TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

The Raven's Buff Trumpeter 2-6s: June 1998



4 pages. Once again we're so busy with news both serious and comical that they produce two issues of the paper in one month. They're trying to make this year's Gen Con the biggest and best yet, with another epic interactive event and all the elections. While they have a few candidates putting their names forward, there's still no-one trying to become the Knight Commander of the Golden Roosters, and more volunteers in general are always useful. Being able to do a good pirate accent is a definite plus, hint hint. After war and demons, pirates feel like light relief by comparison, but I'm sure they'll still be a decent enough combat challenge for the heroes of Raven's Bluff.

There's still space to talk about things that have already happened though. The big ones are an eruption of Firestorm Mountain, which is thankfully far enough from Raven's Bluff that it isn't an immediate danger, but if it keeps up those ash clouds could have a long term effect on the climate of the region. Fire was also a problem in Procampur when a group of adventurers exposed a cult of Shar worshippers, who obviously didn't take this lying down and caused quite a bit of damage in the ensuing fight. Fortunately, the Red Raven fire brigade proved as competent as ever and we got a satisfying resolution to this adventure. Shar'll have to start a whole new secret society from scratch if she wants to keep a foothold there.

In lighter news, we have an impassioned letter about saving the disenchanters. Haven't heard much on that plotline for a while but I guess it's still on a few people's minds. If you don't have them around it might wind up permanently damaging the weave, and then we'll have to figure out the much weaker 4e magic system. We also have signs that they're no longer enforcing the Code of Conduct, as they're free to report on people getting a little too into character in the recent Greengrass Celebration. All manner of hedonism took place, some of it involving players with characters of the opposite gender. Nudity, infidelity and consumption of large quantities of alcohol, oh my! They should count themselves lucky that the Realms doesn't have the technology for paparazzi to be a thing.



Rogues Gallery: Lord Lorien Darkarrow is a name that's turned up a few times before, so it's good to see him getting full stats here. He was born into a human noble family, but in one of his adventures was killed and reincarnated as a high elf. The timeline is a bit fuzzy so I'm uncertain if his age is his actual chronological age or the effective age of his new body, but either way, this also changed him from a happy-go-lucky swashbuckler to a somewhat more ruthless (but still firmly chaotic good) character. He's accomplished many good deeds for the city, including releasing a whole load of magically trapped souls, (as seen in previous instalments of the paper) which has earned him a place in the Order of the Ravens and various other reluctantly accepted honors. Another character who's basic concept is pretty formulaic, but the details are complex and specific enough to make him not just a basic witty repartee delivering swashbuckling D'arganan clone. Let's hope the judges remember to play him in a nuanced way when he appears in the tournaments

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 1: July 1998



part 1/5



48 pages. We're already juggling three different connected threads here at the moment. Time to add a 4th, even more obscure one. Tracking down a complete collection of Polyhedron UK was one of the hardest parts of doing this. If I'd skipped it, I could have set out on this journey a couple of years earlier. But it would have been a real shame to miss it, since what little internet info could be found on it said that it had higher production values than regular Polyhedron despite it's smaller circulation. The full-color cardstock cover definitely seems like a promising start, even if the picture is somewhat pixelated as it's been compressed down to fit 1998 hard drive sizes before being blown up again for printing. Let's find out how the contents compare in quality and choice of topics.



Martial Arts in AD&D: No lengthy editorial here, after the table of contents and a brief request for more submissions covering any system, not just D&D, they dive straight into a good 8 pages of new optional rules for martial arts. Not that you'll be able to use them in the Living settings, but that's true of most of the new crunch they introduced in regular Polyhedron as well. The kind of dense look at various martial arts styles, who can learn them and how good they can get at them that'll probably only make sense if you have the Complete Fighters Handbook and like tracking heavy crunch in a system that still leaves you less deadly overall than just picking up a sword and hitting someone with it. But then again, maybe you want to play a game where you can knock an opponent out or numb their limbs by doing a called strike rather than going straight to killing people and taking their stuff as a default. The kind of thing that's trying to kitbash D&D into a playstyle it wasn't intended for, when it'd probably be easier to write a whole new one designed so the characters have lots of choice of martial arts moves learned independently. Heck, even the storyteller system worked better for this, as the Street Fighter RPG demonstrated. So there's plenty of interesting stuff here to analyse, but unless you really want to play a gritty martial arts game (no leaping on rooftops or hadoukens here) but your players refuse to depart from the D&D system it's probably not worth the effort.



Words to Survive by: A little Call of Cthulhu action cements their commitment to keeping up diversity in the games they cover. Never visit an abandoned ancestral home, no matter how impossible getting on the property ladder otherwise may seem. There's always a good reason it wound up empty. Don't drink the water, don't read anything written by someone called "the mad". Don't keep a journal yourself, that's just asking to die horribly and have someone else be sucked into the adventure in your stead. Don't go out in the dark or fog, don't travel to anywhere weird, don't keep weird artifacts in your bedroom, don't bother with guns, as they probably won't help against eldritch horrors anyway. Your basic humorous bit of genre awareness. Of course, following this advice as a PC may well mean there's no game, but oh well. Finding the right compromise between seeking adventure and doing it in a smart and tactically effective way has always been a tension in RPG's, particularly ones trying to emulate genres from other media.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 1: July 1998



part 2/5



Just Deserts pt 1: We may have crossed the pond, but tournament adventures are still short and linear. A lot of Cormyran merchants have been going missing recently when crossing Anauroch. As is standard practice in the forgotten realms, they hire a group of suitably levelled adventurers to investigate the problem. They get teleported to a nearby oasis and have to pick up camels & guide, giving you a chance to roleplay the culture shock of extreme sexism, sharing salt, haggling and other stereotypically arabian things. (or not if you have any characters who would have some experience to take charge.) A short way out from the oasis, you get attacked by a yellow dragon, which will be a pretty tough fight at the expected level. Despite being somewhat depleted, if they go back at this point they'll have failed in their mission, so they need to press onwards. The only visible landmark that might offer some shade from the scorching sun turns out to be some mysterious ruins. When nearly there, you'll encounter a giant snake, which if you don't attack first turns out to be a serpent lord who'll heal you up and give you cryptic warnings. (but if you're trigger happy is another nasty fight) It then cuts off there only 3 encounters in, making it clear that this is a single session adventure sliced in two. That means I shall have to wait until next time to give full judgement, but I must say that getting through only 3 encounters in 6 pages isn't very efficient writing. This doesn't look like it'll be overly impressing me.



Going Live: We had a fair amount of LARP talk in Polyhedron issue 126. Apparently the UK branch also think this is an important growth area they should be supporting more. So here's a collection of personal recollections by Richard Kides, talking about how he got into LARPing. After over a decade of playing tabletop, he met the RPGA regional director for East Anglia, who proceeded to expose him to a whole new world of gaming. It seems like this group had been taking inspiration from the growing wave of vampire LARPs, because the setting was a meeting of rival drow houses, (with plenty of humans and other underdark denizens as well) which is pretty much the same kind of scheming of pretty, long-lived, sun avoiding creatures for whom descent is important, only with more blackface as part of the costumes. This does not appear to have been a concern to anyone present, although some people put a lot more effort into the costumes than others, so not everyone did it. That jarring reminder it was a different time and place aside, it all seems a pretty entertaining event, with everyone busy with their own scheming or getting caught up in other people's plotlines. You have to get out of the habit of sticking in a party of half a dozen and embrace the PvP if you really want to get the most out of LARPing, and this is definitely a good demonstration of that.



In Blackest Night: Speaking of vampires, The LARP version of Masquerade is doing very well for itself and they follow straight on with a little introductory piece about how the Camarilla is organised and what you can expect if you go to one of their events. You'll probably start off as a young vampire being introduced to the elysium shortly after your embrace, but from there you could wind up in all sorts of positions, some more compromising than others depending on who you associate. (and of course the vampire scene is notorious for people hooking up IRL as well as IC, which can also lead to the drama spilling out OOC and groups falling apart) If you can keep the drama from spilling out of control, games can last for many years, with characters moving between multiple venues in the same network and gradually accumulating XP. (although progress even for frequently played characters will be much less dramatic than D&D levelling up) You could dive deep into the history of that scene if you were inclined, and it's a definite shame that world of darkness stuff has declined so much in the past decade, turning the nearest rival for D&D's crown into it's own clone of a previous edition. I guess the oversaturation of Twilight made vampires uncool, so now it's time for a break from the whole concept until something new comes along, puts a fresh spin on them.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 1: July 1998



part 3/5



The Priesthoods of Marakush: Chivalry & Sorcery? Now there's a system that's only been mentioned a few times in Dragon and not at all in Dungeon or Polyhedron, but has been doing it's thing since the late 70's and apparently is still going, having released it's 5th edition in 2020. But at this point in time we're just getting into the 3rd edition, which apparently inspired a bit of edition warring by focussing less on the gritty french knightsmanship and more on covering the whole range of fantasy medieval adventures with the serial numbers filed off. So here they take a couple of the gods detailed in there and convert them back to AD&D stats. The results turn out quite differently to the natively created ones, with each god having multiple orders, each with their own specialty priest stats.

Beleryn is a particularly all-purpose greater goddess, covering nature, family life in general and rulership. This means she gets 6 different orders. Your regular PHB style druids. Cloistered clerics who have very weak combat skills & no armor allowed but major access to all spell spheres. Friars, who are slightly stronger physically, have 4 major spheres & 6 minor. And the orders of the Blue Rose, Bear & Chalice, which each have only 3 major spheres & two minor ones, but d10 hit dice and much better weapon & armor selections, putting them somewhere between clerics & paladins in their party role. Seems like you could build a pretty decent party just by combining several of these, making worshipping any other gods redundant.

Canus, on the other hand is your typical evil wolf goddess, harrying civilisation from the edge and forming secret cults to harm it from within. She has only two types of priest, but they have a similar division. Wolfsheads, who have only 5 major & 4 minor spheres, but also access to any weapon and granted powers revolving around berserker rage & lycanthropy to make them more of a HtH threat. Meanwhile Priests of the Black Moon have all spheres and the power to control both werewolves and undead, but once again, weak combat skills & no armour allowed. That gives you both combat challenges and scheming magical masterminds to fight. These all seem usable even if they're not designed in the same way as AD&D deities, with at least some attempt at balance made.



Gen Con UK 1998: The UK version of Gen Con might not be quite as massive as it's american counterpart, but it's still one of the biggest events in the gaming calendar and it's no surprise that they do a similar article full of promotion and photos from last year so potential attendees have a better idea of all the cool things they could do. Over 40 different tournaments to sign up for, LARPing, TCG's, celebrity guests like Peter Adkison and Dennis Beuvais, post-midnight screenings of nerd favourites like Rocky Horror and Monty Python and a live band to finish things up on sunday evening. They're taking the more leisurely approach to timeslots of only 3 per day with hour long gaps between them, but stretching events out to a full 5 days from wed-sun with a full schedule on sunday, as UK travel times are short enough that there are fewer worries about getting all the way back home and into work on monday, plus the greater amount of paid holiday time european countries have compared to the USA making it easier to take a full week off to attend something like this anyway. So the overall format of this article is pretty similar to many I've seen over the years, but closer examination does reveal some of the interesting little differences between countries and their cultures. If only it was easier to import the good bits back to the USA and make them the norm. (and not the opposite, where they seem determined to spread the worst aspects of for profit private healthcare elsewhere)



On The Trail: There's plenty of smaller conventions in the UK as well, so here's 4 shorter pieces from people attending recent ones and the fun they had. Partizan in Newark was only on it's second year, but already filled Kellam hall with AD&D games, Dragon Dice, Robo-Rally, and all sorts of other things. The main gripe was WotC's choice of Magic:the Gathering promotional material, which was too basic for people looking for a proper game.

The recent game day in southsea was even more packed, with space for 6 tables full of players in the game store, but considerably more than that turning up. Thankfully they opened up another room deeper in the building, watches were synchronised, people were sorted randomly to make sure the groups were fair and much tournamenting was done.

The RAF War Gaming Association meetup was obviously more aimed at an old school crowd, but there was plenty of RPG action going on there as well. They actually had more than enough Judges for a change, letting some of them take a break to play as well. People's cumulative scores in events were tracked throughout the weekend, which meant competition for overall winner was fierce and much gossip about who was where on the leaderboard as they progressed took place. Nice to see somewhere does still cater to the more rigorously competitive kind of gaming where it's expected many of the groups will fail in their adventures.

Finally, the third Dudley Bug Ball seemed a particularly sociable event, with lots of the writer mentioning people by first name only as if he's familiar with them. (while I have no idea who any of them are) This is another convention that's learned the lesson that they should leave breaks between slots for people to grab food, go to the toilet and get to the next one without rushing. The game selection was pretty diverse too, including Spelljammer, Elric, Call of Cthulhu, Chivalry & Sorcery and Traveller. Between playing and catching up with people he only saw a few times a year, there was never a quiet moment. Hopefully next year will be just as busy.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 1: July 1998



part 4/5



Bare Bones: It's the first issue of a new magazine, so we're not getting through this without a regular column giving basic roleplaying advice. There's a bunch of basic ingredients that turn up in plots over and over again. You need a hook to get people interested, plot devices to move things along, maguffins (sic) to do awesome things with to resolve sticky situations, (careful about letting the players keep those afterwards) red herrings to muddy the water, twists to keep the players guessing and it should all build up to a crescendo somewhere near the end of the session. Very much on the storytelling end of RPG design, rather than creating a dungeon full of dangers, giving the players free reign to explore and letting the dice fall as they may. Perfectly reasonable advice, but not telling me anything new, like the many other times they've started a series like this from scratch. It takes several more leaps before they have a chance of getting beyond familiar terrain, and since I know there's only 8 issues of this branch of the newszine, I doubt it'll get there even if it carries on for the whole run.



Reviews: Prayers from the Faithful does have plenty of new spells, but it's also about establishing their place in the world and what various Forgotten Realms clergy actually do with them day-to-day. What does your religion really mean to your character in a provably pantheistic world and why did they choose it, other than the general fear of going to the wall of the faithless if they didn't pick one at all? As D&D becomes more focussed on roleplaying and less on hack & slash, these kinds of questions become more important.

The Dragon Reaches of Marakush is the new setting for Chivalry & Sorcery mentioned earlier. It seems like yet another Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off setting. Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, lots of attention to things like languages and social classes in the worldbuilding, aimed at one system but easily adapted to others. Pretty well done if you like that sort of thing but not breaking any new ground conceptually.

Robo Rally Grand Prix moves us from RPG's to boardgames, showing this column is going to be more of an all-purpose reviews one than it's Dragon equivalent. It's all good dirty wacky fun as you zip between multiple locations through portals and try to get to the finish line first while avoiding oil slicks.

Jakandor: Island of War gets the closest thing to a negative review here. It's an interesting concept, but doesn't really have the depth to fill a whole campaign like they want and regular PC's are more likely to just pass through and not engage with the cultural subtleties.

Battleground: Prelude to Waterloo is the latest in a popular series of computer wargames. It gets the most detailed review here, although quite a bit of it is explaining the history of the series and basic things like multiplayer LAN gaming rather than the actual gameplay. I guess it was still a new idea at the time. Another reminder of just how much the internet has improved over the past 20 years, opening up a load of new opportunities when it comes to PvP games. (if you can find anyone else who wants to play that specific game with so many options out there)

The trilogy of sahugin focussed monstrous arcana adventures gets a 9/10 and a review that's pure praise. Good artwork, opportunities for roleplaying, horror elements, but still enough fighting to keep PC's from getting bored. You could fill many months of a campaign with this.

College of Wizardry finishes the column off much as it started, only looking at the day to day life of a wizard when not out adventuring. Enjoy a grab-bag of sample setting info, new spells and mini-adventures aimed at your aspiring arcane spellcaster. Another of those fairly niche products they only got around to producing because AD&D is so saturated with supplements by now.

 

[(un)reason]

Polyhedron UK Issue 1: July 1998



part 5/5



MEGAbyte: The reviews continue with a particularly quirky choice of product, the Babylon 5 interactive digital guide. Two CD's full of of music and point & click menus that let you find out more about the show and the people behind it in a visually appealing interactive way. The kind of thing that would become more common as special features on DVD boxed sets where all the bonus material was a big a selling point as the main feature, or fansites devoted to a specific series. (although some bonus bits could be buried pretty far down a menu tree. ) Another of those things that was big for a while, but has gone into a decline in the age of streaming and a few big social media sites dominating the internet, which is a shame. It shows how changes in technology also affect the format of what's being produced, changing what's easy to do and how much money you can make out of it. Quite a thought-provoking little article really.



Should there be an AD&D 3?: There've already been a few articles in Dragon & Polyhedron that floated ideas which would become core next edition. Here's where they get systematic about it, with a full 64 questions about which way they should take things, mostly rating an idea from 1 to 5, but some that are binary or require more open-ended answers. Do you want AC to go up or down? Do you want a universal resolution mechanic or lots of different tables? Quick & simple character generation or lots of customisable options? The kind of thing TSR didn't really get into, preferring to go with the gut feelings of their writers, and look where that got them. So this is a reminder that the creation of D&D 3e (which wasn't really the 3rd edition of D&D, because they released way more editions than that, but more a continuation of the AD&D line than the basic D&D one) was a protracted process involving a lot more careful math work, audience feedback and playtesting than previous editions. (which still wound up breakable in all sorts of ways once released into the wild, but oh well, can't predict all the ways the parts of your system can be combined, particularly once you open things up to 3rd party publishers) There are some leading questions here, but just as many where they then ask the precise opposite thing to balance the information they get out. All in all, a pretty decent quality of survey.



While there were some basic repetitive bits in here, there was more than enough fresh perspective and ideas in here to make this a pleasant change of pace from the regular magazines, making it much quicker and easier to get through than I would expect for it's size. This era is proving to be much more varied and experimental from this perspective than the Dragon one, where they really played it safe and grew quite boring as a result. Now to get through several more of each of the other things I'm covering and hope that it continues to be a breath of fresh air next time around as well.

 

[(un)reason]

The Raven's Buff Trumpeter 2-7: July 1998



7 pages. A relatively quiet month this time, as most of the news is following up on previously introduced ideas. Several more people put their hats forward for various government positions, entirely willing to accept that they won't be able to play those characters as frequently. Do Lord Silver Fox, Alpin the Scot or Belanor Fenmarel sound like trustworthy names worth voting for? What will they do to solve the ongoing problems the city faces?

They are making some progress on the demonic troubles front, but it's hard to guard everywhere even with the Golden Roosters mucking in on patrols. The temple of Mystra was mostly destroyed, which is going to be another fine mess to clear up. Until the heart of bane is gone, more'll keep on coming no matter how many you kill. Let's hope they get it done before something else big attacks, such as monsters from the Underdark, as a threatening open letter hints might be coming soon. Or maybe the evil wizard lord Roan Sattlemark will use his mind-control powers and political position to manipulate Raven's Bluff into a war with Thay. Which plot hooks will people bite on and turn into a bigger deal and which will be forgotten? It does seem like normal players are getting some influence over the direction of the Living City as a whole, which is good to see.

Of course, some things are dictated from the top and no amount of player complaining will change that. Cheating on magical item certificates is strictly forbidden. Because some people at Conncon didn't follow the rules, all magical items bought or traded there turn out to be fakes. You won't get the ones you sold back either, the scammers are long gone. That's going to make some people very angry, particularly if they aren't reading the newsletter and only find out about this when their character is audited at a future convention. Convention organisers, make sure you return all unused certificates after the con so you can't use them to cheat with your own characters or other such cons. Just can't trust anyone these days, can you?



Rogues Gallery: Lord Torrik Briarrose is one of the people looking to win a government position in the upcoming elections. A huge chunky moustachioed bear of a man who serves Tyr, he's very well equipped to take names and kick Tanar'ri ass. (since bubblegum hasn't been invented here) He's running heavily on an anti-corruption platform, as even though Raven's Bluff isn't actually that bad as FR cities go, it still has more than enough that it doesn't meet his standards. Well, with Baatezu being officially sanctioned visitors at the moment can you blame him. You know what happens if they're left alone for any length of time. He has a typically tragic backstory involving losing his parents and being mind-wiped, reminding us that even though Living campaigns force you to be good, this is still the 90's and people want to put more angst into their gaming. When every other character has something like that going on, they can't help move the campaign a little further in that direction.



Living City Q&A: You got the rules on combining multiple attacks with unarmed combat wrong! (yes, but in our defence, we were working with an earlier print of the PHB.)

Do gauntlets count as a weapon slot or miscellaneous one for Paladins? (Miscellaneous)

How much XP does switching alignment cost? (double cost for the next level)

Can Monks or Crusaders have a kit? (no)

Does a cube of liquid enhancement double it's quantity or quality? (quantity, so more people can gain the same effect, as two doses of the same potion rarely stack)

How does moonweb work? (you can see out, but they can't see in and neither of you can pass through. )

Can I move an AoE spell with a duration around once it's cast? (not usually)

Will restoration fix Con drain? (yes, but only one point at a time. That can get pretty expensive if you were zapped multiple times)

 

[(un)reason]

The Raven's Buff Trumpeter 2-7s: July 1998



4 pages. Four more people try to sell themselves to the readers of the newspaper and win public office. Would you like to vote for Sir Tyrell Darkmoon, who's accumulated 8 different titles in the course of his adventures, but still says he'll support the common man over spoiled nobles and strengthen the borders against external enemies. Or Lord Knight Rashverak Dandelion, who says he'll mix strength with a healthy balance of nurturing to go. Denzil Lassar, who simply thinks he ought to be in charge because he's awesome. And Jenilynn Leyland, a priestess of Tyr who's appealing to the "won't someone think of the children!!!!" demographic. Well, that last one definitely wouldn't get my vote, as that has a long record of going bad places even with the best of intentions.

Speaking of which, apparently followers of Tyr have been getting overzealous in general lately. The Knights of the Right Hand have been enforcing their own idea of what's good without regard for the city's laws so much that they get kicked out of the Knight's council. Whether that's because they're heroic rebels or lawful dickish paladins (possibly listening to too much bad advice from disguised Baatezu) I'm not sure, but this seems like setup for further plot twists in the near future.

Of course, their fears aren't completely unfounded, given the number of adventurers that recently married alu-fiends. Enough of them have done dubious things that they've all been declared wanted criminals, putting anyone who married one in the position of needing to turn them in or have suspicion fall on them in turn. One has been "persuaded" to turn on the rest and reveal their secrets via a helm of opposite alignment, which unsurprisingly revealed they were all part of an abyssal network feeding information back to Mykyssa Jelan and a still unknown demon lord. Even though they might have been exposed, I'm sure they're still capable of causing plenty of trouble with their mind-control and teleporting powers before they're all banished.

The hint that next year's big events might involve things from the underdark continue, as do the eruptions at Firestorm Mountain. (very much nominative determinism there) We also get a threatening anonymous letter that says the many disasters various temples have suffered over the last year are all orchestrated by one villain called The Checkmate, who will destroy more if his demands are not met. Precisely what those demands are remains to be seen, but if he's not full of hot air he must have some pretty effective & sneaky powers to cause all this damage without being suspected before. I guess there's no shortage of rare spells in the realms only known by a few to trick people with, as so many articles have shown us.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 69: Jul/Aug 1998



part 1/5



84 pages. Here comes the Flameskull! But is it going to attack the adventurers, or is it one which is bored enough to attach themselves to the party instead and follow them around making snarky comments until they decide to kill it out of sheer irritation. (then probably find that they can't) That's a situation that has caused much annoyance over the years, including in official novels. Let's see if this issue makes it fun to play out or not.



Editorial: Chris has already made more changes in the past couple of issues than previous editors did in the past 10 years. He does not intend to slow the pace, although he's finally starting to run down his backlog of submitted but not published adventures, so this is the first issue in quite some time where he doesn't also feature as a writer. That's counterbalanced by the fact that they're starting up their first extended series of adventures this issue, which obviously needed more creative input as an editor than usual to co-ordinate all the writers of individual sections and make sure it has a solid overarching plot with no inconsistencies. What darkness lurks in the mere of dead men, and will the PC's be joining them in eternal rest?

Plenty of other experiments coming up soon which he has no hesitation about spoiling, some all new and some harking back to the old school. Puzzles and traps with a booklet of illustrations to help the players choose their course of action? They haven't done that since issue 37. A homage to the works of Lenard Lakofka? Off to the planes, under the seas, and a tie-in with Dragon's Wyrms of the North column. Not sure I'll like all that, but it's definitely a decent amount of variety, and as long as someone does it won't be wasted space in the magazine.



Letters: First letter reminds us that even when you use adventures from Dungeon, you shouldn't hesitate to put your own spin on the material. (particularly if there's a chance the players might have already read some of it) It makes your game more unique and probably more fun as well.

Second is irritated at the inefficiency of the Dragonlance Saga adventure. That was a lot of backstory for relatively few encounters. Well, what do you expect with these narrativist sorts? The story is the important part and they don't want you messing it up.

Third is generally complimentary, but wants more adventures with riddles & puzzles. Well, you're in luck, because have we got a treat for you coming up later!

Fourth praises the works of Michael Shel & Steve Kurtz, but spends most of the letter talking about the idiosyncratic way they played the game before they had the full rule books. Playing AD&D modules with only the basic set and extrapolating higher levels from that had results that were hilariously wrong in hindsight. They could definitely do with a clearer entry path to the rules.

Fifth is very strongly in favour of more Alternity adventures. It inspired a whole ton of ideas that you couldn't do in D&D and needs more support. Let's make it the success it deserves to be.

Sixth nitpicks Eye of the Storm, pointing out that with their saving throws, Storm Children are on a fast track to below replacement breeding rate and extinction. That's probably why you never see them anywhere else in the future.

Seventh has the complaint that the gender balance of characters in adventures isn't great. Time the Dungeon writers got a little affirmative action & diversity training perhaps?

Eighth thinks regular D&D is superior to the supposedly advanced variety, particularly the Rules Cyclopedia version which is easy to get into but still gives you enough depth to play for decades with the same characters. They should do more adventures for it. Oh and support other systems in general as well. They could do with the extra help while AD&D already has more than enough.

9 &10 continue the endless debate about if the magazine should have more or less variety and what even counts as not generic in the first place. The stars could burn out and nerds will still be nitpicking over the boundaries of genres.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 69: Jul/Aug 1998



part 2/5



Slave Vats of the Yuan-Ti: So far, Dungeon has been almost entirely episodic. One two-parter, a couple of sequels to popular adventures, plenty of adventures set in the same world that are stand-alone but have minor connections a DM could choose to put together, but nothing forcing a lengthy commitment purchasing every issue that has a part of the larger adventure for it all to make sense. And actually, it looks like while the Mere of Dead Men series may have more connection between it's various parts, as well as a canonical place in the Forgotten Realms, they're still making sure that the individual parts can also be used standalone. After all, dismal swamps infested with monsters can be found on many worlds, as are stalwart heroes. You could remove the framing device and put each of these adventures in different swamps around your own campaign world.

But anyway, the swamps north of Waterdeep have been unusually troublesome of late. You've been hired by Sir Justin Melenikus, a Paladin of Helm, along with several other adventuring parties. (which neatly explains why he isn't out there doing it himself despite being higher level than you, the problems are too many for one party so it needs a more co-ordinated approach) Your first assignment is to investigate the abandoned manor or Wolfhill House, which they believe is being used as a hideout by smugglers. They're not wrong, but things are a lot more complex than that. The leader of the smugglers is actually a Yuan-ti pureblood, using the mundane criminality to gain resources to create brainwashed clones to increase their influence over the world in general. Having the typically high intelligence of his race, he's prepared a contingency plan for if adventurers come blundering in, involving sacrificing a clone of himself and using illusions to hide the important parts on the manor so they can lay low and go back to plotting world domination once the adventurers have gone, thinking they've cleared out everything.

So this is designed so the players can have two outcomes and still get to the next adventure. They could defeat the obvious monsters but miss the more subtle ones, go back to Sir Justin and claim their reward and be assigned their next mission next session. Or they could realise something fishy is going on, get to the secret areas and face tougher challenges, but also gain more treasure and clues that there's a bigger conspiracy at work, which will hopefully lead them to investigate things more proactively. It does a careful balancing act of catering for both dumb dungeoncrawlers and people who want to know the history of a place, how and why the monsters got there and what they actually get up to day-to-day when adventurers aren't around. It is corralling their choices behind the scenes so they'll get to the next part of the plot either way but at least it's letting them deal with the individual scenario the way they choose and the worldbuilding parts of the adventure are well above average, as is the use of nonstandard monsters with templates and class levels to keep the challenges interesting. Even though Chris is only editing rather than writing it still shows his hallmarks in monster design, much of which will become common practice next edition. So this is a step forward rather than a bold leap, as they're still trying to juggle doing something new with pleasing their more conservative readers who just want more standalone adventures to use as they please in their own campaign, but it is a well done one. Looks like this experiment is indeed going to be a success. (after all, they wouldn't have produced more and longer adventure paths if the readers had panned this one)