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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9107582" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 145: Dec/Jan 2000/1part 6/6Clubline: This is particularly large, as they cover the conclusion of this year’s decathlon, the start of next year’s one and all the events in it, which as usual have been tweaked in the hope of increasing engagement, plus a 4 page listing of all the active clubs around the world. Reports of their meteoric growth have not been exaggerated, as now they’re up to 158 officially registered ones, although only 34 of them have participated in the Decathlon this year. In hope of getting more next time, they’re simplifying it back to 10 events, with every club automatically entered into the most rounds played & judged categories if they run any official tournaments at all. The joys of increasing database automation eh. You’ll still need to put active work into the other categories like writing scenarios, creating an adventuring party or sponsoring events in the community if you want to win, but hopefully that’ll result in a lot more clubs having at least a few points on the leaderboard. They evidently think there’s life in the whole idea yet despite the consistently low turnouts.On The Trail: This column does it’s best to keep up the international flavour. Lisa A. Chippendale gives us her perspective on Gen Con this year, with several valuable lessons learnt. She decided to go for a bunch of the big multi-round tournaments, with mixed success, but got to seriously stretch her roleplaying skills and test her real life stamina in the process. You have to get out of your comfort zone to grow, and the biggest collection of gamers under one roof definitely gives you space to do that. Mark Middleton talks about the somewhat more rustic charms of Camp Con (ooerr matron!) in Ohio. The sleeping arrangements may be pretty DIY, but that kept the costs down, and they had plenty of cabins with proper amenities to make sure people weren’t too stinky by the end of it. Now they just have to worry about how they can scale it up effectively without massive queues and having to bring in a bunch of gross portaloos like a music festival. UK head Ian Richards gives us a short one on Fallcon in Oxford, which was a particularly RPGA heavy event full of material for Sarbreenar, other Living settings and Call of Cthulhu. Finally, Massimo Bianchini talks about Lucca Comics & Games in Italy. Many of the buildings have been there since medieval times, making it a perfect backdrop to get some gaming in. (although comics still dominate, as you’d expect from the name.) From fresh stuff like Living Greyhawk to classics like Warhammer there were plenty of choices for the 40,000+ attendees and the growing power of the internet let special guest Alan Dean Foster appear remotely via webcam. Wouldn’t have the same impact these days, but nice to see the technology already solving logistical hurdles that would have been prohibitively expensive just a few years earlier. The reader survey is particularly upper-class in it’s phrasing this time around. An issue that took quite a bit of effort to get through, as I really felt the increased size this time, but was mostly pretty interesting, with several different fresh takes on the 3e mechanics as people get used to designing with them. People are still deciding what they most urgently want to put back into the new edition, while also putting all new ideas in that wouldn’t have worked before and seeing how they fit together. Let’s see which ones they manage to get through over the course of the next year.</blockquote>

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