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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8922622" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 131: August 1998part 2/5Pillars of the Realm: The many new knightly orders introduced in the march edition of the Trumpeter continue to trickle out to the wider newszine. This time it's the ecumenical order dedicated to serving all good and neutral religions and mediating between them fairly, while rooting out evil. As usual, there's lots of copy-pasting involved, but they do change the emphasis on some of their aspects here, playing up the idea that they may have to go undercover as part of their heroics, as well as giving more information on the various special honors they get for performing awesome deeds. Just because they're knights doesn't mean they have to be obvious in their heroics, there are many more subtle religions in the Realms. A decent enough bit of refinement of the previous material.Elminster's Everwinking Eye: Ed has a fair bit more detail to give on the Land of Two Princes and the eternal rivalry that defines politics there. One important bit of neutral ground is the Starshroud, a magical mist enshrouded dell that puts the dead & severely wounded in a state of suspended animation so you can find someone to heal or raise them later without worrying about time limits. (although there's still the risk of other people going in and interfering with unguarded bodies) The frequent conflict keeps property prices low, as there's lots of abandoned forts & keeps that you could simply move into as long as you're strong enough to beat whatever beasties are currently there and fend off attacks from the next group of adventurers. It also means priests of Tempus are extremely common here, doing their part in keeping the conflict going in a stable manner by healing people on both sides and making a tidy profit in the process. Messing with them is another quick way to get people on both sides to agree you're a bad egg, not sporting at all and become fair game for everyone. Another instance of Ed coming up with a cool idea for a country and then extrapolating outwards to come up with the logistical details that would make a place like this actually function, which also manages to create more adventure hooks in the process. You could have plenty of fun both playing by the rules of the game or trying to reform the political structure entirely. With Great Power:  Marvel superheroes are back, so it looks like it’s time to get the band back together, with the old column name coming back with the suitably alliterative Dale Donovan writing it. What makes it different from the old one? It’s more about your narrative role than precisely how many tons your superstrong hero can lift or MPH your flyer can fly. This means your role in the team is the thing you should build your character around. Why do they choose to be a hero and how do they relate to the other people on the team? Do they juggle a secret identity with heroing and if so how well, or are they full-time secret agents for some organisation or perpetually on the run. This in turn means it’s best to engage in character creation as a group rather than individually before the first session, because the game won’t work very well if you all come in with brooding loner types. So this is telling us straight away that the new game is aiming straight at the narrativist end of the gaming crowd. If you want to spend hours juggling large amounts of points between advantages & flaws to get exactly the character you want go to the Champions system or GURPS. Whether that’ll be a selling point or an instant hard pass depends on you. Will people send in any edition-warring letters, and if so, will they print them? Since I don’t recall seeing any in Dragon, it doesn’t seem likely.</blockquote>

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