Starmaker wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Dave-Morris/e/B0034PMDNA/
All four books by Dave Morris were reprinted and are now available on Amazon. Don't buy the kindle versions though, they are shit and there's no art. I got the VR versions on ebay.
SGamerz wrote:(especially the 5th book , Heart of Ice, considered by some to be one of the best gamebooks ever
Maybe I should run it (after you iron out the kinks*) and see if you guys die to the same infuriatingly unfair zillion damage paragraph that I did, hur hur. Minimum spoiler rant:
(There's a skill which seems supremely useful in the adventure, so the player is very likely to pick it, then there's one of the many opportunities to use it, which the player most likely will -- and this leads to a branch where the hero gets "naturally" unlucky and is hit by a stray blast for zillion damage without any dramatically appropriate cause and effect, the end.)
It has the best structure, though.
SGamerz wrote:I've always been a fan of Dave Morris' writing (he's better at breathing "life" and colour into his creations than most of the FF writers, IMO)
And that's why I like Necklace of Skulls best, even though it's structurally mediocre, being essentially a choice of three trial-and-error obstacle courses that later converge. And it, too, contains a wtf paragraph (in which an immortal being immune to hp damage dies of thirst in the desert, even though thirst was established to cause hp damage). And a shopping scene. Shopping under the "not luck but judgment" paradigm is a crime. But the writing is great, so [almost] all is forgiven.
*Seriously, I have no idea how to run these books in a forum format. There's just too much
arbitrary crap replay value that depends on starting skill picks and choices made waaaaaaay back (such as shopping, ew), and while you can shift to an alternate reality where you
rolled well or
never went there in a FF book, neither really works in these.
edit:
YOU FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT
There's a 8 item limit. So "you must possess X" skills don't just come with
zomg free stuff!!!, they also kind of bone the player. (They might or might not be worth the boning. Items can be lost (and gained). Skills can be lost and gained, too, but it's a very rare occurrence.)
Thanks for the reminder about the 8-item limits, I did forget to post that. And unfortunately, I'm one of those losers who don't have a credit card, so online purchases are out for me at the moment. One of the first things I intend to do once I have that option is to try to complete my assorted gamebook collections, so thanks for link anyway.
As for situations relying in for starting skills/shopping lists.....I can't speak for the books that I don't have, but I don't think DATDM is that bad. There really isn't a single item in the book that is a must-have, although a lot of times you are given a list of 3-4 sills/items to choose from in order to get past a certain hurdle, and it's possible that we may not have ALL of them, but that's is still less harsh than what we may encounter in an average FF book (if you don't have A, you DIE). Admittedly, Dead of Night was one book that didn't have that particular problem, but considering this forum has done Deathtrap Dungeon before I don't think it's anything that can't be smoothened out. In terms of items/skill requirements, this book is sort of similar to Vault of the Vampire in that there's usually more than one option/quest item that can get you past a problem......but without having to worry about the constant bad rolls in combat like we did in that LP.
Looks like Swashbuckler will be what we're going with. I'll proceed with the prologue, but until we actually reach an option that requires u to use Skills, feel free to cast/alter your votes if you prefer another character (or your own creation).
Prologue:
'Pirates!' The roar of cannonfire thunders across the waves as the word leaves the captain's lips. Hurtling out of the billowing plumes of smoke comes a barrage of iron shells. Each is larger than a man's fist, and strikes with a force that splinters the oak beams of your ship and shatters men's skulls like eggs. The mainmast takes a direct hit and topples, crushing the sailors standing under it.
A grappling hook latches onto the rail. The pirates are getting ready to board. Rushing to the side, you see their sinister vessel drawing alongside. Black sails flapping in the breeze like a carrion-bird's wings, her prow has the face of a medieval gargoyle. You read the name painted on her bows: the Belle Dame. But there is no look of beauty about her, nor hint of mercy on the faces of the brigands lining her rail.
A crewman standing beside you utters a groan of fear. 'It's Skarvench's ship.'
'Who's he?' you ask, having to shout over the din of cannon shots and the pirates' battle-cries.
He stares at you as though you are a simpleton, and then remembers that this is your first voyage to the New World. 'The worst man that ever lived,' is his blunt reply. And then the ships come together and the pirates are upon you.
Rushing headlong into the terrified crew, the pirates cleave a swathe of gory death across the ship's deck, their cutlasses rising and falling like scythes. You see the ship's officers valiantly fighting to defend the helm, but they are hopelessly outnumbered and soon butchered at their post. The fierce grins on the pirates' faces tell you that they expect easy pickings. You narrow your eyes as anger wells up inside you. You know that you will die today, but you feel no fear - only a cold determination to sell your life dearly. Two pirates lunge towards you. You duck the swing of the first, catch his arm and throw him against his crony. The sword intended for you ends up embedded in a pirate's belly, and his knife comes up by reflex to slash at the man who has inadvertently impaled him.
'Two down...' You turn, and then for the first time you clap eyes on Skarvench himself. He stands on the rail, grasping a grappling-line in one hand and a pistol in the other, whipping his sea-dogs into a killing frenzy with his evil laughter. His broad back and gangling limbs make him look like a massive crow. His beard is as long and lank as seaweed, and a single eye blazes beneath his bald brow - the other is covered by a leather patch.
He is raising his pistol. You are rooted to the spot under his baleful stare. It can't be fear you're feeling, surely...
'Ah, matey,' he says with a brown-toothed grin. 'Got to kill you again, 'ave I?'
Again? You have no time to ponder this enigma. In the next instant, he fires his pistol and your whole world goes black.
You sit up with a gasp, sweat soaking your clothes. 'You've 'ad that dream again, eh?' says a voice.
You look around, your memory trickling back as the dream recedes. The slow creaking of a ship's timbers, the unhurried heave of the waves... you are in the stuffy confines of the Belle Dame's bowels. Sailors snore fitfully around you, catching some sleep between chores. In the glimmer of an oil lamp sits Old Marshy, the ship's carpenter, whittling at a stick of wood. He glances across at you, shaking his head sadly. 'It was two years ago,' he says. 'Don't know why you can't stop 'aving the dreams.'
'Dreams? Nightmares!' you say, mopping the sweat away. As you do, you feel the scar across your forehead where Skarvench's bullet struck you. A finger's breadth to the right — one less tot of rum for Skarvench's breakfast that fateful morning! - and your brains would have been blown out. As it is the bullet grazed you, leaving only the visible mark on your head and the scar of hatred deep in your heart.
Now that the nightmare has washed away, you recall the two years that have passed since that day. When you were first brought aboard the Belle Dame, Skarvench deemed you too insignificant to ransom and too close to death to be worth pressing into service. He would have cast you into the deep and never had a qualm - that was the fate of most who survived the battle - but Old Marshy undertook to nurse you back to health. You can well remember the weeks it took to get your strength back - weeks experienced like glimpses through broken glass, because of fever. You remember Old Marshy holding the wooden spoon of gruel to your lips until his thin arms trembled with tiredness, urging you to eat. You remember the shouts of the pirates as they toiled in the rigging, and their drunken laughter under the stars at night. And most of all you remember Skarvench, looming through your thoughts like the embodiment of cruelty, striding the deck and waiting for you to die.
You did not die; thanks to Old Marshy you regained your strength. But death might have been better than the living hell you have had to endure these two years as an ordinary seaman aboard the cruellest ship to sail the Carab Sea. Skarvench metes out discipline as the whim takes him, revelling in the suffering of others; pain is his wine, and death his meat. Often you have had to stand by and watch a man whipped for the slightest mistake. Sometimes you have felt that whip yourself- all to the raucous laughter of Skarvench and his vicious pirate band.
'All hands on deck!' Hearing the command, you shake the other sailors awake and hurry up out of the dingy confines of the orlop deck into the blaze of daylight.
Skarvench stands on the poopdeck. The ox-like first mate, Porbuck, gives you a shove and growls, 'You, get up in the rigging.' As you climb, you glance out to sea. A small ship lies off the port bow and the Belle Dame is rapidly closing on her. You see a tall wooden crucifix standing amidships; she has no cannon. That is foolhardy: 'Go to sea on a prayer,' as the adage goes, 'but take a keg of powder too.' You understand the reason for the other ship's lack of weaponry when you get a better view of the men lining her rail. They are all monks!
Skarvench's voice goes snarling across the water. 'Heave to or be blown out o' the water!' he calls. 'We'll be takin' your treasure, holy or not!'
'We have no treasure,' calls back one of the monks. 'We are poor brothers of the Saviour, travelling to the New World to spread His message to the heathen.'
Skarvench smiles — always a sign of his bad temper - and says, 'Is that so? Well, I know of no place more heathen than the ocean bed.' He leans on the poopdeck rail and calls to the master gunner: 'Mister Borograve, prepare to give 'em a broadside. I want their shaved heads sent forty fathoms deep, where heaven can't hear their mealy-mouthed prayers!'
The monks know they cannot outrun the Belle Dame. As Borograve orders the cannons primed, they begin to sing a hymn. It is a glorious and peaceful sound that reminds you of the meadows and villages of your homeland. Most of the sailors pause in their duties, overcome by the melancholy beauty of the song. Even one or two of the pirates look uneasy at what they are about to do.
'Prepare to fire,' says Skarvench, keen as a hound at the scent of a kill.
'No!' A carpenter's hammer goes flying through the air and strikes Skarvench's head with a crack loud enough to carry up to where you sit in the rigging. Skarvench remains as steady as a rock, his hand flashing out with startling speed to snatch the hammer out of the air as it falls. Then he turns. His face is a mask of white fury. The fact that there is a stream of blood flowing from his temple only makes him look all the more terrible. His gaze bores along the deck and finds:
'Mister Marsh! This your hammer, is it?'
Old Marshy quails, his one jot of boldness used up. 'B-but, Cap'n... they're holy men! I don't think...'
Skarvench tastes his own blood on his lip and savours it with his tongue. He gestures to a couple of the pirates, and Old Marshy is seized and dragged up to the poopdeck. 'Lay his head on the rail there, lads,' says Skarvench in a voice like honeyed venom. He raises the hammer. 'You're right, Mister Marsh; you don't think. That's the trouble with having nothin' in your brain-pan, see?'
Far too late, you realize what Skarvench is going to do. You give a gasp and start down through the rigging. But even as you act, you know there is nothing you can do...
The hammer smashes down. It sounds like a wineflask breaking. The ordinary seamen look away in horror. The pirates grin gleefully like their captain, excited by the grisly sight. The corpse slumps to the deck.
'God curse you, Skarvench,' you mutter under your breath as you reach the foot of the mast. 'I'll see you dead for that.
You're not alone in wishing that,' whispers a voice, 'but I'd stow such talk unless you want your own skull under the hammer next.' You look around to see three of the crew - Grimes, Oakley and Blutz - men who, like you, were taken off plundered ships and forced to work for the pirates. 'We've a plan,' continues Grimes in a low voice. 'If we stay aboard this devil ship our days are surely numbered, so tonight we plan to jump ship. We're scheduled to take the evening watch. We'll lower the jollyboat with a few supplies, then strike out towards Port Leshand.'
'Five hundred leagues of open ocean in a tiny boat like that!' you gasp. 'It's near certain death.'
'Better than certain death, which is what we can expect here,' mutters Oakley. 'Look, you've got a reputation of being a handy customer to have along in a tight spot. To be honest, we haven't got much of a chance without you. Now, are you with us?'
You glare back up at the tall stooped figure on the poopdeck. He stamps to and fro, the brain-smeared hammer still in his hand, annoyed that the monks made their getaway while he was distracted by Old Marshy. You'll make him pay for his crimes one day, but you know the moment is not yet right. You turn to Grimes and the others and give a swift nod. 'I'm with you,' you say.
And we begin!
You know that you will need supplies to have any chance of survival on the open sea. It means taking a big risk, because you will have to go right past the officers' cabins, but there is no help for it. While your comrades keep a nervous vigil, fearing discovery at any moment, you creep aft and descend below decks. The only light in the passage is the glow of an oil-lamp shining from the half-open door of Skarvench's cabin. As you skulk forward through the shadows, you hear the voice of the pirate captain raised in typically drunken bluster:
'What, my merry lads, is the easiest route to fortune, would you say?'
'Why, piracy, Cap'n,' you hear one of the men answer hurriedly.
'Aye, piracy, right enough,' roars Skarvench, 'but what's the most profitable form of piracy, I'm askin' you? Why, 'tis kidnap and ransom, that's what. There's no cargo takes up so little space nor fetches so high a price as live human baggage - so long as you choose the right person. Even you daft lubbers must've heard how Toliver Crimp earned himself a thousand doubloons last summer when he ransomed the Viceroy's nephew -'
'A thousand doubloons!' cry the pirates in unison.
'A spit in the ocean compared with what I've got planned! I'll be earning us a king's ransom - or a queen's ransom, rather, if you wants to split hairs on it - when I capture the best prize of all. I'm talking about that pretty young Queen Titania of Glorianne, my hearties, who'll soon be sailing here on a tour of the colonies!'
You were just tiptoeing past the door, glad of Skarvench's ranting as it kept you from being overheard, but this news roots you to the spot. Can Skarvench really mean to set his sights so high? The kidnapping of a monarch is surely beyond the limits of even his voracious ambition. Everyone knows that Queen Titania is well guarded by her loyal admiral, Lord Calidor, whose naval tactics have sent many a foe to the sea's bottom. And no trickery or poison can prevail against her while she is protected by her wizardry counsellor Mirabilis. Skarvench's plan seems impossible, and yet you have suffered enough harsh experience of the man aboard his ship to know that, although unmatched for cruelty and greed, he is nobody's fool. He must really think he has a chance of carrying off the Queen!
You glance across the passage to the sailmaster's cabin. No light shows under the door. The sailmaster must still be in the galley with most of the other pirates. Now is your chance to sneak into the empty cabin and gather a few items for your voyage — and, God knows, your comrades must be getting anxious for you to return. At any moment one of the pirates might go up on deck and your bid for freedom would be discovered. But Skarvench is still boasting of his madcap scheme, and despite your best instincts you feel compelled to eavesdrop further.
If you stay where you are and listen to what Skarvench says, turn to 20. If you look in the sailmaster's cabin for supplies, turn to 39. If you decide to hurry straight up on deck, turn to 172.
Here's the map inside the front cover:
What to do now?
And the votes for a name and Skills is still open!
Adventure Sheet:
Name: ???
Profession: Swashbuckler
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, STREETWISE and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 10
Possessions:
1) Sword
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
Money: 10 doubloons