Gamebooks

[Barrington Boots]

Maybe it's a lower case t for Titan?

This would be a world class blag!

[Barrington Boots]

Vault of the Vampire Rounds 4 -6

I restart and get killed by the spectre again. Weak!
Seeing no other way forward, I arbitrarily set my skill to 12 and finally overcome the thing, although my skill is reduced to 11 by its life-draining touch.
Something I liked about this book next: it asks me if I previously defeated the Thassalos, and then simply takes me back to the room without me actually needing to waste a lot of time retracing my steps. I have the with the Castellan's keys, but to my annoyance the chest still will not open. It turns out there is a puzzle on the lock, the clue to which I had before from Lothar. I won't spoil it here but it is an absolute bastard of a puzzle because even though it doesn't take too long to crack the process, it still takes an ages to work out the inscription because it is written thematically and so quite long. This would have oufoxed younger me, but adult me eventually gets through it and within the chest I find Siegfrieds enchanted chainmail shirt. This boosts all my stats (restoring my weakened skill in combat) and without further ado the book takes me straight to the crypt.

Behind the heavy iron door, the crypt seems long deserted, its stairs covered in dust and grime and rats scurrying in the darkness, just beyond the light thrown by my enchanted blade. Small piles of bones, horribly human looking, are scattered about. Descending I discover the place is extensive, containing a number of smaller tombs leading off a main corridor. I must check them all: the first, that of the colourfully named Boris the Drunkard, contains an ordinary skeleton and more restorative brandy. The second, that of Chancellor Schmidt, contains a foul and rotting ghoul that has been trapped here for centuries! This is another vicious battle, as the ghoul rot imposes a skill penalty, and I take a beating. Wiping ghoul blood from my sword and drinking Boris's fine brandy I next try the tomb of Doctor Faustus. This one, as well as a sarcophagus, contains walls of shelves with preserved heads and limbs and other gruesome things. I steel myself to begin searching through this chamber of horrors and am rifling through the shelves when a slippery bubbling sound causes me to spin about. Oozing from the sarcophagus is a greenish yellow, slimy mess, within which I can just make out a horribly distorted human face. I struggle, but in vain as the necrotic slime that was once the doctor overwhelms me, suffocating me before breaking me down and absorbing my corpse. Dead again!

I feel close to the end, so I just restart at the crypt entrance and this time don't try the chancellor or the doctors tombs (the first, certainly, had nothing of use) and instead try one of the two unmarked tombs. The first contains rows and rows of simple sarcophagi, all unadorned, unmarked and identical, and as I look upon them a chill grips me and from the darkness I behold a spectral figure of a gaunt young woman gliding towards me.
There's been no faith check here to ward of evil as with other ghosts, so I stand my ground and the spirit imparts its sad tale. It was, it says, once a young apprentice wizard named Jandor who fell victim to the Katarina Heydrich, bled to death for her dark rituals: all these tombs contain a victim of the Heydrich family. She offers me her spell-storing ring to aid in seeking revenge for all those buried here and grimly I agree. The spell contains three random spells: my first is a Luck spell that is totally useless to me, the second one that boosts my damage threefold in the first round of combat only (if I miss, the spell is wasted) and the third one that will destroy any one skeletal enemy.
The ghost fades away and when I exit the crypt to my disgust I can see something beginning to dribble under the door of Faustus's crypt so I run through the remaining door and find myself facing another Thassalos. This one is a major Thassalos and given how hard the minor one is this is very bad news, but I've just got the shatter spell from Jandor and so simply blow it up without breaking a sweat. Thanks Jandor!
The Thassalos was protecting a further set of steps - three in fact, descending even deeper into the cold earth. I take the northernmost and it opens into a crypt lit by holy light. Within rests the body of Siegfried, and as I stand in contemplation his ghost once again appears before me.
Siegfried's ghost is super useful. He gives me some holy water, and heals all my wounds. Finally he indicates the book I took from the library and tells me his sword is kept within the book, imprisoned there by Reiner's blood magic. Only blood magic can unseal it, so I must bleed myself to release it. My faith is strong, so with a deep breath I open my vein and let my blood pour into the goblet as the ghost has indicated.
I come to with a shock - I have almost fainted through blood loss, but the ghost is there and my faith is strong. Where the book once was now rests Siegfried's holy longsword, glowing with white light. This sword gives me a big skill boost and doubly so against vampires, and my faith and luck stats have all had a boost too. I now feel invincible!
Finally, as directed by Siegfried, I enter the crypt of Reiner himself. The room is vast, lit with baleful red light, filled with fantastical teak and marble decorations and heavy drapes, and at the end a staircase upon with the Count himself stands waiting, a chained and crying woman behind him - Nastassia. As I step forward the count fixes me with his hypnotic gaze, but my faith is strong enough to resist. Thinking quickly, I whip my mirror from my pack and he recoils from it, giving me a window to act. I hurl my holy water at him, the first vial setting him alight and inflicting terrible damage upon him. This slows him down enough for me to chuck the second vial at him too and I'm feeling pretty confident and I draw my anti-vampire sword and advance upon him until I see his actual stats. Despite my huge bonuses the Count is one of the hardest FF fights I have ever seen (he's statistically better than Razaak, although not as deadly) and he pulverises me for several rounds in a row, beating me back down the stairs and into a corner, bloodied and desperate before the dice turn my way and I rally and gain the upper hand. Once his stamina drops to a certain level however he simply turns into smoke and drifts away behind some wall hangings!
I could stop him with a spell, but I don't have it so instead am given a choice of several actions to take in the moments I have. There's no time to eat, but I neck Gunther's healing potion and the rest of the brandy to recover my wounds and then selflessly cut Natassia free, telling her to run. Before she can the Count is back, his stamina boosted back up, and the battle is joined again. After a couple of hits on him he changes tactic, trying to bite me instead of simply tearing me apart: this does more damage but reduces his skill and allows me to finish him off - or do I? As I run him through the Count collapses with a shriek only to once again transform himself to mist. I'm asked how many of the counts coffins I've destroyed - two is enough, for instead of drifting up and out of the crypt the mist-form count seeps behind a wall hanging to another coffin where I throw back the lid to see him slowly regenerating. With the crucifix held aloft over the coffin I drive the stake into his heart. Black blood sprays from the wound and with a final ghastly cry the count crumbles away to dust.
The voice of Nastassia rouses me, urging me to stay alive. She flings her arms about me, thanking me for aiding her (I  react awkwardly I suspect, being a simple holy man) and binds my wounds. But when I say I am glad to have saved her from the Count she shakes her head. It was not Reiner who meant to kill her but his sister - Katarina! My stomach sinks. I whirl about and she is there in the crypt, a smile upon her lips.
Katarina's dazzling green eyes lock upon mine, trying to force me into submission. It's time for one last faith check, and my faith holds firm. Breaking her gaze I lunge forward and she curses and draws a dagger to fight me. I try the mirror trick again but she simply laughs and slashes at me - she is no vampire, after all! This is a nasty fight although easier than the Count but hard going - at one point my stamina drops so low Nastassia grabs a weapon and help, but with her skill of 6 she isn't a factor - nice touch though. Eventually the final blow is struck and Katarina falls to the floor. As she lies there dying her appearance ripples and changes, from beautiful sorceress to the wizened hag that she truly was.
At last it is over. With me leaning on Nastassia for support we stagger from the crypt and into the daylight at last. Turning back I get a last glimpse of Siegfried's ghost, saluting me as I leave. VICTORY!




Obviously loads to like about this book. As well as Keith Martin / Carl Sargents atmospheric writing and the superb artwork, it was just fun to play: there's a lot of freedom to wander, with most locations available in any order until you move on to the next segment of the castle, so it rewards exploration whilst there's not the fear of missing some crucial item. Along with that freedom was the fact that whilst there are essential items you don't need all of them (you need the stake OR the magic sword plus and the crucifix OR the shield). The count battle is brutal but there's a lot of mitigating factors that make it easier so when you do get there you feel like you played well, rather than just hit a shopping list, so to speak. Choices on the whole feel reasoned and not random, so when you win there's a real sense of achievement. I hugely enjoyed it.

On the downside the combats are TOUGH. You can skip a lot of the weaker enemies with a good faith score but there's a lot of Skill 10 opponents or equivalent in this book. It's quite telling all my deaths came through combat. I would say a skill of 10 is the absolute minumum you need for this but less than 12 will make it very difficult. The hard combat is sort of offset by the huge amount of healing available though. A good faith score also essential, but this can climb rapidly as you play (my faith at the end weas 15, making faith checks a breeze).
There's also an 'affliction' rule where you can acquire various, er, afflictions and you're periodically asked if you have them, especially lycanthropy. I could not find a way to contract this at all, and although it looks like there's a werewolf in the forest I'm not sure how you encounter it (maybe killing the ranger?) so it seemed a fair few paragraphs dedicated to asking about this went to waste.
Finally I think perhaps the book would have been better if it'd gone full Hammer Horror - stuff like the crucifix seems out of place, and by making a few small changes like ditching the wizard it could be another House of Hell 'real world' setting. But that's a tiny moan about an otherwise excellent book.

[Richard]

Great write-up! It does sound like a fun book, I'll look at it later. But first, my new copy of Nightshift arrived today, so I'll check that out first!

[Fortnight]

Well, I can only stand for so long in the onslaught of such entertaining playthroughs! I dug out my reading copies. I could only get to the first one by getting all of them out, so bugger it, I'll get them all out and then work out where I want to start.

Dug out an old shelf and found a corner to stand it in.

_{There is supposed to be an image here. First time trying an image, so we'll see if it works.}

Sad to say I would avoid this one like the plague (no pun intended). It's frustratingly difficult (it's actually impossible without cheating), lacks variety (you only fight zombies) and abandons the SKILL / LUCK stats in favour of a new type of combat that is frankly awful.

Shame about this. I had a bit of a read-up on its quirks just after you posted.
The one place I found that mentions anything relevant seems to suggest that the number of zombies you kill depends on the roll of the dice. Seems like a poor idea, but I guess I'll have to play it to find out.
A quick skim through the book shows that you're told how many zombies there are in any given fight, and the last section indicates that the number of zombies killed determines your success, so I'd assumed that the winning route is just wherever you encounter the correct number of zombies. But you suggest there's some other bug?

It does have some very cool art from Kev Crossley however.

And I like Greg Staples's cover too!

my new copy of Nightshift arrived today, so I'll check that out first!

Interested to hear how you get on with it. The downside of being recommended something is that there's a danger of overhype.

[Richard]

That's a thing of beauty!

[Fortnight]

They look nice from a distance, but some of them are in pretty poor condition. This was one of the requirements for them to be a reading copy. Given how collectable they have become I didn't want to play with a near perfect one. Some of them are still too good a condition really - it's really hard to find a copy of Sky Lord or Daggers of Darkness in crap enough condition, and I just can't deliberately allow myself to damage a book.

The puffin fell off my Warlock (not a sentence I'd thought I'd be writing when I woke up this morning). I damaged it taking the books out of their cubby hole and I had to glue it back on before taking the photo. Despite this level of care I still forgot that I'd taken Blood of the Zombies out for the aforementioned quick skim through and forgot to put it back.

I've now printed out my adventure sheets for the first 42 books (A4 so I've lots of space). Doing the rest as I type.

Now I have no excuse not to do playthoughs!

[Richard]

I look forward to reading them!

Boots - you pick up lycanthropy at paragraph 266.

[Doomlord66]

Apologies if this has been covered or mentioned before.
My foray into game books was the Grailquest series. I hated the name given to your character- Pip - as I didn't think it sounded very heroic.

Also tried a game book called Maelstorm but didn't like the format, found it too over complicated.

[Funt Solo]

I've recently discovered that the FF combat system got only slightly tweaked and then adopted by an unconventional* sci-fi RPG called Troika!

I'm not very familiar with it, but it does have a character class called Befouler of Ponds (you're a priest that pisses in ponds).

Combat initiative is determined randomly per round, which means that if luck runs against you, you can be killed without ever getting a chance to hit back. (Or maybe you were trying to, but kept missing - or got your sword stuck between some cobbles, or something.) Maybe better to avoid fights? Or hide in that pond. Or not.

* It's been described as post-OSR. Not really great for combat/stat hounds, or long campaigns with precious characters.

[Fortnight]

I never tried the Grailquest books. I heard both good things about them and bad - that they're fun, humorous, and tolerant of game-play "shortcuts", but also badly constructed and full of errors.

I do have Maelstrom, but never really played it as the rules take up most of the book and I couldn't be bothered to read them all to even find out what type of gamebook it is.

Troika!

That's a bad website.

[Funt Solo]

Troika!

That's a bad website.

Bad how?

[Fortnight]

Just that it doesn't resize based on browser windows size, it has a scrollable frame inside the scrollable main page making mousewheel scrolling a pain, the menu is transparent so you can't clearly see the options. It's very rudimentary. And there's a goddamn pop up asking to sign up to something you have no idea whether you want or not because you've only been there 8 seconds! A trivial complaint, but as a former web developer I can't help but get annoyed

[Funt Solo]

Oh, right! Yes, it is a bad website. I am reminded of this old chestnut.

I find that web usability in general has sort of fallen of a cliff and been eaten by scavengers. But then I'm still using a PC, so am one of the few. I will fade into the darkness, along with keyboards, and everything will be replaced by "Siri - tell the AI to make me a song that I want to listen to!" 

[Barrington Boots]

I'm familiar with Troika - it's one of those OSR games that seems to be built specificially for people who are very deep into grognardy. The rules seem to be deliberately written to be clunky and tending towards high turnovers of characters rather than campaigns and the like. The setting at least is fairly unique.
I'm never sure what the deal is with these kind of games when more streamlined modern rulesets exist that crucially you can houserule to your own requirements. Having met people who love games like this, it all feels a bit gatekeepery tbh, as a backlash to the hobby becoming popular and letting in loads of new people that they don't like.

Within the metal scene (possibly other music scenes too?) there's been a swing towards putting stuff on cassette again. As far as I can see it's a mix of nostalgia and elitism: backlash against digital music and CDs that fetishises a format thats crap and we moved on from for good reason. Cassettes don't even have the nice bits that vinyl does (giant artwork, lovely smell, weird ritualistic nature of having to go to the effort of putting one on) and their only benefit is that they're very small and portable, which doesn't stack against modern music formats, so for me its very much regression for the sake of regression. But anyway - I find games like this a bit like that.

I've got Advanced Fighting Fantasy around somewhere, which is also pretty bad for a roleplaying game ruleset, but may have been a good gateway system. I know I ripped off the Riddling Reaver plots for other games as a kid!

[Barrington Boots]

Also what a magnificent collection there Fortnight! Some of those books are very vaulable now: Deathmoor alone was selling for about £250 when I made my last ebay pass at finishing my collection, and Revenge of the Vampire was about £500. I'm definitely envious.

They look wonderful all lined up like that.

My foray into game books was the Grailquest series.

I had a couple of these as a kid and really liked them. The daft, convivial style of writing was lovely and they weren't very hard either. I also understand they're not very good as the series continues though.