On paper, each station has a unique number. Choices therefore lead to new numbers, or, if it's the end (e.g. the player died or won), there won't be new choices. On paper it's easy to cheat by remembering the last station.
Some online CYOAs are hypertext group games; whenever you get to a dead end, you can create new stations.
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone are two of the more popular CYOA gamebook authors of the 80s.
The newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction is mostly about text adventures a la Infocom, though you can also discuss Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games there.
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