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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8898506" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 130: June 1998part 5/5Living Galaxy Countdown: Well, it took them a long time, but they're finally going to do an actual campaign under the Living Galaxy name. We're off to the Argos system in the Star*Drive universe, zooming in on the planet Marybelle. It's been inhabited by humans for a century now, but only now is the atmosphere approaching breathability without a suit, with plenty of terraforming still to go before it has a a complex self-sustaining ecosystem. That shows that while their technology may be much more advanced than ours, they still can't just snap their fingers and transform an entire world. There's still a lot of work to do before it stops feeling like a frontier. Which as it's a Living setting, they need you to fill in the finer details of. You know the address by now, so let's get those submissions in! Ultimately, this is another reminder that the RPGA is built on the backs of it's volunteers. If you don't write articles & adventures for a Living setting, then judge them at conventions, it'll die a quiet unmourned death. Let's see how well this does over the next few years. DM Tips: Ooh, here's the origin of another of those house rules that'll become canon next edition. We saw a fair number of those in Dragon and it's nice to know I'll be able to trace a few more of them back in here. Critical confirmation rolls, which ensure that your odds of getting a crit continue to increase as you get better at fighting in general, while still keeping them a relatively small proportion of hits. It's a more elegant solution than detailed tables full of various crippling effects, which rapidly stack up on your characters and make their adventuring lives untenable without the aid of magical healing. Still, even a single extra roll is more than some players prefer and they'd streamline crits even further for subsequent editions. Along with the idea here that did make it, there's several others on critical fumbles and weapon breakage that weren't so successful, but are still interesting to see. Another good example of how rules gradually progress, with lots of different experiments that gradually increase complexity that then get cut back down again keeping only the bits that work best. That still leaves this one unusually historically significant overall.Powers That Be: This column gets in on the issue's theme, covering Procan, Oerths's most chaotic sea god. He brings the sun and the storms, so you'd better stay on his good side if you want to make it to the other end of your voyage. That or direct your worship to Xerbo & Osprem instead, who also have oceanic portfolios but are a little more consistent in their favors. If they moved up in godly power and he went down maybe the oceans themselves would become more sedate on average. But then again, would you really want that as a group of wandering adventurers? Those shipwrecks are a prime source of challenges and treasure once you're high enough level to survive underwater for a while. His specialty priests seem like a pretty decent option for PC's as well. They may not be able to use heavy armor, as that's more of a nuisance than protection if you fall in the water, but they have a good selection of pointy objects allowable as weapons, access to 10 major spheres & 7 minor ones, plus plenty of watery granted powers as they go up in levels. Given how changeable the sea can be, they're not the sort to waste time on overly elaborate trappings and ceremonies, which means the stereotype of stuffy dogmatic clerics should also be noticeably lacking. Nothing hugely surprising in this one, but it all seems pretty solidly usable in game. A pretty decent ratio of good to bad game articles in this one, but the promotional ones are becoming increasingly aggressive and repetitive as WotC try to get them growing again. If they get much more pushy at preaching to the converted it may well become alienating in itself. Lots of work still needed to balance these factors as they gear up to create the new edition. Let's see what clues next issue has about their role in D&D's larger history.</blockquote>

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