Being a direct transcription of pp 2-3 of “Perpendicular Worlds”, the CIA (Curtin Imagination Assocation) club ’zine for 1992
Choose Your Own Demise III
The Search for Spock
Tha Intahduckshun
Welcome to the intahduckshun for the third annual edition of choose your own demise. That’s right, C.Y.O.D. III is here and it has a new format that you will all love and enjoy. In number one ou got to die a lot, in number two you got to die a lot in a set of new and different ways, now in number three you not only get to die in a heap of interesting fashions, you get to kill someone else as well. And what’s more, if you call inside the next half hour we will give you a brand new set of surgical steel quality steak knives – but wait – not only will you get this complete set of steak knives but we’re also giving away a brand new colander.
Two player Choose Your Own Demise’s! What will they think of next? In this format you get to work your way through the adventure one step at a time with your best friend or enemy and attempt to bump each other off. But it’s not that simple, cos your body’s like a machine.
Each character is fitted with some cursed boots which force them to always run. The upshot of this is that it is not possible to stay in the same room once you have met each other. You get the opportunity to hit each other, then you have to leave for another room.
Each room has a door in each wall that the character can go through eg. if both characters can go west then there will be two doors, if only one character can go, then one etc. This makes chasing each other rather amusing as both characters do not get to follow the same floorplan. We have playtested this, it is a real bitch, but then, that’s what it’s here for.
Characters
The first thing you will need to play, is a character, we recommend using a Universal Character Sheet to record it on.
Character Races
Dwarf: A Short thing with a beard.
Elf: Gets pointed ears and lots of bonuses. Everybody is one!
Human: Very boring, very rare. Don’t be one.
Slizgut: Who cares?
Choosing a race. Roll 2d8 and add 1d12. If the total is prime, you may be human. If it is odd, you may be human. If the total is divisible by four, you may be human. If the total if less than two, you may be an elf, a dwarf or even a slizgut. If you roll anything else, you may be human.
Character Stats:
Hurting Power: This is the amount of power used when hurting someone. The maximum starting value is six (6).
Ability to Hurt: This is your ability to hurt someone. The maximum starting ability to hurt is twelve (12).
Ability to be hurt: This is how good you are at being hurt. The minimum starting ability to be hurt is twenty (20)
How Hurt: This is how hurt you are. This score must be greater than or equal to zero but cannot exceed your amazingly hurt score.
Mental Hurtfulness: This is how hurt mentally you are. The minimum starting mental hurtfulness score is ten (10).
Amazingly Hut This is how hurt you must be to be amazingly hurt. When you are amazingly hurt, you will get hurt feet. For your amazingly hurt score consult table 2
| Race: | A. Hurt Score: |
| Dwarf | 32 |
| Human | 12 |
| Elf | 2 |
| Slizgut | Who cares? |
Hurt Feet: This is how many hurt feet you have. You can start with it being any non negative number.
After every thirty turns, you will have walked so much that your hurt feet goes up by one. So if nobody hits you, you will eventually die anyway.
You now have fifty (50) points to distribute amongst the stat (Except amazingly hurt) Be sure to abide by any restrictions listed in the stat descriptions.
Death:
If your Hurt feet score is in excess of two, the player is declared a mutant and a loonie with a chainsaw drops a 10 ton weight on your head. You Die! Tough luck! Your opponent is then burnt at the stake for associating with a mutant (But has still won.)
Combat:
Both combatants roll 2d6 + 1d8, add your ability to hurt and subtract your enemy’s ability to hurt. Compare these numbers. Whoever had the higher number has hurt his opponent. A tie means both of you have been hurt.
If you have been hurt, add your enemy’s Hurting Power to you How hurt number.
If you have been insulted add one to your mental hurtfulness score.
When your How hurt score is equal to or greater than your amazingly hurt score, the character is amazingly hurt and adds one to his hurt feet score.
Mental Combat:
In some instances you will have the opportunity to engage in mental combat, the way it works is simple, you roll 1d20+1d12 and if the total is more than your enemies mental hurtfulness score you have hit him, roll 2d20+1d6 and subtract your mental hurtfulness score, this is how much more mentally hurt your opponent has become.
Note: It is possible for you to both get hurt.
Also Note: You can heal each other this way!
How To Play:
Both players start at entry 1. You do not have time to attack each other in this room so choose an exit then do whatever the entry says. Treat this like any other choose your own adventure except that you should try not to cheat! Whenever both players are doing the same silly thing it means you are in the same room and may attack each other. When you leave a room that you were both in, you must tell your opponent which way you went so that he has the opportunity to map the place, and if they do map the place, you can laugh at them! Time flows at the same rate for each player so you must both enter new rooms at the same time, if the room contains an NPC then the other player rolls for him/her/the slizgut, you MUST record the NPCs stats somewhere because they all die eventually (except the slizgut, but who cares?) For three way combats, treat them as three separate two way combats.
Multi player options:
It is possible to play this game with as few as one or as many as sixty players. All you do is have more (or even less) than one player for each colour. In the case of an ‘n’ way combat, you must do n!/2(n-2)! combats.
transcription by Anna Hepworth, faithfully reproducing all typos and punctuation. On the other hand, random spacing has been completely ignored.