Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8799982" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996part 2/5A Few of Our Favourite Things: They're pretty busy with Gen Con this month, so they recycle the notes from the big GMing advice seminar and turn it into a column for the next few months. A whole bunch of big names gave their thoughts on how to run games. Unfortunately, the first one is Skip Williams, and if you've been following along you'll already know that he played a big part in the RPGA adventures moving away from site-based meatgrinders you weren't expected to get all the way through & find everything to short, linear & jokey ones filled with terrible puns and 4th wall breaking references in the late 80's. His advice is very much in the vein of those. Give the players illusionary choices that wind up going in the same direction at the end. If they persist in doing the wrong thing try reverse psychology to trick them into following the path while thinking it's their own idea. Humiliate them rather than killing them where possible. Fill your adventures with quirky and memorable NPC's and places like gargoyles with detachable wings or Mordenkainen's private cinema. The kind of whimsy that makes me roll my eyes and want to actively avoid ever being a player under him, particularly in a one-shot convention adventure situation. A thoroughly exasperating start.Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed skips over a big chunk of the alphabet to take us to Shantal, one of the larger and more stable places in the Border Kingdoms, it's been owned by the same family for three generations now. Magic is mostly forbidden here, which is enforced by the wards of the Official Mage. (who like most high level wizards, is way more powerful than the fighty sorts and could easily take over if she were inclined, but thankfully is too obsessively nerdy to bother with that and spends most of her time doing research in her tower or visiting other planes.) Underground, there's a powerful source of magical radiation in the caverns of the Daerndar, part of which is tapped to power the aforementioned wards, but you can also use them to recharge magical items, even ones that can't normally be recharged if you know how, but if you don't, you'll probably fall foul of the plentiful wild magic effects & monsters, and the Official Mage isn't inclined to share unless it's for a very important reason. Since she's often not around, you might well be able to sneak down there and get away with it, but I guess that heavily depends on the whims of your DM. A pretty sharp contrast between the bucolic surface and the extra weird & dangerous underdark here, this is one where the people in charge are mostly heroic, but you can still see how a group of wandering adventurers could wind up at odds with them. Probably best to hold off on the overthrowing this time unless you know how to operate those wards, or you'll wind up making things dramatically worse for the ordinary people, which is not a recipe for staying on the throne long term.Fate Deals A New Hand: Our contest this issue is an attempt to get a bit of engagement with the Dragonlance fifth age system. Chaos as a whole might have been defeated in the novels, but there are plenty of places and things that have been marked by it, transformed in weird and dangerous ways. (that make for good adventures) Send some in and the winners will get published in here some time next year. Yeah, good luck with that, considering their upcoming hiatus. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one we never hear from again, given the reception 5th age got from the general public.</blockquote>

Verification