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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8253380" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 53: May/Jun 1990part 3/5American Steel: Gamma World once again goes to the giant mecha well, with another model of humanoid robot equipped with all manner of weaponry that the PC's could either have to fight, or find and use themselves (although it's unlikely to be in mint condition after several centuries unless the GM is feeling very generous.) The Dreadbot Mk I is a 10 meter tall humanoid that really needs two operators to function at full efficiency, but can just about get by with one expert pilot. Of course, if players try that, they'll probably cause a fair bit of unintentional destruction before they get the hang of it. Better hope they're not doing so in the middle of a (formerly) friendly town. Like a boat or spaceship, getting one of these may seem cool, but it comes with substantial expenses and makes you a target to a new class of enemies which are a challenge to your giant mecha. There's definitely plenty of fun to be had with this genre, otherwise they wouldn't keep on going back too it. Now if only they'd write a rules system that was better designed to support both human and mecha scale fights on a mechanical level. Then they wouldn't have to shoehorn it into the postapocalyptic survivalist weirdness. The New Rogues Gallery: This column goes full "let me tell you about my characters", but in a particularly weird way, as it basically asks What if Frankenstein, but cosy slice-of-life story instead of gothic tragedy? A relationship between a wizard and his homunculus where they form an increasingly close relationship over the years, upgrading it from the original small impish form to a handsome one indistinguishable from human, but immortal, which then increasingly becomes a relationship of equals as it adapts to it's new body and mind. It ends bittersweetly, with the wizard dying of old age and setting the homunculus free, to seek out new companions, quite possibly your PC's. It's all exceedingly homoerotic, with loving description of the activities they get up too together, including cultivating their own unique brand of magical roses, which they then destroy all remaining specimens of in a pyre when the wizard dies. It's pretty much as close as they can get to gay representation in here as long as the TSR code of conduct prohibits anything explicit, which is pretty cool to see. As with many a slice-of-life fanfic, whether OC or using an existing property, the main problem with it is a lack of stakes or conflict. There's no real issues with or threat to their relationship other than the eventual one of human mortality, just one vignette of happy relationship after another. Which is interesting in one way simply because you don't see it very often in published media, but also boring in another. So this is simultaneously worth praising for breaking formula, while also illustrating why those formulas are necessary and become a thing in the first place. Life can be complicated like that sometimes.</blockquote>

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