I don't have time to do all of the many things I have to, let alone want to. So it is probably a bad idea to embark on the project of writing a choose your own adventure book. But I have never let that stop me before.
Here is the first entry in the book that I am writing:
1.
Your first memory, perfectly preserved because you touch it so rarely and handle it with the utmost delicacy when you do, is the sight of your father being borne by his household knights across the Laund in the rain, with the people watching in silence from the trees.
Your second memory is of your uncle, Usth, crouching before you in a dark room criss-crossed by sunbeams in which dust motes swim. His hazel eyes hold yours, and he says, softly, ‘Your goal is revenge. From here until it is achieved. This is your fate.’
You third memory is being carried across a wet beach gleaming with the light of the dusk or the dawn - you cannot remember which - towards a vessel being borne gently up and down on the grey waves as it waits for your arrival. You now know this memory to be that of the day of your exile, when you were taken away across the cold sea to the warm place in which you now live, but will never call home.
In the fifteen years since then you have trained to achieve the goal your uncle set for you in that long-ago shadowy room. You have strengthened your body such that you feel as though you are made from iron and stone; you have learned competence in all manner of weapons; you have tested your will against your own weaknesses and indolence and found it triumphant. You are now ready to travel back across the sea to slay those who killed your father and stole from your family everything which it rightfully held.
Your training was comprehensive, but it was evident from a young age that you were endowed with physical gifts, upon which your teaching built. If you were naturally powerful, turn to 87. If you were naturally dextrous, turn to 352. If you were naturally tough, turn to 101.
Excellent! Looking forward to seeing where this goes! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI have no experience with choose your own adventure books (don't think they are a thing where I grew up). How do you make sure a choice like this stays relevant until the end? As soon as you have a page where both the powerful and the dextrous end up, the initial choice plays no longer a role in the remainder. The only solution is then to have a separate book for each, or do you rely on the reader not noticing?
ReplyDeleteNice intro though!
The idea I have in mind is that character generation happens through reading/play, so that first the reader gets to choose a physical type as here. Then after that they get faced with a dilemma which flows from whether they are powerful, dextrous or tough, and that leaves them with a flaw of some kind. The physical type and the flaw then provide the stats. And then the character just goes through the adventure using those stats. If that makes sense to you.
DeleteWhat system are you intending to use? I find the Fighting Fantasy rules a touch unsophisticated. If you want to try something simple but with some tactical nuance, how about Call of Cthulhu, The Fantasy Trip, or Dragon Warriors?
ReplyDeleteI don't want to put you off, but writing a good solo is exacting: you need to combine the strictures of the paragraphed solo with an exciting adventure in its own right. Your opening paragraph is fine, but subsequent ones should be lean, but still manage to inform and inspire, as the writer is essentially doing the referee's job of description. And there are tricks of the trade, such as Keywords, changing an encounter according to past experiences. A variety of possible endings is desirable.
This is all rather daunting, so I would recommend reading some notable efforts by other authors first. For the Fantasy Trip, I would
strongly recommend the works of David Pulver, particularly those produced by Gaming Ballistic. These also have OSE translations.
For Dragon Warriors, check out the (free) offerings of Red Ruin Publishing; Paul Partington is especially good. And the "Alone against the Flames/Frost/Tide" Cthulhu adventures are definitely worth a look.
The system will be a homebrew thing.
DeleteThanks for the recommendations! I want to make clear that this isn't a solo RPG, but an old fashioned gamebook more on the Fighting Fantasy model.
If you are not familiar with Fabled Lands, that might also be worth a read.
DeleteWhich Fighting Fantasy books do you like? For me, the more open the better, so the likes of Scorpion Swamp and Sea of Blood appeal.
Yes, that passage grabs my imagination by the throat and thrusts me into the fiction...
ReplyDeleteMore, please!
Thanks!
Delete"If you are naturally snarky turn to page 007." kidding aside, a smooth talker with handy equipment may be a fun and not typically offered option. This looks really fun.
ReplyDeleteHa. In all seriousness that would broaden things out too much - the good thing about the choice between being powerful, dextrous and tough is that that provides a range of abilities that is narrow enough to not require more pathways.
DeleteRoger that. As a kid growing up on a rural farm in the eighties, with not a lot of interested role players, the "pick your path" books were a god send. You taking a dive on this with care and creativity is awesome.
DeleteI'll admit to having got goosebumps from reading this
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteIf you haven't played the old (2006) browser Age of Fable game it's a lot of fun to poke around with and inspired by old T&T gamebooks. The main site it down but an unmaintained phone version seems to still work: https://aof.guzh.me/
ReplyDeleteThe level of technical expertise that you need to code a browser version of this kind of game is pretty low, you can see the kind of source code the game uses: https://web.archive.org/web/20190626004755/http://www.apolitical.info/webgame/sourcecode.php
Thanks for this - I quite like browser games but prefer to create physical products. There is something very nostalgically pleasing about a tangible adventure game book.
DeleteVery cool! I look forward to more.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteJust a brief note that making use of fantasy tropes, so that the reader can fill in some of the detail from their own imagination, is a great idea. Your opening paragraph is an exemplar. Certainly add in a few intriguing ideas of your own, and some twists and turns, but it is important to avoid choking the thing to death. (See some second edition AD+D adventures, especially in Dungeon Magazine.)
ReplyDeleteI agree.
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