Stuart Lloyd

Stuart Lloyd is a well-known blogger who mainly talks about Tunnels and Trolls and gamebooks. His blog, Lloyd of Gamebooks, is probably the best-known blog on the internet related to interactive fiction.

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF

My name is Stuart Lloyd.  By day I teach Science and by night I obsess about gamebooks.  I also enjoy spending time with my wonderful wife, listening to podcasts on all subjects, playing with cats and trying to park my car in less than 10 minutes.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

The first game I played was chess which I played at primary school.  I got my first gamebook – Talisman of Death from a school jumble sale when I was 7 and that was the beginning of my gamebook journey.  After that, I bought lots and lots of fighting Fantasy gamebooks and a few Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks before expanding into Lone Wolf in my teens.  As a teenager, I played chess, Heroquest and Magic the Gathering with my friends whilst looking wistfully on at the expensive Warhammer miniatures.  

WHAT IS IT YOU FIND SO APPEALING ABOUT GAMING?

I enjoy the scenarios that it sets up and then applying myself to finding a solution (or at the very least, a more interesting situation).  I see games as an intellectual challenge and get great pleasure by coming up with some creative or far-fetched strategy.  I find making creative solutions more satisfying than winning.  Even if my idea blows up in my face, I am still pleased with my idea and take its failure as a learning experience which I can analyse later – providing another fun intellectual challenge.

SHARE A FAVOURITE GAMING MOMENT WITH US

It’s 2004 and everyone who plays Magic the Gathering is playing Ravager Affinity decks with four Skulclamps.  Except me.  I’m using the affinity mechanic to cast a lot of cheap and free spells, draw cards off Vedalken Archmage and then finish off my opponents with Brain Freeze, which no one remembered at that point because it was a blue card from the Onslaught block (the Onlsaught block had blue cards?  Yes it did – you probably used them as proxies).  I lost a lot but when I won, I won big (making one opponent put 72 cards from his library into his graveyard for example) prompting reactions such as ‘That’s impressive.’ And ‘I hate random decks.’

More recently, I was playing Last Night on Earth with my friends.  One of the characters was on death’s door and surrounded by zombies.  He managed to kill two zombies with his bare hands then ignite a fuel canister in the square next to him, taking out three more zombies and he survived the explosion.  I was the zombie player, but I didn’t mind losing to that.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY PLAYING?

I’m currently reading the Avenger! gamebook series with the aim of reviewing the first book.  However, it was so epic that I got the other five books.  

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES ARE?

Card games:  Magic the Gathering.  It’s the daddy.

RPGS:  Tunnels and Trolls.  Simple yet flexible, humourous and has a friendly fanbase.  

Boardgames:  As a child of the 80s, my favourite boardgame has to be Heroquest.  And what’s better, it has tons of fan material.  

Computer games:  Civilisation IV.  Although I can never get through the game without turning on cheat mode, giving all the players tons of military units (usually pre firearms units) and having a huge war.

MMORPGS:  Battlemaster.  It’s a low fantasy very social RPG where you can take part in all aspects of running a country.

Gamebooks:  Heart of Ice by Dave Morris.  A post apocalyptic character driven scenario with no one best ending.  You can get it for free!

WHAT WAS THE LAST GAME YOU PLAYED?

I played Last Night on Earth as the humans.  My wife was the zombies.  I won that one, though by not doing anything special – I just shot a lot of zombies.

WHICH PRODUCTS HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN?

Most of my works are free and on Scribd and Ffproject.  I have had articles and an Advanced Fighting Fantasy scenario published in Fighting Fantazine and I have entered four gamebooks to the Windhammer competition.  I have also published some solos for Tunnels and Trolls on RPGNow.

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY GAMING-RELATED PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?

I am writing gamebook sections for the android app Pirates and Traders which is a great game.  I have also written a Windhammer entry for this year.  I plan on producing some more Tunnels and Trolls solos and I may have some other irons in the fire but I can’t talk about them right now.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WEBPAGES OR SOCIAL NETWORK ACCOUNTS WHERE FANS CAN FIND YOU?

My main blog, Lloyd of Gamebooks can be found at http://virtualfantasies.blogspot.co.uk/.  I contribute to a gamebook review blog to be found at http://lonetigerreviews.blogspot.co.uk/.

My Twitter account can be found at https://twitter.com/#!/slloyd14 and my RPGNow store is at

http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=3777 where you can buy my Tunnels and Trolls solos.

LLOYD OF GAMEBOOKS IS PROBABLY THE BEST-KNOWN GAMEBOOKS BLOG ON THE INTERNET. WHAT IS IT YOU LIKE ABOUT GAMEBOOKS?

I love gamebooks because they are stories where you can be the hero and perform your own mighty deeds.  I can go on my own hero's journey.  I can also get the thrill of rolling the dice to see if I live or die and I also have a great puzzle to crack.  They are also more convenient to obtain and play than computer games or RPGs - you can play one at any time or place.  From a technical point of view, they also have a huge versatility in terms of their game system and inclusion of riddles and other puzzles.  They can also be educational or demonstrate to a GM how an RPG system works.  Digital media is maximising their potential even more.  You can buy most paper gamebooks or digital gamebooks for less than £5 and start playing them in less than 5 minutes.  Nothing else can provide so much to so many for so little.