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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8867070" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 128: February 1998part 5/5Powers That Be: As they said he would a few months ago, Eric Boyd hops from Toril to Oerth to give them a little more spotlight time. Certain WotC staff were big Greyhawk fans back in the day, so they're bringing the setting back even if it wasn't the most financially successful previous times around. (in sharp contrast to most of their more pragmatically driven changes) The format remains the same, but unlike their more successful counterpart they aren’t delving into new hidden lore, just talking about already well-known gods, at least to anyone who already cared about the setting. So it looks like this is more outreach to the people who don’t already know about Greyhawk than new lore for the hardcore, as Polyhedron has never really had much in the way of Greyhawk stuff before.  The first god picked is Boccob. Gods of magic are a pretty popular choice for adventurers, as they’re generally pretty powerful while also being less morally restrictive than the average god. This is even more true of Boccob than Mystra as he seems a pretty detached deity to the average man on the street. Worship him and you can pretty much do what you like as long as part of that involves seeking magical knowledge. (and with enough magical knowledge, you can accomplish nearly any other goal more easily, so it’s win-win) There is a catch though. For all his knowledge and power, even he can’t stop entropy and he sees a future in which magic gradually declines in power until it can only do a fraction of what it used to, (which looking at magic in 4 & 5e compared to older editions has already come true <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) then is eventually forgotten for mundane technology. The higher level you become as a cleric of his, the more likely you are to become aware of that and be sucked into his eternal attempts to turn or at least slow the tide, which may lead to existential despair for a mortal mind. There’s a reason his ascended archmage assistant Zagyg is called The Mad, after all. So this has a decent amount of atmosphere even if it’s plot hooks are a bit high level for most parties, reminding us that Greyhawk is a darker and more neutral-aligned setting than the Forgotten Realms, with fewer neat novel-mandated happy endings. You can still gain high level, tons of magic items and even immortality as an adventurer, but the world itself remains less cozy & caring and in the end it’s all going to fall apart or be destroyed by Tharizdun. Will you stick with it anyway and try to make it a better place or head off to other planes of existence when you get the power?Play. Test.: For many years, the lack of playtesting in even official TSR adventures, let alone ones used in magazines and tournaments was a running joke. This is one of the most obvious things that WotC looked at and decided had to change ASAP. That means you too RPGA! Living City modules now require at least one certificated playtest with feedback scores averaging 7 or better before they're approved for general release. Other Living settings don't have the number of submissions to be quite so strict, but they'll also be encouraging more playtesting for those and one-shot adventures as well. On the player side, you can gain XP for doing so as well, so volunteer now and save others from terrible writing and sloppy mechanics! This is a development I definitely have no problem with, given the number of adventures I've slated in here. I guess it won't stop ones that are just linear and boring from appearing, but just weeding out the worst bits of poorly thought out writing is still a step in the right direction. Now they just need a new system built from the ground up with tighter rules to really make their higher standards make sense. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Another issue full of updates and changes, reminding us that their hiatus came just when the internet was massively exploding in popularity, bringing all kinds of little changes to the world around at the same time. That means they're putting lots of effort into taking advantage of those opportunities, because they really don't want to fall behind again and be cancelled for good. Looks like it might be a while longer before they find some kind of regular routine. This continues to be pretty interesting reading for me then. Time to see what they get around to doing next issue and if it'll feel long overdue.</blockquote>

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