TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 31: Sep/Oct 1991



part 5/5



Bane of the Shadowborn: After an adventure designed to introduce you to psionics, and one designed to introduce you to the hardships of desert adventuring, we now have one designed to introduce you to the horrors of Ravenloft in a relatively compact form that doesn't require the core boxed set to use. In typically railroady ravenloft fashion, the mists suck the PC's in regardless of what precautions they take, and they're trapped in the grounds of Shadowborn Manor until they defeat the evil magic sword Ebonbane or become it's unliving slaves forever. (or at least, until some more competent heroes show up) One of them turns out to be related to the Paladin who originally owned the manor, and so gets special messages from beyond the grave hinting at how to get out. To have a decent chance at success, they need to recover the four macguffins hidden somewhere around the manor grounds and combine them for the final confrontation, while the sword toys with them even if it could kill them easily, because it's just as trapped here as you are, and eternity is very boring indeed when you only get visitors once every decade or two. Whether you enjoy this or not will depend on if you like having a big chunk of gothic tropes all served to you at once with absolutely no irony or winking to the camera, with lots of portentous boxed text that's intended to build atmosphere, but only works if the players take the expected routes and actions. It's more railroady than I would prefer, but since it's both a tournament module and a Ravenloft one that's not particularly surprising. It's still well done for what it is, and both better quality & less linear than most recent Polyhedron adventures, but not really to my tastes. I'd only break it out if that's really what the group is into.



An issue where even if all the adventures aren't to my personal tastes, they've all got lots of style in the way they're written, making them quite pleasing to read, and tread the fine line between being set in more specific settings while remaining usable by newbies well. Can they push things a little further, and have a Spelljammer or Dark Sun adventure that isn't written to cater to nonnatives? Seems like a tall order, but maybe just one as a treat? Let's see if the next issue manages anything particularly cool and unusual.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 64: October 1991



part 1/5



36 pages. That cover looks like it was posed for by real people then their proportions scaled down to halfling size. Hope you enjoyed getting all dressed up for it. Another reminder that they don't do nearly enough LARP around here, and there's lots of opportunities for fun if they did. Let's see if this issue offers any new opportunities in general, or just the same old tournament talk and living city locations.



Notes From HQ: The editorial involves another of their persistent problems, too many players, not enough GM's, particularly for anything non-D&D. In Baltimore, they wound up with 77 people wanting to play Call of Cthulhu, but only 3 judges booked. Since fitting 27 people around a regular size table is a challenge for even non-euclidian geometry, they had to scramble around for more, and fast. A combination of hitting the phones and slightly increasing the number of pregens got them to barely squeeze everyone in. Once again, it shows how much of convention organisation is a last-minute scramble, no matter how far in advance you try to prepare. You've just got to broadcast your request for help as loudly as possible and hope someone qualified hears, then if you're smart, you'll stay in contact with them so things are a little easier next time around. There's a good reason why they call it the RPGA Network. It's all about maximising the social side of roleplaying, and building those bonds that make for a strong, functional society. That's what all this play really does for us as a species.



Letters: The first letter reminds people that there's more to being an experienced gamer than playing lots of AD&D tournaments and getting lots of points. You should also do a bit of DMing, and at least try other systems as well, get a broader view of what roleplaying can be. Being insular and elitist in public is the quickest way to put people off joining your club.

Second is from the minnesota regional director. Apparently, they also have too high a player/judge ratio for upcoming tournaments, so they need some volunteers pronto! Polish up your skills and give it a go if you want the conventions to grow. At least this is a little less last-minute way of solving the problem.

Finally, our familiar friend David Carl Argall, worrying about striking the right balance between D&D, AD&D and everything else in the newszine. They definitely need a bit more basic D&D stuff, but no-one's submitting it. It's a very persistent problem.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 64: October 1991



part 2/5



The Gamma World Game Lives: Gamma World 3rd edition came out a few years ago, and didn't do too well, with more people still contributing articles using 2e rules than updating to the new ones. Now they're going to try again with 4e and see if they get any better results. As you would hope, this involves looking at what people complained about most in previous editions and changing things accordingly. The results turn out to be fairly predictable. More setting stuff, as that's what's in vogue in general for all their game lines, and a better advancement system, so you can actually play in said setting for a decent length of time without dying or getting bored. So they're adding a class/level system, and rejigging the mutation generation stuff so you can always have the powers of speech, movement and opposable thumbs no matter what base animal or plant you started out with. It all sounds a good deal more sensible and better balanced than a decade ago. The question then becomes if that's what people really want, or if in their heart of hearts they actually preferred the gonzo nonsense of the first two editions. I guess the real proof will be in the number of articles they get after it's published, not how much it's promoted, as the complete absence of Indiana Jones or Buck Rogers stuff so amply demonstrated.



Short People: The adventure this month is, as the title implies, aimed mostly at halflings, with a dwarf and a gnome thrown into the pregens for a little bit of diversity. The village needs to sell the pipeweed crop fast and at a decent price, otherwise the Zhentarim will foreclose on the farm and use the lands to build their next evil base. You need to make it through random wandering monsters, thieves, and intentional Zhentarim sabotage attempts, get the money, and then get back before the deadline. Another one which is both goofy and railroaded, as no matter what precautions they take, at some point they will be knocked out and robbed, and then have to win a riddle contest with a dragon to get out of this mess alive and with the money. Still, at least this time you probably had an idea what you were signing up for just from reading the synopsis, so it won't come as a disappointment to people looking for a more serious challenge. But yet again, this reinforces that whether they're writing or just editing, Jean & Skip have terrible taste in modules. Is this stuff really what the average RPGA member wants to play? The older modules could be goofy at times, but at least they were serious challenges where you actually had to put effort in and make the right decisions to succeed. These just seem to be getting easier and more linear as time goes on, which is not a good trend at all.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 64: October 1991



part 3/5



Cthulhu vs. Lakefront City!: They mentioned Call of Cthulhu in the editorial, demonstrating that it's become pretty popular amongst tournament goers at Origins. Now they try and use that to boost one of their less popular gamelines with a crossover. Gangbusters also has a default setting in the 1920's, so what happens if you combine them? Will your police investigations bite off more than they can comprehend, or your crooks start selling substances dangerous and illicit even by cosmic standards? Convert your characters and monsters from one to the other with these handy guidelines! Gangbusters uses larger numbers, but the BRP system has a lot more skills and powers, so there's a certain degree of fudging involved in either direction, but it doesn't seem too difficult mathematically. The kind of article that's interesting because it's so unusual - I don't recall them doing anything like it before, and it's nice to see them at least trying to keep Gangbusters alive and played when Dragon never did. Did this turn any new arrivals onto either system?



The Everwinking Eye: Ed once again demonstrates by the little details that Mulmaster is a terrible place. The primary form of taxation is a Poll Tax! Even Thatcher couldn't pull off that degree of diabolicalness without the peasants revolting! Equally amusing to see is the attempts by the Zhentarim to get their units of warrior maidens to wear the kind of skimpy cheesecake armor that may look good on the sourcebook covers, but really doesn't work in such cold and wet weather, and the pushback they have to deal with in response. Until they can afford to enchant them all to be climate controlled like Alias's set, it's really not happening. It's important to keep a sense of humour about the things the marketing department does to your setting once they get their hands on it. The Current Clack stuff is pretty wide-ranging and interesting as well, detailing plenty of adventurers and what they've accomplished recently. There's still plenty of challenges for your group to deal with though, as not all of those ended well, particularly the one involving a whole load of magically shielded dragon hoards. You can still make a name for yourself with the right deeds despite the breadth of the competition.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 64: October 1991



part 4/5



The Living Galaxy: Roger tackles another fairly general topic this month. How do you reduce the lethality in your game? Well, at least in this column you can actually suggest systems other than D&D, which is a good start. But his sci-fi knowledge definitely isn't at the bleeding edge, because he doesn't even suggest basic transhuman stuff like clones & memory backups or reloading your whole pattern from the transporter buffer. I guess it is 30 years ago, but these were still established concepts from sci-fi shows & literature of the time, even though they hadn't really tried to make that kind of hard sci-fi hypertech playable a la Eclipse Phase. However, he has heard of more meta ways of reducing lethality such as luck points, as well as plenty of in-setting ways such as adventures in cyberspace or places where weapons are heavily legally restricted. You may still have to invent new rules or fudge the existing rules a little to cover these scenarios, but at least the players know going in that they're in a safer position, and can act accordingly. Decent, but not as ambitious or inventive as it could have been.



Into The Dark: James covers more straightforward Sword & Sorcery films this month, with an eye on one particular thing. Do they throw their sword at any point during the movie? It's a completely impractical move, yet has somehow still become a cliche. Can't say I'd thought of it before, but now you've mentioned it I'll probably be seeing it all over the place, just like those damn berenstain/stein bears. Has he managed to find anything good amongst all the cheesiness this time?

Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings definitely does not qualify as good by anything but the laxest standards. A rotoscoped mess where the budget declines visibly as it goes on before giving up 2/3rds of the way through the story, to get a pseudo-sequel with a different art style by a different company several years later, it focusses on all the wrong things and somehow manages to be both tedious and too short. Not really worth digging up when we have a better alternative now.

Conan the Barbarian does considerably better, but still has pacing issues, being too slow through most of it then ending too abruptly as if they just ran out of plot. Casting and soundtrack are good though. Maybe a sequel where they're not bogged down with origin story would do better. Or maybe not, as history unfortunately shows.

Deathstalker II is apparently better than the first one, but still not actually good, save maybe as a parody of the genre. The bloopers are funnier than the intentional jokes, so this is probably best served by getting very drunk and doing the MST3K thing with some friends while watching it.

Ladyhawke does get a good review, being both well-done and not cliched with it's very distinctive cursed pair of lovers who never get to be human at the same time. The final fight scene attracts his ire for distinctly unimpressive choreography where the bad guys attack the hero one at a time, but otherwise the whole package is pretty solid. I should rewatch this, see how the effects and pacing hold up by modern standards.

Hawk the Slayer, despite sharing part of the name, gets completely the opposite result, both boring and derivative. They can't even use the elements they blatantly stole from other, better films right. Another one to skip.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 64: October 1991



part 5/5



Bookwyrms: Our second promotional article is for their new Ravenloft novels. Like Spelljammer, they revolve heavily around characters from their more established and popular settings coming to the new one to give it more legitimacy. And even more than Spelljammer, these crossovers are one direction only, as people check into Ravenloft, but they very rarely get out. Jander Sunstar from Toril, an angsty elven vampire doing his best to stay moral over the centuries and do some kind of good in the world despite his hungers. This leads him to a lengthy rivalry with Strahd that's the subject of Vampire of the Mists by Christie Golden. Meanwhile, Lord Soth from Krynn also gets sucked in, but does not change his ways, and winds up Darklord of his own messed up domain, with his own minions, including the dwarf werebadger Azrael Dak, who is not from one of the established D&D worlds. (although his world sounds more interesting, and definitely less generic than Oerth or Toril; an inversion of normal D&D worlds where the surface world is controlled by terrifying behemoths and the dungeons are places of safety by comparison. Why'd we get Dark Sun, which barely does the dungeon part of D&D at all and not this? ) This all fairly interesting, and reminds us that Ravenloft's novels did better than Spelljammer long term, particularly once they stopped bothering with heroes and put the darklords front and centre in the stories. Some of them will even get sequels. Will this column still be going when we get there, so I get to talk about those as well? Let's keep going and find out.



The Living City: After last month went into full-on gonzo plane-hopping fantasy, this time they cover something completely mundane from the real world. A guy from Kara-Tur who wanders the Realms doing shadow plays with lanterns and little carved scenes that you project onto a wall to magnify. If the Realms was written with any kind of consistency about how common magic is supposed to be, and how much it is treated as technology that actually improves people's day to day lives, this would be too mundane to even be worth noting against various other things they've covered, just like Raven's Bluff's weird love of dancing bears. But apparently this is indeed enough of a novelty to the common folks that he can make a decent living doing it, particularly as long as he keeps moving around and no-one else is doing the same thing, so it remains a novelty as any particular town won't see more than once a year or so. So this article isn't bad in itself, and is actually quite educational, as it goes into the mechanics of making the lantern shows in detail, but it's also somewhat exasperating as part of the larger picture, or rather lack of it that is the Realms overall editorial direction. This kitchen sink needs a bit of a clean out if you actually want to get any washing done in it, because not all the things they're giving us here really fit together any more. (Unlike Ed's contributions, which generally do fit together quite well despite the quantity of them, because he started this, and seems to have a good memory for things he wrote many years apart.)



Wolff & Byrd continue to have to deal with the financial fallout of interplanetary infidelity. Will they have the right jurisdiction to enforce any rulings the judge makes?



Once again the amount of goofiness and low usefulness promotional material is considerably higher than I'd like, making this another issue to move on from quickly and probably never look at again. Maybe next issue'll manage a diamond in the rough, maybe not. Once more into the deepening darkness of the autumn, trying to keep our spirits up until we hit festive season.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 65: November 1991



part 1/5



37 pages. If you're going to chop someone's head off, might as well do it in style. Make sure the massive scimitar is sharp and shiny, get all dressed up, pick the right kind of jewellery to properly complete the ensemble. Let's find out who the unlucky client is, and how well the articles in this issue will co-ordinate with one another.



Notes From HQ: This continues directly on from last month with more complaints about too many players, not enough judges. Gen Con was once again larger than ever this year, but due to a high level of flakiness, the number of official tournaments they got to run there was not. It was so disappointing that they've actively scaled down their plans for next year in the hope that by lowering expectations, they'll be more likely to hit them reliably. Obviously they've blacklisted the people who canceled at the last minute for no good reason or simply didn't show up on the day, but that still doesn't solve the fundamental problem, and might make it worse if the reasons they weren't there were beyond their control and unlikely to happen again, or they're the kind of people who would have brought their family along and now won't be going to the conventions at all. So this is another reminder that they need YOU! Having too many judges for an event merely means each one runs with a slightly smaller party, which actually isn't a drawback in all but the most brutal of adventures because everyone gets a bit more spotlight time, while too few means whole groups of disappointed would-be players. Act now, and you could save dozens of people from cancellation over the course of the weekend! I strongly suspect that this is another topic we'll be seeing again in the future, just like the complaints about the food at conventions.



Letters: The first letter rails against GMPCs and general railroading in games. Cause and effect based on the laws of physics should continue to apply in RPG's, not implausible twists, just outright saying something doesn't work no matter how you roll or that your player can't do that because it'd spoil the story. They give a response that makes it quite clear they don't take this complaint seriously at all, and will continue to run and publish adventures in here that are both linear and silly. The rot really does go right to the top with this particular problem.

Second thinks it's about time they did a survey so they can figure out which features are most popular, and if they should drop anything to make way for new ones. They reply that it's a good idea, and they hope to get around to it amid all the other things they're juggling trying to keep the newszine going smoothly. If only you'd kept on some of the staff from SPI when you swallowed them, who were actually good at that part of their jobs.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 65: November 1991



part 2/5



The Living City: Once again, it's time to exaggerate that west country accent and put on the Wurzels playlist, as this one's for the cider drinkers! As it's a fairly niche drink there, Raven's Bluff only has one cider mill, run by a powerful druid with a lot of daughters, all named after virtues, because that always turns out so well [/sarcasm]. Her husband disappeared while adventuring a decade ago, and since then she's been running the business while trying to keep them out of trouble on her own, with very mixed results, as each of them is a different alignment and 1st level in a different class. They seem like rich ground for a romance subplot or recruitment to your adventuring party as they become increasingly independent and look to make their own ways in the world. This is one that strikes a good balance between the down to earth bits drawn from real world research and the more fantastical bits that are good hooks for adventuring parties. The question of what happened to the dad gets a particularly interesting answer that could well be turned into a decent length quest spanning many sessions, there's a couple of new magical items, and should you be the larcenous sort, there's a few surprises in the brewery layout that you could find. This is definitely on the higher end of the quality spectrum for this series.



Oceans Of Potions: We don't have an adventure this issue. However, we do have a lot of game usable material indeed in here. A whopping 160 potions and oils over 10 pages, considerably more than any edition's corebooks. They're presented in a pretty old school format and style (as they'd have to be to fit that many in that small a space) with many of them being booby prizes or meant to be used in some way other than drinking them. Taste testing is really not recommended if you want to make the most of their powers. So this is a strong reminder of the value of having a spellcaster or sage available who can properly analyse magical items and tell you what all their powers are. Given the sheer quantity of them and skimpiness of many of their descriptions, I'm not going to assess them all individually, or this part of the review would be longer than all the other articles put together, but some of the highlights include a somewhat too powerful potion of longevity which automatically reverts you to a 5-year old's body, (whether you'll age back to adulthood normally from that point, or be truly immortal but stuck at that apparent age is not clear) one that lets you turn into a tree and back, several metapotions that modify the effects of other ones or just generally counter the usual miscibility problem that happens if you ingest more than one at once, and the ability to absorb the AC and resilience of whatever you touch like a Zorbo. They're not particularly balanced, but since they're mostly only one use items, you don't have to worry about them completely ruining the game either. Putting some of these in your random treasure rolls will definitely liven up the game a bit.

 

[Ancalagon]

You are approaching the era where I bought/used Dungeon magazines, so I am looking forward to it

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 65: November 1991



part 3/5



Ponderously Puzzling: To go with our potion feature, we also have a potion-based logic puzzle. As with last time, you need to figure out which is the one you want, by color, smell, shape & material of the vial it's in, and position relative to the other ones, and then a process of elimination. Fortunately, there's no dragon setting the parameters this time, so you have more time to mull it over IC and take notes. This format definitely seems like it would hit diminishing returns fast if they did it every month. Surely there are other kinds of puzzles they could throw at us.



The Living Galaxy: Roger recycles a topic he did several times in Dragon editorials, but in more detail. Taking your real world experiences and using them to generate game scenarios. In a sci-fi scenario, this frequently results in "planet of the hats" style worldbuilding, so you should take care to put a little more nuance in and maybe combine two or three ideas rather than just using one pretty much unchanged. This basic concept is padded out to a full 5 pages with examples this time, which is a new high for this column. As usual for these, they're not objectively bad, but I never come away from them feeling I've learned anything new. Such are the perils of being both generic & formulaic, and having a remit to write to people as if every issue is someone's first.



Into The Dark: James goes for another very specific combination this month that I'm mildly surprised he found enough films to fill out. Westerns and Horror. I suppose Deadlands did quite well for itself when released a few years later. And every western is technically a horror story from the indigenous point of view. But what will the weird bits they add on be, and how well will the historical and supernatural elements blend in this selection?

Curse of the Undead has some good ideas, and the actors do their best with the material they've been given, but is bogged down by over obvious telegraphing of the plot and sloppy editing. It's still an entertaining enough watch, but definitely no classic for the ages.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is the kind of hammy low budget ridiculousness that could never be called good, but is a fun watch precisely because of it's combination of cheapness and interestingly bad acting. More stuff to watch late at night, preferably with friends.

Grim Prairie Tales is the only one this time that's actually outright good. An anthology of four shorter stories, with a fifth one as a framing device where the people involved are telling the other stories and reacting to the tales by the other one, it builds tension nicely and gradually develops the characters in an interesting way. This seems like it could have plenty worth stealing for your own horror RPG's.

Ghost Town does decently but not exceptionally. There's a few strings visible on the special effects, but they're used effectively to build atmosphere and keep the viewer in a state of disorientation. The ending is a bit disappointing after all the buildup, but I guess the ride is more important than the destination.

Ghost Riders gets thoroughly slated. The kind of low-budget film that barely makes it to theatrical length, yet is still slow and padded out because they didn't write enough story in the first place. The sound mix in particular sounds like they never even heard the acronym ADR. Let's hope it was at least a learning experience for all involved.