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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8222955" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 49: September 1989part 4/5Ghostbusters Revisited: With a comedic ghosthunting story in the introductory issue, the influence of ghostbusters on pop culture is evidently still running high. The cartoon has been going consistently for several years, and the sequel movie was released just a few months ago. They have a whole raft of toyetic tie-ins, including a new edition of the ghostbusters RPG. Which is obviously the main focus of this little promotional piece, telling us how they think it improved on the previous edition and what supplements they have planed to follow it up. It's somewhat rules-heavier than the previous edition, but still nowhere near D&D level, which really wouldn't fit the source material. Will they manage to get a few more sales this time around, and maybe even make the system capable of sustaining longer campaigns with actual character advancement? Hindsight says not really. This is pretty much pure advertising, only really notable because it's for a non TSR system. I thought they didn't do paid advertising in here. Did they do this for free then, or are they taking backhanders? Either way, I'm not amused. Give us something that's still useful once you buy the book. That's far more likely to get me curious and actually motivate me to make the purchase. Step by Step: Another article aimed at encouraging people who'd like to be more active participants in the RPGA, but aren't sure how to start. It's not that difficult once you break it down, but you do need to plan way ahead. If you want a decent turnout so what you're running is a success, you should have it scheduled, advertising and open for registration a good year in advance. Once you have that, the pressure is on, and here's a bunch of other deadlines you should meet so you're not panicking the night before. It's all clearly written, neatly laid out, and the kind of thing that's probably honoured more in the breach than actually adhered too in real life, as the antics of the TSR staff in their post-convention roundups regularly demonstrate. Knowing proper practice and actually sticking strictly to it are entirely different matters in a complicated and messy world. Seen this before, and almost definitely seeing it again.  Cure Light Wounds: AD&D 2e has been out a couple of months now, long enough for the first bits of feedback to come in. As usual, there are a few loud angry voices complaining about certain changes, and more simply wondering why they made them. So here's Steve Winter to do some explaining & justifying and hopefully calm them down. Giving players both more choice, and a bigger share of responsibility was a very intentional bit of design. 2e is not for GM's who want to be petty dictators. Druids actually have more spells now, not less on top of all their special abilities. Rangers get to choose what they're good at fighting, and a bonus to hit is less swingy in combat effects than a bonus to damage. Bards are massively more accessible and flexible now. Cantrips are still there, only even more flexible as you don't have to choose what type you're using until you cast it. Many of the things from 1e supplements that didn't fit in the new corebooks will reappear in 2e ones in updated and rebalanced forms. He's all pretty reasonable and conciliatory except on one point. Assassins are bad, and you should feel bad for wanting to play them! They're gone and they ain't coming back! We're trying extra hard to be family friendly now. At least none of the complainers have noticed the absence of fiendish creatures, as the new monstrous compendium is still bigger than the old one even without them. A reminder that the 2e edition war was relatively mild compared to the subsequent ones, but it was there, and the worst of it didn't happen until TSR themselves made a big deal of what they'd removed quite a while after it had been out. We shall see what the RPGA thinks of those changes soon, and I'm very interested to see how it differs from the more general audience response in Dragon.</blockquote>

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