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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8223523" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 49: September 1989part 5/5Screening The Game: A bit of a diversion from the usual fare as they give us some DIY advice. If you want to create your own DM screen, this is how to go about it. All you need is a decent sized bit of cardboard, a photocopier or printer, a knife, scissors, and glue. Oh, and deciding what to put on the front and back in the first place, which may be the easiest or hardest part depending on your current inspiration levels. A reminder that we're still barely a decade from when the entire RPG industry was a hand assembled shoestring operation, and the bar for entry isn't actually that high. With a few year's practice, you too could produce stuff that has decent production values. Even without that, it can still have quick reference information that's more useful and ergonomically placed for the way you play than the official DM screens. That's more than worth a few hours getting your hands dirty. The Living City: The cover image turns out to have a lot more than you'd expect going on beneath the surface. The halfling is actually a shapechanged baku, while the tree belongs to a dryad who runs a secret establishment for any fae creatures passing through Raven's Bluff. Any humans investigating the place will simply see a big oak tree in an overgrown garden, and be politely asked to leave by the caretaker. Presuming one of the prankster guests don't spot them first and decide to have a bit of fun, which is always a possibility. Nonevil elves & short folk will be welcomed, but that won't protect them from the mischief. As long as they take it in the right spirit and give as good as they get they'll fit right in. A reminder that the living city might be fantastical, but it's not TOO fantastical (getting fae to integrate with other races, get jobs and pay their taxes, now that's an unrealistic fantasy <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) and it's not particularly dark & gritty either despite the frequency of raven symbology. There's an unusually large, powerful and diverse selection of interesting NPC's here, so even if they are annoying, you probably don't want to fight them head-on, as the others'll rapidly come to their defence. You can definitely get quite a bit of interesting plot stuff out of this one, making the players subject to pranks or thefts, and then having their investigation eventually lead them here. That's a nice change of pace from all the regular human shops and pubs we've seen so far. Will this encourage other submitters to get a little weirder with their ideas as well? The Bard's Corner: Original poems rather than filks? That's a surprising, but also welcome little experiment. Even better, they're not the kind that rely on forced rhyming over coherence or cheap humor, but actually attempt to build atmosphere. That's something that could distinguish them from Dragon Magazine's Dragonmirth while still lightening the mood. Wouldn't object to seeing something like this again. Bloodmoose and Company go full looney tunes with the comedic blundering. A hundred foot pit? Trivial injury. They'll be fine in an issue or two. Another issue that was pretty hard work, although it did have some interesting bits in it. The bits where they depart from formula were the best, which once again shows the dangers of complacency. Let's see what celebrations the confluence of 50 issues and christmas will bring, and if they'll switch things around for the new year or stick with the current selection of regular features.</blockquote>

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