TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon issue 72: Jan/Feb 1999



part 1/5



109 pages. Tony Diterlizzi takes the cover once again on their biggest issue yet by a solid margin. Even discounting the 16 pages devoted to the Fast-Play game it'd still squeak ahead of any of it's predecessors. Will that mean lots of little adventures, some extra large ones, or just extra padding out with adverts? Well, at least it's progress, whichever way they use those extra pages.



Editorial: Chris's arrival has already increased the amount of continuity dramatically. But of course he can't do it without the right kind of submissions. So this editorial is in praise of those adventures that have a bunch of ideas for what could happen afterwards at the end. Who might be annoyed by the PC's heroics and seek revenge. What obvious uses do the cool magic items and treasure they found along the way have? Who might think these are just the right people to hire for another job? What else might be going on in a town you visited in the past? If you do it right these little ideas can lead to longer adventures than the original, or someone else writing up a sequel and the world you created starting to feel like a collaboration rather than a solitary point in the darkness. Put them in, show how your adventure could be linked to other adventures from previous issues or official modules. It only takes a small amount of extra space but could make all the difference between your adventure staying on the shelf or becoming one that lots of people put in their own campaigns and have tales to tell about how it went for their group. Another message that I strongly approve of, since I'm all about finding those obscure connections in the massive ongoing tapestry of the universe.



Letters: First letter reminds all the people complaining about too much or not enough of the kinds of adventures they like that the best solution is to submit more of what you want. Even if your specific adventure doesn't get accepted, it'll still give them data points on what is popular and likely to interest the readers.

Second is generally complimentary of everything but the Alternity adventure (although they wouldn't mind a Gamma World one if anyone's writing them) but would like to see their cover artwork without all the promotional blurbs. Since that means they need to fill a page less each issue they'll put the uncovered version in both Dragon & Dungeon for the next few years.

Third wants more Challenge of Champions and more solo modules. The editors have no objection to either of those. It has been a while since anyone submitted a solo adventure, hasn't it.

4th wants more 1st level adventures that you can use straight away with new characters to start a campaign. Preferably ones with more puzzles than combat because you die very easily at 1st level and t'd be nice to make it to 2nd.

5th also wants adventures more clearly written and aimed at noobs. It's very frustrating when your young DM just has no clue what they're doing and things go slowly if they go at all. If it's no fun they'll probably stop playing before they have a chance to get any better.

6th wants more Alternity and various setting-specific adventures. It's not as if you could play every adventure in a single campaign even if they were all generic so they might as well cast their net a little wider.

7th praises their Fast-Play adventure. It was indeed ultra easy to run so it definitely did it's job. The regular ones have all been pretty good recently as well.

Finally, a long one full of little questions about Kingdom of Ghouls, which Wolfgang & Chris are happy to answer. It crams a lot of info in, so it's no surprise that some bits are a bit sketchy and need clarification. (or the DM to make those details up themselves) Hopefully he remembers to put those details in the expanded full book version.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon issue 72: Jan/Feb 1999



part 2/5



No Stone Unturned: Another issue, another attempt to juggle the tastes of people who want to roleplay and people who just want to dungeoncrawl. Here’s one that could be played as just a static location, but also has a bunch of time-dependent stuff running by default to keep you on your toes. You’re just wandering around doing your thing in the city of Jevid when a zombie just appears in front of you and attacks. This isn’t a huge challenge, but it puts the wind up everyone around, particularly as news filters in and it turns out a dozen zombies appeared around the city simultaneously. People would really like to find out what happened and if it’s likely to happen again. A little investigation will turn up an entrance to caverns beneath the city. Unfortunately, another less scrupulous adventuring party already found it before you. They’ve been using the classic old school trick of animating zombies and sending them ahead as meat shields. This tactic worked pretty well until they came up against a Crypt Thing, which did it’s usual schtick of teleporting attackers away while pretending to disintegrate them. Not wanting to risk disintegration themselves, they retreated & regrouped. Whether they’ll have found out what happened to their minions and come back to try again depends how quick you were off the mark. Take longer than 5 days and they’ll have killed the crypt thing & looted it’s treasure, leaving you with just empty rooms to explore. Take longer than 9 and they’ll have catalogued their haul and skipped town, leaving it in the hands of the DM if you ever see them again or find out what was going on. Still plenty of leeway to fix things if you’re smart, but requiring a more social approach to avoid getting in trouble with the town guards. Not a hugely long or challenging dungeon then, but one specifically designed to punish players who pull 15 minute workdays or treat the town sections like the dungeon-crawling ones and attack people rather than going through proper legal procedures. A decent but unexceptional mix of 1e and 2e style writing overall.



Nodwick gets repeatedly teleported by the crypt thing to the point of absurdity. At least finding your way back gets quicker and easier every time.



Dungeon Adventures Index 62-72: What happened to issue 61? I know the last index was slightly late, but that’s no reason to skip the issue it appeared in. Very sloppy. Anyway, here’s another 62 adventures listed in alphabetical order, showing the average number of adventures per issue is slightly up, although this time it's being supported by an increase in page count rather than bringing the average size of each adventure down. Since the amount of epic adventures and continuity is up in general I'm feeling less cynical about this trend than I was last time.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon issue 72: Jan/Feb 1999



part 3/5



Deep Trouble in Telthin: A planescape adventure by any other name would still smell just as eldritch. Fresh from one city dealing with zombie teleportations, this one has the rather more serious long-term problem of steadily rising water levels, which is odd because it hasn’t been raining more than usual. There’s one powerful water wizard in town who might be able to help but he hasn’t been seen in some time. You’re sent to his abode to find out if he’s in, and if he’s not if there’s anything that might help. Inside are some cursory defences and a gate to his real home on the elemental plane of water. Turns out he’s both cause of and solution to the problem, as he summoned a Marid, which then escaped and imprisoned him in turn and decided to stick around & use his magical tricks for his own ends, which include another gate in the harbor flooding your world. Negotiate your way through his floating home, which is basically a 3D maze of hamster tubes, figure out how to maneuver in subjective gravity, deal with the usual array of partially disarmed magical defences & summoned creatures and generally figure out what’s going on and how to solve the ultimate problem. So this is one designed to introduce players to the weirdness of the planes in a controlled environment, ensuring they don’t just jump into the plane of water and drown. You’re not exploring the infinite vastness, just a particularly odd and three-dimensional dungeon environment. Not the most ambitious planar adventure they’ve ever done then, but still looks like a decent amount of fun. Maybe someday they’ll do another world-spanning sandbox that sets you free to explore strange new lands, but it’s not today.



Nodwick deals with creatures from the elemental plane of water by masquerading as industrial sized anti-perspirant.



Under a Pale Moon: Ooh, a second Dragonlance Fifth Age adventure? And one not by the official staff writers either. That shows it does actually have a genuine fanbase, even if it’s not that large. The moon steps were once a location of powerful magic. Of course, the old magic system stopped working, but there's still a decent chance they do something useful under the new one as well so you're coming to investigate. Since they don't want the adventure to be a disappointment, the rumours are true, but there's a bunch of other challenges along the way. First the basic one of fatigue, travelling over lots of hilly terrain. Then a bunch of gnolls. Then a group of rival humans also interested in investigating the steps. Finally, a nighttime manticore attack on you and whoever else is still standing from the previous encounters, where you'll be able to put the magic enhancing powers of the steps to full use. As with the previous 5th age adventures, this is all pretty linear, organised in acts and scenes rather than locations with each leading directly into the next, but does give multiple solutions to each one and all but the last can be resolved completely without combat if you're that way inclined. (and the cards co-operate) So this falls into about the same quality range as the previous one in Dungeon, decent enough for what it is and much better than Polyhedron's attempt at a 5th age adventure, but still somewhat more railroady than I prefer my adventures. As Chris pointed out in the editorial, the real fun comes after the adventure is over and you have to figure out how to protect and best take advantage of this valuable resource. There's several different ideas listed, some with properly fleshed out stats, giving you plenty of easy options for your campaign. So this definitely has potential. I just wish they'd spent less time on the linear sequence of events and more on the open-ended plot hooks.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon issue 72: Jan/Feb 1999



part 4/5



Mistress on the Mere: After last issue's relative lull, the Mere of Dead Men series starts to pick up again with the longest instalment yet. Castle Naerytar is another of the many places in the swamp that regularly changes hands between people and monsters. It's currently occupied by an organisation of stargazers, which is odd because the damp environment isn't actually that great for getting a clear view of the sky. They've been working hard at repairing the place and building a road across the swamp, which hasn't been going great, with many casualties due to mysterious neck puncture wounds. Seems like a fairly cut & dried case of vampire depredation for some heroes to take care of? Not in the slightest. Like the previous ones, there's a whole load of complexities that you shouldn't read on if you don't want spoiled. There's actually two vampires, one a former druid who's retained even more power over the savage beast than a normal vampire, the other the head Starmistress, who is secretly a penangallan. She'll try and get you to kill her rival and be on your way thinking that's mission accomplished. Of course, the writers don't really want that to happen so there are plenty of clues that might arouse your suspicion, which are even more heavy-handed than the previous instalments, making it very unlikely you won't come across some whatever route you take. This follows pretty much the same formula as the previous instalments then, multiple objectives that you can succeed or fail at individually without it ruining the overall plot, plenty of opportunity for roleplaying with the various morally ambiguous factions, lots of customised monsters with class abilities or other unusual features, zones in which magic doesn't work as expected and a few hints about a bigger story going on in the background. Will your players have picked up enough of those that they'll be properly prepared for the finale next issue, and will it stick to the same formula or do something very different? Either way this manages to be another consistently above average adventure with a distinct flavour in both writing and mechanics. It's good to see them managing that despite each of the adventures in the series being written by different people.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon issue 72: Jan/Feb 1999



part 5/5



Plundering Poppof: A persistent problem with D&D has always been letting thieves be thieves. While their skillset is pretty handy in an adventuring life and there’s far more source material involving them than clerics, they’re also more likely to be disruptive to a group. This only became more of a problem after the whole moral majority backlash, causing TSR to put in a Code of Conduct which mandated that all the official adventures had to involve heroic behaviour and respect officers of the law. You could still break into an evil wizard’s dungeon, kill him & take his stuff, but a townhouse? While he’s still a law abiding citizen and not secretly a lich? Not getting past editing. But those rules have been repealed, so here’s one that does just give you the details of a wizard’s house and expects you to rob it stealthily, as it’s in the middle of a town with plenty of regular watch patrols. (although they still give some ideas of how a more heroic group might find themselves in this situation) It’s just a regular sized house, so it’s unlikely to take more than a session to play out, but there are still some fairly interesting defences and bits of treasure to be found within. So this is notable for the way it juxtaposes the mundane and magical details and also because it caters to a more morally ambiguous class of adventurer than they’ve been allowed to in the past. Going further down that route would be an excellent way to provide more adventures that aren’t repeats of ideas they’ve already done. This definitely gets my approval.



D&D Fast-Play Game: This is identical to the version a couple of issues ago, only with production values slightly reduced, as it’s in B&W where the one a few months ago was in color, plus a few very minor changes in wording. Guess they wanted to spend a little less on the second print run. Nothing more to say about it then.



No new format changes this time, but the kinds of adventures they're including continue to be more ambitious and experimental than under previous regimes so the issue as a whole remains pretty interesting. I’m definitely looking forward to next one to see the thrilling conclusion of their first adventure path and the response it gets.

 

[(un)reason]

The Raven's Buff Trumpeter 3-1: Jan/Feb 1999



Despite it being the end of the paper, the plotlines continue at full steam. There’ll still be plenty of tournaments released this year, it’ll just be harder for me to figure out what was in them. The majority of the news is devoted to their ongoing fight against fiendish influence. A cambion baby was born, taken in by the orphanage as the birthing was typically fatal to the mother and then abducted by demons before they could decide whether to raise it like a normal baby and give it a chance to be good or just kill it. There are some successes though, as the Golden Roosters and the halflings of Clan Shado joined forces to destroy a particularly large nest of Tanar'ri, with plenty of specific PC's getting credit for their heroic deeds. There's still more to do, and the persistent temptation of trying to use the evil items created by the fiends against them and risking being corrupted in the process but it's definitely not a one-sided fight. Baatezu don't get left out either, with the Bard's guild making a big public stand against Glasya, lord of the 4th layer and her attempts to influence the showbiz scene of Raven's Bluff. Anyone caught associating with her minions can expect to be blacklisted by all forms of entertainment, putting a serious damper on their attempt to throw parties, which is a more serious punishment than it sounds when you're a noble used to being largely above the law. Even Yugoloths make an appearance, with Dame Irwina Austentell kidnapped by an arcanoloth, which is now demanding the Heart of Bane as ransom. Since that would be a terrible idea long-term, they're not capitulating and I'm sure some plucky group of heroes will rescue her before too long. It's just a relief no Slaadi have shown up yet.

There's still a decent amount of other news as well. The navy is rebuilding nicely after all the war destruction and now have a new warship designed for their griffon knights to take off and land from. Just can't resist a magic as technology gag, can they? A mysterious monument appeared in the park, donated by the chancellor of the wizard's guild. It's nonmagical, but made of a kind of rock that probably isn't even native to Toril, which definitely raises further questions. The priests of Sune talk about this year's hottest new fashions, one from Cormyr, the other all the way from Kara-Tur. Careful mixing and matching those ideas to avoid an outfit clash. Being a journalist itself continues to be a risky profession around here, as their lower-class correspondent Guido has been missing for several months after saying he was going for a big scoop. Even if he is dead, that might not be final around here, but either way, they really want to investigate this, find out what happened. Whether they'll end up meeting the same fate and that's what brings the Trumpeteer to an end IC, or it'll still be going in setting, just not published here anymore, I guess I'll probably find out at some point.



Living City Q&A gets an extra large sendoff, including settling several rules questions they weren’t even asked. No playing underage characters once again, even if it’s only physically not mentally, it’s just tempting all kinds of ickyness. If you’re polymorphed in an adventure it’s presumed you found some way to remove it before the start of the next one. Favour of Solomne has a strength prerequisite of 15. If your Judge awarded it to you and you lack that they made a big boo-boo and you need to tear up the certificate. Anyway, into the saging breach one more time.

Do helms of brilliance and gauntlets of ogre power count as metal armor for the purposes of preventing spellcasting in them? (yes)

Do you lose your class if your ability score are drained below the prerequisites? (not in this edition. Maybe next one.)

Can I buy weapons of exceptional quality? (no. You need to find them in an adventure, like anything needing a certificate.)

What counts as animals for purposes of animal growth (mostly things that exist in the real world)

Precisely what are elves resistant to? (just spells with Charm in the title, not all enchantment/charm spells.)

Does immunity to paralysation protect you from Hold spells? (yes)

Howe many of their slots can priests of Azuth use for wizard spells? (any proportion they like)

Can an elf be a fighter/mage/thief? (They couldn’t for a while there, but they can again.)

Do I need to wield a staff to use it or just touch it? (you need a firm grip to make that magic happen)

Can heat metal destroy your armor? Can protection from fire stop that? (yes to both)

Can non-fighters buy weapons from the complete fighter’s handbook? (yes, but they might not be able to use them)

Can evil priests automatically destroy paladins with a turning attempt if the level difference is high enough? (no. That would be a terrible ending to an adventure.)

Does Nulathoe’s Ninamen stop the clock on how long you can be dead before being raised? (absolutely)

Can I use flesh from a Jar of Preservation to raise someone? (no)

What level is Waves of Weariness? (the Realms sourcebook trumps the generic one)

What happens if you need proficiencies for your new class? (you have to learn them before you switch)

What happens to reincarnated specialist wizards? (you stick with your current one or become a generalist if that’s not allowed. If you become a gnome you need to become an illusionist since that’s all they can have.)

What happens to my gender when I’m reincarnated? (you get to choose. We have a long weird history of allowing trans characters around here, as it’s still too obscure to have a moral panic about. )

Is Boon of Lathander 2 or 6 rounds long? (2 makes it barely seem worth the trouble of casting, so 6 it is.)

What are the powers & hindrances of kits that are fiat in home campaigns? (yeah, we’ve got to pin those down, haven’t we.)

Can I move and cast a spell in the same round? (A little, but not your full rate. We really ought to make a formal rule about precisely how much core next edition.)

If items are reduced to 0 plusses, do they lose their other powers? (yes)

Do protections against spells also protect against similar monster spell-like abilities? (yes)

How does attacking & moving work with boots of flying? (It’s category C, so you’ve got to keep on moving and turning around. That means you can only attack a particular creature every other round. )

Do gauntlets of ogre power do anything on the astral plane? (nope. Such a shame there isn’t a similarly powerful int boosting magic item that could do double duty there.)

Does it matter what direction you’re trying to move in a repulsion field? (no, you go away from the caster whatever you intended)

Does a ring of free action protect against quicksand? (yes)

How effective is a rope of entanglement? (as a 5HD monster)

What are the limitations of Eldath’s origami peace crane? (line of sight, need to be able to communicate, standard magic resistance and planar effects on enchantment/charm spells apply. )

Can druids talk in animal form? (not unless the animal can talk normally. Best to work out plans beforehand.)

What happens to a dwarf reincarnated as a human? (relatively little, unless you picked a race exclusive kit)

What happens to bonus proficiencies when you leave a kit? (pay with your next available slots.)

Can druids & specialty priests take kits? (mostly)

What happens if I put red dragon scales on elven chain? (it functions as scale mail for most purposes)

Can I use a discus shield as a melee weapon? (no)

What Spheres do Monks get? (not that many, but considerably more than next edition.)

Does Random Causality also transfer the special effects of a weapon on top of the damage? (yes)

Can multi-class monks specialise? (only if the other class is fighter)

Can specialty priests multi-class? (only if specifically allowed)

What combinations of kit and specialisation can I have? (slightly better than last time you asked)

Can multi-class fighter monks continue specialising? (we already said yes)

How quickly can priests of Grumbar summon an elemental? (3 segments)

Can you think when paralysed? (yes)

Can innate powers be disrupted? (no)

Are lassos melee or missile weapons (missile)

When can a wizard memorise spells (as long as nothing stressful has happened since they woke up)

Does Wall of Moonlight’s damage stack against evil undead, or do you just use the higher value? (just the higher)

Does Favor of Salomne stack with Moon Blade? (yes)

Can priests of Mystra use wizard exclusive magic items on their spells? (not unless they’re multiclass)

Do rings of protection stack with magic shields? (no)

What method of locomotion do you use to wander away with when confused? (the last one you were using before being ensorcelled)

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 4: March 1999



part 1/5



64 pages. Another issue on, a little bigger, a few more features. Once again they're making a big deal of their non-D&D content on the cover, with both Star Wars and Call of Cthulhu apparently very popular around here. Hopefully at least some of it will be good as well. Time to get to the halfway point of our little British excursion and beyond.



Network News: Another issue, some more little bits of progress to report. They've merged the membership database and the one that contains everyone's tournament records, making everything more easily searchable. I hope it's something a little more sophisticated than an excel file because those get very slow and clunky when you hit tens of thousands of entries. They're also getting close to officially launching Sarbreenar, the UK offshoot of the Living City campaign. What kind of challenges will they face and how will it differ to big city life? Will they actually get to do much there before the edition change arrives and the whole Living City is cancelled to make way for Living Greyhawk anyway. 10 years may be more than enough to fully explore a weekly home campaign and reach such obscene levels of power that the rules start to break down, but in a Living world, it still feels like they've barely scratched the surface of what they could do if they had a consistent long-term ruleset. But anyway, they've got a busy schedule of conventions throughout the summer. They should be able to get some interesting stories out of them in an issue or two. I'll do my best to make sure they aren't completely washed away by the waves of time.



Fiction: Sharke's Cannon by Iain Lowson. We've put elves, dwarves & orcs in medieval times, the cyberpunk near future and IIIINNN SPAAAAAACEEEE!!!!! Now someone's had the bright idea of doing a fantasy infused Napoleonic wargame. Our obvious Sean Bean expy has to deal with all the trials and tribulations of his earthly counterpart with extra magic and interspecies bickering on top. It's basically 6 pages of a single battle, giving us brief introductions to a whole bunch of characters who are probably also based on other real historical figures or book characters as they struggle to survive. Despite the peril, it's still a fairly humorous affair, with plenty of banter between the characters making light of the situation. So this is technically promotion for a new game line, but it's not a hard sell, showing you the kind of thing you do and trying to make it look fun. Doing a bit of googling, World of Flintloque is now on it's 3rd edition and still has a small but hardcore fanbase, so what they're doing is evidently working. Probably not going to see any more about it, since this is all very UK specific, but it's still a welcome bit of variety.



Horror in the Skies: Our Call of Cthulhu adventure decides to go heavy on the pulp side of it's influences, as the PC's wind up trapped on a zeppelin voyage that goes wrong. You're on the Hindenberg in 1937, heading from Germany to New York. Unfortunately, a high ranking Nazi who also worships an elder god has come up with a plan to smuggle a horde of SS agents to america in suspended animation to unleash them and cause havoc. Doubly unfortunately for everyone, the suspension spell has a nasty flaw, turning it's subjects into zombies if they're under for too long. Now there's a whole load of muthafuckin' zombies in this muthafuckin' zeppelin and you're flying over the middle of the Atlantic so jumping would be doubly certain death. You're going to have to fight them, preferably in a way that doesn't explosively puncture the balloon, find the guy responsible, deal with him and his Formless Spawn servants before you get to New York, otherwise a lot of people could die. A pretty interesting bottle scenario that does give a default sequence of events, but it would be easy enough to depart from that and treat it more like a site-based dungeon, making this one of the least linear adventures they've done in a while. A bit silly, but in a good way. Any adventure that gets to use a phrase like Attack of the Nazi Zombies is a fun one in my book. Overall, this adventure gets a thumbs up from me.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 4: March 1999



part 2/5



The best of the rest: The UK branch continues to talk more about the wider world of gaming, as this little article on various other RPG magazines demonstrates. Dragon & Dungeon are glossy, high quality products with plenty of useful articles, but at this point they're very much house organs covering WotC games only. White Dwarf is in a similar boat, useful if you like Games Workshop minis, but not if you want to experiment with wargames from other companies. If you want a more objective view on the gaming scene, they recommend Games Gazette or Valkyrie magazine. The production values might not be as good, or the delivery of new issues as regular, but you'll get a wider variety of articles and more freedom to say when a product sucks. Good luck finding copies of either of these now (apart from issues 26 & 27, which are up on DTRPG oddly enough), given the size of their print runs. If anyone has read either of these and can shed more light on what they were like I'd be very interested to hear it.



Reviews: The Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume 4 shows that even 25 years in, people continue to come up with inventive new monsters frequently enough to publish a full-sized book of them every year. Some of them might not entirely make sense outside the original setting/adventure scenario but an inventive DM can always think of new ways to use them. Happy hunting, whether you're playing the predator or the prey.

The Illithiad trilogy of adventures definitely has plenty of darkness and interesting challenges in it. However, since even the start of the adventure is fairly high level, they're skeptical about how many groups will actually use it in a campaign. If you create new high level characters just for this, you won't have the proper attachment to them. You think getting to use this one is hard, think of the master & immortal modules. They haven't even tried to do adventures for above 20th level in a long time.

Demihuman Deities sees Eric L Boyd continue to do what he does best, give a bit more depth to already existing gods. This means fewer covered than the old Monster Mythology but lots of info useful to players for each, particularly if you want to play a priest.

The Lost Shrine of Bundushatur gets a distinctly negative reaction. Your typical tournament module with a skimpy backstory and a bunch of brutal high level challenges strung together without making much sense. Why they decided to publish it to a wider market is very questionable.

The Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad is somewhat better written, but still firmly in the nonsensical meatgrinder mould, as Lyzandred the lich is indeed very insane. That's Greyhawk's unique selling point in this revival and they're going to go hard on it. Whether you'll enjoy it or not depends on your feelings about that kind of adventure.

Record of Lodoss War gets reviewed in here despite not being an RPG book, because it's so obviously based on D&D. It's spawned a manga, an anime, a computer game and a soundtrack CD. It starts out a bit messily in media res, but stick with it and it makes for a pretty decent story. They're somewhat less positive about the soundtrack, which mixes ultra cheesy pop with derivative orchestral pieces, but it's still listenable at least. That's just how they like their theme songs in japan, even if the events of the show turn out to be ultra-dark. You've just got to get used to it.

The Inner Planes sourcebook is another one where they like the ideas, but actually using it in play seems a little challenging. These are environments you have to be well prepared to step into and survive, let alone come back with treasure. Have fun writing an adventure that'll fully exploit these concepts.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 4: March 1999



part 3/5



MEGAbyte: This column is devoted entirely to the new AD&D core rules CD-ROM version 2.0. A whole load of digital tools for creating your characters and campaigns, now with all the Players Option supplements with all their point-buy goodness included and further ability to add house rules, creating characters that don't stick strictly to the RAW, which becomes increasingly difficult the more computer elements you add to your game. It all looks pretty nice, but if you don't use Players Option stuff (which the majority of campaigns didn't) and didn't buy the previous version, it's probably not enough of an improvement to justify spending the money twice. Plus with lots of hints there's a new edition coming soon, who know how long it'll be before this is obsolete in turn?



Book Reviews: The Cleric Quintet collects Bob Salavatore's attempt to give some love to the least popular D&D class into one chunky thousand page volume. The reviewer is a little surprised to find out clerics are so unpopular, as they're one of his favourites to play. I guess it's the usual battle between people who primarily see the cool powers vs people put off by the christiancentricity of the default clerics, even though you can easily play them as servants of all kinds of powers or philosophies with very different natures. (as we reviewed a book on just a few pages ago)

Rising tide by Mel Odom gets the novel line joining in with the series of books on Sahuguin and their watery schemes. Said schemes are pretty convoluted, so the reviewer has to keep on stopping and going back to make sure they've got everything straight. Hopefully all the parts will join together to make a satisfying climax that'll let you reread it and see it all from a new perspective.

The Puppet King by Douglas Niles takes us to Krynn to see how the elves handled the chaos war. As usual for him, there's plenty of fast-paced pulpy action with big setpiece combats and it's all resolved fairly quickly rather than stringing things out over a series full of doorstoppers. You can finish it and move onto another book without being troubled by lingering questions.

Thornhold by Elaine Cunningham is the 16th and final book in the Harpers series. As usual for Harpers, they're doing this the CG way, which puts them at odds with nearby paladins on top of their true enemies, the Zhentarim. The journey is pretty interesting, but the end feels rushed and unsatisfying. Maybe they should have extended it out to a 17th book.

Star of Cursrah by Clayton Emery takes us back to the ancient empires of old Toril to find out more about the history of the world. Another one that manages to engross the reviewer, making time pass quickly while reading it. These forgotten realms books sure are coming thick and fast at the moment.

Midnight Falcon by David Gemmell isn't even out yet, so it gets more of a preview than a review, but given his previous books it's bound to be good, right? I guess since it's managed to get over a thousand reviews on amazon, 73% 5 star and not a single 1 star, it must be pretty decent at least.

Starrise at Corrivale by Diane Duane sees the long-running writer of licensed Star Trek books recruited to work on the Alternity line. Same old cliches where the protagonist is framed and has to prove his innocence, just with a different set of alien species. Hope you've read the corebook first, because it won't explain all the creatures and what their deal is. Probably not going to be expanding the fanbase beyond people who are already gamers then.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson takes us off to the Malazan empire for the first book in another fantasy epic. Epic being the operative word, because 500 pages in and it still feels like the story has barely started. The reviewer still wants to see what happens next, but some readers might not have the same patience.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 4: March 1999



part 4/5



MAILbag: First letter thanks them for having a note of cynicism in their survey about the next edition. Of course there's a profit motive there, not just a desire to make the next edition better. Since any significant changes would make the vast number of supplements for the current edition obsolete, he's not in favour of it.

Second sends their approval for the recent Call of Cthulhu and Star Wars coverage and wonders if they'd accept a Vampire: the Masquerade adventure. Yes indeed. Send in your White Wolf ideas, they'd love to have them as long as the writing quality is half-decent.

Third thinks that with all the players option stuff, they're already halfway to a new edition anyway. They also have a whole bunch of further suggestions, about half of which will be in the next edition. Nearly everyone seems to dislike demihuman class & level restrictions and the arbitrary distinction between dual classing and multiclassing.

Fourth is also cynical about the idea of 3e, but accepts that there are some real improvements to be made in the rules and a good streamlining would definitely help bring new blood into the hobby. You've got to get both the marketing and the mechanics right if you really want people to join and then stick around long-term. Can you get the right balance between immediate accessibility and rewarding delving deeper?

Finally, we have a humorous letter from the acolytes of the order of John Amos, dedicating themselves to making gaming more fun in his image. Since religion is inherently silly why not start with the silliness forefront, as the church of the flying spaghetti monster would agree.



A Simple Pickup pt 2: The Star Wars adventure concludes with another fairly linear sequence of encounters. Trying to leave the jungle, you get stopped by a large quantity of Twi'leks, with a setup that makes it obvious you have to go along with them or face certain death. Presuming the players aren't so thick-headed that they ignore the clue bat, they'll find that the Twi'leks don't want to kill them, but they would like some assistance in destroying the still under construction Empire base. From that point, you do get some freedom in discussing tactics, although they'll still expect you to do the main work of actually going into the base and sabotaging things while they hang back and ambush anyone who flees into the jungle. Essentially, this turns into the second half of Return of the Jedi, only with Twi'leks replacing Ewoks as the cunning but technologically lacking natives needing a little help to deal with the encroaching empire forces. So this is pretty formulaic, but sticking close to the kind of things that have already happened in the movies does at least make it feel pretty star warsish. If you play a game to experience similar events to the source material you could do a lot worse, but you could also do better as well. Overall, about medium quality for a tournament adventure.



The Perfect Call of Cthulhu Investigation: Perfect as in fun for the players that is. Like many a game, there's a gulf between the way the rulebook says a game should go and how it usually does when put up against a bunch of irreverent monty python quoting players. Sure you have all these stress, madness and humanity scores that are supposed to measure how traumatised characters are by the things they encounter and the hard choices they have to make, but as often as not they'll solve things with large quantities of explosives and a silly quip then go home for schwarma or whatever else would be period appropriate. Any casualties will be quickly replaced by an advert for new redshirts who will turn out to be suspiciously similar in competency and personality to the fallen. A particularly british bit of self-aware whimsy, contrasting with the kind of jokes they put in the american edition, this all makes perfect sense to me and my own brand of cynicism. I'd have no objection to seeing more of it.