Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8006103" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 15: Nov/Dec 1983part 2/6Letters: Our first letter is from someone who wants to send in articles, but doesn't want to surrender the rights to their intellectual property. You need to allow a certain amount of sublicencing otherwise others can't use or build upon what you created. It's one of the basic tensions in collaborative creativity that you have to learn to live with.Connected to this the second letter is irritated that they always put those ®, © and ™ symbols after naming products. They're just defending their intellectual property. If you ain't got respect, you ain't got nuthin'. Capiche?We then get a letter asking how two modules can be connected if they're aimed at different levels. Characters gain experience and levels in play, duh. If the designer is good at math they may even have calculated how much xp you gain from the module on average, and calibrated future instalments appropriately. Someone irritated that the cover isn't actually the cover, but the third page. Just basic protection for transit. If they polybagged and bubble-wrapped every issue they'd have to charge a lot more for postage. Someone confused about how much the new editions of the corebooks have changed. They've just given them new trade dress. They're going to use the same spine color and font on all their hardbacks for the rest of the edition to make them easy to spot on the shelves. Hope you like orange. Someone requesting they talk more about minis. They did do a column on painting them in their first year. It didn't get much response, so they dropped it. If you want these things, you've gotta push for them. Yet again we have a request for submission guidelines. Type it out neatly, don't forget your SASE, and don't expect to get paid. It's not rocket science. And finally we have a request for larger prints of artwork. As with the minis, they're not planning on doing that any time soon, and it'd take a fair bit of public demand to make it viable The squeaky bird gets the greasy worm.1983 RPGA Network Judges Ranking: We had the ranking of the top scoring players last issue. Now it's time to find out which judges were the most and least generous with their scoring. It's not actually that wide a spread, with the highest averaging 66% and the lowest 45, which shows the system is rigorous enough to average out the worst of human personality swings. AD&D games outnumbered all the others put together, which isn't that surprising, with Top Secret a distant second, which also isn't surprising from the number of supplements the various games get over the years. Penny Petticord was by far the most industrious GM, judging 36 different players over 3 different systems in multiple conventions over the course of the year. So lots of interesting statistics here, and appearances by several people who haven't written for TSR yet, but are going to do so in the future, moving up in the ranks by hard work and making themselves indispensable. There are definite advantages to getting in on the ground floor. Encounters: Our cover scenario is one of those ones that seems simple at first, and then just gets weirder and weirder. Fight 4 living statues and loot a tomb? Not an insurmountable challenge for an 8th level character, even on their own. But then you find out what they're guarding, and some of the things that happen if you try various ways to solve the encounter without danger to yourself. Which shows the designer has probably already run this encounter against annoying rules lawyers and redesigned it accordingly. They will not be denied! You WILL be thrown into a parallel universe and spend a whole plot arc just trying to get back home! This is a bit irritating. One of the less impressive and more railroady examples in this series.</blockquote>

Verification