TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 38: Oct/Nov/Dec 1987



part 1/5



36 pages. Put some trousers on man! Thigh high boots and a loincloth will not provide adequate protection against a dungeon full of kobolds, oozes and carrion crawlers. On the other hand, if you're only going up against creatures significantly taller than you, I guess it's not so much of an issue, and you'll appreciate having a bit more freedom of movement. Let's see what we'll actually be up against this time around, and if it'll be an easy challenge or a profoundly unfair one.



Notes From HQ: Everything's been running late this year, so it's not that surprising that their postscript of this year's Gen Con is late as well. Once again it was bigger than last year, and more games were happening at the same time, making choosing which one you want to join the most increasingly difficult. The list of tournament adventures for both the various D&D settings and other games is quite impressive, including both the sublime and the ridiculous (another instalment of Fluffyquest? Haven't we suffered enough?!) All the kerfuffle in the letters page about needing more volunteers seems to have actually paid off, and they try to make sure all the generous people who did it for exposure do actually get the appropriate credit. The biggest complaints were a few hygiene issues that mean con crud was particularly unpleasant for those of delicate constitution. It's all a bit of a relief really. Let's hope they'll be able to keep that streak going next year, and maybe even improve on it.



Arcane Academe: Unsurprisingly, this series moves on to wizards and illusionists. The crucial thing about them, even more than divine spellcasters, is not only the wide choice of spells you have, but also the ability to create your own. If your DM allows it and you have a bit of downtime between adventures, you should exploit it for all it's worth and develop counters for any challenges that turn up repeatedly. Once you get over that early level hump where you're squishy and can only do one or two cool things per day, you have by far the most flexibility of any class. If only fighters had the same encouragement to develop special fighting tricks so each has their own personal style. (I guess there's always the Street Fighter RPG for that) Once again, this reinforces that Wizards are easy mode not only for optimising yourself, but the rest of the party as well. They may die quicker without a cleric, but they're more likely to hit a problem that completely stumps them without a wizard. It really pays off to invest in them long-term.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 38: Oct/Nov/Dec 1987



part 2/5



Welcome to Magic-User University: Of course, a big reason wizards don't run roughshod over the other classes in-setting is because they're supposed to be much rarer and require years of specialist (and expensive) training before they can cast even one spell. People who can just do magic instinctively, or take shortcuts to have it infused into them won't be mechanically supported for another 2 editions yet. Here's another excellent example of the balancing factors most groups ignore in-game, breaking down the sheer quantity of things there are to learn to get a solid grasp of magic theory, in the format of a three year degree course with 1-4 credits for each unit, requiring you to pass about 75% of the units in each year to get a basic grade and not be flunked out or have to repeat them next year. It's simultaneously aware of the silliness of it's premise, while taking the anal attention to detail very seriously. Unless you're planning to run a wizard school game, I very much doubt it'll see any use in actual play, but it's still an amusing read. The rules are not the physics, and there's a lot going on that we usually gloss over. It's good to have the extra details in optional rules so you can bring it into focus when a game needs it.



The Critical Hit: This column engages in another round of self-promotion for TSR's own products, with a review of Unearthed Arcana. Thats a good two years old already! Couldn't you have chosen something a little newer? As usual, he tries to be as positive as possible, but even he can't ignore the facts that the editing is atrocious, the binding is shoddy, the whole thing was a cheap rush job, and a lot of the material is recycled from magazine articles. But it does give both players and DM's a lot of cool toys to play with. Which is really the secret of it's popularity, as at that time, the vast majority of products they released were purely DM facing, new adventures with perhaps a few new monsters, and if you were very lucky a unique spell or magic item to add to your repertoire. If it had been just one of many new sets of crunch like the 3e splatbooks, people would have been far less forgiving of it's flaws, and it would not be remembered today save as a minor footnote in the product lists. A somewhat irritating reminder of the lower design standards and slower pace things moved at back then.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 38: Oct/Nov/Dec 1987



part 3/5



Escape from Demoncoomb Mountain: The adventure this issue is a somewhat comedic curveball, featuring a single human and his 5 sentient magical items. Each player picks one of the items, (sword, wand, gauntlets, boots & ring) and you use your various powers to help your hapless human get through a fairly standard single session sized dungeon. If you disagree with the other items, the rules for ego control come into play (which is obviously why there's an odd number of them, to reduce the chances of a stalemate grinding play to a halt) Like most of the adventures in here, it's obviously designed as a tournament one, but it makes good use of the format, doing something unique while still being adaptable to a standard adventure, and providing inspiration for you to create your own quirky magical items with unique sets of powers and personalities. As it works on an unusually high number of levels, I definitely approve of this one. You can have nonstandard characters as PC's without breaking the system, sometimes very nonstandard indeed, you just need to use your imagination.



Making the Grade: In the early days of the newszine, we had a few people worrying that roleplaying would hurt children's grades. Even more quickly than the satanic panic, it's become obvious that this is nonsense. Participating in any RPG will give you a seamless boost in your basic math and language skills, plus history if they're remotely realistic, geography if they involve travelling and mapping, religious education if you actually care about the source of your cleric's powers and what they do when not adventuring, etc. This particular teacher has introduced it to their school, and found it an excellent way to make learning fun. What's even more significant is it's ability to develop social skills and teach you how to work together effectively in small groups, which is incredibly useful in nearly any real world job. This is particularly noticeable with a certain kind of neurodivergence that struggles with social interaction, and tends towards obsessive focus on a particular interest, helping them learn to function in the world by giving them structured interactions with other people. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? So this illustrates a struggle that's still happening today, between the fact that people actually learn better when education is also fun, and people who want to force learning by rote to score well on standardised tests, cut funding to the arts and anything else that doesn't have an obvious function, and seem to actively want to make education unpleasant for both students and teachers. A literally textbook example of how evil is stupid and self-sabotaging in the long run. If you genuinely want to get the most out of people, you need to learn how to effectively apply kindness, not push them to burnout in the name of efficiency, then replace them with a new set of people that don't have the experience to do the job as well. (and will never gain it if you make constant churn your standard operating procedure)

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 38: Oct/Nov/Dec 1987



part 4/5



Magic Theory By Degree: A third wizard-focussed article here, effectively making this a proper themed issue. This sees them continue to tackle the thorny topic of specialist spellcasters, and how to make them interesting, but also balanced with generalist wizards. Well it won't be by hijacking the new nonweapon proficiency system, and requiring them to spend one slot for each school they want access to at all, and a second to gain the benefits of specialisation. That essentially destroys their ability to be well-rounded characters, while also increasing the gap between low and high level ones. Even Masque of the Red Death used a separate set of resource slots when doing something similar to nerf their spellcasters. So this makes a rookie mistake that'll show up several times over the 2e era, trying to use the proficiency system for something it's really not intended for, and doesn't give you enough slots to do properly, especially when there are several different supplements that have the same problem, overlapping poorly. Not recommended at all.



On the Road to The Living City: A few of the people who set out early have already made it inside the walls, but we have one more of these articles for everyone else. Instead of trying to trick you or sell you goods of dubious quality, they instead set you a moral dilemma stolen directly from Chaucer, as a pair of feuding knights try to get the better of one-another by fair means or foul. Will you side with one or the other, try to compromise and get them to kiss and make up, or will you spot the reference, realise they're both as bad as each other, and put a pox on both their houses? Could be amusing, especially if you ham up the roleplaying side and include all the florid dialogue and inventive insults from ye olde english source material. It's a well D&D doesn't go back to that often, as it's more interested in greek myth and modern high fantasy, so I can live with this being a bit derivative. Stealing from an unusual source is a good way to make what you come up with more different than trying to just make it all up yourself.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 38: Oct/Nov/Dec 1987



part 5/5



The New Rogues Gallery: Another 5 characters that are clearly just an actual adventuring group sent in by their players. A ranger that's been half turned into a tree, probably because there's no PC-friendly Ent race in D&D and they really wanted to play one. A dashing acrobat with a magical boomerang. An arrogant yet loyal and protective wizard. A somewhat rebellious wandering cleric. And a somewhat more cunning than usual cavalier. All are unambiguously heroic and get along with one-another pretty well, so your reasons to come into conflict with them are pretty limited. Another of these articles that won't be very useful for other people's campaigns. I can understand why people would want to write them, but not why they would want to read them.



The Role of Taxes: Now here's a topic that shows up over and over again. Reminders that taxes are a thing, and maybe you should remember to include them in your game appeared several times in Dragon, with varying degrees of humorousness over the years. Here's another single page article that plays it fairly straight, reminding us that all these kingdoms need to keep themselves economically functional in some way or another, but also that although things have GP values listed in the books, this is just a ballpark, and prices can vary widely due to supply, demand and your negotiating ability. (unless things do have an objective magically determinable price in your universe, like people have alignment, which would have very interesting ramifications on your world if explored logically) Similarly, if you're sufficiently badass, your group effectively becomes a state in itself and can largely ignore taxes, just like many real world corporations that pay negligible or even negative amounts through a combination of offshore accounts, loopholes, rebates and subsidies. But in the meantime, you're going to have to deal with arbitrary percentages of your money and stuff being taken away when you go back to town. Strong incentive to not take it all back, and keep it in somewhere well hidden (possibly with guardian monsters and traps, in which case we're right back where we started ) until you need it. I guess the important thing is that if you're going to make a big deal out of tax enforcement in your game, you need to do it in an interesting way that generates more adventures, not a boring one that just irritates the players and wastes time. At least this article has it's priorities straight in that respect.



Pleasing to see a proper themed issue in here, but there's a lot of stuff in it that's not very useful, due to a combination of self-indulgent whimsy and clumsy experimentation. Since those two things turned up a lot in the 2e era, I guess it's a sign of the times. Just got to keep on picking out the good bits and discarding the rest. Let's see how next issue fares compared to Sturgeon's law.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 8: Nov/Dec 1987



part 1/5



65 pages. Samurai, ninjas, demons and flaming tigers, oh my. They're obviously still getting plenty of Oriental Adventures submissions then. Let's see how important the cultural elements and worldbuilding will be to the adventures this time around. Will it be dungeon crawls with a slightly different set of monsters, or will the unique setting details be crucial to the plot? Time to unroll the scroll and see how finely it's been inscribed.



Editorial: If producing one magazine per month was a lot of work, just think how much 2 is. So this editorial is basically Barbara complaining that she doesn't have enough time for reading, computer games and other recreation due to the long hours of the job. RPG editor might sound like a dream job when you're a kid playing the games, but it definitely has it's drawbacks. On the plus side, it also means they can browse the internet on the company dime (which is of course a much bigger issue as they still charge by the minute to connect) and call it community outreach. At least, until Rob Repp cracks down on D&D stuff online, slaps their wrists and sends out a bunch of Cease & Desists to the websites, but that's still in the future. For now, their relationship with online communication is friendly. That's interesting to know. We never did find out exactly when that changed in Dragon. I wonder if we will in here.



Letters: Our first letter features some examples of how they've altered the adventures in previous issues for their group. It's amazing how little you need to change to make it unrecognisable to players who've read the magazine. Don't complain because it's not exactly what you wanted, get to kit-bashing and use the parts to your own ends.

The other one also reiterates how easy it is to mix and match basic & advanced modules. More frequent artwork would be nice though. That's not so easy for us to create or adapt ourselves.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 8: Nov/Dec 1987



part 2/5



Mountain Sanctuary: In a pleasing bit of continuity, this adventure takes one of the potential plot hooks dropped in issue 1, and expands it into a sequel adventure. (that's still entirely capable of being used standalone as well) What's in the former home of an illusionist? A certain amount of treasure, but also a whole load of annoying little creatures - fae, giant insects, rats, and intelligent mice that have somehow picked up illusionist skills. Essentially, this is a showcase for how annoying fighting smaller enemies can be, especially in a dungeon environment where many of the tunnels are too small for you. Unless you have halfling & gnome party members or some means of shrinking yourself, (which thankfully is part of the treasure you can find) you get subjected to a whole bunch of tricks, traps and hit & run attacks, which you'll struggle to pursue. It's definitely an interesting theme for a dungeon, which it sticks too pretty strictly, but also one your players may hate you for using. Guess it all depends on how sadistic you're feeling then. At least it's fairly short, so even if they struggle with it, it won't drag out more than a couple of sessions.



For a Lady's Honor: A second all-thief adventure, just 8 months after the first one, and they haven't even put any other single-class focussed adventures in? How curious. Still, since this is aimed a couple of levels higher, it would be very easy to use it as a sequel with the same characters. The PC's get hired by their guild to engage in a heist in the big city, stealing back a rich lady's precious keepsake and keeping her affair from being exposed. As usual, it probably won't go smooth, as you're on a fairly strict time limit, and there's a bunch of intentional obstacles and random encounters in the way. Although you're supposed to do it stealthily, it may well degenerate into violence or capturing and interrogating the thief, as the stolen thing is pretty well hidden. So this is interesting because it offers lots of room for failing without dying, from succeeding, but more messily than you'd like, to being captured by the authorities and having to deal with the legal consequences. Seems like a decent palate-cleanser for when you're sick of missions where enemies are irredeemable monsters and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 8: Nov/Dec 1987



part 3/5



In Defense of the Law: In deliberate contrast with the last adventure, and as another sign that they're intentionally including adventures that won't be for every group, here's one aimed strongly at Lawful PC's, where you're dealing with both chaotic evil and lawful evil groups, and have to decide if you want to ally with the lawful evil ones, or take them both out at once even though it'll be considerably tougher. Other than that gimmick, it's a pretty standard dungeon crawl in the Temple of Elemental Evil tradition, with clerics as the big bads rather than wizards, and a mix of monsters that'll work together under them and react to events elsewhere in the dungeon, and others that just sit in their rooms and attack anything that enters. It's a curious mix of old and new school design, with the shades of grey throwing the blacks into sharper relief. Fittingly, it leaves me thoroughly ambivalent about using it, as the bits where there's real effort at setting building make the bits that are just there for the sake of dungeon crawling xp accumulation feel more gamey and artificial. Funny how that works.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 8: Nov/Dec 1987



part 4/5



The Wounded Worm: Dragon regular Thomas M. Kane gives us another adventure that does exactly what it says on the tin. A crippled dragon is looking for a cleric powerful enough to heal it. Being an evil dragon, the concept of exchanging money for goods and services is not one that occurs to it, and so it's engaging in an elaborate pyramid scheme of capturing and mind-controlling people, then sending them out to capture more people to mindfuck, in the hope of getting hold of someone who can fix it, while it turtles at the bottom of a dungeon underneath the sea. This scheme obviously runs into the players, one way or another, and they need to foil it or become it's latest set of mind-controlled slaves. This is interesting in a number of ways, as it combines several different gimmicks in a sufficiently complex way that I doubt I'll see it precisely replicated, and once again gives you room to fail without it being the end of your character. That they've done that in two adventures this issue shows they're really thinking about how to tell more interesting stories in here, and it's just a shame that it happened in this relatively small department of TSR, rather than the 2e development team, where they could have made actual mechanical changes that make nonlethal failures easier to achieve. But no. Adventure designers who want to tell more literary stories will continue to have to fight the system for the foreseeable future. Anyway, I quite like this one. None of the individual elements are original, but there's an interesting combination of ingredients and they're put together well. That's the way to keep things interesting long term.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 8: Nov/Dec 1987



part 5/5



The Flowers of Flame: Our last and longest adventure follows in the footsteps of Tortles of the Purple Sage, in being an area sourcebook as well as an individual plot. Go to fantasy Tibet with the serial numbers barely filed off, and become pawns in a complex political plot that also deals with the real relationship between tibet and china with magical stuff added in. Maybe you can give the story a rather happier ending than the real world. Either way, it should take a good month or two of game time, with plenty of opportunities to get lost along the way. It's somewhat darker and more linear than TotPS, with the same "random" encounters turning up wherever the PC's may wander to push them towards the main plot, plenty of gruesome deaths and nasty tricks, and the decidedly cynical attitude towards the government all the OA adventures so far have shared. Not as epic as I thought it was going to be at the start, but another solid way to spend a few sessions.



With a real effort to include plots with stakes that aren't life and death in every encounter, this shows definite progression towards the 2e style of writing and adventure design, but thankfully avoids the worst of the railroading that will plague them in the future. Let's head into 1988 and see how long that continues to be the case as their settings and metaplots accumulate more detail and feel the need to escalate to keep people interested.