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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8427674" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 74: August 1992part 4/5A New Crystal Sphere: The second half of the Spelljammer/Space:1889 conversion stuff is slightly smaller, but still contains a fair bit of crucial information, such as the full stats for the various martian races and thoughts on how the crossovers might go. Spelljammers are massively faster than Ether Flyers, but the earthly vessels usually have superior weaponry and armor installed on their ships. It illustrates the difference between a setting which is at least somewhat grounded in 1800's science, and the pure fantasy of D&D. The long term winner will be determined by which side figures out how to combine the enemy tech with their own first, and enjoy the best of both worlds. An interestingly crunchy article that reminds us just how different the assumptions of different games can be, resulting in substantial power disparities if you try to remain faithful to both settings in one system. Of course, that only matters if a game is tightly point balanced in the first place, which definitely doesn't apply to either edition of AD&D. I think you could get a decent campaign out of this scenario under either rules engine. Just got to be ready to tweak things if one exploit dominates too much and have the opponents come up with IC counters. Into The Dark: Another themeless grab-bag of film reviews this time, mostly on the horror end of the spectrum. As is often the case though, skipping the theme means they get higher average ratings. This is one collection James can recommend all the films in, albeit with various degrees of enthusiasm.Cast a Deadly Spell merges lovecraftian lore with a hardboiled private detective story, which is actually a pretty decent combination. There's a few too many in-jokes and references for it to be truly horrifying, but it's still interesting, especially if you know where all the references come from. Curse of the Demon is one of the films referenced in the previous one, a 1957 adaption of an M. R. James story. Aside from the special effects, which thankfully are shown sparingly because even at the time the director thought they weren't good enough, it holds up excellently. Well worth watching if you like that black & white atmosphere. The Body Snatcher features both Boris Karloff & Bela Lugosi, and reminds us why they were some of the best early horror stars, managing to be deeply creepy without any cheap jump scares or overt supernatural elements. Monsters may come and go out of fashion, but man's inhumanity to man will always be able to scare with the right actions.The Monster Squad is now mainly remembered as the source of the "Wolfman's got Nards!" meme. It's not particularly horrifying, but the costumes & sfx are decent and the kids act more realistically like actual kids than most movies. An amusing enough bit of kitchen-sinkery to fill an evening with.Frankenweenie is a low budget Tim Burton short from before he made it big. A kid resurrects his sausage dog but it doesn't come back quite right. Hijinks ensue. As usual for his films, the real bad guys are the conformist suburbanites, not the "monster" who just wants to be loved. Some things never change, i guess.</blockquote>

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