Item - Warlords

I haven't had a chance to play a full game of this one yet, but it definitely appears to be the stand-out book of the series for one key reason: it takes full advantage of the fact that players have human opponents, forcing actual role-playing at many opportunities. There's more to do here than fight monsters -- negotiation and conversation with NPCs add variety and human unpredictability to the proceedings.

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Easily the worst set of the lot (with all due respect--and personal apologies--to Demian, I strongly disagree with his review/assessment of this entry in the 1 on 1 Adventure Gamebooks series)... notwithstanding the fact that Warlords is different from the other entries in this series, as regards the aspect of NPC negotiations, etc., nevertheless Warlords has some serious flaws----for example, the author, David "Zeb" Cook, renowned Dungeons & Dragons writer that he is/was, uses a curiously simplistic combat system in this set: the child's game of Paper/Rock/Scissors! This applies not only to individual combat but also to mass combat, the latter of which is especially confusing, given his D&D background and the multiple mass combat systems used therein back in the '80s (BATTLESYSTEM for AD&D comes to mind, along with WAR MACHINE in the Original Edition of D&D). Surely he could've at least come up with a gamebook version of one of those systems here for use with the set-piece battles!!

The other major flaw is an ERRATA of sorts within the Prince Matabei book----when the prince visits the town of Hyuga and discovers the malady afflicting Sato Shintara, he is told that Sato can be cured by a medicinal potion guarded by an oni within a town in the swamp to the south, Iwe (reference, pg. 106), and that the other creatures there can be won over as allies. But when you go to Iwe, only the creatures are there, with no mention of the oni or the healing potion! I searched the gamebook and discovered that this oni and potion were for some reason in the town of Aizuchi instead. Maybe a miscommunication between writer and publisher?? Very irritating. What I ended up doing when I played through this set was I marked out the reference to Aizuchi and penciled in the oni--along with its combat stats--on the Iwe page, and a mention of the healing potion. Leaving this apparent errata as is would disrupt the balance of the game. I urge caution to those trying to play this gamebook set...

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