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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8796669" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 122: August 1996part 3/5Living City: Having reiterated a lot of the basics of being in the RPGA, they now set out to sell you on each of the Living Campaigns, in the words of the people who play in them. First up, since its the longest running and has more material than all the others put together, is Raven's Bluff. This means it has the longest running characters as well, many of which have attained at least moderate levels, while a few of the most dedicated have actually made it into official government positions and shaped the city as a whole. Most of the specific locations are reader submitted as well, giving it a much more organic feel than any of the other campaigns. It might be a kitchen sink, but that means it has plenty of variety in adventures and no two characters will go through exactly the same things. If you want long term play in a generic AD&D setting you could do much worse. Get to know people, find out their stories, and hopefully join them in different party configurations each time to create some new ones. All seems perfectly cromulent as an argument. Virtual Seattle: While the Living City is a place where you can feel fairly sure your companions are heroic and true, (because they'll get their characters taken away if they do anything too evil) virtual seattle is a much more ambiguous place. The main limiter isn't a question of good or evil, but if you do something stupidly blatant that'll bring down a heap of swat teams on your character. As long as you play smart and get the job done, you have a lot more leeway in how you portray your character here, although getting a SIN & day job and retiring from the running life remains a distant dream. PvP is mostly avoided by everyone having the same fixer, but we're not saying we'll never do a scenario where multiple runner teams wind up in competition with each other because they're hired by different megacorps. :evil smile: There are limitations on how xtreeeeeemely 90's and edgy they can get due to the TSR code of conduct, but they are at least trying to push at them and make sure this place keeps that authentic shadowrun flavour. They're also not arbitrarily restricting treasure to the things on the adventure certificates - if it's not nailed down and you can take it, you can probably keep it. (as long as it doesn't exceed encumbrance and you've got somewhere to stash it) That does sound more like fun to play in than the previous one. There are definite advantages to being the smaller rival who's freer to be more morally ambiguous.  Malatra, The Living Jungle: If anything, Malatra is even more restrictive than Raven's Bluff. But the fun is in precisely what is removed and figuring out how to survive and explore the world anyway. If you're tired of indirectly empowering Mammon whatever god your character follows a place completely devoid of capitalism can have a strong appeal. If you're fed up of the stress of city life the idea of being part of a close-knit tribe where everyone knows everyone else is a quite reasonable fantasy to have. If you're bored by people playing stereotypes both the humans and demihumans are different from both tolkienesque high fantasy and direct analogs of real world cultures, forcing you to step outside your comfort zone to get into their (lack of) shoes. (although I'll bet there's still a fair amount of cringy me um dumb jungle stereotype speak going on in actual play) The world outside your tiny tribal territories is mysterious both IC and OOC, so you'd better go to those tournaments and get exploring if you ever want to know more. So this is being sold as the one for hardcore roleplayers for whom the main fun is in getting into character as someone very different from you rather than accumulating levels, treasure & magic items to power up. They probably know in their hearts it's never going to be as big as the Living City, but as long as a few people like it, they'll keep on offering the alternative. Threads of Legend: The Living Earthdawn setting is also aimed at the ultra hardcore end of the gaming market, but in a very different way. Unlike all the other Living campaigns, where the RAW must be stuck to strictly and only what you do & find in the tournament adventures matters, they embrace the concepts of downtime and customisation. If you don't like writing short stories to flesh out your character, explain who they are and what custom spells and items they've come up with, you won't be getting the most out of this setting. If you do, (and are wiling to take the odd knockback or revision if you try something too twinky) you can have the satisfaction of contributing to the building of the setting, as each approved item goes into the great library of Throal for other players to use as well, plus you get legend points for the quality of your writing. If they get it right, it'll feel like the world is being built by the players organically as their characters create new civilisations and drive back the remaining Horrors. Can't fault the scope of their ambitions. Now if only they could get enough players, and even more crucially enough judges to carry them out, because if there's a judge shortage for D&D tournaments, there's really not enough going round here. At a small convention, YOU stepping up could be the difference between it running at all or not. Another one where despite trying to sell it in a positive manner, they can't hide that Earthdawn players are a tiny fraction of the RPGA and whether it lives or dies could be decided by whether a few fanatics put a whole load of unpaid labor into supporting it or not. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of it in the newszine.</blockquote>

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