TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996



part 1/5



32 pages. The contents pages gets a thoroughly confusing reformatting. Like Dungeon, they're trying to be edgier, so they're changing things from a nice vertical list detailing the pages in order to a flow chart who's logic is not immediately obvious. Ironically, this comes just as they're doing another introductory issue aimed at making it clear what they do to newbies. This might not have been the best time. Let's see if the contents get more people engaged or further muddy the waters.



Larger than Life: Rather than stating out characters for your games, they decide to stat out the staff of the newszine in comedic style, telling you more about themselves in an indirect way. Scott Douglas and Robert Wiese are both 9th level AD&D characters, (with abilities that don't stick to RAW, as is usual for these kinds of things) while Jeff Quick is a starting level Werewolf: the Apocalypse character that is actually legit statistically, although the writing remains just as flippant. The kind of thing normally only seen in april issues, it's reasonably entertaining as a read, but you're even less likely to actually use than you are the stats for Bugs Bunny or Fox Mulder.



Regional Directors: We're currently at 37 regional directors, which is actually slightly down from last time they listed them in issue 109, with international ones being hit hardest. D&D is currently in decline in general and the far flung outposts are losing touch with the centre of the empire. Well, it's harder to get people to sign up for your Living stuff when there's hardly any conventions supporting it in the entire country. If you can't get things above critical mass it'll just fade away as soon as you stop putting in energy from outside. But just one enthusiastic volunteer can make a difference to a whole region! Maybe you could be one of them? Of course, they phrase it less cynically than I do and don't mention the decline, but the numbers don't lie. The RPGA is currently down from it's peak, just like the magazines in general. That's got to be adding some extra tension behind the scenes.



A World Of Members: Ironically, following on from that we have short pieces from Australia, Scotland & Hawaii where they talk about their own experiences of gaming & conventions. Australia is the most different, with considerably less D&D in general, more Shadowrun, Paranoia and other games, as well as a greater emphasis on large scale interactive events rather than party based play. None of them are as big as the giant midwestern conventions, but what they lack in numbers they make up for in friendliness. Maybe you could pay some of them a visit. No rigorous statistical analysis here then, but a reminder there are plenty of gamers all around the world, probably in your very town, it's just tricky to connect with them when it's not obvious. Good thing the internet is rapidly making that easier.



To Boldly Go: Another trio of little personal anecdotes tell us about how you get more involved with the RPGA than just playing the odd tournament. Most important one is volunteering as a judge, because it may sound like a broken record by now, but the ratio is just not good enough and they almost never have enough to go around. You can also take on the roles of marshal, making sure players are all directed to the right tables and sat down ready to play in good time, or the person who collects all the paperwork afterwards and makes sure all the Living characters get their XP and new toys entered into the databases. They do that online as well now, (plus there now are several online conventions you can play from anywhere in the world, as we saw last issue) so you could be anywhere in the world and still make yourself useful. The more you put in, the more you'll get out of being here and the greater your chance of making connections that might lead to paying RPG projects. Another demonstration that technology can help with logistical issues, but human nature remains an eternal struggle. Gotta boost that engagement, because even small things like liking, subscribing and commenting are only done by a tiny percentage of watchers.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996



part 2/5




The promotion then switches to encouraging people to form new clubs. It only costs $20 to set one up, which is a trivial cost if you've already managed to get at least 6 people together regularly, and there are so many exclusive things you can do in one. Sign up to tournaments as a team instead of getting a bunch of strangers with no tactical co-ordination! The Decathlons! Discounts on all sorts of products! Playtest unreleased adventures & sourcebooks! You'll easily recoup your initial outlay and have more fun than gaming with the same home group every time. Why wouldn't you want to be in one? Yet only a small proportion of the RPGA are, and only a small proportion of the clubs actually participate in the decathlon. Knowing the numbers from previous issues, it's all the more obvious why they need to put on a chipper exterior to try and get more people engaged, even if they're not feeling nearly so optimistic in the offices.



Point System: Continuing their attempts to put everything a newbie needs to understand the RPGA in one issue, it's time to reiterate the system of levels you can earn in real life as a player and judge, separate from your individual characters in the various Living campaigns. Once upon a time, they told you exactly how much you'd earn from a tournament, based on if you got 1st-3rd place or worse. But since the late 80's when they got their computer database fully functional, the math has become more complex and obfuscated. They won't reveal the precise formulas because they don't want the rules lawyers exploiting them, but they can give you averages. The numbers are much less even now, as they're based on a whole load of factors both specific to each adventure, and how the judge and other players rated you post game. The numbers needed to reach higher levels have also been inflated in an uneven way, with getting to 12th level as a player requiring the rather precise number of 1,598,250 xp rather than the neat 500,000 it did in the mid 80's. I'd be very interested to know how they decided on figures like that, particularly as no-one's actually got above level 9 yet. This winds up raising more questions than it answers, making me wonder how complex and rigorously applied the internal math actually is, and how much of it is just to hide the fact that they never have enough volunteers handling this stuff, so those there are are overworked, often backlogged and making mistakes in summing things up as a result. Without being able to see and sort through all the piles of paperwork myself, I guess we'll never know for sure.



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed is not joining in on the theme of the issue, continuing to wander through the Border Kingdoms in a leisurely fashion instead. This time we look at the busy town of Gallard, a trade centre where there's plenty of skilled craftsmen to turn those raw materials into valuable items. Given the dangers of the region, anyone with any money tends to accumulate an entourage of toughs, plus their own personal musician who's real purpose is to make a lot of noise and deter eavesdroppers on sensitive conversations in public. Rather than pubs, the most common social venues are firesword houses, big barbeque/kebab places where all kinds of meat slowly rotates on skewers over central open fires. (although I'm sure there are still plenty of alcoholic beverages to wash it down) Vegetarians and people who dislike a hot, smoky environment will struggle to win friends and make good business deals around here. The government is neither overly onerous or corrupt in it's regulation, but anyone living here still needs to have licences for their weapons, which at least keeps the tax revenues flowing and helps solve serious crimes because they'll know who any particularly distinctive weapon belongs too. Another entry where he manages to paint a picture of a place that's distinct from all the previous ones, but not so exotic as to be hard to run and put in lots of little details that you could expand on and use in your game. It might not be the prettiest and it's even further from being the nicest smelling place you'll ever visit, but it's another place that can solidly support many sessions of adventuring with a little work.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996



part 3/5



Living City: Having reiterated a lot of the basics of being in the RPGA, they now set out to sell you on each of the Living Campaigns, in the words of the people who play in them. First up, since its the longest running and has more material than all the others put together, is Raven's Bluff. This means it has the longest running characters as well, many of which have attained at least moderate levels, while a few of the most dedicated have actually made it into official government positions and shaped the city as a whole. Most of the specific locations are reader submitted as well, giving it a much more organic feel than any of the other campaigns. It might be a kitchen sink, but that means it has plenty of variety in adventures and no two characters will go through exactly the same things. If you want long term play in a generic AD&D setting you could do much worse. Get to know people, find out their stories, and hopefully join them in different party configurations each time to create some new ones. All seems perfectly cromulent as an argument.



Virtual Seattle: While the Living City is a place where you can feel fairly sure your companions are heroic and true, (because they'll get their characters taken away if they do anything too evil) virtual seattle is a much more ambiguous place. The main limiter isn't a question of good or evil, but if you do something stupidly blatant that'll bring down a heap of swat teams on your character. As long as you play smart and get the job done, you have a lot more leeway in how you portray your character here, although getting a SIN & day job and retiring from the running life remains a distant dream. PvP is mostly avoided by everyone having the same fixer, but we're not saying we'll never do a scenario where multiple runner teams wind up in competition with each other because they're hired by different megacorps. :evil smile: There are limitations on how xtreeeeeemely 90's and edgy they can get due to the TSR code of conduct, but they are at least trying to push at them and make sure this place keeps that authentic shadowrun flavour. They're also not arbitrarily restricting treasure to the things on the adventure certificates - if it's not nailed down and you can take it, you can probably keep it. (as long as it doesn't exceed encumbrance and you've got somewhere to stash it) That does sound more like fun to play in than the previous one. There are definite advantages to being the smaller rival who's freer to be more morally ambiguous.



Malatra, The Living Jungle: If anything, Malatra is even more restrictive than Raven's Bluff. But the fun is in precisely what is removed and figuring out how to survive and explore the world anyway. If you're tired of indirectly empowering Mammon whatever god your character follows a place completely devoid of capitalism can have a strong appeal. If you're fed up of the stress of city life the idea of being part of a close-knit tribe where everyone knows everyone else is a quite reasonable fantasy to have. If you're bored by people playing stereotypes both the humans and demihumans are different from both tolkienesque high fantasy and direct analogs of real world cultures, forcing you to step outside your comfort zone to get into their (lack of) shoes. (although I'll bet there's still a fair amount of cringy me um dumb jungle stereotype speak going on in actual play) The world outside your tiny tribal territories is mysterious both IC and OOC, so you'd better go to those tournaments and get exploring if you ever want to know more. So this is being sold as the one for hardcore roleplayers for whom the main fun is in getting into character as someone very different from you rather than accumulating levels, treasure & magic items to power up. They probably know in their hearts it's never going to be as big as the Living City, but as long as a few people like it, they'll keep on offering the alternative.



Threads of Legend: The Living Earthdawn setting is also aimed at the ultra hardcore end of the gaming market, but in a very different way. Unlike all the other Living campaigns, where the RAW must be stuck to strictly and only what you do & find in the tournament adventures matters, they embrace the concepts of downtime and customisation. If you don't like writing short stories to flesh out your character, explain who they are and what custom spells and items they've come up with, you won't be getting the most out of this setting. If you do, (and are wiling to take the odd knockback or revision if you try something too twinky) you can have the satisfaction of contributing to the building of the setting, as each approved item goes into the great library of Throal for other players to use as well, plus you get legend points for the quality of your writing. If they get it right, it'll feel like the world is being built by the players organically as their characters create new civilisations and drive back the remaining Horrors. Can't fault the scope of their ambitions. Now if only they could get enough players, and even more crucially enough judges to carry them out, because if there's a judge shortage for D&D tournaments, there's really not enough going round here. At a small convention, YOU stepping up could be the difference between it running at all or not. Another one where despite trying to sell it in a positive manner, they can't hide that Earthdawn players are a tiny fraction of the RPGA and whether it lives or dies could be decided by whether a few fanatics put a whole load of unpaid labor into supporting it or not. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of it in the newszine.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996



part 4/5



Living Death: Compared to the heavy player buy-in required for the last two settings, Living Death is relatively simple, as it's just the real world with hidden monsters. This does not mean you can't get deep with it, as that also means you have the full range of real world history and fictional horror stories to use as source material. You can make characters and write adventures set anywhere in the world, meet all sorts of interesting historical figures, maybe even kill them. This leads neatly into the other big selling point, that they're leaning heavily into the player-driven metaplot, with the clock moving forward one game year per real world year and events decided by what choices the majority of groups who run through a particular module make. The more tournaments you attend, the more you'll feel like you're making a difference to the overall direction of the world, even if you don't have the freedom to create new spells and have other players learn them like in Threads of Legend. As horror is pretty popular in general, it seems likely this setting is comfortably second in size to the Living City despite being the youngest of these. They definitely have more talk of people they've met and things that have happened in actual play. Your odds of having a lengthy set of adventures and getting to advance in levels if you stick with them are relatively high.



Welcome to the Nightmare: After all this highly specific themed promotional material, we still have room for a bit of generic gaming advice that could have turned up any time. Horror is one of the most popular genres in fiction, but requires a bit more player buy-in than hack & slash dungeoncrawling. It's supposed to be scary, which means no matter how powerful you get, you'll have to accept that your enemies will probably still be stronger, quite possibly in unfair ways like ghostly insubstantiality that prevent you from even hurting them at all unless you solve puzzles and find macguffins that can affect them. Even if you do everything right, some of the characters may die, particularly in slasher movie style one shots where most people not making it through is coded into the rules. The worlds tend to be less fantastical in general, with the weird bits thrown into sharper relief by the way they intrude into people's everyday lives. Even the heroes are rarely incorruptible paragons of righteousness, with the monsters often preying on or responding to their secret fears and vices. If you don't engage with the roleplaying part of RPG's, but treat it like a video game where you fight things, take their stuff, level up, repeat, just jump back in and try again when you lose, the whole genre won't make sense. All pretty basic stuff that I've seen before and fully expect to do so again before this journey is through. Meh.



World of Your Own: It's been an issue full of lots of little articles so far, and even Roger's column is shorter than usual. Fittingly, he decides to take a look at island campaigns, where the limited area and number of things to see can actually focus things better, and definitely makes it easier for a DM with limited time to build their world by setting obvious boundaries. There's a lot of them, if anything more than ones spanning huge areas. Of course the definition of island is pretty flexible, as it ranges from Ravenloft domains that are basically one spooky lair and their grounds to the Council of Wyrms Blood Isles, which are easily the size of a full continent spanning from arctic to tropics when put together. They can be actual islands surrounded by sea, or otherworldly spaces with boundaries limited in some other way. AD&D sure has done a lot of both over the years and he does his best to provide a comprehensive list over a couple of pages. Very little actual GM advice though, which is apparently coming next month. Another very formulaic entry that does little to excite me.



Network Clubs: Back to the promotional material, with lots of different people submitting short pieces about their club experience. Some are democratic, some are dictatorships, some existed before they joined the RPGA, some didn't, some are purely RPG focussed while other play board & computer games, LARPs, etc, but all agree that they have more fun with more people around and get to pull off things a single DM and half a dozen players couldn't. Just turn back a few pages and fill out that form! Will repeating that lesson again in all sorts of different ways get more people to sign up? I guess peer pressure can be a powerful tool on some, but this grows increasingly tiresome for me, and if anything, the scent of desperation would put me off.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996



part 5/5



Member Serving: Four more short pieces here from the various volunteer positions. The person running the TSR website on AOL, the regional directors, the convention organiser, and most importantly, the guy who created and maintains the databases. Without him, they wouldn't be able to track all the player XP and item certificates nearly as quickly or accurately. And he did all this for free in his spare time while also working a day job. All these volunteer positions may have cool names, but they're all responsibility, the main reward is the warm glow of knowing you helped a lot of people have fun. That people fill them anyway is testament to their fundamental selflessness. Just a shame there's not enough of them to go around. If people like that were a little more common, or at least rewarded better for doing all that work for free instead of the people who profiteer winding up holding all the real power the world would be a better place.



Writing For The RPGA: The Forgotten Deities series has concluded successfully, but Eric Boyd is still a highly active member, so he takes on the job of encouraging other people to send more articles in. It's not rocket science, but learning brevity is important, as polyhedron runs on a very limited page count. The best articles manage to pack a whole load of ideas into a small package while still leaving readers room to do what they please with them. (and he's learnt well from Ed how to do that) You won't get rich, but it sure beats digging a ditch and might lead onto working on official books. Just watch out for that code of conduct, because even if you get the spelling, punctuation & grammar right, come up with interesting ideas, remember to include your SASE and sign the standard disclosure form anything that'd upset Tipper Gore will go straight in the bin. This is all pretty familiar despite their attempts to liven it up with stories from regular members. Despite saying you ought to avoid repeating topics other people have already sent in, they sure are having to repeat themselves a lot in the more editorial parts.



Polyhedron Newszine Clearance Sale: One of the casualties of their small size is not listing what back issues are available every time, unlike Dragon. This means the amount of back stock has been building up a lot over the years and they'd like to clear it. Unsurprisingly, the early issues are a lot more expensive than anything else and there are quite a few gaps in the list, with issue 95 being the most recent one that's sold out completely, but you can still get hold of more than 3/4 of them easily. Another instance where they might be trying to fix a problem, but we know in hindsight it's too little too late, as WotC has to deal with big warehouses full of unsold crap like overprinted Buck Rogers supplements and Dragon Dice when they take over. A reminder that it's taken years of mismanagement to get to this point, but the way businesses work mean it's not obvious from the outside that they've been running up massive debts and keeping them serviced with advance money, so it only falls apart when several things conspicuously undersell at once and they can't keep up loan repayments. To everyone else, even many of the staff who don't get to look at the financials, they're still the biggest RPG company in the world. Goes to show. Many things are a lot more fragile than they appear.



Notes From HQ: After a long, jam-packed issue full of contributions from people who've never written for the newszine before and probably won't do so again, (they have other, equally important roles) the editorial is here to remind us again that the more you put into the RPGA, the more you'll get out of it. There's no higher power or great stash of company money keeping it going, ultimately it's just us. He himself is just a regular guy who want to a big convention, thought it was awesome, found there wasn't anyone else doing what he wanted in his hometown and set out to get gamers together. One thing led to another, many years later, here he is as editor. This is definitely one that makes more sense placed after all the articles than before. You can never be sure where life is going to take you, but fortune favours the bold so take those opportunities, reach out to people. You'll probably regret the things you never tried at all more than the ones you tried and failed at, as failure is still often a learning experience that's useful in the future. A fairly positive note to end things on.



A pretty sharp contrast to the previous introductory issue in 1989. While that was basic in a silly, cartoony way that wasn't particularly great for me, but I could see working on the young target audience, this one is just a repetitive slog of self-promotion, explaining the same things multiple times in different ways over the course of the issue. Not an improvement overall, showing that they've become much more serious as the years have gone by and the recent financial struggles are adding a further edge of desperation to their attempts to bring new people in. This isn't the kind of atmosphere I want to stick around in at all. Onto the next issue, to see what theme they've chosen for that, if any.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996



part 1/5



32 pages. Time to go full waugghh as the Raven's Bluff metaplot reaches it's climax. Unsurprisingly, the cover art is getting in on the theme, showing the hordes attacking the ramparts. I think we can be pretty certain the city will survive, since it's their most popular setting, but let's find out how hard-won the victory is and if any important NPC's will die and stay dead for good, leaving more room for players to take on important roles in the government.



NEWScene: The new column about goings-on in the RPGA is another victim of the desire to be edgy and 90's in it's formatting, with the news printed in four very small columns. The only bit of externally submitted news is about DrakCon in Glasgow, and the extensive charity work they do on top of the gaming. 36 hour sponsored marathons, getting through epic multi-round tournaments in one sitting, they've raised a fair bit of money and had fun along the way. Closer to home, they list the winners of the Network awards and the Gamer's Choice awards, with the most notable being Daniel S. Donnelly for having written 20 tournament adventures for their loyal members to go through. (None of which I've got to review in here and most of which aren't even listed on rpggeek. Were they any good?) The games that won aren't too surprising though - Mage:the Ascension, Birthright, Paranoia, Warcraft II. That leaves me without any strong opinions about the proceedings. Maybe next year things'll be a little more controversial.



your 1nitiative also gets 1337153d. All your letters are belong to them. Will they think a winnar is Polyhedron, or it's current editorial practices are epic fail?

First dislikes Forgotten Deities and wants a regular forum where people can discuss their ideas about the RPGA. Well, I guess you've got both your wishes. (as long as enough people send in letters to keep this column going)

Second is the SW Pacific branch manager, who thinks the Living City has become a bloated mess of kludgy house rules that needs to be retired. All the subsequent Living campaigns have learnt from it's mistakes and been better constructed from the start. Trouble is, any attempt to reform it upsets all the people who's characters would be arbitrarily altered in the process and so it all gets bogged down making minimal progress. I suspect this tension will continue to fester right up until the 3e changeover.

Third wants to defend Polyhedron's convention coverage, which is the thing that really separates it from Dragon. Cut down too much on that and what's the point of it as a separate entity?

Fourth is also frustrated with the Living City, and it's terrible adventures that seem to discourage roleplaying in particular, but would rather reform from the inside rather than blow it all up and start from scratch. If you cancel people or things just for doing a single problematic thing you'll never get anywhere, because perfection is an impossible standard to live up to. As long as human nature remains the same, the same old problems and debates will keep on recreating themselves even if you do start over.

Fifth is from Chile, and obviously wishes there were more conventions around here, maybe a regional director and that the post was quicker & more reliable. The RPGA is still nowhere near as international as it could be.

Finally, another person annoyed at the powergamey and roleplaying low nature of Living City players/adventures. You get what you encourage, so the adventures need to be written to incentivise different things if they want to fix this problem. (and maybe allow GM's a little more leeway in general instead of forcing them to stick to a strict formula.)

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996



part 2/5



A Few of Our Favourite Things: They're pretty busy with Gen Con this month, so they recycle the notes from the big GMing advice seminar and turn it into a column for the next few months. A whole bunch of big names gave their thoughts on how to run games. Unfortunately, the first one is Skip Williams, and if you've been following along you'll already know that he played a big part in the RPGA adventures moving away from site-based meatgrinders you weren't expected to get all the way through & find everything to short, linear & jokey ones filled with terrible puns and 4th wall breaking references in the late 80's. His advice is very much in the vein of those. Give the players illusionary choices that wind up going in the same direction at the end. If they persist in doing the wrong thing try reverse psychology to trick them into following the path while thinking it's their own idea. Humiliate them rather than killing them where possible. Fill your adventures with quirky and memorable NPC's and places like gargoyles with detachable wings or Mordenkainen's private cinema. The kind of whimsy that makes me roll my eyes and want to actively avoid ever being a player under him, particularly in a one-shot convention adventure situation. A thoroughly exasperating start.



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed skips over a big chunk of the alphabet to take us to Shantal, one of the larger and more stable places in the Border Kingdoms, it's been owned by the same family for three generations now. Magic is mostly forbidden here, which is enforced by the wards of the Official Mage. (who like most high level wizards, is way more powerful than the fighty sorts and could easily take over if she were inclined, but thankfully is too obsessively nerdy to bother with that and spends most of her time doing research in her tower or visiting other planes.) Underground, there's a powerful source of magical radiation in the caverns of the Daerndar, part of which is tapped to power the aforementioned wards, but you can also use them to recharge magical items, even ones that can't normally be recharged if you know how, but if you don't, you'll probably fall foul of the plentiful wild magic effects & monsters, and the Official Mage isn't inclined to share unless it's for a very important reason. Since she's often not around, you might well be able to sneak down there and get away with it, but I guess that heavily depends on the whims of your DM. A pretty sharp contrast between the bucolic surface and the extra weird & dangerous underdark here, this is one where the people in charge are mostly heroic, but you can still see how a group of wandering adventurers could wind up at odds with them. Probably best to hold off on the overthrowing this time unless you know how to operate those wards, or you'll wind up making things dramatically worse for the ordinary people, which is not a recipe for staying on the throne long term.



Fate Deals A New Hand: Our contest this issue is an attempt to get a bit of engagement with the Dragonlance fifth age system. Chaos as a whole might have been defeated in the novels, but there are plenty of places and things that have been marked by it, transformed in weird and dangerous ways. (that make for good adventures) Send some in and the winners will get published in here some time next year. Yeah, good luck with that, considering their upcoming hiatus. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one we never hear from again, given the reception 5th age got from the general public.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996



part 3/5



A Wish For Temptation: The adventure this month is a metaplot one tightly linked to the whole war in Raven's Bluff thing, where the PC's are press-ganged into the army. They're sent to Mossbridges to help with the war effort, but unbeknownst to them their commander is a traitor for the other side. Since this is a tournament one, there's not much time for subtlety and he soon plays his hand, sending them on a wild goose chase to where the enemy isn't, then framing them for murder when they get back. You'll have to clear your name and then hunt him down in his mansion. When you do, you find out that he accomplished his trickery with the help of a genie and will offer you one wish if you let him escape unharmed. Taking this will have you marked as an enemy of Raven's Bluff even if there's no way they could have known IC that you did, which I presume removes your character from your control, thus neatly sidestepping the possibility of you gaining vast amounts of money or powerful magical items they don't have certificates for with your wish. A typically linear railroad adventure then, only with the extra annoyance of the possibility of getting a no save bad ending for your character, like a videogame where the big bad asks you to join them. (only your character is gone for good rather than you just reloading from the last save and maybe having to redo one or two encounters) I guess that is a flavour of annoyance we haven't seen around here before, but it's definitely not a welcome one. Obviously you have more freedom for them to take the evil path and continue on as characters if you ran this in a home campaign, but this just seems like a fundamentally bad idea in a tournament game. Giving people the illusion of free will that'll waste years of levelling up their characters if they take it is more insulting than just not giving you any meaningful choices at all. That's the kind of crap that'd drive me to ragequit the RPGA on the spot. naughty word this adventure and the horses it rode in on.



A Band of Rings: Time for another helping of magic items, which remain uncommon but not completely unknown in Polyhedron. Is this because they still don't get many submissions, or did they pick this one because of the quality?

Rings of Assassins let you poison anything you touch with it, making it easy to serve up death at a dinner party without leaving incriminating evidence behind. Unless you have a similar level of divination magic on the other side or already know who has motive & means, this could result in a pretty tricky detective story.

Rings of Demi-humans give you the innate powers of the appropriate race, plus the ability to speak their language. This should help get round basic perception/communication differences, but whether they'll trust you is another matter. Still, if everyone in the party has infravision, that makes dungeon delving much cheaper and stealthier than if you always have to worry about light sources.

Rings of Keys have a decent chance of magically opening locks, as long as they're not also magically locked. If the DM wants to keep you on a railroad that's a pretty easy out to give.

Rings of Revenge ensure you'll become a ghost if killed, giving you a good opportunity to get revenge on who or whatever is responsible. Unfortunately, this usually comes with an alignment shift to neutral evil, becoming a one-note obsessive hunter who'll go to any lengths to achieve this. If you don't want your final destination after resolving your earthly ties to be the lower planes, might want to reconsider that. All of these are interestingly useful but not horribly overpowered, making them well worth using.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996



part 4/5



A World of Your Own: Hobgoblins have always been one of the humanoids most likely to break out of the basic marauding tribe lifestyle, with subsequent editions increasingly playing up their militaristic discipline. Roger is one of the people who's been pushing for that all along, with it being a key part of their expansion in Dragon's 1982 articles on various races. Now he does it again, combining it with the island world idea to create one where they're the dominant race, conquering others to use as slaves in their pepper plantations (much more pleasing to their palate than sugar) with the serious advantage of being the only ones with firearms. So your basic colonialist scenario, only with the details remixed and the PC's on the underdog end. The oceans are wider, the lands smaller, the friendly peoples more diverse but also more fragmented. Can you unite them enough to make a dent in the evil Gothmarian empire, maybe take some of those guns and figure out how to manufacture them yourselves? Not original, but all pretty gameable, as well as being notable as part of a wider trend. Get out your Corsair & Swashbuckler kits and you can definitely turn this campaign outline into something fun.



Living The Nightmare: The horror advice continues on in much the same way as last issue, only more focussed on the player's side. Accept that your characters may well not only die, but also go mad or be crippled in the pursuit of evil. You'll have more fun if you lean into it and ham up the horror rather than remaining detached. Do your research on the monsters and come up with a plan before fighting them, for they are often immune to mundane attacks or at least have idiosyncratic weaknesses. And above all, never ever EVER split the party! It never helps, ok, even in horror settings as bowdlerised as Scooby-Doo. Once again, pretty basic stuff, aimed at people who've roleplayed before but haven't played horror games and might not really get with the program. I come out of this feeling no wiser than when I went in.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996



part 5/5



The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: Enemies both within & without continue to take their toll. The lord mayor continues to be missing, but there are reports of a conman pretending to be him turning up, requisitioning stuff "for the good of the city" and then vanishing again. Can they find and prosecute him? Meanwhile, the deputy mayor is accused of treason & kidnapping, collaborating with the enemies outside the city to undermine the war effort. They suspect he was mind-controlled, so they don't execute him, but that still earns him an indefinite stay in maximum security hellhole Illwater unless some kind adventurers can definitively prove his non-culpability. That leaves the Lord Chancellor in charge, and the chain of command looking increasingly decimated. Even what replacements they are appointing are having struggles. Since they're in the middle of a war, the church of Tempus expected the new chief prelate would be one of theirs. But no, it was a Lathanderite instead, as the other faiths would rather see the war over than grind on indefinitely for the glory of Tempus. What's the worst they could do in response? Go on strike? Would that be a good or bad thing overall? A reminder that every god trying to promote their portfolio leads to some pretty conflicting agendas amongst their mortal followers, even if they do still work together on the ecumenical council for faith as a whole. It all adds up to paint a picture of a city that's really struggling to stay functional. Since they're also struggling in real life at the moment, I guess that's art reflecting life. They're probably starting to wish they were living in slightly less interesting times.



Notes From HQ: The editorial is a whole lot of business-speak about plans for expansion. Identify the four core tenets of what the RPGA should do, and the five activity centres they should be doing them in, then figure out how to maximise our engagement across the intersection of all these fields. We have solid penetration into the convention centre, but still ought to be doing a lot more in retail stores, libraries and schools if roleplaying is ever to reach the same kind of cultural ubiquity as playing sports. Schools seem a particularly tricky one, because although roleplaying has proven educational benefits, plus if you catch 'em young they're more likely to be gamers for life, you can't just walk in as a complete stranger and start offering to run D&D for the kids without looking like a bunch of creepy nonces. (hey kid, : opens trenchcoat: wanna buy some … dice?) If they're to do anything like that, it needs to be carefully done by locals on a community by community basis. This all feels like the kind of thing that should be presented with a bunch of powerpoint slides, which it probably was, since it was originally another speech at this year's Gen Con. As with the introductory issue, it shows them trying to be more serious and professional about how they run the RPGA, with long-term plans, quite possibly with charts & graphs. But it's all too late, as we know in hindsight. When the TSR money runs out, everyone feels the pinch, even the most independent of departments. If the system around you falls apart, it doesn't matter how much harder you work, things are still going to suck unless the structural problems are fixed.



An issue in which a lot of the problems with the RPGA are on full display, while other aren't quite so obvious, but are bubbling under the surface and will become moreso in hindsight. Years of slow accretion are catching up with them, and they'd need to fix some things even if TSR as a whole wasn't struggling. Let's see what tricks they try to hold back the tide next time around.