TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 3: Jan/Feb 1987




part 1/5



68 pages. Well, this is an odd selection of fashion and colour choices. Either these explosions are happening in the middle of the night, and everyone's fleeing in their bedclothes, or this is set in a land before the invention of trousers. Let's see where this set of adventures will take us, and if they'll bother to include much culture and worldbuilding amongst them.



Editorial: Only a couple of issues in, and Roger is already noticing very definite patterns in the submitted adventures. People love their evil wizard masterminds, so a vastly disproportionate number of big bads are wizards or illusionists. Illusionists are even less likely than generalist spellcasters to appear as anything other than enemies. A trickster who uses their powers for good? What is this, a saturday morning cartoon?! Meanwhile, the lesser enemies are most likely to be interchangeble fighty sorts. Why not mix things up, have a high level fighter leading an army of low level wizards each using their one or two spells a day in a logistically intelligent manner? You can't avoid cliches entirely, but at least you can mix them up and subvert them sometimes, and that's how you keep them from getting boring.



Letters: Our first two letters are about the logistics of submitting to the magazine, just like Polyhedron. They really need to get the number of submissions up for both publications, so they're pushing hard to get this sorted out.

Next we have a bit of errata for one of the adventures last issue. Perfectly normal editing mistake.

Then we have a letter asking where all the modules for evil parties are? Bad guys can break into random people & creature's homes, kill them and take their stuff too. It's not exclusively a thing heroes do.

Finally, we have someone afraid their players will buy the magazine too and know the adventures they're using on them. That could be said of using any prefab module. That's why you should change things around or use it as inspiration to make your own instead.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 3: Jan/Feb 1987




part 2/5



Falcon's Peak: This issue, instead of leading with a long and spectacular adventure, they decide to sort them by order of level, starting with one for starting level characters and working their way up. Not a bad policy, if they'd stuck with it, (they don't) as they're the ones most likely to actually get played. All the things Roger talked about in the editorial are on full display here, as you have to deal with a bunch of brigands and hobgoblins, led by a wizard. So yeah, this doesn't do anything particularly innovative. What it does do well is make the place feel like a living event rather than just a bunch of monsters lurking in their rooms until someone kills them - the brigands have a plan, move around, take captives, will reinforce each other, and will generally respond like people who want to make a profit and not die instead of charging screaming at the players. It's all a little bit smarter than the likes of Keep on the borderlands. No problems with this one, but no high praise either.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 3: Jan/Feb 1987




part 3/5



Blood on the Snow: After getting very annoyed at the wasted opportunity Polyhedron made of it's Finnish adventures, it's very pleasing to see one in here which does properly take into account the everyday challenges of arctic life, and makes it a big part of your experience. It even uses a lot of the same mythological stuff, with both Norse & Finnish gods worshipped in the settlement. The seal hunters are having a lot of trouble with bandits this season, and the guildmaster suspects it's an inside job. So the PC's are hired to join the hunters on their expedition to protect them in case of attack, and try and figure out who the traitor might be. That makes this an unusual combination of wilderness adventure and detective story, with plenty of opportunities for roleplaying amid the intrinsic dangers of the terrain. (so think carefully before you pick fights with people, as you could get the right person and still freeze to death before you get home if not careful.) There's still some simplification, (the amount of daylight would actually have changed by well over an hour during the course of this two week timeline) but this goes a long way towards showing you just how many seemingly innocuous things can kill you when the temperature gets this low. It gives you both variety and freedom, while still giving you plenty of chances to naughty word up and suffer in non-lethal ways. (frostbite is no joke until you can afford a regeneration spell.) Unless your players aren't fond of the gritty in general, or get squeamish about realistic depictions of hunting and prefer to stick to killing orcs and dragons I can highly recommend it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 3: Jan/Feb 1987



part 4/5



The Deadly Sea: Ah yes, underwater adventures. If we were going by overall world geography and demographics, they ought to make up 70% of adventures. In practice, until merpeople become gamers, that's never going to happen. Still, this is welcome, even though only half it's content is actually underwater. Since it assumes the PC's are regular surface-dwelling adventurers and only have access to short-term water breathing powers, you need to sail a ship to find the place, facing the usual assortment of random swimming beasties, stopping off at a cliffside citadel that's been taken over by pirates to get more information. Once down there, they have to deal with both good and evil underwater creatures living in an uneasy truce, and getting to know the factions and play them off against one another will be more effective than just trying to kill everything, especially for groups that aren't used to underwater tactics. A pretty decent amount of variety here, and another one that isn't just a straight hack and slasher. Another good use of their page count that probably wouldn't sell well as a standalone adventure, but is handy to have in your arsenal.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 3: Jan/Feb 1987



part 5/5



The Book With No End: We finish off with a good old quest for a powerful artifact that could help it's owner take over the world …… or destroy it! Fittingly for it's name, this is the longest single-part adventure they've published yet, at 24 pages. Like the last two adventures, you actually have to seriously worry about the weather getting there, in this case a blasted desert created by the artifact that'll have them wandering lost for days and dying of dehydration if they don't have their naughty word together. Once you get there, you face a typical wizard's tower filled with traps, illusions, puzzles and magically summoned guardians. Some of them you'll be able to get around if you pay attention, think like a crossword puzzle solver, and use your divinations to give you further clues, but some you'll probably wind up fighting your way through. Some of the best treasure in here is found on the bodies of previous adventurers that failed, while the artifact itself is a booby prize that'll probably rapidly result in your downfall if you keep it. (unless you're a considerably higher level character than the adventure is aimed at, and have the skills to reverse engineer and improve on the original design, which is the kind of thing that's out of the scope of the AD&D system. ) It's all mildly irritating. Not one I find myself with any real desire to use.



With mountains, arctic, sea and desert, it seems like they went for a selection of less common wilderness terrains this issue to keep the variety up. Even if it's not an explicit theme, that's another way to pick out a complimentary collection from the submissions pile. The overall quality isn't quite as good as the first issue, once again confirming they probably saved up for that to make a splash. I guess I'd better see how they do next time, and if there's any particular patterns in the adventures they chose for that one.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 35: Mar/Apr 1987



part 1/5



31 pages. A static shot of a party of adventurers standing and posing for the camera? This doesn't suggest any particular exciting plotline. Oh well, at least they're not all going raar, like they will be in the early 2000's. Let's see what their relationships to one-another are, and if anything in here is worth using for our own games.



Notes from HQ drops the second and third word in it's title due to guest editor sloppiness. In their efforts to make themselves financially stable, they've decided to do an inflation-busting price rise on their club membership dues, which have remained the same for the last 5 years, since they started the idea. Given that they haven't promoted the scheme much since then, I wonder how many new clubs have actually joined anyway. On the plus side, they're stepping up the benefits for belonging, a plaque, some extra gaming books for the needy, and first shot at playtesting stuff, including the next edition of the core rules. They're not keeping that a secret at all, are they. It's been obvious since 1985 that they were planning it, unlike 3e & 4e, where they kept quiet until only a year before release. Different eras, and a different company. Another interesting little thread of history that hopefully I'll see follow-ups on in the future.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 35: Mar/Apr 1987



part 2/5



Letters: Our first letter is from one of their contributors, praising the people who do put in time and effort to improve the newszine, and telling the rest of the readers to just get on with it and submit articles with less worrying about if you're good enough or not. Even if you aren't, you'll improve your writing by the process of trying. What have you got to lose?

Next we have the suggestion that they need more presence in little conventions if they're to grow. If people have to drive all day, or even take a flight because there's none near them, they're only going to do it once or twice a year, and not going to consider a membership worth the money. They're entirely in favor of that, but it's very much a chicken and egg problem. Be the network externality you want to see.

Finally, we have a letter from someone who's very much in favour of being all squeaky clean, co-operation, equal shares of treasure, no sex, no, drugs, no PvP, proper warning labels on everything. You'll get bored eventually, and when you do, the dark side will be waiting….



Rogues Gallery: This column gets a bit of a glow-up, putting the statblocks in full-page spreads like their official character sheets, with ability score modifiers, to-hit tables, comeliness, saving throw numbers, height, weight, full descriptions of magic items, etc. However, while this may look nice, it definitely feels like padding, repeating stuff you could easily look up in the core book at the expense of putting more info on their history and personality. Their personalities are pretty bland too, very standard for their class and race and very little on their histories and interpersonal relationships. So in conclusion, this is a triumph of style over substance, stretching out over 6 pages when it could easily have fit all it's info into half that, and another step down in terms of actually giving us things that are useful in actual play, as without distinctive personality quirks, there's not much reason to come into conflict with these guys. At least the female dwarf has a beard.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 35: Mar/Apr 1987



part 3/5



And All The King's Men: Our Finnish tournament modules take a turn for the increasingly railroady, expecting the players to stand by dumbfounded while political machinations and assassinations happen, and then follow the mission given to them despite it being fairly obvious they're being played. The person you rescued last instalment gets assassinated with no chance to save them, the king gets nearly assassinated, and the meat of the actual adventure is an abandoned warehouse, which isn't very cultural at all. It all smells somewhat of filler, like they decided how many rounds they were going to have before they wrote the adventure, and had to pad out the number of events to get that number. It's thrown into particularly sharp relief by the more open-ended modules in Dungeon that are using an interesting variety of terrain-based and social challenges. To top it all off, it seems like they've skipped an instalment, as last issue was part 2, and this one says part 4. That's more a problem with the overall chaos in the staff rather than the writers of this adventure, but it shows how little they have their naughty word together with the revolving door of guest editors. This isn't going well at all.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 35: Mar/Apr 1987



part 4/5



The Undead Bole: They follow straight on with round 5, so they're filling a full 17 pages with this adventure, more than half the issue. Having long since given up on maintaining consistency of naming in their NPC's, they now decide to blatantly rip off The Black Cauldron, which was in turn based on Welsh myth. That's almost on the other side of europe entirely! So you have to take on a cavalcade of souped-up turn resistant undead, wind up being naughty word over by another bit of no save trickery, and then railroaded into another linear quest to destroy the macguffin. They do at least include a full-frontal assault option and a stealth one for getting through the challenges, and some attempts to build spooky atmosphere, but this is really showing how linear and annoying multi-part tournament adventures become, especially ones where the parties are remixed every time, so you can't even have any consequences from previous rounds carry over to the next one if a team does do particularly well or badly. You have to completely idiot-proof the exposition and turn the scenery into static invincible backdrops to keep things on the rails. It just goes against the things an RPG is good at, to the point where you might as well be playing a computer game.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 35: Mar/Apr 1987



part 5/5



The Critical Hit: Ghostbusters! There's a franchise that proved surprisingly long-lived and resilient, largely due to the strength of the spin-offs. (until Slimer became increasingly dominant and ruined everything) Along with the cartoon and toy line, they also published an RPG, and that's obviously what Errol reviews here. Produced by the same people who did Paranoia, it's system light, low lethality fun with a basic dramatic editing system (which unfortunately doubles as XP and HP, making you have to choose between being cool now, or advancement in the future) similar to the Marvel Superheroic one. Of course, given the nature of the game, advancement isn't that important anyway, and there's not that much to spend it on, so it's a question of how long the basic gameplay loop of hunting ghosts and juggling your everyday human troubles can keep going before you get bored. It might show it's age a bit these days but there are still many far worse licensed games out there.



Convention Announcements: Most of the announcements this month are for conventions in november. One is even called Novocon rather than being based on where it's being held. Shows once again how far you need to plan ahead if you want people to come, and to have enough for them to see there.



A very disappointing and messy issue indeed, with only a few big articles, all bad, poor editing, a load of padding and repetition to stretch the amount of content they have to the length of a full issue, and a raft of people angry with them in the letters page. At least they're being honest and admitting that they're struggling, but it doesn't make the content any better. Once again I'm forced to move swiftly onward and hope that they're a little more on top of things next issue, because there's not much worth salvaging from this one.