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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8086669" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 32: Sep/Oct 1986part 2/5Arcane Academe: Reader apathy has put the author of Fletcher's Corner off this whole column writing business, so we have another shakeup here. Now Jeff Martin'll be giving you your compact doses of GM advice until further notice. Unsurprisingly, his mind is still on convention experiences, so we get some advice to hold on until next year. But while the last few bits of advice have been on getting the most out of your games, this is about surviving the actual convention process. Choose your party carefully, for the wrong roommate makes the whole time there a lot more odious and sleep-deprived. Don't overspend on the first day and wind up having to lug a ton of stuff around while looking regretfully at things you wish you'd got instead. And if your constitution is remotely delicate, don't forget your antacid tablets. Now that's something games don't give enough attention too. I guess getting the squits from dirty water while out adventuring and having to deal with wandering monsters while also dealing with crippling bowel pains, and figuring out how to clean your trousers afterwards without hot water is a bit too gritty and realistic for even the most hardcore of historical nerds.  A reasonably amusing start. Let's see what kind of depth he can build too in future instalments. Operation: Butter-Up: Our module this issue is a Top Secret one, another of the tournament adventures they ran at this year's Gen Con. Even without external submissions, they could easily fill most of the year with a collection of these for their various systems. It's one that actually features some proper espionage too, talking to the various people at a hotel and figuring out who the bad guys are, rather than just sneaking in, killing people and blowing stuff up. That's a real positive. On the negative side, it's filled with silly names and bad puns that make taking the plot seriously a bit of a challenge. But if you can get past that, there's a lot of information packed in here, giving us stats for over 50 characters, and a timeline for what'll happen if the players do nothing, while giving them plenty of freedom to change it. Definitely don't recommend running this one without reading it properly first, but if you do, there's a lot more depth in here than your regular site-based dungeon crawl. So this isn't perfect, but it's much closer to fulfilling the full potential of the system than the early adventures and making them properly distinct from D&D ones.</blockquote>

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