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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9018678" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 138: October 1999part 4/5Living Greyhawk: Unsurprisingly given the new editor, the work to make sure their new Living setting is the biggest best thing ever continues to step up in intensity. First thing's first is to set the mood. It's the oldest D&D setting, filled with history and somewhere near the middle in terms of both magic level and general degree of niceness. Things aren't as grim as Dark Sun or Ravenloft, but they're not as froofy as Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms either. There are (hopefully) plenty of adventurers and a formalised guild structure for players to be a part of that sends them on missions, but also plenty of things for them to do and not so many high level NPC's that their job would seem pointless. Of course, someone's got to organise all this. They've divided everything up into regions and linked them to real world ones, but they don't have a full complement of volunteers for every region and a few still have none at all. Once again They Need You! : points out of screen: to do the job. Think you're up to developing local storylines, creating a website and regular newsletters, running various IC and metagame organisations and editing local modules? I'll wager not every region will manage all of those, but hopefully they can all run at least a few adventures a year for the people who sign up. Still a lot of work to do in the next year if they want the big launch to go off as planned then. Good thing they are telling us well in advance instead of just springing it on us like some of the smaller settings.Dilemma's Tusks: Another thing that’s changing under the new editorial regime is the adventures, as this is the last one that appears in here. (until they merge with Dungeon and the whole format is completely changed.) It’s time to go way back and reuse an idea last seen in issue 22, where the roles get reversed and it’s the PC’s job to defend a site from waves of attackers, many of which are illusionary or otherwise tricksy. The local baron is trying to negotiate a peace treaty with a nearby hobgoblin tribe. Given the general history of human/goblinoid relations they’re unsurprisingly skittish and ready to go back to fighting at the first sign of treachery. The PC’s are hired to make sure such an inciting incident does not happen. Unfortunately, someone or something seems determined to make sure it does and you have to fend off a string of increasingly weird incidents at the manor. A mysterious and suspiciously fragile red dragon that appears out of nowhere and disappears just as mysteriously when beaten. A rhino in the corridors. Multiple things happening to the baron, from assassination to being shrunken to tiny size, that also turn out to be illusions. The baron’s son going feral and biting one of the PC’s on the leg, requiring subdual not killing if you want to get paid and not exiled or locked up. A ghost that is actually just a guy in a sheet, no magic involved at all. All culminating in an illusionary tarrasque if you don’t figure out what’s behind it and catch them first. A bit wacky, particularly as it escalates into increasingly tricky double-bluffs once the PC’s know illusions are involved, but a genuine old school challenge that many groups will fail at that isn’t just half a dozen linear encounters, where you could get a whole range of endings depending on your actions. A distinctly better than average way to conclude this department, even if it still isn’t quite up to the editing standards in Dungeon. It’s important to remind PC’s what it’s like when the tables are turned every now and then, and they haven’t reused this idea so often it grows cliched.</blockquote>

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