TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 1: Sep/Oct 1986



part 1/5



68 pages. So, here we are at the start of the other half of this story. It'll be quite a while before they join into one, but running them simultaneously means I'll get a lot more variety of material in the meantime, which will hopefully keep me from getting bored of either so quickly. After Dragon started off scrappy and low budget, & years of Polyhedron sticking to 'zine quality production values, it's nice to see Dungeon start with a gorgeous high detail cover that would make a great poster for your bedroom wall. Say hello to Flame the red dragon, who we'll be seeing again several times over the course of this journey. Good luck carrying all that treasure home after killing him if your DM is tracking encumbrance strictly. Let's see if they managed to assemble enough good submissions to make this debut issue good, or if it'll take them a while to find their feet like a lot of magazines' early instalments.



Editorial: Although I'm reviewing this after Polyhedron 32, it's likely this was actually released slightly before, as Roger is still fairly relaxed about getting his own magazine to edit, before Kim & Penny's abrupt quitting forces him to take on lead roles for Dragon & Dungeon at the same time. So we get a small bit on how he started roleplaying in the first place, and a reminder that they can't make this work without, you, dear reader, sending in adventures and letters saying what you like and dislike, so they can provide the sort of thing people will actually enjoy reading and use in their own games. Fairly standard introduction then. It'll take a while for this magazine to develop it's own distinct flavour and readership compared to TSR's other products, especially with such heavy crossover in the production staff.



Letters: The letters printed here were technically aimed at Dragon Magazine, while they were still working out the details of it's counterpart. But they're going to print them in here anyway, because otherwise they'd have nothing to put in this space and have to make it all up on their own.

Our first two letters, unsurprisingly, are about the name of the magazine. People have a lot of suggestions, but one that came up over and over was Dungeon, simply because it's in the name of the game, and they already have a magazine called Dragon. They agonised long and hard, but eventually decided to go with the most obvious option. And so it shall remain for the rest of it's life, no messing around with adding and removing definite articles like their other two periodicals. It pays to not tie yourself in knots trying to be too clever.

The third one is from someone grumbling about them removing adventures from Dragon. Another thing to buy?! I don't know if I have the budget for that! I hardly think $3.75 every two months is going to make much of a difference, even accounting for inflation. Unless the writer is still a kid and only gets a dollar a week pocket money or something, which isn't beyond the bounds of possibility given D&D's player demographics. This is also why they're intentionally only doing it bimonthly, as they know there's only so many adventures any one group can run and don't want to oversaturate the market, and a magazine aimed at DM's will sell less than one aimed at all gamers.

The fourth one asks them to make sure they clearly label bits that are meant to be read to the players and bits the DM is meant to keep to themselves. They'll do their best.

And finally, they get a suggestion that maybe as well as new adventures, they could include actual plays of previous adventures in here. They decide not. It would spoil the adventures for people who haven't played them yet. You'll have to wait until the rise of streaming for the technology to catch up with the demand on that front.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 1: Sep/Oct 1986



part 2/5



The Dark Tower of Cabilar: Well, they certainly know their audience. Ravenloft was the top-selling AD&D module that didn't come with a corebook, so it seems very fitting that they're starting this off with another vampire lair. It doesn't have quite the same depth or replay value, as it's only a regular 16 page tournament module, starting the players at the tower rather than fleshing out the surrounding landscape. But for what it is, it's pretty good, with some interesting combinations of monsters, that use the terrain they're in to good effect, a map that isn't completely linear, and multiple successful endings of various tragicness based on how well you paid attention early on and made the right choices, plus a few hooks sprinkled in that can be used to make a sequel. It's all pretty fun to read. I can see why they chose this to lead with, and just hope the quality drop-off won't be too bad with the rest.



Assault on Eddistone Point: Straight from a vampire's tower, to a much smaller tower aimed at low level characters. Not that P. N. Elrod can't do gothic as well, as anyone who's read I, Strahd will know, but flexibility is a good thing in a writer. A signal tower has been taken over by bandits, cutting communications across the mountains. Guess who has to go sort it out. So this is unusually high tech for a D&D world, and has a whole load of worldbuilding that means it won't fit into every campaign. But it is very interesting worldbuilding, featuring well fleshed out NPC's, use of magic as technology, and lots of little details for the antagonists, their captives, and the surrounding landscape. Even more than the previous adventure, you can take stuff from this and use it in your setting, have the characters pass through the area again, or even get involved in spreading signal towers across the continent, with all the logistical challenges and economic knock-on effects that causes. Lots to think about here, so I definitely approve of this one.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 1: Sep/Oct 1986



part 3/5



Grakhirt's Lair: No towers in this one, but it is once again aimed at starting level characters. Maybe save it for your second adventure rather than your first though, as it deliberately uses less common variants of monsters - Norkers, flinds, leprechauns and most surprisingly of all, minimal animals, which I've never seen used in official adventures that are normally more keen on adding templates to make the monsters stronger, not weaker. Despite the quirky monster selection, it's a pretty standard dungeon crawl in the Keep on the Borderlands tradition, sending you into a little cave complex to root out the marauding norkers and their leader. The character names are terrible, and it definitely doesn't have the potential for long-term expansion the last two adventures had, but it does have some interesting setpieces, and spellcasters that buff themselves & use their selection intelligently rather than just blasting away. So still a solid 6 or 7, but not as good as the first two adventures. As with Dragon, it definitely looks like they're going to front-load their best articles each issue. After all, you've got to catch those casual newsstand readers if you want to expand your playerbase.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 1: Sep/Oct 1986



part 4/5



The Elven Home: After three adventures that'll take at least a full session to complete, quite possibly more, they decide it's time for some light relief, with a short flavour encounter that doesn't have to involve combat unless your PC's are complete bloodthirsty psychopaths. As the title indicates, you come across the home of a group of elves, who are out frolicking in the woods. If you nick their stuff they'll hunt you down, but otherwise it's pretty easy to get through this one unharmed, and maybe even with some new friends. It involves both drugs and nudity, albeit in a lighthearted whimsical manner, not a hardcore one, and reminds you that elves are fae, and should have a different perspective on life than humans even discounting the lifespan disparity. An interesting palate cleanser, this won't be for everyone, but shows that to keep a magazine like this interesting for the long haul, they're going to need to give us plenty of variety not only in length of adventures and character levels they're aimed at, but also levels of seriousness, creature types, terrain, and as many other dials as they can think of. Otherwise they'll be rehashing ideas within a matter of years and boring away longterm readers. The anthology format gives them the chance to experiment with publishing more niche adventures that wouldn't sell individually. Hopefully they'll take it.



Into The Fire: After that break to catch our breath, it's time for the largest and highest-level adventure in the issue. It wouldn't be Dungeons & Dragons without a dragon, and here's what will become the magazine's mascot. A chunky 19 pager that doesn't skip the wilderness buildup, while still leaving plenty of room for a dungeon crawl at the end. It remembers that a dragon is a rather large monster, and doesn't put him in a room that he couldn't fit into, and also reminds you that outside video games, corpses don't just disappear in a puff of smoke when you kill them, dungeon walls aren't indestructible, high level characters have weird powers, not just bigger numbers, which you need to make sure don't short-circuit the whole adventure. The treasure for success is suitably epic (and awkward to transport) and there's plenty of loose ends the DM could use to create follow-ups. It fully deserves to have created the magazine's iconic character, and I hope the follow-ups will build upon it in a way that enhances that legacy.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 1: Sep/Oct 1986



part 5/5



Guardians of the Tomb: We finish off with a little one-room adventure like the ones they put in Polyhedron before realising they could actually squeeze full adventures in there. A tomb in a swamp with some undead and some traps? Definitely seen that before. The most interesting thing here is the introduction of Razorweed, which would be adapted into Razorvine and become a lot more frequent in appearances when they released the Planescape setting. So this is mildly influential as it introduces a new monster that would then go into common circulation, but as an adventure in itself, it's easily the weakest one in the issue. Any magazine is going to have at least one article per issue that's chosen primarily to make sure the amount of content precisely fits the page count, and that'll be more noticeable in here than Dragon due to the longer average length of each one. Such are the limitations of physical publishing.



Subscriptions for magazines are usually cheaper than buying them at the newsstand in general, but they're making them extra cheap as a limited time offer to help get the magazine rolling. Buy now or miss out! No lifetime subscriptions this time around though. They're not making that mistake again.



This definitely felt a lot more like a polished product than the first issues of Dragon or Polyhedron, which reflects how much later in TSR's history it started. Budget & production values are slightly lower than Dragon, as they're still running this as an experiment, unsure if it'll be a long term thing, but the staff are bringing their full skill and experience to bear nonetheless. The selection of adventures was pretty good too, although I suspect they were saving them up for a while in preparation, and they'll become more uneven once they've been going a while and have to feed the deadline beast regularly. Let's see how quickly they settle into a rut or evolve with time and experience.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 33: Nov/Dec 1986



part 1/5



32 pages. Christmas has rolled around again. Let's see what they have to give us this time. With the chaos still continuing in the office, it doesn't look like they'll be delivering anything themed, (and it's quite likely this actually arrived at the subscribers in early 1987) but there are only so many christmas jokes you can make anyway, so let's see what lurks behind this knightly facade. Will it be fair and honourable, or a secret blackguard?



Notes from HQ: Skip is the guest editor on this particular issue, a position he has no intention of sticking with for long. In fact, they've already found their new editor, Jean Rabe, another promotion from within the RPGA who's been doing local co-ordinating and running tournaments for them for a while. That makes three female head editors in a row. Dragon never even had one! Curious that despite the overall demographics being about 95% male, so many women are rising to positions of power within the RPGA. I guess they're the ones doing the real work, as the rest of the editorial is another round of grumbling about how apathetic the average member is. We need more people to GM tournaments, not just show up and expect to be handed modules to play on a plate. At the very least you could fill in the forms and vote on the gamer's choice awards each year, instead of leaving it to reflect only the tastes of the most obsessed 2%. It's a hard life, caring passionately about something and realising just how mediocre and unmotivated the average person is. Afraid you'll be railing in vain against that problem forever, no matter how big you get. In fact, the bigger you get, the smaller the ratio of real hardcore participants will become. Such is the nature of fandom. It'll always be a pyramid, not a tower.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 33: Nov/Dec 1986



part 2/5



Letters: Our first letter is from the writer of the reviews, and echoes the editorial heavily in praising all the work Penny did for the RPGA, while bemoaning the apathy of the average member. I slave away at those reviews every month and get no responses! It's very demotivating! How very relatable. The fact that you're not getting any responses means you're doing it well, or at least adequately, because if you were in the least bit controversial in your opinions trust me you'd be seeing no end of complaining fanboys. This is why you should do at least a few negative and silly reviews mixed in with the positive ones. It'll drive more traffic, and grow your audience in the long run.

Our other letter is from one of the tournament co-ordinators, trying to get a response out of them due to their general tardiness in doing admin lately. They've got all this tournament data, and plans for next year, but if you don't respond, it'll all grind to a halt eventually. Despite all the complaints about the general membership, their hands aren't particularly clean either. Either get your naughty word together, or scale down your targets to achievable levels so you aren't setting everyone up for eternal disappointment.



The Critical Hit: Fresh from putting his two cents in on the letters page, Errol turns his eye to the official D&D and AD&D character sheets, and engages in a forensic examination of both the current editions and the previous ones, and their strengths and weaknesses in efficiently and effectively recording your character. He concludes that while the current ones are on average superior, there are some things the old ones did better, and neither are perfect. Plus there's the general issue that some classes require a lot more bookkeeping than others, so a one size fit all sheet has a lot of wasted space. Really, this is an argument for making your own sheet, or just recording it all on computer where you can stretch the fields to arbitrary sizes, delete the ones you don't need for this particular character, and never have to worry about running out of space. It's good to live in the future sometimes.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 33: Nov/Dec 1986



part 3/5



Arcane Academe: This column is only half a page long, and gives us a particularly basic bit of advice. Your campaign needs to be fun for everyone if you want it to last. The best way to achieve this is to actually talk to each other about what you want out of the game, and treat it as a collaboration, not a competition where the DM is trying to kill the players, or an arbitrary god jerking them around and railroading them into his preset story. Don't advance the campaign too fast or too slow, don't play favourites. All stuff we've seen before and we will see again, because it remains eternally relevant, unlike the previous article.



The Sword & the Anti-Hero: Dragon stopped doing modules as soon as Dungeon started up, but it looks like Polyhedron is going to carry on with them for the foreseeable future. It's another full 16-pager that takes up half the issue as well. Let's head off to mythic Finland to defeat the evil plots of Loviatar, Maiden of Pain. A name that will also be very familiar to Forgotten Realms fans, and not to be confused with the Lady of Pain who runs Sigil. (Although it really makes you think. Is there a connection, or are things with pain in the name just that popular in D&D? (Not as popular as things with Shadow in them though.)) But anyway, the PC's get dropped into an epic quest by the gods to save the world, or at least the country, and have to deal with dwarves both good and evil, saunas, ice caves, polar bears, an evil intelligent sword and a resurrected epic warrior from thousands of years ago. The usual D&D fare, but with different trappings. So there is a bit of themeparkitus here, and as a tournament adventure they can only give you so much freedom, but they do at least have interesting set pieces with multiple solutions, and the sample characters aren't cringe-inducing stereotypes with comedy pun names. (unless they're bilingual puns I'm not getting) It's tolerable enough that I'm interested to see where this takes us, and if future instalments will build on it well or become increasingly ridiculous and over the top.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 33: Nov/Dec 1986



part 4/5



The Brenalette Family & Friends: Once again our cover article is a collection of interconnected NPC's with plenty of built in adventure hooks for you to use in your campaign. An aging knight who's made it to lordship in his own right, his daughter by his first wife who's become an illusionist, his half-elf son by his second wife who's following in the family trade, but with the swanky new cavalier class instead of boring old fighter, a young ranger who's trying to get in the illusionist's pants, and the group's cowardly comic relief halfling thief sidekick who's actually pretty effective at stepping up to save the day in a pinch. They actually feel like a PC group formed through actual play, rather than something created to entertain other people. That, and the fact that they're all pretty unambiguously heroic means they'll be less useful to other campaigns than most of these. There's a good reason why they don't put actual plays in here, and only Ed can get away with telling you about his campaign world in great detail. It's hard to do and keep interesting.



Let's Clean up our Act: Ah joy, the satanic panic again. That seems to be taking up more space in here than Dragon. I guess the type of gamers who gather together at conventions frequently present a more obvious target for protesters, so they'd wind up getting the brunt of it. As you may have guessed from the title, this particular writer thinks we ought to capitulate to the moral majority, and work to keep our games squeaky clean. No evil characters, sex or drugs, and downplay the religion and killing, since that bit's kinda baked into the system, so we can't remove it entirely. Sounds very boring. You realise that by ceding that ground, you're giving White Wolf a clear run to grab it and become the second biggest RPG company with ease? Oh well, it's probably for the best in the long run. If they're all things to all people they'll wind up becoming a monopoly, and that's not healthy for any pastime or industry.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 33: Nov/Dec 1986



part 5/5



The d6: Expanding the Power of the Cube: A curious little half-pager that shows you how to approximate the probabilities of other dice when you only have D6's. It'll take up to 5d6 rolls, but you can get weighted results that are accurate to within less than 1% if you follow these formulae. Interesting bit of maths, and I applaud the effort that went into working this out, but not hugely useful these days, as you'd not only need to be without dice, but also without electricity or internet to be lacking randomisers these days. (and with electronic dice rollers you can roll arbitrary combinations of xdx and even have the computer add them up automatically, removing one of the big causes of slowdown in high level play) No objection to them putting this in the newszine, but I sincerely hope I'm never in a position where I need to use it.



Convention Judge Appeal: As they said earlier, they don't have enough judges per player for all the tournaments they want to run this year. So here they put in a form so they can create a proper database of GM's, what games they can run, and when they're available. Hopefully that'll make getting on top of their logistic problems a little easier, as they'll be able to prepare further in advance, and if they have a last minute dropout, they can call anyone who lives in the area, say "You want a free ticket if you can run some tournament rounds?" and hopefully get the numbers balanced again. Fingers crossed there's enough motivated members out there to get things running smoothly.



Convention Announcements: Nana nana nana nana Batcon! That's a name that stands out against all the other announcements here. Hope they don't get hit by the Warner Bros lawyers.



Well, it definitely looks like Polyhedron is taking the shakeups in the company harder than Dragon did, as their smaller staff is more vulnerable to any disruptions. Since Dragon suffered all through the next year before finding it's feet again in 1988 as they finalised their new direction for 2e, I'm guessing the next year is going to be pretty rough in here. Let's get through it and find out what ways things can go wrong travelling by this route.