NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8310781" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 59: May 1991part 2/5On the Warpath: Boot Hill manages to get another article, and in doing so, manages to remind us precisely why it went way out of style, with a detailed timeline of native american genocide & forced relocation and their failed attempts to fight back from 1834 to 1895. They're still trying to blithely treat them like equal sides in a fantasy game, and even more than then, this isn't flying as more minorities are given voices by social media and remind us that this is was a pretty one-sided series of taking stuff and breaking treaties that happened to their ancestors and still has a real impact on their living conditions today. Can you really still play cowboys as the cool, rootin-tootin heroes of the story after reading about all that? Would you want to game with people who would? This is a short sharp dose of reality amid the more fantastical stuff, and reminds us that even the early 90's are a long away away in terms of political attitudes. The TSR code of conduct keeps blatant sexism & racism out of their products, but the overall staff demographics are still strongly white & male and some perspectives are still more default than others. The Living City: This column also deals with some unpleasant day-to-day realities, talking about a Raven's Bluff slaughterhouse and butcher shop. Unless your PC's are vegetarians, (a principle that will be sorely tested when you're on a lengthy adventure and running out of supplies) hunt everything themselves, or are powerful enough to magic up their food, they're going to be regular customers to something like this. They don't have any magitech to make the actual butchery any more humane, (and one of the owners is a sadist who likes it that way) but they do have a magical freezer to help with storage. (which would be a threat to the dedicated icehouse a few issues ago if they decided to focus more on that aspect of their business) They also stick strictly to selling mammalian meat, so as not to compete with a nearby poultry vendor that hasn't got a full write-up yet. (but may in the future, hint hint) There is a subplot about a vampire lurking beneath the abattoir and feeding off the waste blood from the animals, but as it's been able to cut way down on killing people thanks to that, it's pretty low priority for the average adventurer. So this is mainly interesting on a socio-economic level, showing what modern amenities they do & don't have in this world, and the bounds of where they're competing with their rivals due to overlap of remits. You want to make a profit, but you can't sell everything to every market, so it pays to specialise. These kinds of worldbuilding details are fascinating, and I just hope that other RPGA writers are paying attention and will create something consistent that builds further on them in response.</blockquote>

Verification