Tips on Gamebook Rules

[Zipp]

Hey everyone, Zipp here. Been working on a Gamebook for my Fiction Writing Class coming up after Winter break (and because it's fun) and wanted to throw my draft rules out there for comments.

I'll admit the melee rules are highly reminiscent of Cretan Chronicles, but this wasn't on purpose. I just finished writing them and then realized that they were incredibly similar. I've tried to come up with a new idea for melee combat, but nothing seems to fit what I want.

So, anyways, all productive suggestions and comments are highly appreciated (can't promise I'll use them, of course).

[Zipp]

Rules
This is a gamebook in which you are the main character, and in which you will make the decisions that decide your fate. Whether or not the mission suceeds is ultimately up to your choices, and a little bit of luck.

You will notice that the book has sections instead of page numbers. Start the book at section one. At the end of each section you will be given choices with new section numbers. Make your choice and turn to this number, do not proceed through the book page by page. Some pages will have other instructions.

You will make a character to reflect your abilities during your mission. The following rules will describe how to create your character, and how to use that character in combat.

Attack and Defense
These show how powerful you are in combat. Your initial scores are ATTACK 5 DEFENSE 12.

These scores are supplemented by what weapons and armor you have equiped and by certain cybernetic abilities.

Health
Your health is represented by the boxes labeled “Unhurt” through “Dead/Incapacitated.” You start at unhurt, and if you ever reach Dead, then your mission is over. You have failed and must start again from the begining. Mark each box with an x to show what level you are at.

Once you have become “wounded”, you will begin to bleed and will not be able to heal as normal after combat. In this case, you will need to use items or powers to stop the bleeding and recover as normal.

Skill Points
Skill points are helpful to you during your mission. You can accumulate more during the mission, and any unused points are carried over into the next mission if this one is succesfully completed.

You can use skill points whenever rolling a die. By spending 5 skill points, you can reroll one die. You may do this as many times as you can afford it.

Occasionally a section will ask you how many skill points you have. When you encounter these sections, having the right amount of skill points can cause unexpected things to happen.

Abilities
Before the mission starts, you use credits to purchase cybernetic upgrades, called abilities. See the ability list for specific information on abilities and their cost.

During the mission, some sections will give you the option of using an ability. this can greatly reduce the difficulty of certain sections, give you supplemental information, or lead you to hidden items and locations. Also, certain abilities have side effects which are useful beyond when the text instructs you to use them.

Equipment and Items
Equipment refers to items generally used during combat. Items refer to things used outside of combat.

You can only carry a certain amount of items depending on backpacks, etc. that you have with you. You can only carry a certain amount of equipment depending on how much it weighs. You may carry up to 100 lbs worth of equipment.

Items come with a description, they will tell you how and when to use them. Some items are listed as special items. These do not need a pack to be carried. They are generally related to the story in some way or are too small to deal with needing a pack to carry.

Equipment affects your combat scores (Attack and Defense and Chance to Hit) when equiped. Weapons need not be equiped until the begining of combat, but then remain equiped for the entire combat. Armor needs to be equiped prior to combat. Equipment can be changed at any time outside of combat.

Packs (which holds items) need not be equipped. You may not carry two packs with the same name. You don’t need to keep track of which pack your items reside in, but if you lose a pack, your maximum number of items goes down, so adjust your action chart accordingly.

Equipment will either have a description alongside it:
Backpack Holds 8 Items.

Or a series of letters and numbers desribing its bonuses in combat, its weight and ammo:
Jaguar 0.4 A6 LR1 RF: 2 ammo: 12 weight: 5
Combat Knife A2 weight: 1
Kevlar Vest D5 B5 weight: 5
Head Gear D2 H2 weight: 3

A: attack
D: defense
LR: long range attack
RF: Rate of Fire

B: body defense
Ar: arms defense
Le: leg defense
H: head defense

With armor, you cannot equip multiple armor that would give you bonuses in the same area. For instance, Kevlar has B5, adding 5 defense to your body. You cannot equip a leather jacket, adding B2, at the same time, but you may equip a helmet, adding H3, at the same time.

You can discard anything while not in combat.

[Zipp]

Combat
There are two types of combat: Melee combat and Long Range combat. When you enter combat with an opponent you will be told which type of combat it is and be given the enemy’s number. Find the combat information which matches this number. This will show the enemy’s stats.

Melee
In melee combat you may fight unarmed or use any weapon with an attack value, which will result in a new attack score for you. You also get additions to your defense based on what armor you are wearing. You will be given the enemy’s attack and defense, their equipment, their health bar, and what they will have equipped for this battle.

For each round, roll two dice. Add to this your attack value. If the result is greater than or equal to your opponent’s defense, you have scored a hit. Otherwise, you have missed. Now do the same for your opponent (roll two dice, add attack and compare to your defense). Rolling a 2 or 3 means an automatic miss, regardless of total, and rolling a 12 is an automatic hit.

Now score the damage done this round. If you scored a hit, put an x in the next box down of the enemy’s health bar. If a hit has been scored on you, do the same to your health bar. You are now bruised, if unhurt, hurt if bruised, etc. Damage takes place simultaenously, it is possible to kill your opponent at the same time that he kills you. If this happens, you are still considered dead.

If either you or your opponent reaches “crippled” during the battle, you/they are reduced to rolling one die for attack. In this case, rolling a 1 is an automatic failure, and rolling a 6 is an automatic success.

Continue combat now, starting with rolling two dice for your attack.

At the end of melee combat, you may take the enemy’s equipment and items.

Melee Special Strikes
During melee combat, you can choose to perform either a guarded hit, or a fierce strike. A gaurded hit decreases your chances of taking damage but also limits your ability to hit, and a fierce strike increases your chances of scoring a hit but makes hitting you easier as well. To do a guarded hit, halve your total attack value (rounding down) and add this to your defense. At the end of this round, return the values to normal. To do a fierce strike, halve your total defense score (rounding down) and add this to your attack value. At the end of this round, return the values to normal. You may not perform both a guarded hit and fierce strike in one round, however you may perform as many of either as you wish during a single combat.

While doing a special hit, automatic sucesses and failures do not apply to your die roll. Also, you may not use special hits while using a gun.

Using a Gun in Melee Combat
You and your enemies can use a gun at close range, as long as it has an attack score. The first time you are hit by an opponent, however, you have been disarmed and must fight unarmed for the rest of combat. You cannot reload at close range and must switched to unarmed combat if you run out of bullets. These rules also apply to the enemy. Disarming doesn’t occur until the damage stage, so anyone disarmed in the first round still gets to fire off a shot before losing the weapon.

Long Range
In Long Range combat you can use any weapon with a long range score (doesn’t have to be a positive score), which will affect your chances to hit. Refer to the enemy’s long range stats to get what he will use this battle, where he will aim, and the difficulty to hit different areas of his body. If you enter long range combat without a long range weapon, you instantly lose combat.

Choose a body part off the enemy’s card and roll two dice, adding to this the long range modifier from your equiped weapon. Now the opponent rolls a die to see how fast he is moving. Add this to the body part difficulty. If you score equal to or greater than this number, you have scored a hit on this body part.

For the enemy, it will be listed what body parts he aims for. Roll a die to see which one he chooses. Then roll both dice, adding to this his long range modifier. Refer to your own body diagram to see the difficulty to hit. Add to this your own movement die.

Now score damage. For whichever body part was hit, follow the directions under that body part for reducing the health bar. If the opponent’s hit was succesful, your body diagram will say much damage to take. Chances to hit can be modified by armor.

When you or your opponent reach “crippled”, you/they no longer roll a movement die.

At the end of long range combat, you may take the enemy’s equipment and items except for the armor they were wearing in combat, it’s been damaged by the gun fight.

Taking Aim
In a long range combat, by sacrificing the movement die, you can stand still and take careful aim. Roll the movement die, but apply it to your attack instead of your defense. You cannot use this while crippled.

Ammunition
Each gun has a certain amount of bullets. Once these are used up, you have to reload (although you can choose to reload earlier). This takes up a round, during which you cannot attack but can still be attacked. You still roll a movement die while reloading. Enemies are also subject to reloading. Keep track of your bullets! (A twenty sided die, or counters, can be useful for this)

Every time you attack, it uses one bullet. However, you can add up to five more bullets to this attack, adding 1 to your long range score for each bullet added. It will be listed in their stats how many bullets an enemy spends to hit you.

You automatically reload after every combat and you enter every combat fully loaded. You don’t need to keep track of bullets outside of combat.

Multiple Enemies
If multiple enemies are present, you can spend an extra bullet to get to fire at both enemies. This bullet counts towards the five extra bullets you may spend each round. Both enemies always get to fire at you.

Mixed Combat
During your mission you may have to fight multiple enemies at different distances. If this is the case, here is how to fight it:

You must first defeat all close range opponents. Fight close range as normal, except that long range opponents attack you as well (and cannot be attacked by you until close range combatants are defeated). Defend against all attacks as normal, except do not roll a movement die. When close range opponents are defeated, equip a long range weapon of your choice (or keep the one currently equiped, even if disarmed during the fight) and consider it fully loaded. Now begin normal long range combat.

Escaping
You may be given the option to escape combat. If you decide to escape, do not roll attack for a round, but the enemy still gets a chance to hit you. If you are hit, you take the damage and do not escape (though you can try again next round). Otherwise, you have now escaped, turn to the appropriate section.

Sometimes an enemy will try to escape. In that case, the same rules apply to them. You will be directed to a new section if they are succesful.

Interogating
Some combats you will be given the option of stopping combat once your enemy reaches crippled in order to interogate them. In this case, it is up to you whether or not you stop combat at this point. You have the option of stopping combat as long as the enemy remains at crippled. If you choose this option, turn to the appropriate section.

Health Restoration
Restore your health level by one level each page without combat unless you are below the bleeding line (meaning you are bleeding or worse). In this case you will have to stop the bleeding before you can start recovery, meaning you will have to bring your health above wounded manually with items or abilities.

[Sol]

I REALLY like the skillpoint system! A wise use of the skillpoints you have sounds to me like a worthwhile new dimension of strategy to explore! I am going to take an even closer look at your rules here, Zipp, and give you some more impressions. Check this out, everyone! Zipp, you will have to post it somehow when it is all done so we can all try it, too!

[Zipp]

Glad you like your first look.

Yes, I was planning on making it available online for free. IF I EVER FINISH. Man, it's harder work than it sounds. Currently shaping up to be quite the lengthy book, too. And knowing me, I may get distracted at some point on some other project. Hope not, though.

Defenitely planning to finish the intro to the mission, though, which I think everyone will find enjoyable, and which is a small gamebook in its own right.

Current Progress: A bit more added to what you see here. Otherwise, trying to come up with all the abilities and skills.
Also, starting on the flow chart for the first section. Wow it's tough. I admire Joe even more.

[Oiseau]

Have you considered using my Advelh software to write your gamebook? It has some neat features, like paragraph exchanging and graphing capabilities. You can it from this page on my website :

homepage.mac.com/siyanlis/EnglishAdvelh.htm

Take a look and tell me what you think.

The Oiseau

P.S. I posted the exact same message in Etienne's thread, since he's writing a gamebook too, and I wanted both of you to know about Advelh.

[Sol]

Oiseau,

I have been playing a little with your software and I like it. I think I will be trying it out during the production of my gamebook. It does seem like a very nice way to keep track of how far I have gone and how far I have to go.

Since mine will be a Lone Wolf adventure, I am trying to learn a lot from Joe Dever regarding how he puts the story together. Unlike Zipp, I will not need to put together my own rules system (Respect), but I am going to try to be very mindful of capturing Joe's -feel- which will surely be a challenge.

I have written an intro to my gamebook - this was harder than I thought. I might need to take some more time with the story planning before I continue, though - I am finding that like a real novel, this book will need a very definite beginning-middle-and-end. The other big challenge is to bring plenty of Magnamund into my work without contradicting anything Joe has already written. I will need help with this - when I have my website up (and the beginning of this book) I will greatly welcome your comments in this regard, Aonites. I think I am almost ready to write the opening sections of the book. If I can write just a section per day, perhaps I can have it ready to show in a reasonable timeframe.

[Sol]

Zipp,

You have LOTS of rules here. I have a feeling that players will have to refer to them while playing, especially when learning your system. (I had to do this while learning Lone Wolf anyway - may not be a bad thing).

You might be able to give your players a slightly easier time if you push off the buying of equipment until the beginning of the book (one of the numbered sections). I think players will instinctively know how to buy things. Fighting will be tougher to learn, although that is necessary. I see that your fighting system is not too difficult to master, but it might intimidate a first-time player.

How will the checkboxes work? Will there be a series of health-checkboxes printed for the enemy when you arrive at the appropriate section?

I am also getting the idea that you may soon develop some kind of an action-chart for the player as well in order to contain his health-bar.

Healing will be important as well, I am guessing. This will be especially true if the player has just a little health (4-5 boxes). If the player has something like 30 boxes, you might not have to worry as much. This will come out in playtesting if it needs a tweak or two.

The option to interrogate is very interesting - I haven't seen this often, but since the ability to incapacitate an enemy is built into your system (health-bar), this follows nicely and shows off the strength of your system. To strengthen this option even more, you will want to: 1 - make sure that information gained from interrogation is worth it and 2 - provide some disadvantage for risking an interrogation (or else a player will do it every single time, thus why have the option?). I am not sure how you could do 2. Perhaps it is somehow harder to cripple an enemy than to kill him? You can think about it and see if you agree.

Finally, I -really- like the fierce strike option and the guarded hit. Your combats (combined with interrogation) will allow for much more variety. Here is another idea for you... you can leave these skills out of the basic rules if you like and allow a character a chance to learn them along the way instead. This would allow your rules to be less complicated (up front), and would also open the door for your character to learn even more fighting skills throughout the story. Then again, the game becomes more like Lone Wolf if you can learn skills as you go, which might not be what you were after, but I digress!

Keep up the good work!
Sol

[Zipp]

Hey Sol, back home tommorow. Figured I'd drop a line sooner, though. Haven't got any work done over the break on the book, and will need to hit it hard when I get back.

Sol said:

Zipp,

You have LOTS of rules here. I have a feeling that players will have to refer to them while playing, especially when learning your system. (I had to do this while learning Lone Wolf anyway - may not be a bad thing).

I agree there are a lot of rules. I'm going to play test and see if there are any superflous ones.

Sol said:

You might be able to give your players a slightly easier time if you push off the buying of equipment until the beginning of the book (one of the numbered sections). I think players will instinctively know how to buy things. Fighting will be tougher to learn, although that is necessary. I see that your fighting system is not too difficult to master, but it might intimidate a first-time player.

It depends on whether or not equipment will come into play during the pre mission. I think I'm going your route, though, putting it off until a later numbered section.

Sol said:

How will the checkboxes work? Will there be a series of health-checkboxes printed for the enemy when you arrive at the appropriate section?

The current idea is that each book comes with a series of cards, which represent the enemies. On a page with combat, you will be given the number of a card to use.

Sol said:

I am also getting the idea that you may soon develop some kind of an action-chart for the player as well in order to contain his health-bar.

I do have an early draft of the player's action chart. It's less crowded than you'd think and fairly (thankfully) easy to follow

Sol said:

Healing will be important as well, I am guessing. This will be especially true if the player has just a little health (4-5 boxes). If the player has something like 30 boxes, you might not have to worry as much. This will come out in playtesting if it needs a tweak or two.

More on this when I get home, I left the draft action chart there by accident and it has the details on life, etc.

Sol said:

The option to interrogate is very interesting - I haven't seen this often, but since the ability to incapacitate an enemy is built into your system (health-bar), this follows nicely and shows off the strength of your system. To strengthen this option even more, you will want to: 1 - make sure that information gained from interrogation is worth it and 2 - provide some disadvantage for risking an interrogation (or else a player will do it every single time, thus why have the option?). I am not sure how you could do 2. Perhaps it is somehow harder to cripple an enemy than to kill him? You can think about it and see if you agree.

Ah, I'm glad you asked about interogation. I had the same fears. But those have been laid to rest now. Here's how it works. First off, interogation has to be given by the book first, like escaping. You can't just decide to do it. Only certain enemies can be interogated. The information you get from it "can" be helpful, but won't always "be" helpful. In fact, certain enemies are better off dead, and interogating them only gives their buddies time to find you, or lets them bring you into close enough contact with them to spit a cyanide gas at your face. Interogation's main draw is that, one, it ends battle faster and two, the chance that your mission may be helped and three, because it's a fairly unique concept thaqt I hope will attract use.

Sol said:

Finally, I -really- like the fierce strike option and the guarded hit. Your combats (combined with interrogation) will allow for much more variety. Here is another idea for you... you can leave these skills out of the basic rules if you like and allow a character a chance to learn them along the way instead. This would allow your rules to be less complicated (up front), and would also open the door for your character to learn even more fighting skills throughout the story. Then again, the game becomes more like Lone Wolf if you can learn skills as you go, which might not be what you were after, but I digress!

The pre-mission will serve as a tutorial, with command helping you figure out the rules along the way. By the time you've completed the pre-mission, you should have a fairly decent grasp of the rules.

I also know that I lose simplicity when I use this many diversified rules, but I think it adds a sense of choice and real time combat that is neccesary for the book's style.

Sol said:

Keep up the good work!
Sol

I wish I could say that I had... although it was coming along nicely until I left for break. I'll get the pre-mission done before Febuary, though, with any luck. By the way, I'm gonna check out that program posted here when I get back. Thanks to "O" for posting that.

I'll keep all informed.

Zipp

[Zipp]

Oiseau said:

Have you considered using my Advelh software to write your gamebook? It has some neat features, like paragraph exchanging and graphing capabilities. You can it from this page on my website :

homepage.mac.com/siyanlis/EnglishAdvelh.htm

Take a look and tell me what you think.

The Oiseau

P.S. I posted the exact same message in Etienne's thread, since he's writing a gamebook too, and I wanted both of you to know about Advelh.

Oiseau,
I took a premptive look at the page you posted. The software looks very nice, but is it available for the MAC? I don't use windows.

If not, that's too bad, but I'll still manage with my flowcharts of doom.

Zipp

[Oiseau]

There's a Mac version from a while ago (it was the original version, before I converted it to Windows). The Mac version is old, but it does have most of the same functions. It LACKS an Undo function and all text formattings (bold, italics, etc). And it ran under System 7.1, so it's not OS-X-compatible, although I believe OS-X can run System 9's shell, which in turn, can run Advelh. Apart from that, it can do most everything the PC version can. If you're interested, get it from the French page at homepage.mac.com/siyanlis/Advelh.htm .

The Oiseau

[Zipp]

Hm, that one wouldn't download either, altough it should work for OS 9, right?

By the way, about 25% complete with the pre mission and finalized rules.

[Oiseau]

Zipp said:

Hm, that one wouldn't download either, altough it should work for OS 9, right?

It should work for OS-9 ... and it should download, too. Have you tried doing "Save Target As" on the link? It's just a 65 KB application, it's not even zipped.

[Zipp]

Yeah I tried that... oh wait... it was just hiding from me in an irrelevant folder. Ok, got it. Thanks.

By the way, I only read basic French. Any tips on how to use the program?

[Oiseau]

That old Advelh version should have English menus, so you don't need to read French. There are a few things you can't do with it, though : resizing the window, using Undo, and typing Bold and Italics come to mind. Sorry, but I programmed it from scratch -- there wasn't Visual-anything back then.

To use the program, select New Adventure, then name and save it. Start by changing the Target String (one of the menu commands) to the English " to " (space-T-O-space) instead of the default French " au " (space-A-U-space). This is so the program will know you're planning to write "Turn to 20" and not "Allez au 20".

Then type your paragraphs. Use Control-G (or Control-R) to Go To another paragraph. Get Advelh to give you grids and graphs once in a while, so you can see where you're going overall. If you write your paragraphs in numerical order, you can perform MasterMix when you're done to scramble the whole thing to random numbers. There are also functions to Exchange paragraphs, detect close references (Proximity Scan), move entire intervals of paragraphs (Block Move), and some more stuff I forgot.

Hope this quickie reply helps somewhat. For more help, you can contact me at [e-mail] if you want.

The Oiseau