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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8291040" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 57: Jan/Feb 1991part 4/5With Great Power: Steven Schend takes over this column from William Tracey, which leads to one of those instances where the new writer ignores all the stuff the previous one did, (just like certain actual comic arcs) treats it like a reset to square one, and starts off with some ultra-basic general gaming advice. Is your campaign going to stick as strictly to Marvel Earth-616 canon as possible, have the same basic sets of characters but put your own spin on them like their many what if one-shots, or go for all-originals in both PC's and NPC's? The kind of thing you've already thought about if you've ever played any game based on a licensed property. So this is only useful for complete noobs, and of no interest to me, like far too many of these reboots I've seen over the years. Wake me once he's settled in and starts building something of his own. Rakshasa: The adventure this issue is short and completely self-explanatory. The PC's are sailing along the coast when they pass by the territory of a Rakshasa. It wrecks the ship, wears them down with summoned monsters and hit & run attacks, and will do it's best to intimidate them into being it's slaves, or failing that, have them for dinner. They give enough info on it's history and goals that if the PC's do get beaten and agree to serve, (for now at least) you actually have a mission to send them on, which can easily be expanded out into a whole campaign arc. So this is a pretty decent high level encounter against an enemy that uses it's powers intelligently, and isn't just lurking in a static location waiting for the PC's to come in and fight it, but actively working to accomplish it's goals and could be made into a recurring adversary, since Rakshasas are good at disguising themselves and pretty hard to kill if you don't know it is one & have blessed crossbow bolts on hand. Flexible encounters like this give you much more bang for your page count than their recent railroads, particularly in an established home campaign rather than a tournament environment. The Living Galaxy: The last few instalments of this column were very specific not just to sci-fi games, but spacebound ones in particular. This one is far more generic and familiar. What makes a good villain? While there are some variations due to genre and game mechanics, there's a lot of things that remain constants in every form of fiction, because that's what human nature resonates with. Will you go for a cackling maniacal caricature, or a realistic and rational character who has good reasons for doing the things they do, but happens to be on the other side as the players? How powerful are they compared to the PC's, what makes them distinctive to roleplay as a villain, and what weaknesses & blind spots do they have that might enable them to be defeated? (as all villains should be eventually) As usual for Roger, it's pretty competently done, and gains a little extra by referencing recent articles both here and in Dragon, but there's nothing groundbreaking in here. If you're a less experienced GM, you can get something out of it, but it's not telling me anything new. The repetition that comes with periodical churn can get tiresome sometimes.</blockquote>

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