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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8677428" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 108: June 1995part 5/5Weeds of Wonder: Looks like we are actually getting some new Living Jungle material, not just errata and clarifications. When you live close to nature, it's important to know what all the plants around you can do, which are safe to eat as is, which can be cooked, which are just going to be poisonous whatever you do to them, and which have other useful effects beyond the culinary. That's the kind of thing that could easily be the difference between life and death on an adventure.Stickriki bushes are extremely thorny, and can be broken up and turned into quite effective caltrops. When no-one wears shoes, that's even more likely than a standard campaign to slow down pursuers.Tiki root slows the effects of poison when you boil it up and drink it. You're probably not going to be able to find it and cook it fast enough to save your life after combat, so if you see it in an adventure, that's probably a chekov's gun hinting at future adversaries.Gualla juice glows green in the dark, letting you apply spooky makeup patterns to you and your equipment. Not really bright enough to be useful as illumination, so the only real benefit is the intimidation factor. I guess dancing glowing skeletons are pretty iconic, so they'd wind up being independently recreated by all sorts of cultures.Magasorium leaves are an excellent insect repellent. Crushing them up and rubbing the juice on you can be a lifesaver if venturing into the swamps. Fairly standard real world stuff.Billitri leaves have a more pleasant scent that masks your own, which is handy when hunting things with strong senses of smell. They might be smart enough to know that humans are bad news, but a different plant smell suddenly appearing in the area? Not suspicious at all.Biseechee Bush berries let you heal up to an extra 4hp per day by eating them. They don't store well, so you'll need to keep on going back and look after the bushes if you want to keep time you spend between adventures short. That gives the players string incentive to stay in harmony with nature.Manriki Bushes look almost identical, but their berries are toxic and wind up blinding you temporarily. You really don't want to fail your herbalism check to distinguish between the two.Manshooki Tree vines make excellent ropes until they dry out. Handy for navigating terrain in an adventure, but not something you can use to build with long term, keeping the basic state of technology on the plateau primitive. This collection sticks pretty strictly to low-key practical stuff then, not escalating the power levels and keeping it in the hands of the DM as to if you can even access these in a particular adventure or not.DM Invitational: As with last year, they want more adventures, albeit of a very specific type with precisely 6 encounters, no more, no less, 5 of which must be of particular types of encounter. Many of the other requirements are repetitions from just a few pages ago, making this very boring to read. If you think you can come up with something cool that fits these constraints more power to you, but I once again have absolutely no desire to attempt it, particularly with the prizes long since won and gone.As usual, they're listing all the tournaments that will be played at Gen Con (if they can get enough judges, hint hint) and when so you can preregister and plan your schedule out in advance. 17 different AD&D ones of various length, and one each for the Amazing Engine, Shadowrun, Timemaster, Star Wars, Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu. Not quite beating their previous record, and the lack of basic D&D material is notable, but still a pretty healthy selection.A serious slog of an issue, with lots of repetition, dull niggling articles and general irritation. Looks like the new editor might not be an improvement after all, and the RPGA as a whole continues to get more tightly regulated, making playing in it a very different experience to a home campaign. Still, I guess some people do enjoy that standardisation and linearity, otherwise the organisation wouldn't keep on growing. Let's see if next issue will let us get to the fun bits or put more obstacles in the way.</blockquote>

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