How do gamebooks handle combat?

Gamebooks handle combat with lightweight rules you resolve yourself, usually a mix of dice rolls, a couple of stats, and simple bookkeeping. The classic Fighting Fantasy system gives you Skill, Stamina, and Luck: you and the enemy each roll dice, add Skill, and whoever scores higher deals damage to the other's Stamina until someone drops. Other gamebooks use card draws, single rolls, or pure choice-based conflict with no dice at all. The design tension is keeping fights tense without turning the book into a spreadsheet, so most systems stay minimal. Some modern designs even drop death entirely in favor of setbacks that change the story instead. Dungeon Mastron leans that way, an approach explored in this piece on wounds instead of death.