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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8800701" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996part 3/5A Wish For Temptation: The adventure this month is a metaplot one tightly linked to the whole war in Raven's Bluff thing, where the PC's are press-ganged into the army. They're sent to Mossbridges to help with the war effort, but unbeknownst to them their commander is a traitor for the other side. Since this is a tournament one, there's not much time for subtlety and he soon plays his hand, sending them on a wild goose chase to where the enemy isn't, then framing them for murder when they get back. You'll have to clear your name and then hunt him down in his mansion. When you do, you find out that he accomplished his trickery with the help of a genie and will offer you one wish if you let him escape unharmed. Taking this will have you marked as an enemy of Raven's Bluff even if there's no way they could have known IC that you did, which I presume removes your character from your control, thus neatly sidestepping the possibility of you gaining vast amounts of money or powerful magical items they don't have certificates for with your wish. A typically linear railroad adventure then, only with the extra annoyance of the possibility of getting a no save bad ending for your character, like a videogame where the big bad asks you to join them. (only your character is gone for good rather than you just reloading from the last save and maybe having to redo one or two encounters) I guess that is a flavour of annoyance we haven't seen around here before, but it's definitely not a welcome one. Obviously you have more freedom for them to take the evil path and continue on as characters if you ran this in a home campaign, but this just seems like a fundamentally bad idea in a tournament game. Giving people the illusion of free will that'll waste years of levelling up their characters if they take it is more insulting than just not giving you any meaningful choices at all. That's the kind of crap that'd drive me to ragequit the RPGA on the spot. naughty word this adventure and the horses it rode in on.A Band of Rings: Time for another helping of magic items, which remain uncommon but not completely unknown in Polyhedron. Is this because they still don't get many submissions, or did they pick this one because of the quality?Rings of Assassins let you poison anything you touch with it, making it easy to serve up death at a dinner party without leaving incriminating evidence behind. Unless you have a similar level of divination magic on the other side or already know who has motive & means, this could result in a pretty tricky detective story.Rings of Demi-humans give you the innate powers of the appropriate race, plus the ability to speak their language. This should help get round basic perception/communication differences, but whether they'll trust you is another matter. Still, if everyone in the party has infravision, that makes dungeon delving much cheaper and stealthier than if you always have to worry about light sources.Rings of Keys have a decent chance of magically opening locks, as long as they're not also magically locked. If the DM wants to keep you on a railroad that's a pretty easy out to give. Rings of Revenge ensure you'll become a ghost if killed, giving you a good opportunity to get revenge on who or whatever is responsible. Unfortunately, this usually comes with an alignment shift to neutral evil, becoming a one-note obsessive hunter who'll go to any lengths to achieve this. If you don't want your final destination after resolving your earthly ties to be the lower planes, might want to reconsider that. All of these are interestingly useful but not horribly overpowered, making them well worth using.</blockquote>

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