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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8896725" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 130: June 1998part 4/5Tying One On: Continuing with the nautical theme, Spike Y. Jones gives us a 4 page primer on real world knot-typing techniques. If you know nothing about sailing you might not see the connection, but anyone who's spent any time on a boat will know how crucial proper control of your ropes and rigging is. You need some knots that are secure no matter what the weather throws at you, while others are easily removed at a moment's notice, strong but only from specific angles, or deliberately leave some slack for safety reasons. They get through 14 examples here, but you could easily fill a book with them. (which they helpfully reference) The kind of system & setting free article you'd expect to see more in Dragon, it's a pretty interesting diversion to find in here. Do you have the patience and dexterity to master the art of knotwork, maybe even invent some new ones? Now there's a whole different hobby you could also devote years to mastering. Maybe in another lifetime, if there is such a thing.Strongwind: A second adventure in the same issue? Curious. They've only done that once before. (issue 81) I guess they have increased page count recently, giving them a little more leeway in their choices. Unlike the other one, this does actually feel like a full adventure, at 8 pages and an equal number of encounters. The ships coming in & out of Raven's Bluff (or whatever other port town the PC's are passing through) have been suffering from an unusual amount of piracy. The PC's are hired to deal with it. First they need to find a suitable merchant ship, with three different options given. They need to fight off a bunch of ruffians looking to press-gang them, decide if they want to bribe their chosen captain to get better accommodation or not, then set sail. They'll encounter an abandoned ship drifting in the wind, with only a single juju zombie to fight as foreshadowing. Get briefly distracted by a sirine's singing, (hope you remembered to pack your earplugs) then it's time for the main event, the ghost ship of Captain Strongwind, feared pirate of centuries past. Can you beat him and his crew, and will you realise that once he's gone, his ship will dematerialise soon after, so you'd better get any looting done fast or wind up dunked in the drink, probably having to abandon your winnings to avoid drowning. A linear single session tournament adventure, but a fairly decent one, offering choices that actually have significant consequences in later encounters and degrees of success or failure, as well as converting easily to a home campaign not set in Raven's Bluff. I think this falls in the usable quality range overall.The Isolation Blues: If you don't regularly go to conventions and play in Living campaigns, why are you in the RPGA? What do you get out of it if that scene's not your bag, or you live somewhere without many conventions? (as many letters from international gamers bemoan.) Well, there's still Polyhedron, for one thing. <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=":)" /> Then there's not only the adventures that appear in the pages of Polyhedron, but other ones you can get for free as part of your membership. You can find new players via the Classified ads, the online services, or setting up your own events locally. You can use all the advice contained herein to make your home campaign bigger, deeper and cooler, then share your experience to make other people's campaigns better as well. Sounds a bit sappy to me. This all feels like an attempt to keep people who are on the fence at the moment from leaving. Their membership has declined quite a bit over the past couple of years and the new drive doesn't seem to be having much effect so far. They can put an optimistic face on, but that can only take you so far. Just another promotional fluff piece. The space could have been better used providing more actual game material.</blockquote>

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