TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[el-remmen]

Unhallowed Ground: We start things off with a murder mystery set in a monastery. One monk accidentally killed another, then panicked and covered it up as a suicide, burying him outside the walls with the help of his two hapless underlings. This then goes poorly for him when his victim returns as a revenant and systematically kills everyone involved while the players are caught in the middle, and quite possibly become suspects at first. You're staying there overnight while travelling elsewhere. As usual, you're expected to remove your armor & weapons even though it's a bad idea every time an adventure explicitly asks you to do so. Sit through their religious ceremonies, have the stuff you were forced to leave in your room poked through, watch a mentally handicapped monk get abused by another one, then find him dead in the morning. You're then strictly forbidden to use any kind of magic to investigate this. (and of course none of the monks will do so either despite their clerical abilities) Maybe you'll look in the right place to find some clues, maybe not. Not that it matters, as the revenant will manage to find and kill the second accomplice when you're not there as well. The only real active chance to make a difference you get is when it attacks the main murderer in the church, wanting to get a public confession for it's murder rather than just killing mysteriously and clear it's name. The kind of adventure which you don't get to have much influence on the story, as it'll happen pretty much the same way no matter what you do, and the main thing your actions change is how much you know about what's going on. A generally tedious adventure to read that's pushed from mediocre to bad by the combination of ableist abuse & fridging, and the way it just doesn't work with the D&D cleric system with objective morality and people losing their spells for breaking it. Might as well have just written it as a story instead of trying to shoehorn it into the D&D system where it's a poor fit.

It has been a while since I went through this, so I don't remember what my DM at the time changed, but I remember it as one of the best adventures I have ever had the pleasure to play through!

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 110: August 1995



part 2/5



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Having got the general introduction out of the way, Ed once again settles into the familiar rhythm of listing specific locations in the Border Kingdoms in alphabetical order and telling us what adventure hooks are to be found there. Looks like there's lots to come, as we don't even get past the A's. Adlerglast, recently taken over by a duo of despotic wizards who use random mind-reading to ensure no-one even thinks of overthrowing them. If your adventuring party isn't equipped to avoid or counter scry & fry attacks, you aren't at the right league for this bit of potential heroics. The much more pleasant Alamontyr, a well run port town who's only real problem is tentacled creatures coming up from the underdark into people's basements, (which for the hentai fans is an opportunity rather than a problem) and maybe the succession when the current leader retires. The seemingly sleepy hill village of Arnglar, where the people worship Talos, so they can switch from quiet to full fury at the slightest provocation and whup your ass with poisoned weapons. And Arthyn, your basic trade town with a fair bit of smuggling going on to avoid regulations & taxes, which means hidden stashes in the caves nearby, plus recipes for some particularly effective herbal medicine being passed down. (if you can get the real deal and avoid the scams) It's obvious that this is intended as a higher level zone for adventurers than Turmish, with bigger tougher challenges, but there's still some safe places for them to rest and heal, and general whimsy to be found amid the shifting regimes & dangers. Adventuring here looks like it could be pretty fun as long as you know your limits.



The Lady's Champions: At the start of the year, one of the things they said they were going to do is flesh out the orders of knighthood for Raven's Bluff, and formalise how you join them. They've been kinda busy adding multiple new settings since then, but now they've come back around to build on the OG one again. As with their other big themed issues, they start off with some system free setting building, talking about the history of the knightly orders. They're actually only a few decades old, started by Lady Lauren DeVillars as a force for settling disputes in a honourable and nonlethal way. This led directly to the creation of the Challenge of Champions, which is still their system for determining many political offices today. While still not particularly democratic, it does lead to somewhat more competent people in charge than the old system of nepotism amongst feuding noble families, and Raven's Bluff has become a better run, more law-abiding place since then. If you're willing to follow the rules of honour and protect the city, you can be one of them! Basically, lots of IC incentives for you to play the game in their preferred playstyle, where the PC's follow the missions assigned by patrons in generally heroic fashion without haggling about the reward instead of wandering around randomly and taking anything that isn't nailed down. They've never been particularly subtle about that, but this, along with the recent making a big deal of a PC that turned evil being removed from play makes it clear that they're thinking about ways to make it even more obvious that you should keep your hands and head inside the train at all times. If you don't want to play games like that, stick to your home campaign.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 110: August 1995



part 3/5



Raven's Knights: Enough history, onto the specifics. There are 8 official knightly orders in Raven's Bluff. At the bottom are the Knights of the Golden Rooster, which anyone can join as long as they're 2nd+ level and can pay the 1,000gp entry fee. Then there's six specialist orders, each with their own requirements, many of which seem to be aimed at specific classes. Knights of the Griffon, Hawk, & Dove, Keepers of the Mystic Flame, The Right Hand of Tyr and Pillars of the Realms. To get in those you'll have to complete multiple initiation tests, earn varying amounts of chivalry points, and generally spend several conventions jumping through hoops. Then at the top, there's the Raven Knights, only available to high level characters who've already earned a whole load of honors. It looks unlikely that you'll get into them without several years of concentrated effort and frequent convention attendance, probably going through the previous tiers first. Unless they bend the rules for some of their current high level players, there won't be any PC members for quite some time. Strong shades of the Solamnic Knight system, where you can stay in one order that suits you most of your career or move up to a higher one somewhat independently of level. So there's plenty of detail here, but they're not making it easy for people to accomplish the higher levels of it, adding on a whole load of extra bookkeeping to any character who wants to win a position for relatively minor social bonuses and no kewl new powers like they'd give a 3e prestige class. Is the prestige enough to get people interested without any mechanical rewards, or will people just shrug and keep on adventuring as freelancers? I'm definitely going to be interested in seeing how many do manage to join up next time they talk about demographics in here.



Raven's Shields: Even if you don't want to go through all the hassle of becoming an official knight, you might still want to get yourself a nice coat of arms to make your character instantly recognisable. So here's a general guide to Forgotten Realms heraldry, and in particular that of The Vast. It's pretty similar to Cormyr's, (which in turn is pretty similar to real world medieval england) only less rigid in what isn't allowed to go with what in terms of color/shape combinations. You have your basic shield, which might be divided into 4 or 9 smaller squares. You then put simple geometric shapes like circles, triangles, chevrons, etc of different color on top of that. Then if you want to get really elaborate, you put heraldic animals on, generally with a formulaic set of positions you can categorise them with, which means they can be easily described and people can check the books to tell if someone else is also using that specific combination of things. Hopefully not, otherwise you'll have to fight for the right to keep it, for there's no automated takedown system in the Realms save for high level wizard's sigils. (another example of magic as technology where Ed was ahead of his time) Your basic primer to a topic that you can find whole books on how it was done in the real world and developed over centuries, and scale up the detail pretty much as you please if you want your campaign to focus on it. It's decent enough, and more useful to me than the Living campaign specific bureaucratic information that's long since ended.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 110: August 1995



part 4/5



As they said they would several issues ago, they fill out the centre pages with a big map of Raven's Bluff, since the old ones are now long out of print and pretty out of date as well with all the new stuff they've added. It looks more like a modern american city than an authentic medieval one, all square blocks with the occasional diagonal road cutting neatly through the middle of some rather than going to the effort of putting in any actual curves. It is walled, but only on two sides, which makes a little more sense if the monster attacks only come from those directions, but still leaves it vulnerable to any invaders who think to just go around and walk in from the back, or swim in through the river before emerging rather than just coming straight from the sea. There are a few interesting landmarks in there but I don't think as much love and care went into the design of this as, say, Ankh-Morpork's map despite the greater number of minds contributing to it. Not overly impressed.



Crime And Punishment: Another thing they've been meaning to get around too for a while gets delivered in a big infodump. Precisely how screwed you are if you go around engaging in killing and taking of stuff outside the highly regulated parameters of acceptable targets in their tournament adventures. Treason, Murder, Piracy, Attempted Murder, Kidnapping, Arson, Counterfeiting, Rape, all result in execution or imprisonment considerably longer than a D&D edition, putting you out of play pretty much permanently and forcing you to make a new character. Bribery, assault, fraud or theft might be affordable if you've got the cash to pay the fine. Mind-control or nonconsensual polymorphing are also expensive, but a high level wizard should be able to pay their way out of the occasional doing it on particularly annoying people. All these legal protections do not apply to creatures designated as monsters of course, (even if they're intelligent) so you can kill them as you please, and anyone associating with them within city limits can be fined for keeping unlicensed monsters. Safe to say that The Complete Book of Humanoids is not going to be among the allowed sources for LC characters any time soon. A second reminder in quick succession that they really don't support the murderhobo playstyle around here, but you also have no hope of taking over and instituting a better regime that gets rid of the death penalty and racism either. Go off and conquer one of the Border Kingdoms in your own campaign, and good luck holding onto it long enough to enforce said legal system fairly.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 110: August 1995



part 5/5



Living City Character Generation: Having spent a big chunk of the issue expanding the things people can do in the Living City, it's time to reprint the basics again. Most things haven't changed. 84 points to put in attributes, still keeping Comeliness despite it being 6 years since that was official now, max hp at 1st & 2nd then half for all subsequent levels, dual-classing costs extra and is tightly restricted. The gains in attribute bonuses have been mildly scaled back since last time, particularly when it comes to favouring charisma, so high level characters will need to revise their sheets accordingly. CN characters are added to the banned list with all the evil alignments, because too many people were playing them as lolzrandom fishmalks or indistinguishable from evil. Kits from the race handbooks are banned, as that's where the most twinky ones were introduced, but most of the class handbooks are still fine. Weapon specialisation is restricted to single class fighters. Specialty priests are restricted to choosing from a fairly limited set of core FR deities, which does not include the ones currently being added in the newszine. And finally, they've been going long enough now that a few players are reaching high levels where it's a bother to write adventures for, so they're capping things off at level 12 or 1,125,000 XP, whichever is less, and forcing you to retire any characters that exceed those limits. No 7th level spells for you to break the game with, no matter how many tournaments you attend per year! While a few new things from supplements are now allowed, the overall trend is towards more restrictions. If you had things that were allowed previously and didn't abuse them, sucks to be you I guess. Just cross them off your sheet and move on, because there's no point fighting it.



The Living Galaxy: This column finally comes to an end after more than 5 years, although it looks like it's definitely Roger's decision, unlike the other columns cut recently. But he still has another trio of alternate history timelines to give us before being completely tapped out. A world in which Texas became a country of it's own, resulting in the USA as we know it never forming and the cowboy era continuing decades after it did in the real world. One in which the english colony at Roanoke survived, resulting in Virginia having the largest city in the USA and the British empire being even bigger in general. Finally, and most interestingly, one where the Napoleonic empire never fell, which has now developed interdimensional technology and is interfering in other timelines. Why should the Nazis have all that fun? You can't keep on jumping from one unconnected challenge to another. Eventually a big bad you can't beat easily will show up and the campaign will become more serialised. Then you have to add aliens, civilised apes or weirder still to keep things interesting. Keeping a hard sci-fi campaign hard isn't easy. Maybe the DM getting bored explains the current absurdities in our own world. Anyway, this feels like a decent enough conclusion to a long-running column that somewhat outstayed it's welcome, but not so much as to become completely pointless. Hopefully he'll be able to come up with something fresh once freed from the limitations of the format.



Another issue filled with significant and ambitious attempts at change in quick succession, quite possibly overreaching the level of commitment of the average player. Looks like Polyhedron is mirroring the overall progression of TSR quite well in this respect, throwing out a whole ton of settings in quick succession and then changing them with metaplot developments without worrying about splitting the base. Well, at least I can go onto the next issue fairly confident that it'll be interesting at the moment, even if it might not be good.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995



part 1/5



36 pages. A Larry Elmore piece? Don't see him around here very often since he became a big name, but I guess they've just about got the money for a B&W sketch. Well, they have been increasingly ambitious lately, so let's see if they've got any big names or new projects inside beyond the regulars.



Notes from HQ: A very punctual Gen Con recap this year, so they must be fairly on top of that despite all the staff turnover. They had fun, most of the attendees had fun, lots of people got dressed up and went full ham with their roleplaying, a few characters might have died, but none of their players did, Scotty beamed down and spent many hours talking to people & signing autographs. So they run out of things to say about that pretty quickly and focus on the things that do still need improving. They may only be doing full Living settings for D&D and a couple of other systems, but they still want more tournament adventures for all sorts of games. Send them in! Volunteer to judge! They particularly need more judges because they're cutting the maximum number of PC's per table from 8 to 6, as it's hard giving everyone enough spotlight time with such large groups, so they'd rather turn some people away entirely if the numbers don't work out than have everyone play overcrowded miserable games. We move ever further from the days of Callers, Mappers and everyone bringing along a posse of hirelings as meat shields in deathtrap dungeons. Will they drop it even further to 5 or even 4 by the 3e era, as is the recommended party size in those books? Well, let's head to next year and see how well they manage to implement the current improvements first.



Forgotten Deities: Another fairly metaplotty entry here, as they talk about Grond Peaksmasher, local demigod of the Moonshae Firbolgs. Imprisoned under a mountain by dwarven trickery for several centuries. (must be a very weak god indeed if he couldn't just teleport out of that) In his absence they lost most of their magical tricksiness and degenerated into dumb brutes like ogres or trolls. Very The King is the Land. Freed at the end of the latest trilogy set there, he's now set about uplifting them again, which will take at least a generation, but what's time when you're immortal? A reminder that gods aren't just bigger stronger people, but messing with them can harm the thing they embody, or vice versa. If they get killed, someone else can take their portfolio, which is probably better for it than leaving them alive but crippled long-term. Human success is a matter (whether it's cause or consequence is very questionable) of having lots of gods rather than just a few. If you want to play that out from their perspective, you'll need something like Nobilis of course, because D&D doesn't handle that mechanically at all. Some interesting stuff going on here, but it's both geographically and conceptually quite specific, so many groups won't be able to do anything with it. You'll have to consciously go out of your way to get here.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995



part 2/5



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: While highly specific in location as well, Ed's plot ideas are easier to detach from their Realms context and use in your own campaign. The Barony of Blacksaddle, for example, could easily be in the Karimeikan borderlands as an example of how a group of well-organised name level PC's are turning a wild area into a more civilised one. Trouble is, success attracts stronger challengers eager to take the wealth you're building up. Will they be able to keep it? (With a little help from the floating armor of the previous baron delivering helpful omens) The Barony of Great Oak, on the other hand, is less of an obvious target, due to the titular oak trees presenting a thick mazy obstacle course that's interesting for adventuring parties to explore, but no fun at all for large armies to co-ordinate their way through. It has a ruined keep where the gods are said to walk on certain days of the year. Many an adventuring party has lost their lives to the manifestations of Garagos or Jergal while thinking they had what it takes to explore this place. Finally, Bedorn serves as the Border Kingdom's equivalent to Las Vegas or Irendi, a glitzy place for tourists to marvel at the landmarks and rich adventurers to retire if they don't want all the bother of fighting to keep their own domain. In addition to the usual well-guarded treasures and custom magics of adventurers past, it also has a big exotic pet-breeding industry, which definitely has adventure potential in itself, between capturing, training and finding suitable buyers. Another pretty varied set of locations that all give you different flavours of adventure, some serious and some silly. You won't have to go far to find something strange to explore in this neighbourhood.



Tumbling Dragons: The big centrepiece article this issue is a promotional one, reprinting virtually the whole basic ruleset for Dragon Dice. I recall that got more articles in Dragon than Spellfire or Blood Wars as well, showing that Lester "weasel" Smith was more invested in his baby than whoever ran those other CCG lines. So say hello to the Coral Elves, Lava Elves, Dwarves & Goblins, engaged in endless battles to dominate the world of Esfah. Assemble your armies, divide them into home army, campaign army & horde, choose your terrain, and use might & magic to defeat all the other players. Seems simple enough, but like any collectible game, there are all sorts of special units with interesting tricks up their sleeves and the number of potentially abusable combinations only grows as you add more supplements. Since this is Lester we're talking about, it's at it's most interesting when you have more than 2 players and can add the political element of temporary alliances & backstabbing to your play. One of those articles that's interesting context-wise, showing us once again how TSR are experimenting with all sorts of different things, and the game itself looks pretty decent as both a game and a bit of worldbuilding to hang tie-in novels on, but also irritating, as it's 7 pages of promotion that's of no use once you buy the product, and a reminder that overprinting these was one of the big things that led to their downfall. If they'd promoted it in a more interesting way than regurgitating the rules like a bit of exclusive teaser fiction maybe TSR'd still be around today. In the end, I'm left with a very complicated mix of feelings and no solid answers.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995



part 3/5



A Kingdom for Every Player: On the other hand we do have some solid answers to our first set of Birthright questions, as people wonder about the upcoming supplements, rules questions and possibility of crossovers with other worlds. They'll be releasing 12 domain sourcebooks over the next year, each 32 pages long and intended to be ruled by a different class/race combo. (but if you want to go against type in your own campaign it's not as if they can stop you.) Unlike Athas, the concept of interplanar travel isn't unknown to Cerilians, (particularly the haflings) so they won't be completely blindsided by interdimensional invaders, but without any connection to their magical bloodlines, you won't be able to engage with most of the domain management system and any attempts at conquest or other large-scale organisation will fail embarrassingly as they play chess with their forces while you're stuck working on a human scale trying to herd cats. Best you can hope for is grand viziering and being the brains behind the throne to a blooded ruler. Using Birthright rules for domain management in other campaign worlds runs into a similar problem, as you have to decide whether to use all the blood powers as written here, tone them down or eliminate them, which might make the system not function as intended. Plus if you do play the game of thrones like this, you'll rapidly find your setting diverging from the canon version, which will limit your ability to run published adventures. Basically, they're counselling caution. Throwing this setting's rules into an interplanar kitchen sink is more likely to harm than help your game. This is erring on the competent but dull side then.



The Envelope, Please: The continued expansion of Gen Con (as well as their increased punctuality in reporting on it) is demonstrated again, as it takes a full 3 pages to list the winners of the various tournaments. Opens, features, masters, charity benefits, multiple Living adventures and the small number who went non AD&D and enjoyed the wackiness of Paranoia or the madness of Call of Cthulhu instead. Ramon Delgado takes the top spot overall as a player. The Bingle family continue to be well represented, but the sheer number of events means they can't dominate the way they did in the early days. They evidently have no rule against the TSR staff participating as players, as plenty of familiar names appear among the winners, along with a few others who aren't working for them yet, but will be like Eric Mona. It doesn't look like the staff changes are causing any problems in this department. Will they be so lucky next year?

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995



part 4/5



Larger than Life: Now there's a column name I haven't thought about in a long time. It appeared twice in Dragon in 1981, as an alternative to Giants in the Earth, but never really caught on. Now it's appearing in here as an alternative to the Rogues Gallery, which has also been inactive for the last couple of years, first replaced by Adversaries, which also failed to catch on. Looking ahead, it appears in here 4 times before once again lapsing, so while that's a little better than the first try, it's still nothing to shout about. Guess it just isn't meant to be, except as a Backstreet Boys song.

Our first characters are Vydd Shadowrook and his teenage ward Khugris. Vydd was a Sergeant in the purple dragons when the Horde invaded a few years ago. Khugris was a Tuigan orphan joining the invasion despite being too young to be a useful fighter. When the horde was beaten, he threw himself at the mercy of the Cormyrans expecting death. They turned out to be a lot more magnanimous in victory than he feared, put him to work doing odd jobs with the army, and he soon picked up the new language and made friends. Now they've left the military life behind, run an adventuring equipment shop together in Raven's Bluff and Khugris wants to become a wizard, but they don't have the money for tuition. Maybe some kind PC would be willing to help out for less than the prices listed in the DMG? So this is a fairly positive story of how you don't have to hold a grudge against an entire nation or ethnic group just because you had a war with them in the past, but can treat them as individuals and build a new life together instead. If we'd learned that lesson after WWI we probably wouldn't have had a WWII. It gives both characters a decent amount of depth and reasons the PC's would want to interact with them, and doesn't skip out mapping the shop either. It's basically just another Living City entry under a different name, but it's decent enough one that ties into the wider Realms metaplot more than most, rather than being purely generic and modular. I'd have no problem using it if I were playing in that location and era.



A World of Your Own: Thought you'd seen the last of Roger Moore after he quit Dragon and retired The Living Galaxy? Nope! He's still just as interested in worldbuilding, only now he's freed of the need to frame it in sci-fi trappings every time. He can serve you the same advice as a few years ago, only now with specifically AD&D focussed examples. Money for old rope. So it's another round of talking about how to make your campaign world distinctive. What new stuff will you add, what common stuff will you intentionally leave out, what does the geography look like, how high are the tech and magic levels, is the overall tone light or dark, how open is it to crossovers with other worlds and what impact do they have on proceedings? Remember that a cool high concept is useless if you don't also give the players actual adventures to play. Useful if you're a new arrival, but nothing I haven't heard from him before.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995



part 5/5



The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: The newspaper continues to be one of the most interesting parts of the newszine, once again bringing us metaplot developments that you could have got involved with at the time. Melissa Eldarin's term as Lord Speaker is expiring, so it's time for another election contest. Will she win it again, or will a plucky challenger take her place? Submit your applications and then come to Winter Fantasy next year for another big series of challenges that will test your brain, heart and wallet.

It's also all-change in the underworld. Anton Paere was found dead in an alley, literally backstabbed by some unknown assailant. Forensics later revealed that he was actually killed by magic, then stabbed as a red herring. Now there's the predictable turf wars to see who winds up new top dog of organised crime. Will Raven's Bluff wind up a safer and less corrupt place in the long-term as a result of this, will they use it as a springboard for interesting new adventures and give PC thieves a chance to make their marks here or will it turn out to be a big fakeout like Ambassador Carrague's death, and he'll get raised or turn out to never really have been dead at all as part of a diabolical master plan? After all the knightly stuff last issue, it would be nice if they catered to morally ambiguous PC's a bit more as well, but I'm not holding my breath, with the code of conduct and whatnot.



City in Transition: New network co-ordinator Scott Douglas gives us a state of address. They've changed and added quite a bit in the past year, adding three new Living settings, with a 4th coming next month, and done a lot to Raven's Bluff, but there's still a number of big plans they haven't managed to get around too yet. On top of the revised character creation rules, knighthoods, and laws we've just seen, they're also planning on revising the author submission rules, adventure judging guidelines, adding mage guilds so they have a social group to rival the knightly stuff, creating downtime rules so you can continue to develop your character between conventions and doing more big metaplot stuff involving Raven's Bluff getting into a war, which should provide some dramatic tournament adventure possibilities for a year or two. This just reinforces my impressions from last issue. Like TSR in general, their ambitions continue to grow even as sales slip, and they'll keep on adding more spinning plates to the show until they overreach themselves and it all comes crashing down. If this year has upped the amount of drama, there'll be even more next year. :rubs hands:



Join Us!: Another bit of low content promotion as they remind us that club memberships exist, and there are real benefits to having one. Hell, even without the RPGA bit, a formalised gaming club still has plenty of merits in terms of helping finding the kind of game you want and pooling resources, saving you money and making sure one person isn't stuck GMing until they burn out. When you add in the RPGA benefits of discounts at selected stores, exclusive contests and opportunities to playtest unreleased material, the deal looks even better. Can't argue with their logic, but can't work up any excitement either. Another of those things you have to print every year or two for the sake of the newbies.



Another issue filled with very interesting Living City and general Forgotten Realms material, but as soon as they step out from that, it's just the same old basic advice and low content promotional bilge. So let's move on, and see how many of the stated plans they manage to get done before TSR bites the bucket, as the clock is counting down at what seems like increasing speed.