TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 3/12



Side Treks - The Rock and the Hard Place: A short high level adventure? Not often you see one of those. A young thief stole a powerful magical gem from a wizard without realising what she had. As soon as it was out of his anti-scrying protections, both the upper and lower planes immediately noticed and dispatched an Astral Deva and a Gelugon (to be up or downgraded in rank if you’re scaling this for other levels) Both have currently assumed human form and are trying to get her to give them the gem without causing widespread panic, while she tries to escape. These attempts at subtlety probably won’t last too long once she runs into the PC’s and begs them for help. Will they figure out which one is the good guy and persuade her to hand over the gem, get tricked and hand it over to the bad guy, fight them both, or even kill everyone involved and take the gem for themselves, which will obviously bring escalating extra-planar retaliation in the future plus the danger of being corrupted by the gem but hey, it’s all XP opportunities. A pretty entertaining little scenario that doesn’t railroad you into one solution and has lots of ideas for long-term consequences whichever path they choose, this definitely seems worth including if your stay in town is getting a little boring.



Bogged Down: Swamps, why’d it have to be swamps? They’re even worse than deserts for turning all that heavy metal armor into a liability and forcing you to regularly replace your gear. While staying at a coastal village, your low level PC’s (too low level to fly or otherwise skip overland travel) experience a big storm, flooding out the roads and trapping them in the area. (unless they abandon all their gear and swim) They’ll have to stick around and help out with the repairs for the next few days. Fortunately it won’t just be mundane drudge work, as a monster comes out from the swamp and attacks. You’ll have to go in there and hunt it down before it strikes again. It turns out to be a bog mummy, which is quite a stiff challenge for a group of 1st level characters. Just as challenging is figuring out why it’s there in the first place. Two of the other villagers murdered him, hence why he came back rather than resting in peace. But you’ll only find that out if you talk your way through some of the other swamp encounters rather than just attacking everything you see. So like a certain other series of swamp based adventures, this is one where you could solve the immediate problem but miss the underlying one and move on none the wiser, or pay attention, get the good ending and the extra XP that goes with it. I do like it when they do that, so this is another one I’d have no issue with using if my players were in the right level range and terrain.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 4/12



Side Treks - Sloth: Now here’s another familiar concept that they’ve done on a much larger scale in the past. A wizard screws up a summoning, the summoned thing kills them and now lurks in the ruins of their home. Only this time it’s deliberately done in a small and unglamorous way. The wizard was a low level one who got hold of a scroll slightly above her level, and rather than living in a magical tower she was already living in a small ramshackle cabin with mess everywhere, so the chaos after the Belkar was summoned is barely distinguishable. Still, the odd noises coming from the place have changed in style, so the neighbours ask the PC’s to investigate. There’s still a decent amount of magical gear in there if you have the patience to search it properly after beating the monster so it won’t be a wasted trip. Short, lighthearted, and basically a riff off the author’s own experience of having a slovenly teenager, this is amusing and usable but not particularly imaginative. It shows you can scale a concept way up or down in both size and intended level, which is handy, but not as impressive as previous examples like Sleepless from issue 28.



Critical Threats II: Another of these in the same issue as they try to make them a thing, although they’re still all being written in-house. This time the villain, while still villainous, does actually have a valid point. Gnarlcrown is the ghost of a treant who tried to protect his forest, but was betrayed by the human druids who’s idea of balance with nature obviously involved a certain degree of controlled deforestation and didn’t take kindly to him engaging in all-out war against humanity. They lured him into a trap under the guise of peace talks and now he has an undying grudge and will be even harder to talk down. He’ll target any druids in the party first, using his spells and wildshaping to confuse and weaken before solidifying and going full-on nature’s wrath. Can you figure out how to lay him to rest, or will you have to banish or imprison him, resulting in him being back later, angrier still? You could definitely construct an interesting adventure involving more than one encounter around him, given how ghosts can keep on coming back if you merely beat them in combat. Much better than their first attempt.



The Legend of Garthulga: The slew of short, lighthearted adventures continues with one of our irregular scooby-doo riffs. A roadside inn has recently been plagued by a fearsome monster from legend. He’s at his wits (and finances) end and will beg adventurers for help before he goes out of business. It’s actually just a dire boar that has been dressed up by a gang of rogues pulling an extortion racket. It’s tame enough that if you have a ranger or druid in the party you can easily resolve this without bloodshed if they think to do so. Even without one, the fact that it’s just a pig in a costume will be pretty obvious after it takes a few hits in combat and it’ll flee rather than fight to the death, giving a pretty strong hint that you should be looking for whoever put the costume on it in the first place. Track them down and either kill them or subdue & hand over to the authorities, depending on how nice your players are feeling and that’s the adventure over. Another one that’s unlikely to last even a full session, but is easy enough to put nearly anywhere as they travel from one place to another. (although it has a canon location in Greyhawk for the lore obsessives) Once again, usable, mildly amusing and not railroaded, but very small-scale and not groundbreaking in any way either. Just another bit of modular stuff to fill a gap in the campaign when you have no ideas of your own or want the journey to last a bit longer.



Nodwick’s party are not noted for their animal communication skills and roast the pig. Waste not, want not.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 5/12



Kambranex's Machinations: After stuffing their expanded page count with a record-breaking number of short adventures in quick succession, they finish with a slightly more ambitious medium-sized one that might actually last longer than a single session. A wizard managed to venture into the Belching Vortex of Leuk-O and survive, coming back with new insights on how to merge magic and technology and introduce crossover elements to the Oerth. This obviously requires subjects for his experiments in creating half-machine minions and so the nearby village has been having a very rough time of it, eventually fleeing and hiding out in nearby caves with lots of magnetic rock that interfere with the functioning of the machines. While exploring the mountains, the PC’s come across one person being pursued by a whole gang of cyborg ogres. Hopefully their heroic impulses will prevail over cowardice and they’ll save him, then they’ll stick around to find out the wider context and decide to go to the wizard’s lair, kill him and take his stuff.

From there on out it’s a mostly linear trek through a bunch of encounters. An ambush by a bunch of previously assimilated villagers. When you reach the bottom of the volcanic mountain he lairs in, some cyborg spider-eaters are guarding it. If they have both flight and fire resistance, they can skip a big chunk of the adventure and go straight to the top of the mountain, flying over the lava filled caldera to get to the wizard’s lab in the very centre, although they’ll still have to deal with a swarm of rasts. More likely, they’ll have to explore the tunnels in the mountain that are currently lava-free, where you’ll encounter some friendly but irritating magmins who’ll show you the way through if you kill an annoying pyrohydra for them. Then you’ll have to climb up several hundred feet to get to the lab through it’s steam vent, and you’d better not time it wrong. The lab is of course filled with mechanised creatures and other magitech weirdness, but most of it is busy and will only attack if you attack first. Get through all this to the very top and you’ll find Kambranex himself, who it turns out did not get out of the other dimension unscathed and has gradually deteriorated to the point where he’s on perpetual life-support. If you beat his guardians you can unplug him without a fight and shut the place down. (or of course see if you can figure out how to work the tech yourself and take over, muahaha)

Between the cyborg body horror, comic relief magmins and tragic climax which pointedly does not end with you fighting the big bad, this winds up feeling like an 80’s sci-fi movie, possibly one with a tie-in toy franchise and cartoon spin-off that’s a lot more sanitised. Since most of the people playing D&D at that time would be 80’s kids, this makes perfect sense as the kind of crossover you can put into Greyhawk without ruining the tone, where Thundercats and Wheeled Warriors travel the stars mixing magic and superscience seamlessly before crashing down on a more primitive world. So despite being a bit more linear than I prefer my adventures, this is still pretty nifty, drawing on established lore for the setting and building on it further in a way that means it too could be referenced in the future. The rules for creating half-machine creatures also look like they would be pretty handy if you were planning on running the Mage vs Machine stuff from Dragon 258 in 3e, so that adds to the general utility of this adventure. I could definitely get quite a bit out of this one even beyond running it as is.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 6/12



Map of Mystery gets transcontinental, with a narrow, topographically complex and mountainous stretch of land like that connecting the Americas (although the scale might need adjusting to fit your world) Particular attention is paid to the road network and there’s obviously plenty of people living here even if getting from place to place has it’s challenges. Lots of opportunities for little adventures along the way then.



Monster Tokens: These continue to appear every issue but only be scanned in inconsistently. The collection this time is:

In the medium size category, we have Assassin vine, choker, devourer, doppleganger, troll, ettercap, ghost, ghoul, hill giant, wraith, naga, rast, shambling mound, wight, will-o’ wisp and xill. We have two each of orcs, skeletons, shadows and green hags. In the 10x5 long boi weight class, we have a carrion crawler. Going up to 10x10, there’s an even bigger shambling mound and a corridor filling gelatinous cube. Finally, a 20x10 Huge Red Dragon for you to run and find cover from, because that has better odds than squaring up to it’s breath weapon in a fair fight.



Table Talk: It’s not ideal, completely revamping your magazine and then having to change it all over again just a year later for economic reasons. But Erik does his best to stay positive. While they might not have had that many people buying Polyhedron, those that did were mostly very positive about the changes, and the feedback so far from the merger has also been mostly positive. I suppose it is more emotionally satisfying being a critical darling but financially struggling than the other way around, doing a job that you loathe just because it pays well. Plus the new format lets them do those experiments in game and setting design that they’ve been itching to do for years, but couldn’t get a full book’s budget for through approvals. Like next time, where Andy Collins puts his own spin on Spelljammer, stripped of most of the late 80’s cartoon silliness that put many people off the original. It remains to be seen whether that makes it more or less fun overall, (the attempts to make Gamma World more serious have been misses so far) but that should definitely intrigue the long-term readers. I continue to have mixed feelings on the changes and I suspect they’re not quite as cheerful behind the scenes, but at least it’s more interesting than sticking with basically the same format for over a decade.



Bolt and Quiver encounter a suspiciously convenient merchant just outside the dungeon entrance. Gear guaranteed, your money back if you die? Better have a high level cleric to help you collect.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 7/12



First Watch: This is much larger than the first instalment, covering a whole bunch of topics over the course of 8 pages. First, since it’s tied in with the issue’s theme, is a teaser for D20 Modern. This is particularly interesting because it lets us see what they change between now and the release date due to feedback. 4 example settings when the final product only had 3? I’d be very interested in knowing what was cut and whether it was for space or quality reasons. Vitality & Wound points rather than the simpler D&D hit points with the massive damage threshold dropped that they finally settled on? How much did people in playtesting care about that? But the broader aims remain the same. Give you rules for playing in the modern day that are compatible with D&D so you can combine stuff from all the sourcebooks, with relatively simple core classes and lots of prestige classes that are available from lower levels than the D&D ones. If you’re looking for a system that supports more gritty or psychologically subtle play keep on walking.

Second is reminding everyone what’s happened to the Living City. They’ve outsourced it to Ryan Dancey’s new company, who are busy writing new adventures for it and converting older ones from last edition. The catch is that you’ll need to sign up to them and pay membership fees separately to the RPGA, which I strongly suspect is what did them in when you don’t need to do that for any of the other Living campaigns that are volunteer run. Another thing to watch out for, see if there’s any further news and what reasons they give for it’s failure in a couple of years time.

Third is a page on the multiple attempts to do a superheroic D20 variant. (above and beyond the usual superhuman toughness every D&D character gets as they gain levels) Three recommendations (Godlike, Mutants & Masterminds, D20 Superheroes) and one piece of crap they only write about to warn you away from. (The Foundation: A World in Black and White) Mixing and matching characters built using them is very unlikely to create a balanced party, but when have superhero teams ever been balanced in the fiction anyway? The DM will have to keep their thumb on the scales to ensure every character can contribute and the game as a whole stays fun.

Fourth, an interview of Mike Mearls. In the year and a half since 3e was released, he’s contributed to more than 20 books by various d20 companies. He’s a one-man d20 boom all on his own! It’s no wonder the market is flooded. Like many a freelancer working their way up and eventually becoming an official writer he’s been an RPGA member for years, which was particularly handy here as it meant he had a prerelease copy of the 3e rules to get a head start on writing. The advice he gives is pretty familiar from his other appearances. Always write at least 1000 words a day, but keep your gaming group as well, to make sure what you’re coming up with is actually useful in actual play and shop what you’re coming up with to anyone who might buy it. You’ve got to hustle if you want to make that money and keep on coming up with stuff that other people can’t easily do themselves. Since he’s still working at WotC all these years later, getting in on the ground floor of the D20 boom definitely worked out for him. You’ve got to keep your eye open for the next big thing that could open up whole new ecosystems, because they won’t stay fresh and unregulated for long.

Fifth, the release roundup. Adamant Entertainment were supposed to release both pirate and ninja action, but are experiencing delays for licencing reasons. Alderac release Farscape D20, plus a book on monsters as PC’s, since that’s a big growth area to exploit in the new edition. Atlas releases Seven Cities, a pretty self-explanatory set of examples for filling out your campaign world with. Avalanche Press combine books on real world religions with cheesecake covers, for when one form of controversy baiting just isn’t enough. Bastion Press release a guide to alchemy & herbalists from long-term Forgotten Realms writer Steven Schend, reminding us that even people who worked at WotC are enjoying being able to publish books that they couldn’t get through approvals. Chaosium give us Cults of Law & Chaos for Elric D20, and Pulp Cthulhu for a gameline which should be obvious. Eden give us Waysides: The Book of Taverns, another of those useful but inessential fluffy ideas that got an official 2e version, but is very unlikely indeed to get an official 3e equivalent by WotC. Fantasy Flight Games find Traps & Treachery was so popular that they’ve already put together a sequel. Now with more wilderness! They’re also building up the Dragonstar line with Imperial Supply, for all your high tech needs, and trying to get a Living Dragonstar campaign going if they can find the volunteers. Between this and the new spelljammer D&D in SPAAAACEEEE!!!! is definitely on the up right now. Fast Forward Entertainment are a little more down to earth, with one book full of short adventures and another full of magic items. Firey Dragon Productions releases Queen of Lies, which sees Monte Cook writing about the Drow yet again. Will he be able to top his attempt in Dungeon 84? Green Ronin start a new series of sourcebooks introducing variant core classes. Monster Slayer, Witch and Assassin are first up. Finally, Mongoose continue to deliver in great quantity, if not quality, with the Slayer’s guide to Sahuguin, Quintessential Rogue, Skraag: City of the Orcs and Encyclopedia Arcane: Constructs. All the titles seem to adequately explain their contents to a reader in the game store.

Finally, another recommendation for those who like their monster counters and want more. www.dragon-scalecounters.com (a dead link, like so many of their web wanderings) has a wide selection cheap. Doing a bit of googling, it looks like they rebranded as Huge Ogre Publishing, but the most recently released product is from 2006 so I strongly suspect they’re out of business now.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 8/12



News from the Top: They haven’t completely dropped the RPGA side of things in here, and here’s where they play catch-up on the big news. Former UK head Ian Richards has moved up to the position of Worldwide Manager, replacing David Wise. This means he had to fly over and attend Winter Fantasy, but thats’s more of a bonus than a chore and continues to be the spiritual home of the RPGA. They’re continuing to focus on training GM’s, making sure there’s both a good ratio of judges to players and they have formalised standards of what makes a good judge. What they most definitely are not doing is adding any more Living settings in the near future. They just offloaded the Living City and might cut more in the future given their budgetary issues. Unless some new system suddenly soars to popularity this is all you’re getting, as they’re not adding any more D&D settings competing for the same audience. It’s not the mid 90’s anymore and that’s one lesson WotC has not only learned from the fall of TSR, but maybe overcompensated on. Despite them trying to accentuate the positives it’s once again very easy for my trained eye to find the negatives lurking on the other side of those billboards.



Web Wanderings: Turns out we do have one more instalment of this column to check the links on before it falls by the wayside. First up is a link to the open gaming foundation. The OGL might have been WotC’s idea, but now it’s out in the wild and being curated by other people, which is a good thing because that means it hasn’t been wiped by the multiple edition changes since then. (despite two failed attempts by subsequent management regimes to alter the deal) If you want to make your game referencable by others, there are now several different licences you can choose from, each with their own quirks and ecosystem.

The other links are less directly gaming related. The University of Florida book of insect records is still around, but the address has changed so you’ll need to google the new one. Dennis Kunkel’s website full of electron microscope images is still around at the same address, giving you plenty of inspiration for new oozes, slimes and other lifeforms that would be truly terrifying if the square/cube law didn’t make them unviable at larger sizes. The final link, to the Klevedon Hatch secret nuclear bunker, has been dead since 2006 however, and while the site structure has been preserved on the wayback machine, the photos and map that would actually make it useful as a lair for your modern day villains have not. Still, 3 out of 4 is a somewhat above average note to end the column on so I can’t get too upset about that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 9/12



Chasing Shadows: Like last time, they have several pages of fluff to set the tone before getting down to the mechanics. This is near identical to that in chapter 9 of the D20 Modern corebook, so the important thing is spotting the differences. The descriptive parts are slightly longer, but the bit about Department 7 is missing, so evidently they haven’t got around to naming it yet, although the framing of making your characters secret agents paid by the government to hunt monsters is still one of the options presented. Then there’s the list of big rules changes. We already saw a couple in the preview a few pages ago, but they’re also using Armor as DR rather than stacking with your defence (another thing they’ll change in the final version) plus the addition of Action Points, removal of multiclassing penalties and broadening of the alignment system into a whole bunch of allegiances. But these won’t stop you from raiding your D&D monster manuals and using them against the players as is. So the big takeaway here is that they originally intended the rules to be a bit further away from regular D&D than they wound up settling for in the final product, quite possibly as a result of the feedback they got from previewing them here. That definitely makes me more interested in seeing what the letters pages will be like in the next few issues.



Hero Generation: So here we have the 5 core classes. One for each ability score except constitution, which was written but cut for space, since they mentioned it in the teaser earlier. But there are substantial differences from the final versions so it’s time to go over them with a fine-toothed comb. Most immediately obvious is that these are 20 level classes with distinct progressions of abilities rather than 10 level ones which alternate between picking a talent and bonus feat each level, making them less of a toolkit and more something you could theoretically stick with for the whole campaign. Action points are gained at a rate of 1d4+1 per level rather than the set but escalating number they’d go with in the end. We’ve already seen that they’re going with vitality & wound points, but all the classes only get 1d4 points per level, which I’m pretty sure is a copypasting error rather than their intention even at this point during development. Similarly, all of them have medium BAB progressions, showing that this definitely needed another editing pass before going to press. The bonus skill points from being human are not automatically factored in, plus Fast & Charismatic heroes have 2 points per level less than the final version. Save progressions are weird, with multiple nonstandard ones that gain approximately 1 per 3 levels, but with different starting points. Similarly, defence bonuses always increase at 1 per 3 levels overall, but who gets good or bad initial numbers is completely different, with Strong heroes getting the best and both Charismatic & Dedicated ones still being better than Fast heroes. I guess they were thinking more in terms of matching the classes that get heavy armor proficiency in D&D than who would diagetically develop the best skills at dodging. Despite appearing on the classes last issue, reputation scores aren’t listed here yet, which means that’s another thing that might well have changed due to feedback here. Overall, these versions of the classes probably wind up weaker, although they do gain a few more powerful class features from their D&D counterparts at higher levels that were left out or only available to advanced classes in the final version. It does make for very interesting reading seeing just how much was still in flux at this point.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 10/12



Skills: While some of the rules are further away from D&D than the final version, the skill list is more similar. They’ve still got Animal Empathy, Appraise, Open Locks, Pick Pockets and Use Magic Device, even though some of these aren’t class skills for any of the basic classes. They have yet to finalise the modern crafts, knowledges and perform lists, or add Gamble, Investigate, Navigate, Research or Sleight of Hand. Computer Use, Drive, Demolitions, Pilot, Repair and Treat Injury are the new ones that are common to both versions and get descriptions here. That leaves me with less to comment on than the previous section, but still gives us a better idea of which changes came earlier and later in the development process.



Feats: This is only 4 pages long, so there’s quite a bit missing. Like the final product, (and last issue) a large number of these are ones that give +2 to two related skills, while buying one focussing on one skill gives you a +3 bonus. They’re already fully aware that the 3.0 implementation has turned out underpowered in actual play, so no-one was taking them unless they really needed too for a prestige class. Other new ones that will appear in the final book are the tweaked weapon and armor proficiency categories, Frightful Presence, Heroic Surge and Surgery. Ones that will not appear in the final product are Fame and Infamy, since the reputation system will work differently, the one that grants extra vitality points, (which you still probably wouldn’t take here either because +3 to vitality is worth a lot less than +3 to wound points) Extra Action Points, which is a complete n00b trap of a feat since you’re spending a permanent feat slot for 1d4+1 more non-refreshing ones, leaving you just plain worse off long-term, or the one that lets you see Shadow creatures for what they are and remember them, which is a weird one because you can also get it for free with enough shadow exposure so taking it with one of your feat slots once again seems like a trap. As with the classes there’s some mechanically clunky bits that definitely needed another editing pass and the overall power level is slightly lower. Who wants to have to deal with their characters repeatedly disbelieving or forgetting about the supernatural for a significant part of their low-level play? Sure you need to justify why you can’t just go to NPC’s for solutions, but roleplaying it for the PC’s just gets tedious after the first two or three sessions. I’m definitely glad they decided that was a bad idea and dropped it in the final version.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 11/12



Advanced Characters: 5 advanced classes are detailed here, some of which will appear in the final version, while others will not. Unlike the final release, they flat-out state you need a number of levels in particular core classes to qualify rather than linking it to skill & feat requirements which allow for alternate (if slower) routes, which is another thing I’m glad they dropped.

The Mage is similar in broad strokes to the final version, but has a nonstandard BAB, fewer skill points, a somewhat janky system where they don’t treat magic specific skills as class ones until they reach higher levels, but they do get more bonus feats. Overall, the final version is once again slightly stronger.

The Mentor is one that winds up on the cutting floor, as a character built largely around making other characters better is unlikely to be popular as a PC choice and the mechanical implementation of a nonspellcasting Loremaster is just generally rather weak.

The Shadow Slayer is pretty similar to the final version, although having both vitality & wound points and having to choose which ones will be buffed by their discretionary power slots leaves them slightly weaker overall. Some chosen ones are more chosen than others.

The Soldier is also similar, but even more obviously weaker in this version, because 3 of the levels simply give you +1 wound point as their special feature, which are replaced with the much more interesting tactical aid and improved critical features in the final one.

The Thief will be replaced by the Infiltrator in the final version, which has a skillset tweaked to fit the modern day setting better rather than just directly recycling the D&D uncanny dodge and special abilities.

Finally, a trio of templates that also won’t make it into the main book, for if you want your character to have fiendish, lycanthropic or vampiric ancestry. Nothing hugely surprising about these, although they do seem a little overpowered for what you’re giving up, particularly if you want to play a combat monster who doesn’t care about the social penalties. More stuff that definitely needed another editing pass.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 91/150: Mar/Apr 2002



part 12/12



Weapons & Combat: This spells out all the rules changes they’ve mentioned earlier in conjunction with the various stats. The differences between vitality and wound damage and when you apply them. Converting existing monsters. Defence bonus and Armor as DR and how touch attacks interact with that. Action points, for when you want an extra 1d6 to your checks in a pinch. Action types, which are mildly tweaked from the 3.0 version with more emphasis on Reactions. Stats for a whole bunch of guns, which are generally quite a bit higher than the final version, which once again emphasises that this initial design is quite a bit grittier and more lethal than the final version. Last but definitely not least, the rules for remembering encounters with Shadow creatures, which are also not great. A wisdom check, with the number of times you need to succeed also based on your wisdom? That’s just bad math that will likely favor one character in the group over everyone else. You could have at least keyed one part off int and the other off wis, which would result in actual dramatic tradeoffs between character types. I’m starting to think that Bill Slavicsek just isn’t very good at the mathematical part of game design, given how much of this badly needs tweaking to fit the kind of play they say they’re trying to encourage.



Venturing into the Shadows: This is very similar to the GMing advice and introductory adventure in the final product, with a few tweaks. A night hag instead of a mummy prince, the mortician being called Armand Strahd rather than the much more generic Armand Wilson. As such I don’t have much to say about it. Unlike the mathy bits it can’t be objectively good or bad so they obviously got less feedback on it and evidently it worked well enough when they ran people through it.



Godlike: We finish off this side of the magazine with a particularly classy bit of promotion for the Godlike RPG, (which of course has a d20 version because that’s the focus of the magazine now) showing rather than telling in a monochrome comic book format. Who were the superhumans that fought in WWII, and what happened to them after the fighting ended? What use is indestructibility when no-one’s trying to kill you? I’m sure there are plenty of high-paying industrial jobs, but they won’t be nearly as glamorous as the old days. So this looks like it’ll be aimed firmly at the gritty end of the superhero spectrum, showing how these powers would realistically affect the world and how people would react to the superhumans amongst them. There’s definitely plenty of roleplaying potential in that.



An absolute mammoth of an issue filled with stuff that’s both interesting and unusually significant long-term, but at the same time the quality control isn’t that great, particularly on the Polyhedron side. I guess that shows both the good and bad sides to doing development in public. You get a better product long-term, but you have to be willing to take the knocks and actually listen to the feedback in the middle, which means letting go of your ego. Of course, next issue it’s all change and there’s no official Spelljammer book to compare it too, so I’ll have to see how good that is on it’s own merits. Let’s see how on-point their writing and editing manages to be with no second chances.