TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 102: December 1994



part 2/5



Tribes of the Nubari: A fresh start with an interesting bit of history, but you can't resist making the new setting as human-centric as ever. Both the Toril natives and the ancient aliens use human stats, are fully capable of interbreeding, and the only difference for those with strong alien blood is having three fingers per hand, golden eyes and elongated conical heads. They give us six example human tribes, but only 2 demihuman ones, not even one for each race. I'm more than a little disappointed. The tribes themselves are pretty easy to boil down. The big one without a stereotype, led by a corrupt dumbass, because even 500 people is enough for politicians to start to appear in a group. The militant feminist tribe, for those of you who want your amazon fix. The fishers that use boats & nets. The other tribe of fishers who use bows & spears. The lion fanboys. And the spiritual ones with an unusually high proportion of spellcasters. Not any kind of rigid philosophical division of splats like Planescape factions, so there's plenty of room to add new ones. (hint hint to all the readers at the time) As usual for polyhedron, they can't resist putting some comedy in, because even in a gritty low technology setting you've got to have bad jokes apparently. It's becoming apparent that this is going to have some irritations beyond the inevitable ones that come from it being a shared world tournament centric game.



Heroes of Malatra: Having got through two articles mostly mechanic-free, now it's time for the important meaty bits you need to create characters. As expected, things are changed from core in some quite significant ways. The new races have quite low level limits more similar to 1e demihumans than 2e ones, further reinforcing the human-centricness of the campaign even if they are including other options. Classes are restricted to the basic 4 and Rangers, not even druids, which seems odd but I guess their powers would be a little too useful in this environment and might short-circuit some railroads. Wizards have very limited spell selections and use fetishes to rememorize their spells rather than spellbooks, reminding us that spontaneous spellcasters aren't even a twinkle in a developer's eye yet, and a sorely needed bit of design space. Rogues don't get Read Languages, as no-one can read or write. Clerics, weirdly enough, get full access to all spell spheres, making them more flexible than regular ones. Their ability to conjure the basic necessities will be much in demand on any extended expeditions. Everyone is heavily restricted in what armor and weapons they can get hold of, and equipment purchasing works completely differently as they haven't invented money yet. Since everything works on a barter system, the number of items you start with is equal to your Charisma, making using that as a dump stat a genuine sacrifice for a change. You're definitely not going to be able to stock up everything you want. There are a few ways they're better though. You get 75 points to spread among your abilities, which will give you a higher average than Living City ones without having to worry about Comeliness, and a new proficiency slot every level, which is a fairly decent boost to most classes, if still nowhere near 3e levels of skill advancement. HP gained per level after 1st is fixed at about 3/4 the max die roll rather than the 1/2 of LC ones. Lots going on here, and their choices are even more idiosyncratic this time around. Campaigns using these rules definitely aren't going to play out like regular D&D ones. You can't fault their ambition, even if I can see ways they could have implemented it better in hindsight.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 102: December 1994



part 3/5



Unsurprisingly, the map takes up the centrefold pages. Turns out the plateau is about 800x600 miles, making it far larger than, say, the UK, but not as expansive as the USA or Australia, which still gives you more than enough room to wander for a lifetime, especially without any kind of roads or vehicles to speed your way. The tribal territories only make up a small fraction of the area, and are mostly situated next to one of the rivers, which I'm guessing are important trade routes as well as for drinking. There's several different terrains, and an obvious point where it's less difficult to get on and off the plateau, as there's a canyon making the cliffs lower and the ancient domes that maintain the magical shielding around the plateau are damaged near there. That's almost definitely going to be significant in the future. Good luck doing anything with those vast expanses of featureless jungle though.



Hero Points: Well, this is a turnup for the books. Hero points have appeared in a few systems before now, and of course the Marvel superhero RPG was blurring the boundary between xp system and spending points to gain short term benefits since 1984, but they hadn't appeared in an official D&D book yet. Here's another way they're pushing the Living Jungle away from the regular rules, awarding you hero points for engaging in particularly dramatic and heroic actions, which you can then spend to increase your odds of success at further actions. The specifics are more low-key than I was expecting though, both in the number you can have and how much effect they have on the die rolls. +2 if spent before the roll or +1 retroactively? Up to 1 per level for humans or a flat 1 at a time for demihumans? That's not going to be causing many dramatic shifts of fortune, although it still might save your life if used on a critical save. It's nice that they recognise humans are a bit boring mechanically, with most games never reaching the point where the higher level limits come into play and want to give them something a little extra, but this is a little underwhelming after seeing what the likes of Monte Cook did with the same idea in 3e, and other systems have done in an even more dramatic and metagamey way. I guess they want to keep the bonuses low enough that you don't mess up the tournament adventures, which are probably going to be the same old railroads of half a dozen encounters dressed up in a fresh loincloth. So this manages to be simultaneously interesting, but also disappointing. They had a good idea, but didn't go far enough with it.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 102: December 1994



part 4/5



Races: Malatran Korobokuru are mechanically the same as regular ones with their saving throw bonuses boosted to 2e standards, and occupy pretty much the same societal niche as comedic dumbasses, drinking and boasting their way through life. They can be heroic, are excellent craftsmen and deadly foes of the ape-men, but it's still hard for other races to take them seriously. Once again Polyhedron's editors can't resist going for a bit of lowbrow comedy in their game design.

Katanga are Malatran Hengeyokai variants. They come in Caiman, Monkey, Pangolin, Snake, Tiger and Leopard varieties, all but one of which are new. As with the OA ones, they can only change shape a number of times per day equal to their level, which is a big limitation at 1st. Their personality traits and the special powers they get in their animal forms shouldn't be too surprising. The only significant change from 1e I can find is retaining their full HP when they change shape.

Tam'hi is the Malatran name for Spirit Folk. They only come in Jungle and River varieties, as there's no seas to be found on a high plateau. Unlike Kara-Tur ones, they're not tied to a specific location and die if it's destroyed, but also can't autoheal within their home place. They also gain an extremely strong irrational fear of fire that'll make using it not an option at all for any group containing one. That's another solid obstacle in the way of players getting access to technology outside the permitted milieu.

Shu are completely hairless halflings. Like regular halflings, they're very good at stealth, so other races will rarely see them except in a multiracial party of PC's. They're not as vicious as Athasian halflings, but still much more inured to hunting & killing than the ones that live in pastoral lands and smoke pipeweed. Apparently, no Shu has ever killed another one though, which I'm sure will be broken pretty soon after players get their hands on the adventures. Put a plot hook like that in your write-ups and you're just painting a big target for someone to do something contrary and sadistic with.

Saru are your basic ape-men, even less civilised than any of the other races. They're good climbers, but have an irrational fear of magic that seems even more crippling to party cohesion than the Tam'hi fear of fire. Having to save or flee every time an ally or enemy casts a spell just seems game-breaking if you want to get adventures completed. A really bad idea on a mechanical level that I hope they fix after a bit of actual play has taken place.



Architects of Adventure: After spending nearly the whole issue giving us the general setting details for their new project, now it's time to remind us again that they can't make it work without regular members submitting adventures and playing in them. Many of the guidelines are the same, like submitting an outline to them before writing the whole thing and structuring adventures around tournament time limits, but there are some differences from the Living City ones. The big obvious ones are the addition of hero points and the removal of money as a goal of adventure. (although specific magical or otherwise useful items are still good as treasure) This encourages heroic play over bean counting, and writers should make sure that adventures give players opportunities to be heroes. They recognise that maybe the current crop of modules are a little too linear for some tastes, and give primers to decision tree or matrix based adventures so hopefully some more writers will submit those. And finally, they fiddle with the XP awards so you should get off 1st level quicker and then stay at non game-breaking mid-levels for longer, which means you keep the same character instead of having to retire them because they don't have any adventures to cater to that power level. So it's apparent that they have learned at least a little from four years of running Living City tournaments, would do some things differently if they were starting fresh, and are going to do them differently here even if they're not going to retcon the ideas back to their established setting and deal with all the hassle that'd cause. Now they can do is carry on and see what submissions, if any, they get over the next year. Then hopefully they'll learn some more lessons and tweak things further for whatever next setting they try.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 102: December 1994



part 5/5



The Glowing Ember: After finishing off our trip to Malatra, we still have space for them to promote an upcoming book. City Sites is a selection of 13 fairly generic locations to stick into your fantasy game. Polyhedron readers already have tons of those as part of the Living City, many of which are easily extracted and used in other worlds, so you might wonder why they're promoting it here. The obvious answer is that it's written by Skip Williams, who despite having moved off regular editing work here still retains connections with the staff. So here's an smithy run by gnomes, filled with the usual selection of plot hooks beyond the obvious one of buying stuff from them. Unfortunately, many of the ideas in this are silly and the names are even worse. A gold coin stuck to the floor by the door to prank people who try to pick it up. A horse called Charlimane. A female gnome called Brandy, who was rescued from the sea as a baby and is indeed a fine girl by gnome standards. A strong reminder that Skip should stick to sageing, because every time he writes setting or adventure material it leans into the most irritating of comedy. This would be somewhat subpar as a standalone Living City location. Knowing that this is getting into an official book while many better entries languish in the newszine never to get a wider audience adds considerably to the aggravation. Who's going to edit the editors, when the editors themselves think basic punnery like this is the height of hilarity? This just makes me groan and facepalm.



Weasel Games: Lester is the only regular column in here, continuing to build his thesis on when you should and shouldn't engage in treachery. So far, most of his examples have involved board games, where you're supposed to be in competition, and the field starts afresh every time. Now he's turning his eye to RPG's, where you have to choose your moments much more carefully. Some people do not though, and either attack their own party straight away and die, or every NPC they see regardless of if they're friendly or not or how badly they're outnumbered, and die only slightly later. You'll never get past 1st level like that. Betraying your party at 1st level is a joke that'll soon be forgotten, particularly if you keep on doing it until they simply don't invite you back to make another character. Betraying your party once you've reached double digits and amassed enough resources to become an effective evil overlord is a dramatic climax (or midpoint, depending on how you want to play it) to a campaign that people will talk about for many years, particularly if you do so in a particularly ingenious way and then deliver a dramatic monologue about how you've been sowing the seeds of your scheme for years in advance. Basically, think before you betray, and do so in a way that won't alienate you from the other players even as you do horrible things to their characters, otherwise you won't have a game at all. From purely chaotic evil beginnings, his advice is actually maturing rapidly. He'll reach full eusociality and have to change the name of the column before we know it.



A very interesting end to the year that stands out from the regular issues even more than issue 100 did, presenting a big new challenge to the players that hopefully they'll rise too and build upon. There's still a lot more the RPGA could be doing if they were larger and had more resources, and supporting more settings & systems is probably the most important one. Let's head into next year and see how well this new attempt at worldbuilding sticks.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 103: January 1995



part 1/5



32 pages. Those are some very steep stairs down into that dungeon. That wizard should be extra careful not to trip on his robes, or his knees'll be regretting it for many months to come. Such are the hassles of being an older adventurer, even if the rules don't reflect all the little indignities age brings us. Time to see how exhausting this issue's challenges will be, and if I'll wind up wishing I'd retired from the hero life a long time ago.



Notes From HQ: Speaking of retiring, Skip left a year ago, and now Jean is moving on up as well, leaving Dave Gross in the lead editor's seat after a surprisingly short apprenticeship. She's enjoyed her time here, but is eager to take on a new job that lets her be more creative and less of a filter for other people's submissions. Looking ahead, most of her future contributions will be Dragonlance novels, which is completely unsurprising given the average level of cheesiness of the articles she selected for this place. But as usual for a departure, this is more about reminiscing than talking about future plans. She's been to conventions all over the world, met all sorts of people and sat down for a game with them. Sometimes things got silly, sometimes things got weird, sometimes they went on way beyond sane human endurance, but it was mostly fun and that's what counts. See you around, because as with the previous editors, she's not planning on quitting her membership entirely and stopping going out to conventions, it just means more time for actual playing and less DM'ing. And so a long period of stability draws to a close. I already know Dave will also move onto Dragon fairly soon, so let's keep going, find out who the next few editors are going to be and just how much change in policy they'll bring with them.



Letters: It's been over a year since they've printed any letters in here, which they've complained about a few times. How are they supposed to keep on pleasing the punters if they don't get any feedback? First one is from someone confused by contradictory messages about what's allowed in Living City games. They say all kits from the Complete books are allowed in the newszine, but I've been hearing rumours that some of them are banned or nerfed. What are the laws of Raven's Bluff? Who are the consortium? How do you become a knight? Yeah, it's probably about time they published an update in here making everything clear and correcting some of the little power balance problems that have become apparent over the years. Stay tuned in upcoming issues!

The second one is a much shorter one from a satisfied customer, just to provide contrast. Nothing much interesting to say about that.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 103: January 1995



part 2/5



Forgotten Deities: Another regular Forgotten Realms column starts up, showing that despite the editorial changes, they're continuing to support this setting more than all the rest put together, even discounting their Living setting locations. Want more lesser known, dead, or otherwise indisposed gods and the details on what powers they grant worshippers to use in your stories? Well, get ready, because they've got a whole load of them for you to enjoy over the next year and a half! (although whether they'll be allowed for Living City clerics remains to be seen.) The first one is Aumaunator, a rather unpleasant ancient sun god who's worship has mostly been taken by the much nicer Lathander. His clergy once ruled Netheril, only to see it all fall apart due to being unable to stop the creeping desertification of Anauroch. Tyranny is fair enough, but being an incompetent tyrant is not a path to a long and comfortable life. His few remaining cultists lurk in secret fortresses, scheming to rise again, but it doesn't look like happening any time soon, particularly if adventurers find them first. With only 5 major spheres, 3 minor ones and no interesting granted powers, he doesn't seem like a particularly appealing bet from a powergamer's perspective, while also having quite high requirements for entry. It seems pretty obvious that his own elitism and arrogance was a big part of his well deserved downfall. Have fun finishing off the last few fanatics still following him despite all the better options out there.



The Living City: All this time in the Living City and they haven't included a blacksmith to make your weapons & armor? That is a baffling omission that they finally get around to fixing here. Since there's tons of adventurers on top of the mundane uses for ironwork in Raven's Bluff, the Iron Bull Smithy is doing very well for itself. They have a large and tangled family tree, which we get a fair bit of detail on here, and provides several adventure hooks for the PC's if they choose to get to know the people they shop from. Just over the road is an even larger and more profitable horse stable, which is excellent synergy for both businesses. It's owned by a family of Halflings, who obviously have a considerable advantage over humans as jockeys. Not something you see often enough in game despite it's effectiveness. A fairly low-key entry, but one filled with lots of care and attention to detail, the writer has obviously done their research on real world smithies & stables. There are some problems to solve, but no cackling villains to defeat. In lesser hands, that would be boring, but this manages to keep my interest despite the lack of obvious conflict. Got to have some safe homes for the dangerous dungeons to have full impact, as Ed is also showing us lately with his articles on Turmish.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 103: January 1995



part 3/5



Weasel Games: This time, Lester turns his attention to a very particular weasel archetype - the thief which steals from their own party. There are plenty of examples of this in books and movies, characters who steal from everyone out of greed or whimsy and regularly get into arguments with the other heroes as a result. The interesting thing is that the old school corebooks actually encouraged this, or at best, sent mixed messages about whether that was an expected part of D&D play, which meant a lot of players did it with their early characters, and had to learn how badly other players tend to react to that stuff the hard way. Eventually, the designers decided this was a bad idea after all when developing 3e, and not only changed their roleplaying advice, but also the name of the class to discourage this kind of sneaky PvP shenanigans. So this is a reminder of a particularly interesting little thread of game design history, wrapped up in his own personal experiences of stealing from people, then weaselling out of the consequences with begging and sycophancy, which then ironically turns into a more respectful bond with that character because they've established a proper pecking order. Like becoming friends with someone through having a bar fight, that seems a very male way of socialising. At least doing it through the secondhand removes of your characters saves on medical treatment.



Prophets of the Dark Side: "There are only ever two Sith at a time" sounds cool in a movie where you're the big damn heroes of the story, and everything is wrapped up neatly at the end of the trilogy, but in an ongoing Star Wars campaign, you'll want some more variety of antagonists than that. The EU books have already established quite a few other Dark Side users, some connected to Palpatine but remaining in the shadows for the previous conflicts, and others just plain secret or from outside the empire entirely. So here's stats for three of these potential antagonists to use in your game. All are powerful members of the crumbling empire hierarchy, with both decent personal combat skills and minions to order around, but varying levels of subtlety in how they wield their power. Decent enough as plot hooks, but another good example of how the Star Wars worldbuilding has always been based around the story at hand rather than the other way around, with a fair bit of retconning away stuff that happened in subsidiary media when the next series of movies starts up. As such it feels a bit inconsequential. This is why you don't let yourself get overly constricted by canon when playing in a licensed setting, because the original designers sure as hell aren't.

 

[Davies]

Prophets of the Dark Side: "There are only ever two Sith at a time" sounds cool in a movie

that won't come out for four more years.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 103: January 1995



part 4/5



Elminster's Everwinking Eye: As he's done for quite a few countries now, Ed talks about some of the more unique treasures to be found in Turmish. A craze for walking sticks in the past means there are a lot of them to be found, many bejewelled or enhanced with mechanical tricks like hidden compartments and concealed weaponry and more than a few enchanted. One would make an excellent accessory for an adventurer on their winding little trails. There are some more spectacular and less practical items as well. Two magical gems with colourful histories, plus an extremely powerful magical sword created (and then lost) by the priests of Talos. Anyone who gets their hands on it can really get their Thor on when it comes to summoning storms & lightning, while remaining untouched by the weather themselves. Finally, a magical …… wardrobe? How very C.S. Lewis. This is getting a little formulaic, but even formulaic Ed work is full of interesting little details that could easily be expanded into a full story, making places feel alive and with a complicated, messy history stretching back centuries. I can easily see myself using any or all of the things in here.



The Living Galaxy: Roger takes another genre and tries to give it a sci-fi veneer to keep this column going a little longer. This time, it's advice about detective games. Why would people want to solve a mystery in the first place?Usually, you'll want a carrot and/or a stick to motivate them, some kind of treasure for success, or dire consequences if whatever it is continues to roam free and unthwarted. No matter how tricky the mystery you set, make sure you have a clear idea of what the answer is unless you want your story to end up like the works of J. J. Abrams. Make sure there are multiple different clues if you don't want the story to stall or turn into a railroad where you feed them the same clues no matter what they do or how well they roll. Don't forget a few red herrings and untrustworthy characters who aren't the main villain. If you get stumped for ideas, read a good mystery novel and see how they handle things. Another competent but very formulaic entry here that continues to feel like he's struggling to keep to the original remit of the column, with increasingly tenuous examples involving sasquatches. Look, you could just change the name if it's becoming that much of a burden. It's not as if it hasn't been done before with the various other advice and review columns they've tried over the years.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron Issue 103: January 1995



part 5/5



The Living Jungle: Typical. You spend months planning the details of your setting, then turn it over to the players and straight away they spot something you missed. What are the damage ratings for sticks & stones? Can't break people's bones if you don't know that, and in a dangerous place like this, you'll often want improvised weapons just so you don't have to engage with the clunky AD&D unarmed combat system. A small, humorously presented expansion, but one that reminds us no plan survives contact with the enemy, often due to trivial careless omissions rather than because they have an even more ingenious and elaborate counterplan. That's why you need leeway to improvise in RPG's. Even the most elaborate in-house playtesting can't spot every eventuality in a game this open-ended.



1995 RPGA Network Club Games Decathlon: Another year, another bumper set of competitions where you have plenty of options and then submit your best 10 scores towards the total. Any 4 out of 27 tournament adventures at various conventions, any 6 out of 9 writing events, plus the familiar service ones for running tournaments for other people and recruiting new members. As usual, your odds of winning look pretty slim if you live outside mainland USA, but not completely impossible with the greater weighting on the writing parts. But anyway, it's the taking part and creating more adventures for other people that's the important thing, as the prizes barely cover the cost of all the postage for sending in that many submissions. Good luck coming up with things that are fun, but also fit their strict limitations of what kind of adventures they allow.



After several issues where they departed quite a lot from formula, this feels like back to business as usual, with a solid, workmanlike set of articles that won't blow any minds, but continue to build on their established settings. The departure of long-term staff may have effects in the near future, but for now, stability continues. Let's see if Dungeon is also sticking to formula as usual, and if so, how competently.