TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 71: Nov/Dec 1998



part 2/5



Priestly Secrets: It’s been a long time since we last went to the Lendore isles. Did we ever find out what the actual secret of bone hill was? Well, looks like there’s another miserable pile of secrets for PC’s to solve in Restenford. Giant emaciated rats are causing far more trouble than you would think for a low level adversary. People are growing increasingly irate at the Baroness & guard’s ineffectuality, suspecting a curse or some kind of intelligent force controlling the pests. Time to hire the first group of adventurers who arrive in town to investigate. One way or another, this'll lead you to discover the pirate catacombs beneath the island, which are deliberately designed and illustrated in a similar style to the original modules. Location-wise it uses L1 more than L2, but presumes the events of both modules already happened several years ago. (which makes using it in the same campaign with the same characters a little tricky, as it's aimed at the same character levels as well. ) There's some new detail on the town as well, but it would definitely benefit from having the original adventures to add more detail if the PC's go wandering. Style-wise, it's a mix of the two as well, as there's plenty of straightforward dungeon crawling to satisfy that old school itch, but also some dark mysteries and interpersonal politics between the various people involved that you might or might not spot, and whether you do or not & what you do with that information can make a big difference to the long-term outcome for the town. So like the silver anniversary modules where you returned to a classic adventure, this is a new challenge in a familiar setting, giving us similar kinds of challenges and showing us how things have advanced years later. The fact that it's appearing in here rather than a standalone book shows that the L series wasn't as popular as the A, G or S ones, but that's not a judgement on it's quality. Another interesting example of how WotC are more willing to draw on old school nostalgia and also put tie-ins between their various products to make them feel more significant. I strongly suspect we'll be seeing more things like this over the course of next year before the edition change brings in the dungeonpunk attitude and attempt to do all new fresh material under radically different rules.



Nodwick’s employers fail their ventriloquism proficiency check. It’s much harder than you think when not backed up magically.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 71: Nov/Dec 1998



part 3/5



Wildspawn: While the Lendore isles have been where they are since time immemorial, sometimes an island just appears mysteriously where there was only empty sea on the charts before. There could be opportunities, dangers or both so best to investigate. This is definitely the case with Revular’s Island, which turned out to be full of very strange flora & fauna. On the plus side, that includes unusually tough & lightweight wood that’s excellent for making weapons with. On the minus side, a whole load of mysterious creatures that killed most of the first wave of colonists and sent the survivors fleeing. Do you have what it takes to pacify the new land, or failing that, get in, get a decent haul of wood & get out alive to sell it for profit? Your basic new world colonial scenario. Turns out you don’t have to feel guilty about that though, as the entire island is actually a giant spelljamming ship, occupied by alien races here to breed explosively and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!! (or just take a bit and head off to another one if it turns out to be too big a challenge. ) Can you figure out the distinct powers of the thorny mobile plantlike Aartuk and the highly advanced annelidic hermaphrodites the Syllix, plus the various plants and animals they live off of on those long interstellar trips like moss cacti, daisypines, pigalopes, hoo-hah birds & bassnip fishes.

So this is a very interesting adventure indeed where all the creatures are new ones and you could run it in a wide variety of ways, from a short mission to make a bit of money, to a lengthy campaign to take the island over leading to full on domain management, which will be a lot trickier than it seems, because the ecosystem rapidly goes to crap without intelligent management, making securing a sustainable supply of the wood or figuring out how to fly the island yourself real puzzles. It continues the new editorial direction of being willing to go big with adventures, put lots of new things in that could have a significant long-term effect on the campaign world. It does have a bit of the spelljammer whimsy, but not enough to be annoying and spends quite a bit of time thinking about it’s worldbuilding and ecology. You could put it in any campaign easily without any justification and it’d liven things up. Thoroughly top tier work all round.



Nodwick makes a Titanic reference and swiftly suffers the repercussions from James Cameron’s lawyers.



Maps of Mystery sticks with the island theme by taking us to what looks like a damp coastal cave, with navigation made trickier by a pond in the middle. There’s lots of barrels stacked haphazardly around, the remains of several old bonfires, a cart and a raft. If you have smugglers in your campaign this looks like a perfect hideout for them. Just watch out for changes in the water level due to the tide.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 71: Nov/Dec 1998



part 4/5



Side Treks - How do you stop the Rhino from Charging?: After several adventure titles that could have contained nearly anything, we once again have one that’s completely self-explanatory. It’s just a normal day in the Marvel universe and the PC’s are going about their business when the Rhino charges past them, paying no attention to the damage he causes to anything in his way. Any responsible heroes will probably want to stop him, or at least figure out a way to reduce the repair bill. Trouble is, if you keep up with him or get his attention, you’ll soon find out he’s in a race with the Juggernaut. You actually have two superpowered macho lunkheads to corral or trick into not causing massive property damage. A lighthearted, open-ended challenge where combat probably isn’t the best solution, (although obviously the powersets of your PC’s will dramatically alter your options) this looks pretty fun to play out. Not every superhero adventure has to involve a complex master plan or world-threatening peril. You’ve got to have the odd bit of street level shenanigans where every bit of harm is counted individually to keep it clear what you’re protecting.



Dreadful Vestiges: The third part of the adventure path continues the pattern of adventures that could be standalone, but also have hints to the bigger picture. You’re sent to Holk House, once owned by priests of Eldath, but taken over by followers of Myrkul, then abandoned when he died in the Time of Troubles. Now it’s half-flooded, filled with undead and the area around is guarded by lizard men, who are much less willing to negotiate than the ones in the previous adventure. It might be rotting, but it’s still surprisingly hard to get into, with wizard locks on most of the entrances, and even once you do, some form of water breathing and lighting that works underwater will be very helpful in clearing it all. So it’s a fairly compact, nonlinear dungeoncrawl, but a tricky one, making plenty of use of environmental challenges, plus the social challenge of rescuing several kidnapped people (one of which is actually a monster pretending who’ll betray you, but not all of them, so pure murderous paranoia will cost you alignment-wise. ) and maybe trying to capture the high priest, a former companion of Sir Justin corrupted by evil and figure out how to magically purify him instead of just killing him. This is the shortest and least convoluted of the adventures in the series, feeling a bit like filler, but it still has it’s moments, introduces a quite interesting new monster and works hard to keep the creepy atmosphere going. Overall, another positive result.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 71: Nov/Dec 1998



part 5/5



Dark Magic in New Orleans: Off to another swamp, this time in Gothic Earth, to continue the general semi-aquatic feel of the issue. Marie Laveau, her similarly named daughter and Dr John had a long rivalry over who was the premiere practitioner of voodoo in New Orleans. Dr John’s latest attempt at dominance was trying to polymorph her into an alligator. She had defences up that reflected the spell, his weren’t quite so effective, turning him into a half reptile monstrosity, which means his follow-up plans are much less subtle and even more savage. (spider-man can relate) This leads to a string of weird and nasty murders, which attracts the PC's attention. Can they stop him before he gets to the end of his bucket list of people he has grudges against? Once again demonstrating that MotRD has none of the restraint the WoD has in using real world historical figures in their adventures and making them genuinely supernatural. Design-wise, this is an adventure of two halves, with a linear scene based first half where you're investigating the murders, but due to the nature of the writing there's not much room to come to the wrong conclusion and leave the railroad. Then once the culprit is obvious, you go to Dr John's old house, which is a fairly typical little dungeoncrawl with lots of undead in it and a few other bits of magical weirdness. So the D&Dish part of this is ok, but as a detective story it's pretty weak and needs a complete rewrite putting more areas, miscellaneous NPC's and red herrings in if you want your players to be challenged in any way by it. Adding the two scores up leaves it somewhat subpar but not a complete failure.



Between the nostalgic callbacks, building on their ongoing adventure path and including a non-D&D adventure, this is another usually significant feeling issue in quick succession, although the average quality of the adventures isn't quite as high as the last couple. Still, as long as the degree of variety and willingness to push the envelope stays up, they'll make interesting reads even if they aren't all usable in the same campaign. I'm definitely more interested in reading next year than I was at this point in Dragon, where they were being much more conservative and formulaic. Goes to show how much difference the person in charge makes, and that Chris is much more adventurous as both a writer and creative director than Dave Gross. His run is turning out very well so far.

 

[(un)reason]

The Raven's Buff Trumpeter 2-11: Nov/Dec 1998



7 pages. The news is relatively short and lighthearted this time. Halflings turn up twice! Seeing that dwarves and elves are getting their own settlements, the swashbuckler Sir PomFritte Fromage decides to jump on the bandwagon. As you'd expect from the name, he's going about it in a thoroughly silly way. Well, I guess a little silliness is what they need, particularly as many of the new arrivals are rescued slaves from the recent abyssal expeditions. They need to acclimatise to a world where sadism, torture and murder aren't routine everyday events. They're also building a monument to memorialise this big act of heroism. Maybe if the celebration goes really well it'll wind up being an annual thing.

Also on the silly side is the Dean of Fire Elementalism getting cursed by the gods of water, causing him to have a sudden but thankfully brief switch in elemental loyalties. You probably wouldn't get that in Dark Sun, despite dedication to an element being more important than moral alignment there.

A bunch of bards decided to take advantage of the ongoing troubles involving the Heart of Bane by naming their band just that, which is like calling yourself Al Qaeda or The Real IRA in terms of asking for trouble. Unsurprisingly, their first gig was gatecrashed by a bunch of Tanar'ri who didn't get the joke. Will they be able to find any venues willing to host another one? Will the amount of security needed make it unprofitable anyway? If Marylin Manson can manage a career for decades it's probably possible.

Even the dwarves were unusually cheery, with a particularly boisterous wedding between Uldred Deepaxe and time-traveller Cherrian Waraxe. Much quaffing took place well beyond the official closing hours of licensed venues. Hope that poison resistance is still working for them.

Even the serious news is much more positive than usual. The wizard's guild has mostly managed to rebuild it's records after the fire and everyone'll be getting nice new certificates. Meanwhile, the clerical circle acceded to the demands of The Checkmate after finding them surprisingly minor. Whether he'll make escalating ones later now he has a foothold, or they add up to machiavellian effect remains to be seen, but it looks like we can draw this year to a peaceful close. Ding dong merrily and goodwill to all humans, demihumans & humanoids.

OOC, they're still busily expanding, adding more admins to try and make sure no one person is working themselves to exhaustion. Brian Burr is moving up to Operational Director, Tim Marling is taking his old job, while Troy Daniels is the new Webmaster, and we're not talking about the drow here. If you have a problem, make sure you email the right person who can actually do something about it.



Living City Q&A, on the other hand is still pretty substantial.

Can a druid/mage have a kit? (no)

Can I wear elven chain and bracers of AC? (no)

How do wizards learn spells in play. By talking to other players & NPC's who'll share, but no more than one spell per adventure. Otherwise, they could just swap their whole spellbooks with other PC's and get powerful too quickly.

Can i use battlerage on unwilling targets? (no)

Can i use restoration to regain ability points traded to gain special powers? (no)

How do followers gain XP? (by taking a share of their master's. Keep track of this, because even if it doesn't count towards your advancement, it still counts towards your cap for retirement.)

Can a half-elf be a multiclass priest of melikki/wizard? (no)

What does the shield spell do if my AC is already better? (not much, but at least it also protects against magic missiles)

What level is Lightning Reflection? (5th)

How long does Cloak of Strength last? (12 hours)

Can a thief/priest of Garl Glittergold backstab with a hand axe? (yes)

Do Rangers get primary terrain bonuses in LC (yes)

Can I short circuit a Stoneskin with lots of marbles in one round (no)

What can a thief backstab with? (any melee weapon allowed to thieves)

How does wizardly reincarnation work? (still the same way as when you asked that last month)

Can a magic-user use a cestus? (yes. It's only punching, anyone can do that)

Can Zagyg's spell component pouch produce a potion of superheroism for Tenser's Transformation? (no)

Can you store healing spells in Glyphs of Warding? (no)

What happens if you remove a metamagic ring mid spell? (it returns to regular power. If that means it's duration would already have expired, sucks for you.)

Can magic resistance stop pebbles turned to boulders (no, because the magic is on the pebble, not the thing being hit)

What happens if you cast Avoidance on clothes? (it's not nearly as effective as casting it on a place, but will at least help with small opponents.)

Can you cast through a wall of force? (no, only around)

Does stoneskin protect against Evard's black tentacles? (The damage, but not the grappling. Hope you also brought a grease spell.)

Does Melf's acid arrow do any impact damage? (no, it's pure acid baby)

Do spell inside a globe of invulnerability also get dispelled when it is. (if they fail their check separately)

Does Calm Chaos work on a normal combat? (Yes, as long as the people who save don't drag the others back in)

Can multiclass Mystran priests use their powers on their wizard spells? (no)

Can you cast slow poison before an encounter where you expect trouble? (yes)

Can monk's use the bodysuit of shadows? (yes)

Is the peace crane of Eldath mind-affecting? (yes)

Does a multiclass priest of Grumbar suffer normal armor restrictions on their other classes powers? (yes)

What happens when a druid stops being neutral (they need to switch gods or lose all their powers)

Does a dual class character with a kit still have an xp penalty on their new class? (yes)

Does being part of the clerical circle cost you XP in both your classes (yes)

Can priests of Mystra keep spellbooks? (yes, but they can't write new spells into them)

Can priests of Mystra recover priest spells with a pearl of power? (no)

Can priests of Mystra use Rary's mnemonic enhancer to gain a load of magic missiles, then cast them again with a pearl of power (No. Stop being so obsessed with abusing Mystran granted powers or we'll have to ban the whole priesthood)

How many hit points do dual-class characters gain in Sea of Tears? (based on their current class)

Can you trick people into abiding by the laws of hospitality with the mahogany salt box? (no, it requires informed consent to function)

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 133: December 1998



part 1/5



35 pages. Well, I guess this year's membership drive definitely didn't meet it's goals, as they've cut the page count back and cheapened the paper quality. The Living City might still be expanding, but the RPGA as a whole is still in a precarious position under the new management. Let's see if they've managed any interesting christmas presents despite the belt tightening.



We Want You!: They've been trying to come up with new ways of increasing the number of gamers all year. The latest one is the very military sounding Adventure Corps Demonstration Teams. Go to games stores, meet new people and run demo games for them to hook them on roleplaying! Just fill in this single page form indicating what systems you know and your general level of experience and await your first mission. Let's hope you have at least some leeway in choosing your adventures and won't be running people through the ultra basic fast-play one that appeared in Dragon & Dungeon over and over until you never want to see the inside of those three rooms ever again. Did any of you sign up to this, or did you first become a gamer as a result of these demo sessions?



Notes From HQ: Another big reorganisation straight away, as they decide to dramatically change the system of regional directors. At one point, they were up to 40, but the distribution was very lopsided and their duties ill-defined. They're cutting the number to 11, in more evenly divided regions across continental USA & Canada. (no mention is made of what will happen to their european and australian ones, but with the founding of Polyhedron UK I suspect they've been given more leeway over their local organisation) All the current ones are welcome to apply to the new positions, but obviously with this much belt-tightening many of them won't make it. Hopefully they won't take this too poorly and continue to be helpful as regular members, while the number that are chosen are sufficient to handle all the emails from people needing help they'll get. It remains to be seen if this will be an improvement overall.

More unambiguously positive is their creation of a national roleplaying championship. The best scorers in Classic (ie, non Living ones using pregens) tournaments get to go up against the other highest scorers in their region, then the best of the best duke it out at Gen Con in a big three round elimination contest. If it's really going to weed the chaff from the wheat, the adventures had better be suitably brutal and granular in scoring system.



your 1nitiative: First letter is a long one from someone who wants to use roleplaying as an educational tool, but is leery about getting sued for copying parts of the books. There is such a thing as the fair use clause. Besides, it's bad publicity to stamp on the creativity of your customers too much. TSR may have been overly strict on online fan works, but WotC intends to employ a lighter touch in general. You never know, at some point they might create an official licence governing D&D compatible 3rd party products.

Second is a short one from someone who doesn't play Living City, and doesn't want them to do too much of it in a single issue. You'll be fine except for next june, where that's the theme. In fact, to be extra helpful, they'll list the themes for all the issues next year to give you freelancers a chance to send suitable articles in. What are you waiting for? Get cracking!

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 133: December 1998



part 2/5



Table Talk Editorial: This bounces between looking forward and back in a somewhat haphazard way. The problem with Living City games becoming increasingly dominant. Whether a convention runs them or not can make a big difference to the turnout and this can hurt smaller ones. You can't just organise and promote your own convention anymore, you have to keep up with a morass of constantly shifting regulations or lose all your Living content. Everything feels a lot more complicated. On the other hand, he's fully in favor of the idea of certificates as a reward for your in-game actions. Whether used as in-game dice modifiers or money-off vouchers for buying new books, they're pretty small change and there's no way one person could accumulate enough to offset all the money they'd otherwise contribute to WotC. So what's the overall takeaway from this? If you don't like how the RPGA is changing, don't just quietly quit and let your membership expire, do your best to push it in a direction you like. There's still a ton of volunteer positions that need filling and one person can make a real difference. It's funny how people consistently seem to think long-running organisations are bigger and more monolithic than they actually are.



Table Talk: Two little stories in here. First is the History of the Company of Framed Adventurers. Your typical tale of derring-do, they wound up being hunted across the Forgotten Realms for crimes they did not commit. After a couple of years of home campaign fun, they decided to enter the AD&D team competition and to their great surprise won first time. This left them highly motivated to prove it wasn't just luck and repeat that feat, which they've managed for another two years running. Does anyone have what it takes to unseat them next year? Maybe if the number of groups entering goes up, which is that the Mid-American Gaming Convention Consortium has been founded to do. Will you sign up so everyone can co-ordinate promotion, pay standardised prices and make sure no-one's stepping on anyone else's toes by running on the same weekend? Exactly the kind of thing they were grumbling about just a page ago, how all this extra bureaucracy makes life more complicated. I guess there's always going to be tension about how much bureaucracy makes things better and how much is just self-sustaining parasitism that just gets in the way.



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed's meanderings take us to Manywaters, which unsurprisingly is completely literally named, having both a river nearby and hot springs, which like many hot springs are famed for their healing properties. It's not a free lunch though. You need to bring magic items in with you, which are drained to power the healing effect, and the waters lose their special properties when taken away from the spring, so it's been (so far) impossible to replicate elsewhere. For regular hp damage it's probably cheaper to pay the nearby church of Ilmater for a few cure spells, but I guess if you're loaded down with buffing effects but cash poor it might work out better, and if you have crippling plot device injuries not covered by the D&D rules coming here might be the only solution. (or dying and getting a whole new body with Reincarnation, but who knows what species that might be) One of those reminders that Ed plays pretty fast & loose with the rules in his home games and novels, with more than a few deus ex machinas along the way. As usual, along with the big macguffin are plenty of interesting little details on the town itself and it's inhabitants that make it easy to play out should your players take a trip there. Mildly subpar by Ed's standards but still a decent enough bit of worldbuilding.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 133: December 1998



part 3/5



City Stories: This month, they decide to zoom in on the Raven's Bluff furriers guild, and it's guildmaster, Vivia Stuyvesant. In a world of dungeons and dragons, hunting animals for fur might seem trivial by comparison, but all those gold pieces will do you no good if you have no decent clothes or bags to carry them in and wind up freezing to death. Unsurprisingly, there's pretty decent profits to be had here and equally unsurprisingly, there's a whole bunch of regulations about quotas and what creatures are acceptable targets, which are mainly heeded in the breach by poachers, which means plenty of adventure opportunities for people trying to enforce those laws. There's also very specifically a ban on using regenerative magic to skin the same creature multiple times, which seems like a real box of Omelas issue. Is it more evil to torture a single creature for years, or to kill thousands in that same time period when either method provides the same amount of resources, and using the regenerative method does less harm to the ecosystem? Well, under the D&D alignment and XP system where killing is a morally neutral act while torture is evil that's a pretty unambiguous yes. So this turns out to be a pretty interesting little article full of possibilities as long as you aren't squeamish about the details of being a hunter. As long as magic isn't so ubiquitous and commercialised that the average person can't buy completely cruelty-free conjured rainment you'll need to engage with the business of fur & leather to survive and campaigns to ban the sale of stuff like that have no chance of gaining traction. Are you prepared to work within the system, will you try to change it completely, or will you just try to make a fast buck selling whatever falls into your snares?



Stench Cow Recipes: Once you've hunted and skinned an animal, it would be a waste not to eat the meat as well, so let's get cooking! Time for a little recipe that uses a D&D monster, but could just as easily be substituted with regular beef and done in your own kitchen. Since the last time we saw Stench Cows was back in 1984, they update the stats for 2e as well, although there are no significant changes. Short and whimsical, but not completely useless either in game or real life. The kind of thing that used to be more common, particularly in april issues, but we haven't seen that much of lately.



Tassinger's - A Restaurant for the 22nd Century: Huh. Looks like it's not just a one-off cooking joke, but a whole cooking themed issue. We're off to Shadowrun to one of the most high-tech restaurants in Seattle. How does Tassinger's manage to deliver such high quality meals with such short waiting times and such a huge variety of dishes to choose from? How do they manage to keep everyone's personal data safe in the computer ordering system and what happened to the last person who tried to hack them? There's no such thing as pure blue marble, so what are those entrance columns really made of? As is often the case with Shadowrun, this feels like an exaggeration of what you can do with tech in the real world, combining in-app ordering with amazon same day delivery. Presumably that means all the workers rights abuses that involves in the real world are also magnified, but since they leave the behind the scenes details mysterious you can decide exactly how weird and unethical they are and whether they're worth foiling in your own campaign. The whole thing is delivered in that amusing but somewhat dated chatroom style with plenty of shadowrun slang that was common in the 2e books. The 3e corebook might have cut back on that, but it still holds a soft spot in the hearts of the fans. Another pretty interesting article that looks quite useful underneath the humorous touches.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 133: December 1998



part 4/5



To Serve Man: Considerably less whimsical in most campaigns is the possibility of using cannibalism as a plot hook. While you probably could make it work in an Orcs of Thar one, the jokes can turn disturbing pretty quickly. So it's a mild relief that this is focussing on Call of Cthulhu, where turning to cannibalism is as sensible a modus operandi as any for insane cultists, and does actually have decent odds of granting you powers with the right rituals rather than just giving you horrible prion diseases. The prospect of winding up on the menu can give your struggles against them an extra piquancy. Even more of a driver for dramatic roleplaying is the temptation to engage in cannibalism yourself, be it for power (I can save many lives with those powers for the sacrifice of one!) or merely because you're trapped somewhere with food running out and eating some of the team will let the others carry on a little longer. Probably best to save that kind of thing for one-shot tournaments, as that'd be a pretty depressing way to conclude a campaign. I guess in a WoD one that kind of unsatisfying end would be a perfect reason to keep on playing the character as a Wraith, probably with the person who ate them as a Fetter. So this shows there's plenty of more serious plot ideas around the topic of eating. I guess it can get pretty messy laughing with your mouth full, so you might want to avoid that.



Poison!: You don't really want to eat poison, but might well wind up doing so during an adventure so this is still in theme. It's time for another of those reminders that poison has become progressively less deadly over the years, going from save or die being the default to all kinds of lesser amounts of damage and incapacitation, in many case happening in progressive increments, which is at least more realistic. They're particularly keen on encouraging this if PC's ever get over their moral squeamishness and start using poison themselves. Not only are there dangers in handling, but many organic poisons lose their potency rapidly once removed from the sac. Don't be surprised if you suddenly find yourself up against lots of undead, constructs and other things that are completely immune, putting all that hard work collecting them to waste. There are a few useful ideas in here, but since they're discouraging you from using them even as they suggest them it's a pretty mixed message. The Code of Conduct may be gone, but this arbitrary line in the sand remains just as strong in people's minds.



The Gentle art of Foodomancy: Back to the lighthearted stuff that you could theoretically use in game, but probably won't, with another couple of recipes for cooking monsters you killed (this time a little harder to substitute real world ingredients for) and a new nonweapon proficiency for becoming not just a cook, but an advanced cook with the ability to invent their own dishes. In fact, it takes a full 5 slots to reach the top tier of foodomancy, become able to create new dishes and teach them to others without penalty. This all feels like a throwback to the kind of 1e writing where everything was run by guilds and you couldn't gain levels without paying a ton of money to the proper authorities because learning things on your own rather than having them handed down through an unbroken line descended from the gods? Not in our universe! Can't be having with that technological innovation nonsense. Not one I'd use unless I was going for that very specific playing 1e by the RAW with Unearthed Arcana flavour.



the '99 Decathlon: The themed section finally finishes, so it's time to look forward to next year. Despite everything that's happened, they're still going to do their best to make the yearly decathlons a proper thing, not just something maybe a dozen of the most hardcore clubs in the world participate in. To make it seem less daunting, they're setting clear staged deadlines for each of the individual competitions, so you know what's top priority each month. Hopefully at least a few people will be able to plan out their year well enough to do all of them with time to spare instead of leaving it to the night before, rushing it and turning in subpar material like they're still in school. They're also trying to be more clear about exactly how many points you earn from each event, so if you don't have time to do everything, aim for the ones that have higher top scores and you might still have a shot. Participation always gets you at least 1 point, so if you enter a full set of 10 events you'll automatically get at least a minor prize and they only go up from there. I guess we'll find out at some point if all this brings the number of contenders up but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 133: December 1998



part 5/5



Living Death Rules of Etiquette: Some more reminders of how proper ladies and gentlemen should act in the 1890's. With no telephones to call ahead and make sure someone is in, you should only engage in formal calls at very specific times of day. When you do, gloves should remain on at all times. Take your table manners seriously, don't eat noisily, stick your knife in your mouth, be rude to the serving staff or stick your elbows out when eating. The strictest rules of all involve interactions between the sexes, formalising the process of courtship and putting all kinds of obstacles in the way in service of ensuring people marry appropriately to their station and only after a proper period of time where the gentleman repeatedly proves his worth to the lady. This may cause problems for female adventurers, particularly ones travelling alone or in a single-sex group. Navigating these social challenges is just as important as fighting the monsters, particularly if creating the right atmosphere is an important part of your campaign. Another short, no-nonsense little article that could lead to hours of amusing/annoying complications in game, particularly if you chase up the full-length source material behind it.



Internet 101: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy anticipated (or inspired) a whole lot about today's computer technology. Modern tablets can contain a good terabyte of data and basically do everything it did. Another idea from the series that the internet has been particularly quick to embrace is the babel fish. Grammar might still need a lot of work, but it's easy enough to put a sentence into a typebar and get a literal translation of the words, which is at least comprehensible even if a lot of the idioms will sound clunky or just plain wrong, and intelligibility will diminish further if you translate the phrases through multiple languages and then back to the original one. Another thing the internet makes much easier is looking up exchange rates, letting you track that on the fly in real time and find out what they were at various points in the past. Unlike online video, you only need tiny amounts of data to make things like that work, so they're already fully functioning and rapidly becoming regularly used tools for many people. Another short but fairly interesting reminder of how the internet has grown, and what things were available at that time in history. It's easy enough to see their applications in gaming, particularly if your campaign is based upon the real world. What would have taken hours of painstaking research, dictionary use and transcribing can now be done with a quick copy/paste and a few button clicks. Hopefully that leaves more time to actually do the creative parts of game design.



Vote Right! 2: The second instalment of this little series encouraging people to vote in a fair and consistent way goes heavy on discouraging fantasy racism as a metaphor for real life prejudice. You should judge people on their actions in the game, not their real world personal attributes. You also don't have to play a character who's like you all the time, experimenting with being other races and genders, coming to understand their point of view is to be encouraged, particularly in a tournament system where you could be playing a different character with a different group of people every slot and might not get first choice. Instead, you should be judging players on their teamwork, roleplaying, strategic sense, problem-solving and knowledge of the rules. Y'know, the important things in life, not the shape of their ears or whether they can grow a beard or not. Once again, some serious points presented in a lighthearted manner. Let's hope the metaphor isn't too subtle for it's target audience, resulting in people complaining decades later about D&D having suddenly become woke.



A particularly long and interesting themed section this issue, with more whimsy than we've seen in quite some time. Openly talking about their plans for future ones definitely gives me hope that this is a trend that'll continue for a while. Even the short basic articles are at least on interesting topics. As with Dungeon, this is all much more interesting than the same time period in Dragon. Time to assess the final days of the last millennium again and see what I can make of it.