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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8648762" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 104: February 1995part 5/5Weasel Games: Having regaled us with plenty of stories of his own treachery, Lester tells one where he was the target in turn. A Fantasy Trip game where another player was constantly trying to hit him with his boomerang, only to have it go past and hit the enemies instead. Once again this is really about how to maintain friendly relationships with other players even as your characters do all kinds of comedically horrible things to one-another, in true looney tunes style. No new lessons though, so I think this is starting to hit diminishing returns, as I can't think of anything else to say about it. The Living Galaxy: Roger tackles another issue that appears in RPG's of all genres. How do you get the party to bond and stay together? What is their IC reason for knowing each other and choosing to engage in adventures? He's seen many a campaign grind to a boring halt because the players have no interest in the plot hooks dangled in front of them, have realistic levels of paranoia in the face of danger rather than acting like heroes or someone overdoes the whole brooding loner thing. To counteract this, his examples this time are all drawn from TV series ensembles. There's ones like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica where your homebase moves, possibly pursued by enemies so you have to keep on adventuring just to survive. Community based ones like DS9 or Twin Peaks where there's a big melting pot of inhabitants and even weirder visitors, so even if you don't want to be a group you'll keep on encountering each other and having interesting events happen to you. Family-centric ones that neatly bypass the whole question of how they met and why they care about each other even if they're very different in other ways. Pretty basic stuff, reminding you that if you're having problems with this, you've probably already seen the solutions on TV, you just need to formalise the lessons and apply them. (and if the players continue to refuse to work together, just tell them outright to get their naughty word together OOC or there's not going to be a game. ) Just as with Lester's column, you need clear communication OOC to keep the group together even if your characters conflict in some ways. You wouldn't think that'd be such a hard lesson to learn, but with constant churn in the readerbase they do have to keep on repeating it.The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: We finish off with three very brief missives informing us of the latest adventures you'll be facing if you attend upcoming conventions. An attack of giant slugs, best faced by the fleet of foot rather than fighters in heavy plate that'd only get dissolved anyway. A plague of frogs, for those who like their biblical references. And most shudder inducing of all, Jack Mooney's circus wants you to capture carnivorous apes to entertain the crowd with. Since the dancing bear hunting scenario still holds the dubious honor of the no 1 spot for most all-round stupid, offensive and badly-written adventure published in here, I'm not eager to see them going back to that well. Just because Jean has left the editor's chair, doesn't mean she can't inflict some more cheesy railroads upon us. Another issue that feels mostly like business as usual despite the changes at the top, because there are still a lot of regular columns using the same writers that haven't changed at all. Unless they choose to abruptly alienate all of those at once, there should be no problem maintaining continuity over the next few months. Let's see if next issue has any new additions, and if so, what they'll bump off to make room.</blockquote>

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