(un)reason
Legend
Polyhedron Issue 15: Nov/Dec 1983
part 5/6
Notes for the Dungeon Master: Fresh from giving his advice on solo games, Roger does pretty much the same for high level play, with slight diminishing returns. After all, with solo play, you have to scale down the challenges. With a high level team, the trick is providing challenges that are not only more impressive in numbers, but also scope, and not writing yourself into a corner. This can be quite tricky, especially with the flexibility high level spellcasters have in the D&D system. So don't jump to world-saving plots too quickly, remember that money and magic items can be taken away as well as given, and try and make sure that you leave loose ends and political connections around that allow new adventures to grow organically from the previous ones. Using prefab adventures will always be a crapshoot at that kind of level, and it's easier if you raised them up from lower levels and design your own around the capabilities and histories of your specific group. This isn't nearly as helpful as it could be, as a lot of the advice is geared towards preventing the players from ever getting that powerful, rather than showing how adventures with phenomenal cosmic power are not only possible, but fun. The limitations of their paradigm are still very much in force here.
Mas Day in New Hope: Our festive article this year is for Gamma World. A robot santa and it's reindeer & flying sled were created by an ancient automated factory and sent out to spread cheer and gifts to the postapocalyptic landscape. Any naughty boys and girls trying to take more than their fair share of presents will find them heavily armed and armored and willing to respond with considerably more firepower than a lump of coal. So this is silly, but also a reminder that combat is often not the best path of action. This could be an amusing flavor encounter, or a tough combat one, depending on how bloodthirsty and genre savvy the players are. I guess that's a little nicer than the average dungeon crawl, where pacifism isn't an option. I approve.
House Rules in Dawn Patrol: As we've seen before in here, even the original designers of games often don't play them by RAW. Seems Mike Carr is no exception, as he gives us 7 house rules here that he uses to make his own games a bit more varied and complex. When you're a designer, tinkering comes naturally, partly to improve the next edition, and partly just to stave off boredom. It's not about perfection, it's about variety. Since Dawn Patrol can pack a lot of stuff into a single page, this is definitely a good use of the newszine. I hope they can keep up the variety for a good while longer.
The Vesper Investigation: Another Gangbusters adventure this month. While the last one went into pulp science, this turns into a ghost story, as our investigators deal with what may or may not be a haunted house. (it's left ambiguous whether it actually is a ghost, or just criminals trying to protect their ill-gotten gains, so the GM can go either way. ) So it's not too bad on it's own merits, but it does illustrate that they're struggling to keep this games interesting for themselves and come up with new things without breaking genre. It just seems to reach it's limits as a system and premise too quickly for long-term campaigns.
part 5/6
Notes for the Dungeon Master: Fresh from giving his advice on solo games, Roger does pretty much the same for high level play, with slight diminishing returns. After all, with solo play, you have to scale down the challenges. With a high level team, the trick is providing challenges that are not only more impressive in numbers, but also scope, and not writing yourself into a corner. This can be quite tricky, especially with the flexibility high level spellcasters have in the D&D system. So don't jump to world-saving plots too quickly, remember that money and magic items can be taken away as well as given, and try and make sure that you leave loose ends and political connections around that allow new adventures to grow organically from the previous ones. Using prefab adventures will always be a crapshoot at that kind of level, and it's easier if you raised them up from lower levels and design your own around the capabilities and histories of your specific group. This isn't nearly as helpful as it could be, as a lot of the advice is geared towards preventing the players from ever getting that powerful, rather than showing how adventures with phenomenal cosmic power are not only possible, but fun. The limitations of their paradigm are still very much in force here.
Mas Day in New Hope: Our festive article this year is for Gamma World. A robot santa and it's reindeer & flying sled were created by an ancient automated factory and sent out to spread cheer and gifts to the postapocalyptic landscape. Any naughty boys and girls trying to take more than their fair share of presents will find them heavily armed and armored and willing to respond with considerably more firepower than a lump of coal. So this is silly, but also a reminder that combat is often not the best path of action. This could be an amusing flavor encounter, or a tough combat one, depending on how bloodthirsty and genre savvy the players are. I guess that's a little nicer than the average dungeon crawl, where pacifism isn't an option. I approve.
House Rules in Dawn Patrol: As we've seen before in here, even the original designers of games often don't play them by RAW. Seems Mike Carr is no exception, as he gives us 7 house rules here that he uses to make his own games a bit more varied and complex. When you're a designer, tinkering comes naturally, partly to improve the next edition, and partly just to stave off boredom. It's not about perfection, it's about variety. Since Dawn Patrol can pack a lot of stuff into a single page, this is definitely a good use of the newszine. I hope they can keep up the variety for a good while longer.
The Vesper Investigation: Another Gangbusters adventure this month. While the last one went into pulp science, this turns into a ghost story, as our investigators deal with what may or may not be a haunted house. (it's left ambiguous whether it actually is a ghost, or just criminals trying to protect their ill-gotten gains, so the GM can go either way. ) So it's not too bad on it's own merits, but it does illustrate that they're struggling to keep this games interesting for themselves and come up with new things without breaking genre. It just seems to reach it's limits as a system and premise too quickly for long-term campaigns.