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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7990750" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 11: Mar/Apr 1983part 5/6Spelling Bee: Now, if anyone's going to be able to stop a fungus that defeated the most advanced technological countermeasures, it's druids. So this column being devoted to druid spells is a pleasing bit of serendipity. Druids are nearly as good at curing as regular clerics, and their elemental connections also mean they're better at blasting stuff, especially at low level. Their main limitation is the need for regular supplies of mistletoe, which means they can't delve too deep into the dungeon for too long, even if they can create food and water for the party. But in the wilderness, they can be both excellent combatants, and sneaky tricksters solving problems in clever ways. This is another handy one to check back on, as it's tactical advice for spells remains true in most other editions of D&D too. Don't underestimate the nature guys. Escalation and Blackmail: Gary's been playing D&D longer than anyone, so he knows the difference between a character that started at 1st level and gained every XP and magic item the hard way, and one that was handed all their cool stuff on a plate or created at a higher level. Don't let them have power they haven't properly earned, and remember you can always take it away. On the other hand, remember that you can always walk away from a game if it ceases to be fun, both as a DM or a player. Getting so attached to your party or world that you can be blackmailed over the ingame events shows an unhealthy relationship with fantasy over reality. Basically, what this boils down to is learning the right amount of delayed gratification. If you give players everything they demand straight away, they'll get bored or you'll hit the point where the system breaks down quickly, and you won't actually have as much fun in the long run. This is all pretty sensible advice, learned from hard experience, even if Gary sometimes presents it in a rather hyperbolic way. I guess that just adds to the fun, really. Tournament Scoring System Pt 2: This continues from last issue with the actual rating forms, which have 12 scoring categories for the DM and 7 for the players, rated out of 10, each with different weighting to determine how they contribute to the final score. Once it's all totalled up, you could add up to 500 points to your profile if you had a perfect score in every category. Anyone who consistently goes to more than one or two cons a year will have no problem racking up 5 figure scores over the course of a decade. If they don't reset the whole thing next staff turnover or edition change, anyway. As with all of these long term things they're setting up, we shall see what works, what crashes and dies, and what mutates into an unrecognisable form through incremental changes over the years.</blockquote>

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