Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8925045" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 131: August 1998part 4/5Target Man: After four articles for the new Marvel game, they still have room to show the love to the FASERIP version. Target Man is basically an archetypical Defender before that character role was formalised in MMORPGs and then ported back to 4e. Regeneration, toughness and the ability to absorb kinetic energy & emit it in concussive blasts later incentivise him to jump in front of any attacks on civilians or squishier teammates and save the day. This handy but not particularly spectacular powerset tends to get him stuck in the sidekick role, not helped by his somewhat ridiculous costume. This means he's liked but not particularly respected, which does cause a certain amount of simmering resentment in him despite genuinely loving to save lives. Will that ever boil over and make him quit the heroing business or engineer some crisis to get the respect he deserves? That's a pretty solid plot hook to make him interesting in your game. This definitely falls in the usable range quality-wise. Spotlight on John Hinkle: Dragon brought back profiles at the start of this year. Now Polyhedron is getting in on the act with it's own regular column, obviously focussing on people who are somewhat less famous, but still doing invaluable work for the RPGA. John Hinkle is the regional director for Kansas, Great Boo of the Boo tribe in the Living Jungle, writer of adventures like The Punishment of Pennell and generally helpful person. He brings a good dose of whimsy with his writing, but takes showing up seriously, having only missed 3 Gen Cons since 1979. He juggles all this with a family and a day job in managing medical documents, which at least means he has unlimited printer access, which is probably handy for preparing gaming materials as well. <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=":)" /> Seems like a good example of how if you want something to get done, you should give it to someone who's already busy. A reasonably entertaining start, although their photography could definitely do with improvement. I look forward to seeing who they pick next and if any of them will be people I already know, or it'll be all unsung heroes given a brief time in the sun.You Might be a Power Gamer if: They might be more encouraging of charop at WotC than TSR, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still take the piss if you get excessive about it, as this lighthearted single page list of the most common exploits shows. Doing some of them is understandable, but doing all of them every time may get you kicked from a table even if they’re individually all perfectly rules-legal. Don’t be that guy. You might “win” the game, but is it really winning if no-one wants to play with you anymore?My Lord Tiger: For a second issue in a row, we actually manage two adventures, although this is only a 2 page one that's unlikely to last a full session. Greg Detwiler shows us how dangerous a man-eating tiger can be in the SAGA system, where you don't escalate exponentially in power with XP, particularly when played as a cunning predator that uses hit & run attacks. As with Chris's SAGA adventure in Dungeon, the universal resolution system means he can give more equal weight to noncombat challenges like surviving in the jungle, keeping your horses from being spooked by the tiger and stealthily setting traps to catch him rather than engaging in a straight-out fight. So this seems a little mundane compared to most of the D&D adventures we've seen lately, but does at least provide a bit of variety and show how using a different system can facilitate a different kind of play. It's just a shame it's not a bit longer. Instant ID: Living settings may be bigger than ever, but they still run plenty of one-shot tournament adventures with pregens as well. So here’s another round of yer basic advice about how to play them. Don’t get too hung up about playing a particular class, there’ll probably be only 6 characters to choose from and other people might well have gone first. Read through the sheet properly, particularly if there’s multiple pages and make a note of the important things both statistically and roleplaying-wise. Figure out a good voice for the character and get stuck into the roleplaying straight away, there’s not much room for subtlety in a tournament timeframe. Whether you win or lose, do it with grace & style, no-one likes a gloater. Nothing new or surprising to learn here.</blockquote>

Verification