Post originally by Cyn at 2004-06-21 15:36:42
Converted from Phorums BB System

A dedicated system could have worked, certainly. I don't think d20's necessarily the wrong choice for what is to a great extent "retro" gaming.

Naturally, there are features from gamebooks that don't translate back, just like there are features from RPGs that didn't percolate into the gamebooks to start with.

Odd that you should choose instant death ... <I>some</I> of Lone Wolf's fatal missteps are handled more realistically in the gamebooks than they would be in an RPG. The scene in Castle Death where a fleeing Lone Wolf has an option to leap into a lethally hot lake is one; most high-level PCs would shrug off plummeting thirty feet into boiling water and then swimming a few hundred feet to shore, but in the book it is (correctly) handled as a suicidally stupid action deserving death.

I'm going to be very interested to see how the monster tables handle creatures that differ <I>vastly</I> between books. Which version dominates, or is an average used?

It also occurs to me, as you imply, that just because I'm playing in Magnamund doesn't mean that I'm going to be copying the gamebook style. A cat-and-mouse game of survival in the Darklands, a surreal exploration of the dreamlike Daziarn, or political maneuvering among the Vakeros would be fascinating and yet very removed from the 80's campaign style.

Even staying within the general theme of the books, one could create a VASTLY different campaign by eschewing the Howard-style monsters for another Howard's; there's nothing to say Naar isn't merely yet another guise of Nyarlathotep ...