TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 29: Mar/Apr 1986



part 1/5



28 pages. Tom Wham breaks the 4th wall and shows us a wizard's tower full of anachronisms. Silly season has rolled around again, and it looks like they're going all out on it again this year. Let's see if the jokes are funny, or I'll be left groaning at the terrible puns and nonfunctional rules.



Notes from HQ: They're STILL having computer problems? Just can't get the staff these days. Actually, that's not quite true, as they've just hired 3 new full-time staff members. Hopefully at least one of them will be sufficiently computer-literate to finally sort the stupid thing out. Despite still being behind on their bookkeeping, they're stepping up the number of conventions they're attending and running official tournaments at this year, and the size of their big show at Gen Con. I guess as long as they don't lose the paper records, it'll all get processed eventually. Levelling up in the real world is a lot slower than in the game.



The Lighter Side of Encounters II: Continuity! You don't see enough of that even in the serious articles! A direct sequel to last year's encounter featuring the same characters. Like that, it has a somewhat absurd premise, but to the characters caught in it, it's a deadly serious situation and the actions of the PC's can make all the difference between success and disaster. Once again, it looks like they're trying to keep these articles humorous, but not so silly or mechanically nonfunctional that they're unusable in a game. Which is exactly what I want to see. A joke becomes funnier when it has multiple layers and can be appreciated by different audiences at different levels of sophistication simultaneously.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 29: Mar/Apr 1986



part 2/5



The Camel's Nose: Our full length adventure is also technically usable, but it's much harder to maintain suspension of disbelief over several sessions when all the encounters are not only silly in concept, but filled with terrible puns, NPC's that are broad (and often rather tasteless) stereotypes with names that reflect their personalities all too well. The sample PCs make Frank Mentzer's naming conventions look sensible, valley elves (as filked in the 1983 april issue of Dragon) make a most un-radical appearance, and the 4th wall gets poked at near the end. It's definitely too goofy for my tastes, and the fat jokes and ethnic stereotypes really have not aged well either. So this is one I'm definitely not ever using for multiple reasons, either in an established campaign or a one-shot. My eyes would be rolling too fast to get through even the first bits of narration.



The Ecology of Tiamat: They don't do ecologies in Polyhedron! What are they doing parodying them here, where any non-readers of Dragon won't get the joke? (I know, pretty small part of the roleplayer venn diagram, but there's bound to be some.) It looks at tiamat's stats from the perspective of a seasoned adventurer, and how they don't actually seem that threatening to a well-equipped party. Once you've got to the double digits in levels and optimised properly, why you could get through several Tiamats a day! The AD&D monster manual has been out nearly 9 years now, lots of other books with new spells and magical items have been released, and there has indeed been a certain amount of power escalation, so there is actually a serious point behind the jokes, but it's mainly just a joke, there's no real ecological material here. Good for a mild chuckle, then we have to move on.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 29: Mar/Apr 1986



part 3/5



Fractured Spells: We've been getting lots of new spells every issue for the past year, so it's only fair that they parody this column as well. Another article that's presented as a joke, full of pun names riffing on existing spells, but the resulting spells are actually entirely usable in serious situations, and about the right level for their power as well.

Defect Magic is a weaker Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

Neutralise person essentially turns the victim into a ghost, unable to affect or be affected by other people.

Dissect evil gives you a little more information as to why they're bad.

Detect Chum Tells you if a creature is likely to be friendly to you, whatever your alignment. Perfect for Ravenloft where the regular spell is obscured.

Purify Fools & Drunks is your basic sudden detox for when neutralise poison would be a bit excessive.

Fold person lets you flatten someone to fit them through small spaces. Very handy for sequence breaking dungeons.

Continual Lice gives you a persistently recurring infestation until magically cured.

Exercise is basically Otto's irresistible dance, only lower level, and, y'know, resistible.

Detect Snores & Fits lets you know the number and location of all sleeping creatures within range. This of course is also very handy for telling if someone is only pretending to be asleep.

Pass without Taste lets you consume spoiled, poisoned, or merely ultraspicy foods without ill effect. Exceedingly useful in political intrigue games.

Shenanigan subjects the victim to minor random pranks, for when a long term curse would be a bit too mean.

Control Temper 10' Radius forces everyone to be calm and reasonable, which is incredibly handy when you're dealing with adventurers.

Unkind Familiar gives you a different, somewhat grumpier selection of animals than a regular find familiar spell.

Soap Trick is just a mildly reflavored Grease spell. That's been a staple of so many serious campaigns that i don't even see why this is a joke.

Leopold's Tiny Mutt creates a magical bulldog to clamp jaws around someone or something and impede them.

So yeah. These are all entirely usable in a serious campaign without ruining the tone or breaking the system, and some are very good utility spells indeed. This is one article I can happily recommend completely unironically.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 29: Mar/Apr 1986



part 4/5



Gods of the Gamma World game: The trouble with Gamma World is that it's silly enough on a day-to-day basis that the april articles don't have much room to maneuver. How do you make a parody that's clearly distinguishable from the bits you're supposed to take seriously? That's definitely the case with this article, which gives us some extremely powerful NPC's who've become worshipped by the other humans and mutants due to their iconic nature. They have high stats, with a few thematic exceptions that are extremely low, various degrees of near indestructibility, and very varying indeed ranges of hostility and ability to affect the world around them. There are in-jokes and pop culture references in their descriptions, but that's just normal for Jim's writing. They seem entirely usable as long as the PC's aren't the sort who just try to hack and slash through every encounter without talking or gathering information. The question then becomes if you would want too, or invincible racial exemplars and comic relief NPC's would merely irritate them. I'm definitely leaning towards the not end of the spectrum.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 29: Mar/Apr 1986



part 5/5



The Savage Sword of Lugnut the Barbarian: We conclude with a second bit of single page fiction that's basically just an extended build-up to a groanworthy punchline. The princess of the valley has been kidnapped! Only Lugnut the barbarian has thews mighty enough to defeat all the Ultra-Necromancer's minions and rescue her! And the lack of brains to not realise until too late that the princess of the valley is indeed a valley girl, with all that implies. They've used this joke before, and it's totally suffering from diminishing returns with repetition. Frank Zappa has a lot to answer for. This is neither gnarly or radical anymore. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's completely bogus, but it's definitely testing my patience, and would grow increasingly grody if they try going back to this well again.



Slightly less funny than last year, but the game material is also slightly more usable in actual play on average without breaking either game balance, or people's suspension of disbelief. That's a tradeoff i can live with, as jokes rapidly lose their funniness on repetition, but stuff that's useful in game like the new spells can be returned too many times. Let's see how much of next issue will merit returning to and using.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 30: May/Jun 1986



part 1/5



32 pages. What are those Drow doing up on the surface? Doesn't look like they're having a very pleasant time of it. But given they're usually the villains, that's probably for the best. Will they be bucking the trend even in this pre-Drizz't era, or will it be the PC's job to foil them in the adventure inside? Let's find out for sure.



Notes From HQ: Convention season has rolled around again, and they still haven't quite caught up from last year. If they aren't careful, it'll put them even further behind and they'll never get back on schedule. In the end, it's not the paid staff that'll determine if they succeed or fail, it's the efforts of ordinary RPGA members volunteering to help out for free, or maybe an extension on their membership so they can stick around and work for free some more, that really keeps them alive. Oh well, as long as everyone's having fun, what's a little exploitation between friends? I'm sure we'll be hearing next issue what they actually got up too, and if all this extra help let them pull off their plans successfully this year.



Nienna & Friends: Our cover stars this issue are much more racially mixed than the previous instalments. The titular Nienna is a half-drow fighter/mage who's rebelled against the dark side of her heritage and become a wandering adventurer. She travels with a human cleric and two grey elves which take advantage of the raised level limits for superhuman stats in Unearthed Arcana to be considerably more powerful than demihumans used to. It's rather an unbalanced party, so the stronger ones must be looking out for the weaker ones in combat, or the DM isn't giving them particularly threatening encounters for their average level. Her nemeses are her evil Drow father, and his equally diabolical Drider best friend, who they've fought repeatedly, but not killed, which is a very un-D&D plotline. So I very much doubt these characters have been stress-tested by actual play, and their plotline and stats show definite cliched mary-sue tendencies. Definitely my least favourite of this series so far.



In Search of the 12th level Mage: So in the average D&D world, how big a proportion of the NPC's have class levels, and what are the demographics of high level characters? Given the small overall populations, it needs to be a fairly substantial percentage just so you can fill out all the followers you get when you hit Name level. Roger Moore goes into a deep delve of the tables in the DMG and comes out with some benchpark numbers for your campaign to use or intentionally deviate from. 90% 0th level humans, 5% 1st level, 2.5% 2nd level, then halve each time after that until you hit Name level, at which point you have to deviate from the progression for high level characters to exist at all. Fighters are the most common class, with wizards & clerics equal second, then thieves, and everything else a tiny minority. Curiously, Greyhawk is somewhat lower magic and more rogue-heavy than this, as it's intended to be a more gritty campaign world than Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms. So this is a very interesting little discovery, that takes you behind the scenes and points out some stuff about the AD&D implied setting that was in the books all the time, but most people would have missed. It's amazing what you can discover by applied analysis of statistics and why a designer shouldn't neglect them, otherwise your world may end up dramatically different than you intended.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 30: May/Jun 1986



part 2/5



In Defense of the Lowly Fighter: Looks like all the articles on keeping fighters interesting by roleplaying have been in vain, especially since Unearthed Arcana gave us a couple of new fighty classes that do have other interesting abilities on top. This article complains that no-one wants to play fighters in his game, and they're increasingly light on humans in general too. The supposed balancing factor of lower level limits is hardly ever an issue in actual play, and higher hit points and strength pales against actually having a decent selection of powers to choose from, many of which bypass combat entirely if used cleverly. What are we to do about that? You can take the 3e route, and try to give everyone more cool options, or you can take the 4e route, and reduce all the classes down to a tightly proscribed set of powers that are described entirely in terms of their combat effect. What definitely will not work longterm is petty nerfs without changing the overall structure of the game, as people will keep on coming up with new spells, classes and races and fighters will once again wind up looking boring by comparison. I guess it is always easier to identify a problem than come up with a solution. Not very impressed with this article.



Ravager part 1: Another tournament adventure gets spread to the wider public now it's no longer a secret. Jeff Grubb gives us a tale of a man who's made himself immortal and unkillable by hiding his life essence away. (An idea he'd reuse and finally make available to PC's many years later in the Al-Qadim setting books.) Obviously, the PC's have to figure out how he did it, hunt down the thing making him invulnerable, and destroy it before finally taking the archvillain on directly. A pretty cool plot, that in practice turns into another small, mostly linear site based dungeon, because those 4 hour tournament slots just don't have the room (and D&D lacks the rules) for lengthy social intrigues and researching. The pregen characters once again have terrible puns for names and relationships with one-another that seem designed to encourage IC bickering. The actual adventure has some quite interesting encounters, and while it does have some bits that reward cleverness and negotiation, it isn't a pixelbitcher like the Tomb of Horrors or Needle that'll kill you without a save if you make a single wrong decision. It's an entertaining enough way to fill a session, but I can't escape the feeling it would be a much more epic plot if the players could get involved at an earlier stage and discover the threat organically, then have to figure out the solution themselves instead of just reading the exposition and being dumped at the dungeon. An updated and expanded version would be very welcome.



The Treasure Chest: Another reminder of their exclusive modules. Nothing new to see here.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 30: May/Jun 1986



part 3/5



Fletcher's Corner: This column delivers something completely non-helpful and somewhat absurdist that I strongly suspect was intended for the april issue then delayed for space reasons. We have half-elves and half-orcs. Think what other cool combinations of races you could combine, and through generations of selective breeding, create something with powers from all of them! Ahahaha! That's a joke that simply doesn't work post 3e, which gave you plenty of options for stacking powers from multiple species via templates, bloodline and racial levels treated completely straight, and not overpowering because each one added on their own corresponding ECL modifiers that if anything, would work out underpowered unless you combined templates with very specific stacking synergies. (like Troll and something with fire & acid immunity) This is an instance where the joke isn't funny anymore, because it's trying to mock something that's become commonplace and completely normal, as if it were an absurd idea only twinks would allow in their game. So this is the gaming equivalent of all those 90's movies about the perils of internet dating, mildly amusing as an anachronism, but full of false assumptions in hindsight. It's amazing how often nebulous hyperbolic problems turn out to not actually be problems with a bit more experience.



Beware the new Golems: New monsters? I thought that was one of the things they specifically didn't want. Getting more reader submissions once again seems to be eroding their differentiation from Dragon. Oh well, all the new spells last year turned out pretty interesting. Let's hope the quality is high enough that worrying about petty details of niche protection won't seem like a big deal after the fact.

Copper Golems are perpetually red-hot, which means they do heat damage to everyone near them, and can be killed by immersion in water. Even if you don't have magic weapons, that means smart low level characters can still have a chance of beating them. Good to see this article embracing the puzzle monster side of these things.

Oak Golems are created by druids, and work best in natural environments where they can command the plants to Entangle their opponents and make sure they can't get away. Having your own druid in the party gives you the best shot at beating one, as only fire and spells that specifically affect wood will do anything against them.

Brass Golems have a perpetual wholesome glow, that they can intensify to a level that fries creatures vulnerable to sunlight. They can only be created by Good wizards, and lack the control loss dangers many other Golems come with. If you fit the prerequisites, making one seems a lot more sensible than many of your other options.

Shadow Golems let Illusionists make something a little more solid to guard their treasure. They're near invisible in shadows, and drain strength with each hit like the undead. They fit exactly the same combat niche, but for higher level parties. Thankfully direct sunlight will kill them, and like most golems, they move slower than an unladen human, so you can still escape them by heading for the surface and praying it's still daytime, or bringing a Brass Golem along to kick their ass. A pretty good collection of monsters which gives them all interesting quirks and makes them accessible to being created by PC's as well.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 30: May/Jun 1986



part 4/5



Little Miss Sure Shot: A bit of Boot Hill material for the first time in quite a while. It does seem to have been more popular in here, and they have fewer reader submissions in general, so they can let those niche articles through. So here's one on the life of Annie Oakley, as dramatised in the musical Annie Get Your Gun. She was never a cowgirl or outlaw - she only played one on the stage, but her sharpshooting skills were completely genuine. (when your stock in trade is trick shots, you need a lot of skill to reliably NOT hurt anyone. ) Any chauvinist characters who run across her may indeed find that anything they can do, she can do better. (although I'm not absolutely certain about that, as the formatting on her stats is messed up, so I'm not sure how badass they actually are.) So as a flavour piece this is pretty decent, giving you a whole load of plot ideas about how she could be used in a game, but on a mechanical level, it fails due to poor editing. You need to be careful with your kerning when designing tables on computer, as one mistake can put all the numbers in the wrong columns.



New and Old: Jim Ward is still keeping a close hold over Gamma World, keeping it not only alive, but making a new edition for it. If we go by the frequency that happens, it must be easily their best selling game after the two different types of D&D. So this is your standard promotional article selling the new edition by telling us all the improvements he's made to the rules. Your years of actual play and sending in letters complaining about various bits and pieces have not been in vain! More weapons! Better categorisation for tech! More Mutations! Better fleshed out cryptic alliances! A regular schedule of supplements, including one that updates Metamorphosis Alpha! Pretty decent sales pitch. If only they'd edited it better, maybe the supplements would have sold better, and they'd have have kept it going long enough to finish the module series. It's no good adding a load of improved peripherals if you neglect the basics.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 30: May/Jun 1986



part 5/5



Dispel Confusion is back, in another sign that they're working hard to return to business as usual.

Is a lance identical to a spear when used on foot? (pretty much)

Do psionics manifest instantly? (1 segment, so not quite)

Can you see through your own Darkness spell? (not without other powers that specifically allow it.)

Why do monster hit chances cap out at 16 HD? (diminishing returns set in.)

How long does it take to switch classes? (at least a month or two of downtime)

Does magic armor also give you save bonuses vs nonmagical fire or cold? (if it allows a save in the first place)

Why don't undead spellcasters need spellbooks? (They do. As to why one specific one doesn't, maybe they're a sorcerer and the rest of the world hasn't caught up yet.)

Can non-corporeal undead fly? (if they have a fly speed)

What spell level is the automatic spell you learn when you level up? (the highest level you can cast. No point having those slots and nothing to put in them.)



The Critical Hit: Our reviews also return from their hiatus, to give us one on Timemaster. While still a recommendation overall, this is the least positive review they've done so far, as while it has some cool ideas, it's also very much a first edition, and needs some more editing and errata to really shine, as well as a strong knowledge of real world history to create adventures for it. Of course, you could always go wild with the parallel timelines and not have to worry about that instead. It's not as if the canon police are going to knock on your door for doing it wrong, or rewrite this timeline so you never existed in the first place as a punishment …… right?



After a string of great issues, this one is distinctly under par, with a mix of boring, cheesy, underwhelming and promising but badly edited articles bringing down the good ones. They've run out of big special features, and now it's back to mundane life again. Let's see how long it takes for them to produce something to celebrate about again.