TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 27: Jan/Feb 1991



part 5/5



The School of Nekros: Another author who would go on to be a mega seller for them makes their first tentative freelance contribution here. Lisa Smedman details a suitably gothic school of necromancy filled with plot potential. You could play the traditional band of heroic adventurers trying to kill them and take their stuff. You could run it as a more rogue-centric heist mission trying to swipe some of the plentiful magical items and get out alive without resorting to violence. You could even approach it more peacefully to become a student if your wizard is on the more morally flexible end of the spectrum. And if any of these go wrong you can play your characters as their reanimated slaves looking for a way to escape their control and get revenge rather than it simply being the end of the campaign. Like any well-developed evil organisation, the students, teachers, undead monstrosities and skeletal dragon who's status is a big spoiler all have agendas of their own, and many will backstab some of the others if you can manipulate the situation cleverly. There are several new spells with very interesting ramifications, and their creators use them intelligently for their own comfort, not just for killing things. It's a solid bit of worldbuilding both very usable as is in multiple ways, and plunderable for parts that could have long-term effects on your campaign. I can see why they'd be eager to see more from her.



Another fairly decent issue, if once again feeling the effects of a gradual increase in average adventure linearity. The temptation for writers to try and tell a specific story instead of giving you better tools to create your own is a persistent one. Thankfully at least some of the writers are managing it, with the familiar names doing better than the less frequent contributors. That shows that the overall editorial direction is still aiming at the right goal. Time to jump forward another couple of months, see what kind of jokes they've prepared for us this year, and if any of them will make for good actual play stories.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 58: Mar/Apr 1991



part 1/5



36 pages. Approximately a third of the way through this side of my journey, and just before the schedule changes hit. Once again the balance of what I'm reading will shift, and we'll be seeing twice as many Polyhedrons as we do Dungeons for quite a few years. Now the guy on the cover, he may have an excellent sense of physical balance, but it's pretty obvious his mental equilibrium is somewhat lacking. Also, he may be related to Jareth the Goblin King, which bodes ill for any well-informed PC's. Let's see if it takes more or less than 13 hours to deal with his powers and move onto the next chapter of our overarching metaplot.



Notes From HQ: Another round of their attempts to expand and keep on top of everything here. More tournaments at all sorts of levels, over more conventions! But make sure you fill out the paperwork properly afterwards, or you won't gain any points for doing so. It may be tedious, but we are not mind-readers. They're also adding several new companies to the list of things that offer a 10% to members, including the newly formed White Wolf, who hope to maintain the good relationship their Lion Rampant predecessors shared with the RPGA. Since they wound up having to form their own organisation for large scale LARP play, that may not work out. Oh well. there's always the possibility of some drama in the process. More incentive to keep on heading towards the future and see what it brings.



Letters: There's only one letter this issue, a long one complaining about the accessibility of the Gamers Decathalon events. Why are none of them near me?! They get an even longer answer that boils down to "It's where people we know live". Even within the continental USA, roleplaying is unevenly spread and communication between groups is not great. The RPGA is doing their best, but there's still tons of gamers who aren't on their radar at all because they only play in their own little groups and don't go to tournaments. You want to fix that, put in the effort to travel a bit, meet new people, and maintain connections with them. Sounds exhausting. It's all so much easier now we've got social media, and you can broadcast to everyone who's ever been interested in you anywhere in the world with a single post.



The New Rogues Gallery: They've been running a lot of competitions lately. Now they're finally giving us the rewards. Pairs of NPC's for various systems on the general theme of rider & mount. That's a fairly unusual one with plenty of promise. Let's see if the results were any good.

Tser Katrina & Falbis Tyen are a mutant wolf & boar in Gamma World. Katrina has psychic powers and brains, Falbis has hands and can speak, and so pretends to be the one in charge, but is really getting telepathic instructions on the smart things to say. So they have a pretty interesting codependent dynamic in their efforts to gain mutant followers and become a force to be reckoned with in the area, and could make for excellent adversaries.

Merrgsh & Armmegh are an orcish god and his half-dragon demigod mount. They don't appear to have any particular portfolio other than worship me because I'm bigger and stronger than you, which kinda limits his ability to advance beyond a lesser god and grant any interesting powers to his clerics. They're still a formidable team for high level parties to fight though, with serious ability to deliver and absorb damage.

Glutton & Manslaughter are a pair of mutant wolves in the TMNT system. As goes with the theme, one is more humanoid than the other and functions as the rider and mouthpiece of the team. They can be hired as bounty hunters if you know where to look and have the cash, so they might be on the opposing side as the PC's but it's nothing personal. May they not die in the first battle so you can actually build a decent rivalry with them.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 58: Mar/Apr 1991



part 2/5



Radiating Magic: Straight from one set of competition winners to the next. Unsurprisingly, they got a lot of magical item submissions, some of them quite good. These definitely seem worth including in a game if you need a break from more plusses of their stats.

Mist Boats are one of those handy figurines that grows to full size on command. They can't stay big for more than 24 hours at a time though, so long sea voyages aren't an option. Maybe they just need a bit of magical viagra to pep them up.

Rock Robes let you play tanuki mario and become briefly invulnerable & immobile. It's also handy in freeing petrified people, although it has certain caveats. If you're up against a medusa, it'll massively reduce the amount of hassle you have to deal with.

Tattoo scrolls put items on your skin that you can take off and put back at any time. Very handy if you expect to be imprisoned at some point in the future.

Holy Shields make good matching pairs with holy swords for paladins, obviously. If you're of the wrong alignment, you need not apply.

The Warstar of the Manticore shoots it's spikes and grows new ones on command. Excellent for the kind of fighter who wears full plate armour and a helm with glowing red eyes, that a bow wouldn't accessorise well with.

Lenses of Subtitles write down everything the people around are saying across the bottom of your vision. It may seem comical, but it's immensely useful if you have hearing problems or they're speaking another language. If you're expecting to face a monster that uses sonic attacks, there are also definite merits to this. Yay for accessibility.

Folding Moats are the obvious place to put your Folding Boat. Turn any house into a serious fortification and back again with something you can put in your pocket and take with you. Maybe you could have a Folding Goat as well to eat all the junk you generate on your voyages, and a folding coat for when it starts to rain. Is there a god of Origami? Seems like a flexible powerset to have.

Scrolls of Mapping, like bags of holding, are the kind of convenience items that rapidly become indispensable once you have them. Who can go back to having to manually drawing the map for the dungeon to ensure you don't get lost once you have a Sheikah tablet?

Epox's Iron Rations are also generally handy self-replenishing things that reduce the need to worry about logistics, although you can't survive entirely off them forever.

Gloves of the Octopus turn each of your fingers into individually attacking 10' tentacles. That's a serious boost to your action economy, but remember you still only have one set of hit points, and are making yourself a big target showing off powers like that. It's not an I win button for every combat.

Magic Matches light with a command word, so you never need to worry about burning your fingers. An improvement that would probably be possible in the real world now if the matches were enables with microchips and Alexa compatibility.

The Endless Stair wraps it's steps around underneath you so you can climb upwards at a 45 degree angle indefinitely. Unfortunately, it doesn't go downwards, so a feather fall or similar is essential if you don't want to get trapped into awkward situations and have to choose between jumping, starving or keep on going up and eventually suffocating. Not as handy as a Levitate or Fly spell, but not a complete booby prize either.

Merchant's Cloth makes all your items look pristine and twice as valuable as they really are, letting you make money on any old junk. Probably best to stick to selling things like jewelery where the value is purely a matter of opinion anyway rather than making cheap practical items look like higher quality ones and dealing with pissed off customers when they break after a few days.

Pins of Communication are another easy translation device, albeit only between two specific people at a time. Be careful to retrieve the second one when you're done talking with someone, as they lose their powers permanently if separated by too far.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 58: Mar/Apr 1991



part 3/5



Gaming Down Under: A little while ago, they opened up a branch in europe, so they could reduce the logistic hassles of international mail by sending all the subscriptions in one big package and then splitting them out to their final destinations locally, which also let them lower the prices a bit. Now Australia and New Zealand also have a local office and enjoy the same benefits. But they still need to work to link things up better. Even more than the USA, there's ridiculous amounts of barely populated land between the cities, and the east and west coasts are completely different scenes that barely know each other, with their own playstyle quirks in the way they run games. New Zealand may be in the same administrative territory, but it's even more of a mystery. Are there any conventions there at all?! If not, what can we do about it? This all feels much more like a beginning than a conclusion. Even after a decade, there are still many places where they've barely started reaching all their potential members. Let's hope it's not a false start, and there'll be more contributions of all sorts from their international members in the future to spice things up.



The Legacy: The adventure this issue is a Greyhawk branded one, which is even more unusual here than in Dungeon. Not that there's anything particularly Greyhawk specific about it apart from the pun names, but at least it's a token effort at inclusion. The PC's get hired to be the executors of a will. But first they have to find the gnome who's uncle died. This is a lot harder than it seems. Initially, it seems like you have a clear trail, but following it will lead you into one bit of trouble after another, some of them quite goofy. A re-enactment of the Black Knight from Monty Python, a comic relief talking toad, a village where everyone has a big secret, a wizard with a wand of wonder and the will to wield it, it's not pure comedy railroad, but it is both quite linear and with many silly moments. As usual, the Polyhedron selection criteria is far less concerned with consistent worldbuilding & long-term consequences of including certain things in your campaign, and more in setpiece action scenes, hurrying people along and making sure everything is neatly wrapped up in 4 hours. It's not utterly infuriating like some of the worst adventures they've published, but falls on the low end of the mediocre spectrum. Not one I have any interest in using.



The Living Galaxy: Roger continues with worldbuilding and roleplaying advice that is pretty general and familiar, despite the topic trying to accomplish the precise opposite. How do you make alien worlds feel properly alien? What in it is impossible on earth, and how does that affect the evolution of the creatures that live there? Then, once you have the big logical bits down, what weird cultural stuff do they have? (which can of course vary widely between nations on the same planet) These usually have a reason for starting, but it might not be a good or clear reason, especially after centuries of gradual evolution. As in the previous times he's covered this, he reminds us that a little real world travel is crucial to broadening the mind, showing you that things you've always taken for granted don't have to be that way, and it's the little details that can really catch you out. This continues to be competent, but not groundbreaking in any way. Oh well, I'm sure it was useful to someone else.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 58: Mar/Apr 1991



part 4/5



With Great Power: Turns out the cover star is a Marvel one, and the only thing in the issue that's strictly April Fool themed. The Joker is fine as a Batman adversary, but in a shared world full of genuinely superhuman superheroes, he'll fall pretty quickly without the aid of serious narrative fiat or an explicit dramatic editing system that lets competent normals operate on the same scale as powered ones via greater luck and retconned planning. The solution? Say hello to …… (drum roll) The Harlequin! All the insanity of a regular name-brand Joker, plus superhuman acrobatics and the ability to materialise mind-warping pies at his fingertips that'll really ruin your day if they hit you! Like his DC inspiration, he spends most of his time in an asylum, but only because he likes the decor, and can break out again pretty much whenever he feels like it no matter what clever new restraints they try to implement. In the meantime, there's plenty of fun to be had gradually driving the psychiatrists who try to treat him to insanity as well, while giving just enough hints that his old personality is in there somewhere that they don't give up entirely. Even if this wasn't still a superhero universe where heroes don't usually kill even the worst villains, he has a healing factor on top of his other superhuman abilities. Well, he seems like an almighty pain in the butt to deal with. So this is obviously derivative and goofy, but at least it's in a way that's solid rules-wise, patches the flaws with the original character and makes it more usable in game, particularly if your players aren't as rigidly virtuous as Batman & Superman in never killing their adversaries no matter how annoying they get. I think this falls within the bounds of usability.



The Everwinking Eye: Ed thought he was finished with Maskyr's Eye last issue, but no, turns out he still has more to tell. Two mini-adventures set in the vicinity, each about half a page long, plus several more adventure seeds where you'll have to fill in the details yourself. These reveal a few of the secrets he's spent the past half a year teasing, but not all of them, and as usual, raise more questions than they answer. Yet again, he packs more game-useful information into half a page than many of Dungeon's 2-3 page mini adventures. With all this detail, you could start off a campaign there even without owning the main Realms corebook, although you'd probably get tired of the size of your sandbox and want to venture into the wider world eventually. Still, it's an excellent demonstration how individual parts of the Realms like Raven's Bluff, Neverwinter or Baldur's Gate wind up more detailed and popular than most other entire campaign worlds. Every part manages to be fractally interesting, with each entry somehow creating more room for adding further details instead of closing them off. Dragonlance could never.



The Living City: This column makes a somewhat goofy side turn, giving us a logic puzzle. Which 2 out of these 5 wizards are also thieves? Each lives in a different color house, has a different type of familiar, smokes a different kind of pipeweed and prefers a different beverage to drink. Can you eliminate all the impossible combinations from these clues and figure out the culprits? The kind of thing I'm very familiar with from easter treasure hunts, so I guess this is seasonal, just not the particular festival they usually celebrate in here. Amusing as a diversion, but not the kind of thing they could run every month without hitting diminishing returns rapidly. I wonder if any of the wizards named will actually show up again with proper stats in future columns, or tying this into Raven's Bluff was merely a branding thing with no thought to continuity.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 58: Mar/Apr 1991



part 5/5



Into The Dark: In the 10 years the RPGA has been going, the wider world of media has been growing as well. While the degree of choice is still nowhere near what's at your fingertips nowadays with streaming, most homes had a VCR by the early 90's, and video rental was big business, so you were no longer a slave to what the TV channels wanted to show you. But the amount of choice could get overwhelming, especially if all you have to go on is the blurb on the boxes. Plus cassettes took up a lot more shelf space than DVD's or hard drives, so it was trickier to buy everything you wanted and keep it. So James Lowder starts up another (hopefully) regular review column. Let's find out what he recommends and what he pans.


Miracle Mile gets a pretty positive review. It didn't do too well in the box office, probably because it wasn't flashy enough, but examining what people will do when they think it's the end of the world in a few hours remains eternally relevant, even if the cause (nuclear apocalypse) seems dated.

Fade to Black gets a more mixed review. A slasher movie where the killer is a rejected nerd who various uses pop culture personae during his murders. Is this supposed to be a celebration or an indictment of hollywood's love of violence and sensationalism? So basically, this is the Ready Player One of it's day. Now I'm very interested in seeing how it's held up, and how many of the references in it have long since faded from common knowledge.

Moontrap gets an outright slating. Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig are wasted on a formulaic bit of alien invasion sci-fi with distinctly patchy special effects and a lame script. This'll never make for a long-running franchise.

Evil Dead 2, on the other hand, reminds us that Bruce Campbell can turn in pretty awesome performances when the script and effects back him up. Continuity-wise, it's more of a remake than a sequel to the first film, and the tone is a lot lighter and more comedic, but the special effects are considerably improved. Of these 4, this is easily the one that's most well remembered today, given the further sequel movie and TV series.


All of these movies were at least a couple of years old then, so this definitely seems aimed at the home video buyers and renters, rather than cinemaphiles who really want to see things when they first come out. Whether that will continue, or it'll gradually become more up to date, like many reviewers who started out as nostalgia marketed, we shall see. An interesting development, in any case.



Regional Directors: Another list of these guys, as we're up to 24 now, including separate ones for northern and southern australia, and one dedicated specifically to internet gaming activities. May they soon get to the point where other countries merit being divided into regions as well.



Wolff & Byrd remind us that the only certainties in life are death and taxes, and of the two, taxes come more frequently and are harder to evade. Unless you're earning no money, of course, which is relatively easy to prove when you're dead.



We finish off with a listing of the official RPGA clubs. For many years this feature was virtually unused despite the well-plugged benefits, the number of clubs languishing in the single digits. Now they're up to 39, which is still an average of less than 1 per state, but definite progress nonetheless. Internationally it's still pretty much a wash though, those regional co-ordinators are still working with very small numbers. They'll need to do some more promoting if they want to have anything to actually co-ordinate.



A lot going on in this issue, much of it pretty good. They've succeeded in some of their ambitions, but still have many clear goals still to aim for. Will the transition to monthly allow them to do twice as much, or will things seem to progress more slowly once they have? Let's see how long it takes the greater quantity of stuff to be taken for granted, and what new things they'll add with the extra room.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 28: Mar/Apr 1991



part 1/5



76 pages. A particularly sinister looking nautilus spaceship soars above a planet on the cover. There could be all kinds of terrifying alien invaders inside! Let's find out if it's a genuinely world-threatening invasion that'll need high level characters to foil, or merely a local disturbance.



Editorial: Unsurprisingly, the editorial is about the competition to find a name for their regular short features. After much deliberation, they chose one sent in independently by three different people and called them Side Treks. The rest is just padding by telling us some of the better rejected ideas, many of them culinary themed or double entendres. I guess when so much of our life is built around pursuing one of the other, there's going to be a lot of different terms for them. And now back to your regular daily dose of escapism.



Letters: The first letter complains about NPC's in their adventures with illegal spells. Barbara brushes that off with an insouciance towards strict adherence to the RAW that's typical for the era. They can break the rules PC's are bound too any time the DM feels like it, so nyah.

Second thinks many of the complainers use ridiculously hyperbolic language to describe minor complaints about the magazine. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. That said, fewer adventures where the PC's are hired to do a job would be nice. Whatever happened to proactively setting your own goals?

Third wants them to bring back non D&D adventures. It's not as if it's that hard to convert them, and we could do with the change of pace.

Fourth very specifically praises The Inheritance and A Rose for Talakara. May we see more from their writers in the future.

Fifth also praises their diversion into gothic drama. It worked perfectly when they put it in Krynn and substituted Soth for the skeleton warrior. Muahaha. Don't encourage them too much, or everyone'll start producing sub-par imitations.

Sixth thinks new spells in here really ought to have a saving throw. But then how could they arbitrarily ensure you have to follow the plot with them?

Seventh is a reply from the Saudi stationed army guys. They got more than enough responses, and are now well set up for gaming opportunities. We love to see a happy ending around here.

Eighth thinks bimonthly is about the right schedule for them. They also want to know what age you need to be to submit adventures. Unlike last time this was asked a few years ago, where it was a free-for-all, you now need the consent of your legal guardian if you're under 18. I suspect someone got their knuckles rapped over that.

Finally, praise with a few minor quibbles for the school of Nekros. You should know by now they don't sweat the small mathematical details too much. Just make them up as you see fit for your own campaign.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 28: Mar/Apr 1991



part 2/5



The Pipes of Doom: Ooh, a Battlesystem mass combat scenario! Like adventures set in non-generic worlds, that's a thing that they don't do nearly enough of. An army from Hellgate Keep have been devastating everything in their path with the aid of evil Bagpipes (a tautology, surely) that summon stormclouds, destroy buildings, and drive listeners to insanity when various tunes are played upon them. If you can get hold of them, Loudwater's armies have a chance against the foul fiends. If not, doom seems inevitable and they'll continue their rampage across Faerun until they manage to irritate Elminster or something. Fortunately, you get a break as a group of Korred decide to steal the pipes when they're travelling through the forest. Now you just have to find them before the enemy does and get them to stop being annoying tricksters long enough to realise the larger ramifications of what's going on. So there's several different phases to this adventure, each quite different. The mass combat bits where you take on the role of the town defenders. The forest exploration bit where you're dealing with various tricksy encounters and environmental hazards. And the fight with the main enemies without their army in the forest, which is designed as a rival team of PC's with every character having detailed individual stats, items and powers that they'll use tactically together in the same way that the players should. It's both considerably more varied and more ambitious than the average adventure, with plenty of possibilities for follow-ups if you leave any loose ends. (you'll want to destroy the evil bagpipes once you get your hands on them, which as usual for an artifact is a whole other quest in itself) You could even send them off to attack the source, as Hellgate Keep is now a full module. (although it wouldn't be for another 7 years at the time of this adventure's writing) Like many of the more specific adventures, this might require a bit of effort to adapt to your campaign, or not fit at all if it's particularly divergent, but it's a good one, so it's probably worth it.



Side Treks - Manden's Meathooks: The first official side trek follows pretty much the same formula as last issue, only it manages to stick within page count. A group of brigands get their hands on a single cool magical item, this time a hurricane lamp, and decide to use it cleverly to aid in their highway robberies. While the PC's are disoriented from the abrupt hurricane out of nowhere, they swoop in, grab everything that's unsecured and run for it. If the PC's give chase, it leads them into a trap, which gives the brigands a chance to take the rest of your stuff as well. They're not that dangerous in a straight fight, so this is an encounter where keeping your cool and using your own magical tricks to even the playing field will work much better than getting angry and charging after them like a dumbass. Like the many kobold encounters over the years, this is a reminder that even basic tactics make an enemy much more dangerous than just charging in and attacking, and also that the enemies you're facing are people too, and most people want to get out of encounters alive and make a profit rather than kill just for the fun of it. Even a little bit of backstory and characterisation go a long way to making the game less mindlessly hack & slashy. Decent enough, but nothing groundbreaking, and yeah, you can very much see the formulas at work despite this being a new feature. Let's hope they can mix it up a bit more in future instalments.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 28: Mar/Apr 1991



part 3/5



Sleepless: Ah yes, the Constantine gambit. Selling your soul to infernal forces is a mug's game, because short-term mortal advantage for eternal torment/servitude is a bad deal however you slice it. However, selling your soul to multiple extraplanar parties at once gives you multiple times the benefit, at no worse consequences, (what more can they do to you, send you to double hell?) maybe better if you can get them all fighting over you and manage to wriggle out entirely in the chaos. Of course, anyone else caught in the vicinity of a pissed off demon, earth elemental, lich and alien wizard all bickering over who gets to keep the soul is likely to have an unpleasant time of it. Such a pity if an adventuring party happened to be passing by at the time, and their actions were critical to how it's resolved. Oh, this looks like lots of fun. You have a typical wizard's castle, with several apprentices, plenty of wards and traps to keep out do-gooders, bound monsters guarding areas, etc. The difference from usual is that there's a big messy power vacuum that's just been created, and several other invaders at the same time as you. This gives you plenty of opportunities for negotiation and short-term alliances of convenience, (just make sure you betray them first) but also means turtling and pulling 15 minute workdays will cause the whole adventure to pass you by and all the good treasure'll be gone before you get to it. To top it off, there's a real danger of the soul of the dead wizard possessing the body of one of the PC's and doing a runner, which is a problem that definitely can't be solved with hack and slash tactics. This all seems like a pleasingly chaotic situation that could be resolved many different ways depending on the choices the PC's make, which groups of NPC's they encounter first (quite a bit of which will be decided with random roll) and who they believe and side with in an extremely multisided conflict. You could run it multiple times and it'd remain interesting for quite a few iterations. I thoroughly approve.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 28: Mar/Apr 1991



part 4/5



Night of Fear: this adventure is also one where events overtake you, and opportunities to rest and recharge are lacking. A doppleganger is trying to take over an inn and settle down. Unfortunately, the innkeepers dog could smell that wasn't his real owner, so he had to kill it and hide it in a hurry. It wasn't a very good hiding place, the body was found, and now everyone in the inn is on edge, while it goes into panic mode and tries to kill all the witnesses and use their identities to get the others alone and kill them too. Basically, John Carpenter's The Thing as a D&D scenario, as the monster could be anyone, anytime, and even if you identify and catch it once, all it takes is a moment out of sight and it could be someone else instead. It works best if it's set in an isolated stop along a road rather than in the middle of a city, so everyone involved has nowhere to go if they try to leave in the middle of the night, especially if the weather is bad. If you manage to keep people from wandering off alone and putting themselves in positions where they can be killed and impersonated for the rest of the night, but don't catch & kill it, it'll develop a grudge against you, and turn up again in future adventures under different disguises. This is all quite effectively scary both as a one-shot and as something that might have long-term ramifications on your campaign. The other people you're staying with are suitably detailed (and frequently idiotic) enough for a horror scenario, giving you plenty to roleplay over the course of the night. This seems like something I wouldn't mind turning the lights down for and getting stuck into.