#joe dever

[oldschoolfrp]

Grey Star the Wizard, Richard Corben cover art for the US edition of the first game book of The World of Lone Wolf series by Ian Page and Joe Dever, 1987

[billlaotian]

[skull-bearer]

Just reminding myself how much I fucking love the the Lone Wolf Gamebooks. Yes I spent all week blazing through the lot. Yes I still definitely ship Lone Wolf/Banedon. If this is an adventure and I'm the hero, and I'm gay, then Lone Wolf gets to be gay too. QED.

[flintenweib]

me not beating the hermit allegations

[dirtyriver]

I remember playing the first few ones when they were published in France:

1984 ad for the Lone Wolf "role-playing adventure books without dice". Don't remember these but must have been building on the success of the Fighting Fantasy books from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone that had launched in 1982.

[ninoochat]

sleep deprived headcanons

joe walsh: mommy issues and choking kink, will probably be rude and steal from you, acts like a man outside but will cry in your arms if you show him an ounce of kindness

oliver quick: sadist dom, aggressive top, won't take no for an answer, he bites and gaslights, will actually try to choke you out with his cock until you pass out for fun, willing to power bottom for felix only but will bitch about it

curtis biddick: lil needy princess, likes to be lifted up, often pretends to be black out drunk with his ass out just to see what bucky will do to him, is pouty, will knock out anyone who so much as look bucky sideways

dympna devers: has never seen a pussy in his life, closeted homosexual (everyone knows), will try anything to get a peek at arm's body, calling him a good boy, is always trying to get arm coked up somewhere quiet hoping he'll get the hint but arm is too damn slow

@fedyascoffin requested more ;_;

dominic kearney: has a lot of trouble separating sex and violence, probably thinks women are into non consensual acts because that's all he knows. it will take someone kind, gentle and patient to help him heal and let him blossom into his own he probably will eat your pussy for breakfast. i actually think he'd be an amazing partner and a really good father as he is so in touch with his inner child

tommy: i could see her transitioning in a couple of years tbh, she's just a princess (with a freaky heart). i think she loves it when the bullies pin her against walls in quiet alleys, and i think she pretends losing the dope on purpose so her uncle will beat her to a pulp and fuck her like the little slut she is

[airplanes924]

Looking at some memories from the Red Sox series at the Mariners in June 2018.

[downthetubes]

Fantasy gaming pioneer Joe Dever’s epic gamebook series “Lone Wolf”, back in paperback for the first time in over 30 years

Fantasy gaming pioneer Joe Dever’s epic gamebook series Lone Wolf is back in paperback for the first time in over 30 years - with new books to come.

[schlock-luster-video]

On March 28, 1980, The Changeling debuted in the United States and Canada.

[hideous-armor]

From Joe Dever's Combat Heroes

[oldschoolfrp]

Grey Star the Wizard, first book of The World of Lone Wolf game book series by Ian Page and Joe Dever, with Iain McCaig cover art, 1st British edition, 1985

[billlaotian]

[mask131]

Remember last time, when I posted about this excellent roleplaying guide, and shared various info about the French history of RPGs? Well I come back with more. Enjoy!

One of the big influences and helpers of the RPG genre in France was a series of books published by Folio Junior/Gallimard from the 1984 onward. This series was usually what introduced many people to the roleplaying game experience as a whole: and it is the line Un livre dont vous êtes le héros, "A book of which you are the hero". Thing is, this line actually gathered and united numerous English-speaking series into one whole. What I mean is that the French "A book of which you are the hero" (sometimes translated as "You are the hero") line wasn't just one translation, but a compilation of Fighting Fantasy (by Livingstone and Jackson), of Steve Jackson's Sorcery!, of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, of James Herbert Brennan's Grailquest, and more...

Another game that deeply marked the early years of RPG in France was L'Oeil Noir, "The Black Eye". It is not an American game, however: it was a German game, Das Schwarze Auge, created by the Fantasy Productions group, itself founded by Ulrich Kiesow, Werner Fuchs and Hans Joachim Alpers. This game was created after the group had translated two American roleplaying games in German: D&D, of course, but also Tunnels & Trolls. Released in Germany in 1984, this game had a HUGE success in Europe, so much that it overshadowed the sales of D&D in some countries! In France, the game was notably purposefully sold in the same format and aesthetic as the Un livre dont vous êtes le héros - again, French folks wanted to give a cohesive look to all of these games.

The first two French RPGs were both flawed, but in opposite ways. The first one, L'Ultime Epreuve (The Ultimate Trial) was written by Fabrice Cayla and published by Jeux Actuels in 1983. It took place within a medieval fantasy setting (which even at the time felt a bit "recycled" and "already seen") and was about adventurers (the players) fighting various monsters while gaining power and strength, to finally vanquish the creatures that guard the gates of the Valhalla - it is the "ultimate trial" of the title. And then... That's it. The game is over. This game was very simplistic - too simplistic - but one of its originalities relied in its system of experience point. Or rather its absence of XPs: to have characters evolve, the players needed to spend money during "training sessions".

The other "primal RPG", Légendes, was created by a collective of five authors - Stéphane Daudier, Marc Deladerrière, Philippe Mercier, Jean-Marc Montel and Guillaume Rohmer. Published by Descartes in 1983, it is sometimes referred to as "Légendes celtiques" - which is actually incorrect... "Celtic Legends" was only the world-setting offered with the basic set/starting box - but it is just one possibility among many (the line also includes "Légendes des Milles et Unes Nuits" for an Arabian Nights setting ; and "Légendes de la Table Ronde" for an Arthurian setting). However, this game was far too complex: its rules were very heavy and very convoluted, and so the game was not fit for beginners. In fact, Descartes, understanding this, published in 1987 a lighter, simplified version called "Premières Légendes" (First Legends)

In 1985 was published Denis Gerfaud's Rêve de Dragon (Dragon's Dream). Described as an "oniric fantasy" game, this RPG is a strange and fascinating experience where each new adventure plunges the players in an entire new world, created out of the dreams of dragons. Every character was dreamed up by a dragon, and if they die during a game session, their "archetype" will be rencarnated under a new shape once the dragon goes back to sleep. The game ingenuously uses the symbolism of the Zodiac, the Tarot cards and more for its playing system. Gerfaud managed to create a very inventive, very poetic but also quite humoristic game. The first edition of the game was notably illustrated by Bernard Verlhac (aka Tignous), who was unfortunately murdered during the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack... Dragon Dream was a real "author game" where Gerfaud showed his talents as a writer, but it suffers from quite austere rules, definitively coming from the 80s, and which "chain" the dream rather than encourage the players' imagination... The problem was solved when a simplified version of the game was released in 2001, called Oniros. More recently, the game had a luxury re-edition at the Scriptarium editions, in 2018. As for Denis Gerfaud, he published only one other RPG, just as innovative and strange: Hystoire de fou, in 1998.

Christophe Réaux, alias "Croc", is another French author of RPGs. He first self-published games under the label Futur Proche. He created Bitume, about a post-apocalyptic world a la Mad Max, half-destroyed by the Halley comet ; and then Animonde, a poetic fantasy universe where all weapons and all technologies have an animal origin. Croc was quickly hired by the team of the Siroz Productions to create a game. Siroz Productions was founded by two members of a roleplaying circle of the Viroflay town (Parisian region) known as the "club 20 naturel" (nat 20 club), Nicolas Théry and Eric Bouchaud - a club to which Christophe Réaux belonged. Siroz Productions started out as a minor editor named "Théry-Bouchaud et Cie", but became quite famous due to its games relying on very strong, very contextualized concepts, and satirical humor - tackling issues such as the decay of suburbs, evolutionism, totalitarism, the misuse of ideologies and other futuristic predictios: Zone, Silrin, Whog Shrog, Berlin XVIII...

The game Croc and Siroz created was In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas. This game of biting humor is about the players embodying angels and demons infiltrated among humanity, and waging there a secret war for either heaven or hell... Except, as it turns out, both sides use the same methods and the same tactics. Unfortunately, Siroz found itself in a bad situation right before the game's release: drowned in debts, about to close, to survive the publishing house had to agree to the involvment of new investors, and a full restructuration. Siroz Productions became Idéojeux, under the leadership of Marc Nunès. It was under Idéojeux that INS/MV was first published - inaugurating a long line of RPGs written by Croc. Heavy Metal, Bloodlust, Scales, Nightprowler, COPS... Later, Idéojeux renamed itself Asmodée... From the name of the Demon Prince of Gaming within INS/MV, Asmodeus. While the society has gone away from the RPG world, it still forms today one of the big players within the French game industry - in fact, even within the international world of games! Since not only did they buy several French publishing houses (such as Descartes), but they also recently absorbed the American editor Fantasy Flight Games...

While it is quite rare, sometimes French RPGs are brought over to the United-States! It was the case with In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, which in 1997 was published by Steve Jackson Games under the title In Nomine. However it wasn't a translation, but an adaptation: rewritten by Derek Pearcy, the American game is much darker, less serious and less parodic than the French game. The second edition of Rêve de Dragon was translated in English in 2002, under the title Rêve: The Dream Ouroboros.

I'm jumping a lot of things, because this book has so much info... But there is a cover about the "renewal" or "renaissance" of the RPG game from the late 2000s onward. It contains a brief segment about France. Among the numerous new editors that popped up during this "shifting era", when the old generation of gamers left the ground for a new, younger one, one famous is the Black Book Editions, created in 2004 in Lyon, and currently one of the biggest French editors of games. They are behind the French creations of Pavillon Noir, Chroniques oubliées, Polaris, and Héros & Dragons ; but they also are the ones in charge of bringing to France the American monsters that are Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and even (for a brief time) D&D5. The other emblematic editor of this era was Sans-Détour, created in 2008, which became the new French publisher of Call of Cthulhu and helped "renew" it and give it a "younger", "fresher" energy (unfortunately Chaosium removed the license from Sans-Détour in 2018 due to a case of unpaid royalties). A third unmissable name would be Le 7e Cercle, with a diverse and memorable catalogue including games such as Qin, Yggdrasill or Carpharnaüm.

[flintenweib]

guess who lost herself for hours in a fantasy gamebook instead of going to bed 🫣

[lots-of-little-books]

So I've tried my hand at bookbinding!

I think we can all agree that books are pretty cool. The problem is that not enough things that could be books are actually available in print. I have on occasion tried to bind my own books, but only recently have I made something that I think actually came out nice! So behold!

Technically not miniatures as they are both 5 1/4 inches in height, but I am happy with them!

The books I bound are the first two of Joe Dever's Combat Heroes series. These two books as a set are a functional first-person shooter game. You and a friend would each get one book, flipping to different pages depending on how you move- like a choose-your-own adventure book for two players!

I first heard of these books from this one YouTube video. I love it when books have weird interactive features like this, so I tried to track down some copies of these books for myself. But I just couldn't find them anywhere. It looks like they weren't in print for very long, and no used copies were available anywhere.

I did, however, find PDFs of the books online. (Legitimate, licensed PDFs, no less!) It's really great of the author to distribute his work online, but the whole appeal of Combat Heroes is that it uses physical books. A PDF of an interactive book just feels like a video game with an incredibly slow frame rate, y'know? So naturally I thought this would make a great project for bookbinding.

And the books came out great! I'll probably try making the next pair of books in the series eventually, when I find the time.