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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8026722" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 19: Jul/Aug 1984part 4/6If adventure has a name……: Our straight Indiana Jones promotional article follows pretty much the same formula as last issue, trying to sell the game by giving a synopsis of the system and what you do in it. It's a much simpler system than the Marvel one, with resolution for everything being a basic roll-under test vs your attribute scores, with occasional difficulty modifiers. This doesn't give much opportunity for customisation or advancement, and indeed, actual character generation rules are conspicuous by their absence, instead forcing you to choose between 7 pregen characters from the movies. (which at least avoids another pitfall of licensed games, making the original characters way more powerful than any PC's you can create yourself) It all seems very small in scope and execution. This is definitely one there's no need to revive and retroclone. Something like Adventure! or Savage Worlds could do all the high action pulpy fun this tries to do and much much more. I'm not surprised they never did any articles for this in Dragon, and the supplements for it petered out after only a year. They just didn't have enough to work with in the first place, and the strictness of the licensing agreement quite possibly precluded any reader submissions from being published anyway. If you want to make something big and long lasting you need to start with the right foundations. Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month: The new gamma world organisations continue to be primarily essentialist rather than ideological, making them difficult to join as PC's and primarily intended as antagonists. This time it's one comprised entirely out of robots. Various specialist types are created by the main factory and sent on missions to expand their influence and exterminate the remnants of humanity. Unlike the average robot, they have underwater bases and are actually quite well equipped for long-term function down there. The master droid has the usual groan-inducing pop culture references. While there's still some amusing and inventive bits, this barrage of fantasy racism is getting a bit tiresome, and I hope the next instalment doesn't continue the trend. Come on Jim, surely you can come up with other motivations for conflict between groups. It's not as if there's a shortage of problems around here to make creatures hate each other for entirely rational reasons. The Laser Pod: Our Star Frontiers material this issue extolls the virtues of miniaturisation, giving us a new small weapon that can be fitted onto smaller ships, or mounted in great quantities on something larger so they have lots of secondary guns and are difficult to blindside. They might not have the range or power of missiles, but sometimes you want to hold back a bit and do a warning shot first or don't have that option anyway. Along with the stats, they also include a bunch of plot hooks for how people might react to this technology being introduced mid-campaign, which is very pleasing to see. Too many Sci-fi settings are oddly static and need a good shake-up to keep them interesting. Let the new technology be cool and an advantage to the side that gets it first, then spread and become commonplace over time like things do in reality.</blockquote>

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