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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8751283" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 116: February 1996part 5/5A World of Your Own: After having come up with a pretty cool world last month, Roger then treats it in a pretty restrictive way that seems intended to keep the most interesting parts of it out of PC's grip. As soon as they appear in this fantastical Madgascar they're met by a dubious Mr Johnson who seems completely unsurprised by outworld visitors, will tell them just enough to get them on side, and then send them on a macguffin hunt from one location to the next, which will eventually turn out to be a nazi plot to get hold of an old uranium golem and cause mass devastation. It appears that like most of the TSR staff at the moment, he's been thoroughly seduced by the idea of big metaplotty railroads that tell world-changing stories, even when we haven't been given enough time and opportunity to get to know the specific world as it is, which would make changing it have an impact. There's still some useful material here, plus a comprehensive set of references, but his personal creative contributions to the mix are not very satisfying. Another example of how the TSR office culture was becoming increasingly detached from what regular gamers want in their adventures, trying to tell their own stories rather than giving you the tools to make better ones, made worse by Lorraine : organ music, rumble of thunder: discouraging playtesting so they didn't even know if the math added up to make the plot desired outcomes plausible if the dice rolled average results, or have contingencies prepared for the other common choices PC's would make in a particular situation. As with his previous article this issue, reading this just makes me feel frustrated and a little bit sad.Our big list of tournaments covers the non AD&D ones in their repertoire. 6 Amazing Engine ones, 2 Amber Diceless, 2 Boot Hill, 1 Buck Rogers XXVc, 14 Call of Cthulhu, 3 Champions, 2 Chill, 1 Cyberpunk, 1 Dark Conspiracy, 4 Marvel Super Heroes, 12 Paranoia, 1 Runequest, 18 Shadowrun, 1 Shatterzone, 8 Star Wars, 1 Teenagers from Outer Space, 4 Timemaster, 1 Top Secret (not S.I., I note), 8 Torg, and 2 Traveller adventures. The big ones are pretty much what I expected, as is the complete lack of WoD ones despite it's popularity due to their refusal to comply with the Code of Conduct, but there's several systems that are long out of print now and were never particularly big even when they were current, which is interesting to see. A little worried by the lack of Earthdawn ones when it's supposed to be one of their officially supported Living settings though. Has anyone bothered to play that outside of it's original creators at all?An issue which has a few interesting old school throwbacks, but the way they're done shows that history as a whole continues to march onwards, and even if the same people are involved, it's not quite the same because they're now over a decade older and not quite the same either. If you're struggling in the present, is it a good idea to try to go back to past glories, or will it only make the present problems even worse because new solutions are needed? Now there's a question you could go round in circles with many times and get no good answers. I'd rather not get stuck like that so onto the next issue.</blockquote>

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