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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9008675" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Gen Con Special: August 1999part 1/316 pages. Polyhedron's schedule has already been somewhat erratic this year. Now they slip in an extra issue outside the regular numbering in a similar way to the one they did 10 years ago, aimed specifically at newbies who signed on at Gen Con. Let's find out just how basic the contents will be this time around and if any of them will still manage to be fresh or useful to me. Notes From HQ: Unsurprisingly, the editorial is all about explaining how the RPGA works and what you'll be able to do if you join up. You can be a Fellowship level member, which is free, but limits your advancement options. Or you can pay $20 per year to get the full privileges of a Guild level member, which are numerous and more than worth the price. Similarly, there are two kinds of play, the Classic tournament play where each adventure has it's own pregens, and Living ones where you bring your own and advance it through playing lots of tournaments, plus the odd LARP where you get to play them in a more freeform environment and do more actual roleplaying. There's plenty of them to choose from, including three different AD&D ones, plus Shadowrun, Alternity, Earthdawn & Rolemaster ones (although they don't mention those last two here, showing they're the smallest and least important), with Living Greyhawk coming next year to hopefully eclipse all of those in sheer scope. Pretty basic, but it does do a good job of selling the RPGA as an active, changing organisation doing it's best to expand and add new games to the roster. Who knows what else you could get them to do if you get a few people to sign up and all ask for the same thing.Gen Con RPGA Activities: This is an expanded version of the preview from issue 135, telling us what's going on framed as different circles of hell. It's grown from 3 pages to 4, but large chunks of it are direct copy-pastes. The main expansion is in the second and third layers, the regular and special interest tournaments, with several new ones added in the intervening time. While not useless for it's target audience, it doesn't leave me with much to say and makes this already undersized special issue feel even slighter from my perspective. Make 'em Wine: Looks like we do have some system-free roleplaying advice in here after all, not just self-promotion. Conventions are often pretty boozy affairs, so putting in an article about the classy way to drink wine does seem appropriate. Making good alcoholic drinks is a lengthy and finicky process involving years of slow fermentation under carefully controlled conditions, which is why you can sell decades-old bottles for obscene prices. When you do finally decide to open a bottle, you don't just chug the lot in one go, but carefully decant it into glasses, check the colour & aroma and savour it slowly before coming to your conclusion on it in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/sep/12/jilly-goolden-wine-tasting-sussex" target="_blank">as florid language as possible</a>. Silly, but there's definitely plenty of good roleplaying opportunities in that, presuming the setting you're in has a culture around consuming alcohol similar to the real world. (and hey, you could easily take the concept and apply it to other consumables instead, like Ed did with that one country that revolves around barbecuing) Plus it's an idea they haven't done to death in here already, since they tended to downplay that kind of stuff during the Code of Conduct years. This is actually pretty decent and usable in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNr4Xpy7cP4" target="_blank">all sorts of campaigns with a little work</a>.</blockquote>

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