Tag Archives: HerosArc

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Under the Blood-Red Mountain

“I played it two times, once I died and once I ended the game in Blackhill, living happily ever after. I had great fun both times. I really liked the adventures you told.” – Aleksandar Saranac Winner of Best Dungeon Crawl in the 2018 Solitaire Print-and-Play Contest. A modern alternative to the great gamebooks of the 1980s, Hero’s Arc: Under the Blood-Red Mountain is a 99-section, 16,000-word gamebook. You pick the path, and your decisions shape the story. Unlike many classic gamebooks, Hero’s Arc has story arcs, so losing a […]

FVTALK: Runes from the Roman Alphabet

My fantasy gamebook Under the Blood-Red Mountain differs from a Choose Your Own Adventure® book in that your player has basic stats (strength, dexterity, wisdom, hit points) and inventory. Choosing which stats to use was easy, developing a combat system more of a challenge, but creating the inventory system stymied me. I wanted the player to have a simple way of tracking inventory throughout the game, but the system needed to be obscure but easy to use, so that if you were directed to turn to a specific page based […]

Damage Rolls with the Main Roll

Nothing can be more anticlimactic than to have your RPG character succeed in an attack against a difficult-to-hit opponent, only to then roll 1 for damage. Jeremy Strandberg makes the case that low damage rolls should at least prompt a fictional change in the opponent’s positioning: “Even when one side rolls low damage (or no damage), look for a way to make the situation change.” An example he gives: “She rolls only a 1 for damage (vs. this guy’s 6 HP), so I say that she smacks the knife out […]
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Hero’s Arc Gamebook RPG

Last week I wrote about micro-RPGs. This week we take a look at one of my own such systems, for the gamebook Hero’s Arc: Under the Blood-Red Mountain, winner of Best Dungeon Crawl in the 2018 Solitaire Print-and-Play Contest. You are the hero of this story, making decisions that will shape your fortunes. Unlike a conventional book, you don’t read this sequentially – most numbered sections will provide you with a choice to make: depending on your choice, you will continue reading a different section. Creating Your Character To begin, […]
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Under the Blood-Red Mountain – Contest Entry

My entry for the 2018 solitaire Print-and-Play contest is a 99-section, 14,000-word gamebook, Hero’s Arc: Under the Blood-Red Mountain. You pick the path, and your decisions shape the story. I was inspired to create a modern alternative to the great gamebooks of the 1980s. Unlike those books, Hero’s Arc has story arcs, so losing a battle won’t always result in death, but may result in a setback of a different kind. You’ll need pen and paper and three six-sided dice, each a different color or different size. One will be […]