The first rule of writing drama is to make life hell for your hero, and to make life increasingly hell - the peril must keep ramping up in the way the levels of a game must make life increasingly difficult for a player.

However, just as in a film, the writer cannot kill off the main character - Indiana Jones will always survive - so the game and gamebook writer must not kill off the player. The writer must always send the player back to the beginning to start over.

There's nothing more annoying in a game or a gamebook to come to a literal dead end, and discover you've been summarily killed, without so much as a by your leave. This is the ultimate penalty and must be avoided in your writing.

The exception for this is for the player to kill themselves by their own stupidity. If they opt to jump across the lava lake without wearing boots of protection or possessing a magical ring of flying, well, more fool them. The important thing to remember here is that the writer must provide at least one means of crossing the lava lake, whether the player is smart enough to realise it, well that's out of the writer's control