Hi there,

I came across this image on the internet, not too sure if its been mentioned on any other threads?

Normally Im a delver and this whole 'choose your adventure' is a little alien to me, despite playing fighting fantasy books a little as a kid.

I can see some parallels tho, do people think there will be dice used in this game? I realise there isn't any dice in the visual mock-up.

but I kinda feel like this sort of game needs a spontaneous random engagement that dice will bring, in my opinion of course

Any insight folks?

I don't have a clue, but I know I'm looking forward to trying it out.

It seems like it will be some sort of a GMless rpg. What system they would use for determining tests or skill checks, I'm not sure.

I doubt there will be any dice at all. Based on the images we've all seen, I'm imagining that possessing different skills will unlock certain options. We've seen items that temporarily grant a skill, so we know that not all characters will have the same skills at all times.

The Swiftness Potion card has rules text "When you drink this potion, you gain agility (skill), awareness (skill), and thievery (skill) for the rest of the current day."

We can deduce a few things from that text.

1. Players can take actions. In addition to making the choices in the scenario books, players can do things like drink potions.
2. The game is broken down into days. Certain things probably reset each day. Characters might only get so many actions per day. There might only be so many days per scenario. Most cooperative FFG games pit the characters both against challenges and a 'timer'.
3. There are a variety of skills in the game and different players will have different skills at different times.
4. Certain options will only be unlocked if you have the correct skill. Let's say you need to get a key from someone. Skills would give you different options and the story might progress differently. There would always be a default option requiring no skill. Your options might be to...
   1. ...use the thievery skill to pickpocket the key.
   2. ...use the charisma skill to convince the person to give you the key.
   3. ...forget the key and move on.

I'm actually imagining that this will play a lot like Time Stories. As in... here's a map. You start here. On any given day, you can move to a new location and explore it. Exploration might uncover items, new areas or hidden dangers. Your goal is achieve whatever the scenario objective is. You probably only have so many days before the story automatically progresses. Time Stories is really just a super complex Choose Your Own Adventure game. Of course, with Time Stories, if you fail at your objective, the game resets and you start over, knowing a little more about the consequences of your choices. I would imagine that with LoH, there is no real failure. I would imagine that as with the linked campaign in Arkham Horror LCG, a "failure" will simply have a story line impact later in the campaign.

I'm super excited about this game. I'm super excited that the product code is ORA01 and not LOH01. It makes me think that we'll see other Oracle system products set in other IPs. Star Wars, Arkham Horror, etc.

Those cards reminds me of the legendary Ambush game by Avalon Hill.

That was an event paragraph check adventure game. When some event happend you would check off that and it would influence your further adventure and actions.

Ambush was a very detailed and fiddly game of a squad fighting in WW2. These days the paragraph checks and fiddly nature would be unpopular BUT the cards also show that it is not referencing paragraphs as such, more like flow charts of things happening.

And so it resembles an AI computer logic , if then else... So the Oracle system is clearly an AI system for this RPG.

I would love that as a solo player or co-op player and frankly this kind of AI systems are much needed in present day RPG's. If done well it eliminates the RPG Master.

The fact there is no board or other components besides the intelligence system and the books is terrific. The imagination always beats pixels or miniatures in the ultimate RPG's.

So all depends now on the quality of the AI system. I am in.

To an extent the 'gamebook' format makes sense from a commercial perspective:

• There is a much greater emphasis on 'official' products, because you can't just 'make up an adventure'
• On the other hand, it doesn't necesarily require a GM, which is nice because the group's 'inevitable GM' actually gets to play.
• On the other, other hand, if it's purely a deterministic system, replaying the same adventure multiple times may not be too appealing.

On 8/15/2017 at 3:20 PM, KrisWall said:

• Players can take actions. In addition to making the choices in the scenario books, players can do things like drink potions.
• The game is broken down into days. Certain things probably reset each day. Characters might only get so many actions per day. There might only be so many days per scenario. Most cooperative FFG games pit the characters both against challenges and a 'timer'.
• There are a variety of skills in the game and different players will have different skills at different times.
• Certain options will only be unlocked if you have the correct skill. Let's say you need to get a key from someone. Skills would give you different options and the story might progress differently. There would always be a default option requiring no skill. Your options might be to...
  1. ...use the thievery skill to pickpocket the key.
  2. ...use the charisma skill to convince the person to give you the key.
  3. ...forget the key and move on.

Sounds about right. Again, it feels a lot like Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf books (in fact if I remember right there were some Co-op lone wolf books at one point).

I know there was a diceless choose your own adventure series, but don't remember the name.

...Apparently Critical IF gamebooks. I remember Heart of Ice being rather good.