For anyone who's never played/read a Dungeons And Dragons story game book before, they're a lot like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, where at numerous points throughout the story you decide what choice you want the main character to make, and the choices affect what happen in the story and what kind of ending you ultimately get. However, the D&D books take it further by adding die rolls and character skill stats which also determines what happens.
At the beginning you roll a die to determine how many hit points and how many experience points you start with. (More detail is given at the beginning of the book where the rules are explained, but basically you can start with anywhere from twenty two to twenty seven hit points, depending on how good your roll is.) At certain points throughout the story, there may come times when you lose a few hit points. (Like suffering injuries in battle.) The text will always tell you how many hit points you lose. If your hit point total ever falls to zero the main character dies and the story ends, even if the text continues. (For example, let's say you come to a point where the book says an enemy sneaks up behind you and stabs you in the back, causing you to lose four hit points. If you at that point only have four hit points or less remaining, your character then dies and the story ends, even if the text goes on to describe you turning and facing your attacker.) You also have three skill sets: Sensory (how perceptive you are) Physical (how strong you are) and Fighting (self-explainitory.) You get a few bonus points which you then use to increase the skill sets, and you decide how you want to divide them up. (You can either put most of the points into one skill to maximize that skill while leaving the other two at a bare minimum, or you can divide them up evenly for a more well-balanced character.) In case you get the book with the skill card torn out, your starting stats before you add the bonus points are: twelve for Fighting, ten for Physical and ten for Sensory. Usually when you come to a point in the story where you have to roll dice to determine whether your character is successful in accomplishing a task, you add the die roll to the proper skill stat, then compare it to the difficulty number the text gives you to determine whether you succeed or not. (For example, in most battles you add the die roll to your Fighting skill, then see if it's equal to or higher than the number you're told you need to win. If you come to a point where you need to notice some vital piece of information, you roll the dice and add it to your Sensory and compare it to the difficulty number to see if you notice it or not. If you need to preform a feat of strength, like breaking through chains that bind you, you roll dice and add it to your Physical and compare it to the difficulty number to see if you can break the chains.)
Anyway, here's the story: you are a young warrior named Feral who is returning to his home town of Mennan after a few years away at war. With you is Kuda, a black warrior who you befriended. When you return home, you are enraged to learn your town has been taken over by a tyrant named Regis and his evil wizard servant Vlachos, who have taxed the town into poverty, forced most of the women into slavery and most of the young men into Regis' private army. Feral rides out to try to put an end to the tyrant's reign and soon finds Vlachos escorted by a group of soldiers. When Feral confronts Vlachos, he puts a curse on Feral, causing him to turn into a man-wolf. (Basically, the kind of monster Lon Chaney Jr. turned into, although you still have control of your mind and your actions.) Vlachos tells his men to tie Feral up and use him to fight in an arena. Vlachos then rides off to his castle. Feral manages to get away from the men. The first choice in the game either to follow Vlachos or stay and fight the soldiers.
Depending on the choices you make (and depending on how good your die rolls are) you could get an ending where you fail and perish, you could get an ending where you and Kuda succeed in vanquishing Vlachos and Regis and Feral regains his human form...or you could even get an ending where you ultimately succeed in defeating Regis and Vlachos and liberating Mennan but fail to return to your human form and must live out the rest of your life as a man-wolf.
This book is a ton of fun to read and play. I've had a lot of enjoyment playing through the many different paths and seeing the different endings I would get. If you like Dungeons and Dragons and/or interactive adventure books, you should definitely give this a try.
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Top reviews from other countries
- peter krugReviewed in the United States on 17 October 2015
I wish they'd reprint this. Anyone who likes interactive books should check it out.
