Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8348625" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 63: September 1991part 3/5The Living Galaxy: Roger finally finishes the series on spaceship PC's, and goes back to something far more basic and generic. A reminder that it's your flaws that really make a character interesting, not their powers. Be it simply low ability scores in D&D, more complex weaknesses and limitations in systems that handle that, or merely personality flaws that are only roleplayed without any mechanical effects, it's what they can't or won't do that'll really define them in a long-term campaign. Perfection is boring, and while the character might strive towards it IC, you need to have enough detachment from your character to put those flaws in and make their life more challenging and unique. As usual, this basic principle is padded out with lots of examples from various systems, but that's pretty much all it boils down too. It's not bad, but we've seen it plenty of times before, so I can't get particularly worked up about it in either direction. With Great Power: While Roger only had one idea and spun it out over several pages, Dale jumps from one short topic to another in quick succession. First, talking about a few problem powers. The always annoying superspeed, plus the slightly more situationally plot breaking invisibility and insubstantiality, and the sometimes powerful, sometimes useless ability to control highly specific things like Magneto. Then some ideas that are common in D&D, but not covered by FASERIP, surprise rolls & initiative modifiers. Some more minor errata on magic and karma rules. And oddest of all, recommending a bunch of superhero books by other companies that cover things they don't, like building your own superheroic campaign that doesn't use the established Marvel characters. It's interesting precisely because it is so scattershot, just a bunch of ideas that happened to be passing through his brain recently. It shows that the system has been going long enough now that it really needs a new edition to put all the lessons they've learned in the past 7 years in, although I hope they'd be incorporated in a better edited form. Otherwise keeping track of all the optional and altered rules in supplements and errata will definitely slow things down. Naming Military Units: Greg Detwiler has been contributing to Dragon and many other RPG products since 1985, but only made his first appearance in here last issue. But like Ed, now he's got his claws into Polyhedron, you can expect to see him again more frequently. Such as this amusing little bit of generic advice, talking about naming conventions of military units throughout history. You need something short enough to shout out in a fraught scenario, but preferably also memorable and badass sounding that'll strike fear into the heart of your enemies. Animal name & colour seems to be a very common combination that shows up over and over again, but there's a fair amount of variation in what different colours imply in different cultures, and obviously also what animals are commonly known in the area. (Which doesn't necessarily mean common, as the frequency of lions on european heraldry demonstrates) Current or famous ex-leaders, the town they come from, or something related to their fighting specialty are also fairly frequent choices. With an A to Z of common elements for you to combine, this looks like a pretty decent time-saver for when you need to creates several of these in short succession. No objection to seeing some more material from him over the next few years.</blockquote>

Verification