Half Price Books: A love/hate relationship

[rbandrews]

Apparently Tuesdays are buy-one-get-two on paperbacks at the used bookstore (which should really be usedbook store) five minutes from my apartment.

After walking away with every Gamebook in the place for $6, I decided that wasn't enough money so I went back and grabbed some old AD&D books (A PH, a DMG, and an MM) for $6 apiece.

Gamebooks are something I had forgotten I liked. They were very popular in the 1980s and then quickly died off as people became stupider and stopped reading anything longer than the ad copy on the back of a DVD. Essentially, it's a book crossed with a roleplaying game. You read a page, and at the bottom is a choice, like "if you run from the troll, turn to page 272; if you fight the troll, turn to page 180." Most of them were fantasy, some of them had a whole character system with a combat system and such, for example: "If you fight the troll, turn to page 285 for its stats. If you win go to 134, if you lose go to 146".

Obviously this is something I must have. It combines the features of "interactive solitaire thing" with "found in used bookstores for under $5".

Comments

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Dude. I own every single American-published Joe Dever book (the Lone Wolf series). I always wanted to transform them into IF games.

[jazzfish]

On the off chance you or rbandrews haven't seen it, Project Aon has put up the complete text of the Lone Wolf books, in conveniently hyperlinked format. Apparently the Magnakai books are longer than they were in the US, too . . .

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember seeing this and wishing I had time to devote to it. I also wish they had the British editions that never made it to the states.

[rbandrews]

I played through part of the first one last night. They all tie together, I see? Your character grows across several books?

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can carry the character over the 20-some books of the series. They even hearken back to earlier books: some of the places you go or things you do in earlier books will give you more information or choices in encounters that happens ten books later.

Dever published a four-part series in the same universe/mechanic, but set many years earlier, way way south of the Lone Wolf books. I've got that set, too, but you don't grow nearly as much as the Lone Wolf books.

[jazzfish]

"The British editions that never made it to the states?" If you mean the expanded versions of the Grand Master books (not Magnakai, my mistake), that's the ones they're making available.

And holy wow, Mongoose is rereleasing them all! Impressive.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Damn, they just pwned my money.

[rbandrews]

Then I suppose I shouldn't mention that the Fighting Fantasy books are being reprinted.