TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 134: January 1999



part 1/5



35 pages. An issue arriving early? How curious. They're still following the bimonthly schedule overall, but this one is ahead of where you'd expect. What was so important that it just couldn't wait and will it be good or bad news overall? Time to see how smoothly the new management sails through this year.



Your Initiative finally gets de1337ified. It only has one letter though, a fairly long one annoyed by Kevin Melka's editorial last month. Despite it's problems, the Living City is still a worthwhile enterprise and there's still plenty of other tournament games if you know where to look. (although they could label which are in a specific setting better) Ultimately, the conclusion is the same though. Don't quit, keep on trying to make things better from the inside. Well, it's not as if they'd want to encourage the opposite approach as that'd cost them money.



Notes From HQ: Another year, another checklist of ambitions they’d like to achieve, many of which they would have liked to do last year as well, but didn’t get around to. First, they already talked about slimming down the number of regional directors and giving them more defined duties. Second is also familiar, run more games in game stores, make a real push to bring new people into the hobby. Third is new though. For many years they’ve been complaining about the ratio of players to judges, so they’re finally going to pull their finger out and actively create a program to train new ones. Then there’s launching the Living Verge and continuing to tinker with their existing settings. Living World, (now revealed to be Living Greyhawk, although they’re still not absolutely settled on that name, but obviously don’t come up with anything snappier in the meantime) isn’t coming until next year, because that’s a much bigger project. (and tied to the change of editions, but they haven’t announced that yet either) Mostly reasonable ideas. Somewhat irritating though is that they’re getting rid of the Trumpeteer and replacing it with a general purpose bimonthly email newsletter, Poly Jr, which I can’t find any copies of. If anyone still has them preserved way back in their inbox I’d very much appreciate help filling that little gap. It’s stressful being a completionist and seeing all these little references to things only a couple of decades ago that are already lost media.



RPGA top 50: This listing appears to be gathering momentum, because it actually fills all 50 slots for campaign players, classic players and judges, although the scoring system is still granular enough that there are lots of people jointly at the same rank. Oh well, as long as only one person definitely has the top spot as that’s what really counts in any charts.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 134: January 1999



part 2/5



Member Spotlight: Saul Resnikoff is the winner of last year’s Best of the Best tournament at Gen Con. He’s been gaming for over 20 years, but only joined the RPGA 4 years ago, so he’s surprised but honoured to find himself in the spotlight like this. He plays all sorts of games, but has a preference for Classic tournaments over Living ones, as the lack of persistent treasure & XP means people are more likely to roleplay rather than trying to grab everything as fast as possible. He takes his jewish faith seriously, not going to conventions that clash with big days in the calendar, but still probably manages to get to more than 99% of gamers. Unlike many of these profiles, he doesn’t seem to have any interest in going into the writing side of things, with only one minor Paranoia credit from 2006 in the database, but at least that shows he still has many years of gaming ahead of him.



Internet 101: We have a very specific bit of advice here. Links to sites containing info on abandoned missile silos. While you won't get the full classified info on how they were run, they make a perfect starting point for your own villainous hideouts. Some photos to give you the vibe, a floorplan that you can pretty much take as is and populate with enemies, and although they can be large and multi-storeyed, the rooms have clear purposes, unlike many a randomly generated dungeon where they forgot to instal proper toilet facilities. Unfortunately, all the specific links but one have long since fallen into decay, linking to domain parking or nothing at all and the government has got more strict about monitoring potential state secrets posted online. Combine this with searches mostly directing to the big websites and this is one area the internet has actually become less useful in the intervening decades. A bit disappointing overall then, but for interesting reasons. You'll have to dig a bit deeper than a casual google if you want to find out the current state of these installations.



RPGA Network Clubs: Yet another year, yet another reminder that club memberships exist. If you can get at least 6 Guild level members in the same place, you can get a whole load of extra benefits and gaming opportunities for a mere $20 per year. Team tournaments, 12 exclusive adventures, opportunities to playtest unreleased books, the decathlons. All looks pretty much the same as last time, so nothing much to comment on here.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 134: January 1999



part 3/5



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Another reminder that we're working on alphabetical order of first word in the country name, not main word or geographical proximity here, as we visit Middle Mukshar. Like High Mukshar from issue 127, it's a pretty rough joint. There are a fair number of Illithid/Doppleganger gangs but they aren't as dominant here due to watchghosts of fallen knights who still patrol the borders, the frequency of wild magic zones, and the defences of the mad mage Baldrimar, who's the only person who has a full accounting of where all those zones are and is somewhat … erratic in his sharing of information. He has all manner of mischief to drop on travellers, but it'll generally be harmless to harmless-looking travellers and scale up the more obviously armed & equipped they are. With all this weirdness, the regular human locals are also pretty cautious around visitors, so expect to have to pay above average rates for food, shelter and equipment. Since most of the dangers are tricksy but not immediately lethal, this seems like one of the more frustrating places to visit, but as usual, there are a decent number of treasures that keep adventurers coming. (and fighting amongst each other, and burying their treasure once again for future generations to find in turn) There's definitely interesting adventures to be had here, but you'd better come prepared if you don't want to wind up leaving worse off, in a casket, or a group of dopplegangers leaving in your place and using your identities to pull off some big scam. Maybe your DM would let you keep on playing the dopplegangers once you're gone. That could make an interesting variant on a campaign.



Politics In Roleplaying: It’s long been an adage that you should never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. Now they’re doing consecutive themed issues on both of these, in another demonstration of the greater leeway they have to be controversial now WotC has scrapped the Code of Conduct. But after all that build-up there’s nothing actually anything particularly inflammatory here whatever side of the divide you’re on, as it's your basic system free advice on gently moving players from pure hack & slash campaigns to something with more complex social interactions. As you gain power, you attract attention from people who want things from you and tasks that no amount of raw firepower can solve. You may have to make alliances with people you don't entirely trust to deal with a powerful mutual enemy. You'll want hirelings to take care of the little things in life so you can focus on the big ones. Before you know it, you're on top of a whole organisation, not only dealing with how it relates to other organisations in the world, but also it's internal politics. When you hit Name level you naturally gather followers that push you in that direction. (at least until next edition gets rid of all that while also accelerating the speed you can gain levels, so a group can go from 1st to 20th in a few months of adventuring without having to stop for training and re-engaging with society.) Anyway, this is a decent but unexceptional article, with an equally decent set of references for if you want to delve deeper. Does the job, but doesn't really expand my mind in any way.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 134: January 1999



part 4/5



Intrigue In Raam: The adventure is also in theme, as we're off to Athas to try and make it a better place long-term. Raam's Sorcerer-Queen was killed in the latest big metaplot event. Can you help install some decent rulers, or will it descend into years of anarchy and civil war, resulting in terrible living conditions and massive casualties for everyone involved before another naughty word dictator winds up on top? Since the line gets cancelled around this point, the timeline never progresses further and there's no canon answer to that question, leaving Raam perpetually on the brink of falling apart, open to being taken in whichever direction you please without it being contradicted in future supplements. Anyway, you're supposed to side with the Veiled Alliance against the Templars and try to gather information, with the ultimate goal of getting the various factions to agree on freeing all the slaves. Seems like a pretty tall order, particularly in a single session, but they're still going to stick to that 4 hour, 6 encounter tournament format anyway. You could just go linearly from one scene to the next, but there's a lot of gaps between them that you could fill out if you want to make it feel less disjointed and more of a long-term project. Only two of the encounters are combat ones by default, so it does at least feel like the talky parts are significant and not just cutscenes to be skipped over. A decent enough concept, but it feels incomplete or heavily hacked down, which means it really needs a good deal of expansion to reach it's full potential as part of an ongoing campaign. Given how Dark Sun specific the details are, it's probably not one that's going to be used very often.



Marybelle - Tales from the Verge: Our Living Alternity setting isn’t quite ready to be played yet, but they’re going to build anticipation with some fiction like they’ve done several times before. It’s basically the same info we got last year, but presented in more detail as an IC newscast advertising the newly terraformed planet of Marybelle to potential settlers. It’s a bit wetter than they’d anticipated, but since they’ve built domed underwater cities that’s hardly a deal-breaker. The legal system is pretty rough and ready, with plenty of room to avoid charges for killing people if you can prove it was done in self-defence. (got to have our quota of combats per tournament adventure) There’s plenty of valuable raw materials to be harvested, the start of an interesting nightlife scene and an informal group of heroes that your PC’s might want to throw their lot in with called the Outriders. All the ingredients needed for some western style frontier action with none of the guilt about displaced natives. Yee-haw. A bit formulaic, but you’ve got to be to cram lots of adventurers into a small space and have it still make sense as a world.



Vote Right pt 3: After looking at scoring the Judge and players, this concludes by talking about scoring the scenario itself. This is probably the trickiest bit to do impartially, as you have to figure out which bits were good or bad because of the writing, which were because of the way your judge implemented them and which were improv'd wholesale because you did something the writer didn't expect. Even the best adventure can be ruined if it's run by someone who didn't read ahead or doesn't know the rules of the system, or messed up if you wind up with a bunch of kill-happy idiots who try to hack their way through the roleplaying and puzzle-solving segments. Anyway, try your best to impartially score it how fun it was to play, whether the difficulty was too low, about right or too hard, and overall quality of writing & design. Once again they frame it with a bit of humorous 4th wall breaking fiction, but there's a serious point underneath. A bit repetitive, but as we've seen before, it takes a lot of repeating before things penetrate the skulls of the majority of members and there's always going to be new ones coming in so you still have to do a refresher every year or two for them.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 134: January 1999



part 5/5



Making a Living: Speaking of refreshers, once again it's time to look at the character generation rules for Living City characters and see what new restrictions they've added. They're now even stricter about enforcing minimum age rules - if your character is de-aged, they're removed from play until their body reaches the age of majority for their race again, which seems a weird distinction to make, but I guess some creep did lolicon/shota stuff in actual play and tried to justify it by saying it's fine because they're still mentally above the age of consent. (I would not want to be the Judge who had to deal with that at the table, realise there's no rule against it and escalate up the chain of command to make sure that there was in the future.) They've actually made a proper list of what kits are allowed, some of which were previously banned. If your character had one of those then lost it, they can have it back again. The same applies to triple-classing - if you have an old character that was forcibly revised when they set the limit at 2, you can also restore those abilities. However, switching class now has a surcharge of 10,000xp, so new characters can't switch until much higher level than they used to. There are new high level adventures for people who've hit the retirement cap, but you still can't play in the regular Living City ones after that point. Overall, slightly more new restrictions added than old ones removed, but not by a large margin. It might be too unwieldy for some people but it's still way below my limit for crunch complexity.



Farewell Jeff: Jeff Quick has definitely presided over interesting times during his tenure as editor. It’s mildly amusing that he decides it’s time to move on after a year in which they gradually stabilised again. He just doesn’t feel like he’s innovating anymore. So he’s off to test his limits again working on the Forgotten Realms line, which isn’t a great leap since many of the biggest writers there also have regular columns here. Looking at his credits he’ll stick at that until 2003, and even after that there’s a whole bunch of other things he’s involved with, including a solid string of Pathfinder products between 2008-10. I think his position in gaming history is pretty decently secured at this point. But anyway, this is your fairly standard positive farewell, thanking all the other people who played their part in keeping the newszine running and hopefully improving it. Good luck to the next guy, because they’ll need it with all the struggles it’s taken to get their readerbase growing again.



Another new year, another issue with a lot of repeating the basics for the newbies and shallow articles that don't give me much room for analysis. I guess they're necessary but it doesn't make for fun reading. Let's see if they've got it out of their system for the year and can push things forward in the next issue, or there'll be more basic repetition that does nothing for me.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 3: January 1999



part 1/5



60 pages. Not just the UK anymore, as they're now very specifically also including Ireland and South Africa, which is an odd combination, but I guess it has something to do with them all speaking english as their primary language. Whether they'll actually get any submissions from the further flung parts of their domain remains to be seen, but at least the cover is fitting, as it's a Star Wars one. Time to see how far afield the articles inside range in genre and style.



Network News: Third issue in, they expand the editorial out from a tiny little sidebar. As with the US branch, they're talking about the changes they want to make this year. They've already gone from a basic newsletter to a nice glossy magazine. (although I wouldn't mind if someone helped me find copies of said precursor newsletter) They want to Improve their online presence, get the regional co-ordinators better organised with clearly defined duties, new members and convention handbooks so when new people ask how everything works they can point straight there, figure out how the RPGA & rest of TSR relate, get more stuff in game stores and schools. Pretty similar to the USA goals, only with more ongoing struggles about communicating when their parent company is in another country and every big step takes extra time to get messages back & forth and approve everything. Getting the right compromise between giving each regional branch leeway to make decisions and keeping them all going in the same overall direction just gets harder the larger and more spread out an organisation gets.



Down and out on DB-24: The Star Wars fiction once again takes up a significant chunk of the issue, a full 9 pages of bug-fighting action. Outnumbered by giant insects which can chew through solid steel, Rex and his imperial foils decide the best course of action is to destroy their nest by rigging the whole base to explode, then get off planet before the timer finishes counting down. Since they've already had a fair bit of stuff destroyed, this means they have to jury-rig stuff together, which gives plenty of space for sarcastic banter in the spaces between the fighting. Once again there's no great philosophical depths here, but it feels like they understood the assignment: action, aliens, one-liners and explosions, a bit of moral ambiguity in the heroes but the villains are obviously even worse, easily converted into an RPG scenario. It's all quite likeable overall.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 3: January 1999



part 2/5



Death of Dolphins Errata: I thought the adventure last issue felt a bit underwritten, and I was right, as here's another two pages of material they left out last time, including the very important stats for Lord Belvedere and It That Lurks Underneath, but also 5 little bits of information that players could find in the course of their investigation. It's still not going to be breaking any records for length or amount of detail crammed in, but it definitely helps.



Infravision, the official AD&D view: They're obviously still struggling for submissions, as they decide to do a direct reprint of this old article from Dragon 211. Roger Moore taking a scientific look at what you can actually perceive using the infrared spectrum and giving you a better idea of what seeing with infravision looks like, it's benefits and limitations. It may be useful in the dark but it's not some magic bullet and there are still ways to hide from it or disrupt it. One of the coolest D&D concepts to analyse and extrapolate out from, along with alignment tongues, the technological implications of continual light spells and the metaphysical structure of the planes in general, this is one that was a mind-expanding delight to read first time, so even if this is a direct copy & paste rehash with even the artwork recycled at least it's one with impeccable taste. I just wish they'd used the opportunity to build on it a little further. After all, it has been a few years, you'd have thought he'd have got some letters in response that added further cool ideas to the pot.



Reviews: The Star Caerns doesn't particularly impress our reviewer. A bunch of semi-connected tombs to put in your campaign, it's theoretically for Greyhawk, but easy enough to use elsewhere. The layout & artwork are below par and it needs lots of customisation to make the most of the ideas.

Return of the Eight, on the other hand, is very specifically Greyhawk, being a return to brutal old school dungeon design where you really need to read the whole thing through beforehand to run it properly. Roger Moore takes you on an epic adventure where you get to interact with the titular Circle of Eight, back in action but in trouble again after their ignominious deaths to Vecna 7 years ago. Will you be able to get through it without them or any of your party dying?

Empires of the Shining Sea is very specifically Forgotten Realms, going to the opposite extreme in being all about the froofy setting details. Another one where the reviewer is ambivalent despite the generally high score, as they're very unlikely to use much of it even if they were playing in that region. I guess it's the usual question of never knowing precisely which detail will be a lifesaver this time.

The Illithiad also seems like overkill. An entire book on a single monster? Surely a several page ecology should be enough for even the most obsessive GM? Apparently not, as they've got this and a whole trilogy of adventures as well. Not that there aren't plenty of interesting details, but how many of them are you ever going to actually use, particularly when some are for specific AD&D settings only? It's all a sign that the edition has gone on too long and they're struggling to come up with new things to write about.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 3: January 1999



part 3/5



MEGAbyte: Diablo doesn't have much subtlety as a game, but if you like the hack & slash dungeoncrawling aspect of D&D it scratches that itch quite satisfactorily. Pick your class, load up on gear and go kill monsters to get ever more powerful. Hopefully the sequel will do these things even better. No great surprise that they'll do official crossover products between the properties in the near future.

Starcraft gets an ecstatic 11/10 score. The Warcraft series has gone sci-fi and it's better than ever! Slaughter those Zerg & Protoss in an epic series of missions punctuated by excellent FMV cutscenes, then do it all again with the other sides and multi-player mode. It might look a bit clunky now but it's an important step on Blizzard's journey to world domination and the series as a whole is still going strong.



MAILbag: First letter is a long one asking a full 5 questions on the future of the RPGA and this magazine. They'd like to be able to cover every D&D world, but only have so much time and space and will go where they get most demand first. They're still thinking hard about what changes a next edition might bring and how to balance them so you can have a greater variety of options while everyone still has fun.

Second is a much shorter one asking for the writers guidelines. They're easy to find online, and have been for a while now.

Third is an even longer one by the Nottinghamshire regional co-ordinator, also pondering the future of D&D & the RPGA and whether the UK's tastes will be steamrollered by the far louder american voices when it comes to revisions & playtesting. Since less than half of his suggestions will make it into the next edition, he's quite right to be concerned.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 3: January 1999



part 4/5



A Simple Pickup pt 1: The adventure this issue is also a Star Wars one. Like the fiction it follows the formula of presuming the PC's are already part of the Rebels, taking missions to stymie the Empire while pretending to be simple traders. They were supposed to meet a wookie who'd picked up the schematics for the Empire's latest prototype blasters, so the alliance can make them as well and ensure they're not outgunned in future battles. Unfortunately, his heist was not as stealthy as planned and he's in the middle of a dogfight with tie fighters when you arrive. His ship gets shot down before you can do anything, leaving you to mop up the remaining empire forces, then head down to the planet to try and find where he crashed. Unfortunately, it's right in the middle of heavy jungle and you have no parachutes, so you'll need to set your ship down several miles away and make the trek the hard way, facing fungi, being hunted by giant lizards and carnivorous plants. Once you get to the ship, all the crew are dead, but hopefully you can still pick up and decrypt the data you came for. (if you were paying attention earlier) Your troubles aren't over though, as a couple of imperials on speeder bikes find the ship shortly after you. You'd better take them out quickly before they can call for reinforcements and get out of there. Which is where the adventure stops, so we'll find out what you'll encounter on the way out next issue. Once again they're sticking strictly to the linear tournament adventure format where there's very little freedom of choice, you either get through each encounter and move onto the next one or you die. A decent enough story that does have that Star Wars flavour, but not the kind of adventure I have any desire to run, as I've made clear many times before.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 3: January 1999



part 5/5



Star Wars - The Stellar Companion: After 8 pages of adventure, they still have room for another 7 pages of player aids. The plan for the YT-2400 ship you arrive in and 6 pregen characters so you can get straight to playing. Will you play C3-EO, the espionage droid who's probably the most crucial to the plot due to his ability to decrypt the data you came here for. Fassig Lowtow, the middle-aged ship's gunner who really won't be enjoying the jungle trek. Jitz Starswarm, the edgy, trenchcoat wearing young jedi. Ginarba Dargowa, the Sullastan trader who owns the ship and will be very upset if it gets damaged during the course of the mission. Rex OL, an amnesiac Iotran Bounty Hunter who's fallen in with the group for lack of anything better to do. And Niff Rasso, the spunky young technician stamped from exactly the same mould as Kaylee from Firefly. A typically quirky band of misfits that you should at least be able to get some good banter out of even if the adventure is pretty linear. Just make sure you use the droid as an NPC if no-one picks it as a character.



Bare Bones: This column is more specific than the previous instalments, giving us a 4 page list of names and their meanings, for those of you who want to name their character in a way that fits or contrasts ironically with their personality. Old english, teutonic, gaelic, welsh, plus tolkien style elves, dwarves & orcs. Very specifically UK-centric and could do with some more expansion for covering other cultures but at least it's not an idea that has been endlessly rehashed in previous articles. Not much commentary to make despite it's size, but definitely bookmarking this one for use in future games.



An issue that left me with surprisingly little to say about it, particularly given the length of some of the articles. While the production values are higher and tone of the writing continues to be an interesting change of pace, the adventures are just as bad as the USA ones and the general quality of spelling, punctuation & grammar is weaker. The ratio of articles that actually have useful material for a home game isn't that great, particularly this far in the future. There's still some fairly obvious improvements they could make then. Let's see if they can actually make any of them next issue.