Choose Your Own Adventure...
Posted by Dante at 1:35 AM
Our good buddy Yax over at DungeonMastering posted up a whopping 83 free D&D Adventures. I don't know whether it was the boldly advertised "adventures" in the title or the massive amounts of caffeine that I have ingested tonight, but it got me to thinking about the old school "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series.
I remember that one such book named "Space Vampire" (by Edward Packard) used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. It wasn't the storyline, per se, but there were several "failure" illustrations that showed your gaunt dessicated corpse after the Space Vampire did his thing. Judith Mitchell certainly had the "creepy enough to seep into my dreams" illustration thing down.
Write your own adventure, or use a stock adventure?
This is one of the eternal questions, and it comes down to matter of preference. Personally, I find it generally easier for me to invest myself in a storyline or plot point if I create it from the ground up. I tend to either forget (I'm not much of a note-taker) or fail miserably at adapting the stock adventure elements to my own storyline, so I tend to prefer hand-rolling my own modular adventures.
There was a small part of me that was somewhat compelled to write my own "Choose Your Own Adventure" book when I was a kid, and I have to believe that was some of my proto-DM tendencies wanting to be released to the world.
Has anyone else been otherwise inspired by these books, or am I just particularly insane for keeping a special place in my heart for them?
I remember that one such book named "Space Vampire" (by Edward Packard) used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. It wasn't the storyline, per se, but there were several "failure" illustrations that showed your gaunt dessicated corpse after the Space Vampire did his thing. Judith Mitchell certainly had the "creepy enough to seep into my dreams" illustration thing down.
Write your own adventure, or use a stock adventure?
This is one of the eternal questions, and it comes down to matter of preference. Personally, I find it generally easier for me to invest myself in a storyline or plot point if I create it from the ground up. I tend to either forget (I'm not much of a note-taker) or fail miserably at adapting the stock adventure elements to my own storyline, so I tend to prefer hand-rolling my own modular adventures.
There was a small part of me that was somewhat compelled to write my own "Choose Your Own Adventure" book when I was a kid, and I have to believe that was some of my proto-DM tendencies wanting to be released to the world.
Has anyone else been otherwise inspired by these books, or am I just particularly insane for keeping a special place in my heart for them?
Labels: books, Dante, roleplay, you tell us
