AoF: I was killed by Neckweasels in less than a minute!

I'm not sure about the value of the term "background" when it comes to CYOA.

I must have played through 20+ Fighting Fantasy adventures back in the day. But it was always clear to me these were a lesser and derivative version of tabletop RPGs. How these books would have shaped one's tabletop experience rather than the other way around is unclear to me.

On a related note, like no doubt hundreds of thousands of other people, I came to RPGs without *any* "background" against which to measure them. Not wargames, not CYOA, nothing. I played a bunch of hex-and-chit games, but it never occurred to me the two might be related play experiences. I learned that on the internet.

The larger point here is that IMNSHO RPGs didn't "satisfy" an existing "need" to a lesser or greater degree. Rather, they at once produced a new kind of "need" and satisfied it.

@Pierce:  Sure, some people might have first encountered RPGs (say D&D) and said "This is unlike anything I've played before".

For people who have played a lot of wargames or read a lot of CYOA -- and especially if somebody introduced RPGs by actually saying "it's a bit like wargames / CYOA..." that will greatly influence how you approach them.

It's like people who played B/X D&D or BECMI D&D before AD&D -- they often weren't *really* playing AD&D... they were playing B/X / BECMI D&D with all the extras from AD&D.

Well, but how wasn't it clear, on encountering RPGs, that you'd been playing with the egg but that thankfully you found the chicken now? That being the diff to wargames. RPGs emerged from wargaming. CYOAs are derivates of RPGs.

What is the unique specificity of the CYOA experience, and how would that shape one's playing of RPGs?

Check the dates.  CYOA aren't derivative of RPGs.

Check the historical development. They are. Warlock of Firetop Mountain is the relevant book here, not some outlier nobody ever heard of and which therefore didn't have an impact on anybody.

Meanwhile, back to my questions?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityCheck the historical development. They are. Warlock of Firetop Mountain is the relevant book here, not some outlier nobody ever heard of and which therefore didn't have an impact on anybody.

Meanwhile, back to my questions?

I'm pretty sure I read Warlock of Firetop Mountain after I started playing D&D.  I read Cave of Time et al. before.

I think I answered your question about differences in approaches back on the first page.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWarlock of Firetop Mountain is the relevant book here, not some outlier nobody ever heard of and which therefore didn't have an impact on anybody.

The Cave of Time preceded Warlock of Firetop Mountain by three years. And the CYOA books were tremendously popular. We had the whole series in our school library and you had to wait weeks to get your hands on one.

Stuart, even if you didn't see RPGs before CYOA books, chances are that the CYOA books you read were derivative of RPGs. At least that's Pierce's argument.

For some reason I once thought that Mission to Planet L (1972) was the first "real" gamebook, but Debian's Gamebooks lists ones that are earlier, even if you exclude stuff that's obviously just programmed instruction books. But some of those are really more of the "two minute mysteries" variety, where the reader is supposed to spot clues in a narrative and guess the villain, but there's no interactive effect of the "player's" decision. Others may be red herrings, such as the 60's Doctor Who books, which I think are included only because some later Doctor Who books were published as gamebooks.

Works by Borges (Garden of Forking Paths) and Cortazar (Hopscotch) may also qualify, at least as predecessors if not directly linked, but I can't really speak to them.

Quote from: StuartI think I answered your question about differences in approaches back on the first page.

No, my question is this:

What is the unique specificity of the CYOA experience, and how would that shape one's playing of RPGs?

Before we split hairs over a genealogy, let's clarify whether establishing a genealogy is actually worth doing in the first place.

Quote from: Elliot WilenStuart, even if you didn't see RPGs before CYOA books, chances are that the CYOA books you read were derivative of RPGs. At least that's Pierce's argument.

I'd be interested in anything that suppports the claim.  Certainly there's an influence on the Fighting Fantasy books from RPGs (D&D specifically), but books like "The Cave of Time" or "Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?" seem to be independent of that.  The first CYOA was written before D&D was published.

In the later books, I'm sure there was an influence from RPGs, just as RPGs were influenced by CYOA.  D&D was a pop-culture phenomenon at that point, so it influenced a lot of things.

Thinking about CYOA, we should also consider early text based computer games like Zork('77) and Colossal Cave Adventure ('75).

I can't remember when I first played 'Adventure' -- but it was definitely in elementary school around the same time we started playing D&D.  While much broader in scope of choices, both Adventure and Zork would be closer to CYOA than they would a wargame or storytelling game.

Well, all the examples you cite above postdate D&D's release. Game books might well have developed into somewhat of a different form after being germinated from D&D. Not that they necessarily were, but given the dating it's more of a burden to show that those examples were produced in isolation relative to knowledge of D&D or of gamebooks that were themselves inspired by D&D.

Again, there are examples prior to 1974, and those would be where I'd look first if I wanted to answer this question. Also of interest given recent discussion is the relationship of gamebooks to the "first-person perspective" immersive paradigm.

And finally, I believe one should distinguish between isolated works and ones which sparked additional cultural activity. E.g., not to take anything away from Sugarcane island, but Packard, the author, wasn't able to get anyone to pay attention to him until after D&D had been released. Maybe if he'd self-published, he'd be seen as the progenitor of the RPG today. (But still note the immersion issue.)

It´s all moot, as Wargames themselves are all about immersion. Be they old school, GW-style or hex & chit.

There is no dichotomy.

Quote from: GrimGentFabled Lands ... expanded this to its logical conclusion: the series ... effectively formed an open-ended solo RPG campaign ...

How could I have missed this! Thank you for that clue by four!

At wikipedia there is a link to a 'web game' of the books.

I love the CYOA books. 'Fabled Lands' sounds incredible.

I found D&D and the 'Cave of time' right about the same time. To me, CYOA is just the solitaire version of the same hobby.

Edit: erk. Just plain didn't see Age of Fables links. Thanks.

CYOA and Fighting Fantasy especially were very important developments in the early history of RPGs, but their significance came into play as a result of the D&D phenomenon.

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