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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8706278" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 112: October 1995part 2/5The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: The news is a little repetitive this month, making it not as interesting as previous instalments. The gang warfare as a result of Anton Paere's death continues to heat up, turning Crow's End into a no-go zone. The winners of the Gen Con adventurer's games get listed in a primarily IC way. The more interesting parts are the short ones. Lord Charles Blacktree is finally getting married! Good to see they haven't forgotten about him with all the other things going on. The deputy mayor (who they've never even mentioned before) returns after 2 years off adventuring. (surprised he wasn't replaced in the interim) How many levels has he gained, and will we find out his story in future issues? This stuff still needs further building on to actually be useful. How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Our more detailed recap of the conventions this year is as relentlessly positive as the editorial. Gone are the days of complaining about con crud and everything being put together with duct tape in last minute panics behind the scenes. Be it small ones like DarkCon or enormous ones like Gen Con and Origins with a whole bunch of celebrity guests, whether they were wargaming, roleplaying, CCGing or LARPing, it's all good. Check some of them out next year if you can! They may have had fun, but this was very boring to read about. Without any kind of drama, some sense that you preferred one over another, there is no story. Cast A Cold Eye: They're getting these setting launches down to a formula now, so it's no surprise that the first Living Death article is a system-free one aimed at selling it to people with no knowledge of regular Ravenloft or MotRD. Welcome to the 1890's of an earth very similar to ours - until the sun goes down, and the monsters come out to play, subtly directed by the biggest evil of all, the mysterious Red Death itself. Do you have the courage to oppose monsters wherever in the world they rear their heads? (You'd better, because if you don't, there'll be no game) So they're instantly distinguishing it from the other Living settings by not confining it to a small geographical area. You have carte blanche to write adventures set anywhere in the world, and they're not going to be strictly tracking costs of living and travel the way they are in Virtual Seattle if you want to play lots of them. (Although the real life costs will be deterrent enough for most, and they still encourage you to have a character concept it makes sense is able to go globe-trotting on short notice.) On top of making the playing field bigger, they also want the adventures to be more roleplaying focussed, and most interestingly of all, offer meaningful choices that affect the setting long term. The idea is to have the people put through the adventures record what way certain events went along with the usual post adventure admin of XP & treasure, and then future adventures will assume that the direction the majority of parties chose is the canon one for purpose of future adventures. Which is very interesting, showing how their ambition for making shared worlds feel shared continues to increase, but also puts a lot of extra pressure on the administrators to make the player's choices have coherent and significant results. Let's hope they're up to the task, and sudden changes in management won't make the metaplots veer off or fall apart.</blockquote>

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