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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8324770" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 60: June 1991part 3/5The Living Galaxy: Roger is also continuing to come up with good ideas, but be far less helpful in implementing them mechanically. What if, instead of playing the humans (and aliens of similar scale), you played the spaceships? With their vast computer systems, they're frequently sentient in themselves, and can get up to some pretty interesting stuff over both macro and micro timescales that squishy organics can't participate in at all. Anyone who's read Ian M Bank's Culture series will know there's definitely some good storytelling to be had there, but how do you keep a spaceship from overpowering their crew? (both literally and plot-wise) Making them not so advanced that they don't need humans for maintenance & upgrades takes care of the first one, possibly with some Asimov style laws of robotics on top to further restrict smaller-scale rebellion. Handling space battles amongst essentially immortal beings that are set up meticulously over centuries and then resolved in nanoseconds is a little trickier. Maybe a variant of Nobilis might be able to pull it off, or high points BESM if you want higher crunch. It's probably not going to work with anything built from a D&D chassis. This concept definitely needs a bigger, more in-depth treatment to properly do it justice. Bookwyrms: Last time, they talked about extending their Dragonlance ambitions from trilogies to a sextet. Now the Forgotten Realms side strikes back with the Harpers series, which they're not even going to put an arbitrary limit on. Looking forward, it'll run for 16 books over 7 years before finally being cancelled, which definitely beats their Krynnish rivals. After all, they're in a much bigger world, not bound to a single epic story and it's offshoots, but regularly introducing whole new casts for standalone books, many of which will only be seen once. Troy Denning, Elaine Cunningham and our own Jean Rabe are all looking forward to putting their own spins on their heroic adventures. Why does someone join the Harpers, what is their internal organisation like, and what kinds of resources do they have to help you fight evil if you're a member? Will they succeed in their quests, and will they do so cleanly, or in a way that leaves them open to revenge and further novels focussing on the same characters? Do you care enough to get hold of books that are long since out of print at the time of writing? Going through Polyhedron may be revealing yet more stuff about Toril, but even after this, my knowledge of the place won't be completely exhaustive because it has just so much material produced for it. Oh well, put it on the list of things to do if I live long enough and finish this. The Everwinking Eye: After spending plenty of time in the taciturn, but reasonably benign environment of Maskyr's Eye, it's time for something far less pleasant, Off to Mulmaster, where there's certainly plenty of people deserving of being killed and having their stuff taken, but if you do, it'll be a long trek to somewhere safe to recharge, so it might be safer to knuckle down and think happy thoughts, for the secret police are fully allowed to scan anyone's mind anytime, and unregistered arcane spellcasters who might be able to block that are inherently illegal, so if your mind is closed to them you're definitely breaking the law and even more likely to attract their attention. It all seems pretty effectively despotic, as how can you organise an effective internal rebellion under controls that tight? Most of the people in charge are named and given class levels, with enough of them in the upper teens that you won't be overthrowing them by raw force any time soon either. The Realms may be stereotyped as the happiest D&D world overall, but there's still not just plenty of individual villains, but dystopian nations out there that provide challenges well into epic levels. There's still plenty of cool little flavour details here, some of which can be exploited, but you'll have to work to stay alive and free long enough to do so. Maybe forming an alliance with one of the feuding noble houses would be most effective, as you can gain their legal protection while striking at their rivals and even get paid instead of your only gains being what you take. Good luck, you'll definitely need it adventuring around here.</blockquote>

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