TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 26: Nov/Dec 1990



part 5/5



Nine-Tenth's of the Law: Curiously, the cover adventure is not the longest one in the issue for a change. Thankfully, it breaks the streak of adventures that just dump the trouble in your lap for a nicely nonlinear detective story. You get hired by a priest to find a guy infected with lycanthropy who escaped in the middle of the ritual to cure him. Now he's cutting a bloody swathe through the townsfolk at night and refusing to turn himself in even when he's in human form for highly spoilerific reasons. Obviously you'll get paid better if you bring him in alive for curing, but after a few days of this, just killing him will be a satisfactory result to the locals. With several different layers of secrets going on, this is one with plenty of room for different degrees of success or failure without killing the players, with a similar variety of possibilities of different long-term consequences for your campaign depending on the choices you make. Willie Walsh has once again given us something quirky where the worldbuilding is almost as important as the plot, so there's plenty of room for reusing and building upon the things provided here for other adventures. As long as he can come up with new twists each time, I think there's room for plenty more of these without getting repetitive.



There's still plenty of variety in here, but there is also a definite increase in adventures that push the PC's into the action with a stick rather than a carrot. That's a change that could rapidly become obnoxious if it proves to be a trend. Guess I'd better head into the next year and see if my worst fears are justified, or it's all the manipulation of paranoia-inducing phantoms.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991



part 1/5



35 pages. In the year 2525! There are women with the will to survi-i-ive! Fighting to reclaim the earth! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you come in. I was a little bit … distracted by the cover for this issue. It looks like we're in a cheesecake retro-futurism mood this issue. Of course, given their code of conduct, we can be pretty sure the contents inside won't get beyond PG rating, but that doesn't mean they can't be interesting. Time to start another year and see if there's anything fresh in here, or just the same old same old with a new coat of paint.



Notes From HQ: The editorial is extra large this issue, with sections aimed at both new and established members. First and most importantly, they're finally big enough and getting enough submissions to go monthly! While this does come with a price rise for membership, as they hinted might be coming a few months ago, it means twice the content for only a third more cost, and you don't have to pay extra until it's time to renew your subscription. Hopefully you went for the 2 year one then. Just like the Dragon run, the 90's is going to go by considerably slower than the 80's did for me. The other parts are more normal. An introduction to the staff with photos, for those of you who were wondering who's behind all this, and a reminder of their procedure for making your tournament games officially accredited so you can gain XP both as a player and a GM. Remember, you need to notify them a full 6 months in advance if you're running a convention, for the wheels of bureaucracy move slow and inscrutably. They're also getting ever more elaborate, because having instituted persistent Raven's Bluff characters that gain XP recently, they're now creating adventures that you can only play if you've worked your way up legally within the system. Seems to me that it'll be pretty hard to find enough players who are also high enough level to play the harder ones at all outside of Gen Con, but I guess that keeps people from advancing too quickly and outgrowing the system. It does seem like they're creating a lot of extra work for themselves, but I guess it's the struggles and dramas that'll keep this journey interesting in the long run. Let's hope we get some good responses to these changes in the letters page in an issue or two's time.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991



part 2/5



Letters: The first letter asks how hard it is to become a Gen Con tournament Judge. As long as you can fill in forms on time and know your way around a few RPG systems, not hard at all. There's never enough compared to the amount of players to go around, so step up now or forever hold your peace, because if you wait until a month or two before the convention it'll be too late.

Second asks them if they'll run more tournaments with non TSR games. They'd like too, but see the previous comment about needing more suitably qualified GM's. Just one person willing and able to run a system can make a big difference to what games will be available on the day.

Third is another person objecting to the idea that people should be able to run credited tournament adventures at their own homes. The RPGA staff would prefer any tournament adventures be open to the public, but it all depends on what facilities are available, so it once again is a matter of location, with more out of the way places getting a bit more leniency in terms of venue choice.

Fourth is from member of staff Sylvia Deering, who's recently retired from active duty at TSR to head for sunnier climes, but remains a member of the RPGA and carries fond memories. See you at the conventions.

Finally, thanks from last year's chosen charity. Sharing is, as ever, caring. Keep it up.



The Living City: Hrmm, continuity issues. A few issues ago, the PC's were sent to capture some dancing bears for Raven's Bluff's circus. If you followed the railroad successfully, you wound up capturing a werebear rather than mundane ones, who then decided to stay with the circus willingly because it seemed more fun than living alone in the wilderness. Now they've seen the sense in cutting out the animal cruelty entirely for a more fantastical approach, and managed to recruit a whole family of werebears, which makes for far better and more varied dance routines, plus they can help with the other parts of the show in their human forms. The only problem? They joined 7 years ago here, which makes the adventure a few months ago nonsensical, as the two articles can't both be true. This is an almighty editorial cock-up. I'm not amused at all. If you're running a shared world, you need to work extra hard to maintain consistency of timeline and locations, or the whole thing falls apart. Still, if you're forcing me to choose, I'll definitely go with this one, which actually has decent characterisation and descriptions of circus life, the tricks they get up to, and some of the more mundane human members of the circus. They also have an illusionist on staff to help with the theatrics, although she's not so high level that they can completely eschew more mundane prestidigitation in their show. (and it's always good to diversify your tricks anyway in case one performer falls sick or injures themselves in a stunt.) So overall, I have no objection to this article's quality in isolation, but it illustrates how lax their standards for continuity are, which is not a positive thing at all. The longer Raven's Bluff runs, the more this kind of thing will become an issue unless they up their game considerably.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991



part 3/5



Mutations: The longest article in the issue is not the adventure, unusually, but a 7 page list of new Gamma World mutations. Dale Henson gives us 39 of them, presented in alphabetical order. They're a decidedly motley bunch, some useful, some mixed, and some just bizarre, like the one that makes you lose your sexual characteristics and instead become able to reproduce by parthogenesis, which has no real effect on your abilities, but seems designed to annoy the same people who hate the AD&D girdle of gender switching if acquired randomly mid-campaign. There's also mental illnesses as mutations, which I don't think passes modern standards of political correctness either. The powers are also not remotely balanced either of course, ranging from instant death ray twice/day, to super-acne that also just happens to give you poison resistance, and bioluminescence which is mainly just a pain in the ass. Most baffling of all, the stats are 2e ones, despite that being very old news indeed by now, and an acknowledgement of how badly 3e flopped by comparison. This is all a bit messy and uncomfortable on multiple levels. Not that I'm planning on playing Gamma World any time soon, but even if I were I don't think I'd be using this one.



The Everwinking Eye: Ed acknowledges that he may be overdoing it a bit in his detailing of Maskyr's Eye, as Elminster manages to waffle even himself to sleep by the end of this. In the meantime, we get to find out even more about their diet, unique breeds of farm animal, and system of government. The kind of thing that aren't so immediately useful for adventurers, but make the world more solid, and illustrate just how vast his stores of general knowledge are in all sorts of fields. (particularly the culinary arts.) It's ironic that his day job as a librarian actually allows him to be more prolific than most of the TSR staffers who spend all day in the office, and lets him be exposed to all sorts of books that you wouldn't think to buy (or these days, google) on your own. Who else here would note on the use of vinyards to make practical use of hilly terrain that doesn't support other crops and reduce erosion? It's the kind of thing that makes me fall in love with his writing all over again. No-one else manages the degree of depth he does over the long term, and it's these little seemingly extraneous details that make it all possible, far more than the ridiculously overpowered famous NPC's.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991



part 4/5



With Great Power: Steven Schend takes over this column from William Tracey, which leads to one of those instances where the new writer ignores all the stuff the previous one did, (just like certain actual comic arcs) treats it like a reset to square one, and starts off with some ultra-basic general gaming advice. Is your campaign going to stick as strictly to Marvel Earth-616 canon as possible, have the same basic sets of characters but put your own spin on them like their many what if one-shots, or go for all-originals in both PC's and NPC's? The kind of thing you've already thought about if you've ever played any game based on a licensed property. So this is only useful for complete noobs, and of no interest to me, like far too many of these reboots I've seen over the years. Wake me once he's settled in and starts building something of his own.



Rakshasa: The adventure this issue is short and completely self-explanatory. The PC's are sailing along the coast when they pass by the territory of a Rakshasa. It wrecks the ship, wears them down with summoned monsters and hit & run attacks, and will do it's best to intimidate them into being it's slaves, or failing that, have them for dinner. They give enough info on it's history and goals that if the PC's do get beaten and agree to serve, (for now at least) you actually have a mission to send them on, which can easily be expanded out into a whole campaign arc. So this is a pretty decent high level encounter against an enemy that uses it's powers intelligently, and isn't just lurking in a static location waiting for the PC's to come in and fight it, but actively working to accomplish it's goals and could be made into a recurring adversary, since Rakshasas are good at disguising themselves and pretty hard to kill if you don't know it is one & have blessed crossbow bolts on hand. Flexible encounters like this give you much more bang for your page count than their recent railroads, particularly in an established home campaign rather than a tournament environment.



The Living Galaxy: The last few instalments of this column were very specific not just to sci-fi games, but spacebound ones in particular. This one is far more generic and familiar. What makes a good villain? While there are some variations due to genre and game mechanics, there's a lot of things that remain constants in every form of fiction, because that's what human nature resonates with. Will you go for a cackling maniacal caricature, or a realistic and rational character who has good reasons for doing the things they do, but happens to be on the other side as the players? How powerful are they compared to the PC's, what makes them distinctive to roleplay as a villain, and what weaknesses & blind spots do they have that might enable them to be defeated? (as all villains should be eventually) As usual for Roger, it's pretty competently done, and gains a little extra by referencing recent articles both here and in Dragon, but there's nothing groundbreaking in here. If you're a less experienced GM, you can get something out of it, but it's not telling me anything new. The repetition that comes with periodical churn can get tiresome sometimes.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991



part 5/5



More To The Maze: Tom Wham! There's a name I haven't seen around here in many years, as most of his contributions went to Dragon instead. Plus he was laid off in the big purge of 1984 after TSR realised they were adding staff faster than they were growing revenue and managing to lose money despite their success. No hard feelings, huh. So he worked up Mertwig's Maze on his own time and submitted it as a freelancer. It got accepted, but the nature of a creative is that your work is never truly finished, so you're always thinking of new cool things to add to it, or finding mistakes even after it's been published. So here's a mix of corrections to mistakes, rebalances of details due to more playtesting, and a whole new area, the Tallest Tree in the Forest, to spice up your game if you've played it a few times and want more. It feels like a throwback to the days when they published full boardgames in Dragon and Ares, then followed it up a month or two later with commentary and expansion. It probably would have been better placed in Dragon anyway, where more people would see it, but oh well, at least it means I get an interesting surprise here that they don't normally do due to their small size. That's welcome to see. Maybe the move to monthly will let them be a bit more ambitious with their special features. I guess we'll find out soon enough.



Wolff & Byrd engage in crossover with 80's slasher movie series Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy once again proves that he's not the smartest tool in the shed. I'm sure that even if he does get the electric chair, he'll be back in a few years.



As they said at the beginning, here's a 3 page form of the Gen Con and Origins events they'd rather like enough Judges to be able to run. Will there be someone capable of handling all these systems and settings, including Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Buck Rogers XXVc, Paranoia, Chill, and Timemaster? I'll wager they'll still be struggling on the Boot Hill & Buck Rogers ones at this rate. Watch out for the ones they conspicuously avoid talking about in 9 months time in the roundups.



A pretty interesting issue overall, with plentiful signs of their recent expansion, but as with the previous growth spurt, this has also resulted in an uptick of ultra-basic stuff aimed at the new arrivals as well, and distinctly erratic quality control on their article selection. Just how elaborate can they make Raven's Bluff and their tournament system without it collapsing under the weight of continuity and admin? I don't know, but I'm still very interested in finding out. Another step forward then, everyone?

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 27: Jan/Feb 1991



part 1/5



76 pages. A dragon skeleton? Whether it's just a mindless thing raised by the necromancer, or a full-blown dracolich that's the dominant partner in the relationship, that's not an encounter to take lightly. Any sensible party should check their situation and work out tactics accordingly, because that looks like a tough fight to charge into. Time to head inside and see if the mechanics back up the visuals.



Editorial: Speaking of visuals, they've been asking people what they want to see in future adventures, and the most consistent replies concern stepping up their production values. More relevant illustrations to show your players, clearer division of IC and OOC text, making sure all the relevant stats for creatures are instantly accessible, it's all about the ergonomics. They can make the difference between going straight into an encounter and fumbling around for several minutes looking things up the the main rulebooks. Of course, adding more colour would require a bigger budget, so that may be slow in coming, but they're working on the other suggestions as we speak. After all, the easier adventures are to understand, the more likely people are to use them and want to subscribe for more. An instance where paying attention to your audience is a win-win process.



Letters: Our first letter reminds people complaining about advertising that it still results in a net positive on the amount of content you get. Until economic concerns are no longer an issue, and everyone is free to create anything they can imagine, they still need to earn money to be able to do this, and a few adverts is better than raising the cover price for us.

Second also has no issue with advertising, and asks if they ever plan to go monthly. Not until they have enough submissions that it wouldn't significantly affect their quality control standards to do so. If you want that to happen, recruit more readers.

Third praises the wacky inventiveness of the moonmelon adventure. It turned out pretty well for them in actual play, and that's what really counts.

Fourth is another person who thinks they're doing things pretty much right, and is annoyed at all the people complaining at them. The complainers are more likely to be published, because that's what makes for interesting reading. Just like the adventures, a certain degree of conflict is necessary for a magazine like this to function.

Fifth is more praise for non D&D adventures, and asks if they'll ever do a Star Frontiers one.

Sixth dashes those hopes, as it's another one complaining about non D&D adventures taking space away from D&D gamers, while not making lovers of other systems into subscribers, because any particular other system will only appear very sporadically in here at one non D&D adventure per issue. As the number of negative letters outnumbers the positive ones 2 to 1 on this subject, they concede defeat. Well, that sucks. Now they'll have to work extra hard to keep up variety in the D&D adventures to make sure they don't get repetitive.

Finally, on a lighter note, we have a letter from some marines stationed in Saudi Arabia without their gaming materials. If there's anyone else in the area who wants to run a game, you've got a captive audience ready to play. (at least, until they're sent somewhere else on short notice)

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 27: Jan/Feb 1991



part 2/5



Tafil's Tomb: As usual, we start with something fairly straightforward, although not easy, an undead heavy basic D&D dungeon crawl that delights in using some of the few monsters that don't also appear in AD&D. Head to the tomb of the aforementioned Tafil and save him from being turned into the undead slave of an evil cleric. There's plenty of possibility for taking long-term damage, between energy draining by wraiths, ageing from a banshee, being infected with lycanthropy, plus the more binary problem of several other monsters with save or die on every hit. A large party with multiple clerics of your own would be a very tactically sensible decision, while even a 36th level character would struggle to solo this, and probably come out much lower level than they went in. AD&D 2e may be slightly more merciful when it comes to poison and the like, but it has yet to trickle back down to BD&D. So this is one I wouldn't recommend for every party, simply due to it's brutality; a group with the wrong composition would struggle with it even several levels higher than the recommended one. If you think they're 'ard enough, though, go for it.



Juggernaut: Writing a mini-adventure that fits into 2 pages is harder than it seems. Roger Moore tried his hand at it, and it wound up 5 pages long! Oh well, better luck next time. He probably could have sliced it down, but then we'd lose all the amusing characterisation that turns the monsters from statistics into living characters. A goblin chief has got his hands on a Figurine of Wondrous Power that turns into a Mastodon. This makes for a pretty sweet mount that towers over the regular goblin's Worgs and makes for a cool setpiece when they're all charging at their enemies screaming and launching missile weapons. Against a powerful adventuring party, one well-placed fireball will fry the lot of them, as they're just regular goblins with single digit hit points, but if they attack at night with surprise, you won't get that chance before they're trampling right over you, and so far they've been lucky in their choice of targets. So this is an encounter built around the concept of looking awesome and terrifying your enemies. It's not the most challenging, but it's also not the easiest either. The important thing is that it's got style, and has a decent amount of potential to be expanded out if you go back and check out their lair, plus once you beat them, you'll get the figurine and be able to do the same in turn. It's not quite the game-changer getting hold of a spaceship is, but it's a lot cheaper to operate and easier to use in a regular campaign. This all seems like lots of fun. I strongly approve, and I'm thankful they didn't over-edit it to make it fit the format.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 27: Jan/Feb 1991



part 3/5



Courier Service: In this issue's instalment of "nice legal system you got there", the PC's are hired to trek a noble's taxes several hundred miles to the capital before a strict deadline, which just happens to be in the middle of winter when making that kind of journey is most difficult. This is what happens when you let bureaucrats who spend all their time behind a desk write the laws. They have to deal with the weather, random monsters, bandits, and not so random encounters instigated by rival nobles who would like to get one up on your employer. The kind of adventure that can be short-circuited very easily if the players have flight or teleportation powers in excess of what's expected for their level. Presuming they're not overqualified for the job, it looks like a decent mix of challenges, mostly environmental ones that would be suited to a party with a ranger or druid in, (or using the 2e nonweapon proficiency system, which is also recommended as a good idea here) but a few social ones as well. No particular objections here, although the relatively large area and specific timescale it covers means it may need adapting to your campaign world's geography and calendar.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 27: Jan/Feb 1991



part 4/5



Bride for a Fox: If the penalties for messing around with the human legal system are troublesome enough, you don't even want to think about welching on your obligations to the celestial bureaucracy. But there's always some idiot who thinks they can pull a fast one. Like the instigator of this little story, who promised his daughter to a fox spirit when she grew up, Rumpelstiltskin style, and is now trying to trick his way out of the deal. This isn't going so well, so the PC's get roped in at short notice and sent to help out with not enough information. Hijinks probably ensue. Like most of the OA adventures, it's of above average linearity, with several points where you could easily be left behind by the adventure by not going along with the NPC's even when it's obviously not the smartest course of action. So it's one that's a pretty decent read as a story, but not so great as an adventure when put up against a bunch of cautious genre savvy murderhobos. You'd probably have to do a load of extra work inventing stuff if they went out of bounds. Fairly far down on the list of ones I'd use, but not ruling it out altogether.



The statement of ownership sees them holding steady at 34 thousand, mildly up from last year, but not quite matching their peak so far. If they can't do that, It's no surprise they don't feel confident about going monthly yet.