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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8289394" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991part 2/5Letters: The first letter asks how hard it is to become a Gen Con tournament Judge. As long as you can fill in forms on time and know your way around a few RPG systems, not hard at all. There's never enough compared to the amount of players to go around, so step up now or forever hold your peace, because if you wait until a month or two before the convention it'll be too late. Second asks them if they'll run more tournaments with non TSR games. They'd like too, but see the previous comment about needing more suitably qualified GM's. Just one person willing and able to run a system can make a big difference to what games will be available on the day. Third is another person objecting to the idea that people should be able to run credited tournament adventures at their own homes. The RPGA staff would prefer any tournament adventures be open to the public, but it all depends on what facilities are available, so it once again is a matter of location, with more out of the way places getting a bit more leniency in terms of venue choice. Fourth is from member of staff Sylvia Deering, who's recently retired from active duty at TSR to head for sunnier climes, but remains a member of the RPGA and carries fond memories. See you at the conventions. Finally, thanks from last year's chosen charity. Sharing is, as ever, caring. Keep it up. The Living City: Hrmm, continuity issues. A few issues ago, the PC's were sent to capture some dancing bears for Raven's Bluff's circus. If you followed the railroad successfully, you wound up capturing a werebear rather than mundane ones, who then decided to stay with the circus willingly because it seemed more fun than living alone in the wilderness. Now they've seen the sense in cutting out the animal cruelty entirely for a more fantastical approach, and managed to recruit a whole family of werebears, which makes for far better and more varied dance routines, plus they can help with the other parts of the show in their human forms. The only problem? They joined 7 years ago here, which makes the adventure a few months ago nonsensical, as the two articles can't both be true. This is an almighty editorial cock-up. I'm not amused at all. If you're running a shared world, you need to work extra hard to maintain consistency of timeline and locations, or the whole thing falls apart. Still, if you're forcing me to choose, I'll definitely go with this one, which actually has decent characterisation and descriptions of circus life, the tricks they get up to, and some of the more mundane human members of the circus. They also have an illusionist on staff to help with the theatrics, although she's not so high level that they can completely eschew more mundane prestidigitation in their show. (and it's always good to diversify your tricks anyway in case one performer falls sick or injures themselves in a stunt.) So overall, I have no objection to this article's quality in isolation, but it illustrates how lax their standards for continuity are, which is not a positive thing at all. The longer Raven's Bluff runs, the more this kind of thing will become an issue unless they up their game considerably.</blockquote>

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