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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7999389" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 13: Jul/Aug 1983part 4/6The Hive Master: Our largest article this month is a 4 page adventure for Gangbusters, which kinda puts the lie to their statement a few issues back that they don't have the page count for it. Push the envelope a little more, and you'll be able to squeeze a full-sized scenario in. This pushes the envelope in another way as well, stretching the setting from straight historical crime drama to pulp mad science. Someone's been genetically engineering bees - TO COMMIT CRIME!!! Your players need to investigate, find out who's responsible, and foil them. Sounds like an entertaining premise. Unfortunately, it's designed as a complete railroad, simply giving a list of scenes, and expecting you to go from one to the next with no regard for what happens if the players make different choices or the dice don't co-operate. This is the problem with trying to game in a modern day or historical setting. It's harder to write good adventures where the players have free will than site-based dungeons, and there's so much less you can do before stretching the bounds of credulity. It's not surprising that they don't sell as much.Ecosystem: The Ecology series has made it's debut in Dragon Magazine recently, and proved quite the breakout hit, rapidly getting enough submissions to keep them going for years. Even Jim Ward seems to approve of the idea, and sets out to incorporate it into Gamma World, even though it's not very well suited to it. But despite all the gonzo things thrown into the books with no thought their relative frequencies or how they interact with one another, you can still generate plot hooks by thinking about the motivations of creatures and what might happen when they're put together in your own campaign. Some of those combinations will produce very silly results. So this hasn't completely abandoned the ridiculous and humorous spirit of the 1st edition, but like the anti-god article this issue, it shows the designers are starting to regret their youthful excesses and think about how they can walk things back a bit, set a good example for the next generation of gamers, and create longer-term campaigns. We'll definitely be seeing more of this stuff in the near future.</blockquote>

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