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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8455641" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 78: December 1992part 3/5A Fluffy Wonderland: Christmas based RPG adventures are usually comedic regardless, but a Fluffyquest christmas adventure?! That's just over-icing the cake. Fluffy is not lost or kidnapped this time, but the rest of her canine family, assembling from all over the world for the festive celebration, has been captured while en route, leaving her catatonic with distress. You're going to have to save them, whether you want too or not. As usual for these adventures, this leads you down a linear path filled with puns, references and general wackiness, where your input has very little influence on the overall course of events. Get a bunch of quirky magical items of dubious utility as presents. Ride one horse open sleighs, which leave you open to being pelted with snowballs by mischievous carol singers, face three symbolic christmas ghosts, close harmony singing wolves, popsicle zombies, and the celebration hating snow drow (can you dig it?) that started all this trouble in the first place. If you've played any of the previous instalments, you'll know exactly what you're getting into. As usual, it gives me absolutely no pleasure at all to trudge through this, but apparently a sizeable fraction of the RPGA do really like it. Hopefully now the 10th anniversary is over Fluffy appearances will drop in frequency again. And whether Fluffy will survive the TSR to WotC and 3e changeovers to get a 20th anniversary celebration remains unknown to me at the moment. We'll deal with that when we get there, if it becomes necessary. 1993 Games Decathlon: They've been doing the decathlon for three years now, and see no reason to stop next year. As usual, the rules get a little larger and more complex, giving you a fair amount of flexibility in exactly what you participate in.  You can still only get points for participating in 10 events, but they can be picked from several dozen tournament ones in many conventions over the year, 8 different writing competitions, and two service events. The approved conventions do actually include enough international ones that it's not completely unwinnable if you live outside the USA, but it's still definitely easier the closer to the midwest you are. Hopefully the increased flexibility will increase the number of competitors similarly.The Living City: In issue 75, they did two interlinked establishments owned by people who know each other. Here, they stretch that to three. A trio of adventurers have retired and taken up artistic professions in a big bohemian space in uptown Raven's Bluff. The bard makes musical instruments, unsurprisingly. The thief has become a poet. But it's the fighter that's been the most commercially successful, revealing an unexpected flair for portrait painting that really touches the hearts of the viewers. While they have no particular interest in hitting the road again, they retain more than enough tricks that anyone trying to rob them won't have an easy time. Unlike many of these, there's no teenage kids to worry about/present plot opportunities, but they do have the unresolved question of what happened to the 4th member of their party, lost on their final adventure. If anyone could confirm her life or death (or confirm her death but retrieve & raise the body) they'd be very appreciative, as it continues to weigh on the back of their minds. While not bad, this definitely falls into the more niche end of their setting building, as it'd take a bit of work to get to know them enough to unlock the personal details & side quest, and these artsy things like poetry & portraits aren't the kind of thing most adventuring groups would bother to spend their money on. Good for a few groups then, but ignorable by most parties. Oh well, plenty of alternatives by now, so it's not as if including a few ultra-niche ones is going to hurt. Quite the opposite. The longer they're going, the more niche they have to get to avoid repeating themselves. How much further can they go in this direction before we see complaints in the letters page? Given the rest of the company, I'm sure we can make it at least to 1995 before they become significant. But maybe they'll have some surprises for us. Let's see what next year brings to the living city.</blockquote>

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