TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 42: Jul/Aug 1993



part 3/5



Side Treks - Izek's Slumber: Two side treks in one issue? That's a mildly surprising first for the magazine. Despite the name, it's not a Lankhmar one, but a Greyhawk character that just happens to share the name. The aforementioned Izek is a Sueloise mage that escaped the rain of colourless fire by being put into suspended animation. Someone digs in the wrong place, he's released a thousand years late and very confused, which is not a condition you want to meet a powerful wizard in. Now he's wandering around the city of Greyhawk with a bunch of zombies looking for his ancient enemy. If any of the PC's speak ancient Sueloise it's possible to talk him down, but if they leave him alone after that to explore the present day without any guidance he'll wind up joining the Scarlet Brotherhood and show up again to be a pain further along the line. If you fight him, you get a demonstration of just how nasty high level spellcasters who've precast a bunch of buff spells and use smart tactics can be. They haven't done a huge amount of that so far, and it's definitely an idea that's on the rise, with debates in Dragon's forums about the brokenness of stoneskin and the number of spells wizards have to choose from increasing rapidly due to the rate of supplements. How do you balance between playing adversaries as smartly as they should be and not slowing things down with a ton of bookkeeping? Since this is just a single encounter that's easy to transplant elsewhere it doesn't get too unwieldy here, but I know it will become more of an issue in the future. So this is decent enough in itself, and also gives me plenty to talk about on a wider level. It gets my approval overall, particularly if I give into my more whimsical impulses and make it a little more Austin Powers in Greyhawk.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 42: Jul/Aug 1993



part 4/5



Ransom: David Howery provides one of our increasingly rare basic D&D adventures. A Karimeikan Baron has had his son kidnapped by bandits and sends the PC's to pay the ransom. Things do not go smoothly for complicated behind the scenes political reasons, and you're probably going to have to fight your way through them anyway. As with the last one, it's only a single combat encounter, and at 4 pages long, could probably have been branded a Side Trek if they felt like it, but it has plenty of room to be extrapolated outwards into a larger, more political adventure if the PC's get suspicious, and hopefully have longer term consequences for your campaign like eventually leading into a fight with the Black Eagle & Bargle. (as if there weren't enough routes for that from other books ) It draws on the Known World setting decently, without being so tied to it that it's unusable elsewhere, and the characters all use decent tactics and have understandable motivations rather than just being cacklingly evil monsters sitting in their rooms waiting for the PC's. No objections to any of this.



Legacy of the Liosalfar: Ooh, a trip into the realm of Faerie. We don't actually see that many of those before 4e codifies it as a specific plane. The Miller of a small town disappeared at an unfortunate time along with most of the village's savings. The PC's, which by default are other townsfolk, since it's an adventure aimed at starting level characters, are sent to find out what's happened, as without that money or grain the village risks starvation this winter. As you'd expect, he was entranced by the faerie revelry and followed them to their glamoured halls to dance and feast in dilated time. Can you get in and get him out without losing weeks or months yourself to their various tricks and temptations? Since every hour equals a day in the outside world, this is one where the DM strictly tracking how long each encounter takes is extra important. Deal with prankster pixies, a bitter faerie knight, a riddling gnome, a second helping of horny dryad, (as bad as busses, you go years without any and suddenly there's two in one issue! At least this one's not rapey, but she is a mime, which some would consider worse.) then figure out what kind of offer will persuade the faerie queen to let him go. It's all quite high on the roleplaying and whimsy, and the order of encounters is fairly linear, but you do at least get plenty of choice in how you play each individual one out, with some of those choices having repercussions further along the line. Better than the average polyhedron adventure, but would still be irritating for many groups, like any adventure built around trickster encounters. Definitely falls into the use with caution category; make sure you know your table's tastes before attempting it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 42: Jul/Aug 1993



part 5/5



The Price of Revenge: Steven Kurtz continues to write adventures that are more interesting, but also more problematic than the average writer here, as he goes straight for the now very out of fashion gypsy curse trope. A pair of nosferatu vampires got particularly greedy and sloppy in their feeding on a small Valachan town and wound up killing a young Vistani girl and turning her into another vampire. This quite reasonably got her mother to pronounce a curse on said vampires. In come the PC's through the mists, albeit 10 years late, to hopefully save the day. Can you give her and her creepy child vampire trying to resist it's hunger a happy ending, or will you fall before the physical and social defences of the evil vampires and die, fail even worse and become trapped in undeath as well, or never even get close to the mystery and be sucked into the mundane life of the village. Actually, the last one isn't very likely, as this is a fairly linear adventure where the spooky hints are laid on pretty thick right from the start and the antagonist's actions in play aren't nearly as subtle as they're talked up to be in the backstory. Once again for him, direct combat would be a bad idea at the intended character level, so you're expected to look for the macguffins that'll weaken the vampires first, and make sure they can't just turn gaseous & escape even if you are strong enough, letting you have multiple encounters with the same enemies before defeating them for good. So there's a lot of him recycling things he does, that very few other writers here do, and for good reason, as they're literary conventions that might be cool in a story but don't work very well under the D&D system, particularly with genre savvy players who can spot a villain amongst general NPC's in the talky bits well before they're supposed to and short-circuit the plot. Unlike Willie Walsh, he's rapidly becoming irritatingly predictable with repeated submissions. Very much at the bad end of 2e style adventures, where the writer is telling their own story rather than letting the players create one in play, and has to do a lot of bending the rules to make that happen if the dice fall the wrong way. Ravenloft does seem to be particularly prone to those.



An issue where there's a strong negative correlation between adventure length and quality, with the longer ones leaning increasingly towards telling a story rather than building an adventure. This means that in terms of page count, the ratio of stuff I'd personally want to use vs not is actually pretty low. It does seem like they're on a downswing overall at the moment. Let's see if that trend continues in a couple of month's time.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 86: August 1993



part 1/5



32 pages. Well, we're now halfway through Polyhedron's run numerically. Probably not in terms of page count, and since we're only a fifth of the way through Dungeon, we're nowhere near halfway through the journey overall, but it's still a decent landmark. The rider and wardog on the cover also look like they've got a lengthy journey through mountainous terrain still to go. Better not spend too much time staring pensively from a vantage point then. It may look good on a cover but it won't get you that XP.



The Third Degree: This column goes for a licensed game this time, with the RPG of Larry Niven's Dream Park novels. This is interesting because you're essentially playing a game within a game, as both the people plugged into VR in the park, and their shorter-term characters in various more fantastical genres. Seems like it would also be a good fit for a Matrix game then. Like Over the Edge, it's more focussed on roleplaying than combat, and the system is fairly light as a result. People who want ultra detailed cross-genre emulation should stick to GURPS or something, but if you want to be able to create characters quickly and get down to actually playing, this could be worth checking out.



Notes From HQ: First half of the editorial gives props to people who started out volunteering for the RPGA, and have gone onto be paid writers for TSR and other companies. John Terra, Tom Prusa, Nicky Rea and multiple members of the Bingle family have all worked their way up, built connections through their time here, and are now reaching a wider audience with their work. Good for them. Hopefully their success will encourage other aspiring writers to stick it out through the hard years trying to get a foot in the door.

Second half continues their midlife existential crisis. Do they want to change their name? Should they continue to focus so heavily on conventions, or find other ways to connect gamers throughout the world? If they do cut down, what do they fill the space with? As with the name change, they're probably not going to make big changes because the demands of lots of users tend to average out towards the status quo, but hopefully it'll generate interesting debate in the letters page in the meantime.



Letters: First letter is by Rick Loomis, who praises them for talking about PbM games, then points out all the ways the article was factually inaccurate. He should know, because he was running a company doing them 10 years earlier than it said and knows the ins and outs, what does and doesn't work with the format intimately. Someone really ought to write a book detailing the history of PbM games before all the big players in the scene die of old age, because I strongly suspect big chunks of that were only known by their participants and most of the paper records have already been lost.

The other one is your basic list of likes and dislikes. Into the Dark & Living Galaxy good, Everwinking Eye bad. Run more non D&D games at conventions plz. The last bit, you can solve yourself by volunteering as a judge, as that's the main limiting factor there and one person could do several slots over a weekend and still have time for sightseeing.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 86: August 1993



part 2/5



The Living City: The proportion of potentially antagonistic encounters in Raven's Bluff increases again this issue with an interesting little scam artist. Friar Cookpot is a cleric of Vergedain who uses his mind control spells to subtly encourage people to donate far more generously than they would otherwise. To be fair, he is a very good cook, so the aromatic scents and street-smart patter do a decent job of attracting a crowd even without magical assistance, but no-one's going to pay for a bowl of stew with a piece of jewellery or their favourite magical item no matter how divinely delicious it is. Whether the PC's fall prey themselves, or are merely asked for help by someone who did, you can see why that would annoy and embarrass people once the charm wears off and they think critically about what they did, and they'd want to hunt him down and get revenge. A lighthearted scenario, but one that could have serious ramifications on the campaign if it's a particularly powerful item the PC's give up, and a good reminder that D&D clerics can be devoted to all sorts of concepts and don't have to be particularly virtuous. This seems easy to drop in nearly anywhere as an urban encounter and give them a challenge they could succeed or fail at with consequences, but without ending the campaign. It gets my approval.



The New Republic Campaign: More Star Wars articles? Don't mind if I do. Bill Slavicsek gives us the closest thing to an adventure this issue. Do you want to make a difference in the war effort and succeed where many Bothans died? Here's an outline of how it could go. Your PC's are sent by their commander to the planet of Gellefon. Once there, they find out about Pinnacle Keep, where the Bothans who revealed the second Death Star's plans are being held prisoner, soon to be executed. Can you get in there, get as many of them as possible out alive, and get off planet, since a big jailbreak like that will result in seriously pissed off imperial forces chasing you.So this is a chance to be peripherally involved in the big plot of the movies and feel like you've improved things, albeit without actually changing longterm history significantly and invalidating the sequel trilogy or EU books. It still needs a bit of work to fill in all the stats and maps, but at least that also means it's not as linear as most of the full adventures in here and can be played as a realistic heist or a more pulpy breakin and fight through the guards. It's nowhere near as interesting and flexible as the Doom Wars scenario, but not bad either. The big limiter is it's very specific timeframe compared to the movies, making it unusable if you've already set your campaign after Return of the Jedi is over or any distance in the past either.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 86: August 1993



part 3/5



Bestiary: Ahmi Vanjuko is a name that should be familiar to Ravenloft fans, as he goes onto be republished in their second monstrous compendium and mentioned in several other books beyond that. Once a normal ranger from Greyhawk, he's now trapped in a mechanical golem body, unable to taste or smell the nature he loves so much, with all animals terrified of him. He's slowly losing his grip on sanity & humanity as a result, but still tries to be a good person and destroy the other horrible creations of Easan the Mad. He gets a full 3 pages of florid backstory making it clear how tragic his life is (while also being a terrifying combatant if your PC's attack him, because Ravenloft does love the cursed with awesome trope. ) If you can communicate with him, he could be a valuable ally, and if you could get him a new human body, (preferably ethically sourced, perhaps a swap with someone who would be less angsty about the things they'd lose as an android, maybe even one of the PC's.) he would be very grateful indeed. Lots of different interesting plot ideas here, making him much more than just another monster to kill. Nice to see another thing that got a start in the newszine and then went onto bigger things.



The Everwinking Eye: Ed runs out of things to say about Zhentil Keep for now, so this instalment is relatively short. 5 adventure ideas for things that could happen while there. As with his full adventures, they're fairly linear in design, and only work if the PC's do specific things, otherwise they'll miss them entirely or force the DM to improvise. There's plenty of opportunity to be screwed over by the Zhentarim, who enjoy baiting naive adventurers with plot hooks that are false or traps, but also some real plots to foil. A little divination magic would be very handy in telling one from the other and picking jobs that don't get you killed or wind up advancing the goals of evil in the long run. You may well be annoyed with how running these turns out, but you probably won't be bored. I guess it's another way of showing how despite the heroes always winning in the novels, the world as a whole still has plenty of challenges. At least some of the villains take the long view in between the maniacal cackling and know how to misdirect effectively so a loss isn't a complete loss.



The Living Galaxy: Roger turns his eye to alien ecologies this time. Earth's ecology is large and complex enough that figuring out what makes an alien one different can be difficult; nearly anything you think of will have been tried by some species somewhere in space and time. The trick is in doing lots of research and then remixing elements in a way that's plausible. After all, the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe, and there are plenty of examples of convergent evolution on earth. You're going to get eyeballs, ears, claws, wings, grazers, pack hunters, stalking solitary hunters, etc wherever you go. Pouches, reproductive methods, colours, intelligence, specific numbers of limbs, on the other hand, can and have shaken out very differently. There's also substantial differences in overall competence. Is the planet one that will have it's ecosystem devastated by a few foreign bacteria arriving, or the kind that'll eat intruders alive and then spread back to where they came from? Are your biochemistries even remotely compatible? How do differences in temperature, gravity and atmospheric pressure alter what thrives and what dies? As usual, much of this refers you to much larger works on this topic, and then talks about which RPG's might be good for it, including many of the weird but not completely impossible creatures to be found in our own monstrous compendia. Call of Cthulhu comes out particularly well, given their emphasis on the bizarre and mindblowing. Overall, this maintains much the same standards of quality as the rest of them.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 86: August 1993



part 4/5



Gadgets Galore: Another of our contests draws a wide range of submissions for various systems, showing cool gear isn't just a D&D thing. There's lots of sci-fi systems out there of various hardness, and the RPGA runs tournaments for a fair few of them. Which ones will get the most, and which will be the most inspired?

Mutant Detectors are the kind of thing that seems handy, but kinda falls apart in Paranoia because all the PC's are commie mutant traitors, including the wearer, which causes them to self-destruct. The real trick is coming up with excuses not to use it to your higher-ups.

Joy Buttons mark you as extra loyal to Friend Computer, boosting your bootlicking & spurious logic scores when explaining things to machines. Your fellow troubleshooters may not be so easy to fool, so make sure you rat them out first in times of trouble.

Climbing Gloves have hi-grip fingerpads and a rocket powered grappling hook mounted on them. If anything goes wrong with the mechanism, your fingers will be the first to feel it, quite possibly with crippling results. Oh well, better luck next clone.

The Improved Hygienbot is an intelligent barbers/dentists chair that will restrain anyone who doesn't meet it's standards of cleanliness and give them a complete makeover whether they want it or not. Like the previous item, it's complexity means it malfunctions frequently and you may find yourself with either harmless but humiliating cosmetic transformations, or more painful tooth & toenail extractions at the GM's whim. Definitely one that can be played for horror as well as comedy.

Vidgam Decks show that while you can substitute a joystick & a few buttons for a keyboard when hacking, it's not ideal. If you thought console vs PC snobbery was bad in the real world, you don't even want to think about how it went in Shadowrun.

Distance Decks remind us that the Shadowrun universe was way behind ours in the adoption of WiFi and mobile phones. You need to transport one of these onsite and plug it into a system so your decker can hack remotely? How laughably primitive. Almost as bad as Traveller hard drive sizes in hindsight.

Breath of God Cyberlungs remind us that while Torg also has cyberware, the aesthetics and naming conventions are very different from Shadowrun. They filter out anything harmful and let you stay functional at higher altitudes than a normal human could manage. Just the thing to let you get a little closer to heaven.

Jonah's Gills let you breathe underwater, obviously. As handy here as any game.

Poirot's Optiscan extends your vision in both directions along the electromagnetic spectrum, while also providing analytical information in the corner of your eye. Of course, being manufactured by the cyberpapacy, some of the commentary may be ideologically biased, but it's still got plenty of uses in an investigation-heavy game.

Eyes of Siloam function as both long range zoom and microscope, which is handy for spying, ranged combat and scientific analysis. Careful you don't get sensory overload if you have both installed at once.

Thev-4.8 Aleph-Ket Vehicle Interfaces help people who're used to the conveniences of advanced technology to operate more primitive ones. In the long run, you may wish you'd taken the time to learn the hard way, as they're prone to malfunction at odd times. I mean, how hard is it to pedal a bicycle? Have your muscles atrophied from doing everything via touchscreen?

Karaoke Machines of Death sound like the macguffin from one of the films James likes to review. Listening to them can range from simple causing of terror to outright exploding brains, depending how awful the singing is. Can the PC's take the threat seriously long enough to realise what's going on and foil it?

Enviro Weaves are subdermal implants that help you deal with temperature extremes. If the cyberpunk world is suffering global warming as much as the real one, this could be a big quality of life improver for the rich when they leave their air-conditioned towers.

Cobra Spitters are pretty self explanatory, giving you poison glands in your cheeks. A perfect dirty trick for if someone tries to grapple you.

Biotox Analyzers report on any poisons that enter your system and what might be a good antidote, which may or may not be handy depending on if you have access to said antidote. Hindsight can only help so much if you're hours away from the nearest hospital.

Radio Plugs are another of those things that let you communicate with electronic devices at range that look very dated in a world of WiFi, mobile phones and smart fridges. We have exploits the fictional hackers of the 90's didn't even dream of.

Galvdetectors track changes in your skin conductivity due to stress. This is not actually that effective as a lie detector, but certainly doesn't hurt in combination with other interrogation techniques. Once again, nothing that can't be done in reality.

Tachyon Hyperblasters take us back to the completely fantastical, emitting deadly radiation that passes through nearly anything at faster than light speeds. You can't run, you can't hide, good luck being tough enough not to die.

APDAFF are the acronymically named, very expensive super-shields that can block tachyon radiation, as well as nearly anything else. Your typical arms race. Keeps the dealers rich whoever wins.

Anti-Glitter Grenades emit charged ions to suck up and clear any glitter in the atmosphere. Exactly who would do that in the first place and why is another question, but I guess there's a countermeasure for every trick.

Laser Re-Director Shields are basically just large toughened mirrors. They can deflect or bounce back laser weapons, but their reflective sheen will be ruined by most other types of attack, so they won't save your life against a determined and flexible opponent.

Lightshields of the Jedi make the knightly analogy Jedi have even more explicit. They glow when activated and stop lightsabers where anything material would be sliced through. If you don't have Jedi-like reflexes then they probably won't save your life against one.

Glitter Balls should probably have been put before their countermeasure. Besides getting everywhere so you'll be picking them out of your clothes for months, they also scatter laser fire in the area, attenuating the damage a fair bit. Don't use unless the stealth aspect of a mission is already well and truly compromised, because good luck not leaving a trail and laying low afterwards.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 86: August 1993



part 5/5



Into The Dark: It always happens. When a new technology come along it's first adopted by people who use it to push boundaries, then the big companies come along and try to homogenise things again for the mass market. James has only been doing this column a couple of years and it's already become noticeably harder to find the kind of videos he likes, with the little stores being undercut by Blockbusters popping up in every town, all carrying exactly the same kid-friendly selections. Don't worry, they'll be on the other side of history in a decade's time when Netflix does the same to them, and then it too will make the same mistake of cutting down on archive selections for licensing reasons and focussing more on original material, making it impossible to find many old movies on legal streaming sites. It's a neverending cycle. What can we do apart from keeping the torrents seeding? But anyway, back to various nights of weirdness happening, as there's more than enough of those to fill many months in here, and even more that James has heard of but can't actually find.

Night of the Ghouls is one of Ed Wood's inept but still interesting attempts at moviemaking. This isn't so much a review as a digression on his whole oeuvre, and the upcoming Tim Burton biopic on the topic. Discovering how these films came to be is probably more fascinating than actually watching them.

Night of the Comet gets a mediocre result, being neither particularly funny or cutting a social satire, but at the same time not so badly made as to be interesting. Ok enough to have on in the background, but nothing mindblowing.

Night of the Creeps is slightly more entertaining, as it doesn't have any pretensions about being more than a B-movie about brain slugs turning people into zombies, but it's still on the mediocre end overall, with the dialogue in particular being very cheesy indeed. Oh well, at least you know exactly what to expect going in.

Night of the Zombies is one James reviews just to warn you away. Useless zombies, even more useless human protagonists, poor special effects, all padded out with large quantities of stock footage. It's no wonder Bruno Mattei decided to use a pseudonym when releasing this one.

Night of the Strangler is also not recommended, for one thing because the serial killer in it never actually kills anyone by strangulation. Micky Dolenz is bafflingly cast, the attempts at politics are hamfisted, and the technical aspects are once again distinctly lacking. Many modern youtubers have a better setup.



Take A Byte: So much for Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, as they're forced to announce that the expansions to their game have been "delayed". We know in hindsight that that delay is indefinite, but at this point they still think it'll just be a few extra months work. It's a hard life being a PR person when things could change behind the scenes at any moment and all you can do is put the best spin on them and hope your words won't be proven wrong again at the next whim of the boss. On a more positive note, D&D: Fantasy Empires will be out on time in a couple of months, giving you a way to go straight to that domain level play that they tried to include in earlier editions but few players ever reached. Play against a mix of other human players and computer ones and try to expand your territory and level up individual characters in your roster. Was that any good? Are the multiplayer elements still functional in some form to make it playable on modern computers, or is it another one that the passing of time has made unusable?



The Roving Eye: this time looking at Eclipse Con in Columbia, MO. Aside from an unusually high ratio of hats amongst the attendees, it looks the same as any other convention. Unless they have some particularly cool props or cosplay, these things kinda blur into one after a while. You've seen one large echoey hall filled with stalls, you've seen 'em all.



Like most post hoc landmarks, there's nothing particularly exceptional here, although the double helping of Star Wars stuff is at least worth noting. Despite not having a dominant sci-fi system, there's still plenty of sci-fi fans amongst the RPGA, and they're trying to publish articles for them. How will the Amazing Engine & Alternity compare in here to Dragon, and will they bother to do any tournament adventures for either? Time to see what diversions from the typical Living City fare next issue might contain.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 87: September 1993



part 1/5



32 pages. Heavy use of dutch angles implies that either we're on a rocking boat, or these people are getting up to some shady business. Maybe both, if pirates are involved. Well, Raven's bluff is a nautical city, so it wouldn't be the first time. Let's find out if there's any significant worldbuilding or metaplot developments, or just more stuff that will be forgotten in another month's time.



The New Rogues Gallery: The winner of their contest to come up with interesting NPC's once again demonstrates the editor's terrible tastes. Plump the Bard, who lives down to his name by being nothing but a string of fat jokes and stereotypes. He loves the sound of his own (loud and operatic) voice, makes bad jokes, likes his food simple and in large quantities, and his women the same way. Basically, he's a comic relief character from a shakespearean play, or maybe the Go Compare adverts. One of those times where all I can do is roll my eyes and sigh heavily, because oh for god's sake, making someone's fatness virtually the whole defining trait of their personality is just tiresome, gross and mean-spirited. Another instance where Polyhedron really suffers for having less of a filter than their bigger magazines. Jokes are once again a good way for them to be casually prejudiced, which is not what I want to see.



Notes From HQ: Most of the editorial is once again devoted to the imbalance in the Judge/Player ratio and the problems it causes. Certain people who know there's more demand than supply are acting entitled and want more of a reward for judging lots of tournament slots. Nope. The RPGA isn't going to pay you to run games, and couldn't even if it wanted too, as the money from your subscription fees doesn't actually stretch that far. You'll have to be happy with the intangible rewards of actually getting to game a lot, being the centre of attention through most of the session, and hopefully the satisfaction of knowing you did a good job. People who are only doing it for points and prizes need to question their motivations and maybe decide not to show up after all. Another case where I suspect we'll be hearing more about this tension in the letters page in the future. On shorter but more positive notes, they've improved the packaging for the issues, so hopefully you'll be getting fewer damaged ones through your mailbox, and their internet presence continues to grow, with enough regular logins that they're having some quite nice chats on their bulletin boards. Once again I wish those were preserved somewhere on the internet, so i could get an even better view of RPGA history as it happened. It's worrying how many things from my lifetime have already gone down the memory hole because no-one cared enough to preserve them.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 87: September 1993



part 2/5



The Third Degree: Jeff takes a route rarely roleplayed, even though it appears in nearly every game. Lost Souls, one of those games where death is merely the beginning rather than the end, and you play ghosts figuring out how to resolve their issues and be reincarnated. A rather lighter take than next year's Wraith: the Oblivion, and one less suited to extended campaigns as well. Like many old-school games, there's a fair bit of randomness in character generation, so you can never be sure what you died of until you get stuck in. Which I suppose is realistic, as you don't get to choose what you die of in reality unless you commit suicide, but it's increasingly out of fashion in game design. This seems interesting enough that I might be tempted to pick it up if It's not too hard to find now, see how it holds up in hindsight.



A Little Something On The Side: Roger has another little column of advice that doesn't fit in the living galaxy format. Unless you keep the various aspects of your life extremely segregated, hopefully you actually have interaction with the people you game with outside that context and like them as human beings. It might be a good idea to hang out socially in other ways, like watching TV, going to the cinema, throwing a party, or semi-gaming related activities like attending conventions and painting minis together. Seems kinda obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people wouldn't think of doing so on their own, or feel awkward doing so for various reasons. Another of those things that's not particularly deep or mindblowing, but it's good to remind people of every now and then. If you get to know people a little better, hopefully you'll have more fun together.



The Everwinking Eye: Ed decides we need a breath of fresh air after all the Moonsea cities, and goes to the tiny hamlet of Sevenecho, so small and obscure they can't even get it's name right on the maps. A crossroads of about 35 people with a single inn, and a similar amount of farmers spread over the adjacent few miles, there's only room for one powerful wizard with a bunch of custom contingency spells here. The inn is pretty large though, with plenty of rambling nooks and crannies, and lets them more than double the population on market days. Like many small towns, most of the population are related in some way, with the closeknit Sevenecho clan being the dominant one. Since there's not much to do of an evening, it's not hard to have a dalliance with one of the younger locals while passing through, but betray them and the whole place will close ranks on you, making it a bad idea to visit again. Seems like a fairly typical small town, albeit rather less prudish than any you'd see in Krynn. The dangers are similarly small scale, a few marauding goblinoid tribes in the hills, and probably a red wizard spy working in the inn and passing information about adventurer movements up the chain. Even a low level party could make a real difference against those, unlike the challenges in Zhentil Keep. A decent enough place to start a campaign or pass through, but not one that could support a whole campaign on it's own. Good thing there's all these other places fully detailed to go afterwards then.