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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8667898" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 107: May 1995part 4/5Gothic Heroes: From heroes of Science!!!, to heroes of … baseball? I guess if you're a bunch of everymen who've just realised you're in a horror story, someone who's good at throwing balls and whacking things with a bat would be good to have in a pinch. So here's stats for Adrian Constantine Anson, Denton True Young, Wee Willie Keeler and Ed Delhanty. All are statted as mid level tradesmen with Lawful Good alignments, ignoring whatever personal flaws they had like being racist, alcoholics, cheaters, etc. There's very little variation in their selection of weapon or nonweapon proficiencies either; surely at least one of them had an interesting hobby beyond their baseball playing that research would have turned up? There are some mentions of how each could be tied into the supernatural, but unlike the last two entries, they feel pretty shoehorned in. So this series continues to present a weirdly whitewashed view of the past, particularly for a horror game, where delving into the darkness of human nature and then further exaggerating it is the point. Not very impressive on either the historical or the mechanical accuracy fronts. Weasel Games: Lester turns his attention to the weasel possibilities in the latest craze - Collectible Card Games. Since they're usually one on one fights, the more obvious weasel possibilities of making alliances with other players then betraying them at opportune moments is less of an issue. But there are more subtle possibilities. The first one is the psychology of mystery, intimidation and bluffing. You can reveal some aspects of your deck to show the other players just how many badass rare cards you've collected. You can keep your cards close to your chest so they've got no idea what they're up against until they start. You can hint at what kind of deck you'll be playing then pull a bait and switch, bringing more than you can use in one go and varying things each round of a tournament. The other big one is really getting into the trading part of the metagame experience, haggling for the best deal with friends and conventiongoers. How do you convince people to part with something that'll be a big upgrade for you when combined with other cards, while giving away stuff that's of no use? Whatever the rules of the game, the skills needed to do that are universally applicable once you've mastered them. This shows he's still learning new things, and didn't just write these columns all in one go and trickle them out later. When you're a game designer, it's important to stay knowledgable about the competition, even in related fields, see what you could use to improve your own games. D&D 3e will definitely show CCG influence with the emphasis on character builds, for better or worse, so we know he's not the only person in the office thinking like that.The Living Galaxy: Roger's advice this month is very fitting with TSR's current policy of putting metaplot in all their settings. Don't make your own settings too static. Both ones where everything is safe and utopian and ones where evil is ubiquitous and apparently unbeatable give the players little room to actually do anything. Without that, the campaign is unlikely to last. Look at real world history. There have been plenty of evil dictatorships, but they usually have some form of resistance movement and always wind up falling apart in the end. Sparta seemed to have the most badass warriors in the ancient world, but without the logistics to back it up, they got their asses kicked by the persians. Not too controversial a statement. The trick, as ever is sticking the landing so it makes sense with what came before and doesn't ruin the setting for further adventures, which TSR had decidedly mixed results with when changing their settings. I guess it's much easier with a home campaign where you know all the players personally than an official one where thousands of people are playing it differently in different places, so you don't know what changes will screw up their game and a small percentage is going to whine whatever you do.</blockquote>

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