Dungeon Master Forum

I'm going to take the work from my cancelled Bloodbane Rising RTC adventure and re-use it in a Fighting Fantasy inspired game. There are a few which lend themselves to the work I've done so far. I can't decide which to do, so help me by voting on which you'd like to see Poll is open for 7 days.

For more info about each one, read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warloc ... p_Mountain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Lizard_King
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion_Swamp

Isle of the lizard king, as i suppose it would be a first adventure to feature seas, and possibly swimming/sailing in it.

Yeah, the sea bit is interesting, I have some nice stuff for making that work, though you'll need to use a bit of imagination to get over the limitations of the 3 squares view...

If the Warlock is chosen, I think I still got an old node list - if that helps in any way.
Do have the other two too, but never read those.
What's with the trilogy?

Trilogy? You mean why these three options? Simply that they are the FF games that would work best with all the graphics and stuff that I've generated so far -- plus they are the ones I remember the best too. I got as far as FF 27 before I stopped playing so I don't know anything about the later books and somehow the very early ones seem more 'pure' -- but that's probably just nostalgia.

This is a bit OT, but I think that LW 7 (Castle Death) would fit the DM environment best of the gamebooks I know. Although you seem to prefer the FF series.

Don't woprry Jan, he's one of us. One of us. One of us. One of us. Castle Death might be a pretty cool DM dungeon. You have an outdoors with water/castle (but limited field of view due top power shield and castle), cool tricky insides, some nice set pieces, the maze, a nice villain for the end...yeah, good thinking Jan!

There you go, do that one, forgoet my previous vote

Funny that, I didn't think of doing any of the Lone Wolf books as I never really saw them as stand-alone games! Weird... hmmm, that's food for thought.

That said, most of the stuff I have generated so far is "out doorsy", so an outdoor adventure would be quicker to achieve. Maybe Flight from the dark!? It's not a very good stand alone game though and there's not really any puzzles in it.

Gambit37 wrote:Trilogy? You mean why these three options? Simply that they are the FF games that would work best with all the graphics and stuff that I've generated so far -- plus they are the ones I remember the best too. I got as far as FF 27 before I stopped playing so I don't know anything about the later books and somehow the very early ones seem more 'pure' -- but that's probably just nostalgia.

Nono - I think that one that I meant is called Steve Jackson's Analand Saga. Three - or even four books.
Lots of magic in there. But yes, came very late, was the last one I bought. Lots to read too.

Got a german boardgame of the 'warlock'. One keycard (with three keys on it) is put under the chest in the end. You have to find out that combination by forcing other players to show their keycards. Then try to get the keys - and don't lose them with your corpse being eaten by a monster and having to restart. The rules are close to the book - very good adapted. Easy to play - lots of fun.
Though - not that successful here in germany.

Oh, right, you mean to adapt "Sorcery!". That's a great series, but again, it would be too big and over-ambitious. I need ONE stand-alone book that would be "quick and easy" to convert to RTC...

beowuuf wrote:Castle Death might be a pretty cool DM dungeon. You have an outdoors with water/castle (but limited field of view due top power shield and castle), cool tricky insides, some nice set pieces, the maze, a nice villain for the end...yeah, good thinking Jan!

Lol, thanks. Actually, I've been thinking about making a Castle Death custom dungeon for a few months now. I've even sketched the general layout and drawn some maps in hand and started building it in CSBuild. But then, as usually, I've abandoned it and started doing something completely different. The problem is that I have a lot of hobbies and ideas and I start doing a lot of different things, but I always lose my interest after a while and never finish anything. But maybe I'll return to it in the future!

Yea, new ideas are shiny. I don't so much lose interest as have my creative energy or creative free time taken away, and when i get it back it's usually because of or near the same time as a new idea. so many things to finish

No regrets beo - it's the idea itself that brings the energy.
As my grandma said to my mother: If it's the right time to marry, you won't worry about your cooking abilities...
And ideas are patient. The idea to bring order into chaos lasted for 20 years in me

The good (and bad) thing about ideas is they usually require a multitude of other ideas to fully realise them. So delays and lots of ideas can sometimes be good.

I've lost count of the number of things I've started and not finished! That's why I'm determined to finally do a complete RTC custom adventure that's actually achieveable, hence adapting a reasonably straightforward gamebook.

Only three votes and it's neck and neck! Come on, where is everyone? Actually, I'm already erring towards Warlock of Firetop Mountain...

I didn't vote because I don't know anything about any of the three. I never had them when I was younger and I've got no reason to pick one over the other.

So there you go, Warlock conclusively sweeps...cause it's the introduction...and some people don't know the books....

i just remember the maze and the wandering monsters, hihihi - voted it too then
perhaps add any way out from the vampire
[eek - i'm already spoiling]

I've been going back over the gameplay of all 3 books. Both Warlock and Lizard King are actually fairly simple in terms of gaming -- they're just "collect the items, fight the monsters, use some keys" linear adventures with very little puzzle solving (well, what do you expect from Ian Livingstone!). In fact, even Scorpion Swamp is just a "find this, do that" game.

I wonder if this actually makes for too simple a custom dungeon, seeing as the audience here has come to expect lost of cool, clever, sophisticated puzzles?

FEATURE CREEP!

Actually, some enjoyable dungeons don't have many puzzles, so don't worry about it. Just get the dungeon done to the original. If it seems boring, and you know a few cool puzzles you were dying to impliment, then you can release a redux

Now I'm not sure if I understood this correctly.

I don't know these gamebooks well, but I think you will definitely have to enlarge it, include much more puzzles, fights and objects and everything, otherwise the dungeon will be too short and simple (like 10 fights, 5 keys, 10 other objects, 5 puzzles) and empty and dull. When I started making Castle Death dungeon, I took the gamebook only as an inspiration for the story, plot and general layout and mechanics; but I intended to enlarge it - I mean to make it more complex. I cannot imagine a direct and exact transformation of a gamebook to a DM-style dungeon.

beowuuf wrote:Just get the dungeon done to the original. If it seems boring, and you know a few cool puzzles you were dying to impliment, then you can release a redux

Yeah, good idea. That's actually a ton of stuff in WoFM that seems a bit 'meh' in terms of writing, but makes interesting (non)-DM gameplay.

Jan wrote:Now I'm not sure if I understood this correctly.

I don't know these gamebooks well, but I think you will definitely have to enlarge it.... I cannot imagine a direct and exact transformation of a gamebook to a DM-style dungeon.

In fact, "Warlock" is quite large when you break it down. It's not on the scale of DM or CSB, of course, but there's a lot in there. There's two parts to the adventure -- item gathering before the river, then crossing the river to the second part which includes a maze. Plenty of room for artistic licence here

Lizardking is the one i like the most -visually speaking- : several wallsets (beach/jungle/mines/lizardmen fortress), impressive and very different monsters, some cool NPCs that could join party (

Spoiler

a blond hot girl and her sabre-toothed pet

) and some really interesting twisting events.
WotFM is a pure dungeon crawler, but i'm not really a fan : i prefer the 2 "deathtrap" books.
Scorpion Swamp bored me quite fast, i never finished it, maybe i didn't like the environment..

linflas wrote:a blond hot girl and some interesting events.

Sounds like my kind of party!

The vote seems to be going with Warlock, so I tested out animated floors to see how flowing water would look. RTC simply crashes, doesn't like it at all

I've thought of another way of doing it, but it's a feck load more work.

Gambit37 wrote:I've thought of another way of doing it, but it's a feck load more work.

Using DSB?

I'd vote for that!
I don't say RTC wouldn't be worthy, but - after taking some looks in it - I say DSB is quite a fine gem which deserves more attention, even because it's still supported

Sophia wrote: Using DSB?

Gambit wit' yer skills ye DEFINITELY should use DSB if ye have any interest! Rtc is powerful and the newest versions give quite a freedom to do and to undo, but not enough for a master like ye! Use DSB and it will be like ye had a firestaff!

He he, you tinkers. For reasons why I don't use DSB, see here.

If it is not too late I voted for scorpion swamp. A cool introduction (pick your side), a fun swamp, and a town on the other side IIRC. I would definitely play that. Just seems that there is more to do in it than in Warlock.