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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8694308" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 111: September 1995part 2/5Elminster's Everwinking Eye: While highly specific in location as well, Ed's plot ideas are easier to detach from their Realms context and use in your own campaign. The Barony of Blacksaddle, for example, could easily be in the Karimeikan borderlands as an example of how a group of well-organised name level PC's are turning a wild area into a more civilised one. Trouble is, success attracts stronger challengers eager to take the wealth you're building up. Will they be able to keep it? (With a little help from the floating armor of the previous baron delivering helpful omens) The Barony of Great Oak, on the other hand, is less of an obvious target, due to the titular oak trees presenting a thick mazy obstacle course that's interesting for adventuring parties to explore, but no fun at all for large armies to co-ordinate their way through. It has a ruined keep where the gods are said to walk on certain days of the year. Many an adventuring party has lost their lives to the manifestations of Garagos or Jergal while thinking they had what it takes to explore this place. Finally, Bedorn serves as the Border Kingdom's equivalent to Las Vegas or Irendi, a glitzy place for tourists to marvel at the landmarks and rich adventurers to retire if they don't want all the bother of fighting to keep their own domain. In addition to the usual well-guarded treasures and custom magics of adventurers past, it also has a big exotic pet-breeding industry, which definitely has adventure potential in itself, between capturing, training and finding suitable buyers. Another pretty varied set of locations that all give you different flavours of adventure, some serious and some silly. You won't have to go far to find something strange to explore in this neighbourhood.Tumbling Dragons: The big centrepiece article this issue is a promotional one, reprinting virtually the whole basic ruleset for Dragon Dice. I recall that got more articles in Dragon than Spellfire or Blood Wars as well, showing that Lester "weasel" Smith was more invested in his baby than whoever ran those other CCG lines. So say hello to the Coral Elves, Lava Elves, Dwarves & Goblins, engaged in endless battles to dominate the world of Esfah. Assemble your armies, divide them into home army, campaign army & horde, choose your terrain, and use might & magic to defeat all the other players. Seems simple enough, but like any collectible game, there are all sorts of special units with interesting tricks up their sleeves and the number of potentially abusable combinations only grows as you add more supplements. Since this is Lester we're talking about, it's at it's most interesting when you have more than 2 players and can add the political element of temporary alliances & backstabbing to your play. One of those articles that's interesting context-wise, showing us once again how TSR are experimenting with all sorts of different things, and the game itself looks pretty decent as both a game and a bit of worldbuilding to hang tie-in novels on, but also irritating, as it's 7 pages of promotion that's of no use once you buy the product, and a reminder that overprinting these was one of the big things that led to their downfall. If they'd promoted it in a more interesting way than regurgitating the rules like a bit of exclusive teaser fiction maybe TSR'd still be around today. In the end, I'm left with a very complicated mix of feelings and no solid answers.</blockquote>

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