Davies
Legend
Maztica, probably.
TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon
- Thread starter (un)reason
- Start date
Maztica, probably.
(un)reason
Legend
Polyhedron Issue 115: January 1996
part 5/5
Notes From HQ: The editorial is near the end, which is very unusual. It's another busy one with lots of little sections. They're releasing a new Players Guide to the Living City, to replace the now very out of date LC1 from 1989. Pick it up for $6 by pre-order or at any participating convention. :teeth ting: They're also bringing in a new, somewhat lower-key replacement for Chemcheaux for people who still want to get hold of magical items outside adventures, and trade them for ones better suited to their class. Navarre the magic trader will be appearing at these listed conventions so you can perform properly certificated trades to optimise your characters. Expect long queues if previous years are anything to go by. They're also hoping to raise the amount you get paid for tournament modules if you also include pregens, and add a bit more flexibility with deadlines in general, but no promises. More slow progress, and hopefully improvement. They do still have the same old complaints about remembering your SASE if you submit anything, and not enough judges to meet player demand at upcoming conventions though. Will the balance ever tip on that and make that 6 players per table limit feel like an actual maximum rather than a default?
The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: Sarbreenar devastated by humanoid hordes! Will Raven's Bluff step up to aid it's neighbours?! Good thing they've been preparing for military action for quite a while now. This bit of metaplot continues to move slowly on a month by month basis, but at least it is going somewhere coherently. Slightly less coherent is the plotline about the deputy mayor resigning, when he'd been absent for 2 years and only recently returned, but wasn't replaced in the interim. The job obviously can't have any important responsibilities attached to it if his previous absence didn't cause any problems. Why was he away so long before, and where is he going this time? Will we actually get any hard-hitting journalism here, or just fluff pieces about who's marrying who and who might or might not secretly be a vampire. (if they're still being played by a player, not the DM, they're not a vampire, because you know the rules around here) At the moment they're raising considerably more questions than they're answering. I guess that keeps people full of anticipation for the next issue, particularly when it's the last thing you read in it.
Lots of new mechanical bits in this issue along with the ongoing attempts to revise the RPGA rules. It shows a growing discontentment with the AD&D system in general and desire to get it to do things it's not really built for. Which does make me wonder what an RPG built from the ground up to work well in tournament play would look like. Of course, it'd have to deal with the problem that D&D got there first and has all the network externalities, making getting traction much harder even if it was mechanically superior. Probably another one for the parallel worlds column, unfortunately. Let's take another step forwards on our own timeline.
part 5/5
Notes From HQ: The editorial is near the end, which is very unusual. It's another busy one with lots of little sections. They're releasing a new Players Guide to the Living City, to replace the now very out of date LC1 from 1989. Pick it up for $6 by pre-order or at any participating convention. :teeth ting: They're also bringing in a new, somewhat lower-key replacement for Chemcheaux for people who still want to get hold of magical items outside adventures, and trade them for ones better suited to their class. Navarre the magic trader will be appearing at these listed conventions so you can perform properly certificated trades to optimise your characters. Expect long queues if previous years are anything to go by. They're also hoping to raise the amount you get paid for tournament modules if you also include pregens, and add a bit more flexibility with deadlines in general, but no promises. More slow progress, and hopefully improvement. They do still have the same old complaints about remembering your SASE if you submit anything, and not enough judges to meet player demand at upcoming conventions though. Will the balance ever tip on that and make that 6 players per table limit feel like an actual maximum rather than a default?
The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: Sarbreenar devastated by humanoid hordes! Will Raven's Bluff step up to aid it's neighbours?! Good thing they've been preparing for military action for quite a while now. This bit of metaplot continues to move slowly on a month by month basis, but at least it is going somewhere coherently. Slightly less coherent is the plotline about the deputy mayor resigning, when he'd been absent for 2 years and only recently returned, but wasn't replaced in the interim. The job obviously can't have any important responsibilities attached to it if his previous absence didn't cause any problems. Why was he away so long before, and where is he going this time? Will we actually get any hard-hitting journalism here, or just fluff pieces about who's marrying who and who might or might not secretly be a vampire. (if they're still being played by a player, not the DM, they're not a vampire, because you know the rules around here) At the moment they're raising considerably more questions than they're answering. I guess that keeps people full of anticipation for the next issue, particularly when it's the last thing you read in it.
Lots of new mechanical bits in this issue along with the ongoing attempts to revise the RPGA rules. It shows a growing discontentment with the AD&D system in general and desire to get it to do things it's not really built for. Which does make me wonder what an RPG built from the ground up to work well in tournament play would look like. Of course, it'd have to deal with the problem that D&D got there first and has all the network externalities, making getting traction much harder even if it was mechanically superior. Probably another one for the parallel worlds column, unfortunately. Let's take another step forwards on our own timeline.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1996
part 1/5
80 pages. Brown, brown and more brown. Don't you necromancers ever clean your skeletons before you animate them?! No respect for the dead. Well, this cover leaves me distinctly unimpressed. I recall the composition and color balance of the Dragon covers also went downhill this year, so I'm not surprised Dungeon is following suit, since they're all being done on the same equipment. Let's see if the contents are a little higher contrast.
Straight away, the table of contents disproves that with more low contrast gimmickery, as the contents are threaded through a mini dungeon map. While not a terrible idea, this does slow down figuring out what is where in what order. This feels like putting trying to be cool and modern over functionality.
Letters: First letter is positive about all the adventures from last issue except Grave Circumstances, which he's still more diplomatic in his negativity about than I was. You can get some use out of even the worst adventures if you take them apart and use the pieces in other ways.
Second is Chris Perkins, who in contrast praises Grave Circumstances highly, which definitely increases my trepidation about the type of adventures he'll encourage when he's in the editor's seat in the future.
Third is James Wyatt, who likes the idea of Dark Sun, but is also dubious about the quality of adventures & supplements they're publishing for it, and really wishes that Dungeon would go monthly so they can do more big themed adventures without alienating the part of the readerbase that isn't a fan of that specific setting.
Fourth is by somewhat less prolific adventure writer John Baichtal, who is also very critical of Grave Circumstances for being an obvious promotional piece that wasn't held to the same writing and editing standards he as a freelance writer is. The other regular writers last issue were also not up to previous standards and it fell to the newbies to keep it from being a complete loss.
Fifth is generally positive, but wants more adventures set in unusual terrains. Surely you have enough forests & jungles by now?
Sixth defends Planescape & Ravenloft from the generic fantasy purists. Fantasy is supposed to be fantastical. If you limit yourselves to the same few spells and nonhuman races in every setting you're missing the point. The adventures in here could stand to be a lot weirder.
Seventh is Allen Varney, who's also critical of Grave Circumstances for having the PC's kill the final member of an endangered species. That's not very eco-friendly. Such are the inherent tragedies of D&D. Hopefully it'll nag at their consciences and they won't act the same way in real life.
Eighth is another one baffled by steamboats in Ravenloft, suggesting a distinctly silly solution as to how it happened. I don't think the place really needs more gnomes.
Ninth wants more high level adventures, which is a common request, but the number of submissions just don't match the demand. If you think you've got the math skills to put together a good one, the inbox is wide open.
Finally, another letter full of suggestions. Many of them are things that Dragon or Polyhedron already do, so they aren't going to step on their toes and do them as well, but the idea of a trap column seems to be increasingly gathering momentum. As with the high level adventures, it's now just a matter of making supply match demand.
part 1/5
80 pages. Brown, brown and more brown. Don't you necromancers ever clean your skeletons before you animate them?! No respect for the dead. Well, this cover leaves me distinctly unimpressed. I recall the composition and color balance of the Dragon covers also went downhill this year, so I'm not surprised Dungeon is following suit, since they're all being done on the same equipment. Let's see if the contents are a little higher contrast.
Straight away, the table of contents disproves that with more low contrast gimmickery, as the contents are threaded through a mini dungeon map. While not a terrible idea, this does slow down figuring out what is where in what order. This feels like putting trying to be cool and modern over functionality.
Letters: First letter is positive about all the adventures from last issue except Grave Circumstances, which he's still more diplomatic in his negativity about than I was. You can get some use out of even the worst adventures if you take them apart and use the pieces in other ways.
Second is Chris Perkins, who in contrast praises Grave Circumstances highly, which definitely increases my trepidation about the type of adventures he'll encourage when he's in the editor's seat in the future.
Third is James Wyatt, who likes the idea of Dark Sun, but is also dubious about the quality of adventures & supplements they're publishing for it, and really wishes that Dungeon would go monthly so they can do more big themed adventures without alienating the part of the readerbase that isn't a fan of that specific setting.
Fourth is by somewhat less prolific adventure writer John Baichtal, who is also very critical of Grave Circumstances for being an obvious promotional piece that wasn't held to the same writing and editing standards he as a freelance writer is. The other regular writers last issue were also not up to previous standards and it fell to the newbies to keep it from being a complete loss.
Fifth is generally positive, but wants more adventures set in unusual terrains. Surely you have enough forests & jungles by now?
Sixth defends Planescape & Ravenloft from the generic fantasy purists. Fantasy is supposed to be fantastical. If you limit yourselves to the same few spells and nonhuman races in every setting you're missing the point. The adventures in here could stand to be a lot weirder.
Seventh is Allen Varney, who's also critical of Grave Circumstances for having the PC's kill the final member of an endangered species. That's not very eco-friendly. Such are the inherent tragedies of D&D. Hopefully it'll nag at their consciences and they won't act the same way in real life.
Eighth is another one baffled by steamboats in Ravenloft, suggesting a distinctly silly solution as to how it happened. I don't think the place really needs more gnomes.
Ninth wants more high level adventures, which is a common request, but the number of submissions just don't match the demand. If you think you've got the math skills to put together a good one, the inbox is wide open.
Finally, another letter full of suggestions. Many of them are things that Dragon or Polyhedron already do, so they aren't going to step on their toes and do them as well, but the idea of a trap column seems to be increasingly gathering momentum. As with the high level adventures, it's now just a matter of making supply match demand.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1996
part 2/5
Editorial is after the letters for a change, and has also reorganised it's formatting. The topic is pretty basic though. Do you describe your character's actions in third person, or act them out dramatically in first person? Since this is the 2e era, they're definitely in favour of you getting a bit more immersive with your roleplaying. Get into character, maybe learn how to do a few accents so it's more obvious when you're speaking IC vs OOC, and the whole experience will be more memorable. The kind of thing that would have been a short article in Dragon, and very familiar indeed. Meh.
To Cure a Kingdom: We start out the adventures with your basic macguffin hunt where the PC's are secretly being played by the villain of the story. An overambitious Illithid tried to take over it's city, failed and was cast out & stripped of it's psychoportive powers to wander the underdark the slow way. Despite having developed some extra psychometabolic tricks to compensate, it still wants them back so it can go home and get revenge. So it's taken over a disease cult, engineered a particularly weird disease that (hopefully) needs the same ingredients to cure that it does, leaked info of the cure & and waited for adventurers to come around with all the crucial bits that it couldn't get hold of on it's own. The PC's will be hired by the king of the land above to sort this out. Killing all the disease cultists so they can't do it again is optional but not discouraged. The result is a medium sized dungeoncrawl in the Temple of Elemental Evil mould, where the early parts are easier than expected to make sure the PC's are deep inside and can't escape easily when the real fun begins. Then there's some nasty traps, disease using enemies, high level clerics and the mind flayer itself, these last two having complex sets of powers that you'll really need to read carefully beforehand to use as smartly as you're supposed too. A fairly decent old school style adventure that revels in it's convoluted elements, so it's not for DM's who don't know how to do prepwork and play enemies as smartly as they're written. It looks pretty easy to expand outwards and connect to several other adventures in here, such as the other set of disease cultists from issue 11 and Goblin Fever from issue 46, so I can definitely see myself getting some milage from it. A whole disease themed adventure path would be all too resonant after the real world events of recent years.
part 2/5
Editorial is after the letters for a change, and has also reorganised it's formatting. The topic is pretty basic though. Do you describe your character's actions in third person, or act them out dramatically in first person? Since this is the 2e era, they're definitely in favour of you getting a bit more immersive with your roleplaying. Get into character, maybe learn how to do a few accents so it's more obvious when you're speaking IC vs OOC, and the whole experience will be more memorable. The kind of thing that would have been a short article in Dragon, and very familiar indeed. Meh.
To Cure a Kingdom: We start out the adventures with your basic macguffin hunt where the PC's are secretly being played by the villain of the story. An overambitious Illithid tried to take over it's city, failed and was cast out & stripped of it's psychoportive powers to wander the underdark the slow way. Despite having developed some extra psychometabolic tricks to compensate, it still wants them back so it can go home and get revenge. So it's taken over a disease cult, engineered a particularly weird disease that (hopefully) needs the same ingredients to cure that it does, leaked info of the cure & and waited for adventurers to come around with all the crucial bits that it couldn't get hold of on it's own. The PC's will be hired by the king of the land above to sort this out. Killing all the disease cultists so they can't do it again is optional but not discouraged. The result is a medium sized dungeoncrawl in the Temple of Elemental Evil mould, where the early parts are easier than expected to make sure the PC's are deep inside and can't escape easily when the real fun begins. Then there's some nasty traps, disease using enemies, high level clerics and the mind flayer itself, these last two having complex sets of powers that you'll really need to read carefully beforehand to use as smartly as you're supposed too. A fairly decent old school style adventure that revels in it's convoluted elements, so it's not for DM's who don't know how to do prepwork and play enemies as smartly as they're written. It looks pretty easy to expand outwards and connect to several other adventures in here, such as the other set of disease cultists from issue 11 and Goblin Fever from issue 46, so I can definitely see myself getting some milage from it. A whole disease themed adventure path would be all too resonant after the real world events of recent years.
Davies
Legend
I see what you did there.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1996
part 3/5
Side Treks - Carcass Fracas: Thouls! There's one of the most interesting old monsters that don't get used enough. Like the Bhaergala one a couple of issues ago, that's very pleasing to see, even if it's only a short scenario. One of them uses their part undead nature to more convincingly pretend to be a regular hobgoblin corpse in the road with some treasure on it. Then when the PC's get close, they'll try to paralyze them while another one attacks from behind. If the battle turns against them, their regeneration makes fleeing and then attacking again a little later to wear their opponents down an extra effective tactic, so some way to finish them off with ranged attacks would be very useful. Nothing exceptional, but another good example of how to use a creatures's special abilities to best effect and make the players work for their XP. The more complex their tricks are, the more examples like this are valuable.
The Rose of Jumlat: Time to head to Zakhara again for an adventure where the machinations of genies interfere with the fates of ordinary mortals in interesting ways. The titular rose is a jewel of ridiculous beauty & value that's also reputed to be cursed. (technically it's not, but with nearly everyone who sees it competing over it, it brings plenty of strife and misery to whoever owns it anyway.) The PC's are hired to escort it from Jumlat to Gana. Unsurprisingly, things do not go smoothly at all and it'll wind up getting stolen on the journey whatever the PC's do. Now you have to get it back, and deal with the efreeti who lives inside it, the sea mage who stole it, and the restless spirit of a previous owner, all with their own agendas. To top it off, the desert experiences one of it's rare torrential rains during the pursuit, further complicating your journey, particularly if you allied with the ghost, which has some idiosyncratic desert based powers and weaknesses. Not a complete railroad, but somewhere in the upper half of the linearity spectrum, this feels like it was written as a story first and an adventure second, with a definite "right" set of moral decisions and only minor support if you stray from that. It's a decent enough read, and the maps are well above average quality for some reason, with the cartographer putting in extra effort to make them not only useful but fit the style of the setting as well, but I remain ambivalent about the idea of actually using it.
part 3/5
Side Treks - Carcass Fracas: Thouls! There's one of the most interesting old monsters that don't get used enough. Like the Bhaergala one a couple of issues ago, that's very pleasing to see, even if it's only a short scenario. One of them uses their part undead nature to more convincingly pretend to be a regular hobgoblin corpse in the road with some treasure on it. Then when the PC's get close, they'll try to paralyze them while another one attacks from behind. If the battle turns against them, their regeneration makes fleeing and then attacking again a little later to wear their opponents down an extra effective tactic, so some way to finish them off with ranged attacks would be very useful. Nothing exceptional, but another good example of how to use a creatures's special abilities to best effect and make the players work for their XP. The more complex their tricks are, the more examples like this are valuable.
The Rose of Jumlat: Time to head to Zakhara again for an adventure where the machinations of genies interfere with the fates of ordinary mortals in interesting ways. The titular rose is a jewel of ridiculous beauty & value that's also reputed to be cursed. (technically it's not, but with nearly everyone who sees it competing over it, it brings plenty of strife and misery to whoever owns it anyway.) The PC's are hired to escort it from Jumlat to Gana. Unsurprisingly, things do not go smoothly at all and it'll wind up getting stolen on the journey whatever the PC's do. Now you have to get it back, and deal with the efreeti who lives inside it, the sea mage who stole it, and the restless spirit of a previous owner, all with their own agendas. To top it off, the desert experiences one of it's rare torrential rains during the pursuit, further complicating your journey, particularly if you allied with the ghost, which has some idiosyncratic desert based powers and weaknesses. Not a complete railroad, but somewhere in the upper half of the linearity spectrum, this feels like it was written as a story first and an adventure second, with a definite "right" set of moral decisions and only minor support if you stray from that. It's a decent enough read, and the maps are well above average quality for some reason, with the cartographer putting in extra effort to make them not only useful but fit the style of the setting as well, but I remain ambivalent about the idea of actually using it.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1996
part 4/5
The Murder of Maury Miller: Straight away, it's time for another ghost story with a mechanically nonstandard undead seeking revenge so they can finally pass on. Maury Miller was killed by the tax inspector and his hired thugs for standing up to their corrupt and punitive collection regime. Now his spirit is possessing the scarecrows in the fields, causing trouble around the area of his death in the hope of luring someone to the mill who'll find definitive proof that the taxman was responsible and get him removed from the position or killed himself. A few dream visitations or other more direct communications would probably be more effective, but he's obviously not a particularly rational ghost. If you destroy a scarecrow, he'll just possess another, so that won't solve the problem and you'll have to engage with the mystery sooner or later. A low-key little starting level adventure where the main satisfaction is obviously in getting to go up against the taxman and win, (a power fantasy we can all relate too) it encourages you to do so the legal way, but won't fall apart if you just kill him yourselves and then get out of town before the law can react. (and the villagers obviously won't dob you in, because they all hated that guy) There's some info on the village so you could wander through it and reuse it later, but not as much as older modules. Another solid middle of the roader in quality that's useful but not amazing.
part 4/5
The Murder of Maury Miller: Straight away, it's time for another ghost story with a mechanically nonstandard undead seeking revenge so they can finally pass on. Maury Miller was killed by the tax inspector and his hired thugs for standing up to their corrupt and punitive collection regime. Now his spirit is possessing the scarecrows in the fields, causing trouble around the area of his death in the hope of luring someone to the mill who'll find definitive proof that the taxman was responsible and get him removed from the position or killed himself. A few dream visitations or other more direct communications would probably be more effective, but he's obviously not a particularly rational ghost. If you destroy a scarecrow, he'll just possess another, so that won't solve the problem and you'll have to engage with the mystery sooner or later. A low-key little starting level adventure where the main satisfaction is obviously in getting to go up against the taxman and win, (a power fantasy we can all relate too) it encourages you to do so the legal way, but won't fall apart if you just kill him yourselves and then get out of town before the law can react. (and the villagers obviously won't dob you in, because they all hated that guy) There's some info on the village so you could wander through it and reuse it later, but not as much as older modules. Another solid middle of the roader in quality that's useful but not amazing.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1996
part 5/5
Side Treks - Cloaked in Fear: The second side trek follows much the same formula as the first - take a monster with some neat tricks and put it in a context where it can use them intelligently instead of just jumping out and hacking at the PC's until it dies. This time it's a cloaker lurking in a graveyard, where PC's would suspect some form of undead and come with a cleric & holy water instead. It's already driven the gravedigger insane and will delight in spooking and separating the PC's with it's powers before actually fighting them. So this is heavily dependent on the DM playing up the horror aspect of things, with several jump scares before you get to the real fight and an encounter with the gravedigger that could be comic or tragic depending on how the PC's react. Another decent but unexceptional little scenario that won't fill a whole session unless you really drag it out, but is easy to put in wherever there's a small village with a graveyard, so plenty of groups will have got some use out of it.
The statement of ownership sees Dungeon shed readers, but considerably fewer than Dragon, once again moving the ratio a little closer to parity, at just over 50%. Still some way from justifying them going monthly, but it shows they have carved out their own niche in the D&D ecosystem comfortably and have hardcore fans separate from Dragon.
An issue with no exceptionally good or bad adventures, this stuff is all solidly built and usable, but not pushing the envelope in any way, and doesn't add much to the pot if you're a long-term reader. A bit dull from my perspective then. Let's hope they get that traps column running, or think of something else a little different to add next issue then.
part 5/5
Side Treks - Cloaked in Fear: The second side trek follows much the same formula as the first - take a monster with some neat tricks and put it in a context where it can use them intelligently instead of just jumping out and hacking at the PC's until it dies. This time it's a cloaker lurking in a graveyard, where PC's would suspect some form of undead and come with a cleric & holy water instead. It's already driven the gravedigger insane and will delight in spooking and separating the PC's with it's powers before actually fighting them. So this is heavily dependent on the DM playing up the horror aspect of things, with several jump scares before you get to the real fight and an encounter with the gravedigger that could be comic or tragic depending on how the PC's react. Another decent but unexceptional little scenario that won't fill a whole session unless you really drag it out, but is easy to put in wherever there's a small village with a graveyard, so plenty of groups will have got some use out of it.
The statement of ownership sees Dungeon shed readers, but considerably fewer than Dragon, once again moving the ratio a little closer to parity, at just over 50%. Still some way from justifying them going monthly, but it shows they have carved out their own niche in the D&D ecosystem comfortably and have hardcore fans separate from Dragon.
An issue with no exceptionally good or bad adventures, this stuff is all solidly built and usable, but not pushing the envelope in any way, and doesn't add much to the pot if you're a long-term reader. A bit dull from my perspective then. Let's hope they get that traps column running, or think of something else a little different to add next issue then.
(un)reason
Legend
Polyhedron Issue 116: February 1996
part 1/5
32 pages. Return of the comedy humanoids! This time on skis! Jim Holloway gives us one of his wacky illustrations where humanoids ape more civilised cultures poorly, which probably isn't going to end well for someone, but when your breeding rate is several orders of magnitude faster than humans you can lose many battles and still win the war. I guess comedy season is coming early or something. Time to see how irritating it is this time around.
The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: The main thrust of the news continues to be building towards war. Sarbreenar was indeed pretty thoroughly destroyed and looted last month, although they managed to evacuate most of the people, so they're optimistic that they'll be able to rebuild in a few years if they don't suffer any more catastrophes in the meantime. While a decent chunk of the Raven's Bluff forces were away dealing with that, a large and well organised fleet of pirate ships attacked Raven's Bluff harbor, while goblins attacked from the land. They were eventually repelled, but not without cost, and it's increasingly obvious some mastermind with inside knowledge of the city's watch schedules is behind all this. Let's stay unified as a city, find out who it is and strike back! This jingoistic attitude does not please the priests of Eldath, who are pacifistic to the core, and they're foretelling woe and catastrophe. But despite all this, life goes on. There's still the usual gossip about political figures maybe having affairs, and follow-up on what caused the recent admantite shortage. Apparently the price was being kept artificially low by smuggling, the people responsible were caught, and now none of the smiths want to pay the full legal price with tax on top so there's none available at all. Man, what a breakdown of supply & demand. It may come back in the future, but if it does it'll be much more expensive. Guess this war'll have to be fought with inferior iron weapons & armor. Another month of generally thickening plot then, with things looking increasingly interconnected. Hopefully the tournaments at this time were actually letting you engage with these events in meaningful ways.
part 1/5
32 pages. Return of the comedy humanoids! This time on skis! Jim Holloway gives us one of his wacky illustrations where humanoids ape more civilised cultures poorly, which probably isn't going to end well for someone, but when your breeding rate is several orders of magnitude faster than humans you can lose many battles and still win the war. I guess comedy season is coming early or something. Time to see how irritating it is this time around.
The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: The main thrust of the news continues to be building towards war. Sarbreenar was indeed pretty thoroughly destroyed and looted last month, although they managed to evacuate most of the people, so they're optimistic that they'll be able to rebuild in a few years if they don't suffer any more catastrophes in the meantime. While a decent chunk of the Raven's Bluff forces were away dealing with that, a large and well organised fleet of pirate ships attacked Raven's Bluff harbor, while goblins attacked from the land. They were eventually repelled, but not without cost, and it's increasingly obvious some mastermind with inside knowledge of the city's watch schedules is behind all this. Let's stay unified as a city, find out who it is and strike back! This jingoistic attitude does not please the priests of Eldath, who are pacifistic to the core, and they're foretelling woe and catastrophe. But despite all this, life goes on. There's still the usual gossip about political figures maybe having affairs, and follow-up on what caused the recent admantite shortage. Apparently the price was being kept artificially low by smuggling, the people responsible were caught, and now none of the smiths want to pay the full legal price with tax on top so there's none available at all. Man, what a breakdown of supply & demand. It may come back in the future, but if it does it'll be much more expensive. Guess this war'll have to be fought with inferior iron weapons & armor. Another month of generally thickening plot then, with things looking increasingly interconnected. Hopefully the tournaments at this time were actually letting you engage with these events in meaningful ways.
(un)reason
Legend
Polyhedron Issue 116: February 1996
part 2/5
Notes from HQ: After having asked for feedback on several new rules, they present their final decisions. The exclusivity period after the premiere of a new tournament in which no other conventions can run it is one month. A convention can request up to 4 tournaments per day, only half of which can be in any particular Living setting. The max number of players per table has been mildly relaxed to 7, but 8 is right out! The deadline for the new certificate rules grows ever closer, but now they have a nice excel spreadsheet to make it easier to figure out if an item is legal, and if so, which adventures they could have acquired it in. If you want to run a slot zero for your judges, you need to request it in advance then fill in the forms afterwards like any other tournament adventure or it won't count for XP and other character advancement. Glad all that's settled. Still plenty to do though, as they need more people writing adventures for their big plotlines, as seen just a page ago. Evidently they're still flying by the seat of their pants rather than having that properly planned out in advance. Let's hope they have something cobbled together in time for Gen Con, or it may never get done at all.
Leprechauns & Giant Eagles - Oh My!: Roger Moore gives us a second article this issue, of a kind more commonly found in Dragon than here. As the title implies, he makes Leprechauns & Tolkien style intelligent giant eagles available as PC's. Will you go for small size and an array of spell-like powers, or flight and ripping talons? Sounds pretty nifty right? The reality is somewhat less impressive, as rather than increase the XP requirements to compensate for the powers, he'll make them weaker than their NPC versions in all sorts of niggling little ways. They're still less restrictive than his similar collection of new races in issue 241 of Dragon, but each only has two valid class choices and they have some pretty hefty hindrances to go with their powers. So this isn't quite as bad as that article next year, but shows he's gradually ossifying as a writer and self-editor, reverting to the old restrictive style of race as class when the general trends in game design are for more character options and freedom in building what you want. Frankly, it's just sad seeing him go downhill like this compared to all the cool things he contributed too in the 80's.
part 2/5
Notes from HQ: After having asked for feedback on several new rules, they present their final decisions. The exclusivity period after the premiere of a new tournament in which no other conventions can run it is one month. A convention can request up to 4 tournaments per day, only half of which can be in any particular Living setting. The max number of players per table has been mildly relaxed to 7, but 8 is right out! The deadline for the new certificate rules grows ever closer, but now they have a nice excel spreadsheet to make it easier to figure out if an item is legal, and if so, which adventures they could have acquired it in. If you want to run a slot zero for your judges, you need to request it in advance then fill in the forms afterwards like any other tournament adventure or it won't count for XP and other character advancement. Glad all that's settled. Still plenty to do though, as they need more people writing adventures for their big plotlines, as seen just a page ago. Evidently they're still flying by the seat of their pants rather than having that properly planned out in advance. Let's hope they have something cobbled together in time for Gen Con, or it may never get done at all.
Leprechauns & Giant Eagles - Oh My!: Roger Moore gives us a second article this issue, of a kind more commonly found in Dragon than here. As the title implies, he makes Leprechauns & Tolkien style intelligent giant eagles available as PC's. Will you go for small size and an array of spell-like powers, or flight and ripping talons? Sounds pretty nifty right? The reality is somewhat less impressive, as rather than increase the XP requirements to compensate for the powers, he'll make them weaker than their NPC versions in all sorts of niggling little ways. They're still less restrictive than his similar collection of new races in issue 241 of Dragon, but each only has two valid class choices and they have some pretty hefty hindrances to go with their powers. So this isn't quite as bad as that article next year, but shows he's gradually ossifying as a writer and self-editor, reverting to the old restrictive style of race as class when the general trends in game design are for more character options and freedom in building what you want. Frankly, it's just sad seeing him go downhill like this compared to all the cool things he contributed too in the 80's.
