5 hours ago, power500500 said:

But the only thing that really makes this a group experience is the fact that you take turns making dicisions which of course can be done in a typical game book. Im still fairly excited but if this wasn’t in Terrinoth then it’d be a major pass for me.

Huge letdown for me in what looked an amazing idea.

Cant believe they thought it was good to go with it as is.

5 hours ago, Samea said:

This is closer to a board game, which allows for a group experience. If you're playing solo, traditional game books could be more immersive. But you cannot really share them wih your friends or kids, taking every step of the adventure together, discussing what to do next.

I think this will be the greatest appeal, might be especially great to get children who are not quite old enough to enjoy reading that much text into the RPG and story game hobby…

IMO they wernt aiming for a simplistic kids game...they just messed up by over simplifying what seemed a superb idea.

Madness.

I think it will go like this:

Decision Point A

"You enter a large dark chamber and see a big orc in a black chainmail with a battle-axe in his hands kneeling and exploring a chest. He didn't notice you yet. What are you doing?"

(1) attack the orc

(2) sneak (requiring the sneak skill)

(3) turn back

If the players decide to attack (decision a) then the next decision point is B:

(1) attack with a melee weapon (requiring brawling, etc. skills and/or melee weapon)

(2) attack with a ranged weapon (requiring archering, etc. skills and/or ranged weapon)

(3) attack with magic (requiring arcane, etc. skills and/or spell)

Then it is fixed what happens next, because there are no dice in this game.

So if the writer of the adventure wants that the orc can be killed in melee then the attack will be successful. There is no dice rolling. If the writer does not want that the orc can be killed in melee then the attack will be unsuccessful. So, decision B1 will be successful or not. It is predetermined.

The same is true for decisions B2 and B3 of course.

The players will have no effect on things other than their decisions and what skills and equipment the characters have.

If the writer wants that decision B1 can be successful it will go like this: You hit the surprised orc and killed him. Go to decision point D.

If the writer does not want that decision B1 can be successful it will go like this: The orc is a good fighter. You have no chance. You loose 2 Stamina. Go back to decision point B.

But come on ... this is like the rest of this game: Take the example with the closed tea house on p. 4. Are you going to knock on the door? What happens is predetermined too. Maybe the party will be attacked by an undead creature inside. You cannot know before. It is like the writer of the adventure wants what happens.

You have to know this. It's like all the adventure books out there.

... of couse, I don't know. I only guess.

Hi,

please dont confuse this game with a RPG. It is a narrative game with RPG elements. But mostly it is similar to "chose your direction books". The diference is, that all your actions have consequences and are marked on a sheet, so it has a lot of more depth than a "chose your direction book".

This means that i m totally fine with a combat mechanik without rolling dice, or in general to play without dice.

I remember the late 80ies, when i played "chose your direction book" from GW, i had to roll dice for combat, had 2 bad rolls and died... wasnt that fun.

Greetings

H

13 hours ago, power500500 said:

But the only thing that really makes this a group experience is the fact that you take turns making dicisions which of course can be done in a typical game book.

The game allows for multiple characters. Also the text is short enough to play the game within a few hours, sitting around, reading to each other. I don't think that would work as well with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain . It is not a dramatic change, but little changes and accomodations can make for a very different experience.

- - -

And I continue to think that slapping a combat system onto everything does not always make it better. Story games are closer to books than to conflict simulations. In a good story, things happen for dramatic reasons, often against all odds. Determining events randomly lets them play out statistically in the end — there may be some exciting outliers, but mostly stuff will happen the way the stats suggest: Goliath beats David, the hobbit dies along the way, Luke fudges his one critical shot. In every story, chance is blatantly rigged in favor of excitement and entertainment. But this is what makes for a memorable, larger-than-life experience.