Is memorising a path to victory cheating?

[jmisno1]

Since quite a lot of people consider using Guides to be a form of Cheating does the same apply to having fairly beaten every book in the series other then 29 enough times to be mentally memorised a path to victory that unless I have lots of bad luck with The Random Number Generator will guarantee I can beat all the books in the series other then 29 simply me using my far better then normal memory

That's hardly cheating, is it?, after all I'm using the paths through each book that I've committed to my far better then normal memory but could still die if I generate loads of bad numbers The Random Number Generator. So all in all its using my far better then normal memory not using cheats and as I'm only doing it for fun and amusement it can't possibly be cheating. Right.?

[Oiseau]

Put it another way — if you've memorized the winning paths, how can you play without using that knowledge? You can't make yourself un-know the path to victory. So if this is cheating, then everybody cheats.

[andyc]

Jul 15, 2019 19:19:47 GMT Oiseau said:

Put it another way — if you've memorized the winning paths, how can you play without using that knowledge? You can't make yourself un-know the path to victory. So if this is cheating, then everybody cheats.

You could try it pissed out of your mind...but then you might not still be able to read.
I guess we will just have to wait to see if we get dementia. Then one can read them again and again without knowing what was going to happen. (There's got to be some perks I guess).

[Black Cat]

Playing a video game the first time, you don't know how to beat it until you experiment different things. Once you beat the game, you can either get rid of it and never play it again because the experience will never be the same than the first time, or replay it because you had fun with it and want to try new ways to beat it. That's exactly the same thing with a gamebook: the first time you read it, you don't know how to beat it but once you know, if you loved the book, you can replay it and try to find new ways to beat it.

Is it cheating? No, it's just that the experience will never be the same than the first time you've read the book.

[Oiseau]

And I would say that's an important flaw with the newer Lone Wolf books. There are no "new ways to beat it". The whole book is a straight line. It's not about finding the path to victory, it's just about surviving to the end.

[aggsol]

I would say that memorizing the one Kai skill we always have. It is something you have to train and not everybody is equally good at it. I always forget how to meet Banedon for the first time even though I read the first book A LOT!

[Zipp]

Jul 16, 2019 18:58:27 GMT Oiseau said:

And I would say that's an important flaw with the newer Lone Wolf books. There are no "new ways to beat it". The whole book is a straight line. It's not about finding the path to victory, it's just about surviving to the end.

I always wondered why the books became more linear as time went on. I would have thought with more pages in the Grandmaster series, there'd also be more options for diversity, but that doesn't seem to be the case, really.

[Black Cat]

May 4, 2020 22:08:45 GMT Zipp said:

Jul 16, 2019 18:58:27 GMT Oiseau said:

And I would say that's an important flaw with the newer Lone Wolf books. There are no "new ways to beat it". The whole book is a straight line. It's not about finding the path to victory, it's just about surviving to the end.

I always wondered why the books became more linear as time went on. I would have thought with more pages in the Grandmaster series, there'd also be more options for diversity, but that doesn't seem to be the case, really.

I think the 350-sections limit doesn't help with the later books: the more it goes, the more each gamebooks have sections assigned to situations like "If you've been to a place named ****, turn to 234" or "If you have picked a certain Special Item from 4 books ago, go to section 330". Plus, in the GM series, instead of 10 Disciplines, the player can pick among 12 of them, so there are more sections allotted to cover the various possibilities of the player's choice of Disciplines in certain situations. And let's not forget when we are asked if we have reached a certain rank to use a Discipline, or if we want to use that Discipline without having reach the said rank! It gets worst with the NO series (16 Disciplines!). With so many sections allotted to these elements, it doesn't leave much room for sections where you could pick different paths and explore them in a fulfilling way.

I also think that the more Joe wrote gamebooks, the more he wanted to tell a story. The more you go through the series, the more I get the impression that it takes longer and longer to just read the gamebooks. I think you have to read more sections to reach the fabled section 350 in the last few books than in the first few ones. It could be interesting to count how many sections you need to read to complete each book of the series.

[Zipp]

May 5, 2020 4:13:24 GMT Black Cat said:

May 4, 2020 22:08:45 GMT Zipp said:

I always wondered why the books became more linear as time went on. I would have thought with more pages in the Grandmaster series, there'd also be more options for diversity, but that doesn't seem to be the case, really.

I think the 350-sections limit doesn't help with the later books: the more it goes, the more each gamebooks have sections assigned to situations like "If you've been to a place named ****, turn to 234" or "If you have picked a certain Special Item from 4 books ago, go to section 330". Plus, in the GM series, instead of 10 Disciplines, the player can pick among 12 of them, so there are more sections allotted to cover the various possibilities of the player's choice of Disciplines in certain situations. And let's not forget when we are asked if we have reached a certain rank to use a Discipline, or if we want to use that Discipline without having reach the said rank! It gets worst with the NO series (16 Disciplines!). With so many sections allotted to these elements, it doesn't leave much room for sections where you could pick different paths and explore them in a fulfilling way.

Really good point. I hadn't considered that. Especially when Lone Wolf starts being able to do magic and has access to different spells (not to mention all the times you're NOT given a choice to use a spell or ability that you think would apply, especially with all the crazy powers you start to get with Kai rank bonuses). I suppose instead of picking from multiple paths, it becomes more about addressing your specific character build. But sadly, that becomes a little redundant for those who play start to finish, as many times you have ALL the options available to you by the time you are a few books in.

Sometimes I wish you didn't have all those extended Kai rank powers, though it was something Joe clearly dug: he played with them as early as book 3, I think. I know book 4 has quite a few rank questions.

I also think that the more Joe wrote gamebooks, the more he wanted to tell a story. The more you go through the series, the more I get the impression that it takes longer and longer to just read the gamebooks. I think you have to read more sections to reach the fabled section 350 in the last few books than in the first few ones. It could be interesting to count how many sections you need to read to complete each book of the series.

It's definitely true. The section descriptions become noticeably long around book 10, and get huge by the New Order series. There's also a lot more preamble. Go from book 1, which started right out with a choice, to some of the later books, where you can go three or four sections before you actually make your first decision.

One interesting thing to do is to look at the Project Aon path trees and note the different looks to each book. The later books tend to be longer and thinner, while the earlier books are shorter and squatter. It comes from having less branching paths in the later books. You'll also see that branching paths in later books tend to skip less chunks and more quickly get looped back in to the main path. The New Order books seem to do this especially. Storms of Chai was particularly bad about this. The Greystar books, on the other hand, seem to be some of the most diverse, but then they weren't penned by Joe.

[Black Cat]

May 6, 2020 16:02:34 GMT Zipp said:

It comes from having less branching paths in the later books. You'll also see that branching paths in later books tend to skip less chunks and more quickly get looped back in to the main path. The New Order books seem to do this especially. Storms of Chai was particularly bad about this.

Best example IMO, and I have already complained about it in the dedicated thread, are sections 34 and 277 of book 29: both give you the choice to go inside a house (turn to 308) or act as a lookout (turn to 216). Guess what? Neither choices are especially useful: the text is slightly different, but you don't obtain or lost anything. No EP gain (or lost), no new item, no useful information for the future, nothing! And then, you turn to 203. Joe just wasted a section that could had been useful for creating a new meaningful path. Of course, that's just one section, but if he wasted 7-8 sections like that throughout the adventure, if you put them together, they could be used to create a (short) new path. I think that it proves my previous point: Joe wanted to tell a specific story and it affects the linearity of the adventure.

[Zipp]

May 6, 2020 19:46:26 GMT Black Cat said:

May 6, 2020 16:02:34 GMT Zipp said:

It comes from having less branching paths in the later books. You'll also see that branching paths in later books tend to skip less chunks and more quickly get looped back in to the main path. The New Order books seem to do this especially. Storms of Chai was particularly bad about this.

Best example IMO, and I have already complained about it in the dedicated thread, are sections 34 and 277 of book 29: both give you the choice to go inside a house (turn to 308) or act as a lookout (turn to 216). Guess what? Neither choices are especially useful: the text is slightly different, but you don't obtain or lost anything. No EP gain (or lost), no new item, no useful information for the future, nothing! And then, you turn to 203. Joe just wasted a section that could had been useful for creating a new meaningful path. Of course, that's just one section, but if he wasted 7-8 sections like that throughout the adventure, if you put them together, they could be used to create a (short) new path. I think that it proves my previous point: Joe wanted to tell a specific story and it affects the linearity of the adventure.

So they become more and more like novels with simplistic combat. That's unfortunate. That said, I have enjoyed book 30 quite a bit and the paths seem very different in their outcomes and possibilities.

[johntfs]

The truth is that once you beat the books a couple of times, the main reason to replay them is nostalgia - visiting with old friends, so to speak.

If you want books that give you more of a replay challenge, you need to check out Dave Morris and Jaime Thompson's Fabled Lands series.

fabledlands.blogspot.com/

[Rune Owl]

I think what you're describing here is a main attraction of reading a game book. You get to go back through and make better decisions, or at least different ones.  Once you have read the books 29 times, you are basically just living in 29 separate timelines simultaneously.

By the way, I think this is a main difference between writing fiction and reading someone else's fiction.  When you write fiction, you get to live with every possible story line.  The reader only gets the final draft, which becomes canon.