of gamebooks, I say: "With the advent of print-on-demand sites like Lulu, we’re also going to get more gamebook content that way, and also as PDF digital releases as well."

Indeed, given more time, this is what I'd love to do, and will certainly post about here in future. Essentially I'd like to create a new series of fantasy gamebooks that I could upload to Lulu as POD products and also distribute as PDFs via RPGnow and Drive Thru RPG. I've already got the bare bones together, but it's going to take time, which is my rarest commodity right now, so progress will be slow. Still, when it happens, you'll here about it here!

Also, getting back to the interview and the future of gamebooks, in terms of digital devices, I note that

with devices like the iPad, the Kindle, and various Android tablets, we’re also going to have a bigger market for gamebook apps, and I think it’s here that we could really see some amazing things happen in the future. Most people enjoy reading and most people enjoy playing games. Gamebooks are an obvious synthesis of the two and the app marketplace has the potential to take interactive fiction in many exciting directions…

Enter the Undercity of Orlandes!

Dave Morris (2011) has said, in terms of gamebook apps:

my objection to dice in egamebooks is that it's simply jarring to watch two dice clattering around the screen. What are they supposed to represent? I'm there in the moment, a tense confrontation in a foggy backstreet in Orlandes. And suddenly two big red dice are bouncing around, the result is added to a confusing string of numbers, I'm told "you miss!" and I tap to make the d--ned (little nod to EB there) dice roll again. Every moment I'm doing that is taking me further out of the story. Seems like the dice are only there because the originators of gamebooks in the early '80s happened to own a game store and they liked dice. Fine in a book (well, a necessary evil, I would say!) but kind of dotty on a phone.

I can see exactly where he’s coming from – one of the things I like about Andy Spruce’s Fighting Fantasy Project website is that combat results are generated instantly which minimizes your timeout from the story. However, I'm not a fan especially of, say, the diceless Choose Your Own Adventure interactive fiction style, and I've come to realise I like dice and combat systems and inventory checks and so on. What I like about egamebooks is that your tablet or device can do all this for you, which, considering an extensive book like one of the Fabled Lands, negates a lot of book-keeping.

What do other people think? Would you prefer dice and game-systems in gamebook apps, or would you prefer the more immersive interactive fiction approach? Let me know?

References

Morris, D. (2011, February 19). This Tin Man's got heart. Comment posted to http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2011/02/this-tin-mans-got-heart.html#comments

Future Dystopia: The Cull

2011-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

As a child I once read this horrible science-fiction short story involving desperate measures to enforce population control. Although the title and author’s name now elude me, the story revolved around raising a child to a certain age and then subjecting them to an exam of sorts. If they passed, they kept living, if not, well, let’s just say that the child of the couple in the story didn’t pass, and they weren’t very happy about it. Reading a story like this, in a science-fiction anthology for children no less, was a rather disturbing experience for me as a youngster, and probably responsible for my lingering fear and distrust of any form of exam or assessment…

I was reminded of this story today as I finished Robert Twigger’s The Extinction Club. For an extinction-themed work, things predictably get rather dark towards the end of the book. Firstly, we kick off with a vision of the ever-encroaching monoculture of man:

Conservation is an attempt to fix Eden, but in life things keep on developing. That which looks fixed is an optical illusion.

The moment conservation becomes thinkable, Eden slips from our grasp, since wild animals are no longer wild if they can be conserved, corralled, looked after. They are tame animals in danger. Wild plants and animals do exist, but they are hardly exotic – rodents, feral pigeons, certain snakes, undersoil fungi, woodlice, cockroaches. Animals that often accompany man in his dwelling places but are not controlled by man. Survivors.

Eden after the fall is defined by these survivors: its pests and parasites, its weeds and scavengers, its unwanted population and its mountains of garbage.

Just as a petri dish full of multiplying bacteria will eventually poison itself with its own excreta, so the human race races up to the limit of self-poisoning before maintaining an uneasy symbiosis with its waste products. The animals closest to us now are the ones that eat our prodigious filth. Our friends the rats, the roaches, the seagulls on the landfill outside of town. (Twigger, 2001, pp. 174-175)

Twigger then witnesses the culling of several Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus), specifically “spikers”, or in other words, young males of around eighteen months. At this point, and based on his previous musings, we arrive at the central theme for the dystopian scenario of this post:

I allowed my mind to explore the idea of human culling. After all, we all live in controlled environments now. Overpopulation is imminent everywhere. In some countries there is not enough food, in others not enough land or natural resources. Countries that have imposed strict birth control, like China, have ended up with skewed populations of more boys than girls, because girls are often aborted after a scan. Everywhere people complain about how there isn’t enough land anymore, how the world is being used up too quickly.

The simple answer, I darkly fantasized, would be a human cull. Teams of trained marksmen would go out and search for herds of humans – probably young males and females, the human equivalent of spikers. Once they’d staked out a herd, say a queue for a nightclub or a football match, they could wait for a clear shot against a safe background. Couples leaving late at night might be safest to pick off, especially with infrared night vision.

“Do you ever use night-vision equipment?” I asked Callum.

“We looked into it,” he said. “But too many weirdos walk through the park at night. We might have ended up killing someone we couldn’t properly see. At least in daylight you can judge the background properly.”

Maybe the human cull would have to be a daylight job too. It would be a terrible job to do – very stressful. The cullers would have to be men [or women!] of the highest moral fiber. Imagine if parents bribed them not to cull their offspring? Disaster. Culling would have to be seen to be fair.

The first few culls would have to be very heavy, to make any dent in the population at all. There would have to be a whole subsidiary industry to get rid of the bodies.

My fantasizing ground to a halt when I started to invent reasons why I alone should not be culled…

Dark thoughts for a dark night, but dawn was almost upon us. (Twigger, 2001, pp. 190-191)

Like I said, it’s a good book but it does get rather bleak there towards the end! As a future dystopian yarn though, it may make for a ripping gamebook. The obvious idea would be for you to play the victim, desperately attempting to avoid being gunned down by the marksmen as they fulfill their quotas for the night (or day). The alternative, where you play a marksman, will probably play out like a text version of Quake III, but might skirt the edges of bad taste (always assuming we haven’t fallen screaming off the edge already!). A better option would be the classic dystopian story arc where you start out as a government marksman, but, during the course of your duty, uncover a conspiracy that forces you to renounce your position and re-align yourself with the victims instead. That idea’s got Hollywood written all over it…

Not a happy book in places,
but definitely a
thought-provoking read

Possibly the best idea though, taking full advantage of the gamebook format, would be a two-player gamebook, where you and a friend choose between who will be the culler and who will be the cullee. One of you has to flee across the crowded, polluted dystopian wastes, while being stalked with utter professional disdain by the other, sniper rifle in hand. What a nerve-wracking gamebook read that could be!

At this point, considering the distasteful nature of what we’ve looked at, it’s worth pointing out that all of the above represents a future, not the future. If warped speculative visions of dystopia seem to bring out the worst in us, in terms of what we think may happen, it’s only because our human history successfully fuels our imaginations with the horrors and atrocities we have already committed.

There is still yet time to change. :-)

References

Twigger, R. (2001). The Extinction Club. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Enter The Catacombs!

2011-02-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

Dare you enter the catacombs of Orlandes City?

They're testing the beta version of Catacombs of the Undercity over at Tin Man Games! It's my contribution to their excellent line of Gamebook Adventures for the iPad and iPhone, with wonderfully grotesque cover art by Dan Maxwell and atmospheric internal illustrations by Pirkka Harvala. The screenshots look amazing and I'm seriously thinking about counting up my savings and seeing if I can spend money to buy an iPad, just so I can play this, the Fabled Lands game, and all the other Gamebook Adventure titles. For the record, the previous releases by Tin Man Games are:

GA1: An Assassin in Orlandes by S. P. Osborne. "Set within Orlandes City, nobles are being systematically murdered by a ruthless assassin no-one seems able to catch. Finding yourself thrust in the middle of a large conspiracy, you must make decisions that may put yourself and one other most precious to you in great danger. Can you locate the Assassin in Orlandes before it is too late?"
GA2: The Siege of the Necromancer by Neil Rennison. "Set in the coastal town of Myr, you have returned home after a long Summer in the mines of Durath Tor to find your hometown besieged by strange creatures. A dark presence has taken over the town and you are the only one who can rid the stronghold of Erid Buul, the mysterious new Lord and his ghastly cohorts."
GA3: Slaves of Rema by Gaetano Abbondanza. "Cruelly taken from your homeland of Orlandes, you find yourself in a far off land at the mercy of a gladiatorial arena. Somehow trying to find a way to escape overseas, can you also unravel a potentially dangerous mystery that puts two nations on the brink of war?"
GA4: Revenant Rising by Kieran Coghlan. "The mighty city of Falavia, the military backbone of Orlandes, is under attack from an army led by a man claiming to be a God. How did this come to pass you ask yourself? You're sure it all started as some innocent adventure in search of treasure but somehow it turned into a nightmare. Also, why are people staring at you strangely? It’s not as if you look like you've recently been brought back from the dead or something. Oh yes, that's right. You remember now... "

Gamebook Adventures are also
available for the iPhone!

It's great to see these gamebooks go digital, in a format where they both look amazing, and take care of all your book-keeping and stat-tracking. No more pencils, erasers, and scraps of paper! Now, I just have to convince my better half that I really need an iPad tablet device...

Below is the promo video for Catacombs of the Undercity, featuring evocative music by Adrian Watkins. I can't wait until it comes out!

Fighting Fantazine Issue 5

2011-02-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

Fighting Fantazine Issue 5!
Cover illustration by Natalie Roberts.

The fifth issue of Fighting Fantazine - the Fighting Fantasy fan magazine - has finally hit the web! Editor Alex Ballingall has really been burning the midnight oil putting this incredible package together! Among the many amazing features included inside its bumper 104 pages:

An astounding cover by Natalie Roberts.
An interview with John Sibbick, illustrator for Fighting Fantasy, Games Workshop, and many excellent dinosaur and extinct prehistoric animal books. Includes never-before-seen pencil roughs of some classic FF book covers.
Bones of the Banished - a 274 paragraph Fighting Fantasy adventure written and illustrated by Brett "Jediboyy" Schofield. Brilliant stuff!
Results from the previous Fighting Fantazine survey, including extensive essays on the ten best Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. (I've contributed a piece on Steve Jackson's Creature of Havoc).
An interview with Graham Bottley, writer of the revised Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG system, due for publication soon by Arion Games.
Guillermo Paredes' Omens and Auguries, featuring all the latest gamebook news.
Jamie Fry gatecrashes the lair of notorious Fighting Fantasy author Ian Livingstone.
Dan Satherly attempts the infamous Sky Lord by Martin Allen - the final science-fiction adventure in the Fighting Fantasy series.
Part 2 of the Adventure Game series, where yours truly talks about how to plan the structure of your own Fighting Fantasy adventure.

So what are you waiting for? You can download it here!

Public Revolution, Procrastination and Writer's Block...

2011-02-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

Anti-Mubarak barricade.
Photo by Peter MacDiarmid,
from Michael (2011).

This is not a political blog. Nor is it a religious one. However, when the spirit to blog becomes weak, the curse that is the internet offers a plethora of esoteric distractions. For the last few years, my adopted hometown of Bangkok has been subjected to several public uprisings of various colours, stripes, and motivations. As a result, I've found myself taking an interest in similar events in other countries, particularly the ease and speed with which the internet delivers news at a pace that completely outstrips that of cable television. Recently therefore, I've been jacked into my laptop mainlining a three-way browser pile-up of the Guardian's instant updates, Al Jazeera's streaming video in English, and a motley collection of Twitter hash-tag threads, all centered on the action at Tahrir Square in Cairo, as a new digital generation of Egyptians shake off Mubarak's three decades of state dictatorship and political brutality.

Thus have I blogged little. I've also been reading an entertaining screed (part non-fiction, part "made-up") by Robert Twigger (2001), entitled The Extinction Club. Ostensibly, it’s about the Western discovery and subsequent conservation of the endangered Milu or Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus) of China. In reality, and in keeping with the introductory themes of this post, the book is also about writer’s block and the author’s life in Cairo:

…I’m sitting on the seventh-floor rooftop garden of my in-laws in Egypt. The garden is dusty, with a pruned kind of Astroturf underfoot, like the ponds of green furze used to signify grass on a model train set. The view is dusty and distant, as far as the sandstone cliffs at the edge of the city where the rubbish of twenty million people gets picked over and burned. Before the cliffs there are shell-like mini tower blocks, gray concrete apartment blocks, and big villas with rubble on their roofs. All over Cairo, whatever direction you look in, you will see piles of rubble on people’s roofs. Some of the rubble is obviously from the house concerned, but some seems strangely out of place, as if the owner has dumped the rubble there just to fit in. (Twigger, 2001, p. 4-5)

The Extinction Club
(Twigger, 2001).

The Extinction Club is an engaging read. On a whim, I typed Robert Twigger’s name into Google to see if he had a blog going, and not only did I find it, but he is currently in Cairo now, and occasionally posting about the momentous events happening there:

It goes in stages. You start laughing at the people with weapons. Then you pile up the sticks and the knives. I even found an old head-hunting dao from Nagaland – a real one my grandfather told me, and he got it there in the War. So I have my head-hunter’s machete by the door. Then you start carrying a weapon – a stick or a knife – to protect who you are with. And the door – first double locked, then you advise others to put the fridge against it, then the other day – after a lot of shots and sounds of running outside, my mother-in-law and I move the sofa, two armchairs, a suitcase and old sixteen mil camera case, some plywood boards from an old wardrobe to thoroughly barricade ourselves in. It was weird because I didn’t want to offend my mother-in-law by saying she was putting the chairs in the wrong place just as we are supposed to be fighting for our lives except it feels like moving the furniture about. Plus it isn’t science – who cares how the furniture goes – it just needs to be a massive pile of it. My son creeps in and calls it his den then he says for the first time he is scared. No you’re not I say. He looks down shamefaced. Then later I go into his room and he has barricaded his bed with all his toys. All of them. It is quite impressive but weird and a bit unsettling too. There are kids of seven and eight running in the street with bits of pipe and sticks. I saw one guy today with a pipe still with a tap at one end. It still didn’t look as funny as you’d think. (Twigger, 2011)

The accounts of state-sponsored brutality have been especially disturbing. In a harrowing piece for the Guardian, Robert Tait (2011) described the fate of those abducted by security forces and taken into custody:

The sickening, rapid click-click-clicking of the electric shock device sounded like an angry rattlesnake as it passed within inches of my face. Then came a scream of agony, followed by a pitiful whimpering from the handcuffed, blindfolded victim as the force of the shock propelled him across the floor.

A hail of vicious punches and kicks rained down on the prone bodies next to me, creating loud thumps. The torturers screamed abuse all around me. Only later were their chilling words translated to me by an Arabic-speaking colleague: "In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don't behave – electrocution and rape."

When things like this are happening in the world, and you become suddenly exposed to them because they are deemed newsworthy by the media gatekeepers, it can be difficult to find the motivation to do anything in the face of such adversity. In reality though, things like this are happening all the time and we either do not know about them through lack of exposure, or we do know, but ignore them because otherwise the continuous horror of what we do to each other every day as a species would drive us insane. Instead, we square our shoulders, turn our face to the sun, and attempt to keep on surviving. To quote Detective William R. Somerset (Fincher & Walker, 1995):

“‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.”

Protesters in Tahrir Square.
Photo by 3arabawy (2011).

References

3arabawy. (2011). Barricades at Tahrir Sq entrance. Photo posted to http://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/5414773292/sizes/s/in/photostream/

Fincher, D. (Director), & Walker, A. K. (Writer). (1995). Seven [Motion Picture].

Michael, M. (2011, February 2). Egypt PM apologizes for attack on protesters. Article accessed from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014103414_apmlegypt.html

Tait, R. (2011, February 9). 28 hours in the dark heart of Egypt's torture machine. Article accessed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/09/egypt-torture-machine-mubarak-security?INTCMP=SRCH

Twigger, R. (2001). The Extinction Club. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Twigger, R. (2011, February 3). More from Cairo revolution. Message posted to http://www.roberttwigger.com/journal/2011/2/3/more-from-cairo-revolution.html

Catacombs of the Undercity!

2011-01-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

Dare you enter the Undercity of Orlandes?

Just a short promo for now, as although I've got lots more posts to write-up, I've been currently transfixed by what's happening in Egypt, as well as having to take my daughter to a fun fair today...

Anyway, Tin Man Games, publisher of the digital Gamebook Adventures line of apps for the iPhone and iPad, have announced the impending release of my own adventure, Catacombs of the Undercity, which is number five in the series:

Captured by one of Orlandes City’s most infamous brotherhoods, the Red Hand Guild, you are thrown to the mercy of the subterranean world deep beneath the streets of the great capital. Wading through the sewers and other dark menacing places, your goal is to reach Undercity, the City beneath the City! Only there can you find the help you need to escape this underground horror and bring down the dark brotherhood from within.

Catacombs of the Undercity is an old-school dungeon crawl with fantastic internal art by Pirkka Harvala and a great cover by Dan Maxwell. It will hopefully be available to download in March. I certainly had a blast writing it!

There's a video promo here.

And the original PR is here.

Play by Email: A Summary

2011-01-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

Figure 1. Necromunda rulebook cover by
Geoff Taylor (from Priestley, Johnson & Chambers, 1995)

[I've been flailing away at the keyboard typing up my thoughts on a second article from National Geographic, but I'll never get it finished tonight. (Trust me, it's worth the wait!) Instead, here's a brief summary of some play-by-email musings that will no doubt be expanded in future into yet another series of overly-detailed posts...]

One of the major hassles of being a geek abroad in a city like Bangkok for the past fifteen or so years, is that you tend to leave your hobbies behind. Friday night geekery becomes playing pool at the local bar, or band practice, or pub quizzing, or footy training, and before you know it, you can't tell THAC0 from HD, or whether the Fimir made it into Warhammer 4th Edition or not. Something therefore that I have done occasionally to bridge this gap and stay sane, is run or participate in play-by-email campaigns with the "old gang" from back home. What follows is a quick look at two favourites that have burned up the inbox and caused me to waste a lot of time in idle thought and semi-pointless book-keeping:

1. Necromunda. (Priestley, Johnson & Chambers, 1995). Games Workshop's cult miniatures battle-game of gang warfare in a future dystopian Warhammer 40K hive-city! I'd been living in Bangkok for nearly a year and saw this in the toy section at a local department store. Having spent the entire previous year in the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Laos and parts beyond, I was in severe need of a gaming fix and bought it immediately. After a few battles against myself I forgot about it for a bit (though not long enough to buy Outlanders (Chambers, 1996)!), until, on a visit back home, some mates suggested getting some sort of PBEM action going (email being a newish concept back then as we'd previously corresponded via this archaic means of communication known as 'writing letters'), and Necromunda raised its ugly head...

So for the next year and a bit after that, I ran a Necromunda campaign for a large number of different gangs, five of which were 'owned' by my friends, while the others were all 'NPC' gangs either using official rules or stuff I'd swiped off the 'net that looked cool (Wyrds, Chaos Covens, Ash Nomads, Pit Slaves, and so on...). The actual process was simple and fun, though rather time-consuming:

Determine who was fighting who for that month(s).
Get them to submit some sort of battle tactics.
Set up each battle on a card table, and run through it taking copious notes on who did what to whom and how and where.
Write the whole mess up as a semi-coherent battle report.
Collate all the battle reports and results, and summarise them as a monthly/bimonthly tabloid that read like a fatal pile-up between White Dwarf (the 'bad' post-100 issues) and one of Rupert Murdoch's trashier bin-liners.
Repeat.

I think I only managed to get through seven or eight tabloids and it was already starting to get ridiculous - we had Lords of the Spire mini-leagues, Top Ten Killer/Sniper charts, lists of guns for hire and obituraries for slain gangers, and so forth and so on. Because of this, when I was offered the chance to play bass in not one but two bands as a night job, I jumped at the chance, and the Necromunda campaign unfortunately fell by the wayside. Fun times though, and I may even dig some of it out here if the blood-spattered prose isn't too embarassing.

Figure 2. Cover detail from
Cities of Gold and Glory
by Kevin Jenkins
(from Morris & Thomson, 1995).

2. Fabled Lands. A few years later, the bands had both split up, as is the ephemeral nature of expatriate existence in Bangkok, and I was supposedly enrolled in a Masters course in International Journalism. As is normal for me when contemplating tertiary tedium, I started casting around for any sort of digital distraction. Before this, I'd liberated all six Fabled Lands books from storage at home, carted them back to Thailand, and completely deconstructed them into their basest fragments.

'Hey,' I thought. 'Let's run them as a campaign for some mates!'

So for about a year or maybe two, six of my friends chose six different professions, and started wandering about the lands of Harkuna. Altogether they covered most of The War-Torn Kingdom (Morris & Thomson, 1995), quite a lot of Cities of Gold and Glory (Morris & Thomson, 1995), and bits from Over the Blood-Dark Sea (Morris & Thomson, 1995). Most of them travelled solo, and you'd have these strange awkward encounters between PCs when they found themselves occupying the same patch of road between Caran Baru and Trefoille, which reminded me of facing the Thief from Zork I.

Needless to say, their exploits were varied. The rogue sided with the Marlocks, and the warrior with Nergal Corin, so Sokara got fairly messy very quickly, while the mage helped Oliphard the Wizardly and transformed herself into a warrior-sorceress of some power. Two others joined different colleges in Dweomer, and one of these (via a mistaken visit to the master of their college) then assassinated Amcha One-Eye. Again, good times, although they eventually petered out when the book-keeping became too much...

One of the reasons I'm talking about these here, is that I intend to start up a new PBEM campaign, and this blog serves a useful space to thrash out some ideas on how to run it, and more importantly given my previous misadventures, how to make it last a bit longer. As always unfortunately, more will be revealed at a later date...

References

Chambers, A. (1996). Outlanders Rulebook. Nottingham: Games Workshop.

Morris, D. & Thomson, J. (1995). Fabled Lands: The War-Torn Kingdom. London: Macmillan.

Morris, D. & Thomson, J. (1995). Fabled Lands: Cities of Gold and Glory. London: Macmillan.

Morris, D. & Thomson, J. (1995). Fabled Lands: Over the Blood-Dark Sea. London: Macmillan.

Priestley, R., Johnson, J. & Chambers, A. (1995) Necromunda Rulebook: Nottingham: Games Workshop.