Heroes of Urowen: Gamebook

** Bestseller in Spain ** New edition (November 2018)

This edition edited by Michael Reilly

Fast-paced and addictive, ‘Heroes of Urowen’ mixes the best of fantasy novels, videogames and role-playing games into an interactive tale of adventure. Travel to a land full of magic and powerful enemies, where every choice you make may help to improve your chance of success.

Fight to the death, upgrade your armor, gain powerful weapons, learn spells, discover treasures, gamble, get drunk in a tavern or enjoy other adult pleasures – all this and much more can be experienced in the mythical Lands of Urowen, where the road to becoming a hero will be full of many surprises. Create your character, choose your race and profession, and live the adventure in a world full of dangers, where every action and every important decision will mark your future.

‘Heroes of Urowen’ is written in the style of classic gamebooks from the 80s, but incorporates a new and very exciting game system, totally upgraded and directed to an adult audience. Featuring elaborate rules that allow you to enjoy dynamic battles, use magical and special items, and play at five different difficulty levels, this is a gamebook where you truly live the adventure, becoming a hero of Urowen!

Opinions published on Amazon.es

«Very addictive»
«The best gamebook I’ve read in my life»
«Pure role»
«A 10 for the writer»
«Excellent»
«A great gamebook. I hope the author continues to write them»
«If you like gamebooks, you have to have it»
«I encourage the author to write more gamebooks like this one»

Did you know that ‘Heroes of Urowen’ was the number one for sales in role-playing games at the popular Gigamesh Bookstore (Spain), and that David Velasco was featured in the TOP 20 of Gigamesh’s bestselling books of 2012? Also, he was the only Spanish writer in that ranking, alongside authors such as George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett and Brandon Sanderson.

This all happened during 2012 and was thanks to ‘Heroes of Urowen’ – now available in English.

HOW TO MAKE FIGHTS SHORTER AND MORE INTENSE

In any of the gamebooks written by David Velasco, if the fights are long, there is a very simple way to fix it, which you can do without any problem. You just have to reduce, in a similar way, both your life points and those of your enemies. Make the decision beforehand and apply it to the rest of the book. For example, you can decide that the life points are 50% less than those indicated in the book, rounding up or down. Or always subtract 5, 6, 8 life points… The ones you want.

In the last example, if you decided to always subtract 8 life points and your character had 20 life points, he would start each fight with 12 life points, and an enemy that, for example, has 19, will start with 11. In this way, you will shorten the fights in half or even more. You can adapt everything to your liking. As long as you do it in a scaled way, reducing the same number of life points to your character and your rivals, nothing will be distorted from the game, it will maintain the same essence and the combats will be much faster.

OPTIONAL RULE CHANGE

If you wish, you can change the number of dice you must roll in combat, in the opposed attack roll (1 die becomes 2). This is a rule that David Velasco changed in his future gamebooks and that makes combat more exciting and balanced. The rule for this roll would look like this:

Phase 1. Opposed attack roll: as its name implies, you’ll have to compare the value obtained in your roll with the results obtained by your enemy. The combatant who obtains the higher result (sum of the two dice) wins this phase and has the chance to wound their opponent. In real combat this would mean that, after crossing swords with your enemy, you have overcome their defense and are attempting to injure them. To complete this roll, take one of the following attributes as a base: STR, SK or MAG. To do so, we’ll have to consider which kind of weapon the character is using (when you gain a new weapon, you’ll know which attribute it uses as a base, and you will record this on your character file). So, you’ll roll two six-sided dice and add the results to the value you have in that specific attribute. The total result (sum of the two dice plus attribute) will be your opposed attack roll. You will then repeat the same process with your enemy, who will now also roll two six-sided dice.