TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 95: May 1994



part 3/5



Sweet Revenge: Urgh. Here we go again. Ongoin's chocolate mines are infested with monsters, and only the PC's can save the day. Rick Reid takes us back to the Caves of Confection, in a style that foreshadows the way they'll do Return to the X modules for a whole bunch of classic adventures on their silver anniversary. Same map, but a whole new set of challenges. Instead of a senile wandering grandpa, you have a fussing overprotective grandma. Instead of marshmallow harpies, jinsu orcs and a snack dragon, you have a lemon drop golem, syrup elemental and a demonic gingerbread man (who's movement rate is not actually that high, so you'll have no trouble catching him) as the ultimate nemesis. The overall tone hasn't changed though, it's still an obnoxiously linear series of comedy vignettes designed for tournament play that would not work very well in a serious campaign where people examine the logical ramifications of the existence of things and exploit them. The quality of the cartography & layout is slightly improved, and the challenges are a little tougher this time around, but minor iterative improvements don't change the fundamental mismatch between what he does and what I'm looking for in gaming. Hard pass.



Adversaries: The two characters in here are a classic tale of LN vs CN where you could easily side with either. Twin brothers, separated at birth who are opposites in nearly every respect. One is an emotionally repressed chiselled blond nobleman with a paternalisticly disdainful view of the lower classes. The other is a hairy savage beast of a man who was abandoned at birth due to his unsettling appearance, taken in by a nomadic tribe and becoming their leader through his raw ferocity as a fighter. Both are fighters of the same level and exactly the same total points in attributes, but their choices of weapons & equipment similarly contrasting. When the ugly one finds out he was actually born slightly before the handsome one and so is rightful lord of the southern reaches, this puts them on collision course. He wouldn't be particularly well suited to that highfaluting city life anyway, but the knowledge still rankles, particularly upon seeing the kind of person his brother has become. Which one will your sympathies be with, and how will you get involved in their rivalry? Once again they're going straight for the most obvious fairytale influenced setups, complete with the problematic bits about people with noble blood being inherently superior and winding up in charge even if you take away all their stuff and raise them in a different culture. Well, they are literally developing a campaign setting called Birthright so I guess there's a lot of that going around the offices at the moment. So it's another one that's interestingly written and very gamable, but won't be to everyone's tastes. Will they be able to keep this column going long enough to get to slightly less cliched and more sophisticated concepts?

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 95: May 1994



part 4/5



Bestiary goes for a bunch of centaur variants, as combining various upper and lower halves is a formula with a lot of interesting possibilities. 3e would make a template of it, making it ultra-easy to customise tauric races for your own campaign, but for now, we just have to see what they've hand-crafted for us and if it's any good.

Zebranaur have zebra bodies and human halves of the ethnicity where zebras are found in the real world. Since that contrast is not so great for maintaining camouflage they're pretty good at body-painting & tattoos to compensate and have photographic memories for furlike patterns, which seems like a minor ability but could be crucial in a detective story. They're not as cringe as they could have been, but do still fall back on tribal primitive stereotypes because we can't have a race introduced in a supplement having any significant control over large areas of a campaign world.

Dorvesh combine dwarves and donkeys, which synergises to produce a truly epic level of stubbornness being the norm for them. The hexapod body plan isn't so great for mining, so they tend not to delve as deeply, but are still well equipped for doing so and defending themselves against whatever comes up from beneath.

Ha'ponys combine halflings and miniature ponies. They have a truly epic appetite for fruit, so any settlement will be surrounded by plenty of well-tended orchards. Both genders love ribbons and you can tell who's important amongst them by who has the most elaborate braiding. Pretty much as twee as you'd expect.

Gnoats (not to be confused with warhammer Zoats) mix gnomes and goats, obviously enough. They live above ground in the warm months and then disappear into caves with their extensive supplies of jam, honey and other preserves for the winter. If you can prove yourself a friend you can get some yummy stuff and excellent pottery to contain it in. All of these fall on the obvious side of the spectrum then, rather than trying any oddball combinations. Meh.



The Living Galaxy: Instead of several small campaign ideas, Roger decides to pick one big one and stick with it for the whole column this time. Look at the Pacific front of WWII, and examine how it relates to space based war. You have relatively little solid land, and large gaps between those strategically useful places so you need to adapt your tactics accordingly. Just travelling can use up a lot of resources so you need to pick your moves carefully, and if things go wrong you might wind up in a situation where you have to land and take them from the other side or face starvation/running out of fuel & drifting helplessly. Having the right information is as important for victory as raw numbers, so if one side can intercept and decode the other's transmissions they'll have a huge advantage. Many of the small islands are covered with either sand or jungle so you need to be able to adapt to extreme terrains when you do. If they have primitive natives caught between the two spacefaring sides, how do you get them on your side and make them useful, particularly if there's a vast health & education gap? As usual when the theme is more specific and in depth, this is more interesting to me than lots of generic ideas. WWII has been documented and analysed in exhaustive day to day detail, so you have some excellent sources to look at individual battles, why a particular side won there, and then convert them into a suitably interplanetary milieu. You could easily fill a years long campaign with adventures using this method, so this gets my approval.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 95: May 1994



part 5/5



Into The Dark: Rather than picking films based on a theme, James goes for ones connected by a single actor - Lance Henriksen. A reliable tough guy who's also capable of playing against type and showing hidden depths. Like most prolific actors, he's appeared in some stinkers over the years, but mostly manages to keep his dignity nonetheless. There's more than enough to choose from to fill several columns with, so let's see if we're getting the good ones, or the ones that can be amusingly slated.

Nightmares was intended to be a horror anthology show like the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. It didn't get picked up for a full series, so they reedited the pilot episodes into a TV movie. Most of the ideas are pretty shallow and cliched. Lance only appears in one of the four segments, which is easily the best one. Not of any great historical interest.

Aliens sees Lance playing the android Bishop, one of his most famous roles. This is commonly hailed as a classic, and James agrees with one caveat, it's too long, particularly in the final act and would be even better if they'd trimmed another 20-30 minutes off it. Like most big directors, James Cameron could do with a stricter editor to get things done on time and within budget, especially now, after spending more than a decade wanking around with increasingly overambitious Avatar sequel production.

Near Dark reunites many of the same cast & crew for a tale of low-rent vampires, showing realistically how they'd survive and operate in society with their serious sunlight allergy without large amounts of money or mind-control powers. Once again James' only complaint is the conclusion, choosing the cheesy implausible happy ending instead of going full-on with the darkness. Not enough movies are willing to subvert expectations like that.

Pumpkinhead, on the other hand is entirely willing to play with the expectations of the slasher genre. Lance plays the guy who calls up the titular demon and comes to regret it. It also more than has the special effects and acting to properly implement it's good story. Despite not doing too well at the box office, it's well worth a watch.

The Horror Show is one of those bits of slasher tripe that James only posts about to warn us off. So bad one of the writers is Alan Smithee and it goes by different names in different countries to try and claw a few more sales out. Don't be fooled and waste your money, even if it's in the bargain bin.



With three very twee articles in a row, this was well above average in level of irritation, but still managed some useful stuff elsewhere in the issue. So not a great issue overall, but an interesting one. I can live with that. Onto the next one, to see where that falls on both quality and interest levels.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994



part 1/5



65 pages. The mysterious masked assassins tend to wear lighter shades in Zakhara than Kara-Tur, but there's still plenty of them and the tactics are the same. Any tricks are fair game when there's a target that you need to stealthily kill. How tricky will they be for the PC's to foil? Time to roll for surprise again and hope their backstab damage isn't enough to take me out in one go.



Editorial: The editorial this time points out that their adventures are 50% regular writers, and 50% all new people we've never seen before and may well never see again. They're not a closed shop, so don't be intimidated into not sending your adventures in. Slow month when it comes to submissions? Even if it's not I guess they do need to repeat the message every now and then, particularly as they've been running for a while and the number of regulars is increasing. Nothing much new here except the synopses of the specific adventures, which I don't feel the need to analyse because I'll get to the full thing soon enough.



Letters: First letter complains there's too much roleplaying and not enough adventuring going on these days. People are spending hours shopping and letting the character die because "it's what they would do". Maybe the balance needs to start swinging back the other way again. Or you just need to find a new group, because they're obviously having fun playing like that. A good dramatic death just adds to the story.

Second is from regular writer Paul Culotta, who wants to keep prefab adventures in here and advice on how to make your own in Dragon. It's worked so far, so why mess with a working formula?

Third reminds us of the importance of plotless location based adventures, both as an easy way to start new gamers off, and as a semi-blank slate where you can add your own personalities and politics onto the inhabitants. You can get a lot more reusability out of them than you can linear story based adventures.

Fourth points out that the temple in Goblin Fever is bigger on the outside than the inside. While that's not uncommon with magical buildings, you may want to shrink it down for a more realistically grounded campaign.

Fifth praises Train of Events for being willing to push at their technological comfort zone. Not every adventure needs to pass the approval of grognards who only run gritty low magic "realistic" medieval games.

Sixth continues in the same vein, pointing out that said idea of medieval realism isn't even accurate - there are plenty of examples of interesting and surprisingly advanced technology from other real world eras and locations, and a fantasy world doesn't need to have developed the same things in the same order. Save the rigid tech trees for videogames.

Seven points out that nearly every attractive woman in a TSR adventure is either a monster in disguise or about to send you on a life-threatening quest. (or both, quite frequently) Could they mix it up a bit so the players aren't instantly in paranoia mode every time you mention one. It's not helpful whether you want to encourage chivalrous behaviour or full equal rights.

Eighth is on the conservative end, and wants fewer monsters from supplements, simpler plots and no psionics at all. Sounds a bit boring to me, but another reminder that they need to cater to the basic end of their fanbase as well.

Ninth reminds us that no adventure turns out as expected once it hits the players, so honing your improvisation skills is crucial for a DM, particularly in ones that are written linearly and don't have much setting to provide a safety net when they make an unexpected choice.

Finally, a long letter on the value of going to the library and doing supplemental research. A little descriptive detail goes a long way in making things seem more real. Even more important to make the effort today, when the internet makes research so much easier, and people are correspondingly more likely to spot basic sloppy factual errors.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994



part 2/5



Shades of Darkness: One of the joys of Dungeon's massive range of adventures to choose from is when you find one that puts the spotlight on an otherwise neglected creature from a more obscure supplement. This time it's Dark creepers & stalkers from the Fiend Folio that are getting a rare airing. Since they're just as obscure IC as OOC, when they kill most of the people in a noble's manor and kidnap his son, the survivors think it was a bunch of dwarves. Will the PC's fall for that red herring and fight the unconnected group of dwarves they passed on the road a little while ago, or investigate the crime scene before jumping to conclusions and find the (not very well) hidden tunnel down to the underdark? Groups that have means of seeing in the dark that don't involve making yourself a target with obvious, easily extinguished torches will have a definite advantage. A short, fairly old school one that's mainly for reminding you how much of a penalty you face if the DM tracks illumination levels strictly. Like encumbrance, it's one of the big limiters to our exploration ability in real life, but can easily be forgotten when you're used to staying at home or in cities that remain well-lit even at night. When you have to actively choose how much of your limited resources you spend not only on weapons & armor, but also food and lighting, it forces a more cautious approach to adventuring. So this is good if you want to encourage that grim & gritty playstyle, and not so much if you want a more wahoo, high action swashbuckling one. Fair enough. At least you can make that informed choice now.



Quelkin's Quandary: In the letters page they had to deal with a complaint about too many superficially fair but treacherous quest-givers causing player paranoia. Here they muddy the waters further by having an obviously suspicious quest-giver turn out to actually be trustworthy. Quelkin is your typical mysterious and eccentric wizard living on the edge of town. The townsfolk think he's evil because bad things have happened when he's around, but he was actually the one trying to prevent tragedy rather than causing it, then not explaining what was actually going on because even supersmart wizards can be surprisingly dumb when it comes to that. Another group of adventurers decided it would be a good idea to kill him & take his stuff. He narrowly escaped without any of his spellbooks, turns up at the nearby pub in a panic and asks the PC's for help. Do you a: ignore him, go look for a different adventure from a less suspicious quest-giver, b: take the case and try to apprehend the other adventurers in a lawful fashion, c: take the case and kill the other adventurers & take their stuff in return d: kill the wizard, then go kill the adventurers and take all the stuff in his manor regardless of original ownership. If your DM has been a dick in the past I'm not going to blame you at all for taking option a or d. If you do go to fight them, it's mainly interesting because the other group is built as a fully detailed adventuring party with kits, nonweapon proficiencies and lots of magic items they'll actually use properly so each one feels significant, and hopefully the DM will have them work together like a proper adventuring party rather than mindless marauders, which involves a lot more bookkeeping than the average enemy. Dumb PC's who just charge in the front door will probably not fare well. So this one isn't exactly bad, but will only work properly with a fairly limited subset of groups & DMs. If you aren't at the right level of playing smartly, but not TOO paranoid, it'll cause more trouble than it's worth.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994



part 3/5



Side Treks - Smouldering Mane: As is often the case, the short adventure is something that could happen in reality. (and increasingly is due to climate change) A dry grassland in summer suffering wildfire, so you need to not only save yourself, but also try to minimise the amount of plant and animal death for the sake of the ecosystem. They do add some fantastical elements to spice it up, with Wemics asking the PC's for help, and a fire elemental at the centre of the blaze to give you something to hit, but a solid grounding in real world firefighting tactics like creating breaks in the vegetation won't hurt at all. (particularly if you have terrain control spells to speed things along) A simple seeming but open ended challenge, this seems pretty flexible in when and how you use it. This is one I wouldn't mind pulling out to fill in a session and keep the journeys between larger quests interesting.



When the Light goes Out: Well, this will upset Morrissey. But then, making Morrissey sad is like shooting fish in a barrel, so oh well. Anyway, it's time for one of their infrequent one-on-one adventures. They did talk about it in Polyhedron recently, so it must be on their minds to encourage that in the offices. Your starting level cleric is sent to investigate reports of a haunted lighthouse. (Your superiors obviously don't believe it's real, because D&D ghosts would slaughter a single 1st level cleric) Turns out it's not a ghost, but a poltergeist, (an AD&D one, not a basic D&D one, which would also slaughter even a full low level party.) It was created when a ship ran aground because the lighthouse keeper was drunk and obviously wants revenge. If you just clear it out and put him back in charge, another accident will probably occur again soon, because he's really not fit to do the job anymore. Plus there's a whole load of other little problems around the town you could solve along the way. So while there are a few monsters, this is really a low-key detective story where your cleric does real world priestly stuff like listening to people's problems and trying to fix them by social means, not just flashy spells & violence. The kind of thing that works best in a world where even 1st level spellcasters are rare and exceptional, and powerful monsters aren't so common as to strain credulity that humans can survive and be the dominant species. It'd probably work better in some other system than D&D, but since the readers have rejected that idea, we do the best with what we've got. Another one that's an interesting read, but only actually useful for a fairly narrow subset of groups.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994



part 4/5



Fraggart's Contraption: Urgh. Another tinker gnome adventure, where you get the dubious privilege of trying out some fresh and extremely unreliable inventions, while facing similar from the other side. While that kind of unpredictable scenario where success or failure is heavily based on random rolls is less annoying to me than a linear comedy railroad, it's a pretty close call. Fraggart was kidnapped by bandits, but any distress he felt at this happening vanished rapidly when he found an ancient tech lab in the back of the caves the bandits are lairing. Before you can say amoral fetishistic behaviour, he's decided maybe he doesn't want to be rescued after all and started making a giant steampunk mole mecha thing with wands for whiskers for the bandits to use in raids without even telling his relatives, who are baffled by his failure to return home even when the ransom is paid and hire adventurers to rescue him. Should you choose to accept their quest, you'll get a whole load of potions (with various annoying side-effects) to help you, and may well wind up wishing you hadn't. This all seems designed to turn out as chaotically as possible in actual play, with the bandits doing different things in different places depending on what time you attack, Fraggart having very different odds of listening to reason and coming home without a fight depending on if he's in or out of his mecha, and the mecha itself having terrible aim on it's large number of spell-like effects, also chosen round by round pretty much at random. Whatever plan the PC's intend going in, it's unlikely to survive contact with the enemy, and even starting off with the same actions could wind up finishing very differently. Whether it's fun or not depends if you have the kind of group that embraces the whimsy & chaos or finds it irritating and stressful to deal with. Yet another one that's only really useful for a small subset of groups, but a different subset. Pray your DM is a good judge of your characters as players, and picks the right one.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994



part 5/5



The Assassin Within: Another detective story here, albeit one in rather more pleasant climes where the murders are ongoing. A professor in Qadib has been framed by a disgruntled student for failing him. Now the holy slayers of Kor, god of knowledge are going to make a messy public example of him, sending a message that they'll kill one of his family or servants every night and then finish him off last. This gives him a week to find adventurers willing and able to foil the plot, with definite consequences for each night you fail to figure out how the murders are being done. The results turn out to be the good kind of murder mystery, where the enemy is fairly smart and resourceful, but not excessively so, and they go into detail about the extent of the tricks & magical powers he has available so smart players can come up with interesting plans to catch him out and the DM can play the whole thing fairly by the rules. I'm not going to spoil the specifics of the tricks, but they are pretty good, magical in a mythic way rather than just utilitarian. Another one that probably won't work too well with dumb hack & slash players, but if you're willing to get into the spirit of things and solve conflicts by brains and talking it could turn out pretty fun.



An issue where none of the adventures are absolutely terrible, but most of them are pretty niche and aimed at a fairly small proportion of groups. Once again, the fact that it's been the same staff doing the same jobs for nearly 8 years means they're trying hard to keep it interesting for themselves at the expense of mass market appeal. Which is good for me as a reader, but we know in hindsight where that'll lead them in a few years time. Time to see what they do to make the grind a little less grindy next issue then.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 96: June 1994



part 1/5



32 pages. These bugs are obviously no easy targets for hunters, as just one is a threat for a well prepared military platoon. Looks like the second Amazing Engine setting is getting some promotion this month. Let's see if it'll be interesting, and if it'll add to the game once you've actually bought it.



Notes from HQ: Oh wow. For years they've been struggling to get enough good adventures to go around without paying members for submitting them. Now they've had a scrape around in the kitty and decided that they can afford to pay people after all, even if it's only $35 per tournament round accepted. However, this does come with being a bit stricter with the guidelines and deadlines. Get things in 6 months beforehand so they can do proper editing if you want things to be official and points to be earned for Living City characters. Some more general Forgotten Realms & Ravenloft tournaments would not go amiss either, as they have much more demand than supply of those. So this is actually a fairly significant policy change long-term, showing that increasing in size and becoming more professional has it's rewards, but also it's increased costs. Hopefully getting more good adventures will help them attract more players, and the whole thing will create a virtuous spiral that also makes them more money in the long run, but who knows. Probably won't help with the linearity problem as they seem to view that as a plus around here, but even some positive shift would be nice.



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed turns his eye on Turmish this time. While not a particularly well-known corner of the Realms, that's not because they have any particularly dark secrets they're hiding. It's a pleasant place filled with lots of little villages, abundant food and wildlife, only mildly spoiled for visitors by the penchant for snail eating and a few weird animal hybrid monsters created by a mad wizard centuries ago. More a place for adventurers to come from than go to. UNTIL NOW! Another bit of metaplot is stirring, and they may find themselves in the spotlight in the near future. (but precisely what those events are remains mysterious. ) So this is Ed setting up a status quo with the intent of knocking it down, reminding us that there are places in the Realms that are safe and prosperous, but you don't hear so much about them precisely because not much happens there. He's been doing this long enough that he can safely plan ahead and foreshadow things without worrying about being cancelled for lack of sales or having his article rejected as a freelancer. In the meantime, this article is pretty dull by his standards, but hopefully the payoff will be worth it, and in the meantime it's refreshing to have a vacation from constant evil scheming and hidden treasures with dark pasts.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 96: June 1994



part 2/5



Unnatural Selection: As I suspected, the cover ties in with this month's adventure, an introductory one for Bughunters that's designed to make the setting clear to people who haven't bought the book. The PC's play synthetically produced humans with (often imperfectly) imprinted memories from real people, sent out en masse as disposable grunts to colonise the galaxy. Your life is cheap, but if you can survive against the horrors the galaxy has to offer, a fresh world is yours and your descendants. Good luck, because the odds are against you. For your first mission it's off to the second planet of 61 Cygni A. A pleasant seeming place at first, but it turns out the settler village is being stalked by a creature that's somewhere between Alien and The Thing, a vicious predator able to disguise itself as one of the local fauna, and then later on, one of the settler's dogs, but not bright enough to convincingly integrate itself into human society and come up with long-term plans for our downfall. With only two combats, this is actually about as slow a burn as a single round tournament module can manage, putting plenty of emphasis on the dystopian nature of the society you're from and the psychological damage of your fellow pregens. So this is much more Alien than Aliens, playing up the grimness of the setting and giving you plenty of room to escalate from killing a single bug to flamethrowering whole hordes of them in future adventures. Like most tournament adventures, it is pretty linear, genre savvy players will spot several places where it's obvious what's going on but they'll be forbidden to act on it and short-circuit the plot because their characters wouldn't know that. It's decent enough for what it is, and adds a welcome bit of variety to the place, but is still constrained by the fundamental limitations of their format and so not one I'd really want to play in. If Dungeon could present a more sandboxy expansion on one of the Amazing Engine settings that'd be even better.



The Living City: If you find seeking adventure hooks in seedy taverns where the air is filled with smoke and brawls break out more nights than not unpleasant, there are alternatives. Rose's Tea Room, for example. A pleasant, well-lit place where you can enjoy a civilised cup of tea and light (for a halfling) repast, and engage in polite conversation with similarly polite and well-dressed companions. It gets more interesting when you know that many of these individuals are undercover spies, who obviously don't want to draw attention, and Rose herself & several of the staff are high level thieves. If you go here it would be polite to leave the armor and (obvious) weapons at home, otherwise you might not be allowed to book a table and miss out on some juicy information. Basically, if you like putting on an upper-class english accent, introducing yourself last name first and ordering your drinks shaken, not stirred, this is the place to hang out. Have fun exchanging your coded phrases and subtle put-downs with people you don't trust. I can definitely see the value in that, so this is another decent enough entry that you could easily use elsewhere in your own campaign as well.



Weasel Games: Fresh from providing this month's adventure, Lester Smith also starts up a new advice column, focussing on how to be the cruelest, sneakiest player or DM possible. He personally derives great pleasure from both backstabbing other players on the way to the prize and designing games where this is the optimal mode of play. There's not actually that much advice in this first instalment, mainly focussing on anecdotes from his own past, but this is a breath of fresh air after years of RPGA tournaments being strictly no PvP. Whether that'll spread to the rest of the newszine and get them to vary their playstyle, or the actual adventures will continue to be as party based as ever remains to be seen, but this is an interesting development and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what he has to say next more than Roger's lists of references.