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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8513388" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 87: September 1993part 1/532 pages. Heavy use of dutch angles implies that either we're on a rocking boat, or these people are getting up to some shady business. Maybe both, if pirates are involved. Well, Raven's bluff is a nautical city, so it wouldn't be the first time. Let's find out if there's any significant worldbuilding or metaplot developments, or just more stuff that will be forgotten in another month's time. The New Rogues Gallery: The winner of their contest to come up with interesting NPC's once again demonstrates the editor's terrible tastes. Plump the Bard, who lives down to his name by being nothing but a string of fat jokes and stereotypes. He loves the sound of his own (loud and operatic) voice, makes bad jokes, likes his food simple and in large quantities, and his women the same way. Basically, he's a comic relief character from a shakespearean play, or maybe the Go Compare adverts. One of those times where all I can do is roll my eyes and sigh heavily, because oh for god's sake, making someone's fatness virtually the whole defining trait of their personality is just tiresome, gross and mean-spirited. Another instance where Polyhedron really suffers for having less of a filter than their bigger magazines. Jokes are once again a good way for them to be casually prejudiced, which is not what I want to see.Notes From HQ: Most of the editorial is once again devoted to the imbalance in the Judge/Player ratio and the problems it causes. Certain people who know there's more demand than supply are acting entitled and want more of a reward for judging lots of tournament slots. Nope. The RPGA isn't going to pay you to run games, and couldn't even if it wanted too, as the money from your subscription fees doesn't actually stretch that far. You'll have to be happy with the intangible rewards of actually getting to game a lot, being the centre of attention through most of the session, and hopefully the satisfaction of knowing you did a good job. People who are only doing it for points and prizes need to question their motivations and maybe decide not to show up after all. Another case where I suspect we'll be hearing more about this tension in the letters page in the future. On shorter but more positive notes, they've improved the packaging for the issues, so hopefully you'll be getting fewer damaged ones through your mailbox, and their internet presence continues to grow, with enough regular logins that they're having some quite nice chats on their bulletin boards. Once again I wish those were preserved somewhere on the internet, so i could get an even better view of RPGA history as it happened. It's worrying how many things from my lifetime have already gone down the memory hole because no-one cared enough to preserve them.</blockquote>

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