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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8386964" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 68: February 1992part 3/5Hero: The adventure this issue is weirdly also a little bit … rapey. The evil wizard Rahn Dom ( :groans: ) has kidnapped Princess Michelle of the Skittledom kingdom, and is going to force her to marry him. As extra insurance, he's cursed her so if she isn't married by her 21st birthday, the whole kingdom will be destroyed in a massive volcanic eruption. This is tomorrow, so you have to not only fight through his evil minions and free her while still fresh from the fight before the end of the night, :Bonnie Tyler intensifies: but also engage in a shotgun wedding with one of the PC's to save the day. ( So both the cleric and at least one other male PC need to survive to the end, as they specifically make the point that only het pairings count. ) This is an adventure that once again indulges in some of the worst habits of current tournament adventures, being both linear and jokey, and using the jokes to slip a load of old-fashioned sexist bollocks in. A lot of the encounters are 80's pop song references, the naming conventions are puntacular, and the whole thing looks like it would be rather disruptive if run in a regular campaign where you have to deal with the long-term consequences of a sudden unexpected marriage. About the only good thing about it is that at least the challenges are genuinely difficult, with quite interesting combats, enemies that use decent tactics and a real emphasis on tracking how much time each encounter takes, so the time limit aspect of the adventure feels like a genuine issue. In that respect it's closer to the early 80's meatgrinders where most groups won't make it all the way through than the 90's railroads where they spoonfeed you all the solutions. It doesn't overtake the dancing bear one as the absolute worst thing they've ever done, but it's still very dated and well below the mark that I'd consider using.The Living Galaxy: Roger reminds us that sci-fi should be at least somewhat rooted in actual science, and gives us a ton of reading to do, spending a full 4 pages on recommending various non-fiction books that try to present the science in an engaging way. Stephen Hawking, Issac Asimov, Ben Bova, William Corliss, there are a fair few recognisable names here, some of which have also done good fiction, but also plenty more I have no idea about. Many of them are somewhat dated at the time of writing, which means they'll likely be even moreso now, and quite possibly out of print as well, as hard science books need to go through a lot more editions and revisions to stay relevant and useful than fiction. That makes this not particularly useful now, as knowledge of extrasolar planets in particular has advanced enormously in the past 30 years, and mainly interesting as a curiosity, revealing the state of his personal knowledge and influences at the time. Another one you can probably skip without feeling you've missed anything unless you're very specifically a Roger Moore fanboy.</blockquote>

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