> The group has largely died out, unfortunately. There were some great
> members here though, including Herbie Brennan himself (go waaayyy
> back to some of the original messages, and you'll find his posts).

My gamebooks group (gamebooks@yahoogroups.com) is a bit livelier these
days.  If you haven't joined it yet, you might want to.

> died out. There's still some interest in gamebooks (including a few
> excellent gamebook sites), but I can't recall the last time I saw an
> actual gamebook for sale in a store, except for secondhand
> bookstores, where I can find them occasionally.

I've seen the Fighting Fantasy reissues in a few stores, which is a nice
sign... but it's certainly not what it used to be!

- Demian

--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "Craig P. Steffen"
<craig@c...> wrote:
> Hmm...
>
> I ran across this group today.  It has 150 members listed, but
seems
> to have died out in 2001 or so.  I guess the way to perhaps kindle
a
> little bit of activity is to post myself.
>

The group has largely died out, unfortunately. There were some great
members here though, including Herbie Brennan himself (go waaayyy
back to some of the original messages, and you'll find his posts).

> For actual _playing_, I would say the role-playing books I used the
> most were the _Sorcery_ series.  Very re-playable, well balanced,
and
> a well written epic quest.

Yep, played through all 4 of the Sorcery books, and they were good
fun (still have them, as a matter of fact).

>
> However, the books that over the years I've enjoyed _reading_ the
most
> has been by far the GrailQuest series by J. H. Brennan (who seems
to
> go by "Herbie" Brennan now as an author).  I found them terribly
> interesting and funny in a way that I've seen very few authors
> achieve.
>
> As far as gameplay, unfortunately I think that the series got way
to
> hard as it went along.  The first couple of books were reasonably
well
> balanced, and I think that they had a decent chance to be played
> through successfully on the first try.  However, starting with
> GrailQuest 4, I think that unfortunately you'd have to play through
> the books several times and know where the "make this choice and
die
> instantly" pages are and know to avoid them.  Back when I was
> originally reading the books in jr. high, I played through the
first
> couple all the way through for real, but I never played through the
> 6th one at all.  The way the astral plane bit is set up, you'd
have to
> have a huge amount of fore-knowledge to get through to the end at
all,
> and hit some of the things in the correct order.

It's true. His books did have a lot of ways you could get killed.
That said, Section 14 was often one of the funniest areas of each
book, so I didn't really mind getting killed. In fact, I seem to
recall that after the first couple of books, one of the first things
I used to do was flip through to Section 14 to find out what it
would say *this* time.

>
> Having read those books, and had them on my bookshelves for years
> since then, I'm happy to say that my life has come full circle
> recently.  I'm proud to say that Friday, August 13, 2004, I hiked
to
> the top of Glastonbury Tor (and visited Stonehenge and other cool
> stuff).  My hard drive in my machine at work died around that same
> time, but I deny any causal connection between the two events.
>
> So--Any GrailQuest fans out there who actually played all the way
> through the 6 books (I think volumes 7 and 8 were UK only)?  Did
you
> actually make it all the way through without dying once?  Once you
> died once with the Luckstone from CoD, did you "keep" it to give
you
> an advantage?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Craig Steffen
>

Honestly, it's been ages since I last looked at the Grailquest
books, but I think I finished them all. I remember that I did cheat
a few times with that series though - sometimes it was just so
completely random whether you died or not, I just took the option
which kept my character alive. Without a doubt, Grailquest was the
most tongue in cheek set of gamebooks I ever read, and I just took
it for granted you weren't really supposed to play them seriously.
On the other hand, I did treat most gamebooks quite seriously
(Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger and Lone Wolf were some of my
favorites of the serious type).

It's a pity that the Gamebook genre seems to have almost completely
died out. There's still some interest in gamebooks (including a few
excellent gamebook sites), but I can't recall the last time I saw an
actual gamebook for sale in a store, except for secondhand
bookstores, where I can find them occasionally.

Hmm...

I ran across this group today.  It has 150 members listed, but seems
to have died out in 2001 or so.  I guess the way to perhaps kindle a
little bit of activity is to post myself.

For actual _playing_, I would say the role-playing books I used the
most were the _Sorcery_ series.  Very re-playable, well balanced, and
a well written epic quest.

However, the books that over the years I've enjoyed _reading_ the most
has been by far the GrailQuest series by J. H. Brennan (who seems to
go by "Herbie" Brennan now as an author).  I found them terribly
interesting and funny in a way that I've seen very few authors
achieve.

As far as gameplay, unfortunately I think that the series got way to
hard as it went along.  The first couple of books were reasonably well
balanced, and I think that they had a decent chance to be played
through successfully on the first try.  However, starting with
GrailQuest 4, I think that unfortunately you'd have to play through
the books several times and know where the "make this choice and die
instantly" pages are and know to avoid them.  Back when I was
originally reading the books in jr. high, I played through the first
couple all the way through for real, but I never played through the
6th one at all.  The way the astral plane bit is set up, you'd have to
have a huge amount of fore-knowledge to get through to the end at all,
and hit some of the things in the correct order.

Having read those books, and had them on my bookshelves for years
since then, I'm happy to say that my life has come full circle
recently.  I'm proud to say that Friday, August 13, 2004, I hiked to
the top of Glastonbury Tor (and visited Stonehenge and other cool
stuff).  My hard drive in my machine at work died around that same
time, but I deny any causal connection between the two events.

So--Any GrailQuest fans out there who actually played all the way
through the 6 books (I think volumes 7 and 8 were UK only)?  Did you
actually make it all the way through without dying once?  Once you
died once with the Luckstone from CoD, did you "keep" it to give you
an advantage?

Sincerely,

Craig Steffen

--
craig@...
public key available at http://www.craigsteffen.net/GPG/
current goal: use a CueCat scanner to inventory my books
career goal: be the first Vorlon Time Lord

Hi there,

For those of you who don't know me, I was one of the original
members of this group, and I have full moderator privileges.
Unfortunately, I've lost a lot of the interest I had in gamebooks,
but I have a lot of fond memories of this forum and the friends I
met here, and I'd rather see this place stay alive if at all
possible.

What I'm looking for is someone with enough dedication to pop in at
least once a week, and enough love of gamebooks to try to breathe
new life into this forum. I'm willing to help out with getting
things started again, but whoever takes over will be in full charge
of the place. If you think you're up to it, contact me at
greenknight_aus (at) hotmail (dot) com.

BTW, if any of the other original members are still hanging around,
please get in contact with me. If one of you are interested in
getting things going again, I'll support you 100%.

The small ones were "Mini adventure comics" There were 8 in total, I
have them all somewhere. The Large Format ones were "Legendmaker"
comics. There were 4 in all before it went bust.
--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "Guillermo
<gparedes76@y...>" <gparedes76@y...> wrote:
> --- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "airport_master
> <seanm99@h...>" <seanm99@h...> wrote:
>
>
> > There were some that were abot 35p each, really small pocket
sized
> > ones, I can remeber the 2st one was red with a guy dressed all in
> > black on the front.  It was called "dungeon of".... and I can't
> > remember the rest.
> >
> > There were other full sized comics, where you could choose to be
an
> > elf, barbarian or wizard, but they didn't run for very long.
> >
> > Does anybody know what they are called, or if there are any
> websites
> > about them?
>
>
> Hmmm, doesn´t sound familiar to me, but then again I´m not a
> specialist in interactive comics (although many different ones were
> published in several countries, the only series I´ve actually read
is
> the five-issue Diceman from the UK).  With fantasy, science
fiction,
> mystery and real world games.
>
>
> Diceman, BTW, is an extremely cool series, and the best thing is
that
> it´´s available for free in electronic format.  The downloads can
be
> lengthy, but they are certainly worth it:
>
>
> http://www.the-underdogs.org/showbook.php?id=2
>
>
> There was another series of magazines which included a solo
adventure
> in each issue, but they weren´t comics.  They were FF-style
> adventures and the magazine was called Proteus.  Are you sure you
> aren´t mixing memories of these two series I mentioned?
>
> Just a thought,
>
> Guillermo

I have all 6. Book 6 is great but 3 was a bit dull compared to the
others.
--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "Shane Garvey"
<eternalknight@d...> wrote:
> Over the Blood Dark Sea is the only one I have, and I enjoyed it.
It is sort of a portal to all of the other books.
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: gabetk2002
>   To: molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 9:28 AM
>   Subject: [Molochs' Gamebook Garden] Fabled lands game books. The
good and the bad.
>
>
>   I have read three of the six Fabled Lands books.
>
>   I really liked the first one, I didn't like the second one (very
few
>   things actually happen in that book), and I enjoyed the fourth
one.
>
>   I just got book 5 and will be reading it soon. I am planning on
>   getting books 3 and 6 but they are really the expensive ones. So,
I
>   was wondering if any of you have read them and what you thought
about
>   them?
>
>   How was #2 Over the Blood-Dark Sea? (This is the really spendy
one.
>   Is it worth it?)
>
>   How was #6 Land of the Rising sun?
>
>
>         Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>               ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>
>
>   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>   molochsgamebookgarden-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Focusing on tradgic ends.......

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/youradvantureendshere/

(please bare in mind the words 'work in progress' when viewing this
group) :-)

While this might not be thee proverbial "cup o' tea" for everyone
here. Seeing this (where I'm posting now) is a general Gamebook
Group... Still, I can't help but think that some of you here were
drawn to these books for the same reasons that I was... and that is,
specifically, the DEATHS in these books.

So yeah, I've started a group called "Choose Your Own Death" which
focuses on the "The End" pages that feature your character in the
books getting killed in various ways and fashions.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chooseyourowndeath/

There is also a section in the group called "Member Submissions - Draw
your own death sequences!!" that allows group members to take some of
thier favorite game book deaths (many of which had no accompanying
pictures) and illustrate them.

If this group sounds like something any of you would be into looking
at or contributing to.. please come along and join our ranks!

Cheers,
Victor Allen Abraxa
Moderator: Choose Your Own Death
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chooseyourowndeath/

Fabled Lands Book 3 Over the Blood-Dark Sea is now available for free
download in the files section of the following group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fabled_lands/

If you've never seen or played these gamebooks you should immediately
join this group and grab yourself a copy.

If you've seen or played them but don't have Book 3 you should
obviously do likewise.

If you already have Book 3 you should still join and download so you
can tell me and everyone else, in this or any other forum, all the
mistakes, errors, and oversights I have perpetrated.

If you are already a member of the Fabled Lands group then you have
my sincerest apologies in cluttering your inbox with shameless self-
promoting spam. And no, I haven't seen the Paris Hilton mpeg either.

To close, a cinematic `piece' from Book 3 itself...

*The first mate rushes into your cabin one day toward dusk. Deep in
calculation over your charts, you barely glance up when he blurts
out: `Captain, an ancient hulk has drifted alongside.'

`She's adrift, you say? A derelict?'

`No derelict,' he replies in an agitated voice, `She has a skeleton
crew!'

`Hmm.' You sit back, folding your arms behind you head. `Perhaps her
skipper wants to flesh out his crew with some of our men...'

`I think you're right!' cries the mate, staring past you with wild
eyes.

Something is tapping on the window pane – something that has
terrified the mate. You turn to see what it is. A host of ivory faces
are leering in through the casement window. It is a skeleton crew
indeed! Crashing through the glass, the bony sailors leap among you
chittering in ghastly glee.

You can:

Fight them

Drive them off with prayer

Cast yourself at their mercy*


cheers

GA13

--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "Arena96" <arena96@y...>
wrote:
> Is this list still alive?
>
> Olli
I think not.

I'm unsubscribing. Lurkers have plenty of groups to join anyway

Cheers

Is this list still alive?

Olli

Hello all,

Many of the gamebook related lists would appear to have gone quite
DEAD recently and I may have stumbled upon a reason for this.

Recently, in response to a query on the advancedfightingfantasy.com
forum concerning the race of Faeries, I posted a message inviting
people to the Rebuilding Titan group where considerable work had
already been done on this.

My message disappeared, apparently as it contained a direct link to
the Rebuilding Titan group.

The thing is, I know the fightingfantasygamebooks.com board has a `no
links' policy, but not the AFF one – it's not stated anywhere if you
just login.

Anyway, I composed another message, containing no link but a series
of instructions on how to find Rebuilding Titan and the information
on there that was relevant to the Faeries inquiry.

That got deleted too, although this time I also got the following
personal message from Dave Holt:

"Please do not post links to other websites.

Ed

--------------------"

My second message however contained no link, merely instructions.

I've since stuck up a third message, inviting anyone to PM me on the
board if they wish further info. Let's see if that stays up...

Dave, I can see why the no-link holds for
fightingfantasygamebooks.com, but what's the problem with AFF.com? It
used to have links. It still has links, if you check the older
messages. By the Abyss, you even have a direct link to Rebuilding
Titan on the front page of AFF.com, not to mention many other links
to excellent amateur FF fansites.

Why the gestapo approach? And will my third post be left up?

You may well respond with one of these `rules are rules' answers, but
the thing is, I'm trying to help people. And you're preventing that.
Why?

It's doing nothing for fostering a better online gamebook community
and everything to destroy and fragment it. Hence all those quiet
lists. That's quite sad...

cheers

GA13

PS Where are the archives to the old Advanced Fighting Fantasy group,
all 2656 of them, or, are they completely trashed, as I suspect
(given you can't access any message older than 2650).

First, sorry to the group. We normally travel quite a bit during the
summer, but we've been pretty unreachable for four months now. I
lost my dad and nearly lost my brother, so it's been pretty tough.

On a brighter note, we just picked the winners of the first writing
contest at www.FantasyReaders.com and we have decided to continue
with the free Gareth Blackmore paperback giveaway contests for the
rest of the year! We're also taking stories for a new print
anthology as well as the second writing contest. Check it all out if
you have a few minutes!

I have literally hundreds of messages to read and will be glad to
start participating in my great groups again!

Dan

Come to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TolkiensWorld for an active
roleplaying experience. We play a modified version of Tolkien Quest,
MERP with homebred rules . Come join Saranis Oakenhair, Oldar
Nostros, Tumaniel Lightfoot, and Lamalas Narmolanya as they seek to
solve a problem at Eredimar in Dagorland and the Dead Marshes.

Shameless self promotion - well, yes, but I at least hope that
someone is interested:

http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?
ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=charlie_gibbons

19 lots of gamebooks, including a lot of US interactive fiction and
UK FF-style books. There goes my childhood...

Charlie

hi everyone,

  I own a group called gamebookcollectors and was wondering if anyone
was interested in trading, selling or even buying gamebooks.  I have
recently posted my duplicat copies on my message board so members can
check it out before e-bay gets them.  I have a great many books I
would like to read if anyone is interested in parting with any of
theirs.
   Thank you,

   Kaiwarrior

Hi, there,

I have a spare copy of Blood Sword 2. Anyone interested in trading it
for Blood Sword 1, 3, 4 or 5? Or look out for other possible trades
at http://www.geocities.com/arena96

Best wishes,

Olli

Apologies for blatant advertising, but got to pay for that overseas trip!

Fabled Lands 1

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3132902413&r\
d=1

Fabled Lands 2

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3132902474&r\
d=1

Fabled Lands 3

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3132902516&r\
d=1

Fabled Lands 6

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3132902516&r\
d=1

Lone Wolf 26

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3132902692&r\
d=1


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I've just rejoined to tell you all that there are a couple of Lone
Wolf modules available for Neverwinter Nights.  I haven't played them
as of yet (tonight hopefully), but they have had good reviews so far.

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/modulesTop3.shtml

I am looking for players of Advanced HeroQuest who would be
interested in playing an on-line game . If so, contact me at my email
address or my group page http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TolkiensWorld

Sorry for the advertising, but Hunger of Sejanoz and Fall of Blood Moutain are
up for sale on e-bay.  Just follow the links...

Hunger of Sejanoz

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1183&item=3125790296&rd=1

Fall of Blood Mountain

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2229&item=3513196081&rd=1


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

FantasyReaders.com is proud to present the work of Wayne Densley, the
creator of the fabulous Chronicles of Arborell. The Chronicles are a
collection of interactive fantasy adventures, and the first in a
series of books that trace the legendary stories of Arborell. Tens of
thousands have already downloaded and played these FREE adventures -
you should too!

In this adventure, you are that hero. It's your choices that will
determine either success or failure. Windhammer is a 415-section
interactive fantasy adventure, the first in a series of books that
trace the most legendary stories of Arborell. The Special Edition
includes 155 new sections, multiple story paths, new colour map,
improved character sheets and a revised rule system.

FantasyReaders.com is presenting the work as a "Thank You" to all who
helped with the "soft" launch of our site (the "Official" launch is
March 1, but we're up and running now).

You can download here:

http://www.FantasyReaders.com/inter.cfm

--- gabetk2002 <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> escribió: > No offense to this
fine Gamebook group but if your looking for a more
> active gamebook group check out:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gamebooks/
>
> It has a lot of members and some very interesting topics.
>

I don´t think offense should be taken.  That other forum hasn´t been very
active recently. :)

Guillermo

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
La mejor conexión a internet y 25MB extra a tu correo por $100 al mes.
http://net.yahoo.com.mx

No offense to this fine Gamebook group but if your looking for a more
active gamebook group check out:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gamebooks/

It has a lot of members and some very interesting topics.

I am looking for 3-5 players for a pbem adventure entitled "The
Search for Hostages" set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Please sign-up at
my group page. First 5 players will go on the adventure. Come join
the fun.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TolkiensWorld

--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, "airport_master
<seanm99@h...>" <seanm99@h...> wrote:


> There were some that were abot 35p each, really small pocket sized
> ones, I can remeber the 2st one was red with a guy dressed all in
> black on the front.  It was called "dungeon of".... and I can't
> remember the rest.
>
> There were other full sized comics, where you could choose to be an
> elf, barbarian or wizard, but they didn't run for very long.
>
> Does anybody know what they are called, or if there are any
websites
> about them?


Hmmm, doesn´t sound familiar to me, but then again I´m not a
specialist in interactive comics (although many different ones were
published in several countries, the only series I´ve actually read is
the five-issue Diceman from the UK).  With fantasy, science fiction,
mystery and real world games.


Diceman, BTW, is an extremely cool series, and the best thing is that
it´´s available for free in electronic format.  The downloads can be
lengthy, but they are certainly worth it:


http://www.the-underdogs.org/showbook.php?id=2


There was another series of magazines which included a solo adventure
in each issue, but they weren´t comics.  They were FF-style
adventures and the magazine was called Proteus.  Are you sure you
aren´t mixing memories of these two series I mentioned?

Just a thought,

Guillermo

Hi, I'm Beeblbrox (Jason) the administrator and creator of the
fighting fantasy website http://www.fightingfantasy.org which
started a couple of months ago.  It's not only for the fighting
fantasy series, but any system of gamebook you care to create, as
it's the home of my new online gamebook creation engine.

We have a small but growing community, and the beta of the gamebook
creation engine is already up and running - you can create
simple 'choose your own adventure' stories online and the story is
hosted at the site for all members to play and comment on in our
forums.  Not only that, but advanced gamebook systems are nearing
completion to allow statisitic creation and inventories etc etc (in
fact its a small programming language that runs online, but you
don't need to be a programmer to use it - I'm just trying to point
out it's power).

Anyway, would be great to see any of you drop by sometime and say
hi :-)

Cheers

Beeblbrox, fightingfantasy.org admin

--- In molochsgamebookgarden@yahoogroups.com, gabetk2002
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> A Fabled Lands web sight just started up.

If you're interested I've started a Fabled Lands Yahoo group here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fabled_lands/

Once you're signed up you can check out the files section (plenty of
Fabled Lands info/spoilers here), photoes (Fabled Lands scans),
database section (recording errata and mistakes from the books), and
a links section of Fabled Lands sites (there ain't many).

cheers

GA13

Come join my new group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TolkiensWorld

It will have ff format to adventures in Middle Earth .

Come join my new group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TolkiensWorld

It will have ff format to adventures in Middle Earth .