[ SPRING JAM 2019 ] Detective Madison "Mischief" Malone and a Dish Best Served Cold

[aka]

Here's my submission for Spring Jam 2019. It's a small gamebook (along the same lines as Robin Pierce's spanking adventure gamebooks, or the Lonewolf books). You take on the role of a 1930's-esque (with a few anachronisms) female "hard-boiled" detective named Madison "Mischief" Malone.


She's had a few issues with a different private eye, Rex "Smokin'" Gun ruining her cases, so she decides to get a little revenge...


This is a gamebook, which means it's a CYOA, except with a simple character sheet that you, the reader, have to keep track of. You'll need to track three stats:


Spankings - How many spankings you receive. If this gets to 3, it's game over!
Karma - How much the universe likes you.
Mischief - How much mischief you've gotten up to. You want to get this as big as possible, while still completing the game.


You'll also need either a six-sided die, or a random number generator (random.org is a good choice) that can generate numbers between 1 and 6.


You can find the game here: http://www.spankingrpgs.com/wp-conte...ld_dish-4.html


I hope people have fun!

[dirtyferdi]

A nice little story. The best part was her getting stuck and then es aping from her hu Tee looking like she spend too much money. It was really a nice scene hope I didn’t spoiler too much

[SariaSong]

That was a good read. The gamebook format serves you very well since - while I've always enjoyed your writing - I've found the gameplay/combat aspects of your games a bit hard to get into.

Have you considered releasing Scarlet moon in this format?

[psyger]

A very compelling read. I LOVED the characters, and especially the setting (I've never seen a spanking game with a Lovecraft-inspired theme). The scenes were masterfully written, taking great advantage of the setting, as well as the theme of the Jam.
I really hope you'll explore more of this world and characters in future works, but even if you don't, this still stands as an extremely good game/CYOA book.

[aka]

Originally Posted by SariaSong

That was a good read. The gamebook format serves you very well since - while I've always enjoyed your writing - I've found the gameplay/combat aspects of your games a bit hard to get into.

Have you considered releasing Scarlet moon in this format?

Why yes, actually I am. Someone over on spankingrpgs is having trouble running the game (the text doesn't appear at all for them), so I'm going to be building a version in a gamebook format for them. The downside is that you lose all the customization options, and you'll have to keep track of all your keywords (of which there are many, not all of which are used right now, or may ever be used).



Another thing I've been seriously considering is including an option to make all combat skippable. That way people who just don't want to deal with the combat can still get all the customizations, and can let the computer do the bookkeeping.

[spiderx]

I think the game would be poorer without combat

[aka]

Originally Posted by spiderx

I think the game would be poorer without combat

Note skipping combat would just be an option. People who enjoy the combat (most who enjoy RPGs I hope, or I'm doing something wrong!) will still very much be able to play with it enabled, and I'll still put as much time into it as I do now.


This would just allow people who aren't as into turn-based combat, especially Scarlet Moon's rather unusual take on it, to enjoy the rest of the game. It would also make it easier for people who enjoy playing a particular archetype, like an Empowered-style heroine who always loses except for when she's needed most, or a Superman style who pretty much always wins, and spanks lots of tushy to boot.

[SariaSong]

Originally Posted by aka

Why yes, actually I am. Someone over on spankingrpgs is having trouble running the game (the text doesn't appear at all for them), so I'm going to be building a version in a gamebook format for them. The downside is that you lose all the customization options, and you'll have to keep track of all your keywords (of which there are many, not all of which are used right now, or may ever be used).



Another thing I've been seriously considering is including an option to make all combat skippable. That way people who just don't want to deal with the combat can still get all the customizations, and can let the computer do the bookkeeping.

I'm not sure if you've ever read the spanking gamebooks by Robin Pearce, but those games basically assign customization to keywords. So while the dialogue is largely written broadly, you occasionally get unique passages based on your character's attributes. The only issue would probably be gender due to the pronouns.

Combat would be hard to do in a traditional sense, but it could probably done with a basic die role. As in, roll over 5 and you win the encounter, under 5 and you lose.

[aka]

@SariaSong Read the books by Robin Pearce? Those were my inspiration for Potion Wars (and later, Scarlet Moon)! I loved everything about them except that the spankers were mostly all big jerks, and the game *strongly* disincentivized bratty behavior. So I figured I'd make my own game. The keyword system I use internally to track game events was inspired by Pearce's system.


As far as combat, there is some precedent (for example, the Lonewolf books had combat). Ideally I'd want some system that took advantage of your statistics, but was simple enough to be executed by a person mostly in their head (with maybe a bit of pen and paper). Until then, giving people a choice ("did you win or lose?") will probably be fine. If anybody comes up with an interesting system, they can do it manually, and then tell me about it!