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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8941952" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron UK Issue 2: November 1998part 3/5Letter from America: Earlier this issue, they created a competition that'll win you a free trip to Gen Con UK. Evidently they did something very similar last year, as the 1997 winner of the open tournament won a trip to the USA to see the real thing, which is still a good 10 times the size of it's spin-off. So Andrew Glenn headed off to the USA and sent this little write-up back. The usual grumbling at the linearity & lack of roleplaying in the tournament modules aside, (the UK ones are at least slightly less standardised and formulaic) he had a very interesting time, getting to meet Frank Mentzer, Gary Gygax, Tracey Hickman, R. A Salvatore, Jeff Easley and Ed Greenwood, most of which signed his PHB in appropriate places. I wonder if that'll make it a collector's item now? As with the coverage in Polydedron 132, it looks like they've found their feet again pretty quickly after last year's struggles. On The Trail: A few people from the UK may have made it over to Indiana, but they're still giving the lion's share of the coverage to the home team, with 4 pages of photos and three more of different people giving their perspectives on Gen Con UK. Peter Adkison flew over and auctioned the shirt off his back for charity, which added several thousand £ to the pot for looking after kids with cancer. Everyone is very positive - although the scottish correspondent complains about the length of the journey, even his havering about the tournaments and people he meets is pretty braw. Not all the characters survived, but then you don't expect that in tournament modules and at least they died in entertaining ways. Just like the USA Gen Con, they were the biggest they've ever been, but hopefully they'll break that record next year. Despite TSR's financial troubles, the state of roleplaying as a whole is still a good one, with a fertile audience for the big changes WotC will bring. I can be fairly confident next year's coverage will be more of the same both sides of the pond.Bare Bones: Another round of basic advice that'll hopefully break your mental deadlock when you're devoid of ideas. The 5 W's, who, what, where, when and why. (oh, and how, which breaks the pattern and is better replaced with with) Taking random words and trying to form a pattern. Starting from the big climax and working backwards to com up with a plausible sequence of events to get there. Flow-charting your adventures rather than creating a solid map. All ones I've seen before, but at least they're packing a decent density of ideas into a couple of pages. It'd be useful for newer players. Death of Dolphins: A second adventure in the same issue? Well, i guess they do have more room. This one is for Call of Cthulhu, showing that's another series with plenty of international penetration. Several dolphins have indeed turned up with some very strange mutilations on their bodies. Then the crew that discovered this also disappeared, which will hopefully draw in the PC's to investigate. If they do, they'll find the bodies of the previous investigators, mutilated in a similar way. They'll have several encounters with Lord Belvedere, who'll be superficially helpful, but obstacles and accidents will follow in his wake, trying to impede their investigations. Anyone who's watched a bit of Scooby-doo will soon figure out that the only recurring character in the scenario is also the villain and investigate his mansion. Turns out he is indeed insane and has been summoning things man should not wot of, with the book of forbidden knowledge easy to find in his bedside cabinet. If you retain enough sanity to function after reading it, it's easy enough to banish the monster (which you never even see), although if you haven't already killed or captured Lord Belvedere you'll have to deal with him trying to stop the ritual. Short, but not particularly railroady, this seems like a decent enough way to fill a session, even if it is indeed very scooby-dooish in pacing. (only the horror is entirely real even if you never get to meet it, and the main adversary is the person responsible for summoning it.) Good to see them covering other systems, even if it could do with some expansion to really build up the atmosphere and cover more of the player's potential choices.</blockquote>

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