History Literature / ChooseYourOwnAdventure

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In ''The First Olympics'', one of the endings has your character having so much fun in ancient Greece you wish you'd stay forever, all while looking at a statue of Zeus. Let's just say Zeus is more than happy to oblige, and promptly turns you into a statue, thus granting your wish... somehow.

* AccidentalMurder: In one of the bad endings for ''The Worst Day of Your Life'', you get arrested and shoved into a cop car, but the cops leave you in the hot car in the middle of the day while they stop to have dinner, and you die of overheating.

* ComicBookAdaptation: ''Journey Under the Sea'' and '' Eight Grade Witch'' have graphic novel adaptations.

* SheatheYourSword: Played straight more often than not. Even if you're armed, trying to take most threats head-on tends to end pretty badly for you. Justified in that "you" are usually a pre-teen kid, while the things that want to kill you, well, ''aren't''.

* TheFairFolk: Two of the books, ''The Mystery of the Highland Crest'' and ''Outlaws of Sherwood Forest'' portray fairies in a more traditional manner, showing how powerful and dangerous they could be.

The stories are told in SecondPersonNarration, which is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in a meta sort of way: you're the one reading the book and making the decisions about what to do next, so you should play the role of the protagonist. Plots included TimeTravel, UFO abduction, cross-continent racing, getting lost at sea, solving murder mysteries and coping with supercomputers. There were many {{Crossover}} titles, including ones with Creator/{{Disney}} movies, and ''Franchise/StarWars'', as well as spinoffs like a line for very young readers and a horror line called ''Choose Your Own Nightmare'' when YA horror was all the rage in the mid-90s.. There are typically more ways of failing and/or dying than succeeding. Death sometimes comes in [[TheManyDeathsOfYou horribly]] [[HaveANiceDeath inventive]] [[{{Gorn}} ways]], yielding textual LudicrousGibs.

* KidHero: The majority of the books in the series. One notable aversion is ''Your Code Name is Jonah'' (reissued as ''Spy Trap'') in which the protagonist is clearly an adult. Ditto for ''Journey Under the Sea'' and ''Space and Beyond''.
* LighterAndSofter: A couple of CYOA series were made for younger readers; in comparison to the original series, the stories were shorter and simpler, the [[DownerEnding Downer Endings]] were generally severe, and the odds of reaching a HappyEnding were better.

* WarIsHell: Some of the R.A. Montgomery books are pretty empthatic about this trope.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In an ending of ''Statue of Liberty Adventure'', after hunting a hidden fortune and duping some gangsters, you [[spoiler:slip at the top of a staircase and die immediately]].

* ExcitedShowTitle: Quite a few, mostly using just one word: ''Kidnapped!'', ''Mayday!'', ''Hostage!'', ''Vanished!'', ''Hurricane!'', ''Stampede!'', ''Earthquake!'' Also ''The Mona Lisa Is Missing!'', ''Search The Amazon!'' and ''Sky Jam!'' among others.

* LighterAndSofter: A couple of CYOA series were made for younger readers; in comparison to the original series, the stories were shorter and simpler, the [[DownerEnding Downer Endings]] were generally less severe, and the odds of reaching a HappyEnding were better.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: ''Spy For George Washington'', ''You Can Make A Difference: The Story Of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.''

The stories are told in SecondPersonNarration, which is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in a meta sort of way: you're the one reading the book and making the decisions about what to do next, so you should play the role of the protagonist. Plots included TimeTravel, UFO abduction, cross-continent racing, getting lost at sea, solving murder mysteries and coping with supercomputers. There were many {{Crossover}} titles, including ones with Creator/{{Disney}} movies, and ''Franchise/StarWars''. There are typically more ways of failing and/or dying than succeeding. Death sometimes comes in [[TheManyDeathsOfYou horribly]] [[HaveANiceDeath inventive]] [[{{Gorn}} ways]], yielding textual LudicrousGibs.

The stories are told in SecondPersonNarration, which is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in a meta sort of way: you're the one reading the book and making the decisions about what to do next, so you should play the role of the protagonist. Plots included TimeTravel, UFO abduction, cross-continent racing, getting lost at sea, solving murder mysteries and coping with supercomputers. There were many {{Crossover}} titles, including ones with Creator/{{Disney}} movies, ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}''. There are typically more ways of failing and/or dying than succeeding. Death sometimes comes in [[TheManyDeathsOfYou horribly]] [[HaveANiceDeath inventive]] [[{{Gorn}} ways]], yielding textual LudicrousGibs.

The stories are told in SecondPersonNarration, which is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in a meta sort of way: you're the one reading the book and making the decisions about what to do next, so you should play the role of the protagonist. Plots included TimeTravel, UFO abduction, cross-continent racing, getting lost at sea, solving murder mysteries and coping with supercomputers. There were many {{Crossover}} titles, including ones with Creator/{{Disney}} movies, ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'', and ''Franchise/IndianaJones''. There are typically more ways of failing and/or dying than succeeding. Death sometimes comes in [[TheManyDeathsOfYou horribly]] [[HaveANiceDeath inventive]] [[{{Gorn}} ways]], yielding textual LudicrousGibs.

** In ''Vampire Express'', in one path the reader can try to clue their friend into stealing a magical jewel from the title undead. They try to do this by whistling the theme music from ''Film/{{The Pink Panther|1963}}'' (that is, the original movie, which is about a thief trying to steal the titluar diamond).

** Prolific CYOA writer R.A. Montgomery is particularly fond of these "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations.

** Except for a few books that need for you to be a certain gender to work (such as one where you are part of a Women's Olympic swim team) [[note]] ''The Gold Medal Secret'' [[/note]], your gender is presumably your own gender, even if the pictures show you as one or the other. Not helping things is the fact that several of the direct sequels will GenderFlip your protagonist even though they're essentially the same character from the prequel story.

* RobotBuddy: The whole plot of ''Your Very Own Robot''. Also, one of the paths in ''Supercomputer'' has your computer getting a robotic body, and the two of you [[TheyFightCrime fighting crime]].

** Averted in ''Eight Grade Witch'' and ''The Time Travel Inn'' where the protagonist is unambiguously female (in the latter book, your character is even named ''Astrid'') with no plot-relevant requirement to be so.

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: The main character is a teenager in most of the books. They can die. Many different ways. Crushed, eaten, drowning, fading into nonexistence, and many many more. So many that there are [[http://loseyourownadventure.tumblr.com/ entire]] [[http://youchosewrong.tumblr.com/ blogs]] devoted to showcasing the worst ones.