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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9371493" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 99/158: June 2003part 8/8Global Positioning interrupts the flow of the minigame with a downtown nightclub, which is at least appropriate, but the art style is just Christopher Wests standard one rather than adapting to the surroundings, breaking my sense of immersion a little.For Those About to Rock: This section mixes up roleplaying advice with rules variants. Like most of these minigames, don’t go into it expecting a long term highly detailed campaign with lots of worldbuilding. Don’t bore us, get to the chorus. Introduce the villains quickly, make it fairly obvious OOC who they are even if the PC’s remain oblivious, wrap everything up neatly by the end of the session. Nonmusician NPC’s use simplified stats with a single generic class. Without standard combat, your skills become much more important as a way to solve challenges so don’t forget about them. If things do last a bit longer, there are a bunch of ways you can shake up the format, adding special powers to the adversaries and increasingly complex environmental modifiers to the venues. In a different timeline, you can see how this could support a whole bunch of supplements analogous to D&D ones introducing new monsters, classes and locations. But as in reality I’ll be lucky to make this a one session wonder, I think that’s more than enough material to work with.Pre-Fab Villains and Goons: There’s a decent mix of adversaries for the battle of the bands sections and the investigative hijinx ones here. A level 1 punk band, because if they get any better at playing they’ll soon stop being punk and we can’t be having that. A level 4 all female prog rock band (a very rare combination indeed in reality) for when you need a more lengthy challenge. Generic Goons to menace your characters in level 1, 3, 6 & 9 varieties so they’re always going to be a nuisance. Robot Goons, which are tougher and faster than the human kind but susceptible to logic paradoxes and water exposure. The slimy svengali trying to get the PC’s to sign contracts that’ll trap them in a terrible record deal. The middle eastern vizier scheming to overthrow his caliph and take over the country. Dr Roboticus, a mad genius trying to hypnotise everyone with his manufactured synth-pop and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!! And on the other end of the villain spectrum, Herr Showpenhower, the classical music purist who wants to eliminate pop for good and is willing to waste his zillions on increasingly implausible schemes while never getting his own hands dirty. Finally, the Swamp Ghost, which might or might not be any of the other villains wearing a very convincing costume and will try to scare away anyone entering its swamp. If the campaign takes you over 10th level, you’ll have to come up with more powerful adversaries, but what are the odds of that? All-in-all a pretty satisfying end to an interesting idea, decently implemented, that feels neither too short to do it justice, or so long that the joke stops being funny. Downer continues to have a playfully friendly relationship with people who are trying to kill him and a much less pleasant one with the people he’s supposedly working with. With an excellent Polyhedron side, and a Dungeon one that’s not quite as good, but still way better than last issue, this issue comes out pretty satisfying overall, mixing up long and short features without either dominating and overstaying their welcome. Next issue is of course the big one oh oh. Let’s find out what special celebrations they’ve come up with for that and if it’ll match up to Dragon’s centenaries.</blockquote>

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