Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9368733" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 99/158: June 2003part 4/8Dungeon Dressing: After spending quite a few issues giving us sets of monster tokens, it makes sense that they’d move onto props to decorate your rooms with. So here’s a dozen cardboard bits that you have to cut out and fold up into the proper shapes. Some torch pedestals, columns and a big throne complete with draperies and armrest covers that’ll take some careful construction to put together. Can you find a villain that’s posable and the right size to sit on it? Will it be solidly put together enough to support being sat on anyway? This is where I really wish I had a physical copy of the issue rather than just a .pdf so I could put it to the test myself. First Watch: Erik already did the main editorial, so he can’t be bothered to do another one on the Polyhedron side. Instead we go straight to the promotion of upcoming D20 Modern books with stats for Drop Bears. showing they are going to include some more wacky creatures from real world cryptozoology in the Menace Manual. It’s important to keep your sense of humour when trying to kill your players. They’re not that dangerous statistically, but the element of surprise counts for a lot, as we also know from Piercer encounters.The Release Roundup is somewhat shorter than usual. Bastion Press take us Into the Green, for those who are too young to remember how to do wilderness encounters from the 80’s RPG books. Green Ronin show us how to do a core class Blackguard in The Unholy Warrior’s Handbook, and give us a whole load of new psionic monsters in Monsters of the Mind. Mystic Eye Games try out a whole alternate system of item crafting in The Artificer’s Handbook. Will the Charop boards be able to break it in amusing ways? Necromancer Games release Vampires & Liches, a fairly self explanatory book with a trio of short adventures. Sounds like precisely the kind of thing Dungeon does cheaper and better. Bolt & Quiver get into a tiff over who’s the hero and who’s the sidekick. The clue is once again in the comic title. Global Positioning gives us two floors of a large metropolitan bank, another location where PC’s are particularly likely to find themselves in conflict, whether they’re committing the crimes themselves or heroically foiling other robbers. Looks like there’s enough space in these issues for modern day and fantasy maps to co-exist rather than alternating. Hijinx: Our D20 minigame is the most divergent yet. It’s time to play out your rock n’ roll fantasies with rules for putting a band together and engaging in musical competition to rule the scene. Not particularly gritty or realistic ones though, more based on the cartoon depictions of being in a band like Josie & the Pussycats or Jem & the Holograms. Since no-one ever really gets hurt in those, that means there’s no rules for combat at all! (although since the rules for musical battles use basically the same stats as D&D combat, only renamed, you can still make them work that way easily enough if you want to do crossovers or a slightly darker game) That’s a very interesting experiment indeed and one i’m particularly keen on seeing the reception to. It’s been a while since we had scenarios that could be resolved entirely without combat and it would be nice if they included a few, despite the XP system discouraging it. The graphic design is also a pleasing departure from the norm in here, going for bright secondary colours to accentuate the tweeness. Even more than the racing minigame, (which definitely has some common influences that would make them work well together) this is doing something they haven’t done before and are unlikely to ever do again. Even if I never actually get to play it, this definitely breaks up the monotony of the adventuring lifestyle.</blockquote>

Verification