Retrospective: Top Secret/S.I.

After last week's Retrospective post on the Q Manual for James Bond 007, my thoughts were starting to turn towards espionage RPGs. This inevitably led me back to TSR's Top Secret, which I loved but didn't play as often as I'd have liked. That, in turn, reminded me of the existence of its offspring, Top Secret/S.I., released in 1987, just as I was preparing to go away to college. Consequently, I didn't get a chance to look at the game until a few years later, by which point it was mostly a dead letter, despite receiving a fair bit of support over the course of its five-year run.

It's a shame, because I think TS/S.I. had a fair bit of potential. Designed by Doug Niles and Warren Spector, the game took a somewhat different approach to its subject matter than did its predecessor. Gone was the procedural, often gritty tone of the Merle Rasmussen's 1980 version. In its place was something more colorful, kinetic, and cinematic. TS/S.I. doesn't aspire to be "realistic" so much as an emulation of the larger-than-life globetrotting adventurer-cum-"spies" we saw in the action movies of the time. It was, I think, a good call and probably a better fit for the realities of most roleplaying game campaigns.

Like most TSR RPGs, Top Secret/S.I. was released in a boxed set, packed with goodies. Say what you will about TSR, but one of its great strengths was the physical production of its games. I think they may have outdone themselves in the case of TS/S.I. The company clearly had high hopes for the game. The box contained:

• A Player's Guide (64 pages), clearly written and friendly to newcomers.
• An Administrator’s Guide (32 pages), providing the referee with tools and advice.
• Maps, cardstock character sheets, reference charts, and a sheet of cardboard stand-up figures.
• Dice, of course, because no boxed game would be complete without them.

The packaging alone made it clear that this was a game, not merely a rulebook, but one that presented itself as a fun, playable experience intended to evoke a wide range of modern adventures, not just the high-tech gadgets and dangerous glamour of Cold War espionage fiction. I suspect that TSR hoped that Top Secret/S.I. would do for the present day what Dungeons & Dragons had done for fantasy: provide a flexible, accessible rules framework that could serve as the foundation for a whole genre of modern action roleplaying, from spy thrillers and paramilitary missions to pulp conspiracies and even near-future techno-drama.

In this, the TS.I. boxed set feels like a kind of Rosetta Stone for late-‘80s genre media. The core materials obviously nod to James Bond, Mission: Impossible, and the like, but the open-ended system and grab-bag of equipment, skills, and professions suggest a broader ambition. You could just as easily run an adventure inspired by Miami Vice, Rambo, or even Romancing the Stone. The structure was modular and the tone elastic. The overall design of the game hinted at a future where the spy game might grow to encompass all contemporary genre play.

TSR probably wasn’t just trying to publish a game about spies. Instead, they were trying to stake a claim on the modern era. The original boxed set suggested that they hoped to build outwards from it, creating a game that could handle every kind of adventure that could be found on video store shelves or TV Guide listings circa 1987. At least, that's what it looked like to me when I first read the game's materials during its dying days. If I'm correct, it was a pretty ambitious project to have undertaken, even if the end result didn't prove quite as successful as TSR might have hoped.

The rules of TS/S.I. were straightforward, modular, and forgiving. Characters were generated with six attributes (rated 1–100), a profession (which granted skill access), and a suite of percentile-based skills. It was a clean system, a sort of midway point between the crunch of, say, Twilight: 2000 and the elegance of James Bond 007. Combat, though potentially lethal, was far more forgiving than was the original Top Secret. Weapons and gear were detailed, but not exhaustively. The goal seems to have been clarity and momentum rather than obsessive realism. This was a game that wanted you to just dive in and play, not calculate cover modifiers for twenty minutes.

The default setting concerned the struggle between ORION (a kind of freelance intelligence agency) and WEB (a global criminal conspiracy) and was both its strength and its weakness. On one hand, it gave the game immediate stakes, a Bond-like clarity: good versus evil, gadgets versus goons. It let players jump into the world without pages of history or faction briefings. On the other hand, it lacked subtlety. There was little room for ambiguity, betrayal, or the slow-burn paranoia that often defines great espionage fiction. But for players raised on reruns of Mission: Impossible or The A-Team, this clarity was probably a feature, not a bug. There’s also an undeniable charm in how Top Secret/S.I. embraces the genre’s clichés. For example, some of the stand-up cardboard figures are depicted with trench coats and sunglasses and it’s hard not to smile at the earnest theatricality of it all. TS/S.I. doesn’t wink at its inspirations; it celebrates them without irony. Like a well-worn VHS tape of Octopussy or Delta Force, it’s content to revel in genre tropes, trusting that players will fill in the gaps with imagination and energy.

That attitude might partly explain why the game, despite its potential, never quite caught on the way its creators hoped. By 1987, the Cold War was already beginning to lose its pop culture dominance. The Berlin Wall would fall just two years later. Espionage itself was becoming murkier, more bureaucratic, and less suited to clean narratives. Furthermore, TSR was already showing signs of overstretch and its dominance in the RPG market no longer unchallenged. Top Secret/S.I. was well-supported, with modules, expansions, and genre-bending supplements like F.R.E.E.Lancers, but it never seemed to take off. As I said, I never even saw a copy until well into its run and I never owned it myself.

Despite all this, I think there's real merit in what the game tried to do. The original boxed set is well done, a terrific artifact of TSR at its peak as a producer of tactile, inviting RPG products. Likewise, the rules hold up better than one might expect, especially for pick-up play or shorter campaigns. The setting might be broad-stroke and somewhat Saturday morning in tone, but it’s also an ideal launchpad for more creative groups to riff, remix, and reframe. You could run hardboiled noir, techno-thrillers, or even supernatural conspiracy stories with only a few tweaks, just as TSR seems to have hoped to do.

In the end, Top Secret/S.I. stands as a kind of forgotten experiment: TSR’s attempt to bring modern action-adventure under the same umbrella as elves and dragons. It didn’t succeed, but it did leave behind a beautifully made game full of obvious enthusiasm and potential. For those of us who like to celebrate messier, less polished relics of the RPG past, maybe that’s enough.

Level Titles: Beyond D&D

Having now covered all of the published TSR era D&D and AD&D character classes with level titles, I wanted to turn to some other RPGs published by the same company that also include them. First up is Empire of the Petal Throne (1975), which only makes sense, as the game's rules were essentially a variant of OD&D. Here is the chart featuring level titles for all three character classes available in that game:

There are a couple of notable ways that this chart differs from its D&D predecessors. The first and most obvious is that these titles aren't in English. Instead, they're in the Tsolyáni constructed language used in the setting, though they are accompanied by rough English translations. Secondly and more importantly, most of these titles have a meaning within the setting. For example, the titles of the fighting man class are, from levels 1 through 6, actual titles within the Tsolyáni legions. Likewise, the titles of both the priest and magic-user classes are those of ranks within the "circles" (an administrative term) of the temple priesthoods and lay priesthoods respectively. In short, these level titles aren't arbitrary names but rather markers of attainment within Tsolyánu. 

Empire of the Petal Throne is not, however, the only TSR RPG to include level titles. Another one that does so is Top Secret (1980) and its titles seem to have a lot in common with those of Dungeons & Dragons. Take, for example, the titles of the Investigation section:

Like most of their D&D predecessors, the Top Secret level titles (or "designations") are just synonyms related to the class in question, as you can see in the case of the Confiscation section:

If anything, the Confiscation titles are even less plausible than those for Investigation. Shoplifter? Crook? Those don't strike me as at all credible internal designations for a covert operative. Consider, too, the Assassination section:

Punk? Hood? Muscleman? As I said, these strike me as simply synonyms – and of a decidedly colloquial sort – rather than anything that could be accepted as having any purpose within the world of the game itself. 

On the other hand, there's Gangbusters (1982), which includes level titles for some of its character professions, but not others. For example, these are the titles for FBI agents:

You'll notice several things about this chart. Firstly, not every level has a unique title. Secondly, each increase in level includes a commensurate increase in salary, which has a real in-game effect. The titles in Gangbusters are, in this way, go beyond even those of Empire of the Petal Throne in being something that definitely exists within the game world rather than being simply an artifact of the game rules. For the sake of completeness here are the charts for Prohibition Agents and police officers:

Clearly, Gangbusters puts level titles to the best use of all the roleplaying games so far examined, in that they not only reflect a setting-based reality (i.e. promotion within a character's profession) but also provides a setting-based benefit in the form of increased pay. These are small things, to be sure, and one could reasonably argue that there's no need to present such things in this fashion. However, given that Gangbusters uses a level-based system, albeit one very different from D&D, it makes some sense to do it this way. In any event, I think it's fair to say Gangbusters does level titles better than D&D and Top Secret.

Polyhedron: Issue #23

April Fool's issues were a staple of my youth, but they're very difficult to pull off. Partly, that's because humor can be very subjective and, partly, that's because most attempts at humor, especially in writing, are simply not very good. Consequently, I greeted the arrival of issue #23 of Polyhedron (April 1985) with some trepidation, despite its delightful cover by Tom Wham (take note of the bolotomus and snits in the bottom lefthand corner). However, I'm happy to say that this particular April Fool's Day issue is (mostly) pretty good. In fact, there are a couple of articles that I still find rather amusing even now – not laugh-out-loud funny, but intellectually droll, if that distinction means anything.

The issue begins with another installment of "News from HQ" that explains the nature of this issue: 

If this is your first issue of the POLYHEDRON Newszine, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the RPGA Network, and let you in on the gag. Five out of the six issues you will receive with each year of membership will bring you club news, informative articles on your favorite game systems, and a chance to make a serious contribution to the hobby by sharing your ideas with other members. This is not one of those five.

That's the kind of humor I'm talking about. The editorial goes on to explain that this issue was "conceived in madness and dedicated to the proposition that there is room for levity in gaming." I wholeheartedly agree, as anyone who's ever played in one of my campaigns will tell you. Yes, even the ones occasionally featuring unpleasant stuff. Games are supposed to be fun, after all, and it's important not to lose sight of that.

Much less funny is "An Official Policy Statement," whose entire shtick is using $64 words to say silly things about, in this case, "the sex lives of monsters." As I said above, humor writing isn't easy.

Fortunately, Gary Gygax gifts us with "Ultimists," a new character class for AD&D. Described as "fighting wizard-priests," Ultimists combine the abilities of clerics, magic-users, and monks. While their ability scores are rolled using only 3d6, the result of that roll is made by recourse to a chart, with most rolls resulting in scores of 15 or higher. This section of the class description pokes fun, as Gygax makes clear, those "enthusiasts" who objected to his system for rolling up the abilities of the then-new barbarian class. Ultimists also make use of spell points, because "memorizing spells is tedious, and the selection requires reasoning and intelligence applied to the game." Ouch. I can't really blame Gygax for using the article as an opportunity to vent about critics of AD&D. I imagine he was quite fed up with them by this point in his life.

"Why Gargoyles Don't Have Wings (But Should) (An Alternative Viewpoint) by David Collins is an attempt to explain away Gary Gygax's concerns about the illustration of the gargoyle in the Monster Manual through a variety of vaguely humorous means. It's fine for what it is, but nothing special. A bit more interesting is Skip Williams's "The Lighter Side of Encounters" in which he presents a couple of humorous encounters from Frank Mentzer's Aquaria campaign as a way of demonstrating how humor sometimes finds its way into otherwise "serious" RPG campaigns. The encounters are all based on things that actually happened in Menzter's campaign, which is fascinating in its own right. Speaking of Mentzer – or, rather, Knarf Reztnem – his "Punishments to Fit the Crime" offer a pair of humorous stories whose conclusions depend on puns. They're basically Dad jokes in written form. Make of that what you will.

Frank Mentzer reappears with "New Magic Items," which offers up some fun (and funny) magic items from his Aquaria campaign, like the canister of condiments and the sweet tooth. Then, he reappears yet again – the man was a machine back in the day – with "Excerpts from the Book of Mischievous Magic," a spoof of his The Book of Marvelous Magic. This second article many amusing magical items like the awl of the above, cool hand lute, stocking of elf summoning, and practical yoke. It's all very silly, of course, but done with some real cleverness and an understanding that a good joke magic item isn't just a joke, but should also have some potential utility in a game. Mentzer clearly understood this.

Part 2 of David Cook's "In the Black Hours" AD&D adventure (Part 1 appeared in the previous issue) is the sole piece of "serious" material in the entire issue and thus feels very much out of place. Like its predecessor, it looks fun, reminding me a bit of something in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Conan, while working as a thief, might have become involved. "Dungeonsongs" is back to form, with a trio of humorous, RPG-themed songs set to well-known tunes, like "I'll Be a Wererat in the Morning" and "Green Slime." "Dispel Confusion" answers numerous important questions for D&D, AD&D, and Top Secret, like this one:

Bruce Heard pens "Zee Chef," another new character class for use with AD&D. A chef is designed specifically for NPCs "devoted to the culinary arts and learning more about native delicacies." It's a spellcasting class, with a host of new spells, including my favorite, edible glamour. Concluding the issue is "The Male of the Species" by – you guessed it – Frank Mentzer, which describes "emezons," the male counterparts to the amazons presented by Gary Gygax in issue #22. Some emezons are members of the new chef NPC class, while others are "exceptionally skilled at child raising, interior decorating, and hair styling." Hey, it was a different time.

All in all, not bad. Even someone as humor-impaired as myself chuckled a couple of times, which is quite a feat in itself. I'd still rather have had a "normal" issue of Polyhedron, but I can't deny the staff did a good job with their assignment. Well done!

Polyhedron: Issue #21

Issue #21 of Polyhedron (January 1985) features a cover illustration by Timothy Truman, who produced a lot of artwork for TSR throughout the 1980s before going on to greater success as a comic book artist. The piece depicts the protagonist of this issue's "Encounters" article, facing off against a creature of para-elemental ice, but, as I'll explain shortly, I have some questions. 

The issue starts with another "Notes from HQ" article by Penny Petticord. Her position is RPGA Network Coordinator, which I assume is the title of the head of the RPGA. However, starting with issue #22, Petticord will also be the editor of Polyhedron, taking over from Mary Kirchoff, who'd been on the staff of the newszine since issue #5. She would then devote herself full-time to fiction, writing numerous Dragonlance novels and later becoming part of TSR's book publishing division.

Next up is the aforementioned "Encounters" article by James M. Ward. The scenario sees a young paladin named Ren Grakkan on a quest to retrieve "the most potent of all artifacts," the white cloak of enchanting (or is it charming? The text is inconsistent) for his unnamed lady love. The cloak is found in a cave guarded by para-elemental ice monsters. As I noted, I have a couple of questions. First, Ren is described as a paladin, but he looks more like a classic sword-and-sorcery barbarian based on Truman's illustration. The text at least supports this, since he's described as wearing no armor but only bracers of defense (AC 4) and having Dexterity 18 (hence a –4 defensive adjustment). Even so, he looks nothing like what I'd expect of a "paladin," but perhaps I simply lack imagination. (I suppose it's possible the artwork depicts the cloak's original owner, a barbarian lord, who lost it in battle against the ice creatures, but then why isn't the cloak shown?) Second, this so-called "potent artifact" Ren is seeking makes its wearer's charm and illusion spells harder to resist, especially if the wearer is female. Could it be that Ren's "lady love" is actually a sorceresss who's charmed him? There's no evidence of this in the text, but the thought occurs to me. (Also, why does Ward keep re-using the name "Ren" for his characters?)

Sonny Scott's "Observations from a Veteran Gamer" is short piece of fluffy advice from a long-time player of AD&D who's also a stalwart of the RPGA. I don't mean to be so dismissive, but there's nothing here you've never heard a thousand times before. More interesting is Gary Gygax's "Why Gargoyles Don't Have Wings But Should." The article begins with classic Gygaxian boasting: he speaks of his association with Flint Dille ("Did you know his grandfather invented Buck Rogers?") and their upcoming joint projects. Then, he moves on to his dissatisfaction with depictions of both the gargoyle and the mar(l)goyle from Monster Manual II. The illustrations for both, Gygax says, lack wings and this should be corrected in "some future edition" of AD&D. For reference, here are the two illustrations in question: 

"Don't try to tell me those dark shadows are wings!" Thus spake Gygax.

Gygax also explains that the second monster's proper name is marlgoyle, with an "l," just as it's named in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. This is one of those cases where, if one knows anything about geology, the error is obvious. In any case, I find this sort of thing fascinating – all the more so because the error was never corrected in any subsequent edition of the game. 

Roger E. Moore's "Take Command of a Titan!" is, by far and away, the best part of this issue and indeed one of my favorite articles ever to appear in any gaming periodical, not simply Polyhedron. In it, Moore lays the groundwork for a "Big Ship" campaign in Star Frontiers. By "big ship," he means a space vessel whose crew numbers in the hundreds at least, if not more. This is territory well covered by both Traveller and Star Trek, but it's not really discussed in Star Frontiers. Additionally, Moore provides lots of ideas on what makes a Big Ship campaign unique and fun. Back in my youth, this article, along with its sequel in the next issue, was a very inspirational one for me. To this day, I find myself longing for a science fiction campaign set aboard a Big Ship.

"Spelling Bee" by Frank Mentzer returns, looking at the ins and outs of a few low-level magic-user spells for AD&D. I'm always of two minds about these kinds of articles. On the one hand, I appreciate seeing the clever ways that people can make use of well-worn spells. On the other hand, some of these clever uses depend on very specific, nitpicky, and possibly tendentious readings of the text. It's a fine line, to be sure, which is why I can't be outright dismissive of articles like this, even as I, as a habitual referee, tend to grit my teeth at some of the more "creative" applications put forward.

"Witchstone" by Carl Sargent is an AD&D adventure for character levels 8–12. It's an odd adventure, because, at base, it's pretty mundane: a bunch of hill giants are causing trouble and it's up to the PCs to deal with them. However, the reason why the giants are more hostile than usual concerns a power play by a giantess wishing to make her son chief. This she does by trickery, pretending she is a witch and arranging for "accidents" to occur that support her false claim. It's certainly interesting in an abstract sense, but I'm not sure how much of this would be communicated to the characters involved in the adventure.

"Five New NPCs" is just what its title suggests: a collection of five non-player characters submitted by RPGA members. None of them are especially memorable. "Module Building from A to Z" by Roger E. Moore is vastly more worthy of attention. In this lengthy, four-page article in which Moore presents the guidelines by which modules submitted to both Dragon and Polyhedron are evaluated. It's a remarkable article for its insight into the culture of TSR in early 1985, as well as into the readership of its periodicals. There are already hints of the "TSR Code of Ethics" that would appear later, for example. The guidelines also allude to the relative popularity of various RPGs at the time, with modules for games like Boot Hill and Gangbusters being excluded "due to low reader interest." There's a lot here to consider; I may need to do a longer post dissecting the whole thing.

I could not bring myself to read "The RPGA Network Tournament Scoring System" – sorry! "Dispel Confusion" covers only three games this month: AD&D, Gamma World, and Top Secret, with AD&D questions taking up slightly more than half of the pages devoted to this section. That shouldn't come as a surprise, but I nevertheless find it notable. What does surprise me is how often the submitted questions amount to "In my campaign, can I do ...?" with the answer usually being, "Yes, if the referee will allow it." What a strange world! This seeking of permission from the publisher is bizarre. I wonder if anyone ever wrote to Parker Brothers to ask about whether it was OK to use Free Parking as something other than an empty space?

Polyhedron: Issue #20

Issue #20 of Polyhedron (November 1984) is another with which I am very familiar. Regular readers should also remember it from another post I wrote almost a year ago. The cover, by Roger Raupp, depicting the events of this issue's "Encounters" article, is a big part of the reason why it made such an impression on me as a teenager. I'll have a little more to say about it shortly.

"Notes from HQ" is a good reminder that, whatever else it may have been, Polyhedron was supposed to be the official news organ of the RPGA. Consequently, the article focuses on the most recent GenCon and the events run there on behalf of the Role Playing Game Association. While most of the information it conveys is ephemera – "Due to a computer mixup, our events didn't make it into the pre-registration brochure ..." – I nevertheless found the titles of some of the RPGA events fascinating. For example, there was "Baron of San Andreas" for Boot Hill, "Seventh Seal" for Top Secret, and "Rapture of the Deep" (or "Face of the Anemone") for Gamma World. It's all quite evocative and makes me wish I knew more about them.

Speaking of Gamma World, there's another installment of James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month," this time devoted to the Healers. To date, most of the entries in this series have been, in my opinion, vague on details and generally limited in utility. Some, however, get by because the cryptic alliance covered is sufficiently interesting in its own right, like, say, the Knights of Genetic Purity, Sadly, the same cannot be said of the Healers, who come across as very generic peaceniks without much in the way of adventure hooks that might convince a referee to include them. Also, like too many of the cryptic alliances in this series, the Healers' own legends include too many sly jokes and references to 20th century pop culture ("Lue of the Sky" and "Bencassy"), but then that's a common problem with the presentation of Gamma World's setting and not unique to them.

Kim Eastland's "The Proton Beam" describes a new form of weapons technology for use with Star Frontiers, along with defenses against it. I've always had conflicted feelings about the fixation sci-fi games have with an ever-expanding equipment list, so I tend to greet articles like this with some skepticism. In this case, though, I appreciate that Eastland use the introduction of the proton beam into an existing Star Frontiers campaign as an occasion for adventure. He suggests several possible ways the new weapon could debut, each of which has the potential to send the campaign in different directions. To my mind, that's how new equipment/technology ought to be handled.

James M. Ward returns with "The Druid," a two-page article describing Thorn Greenwood, a druid NPC, in some detail. This is part of an irregular series begun back in issue #17, in which Ward presents an archetypal example of an AD&D character class as an aid/inspiration to players and referees alike. Accompanying the article is another page in which RPGA members have submitted their own shorter examples of members of the class. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not convinced it's quite as useful as Ward might have intended.

"The 384th Incarnation of Bigby's Tomb" is a very high-level (15–25) AD&D tournament adventure by Frank Mentzer. Despite its title, the scenario does not seem to have anything to do with either Gary Gygax's character Bigby nor with The World of Greyhawk. The titular Bigby would seem simply to be a generic archmage, though artist Roger Raupp seems to have taken some inspiration from Gygax's actual appearance in depicting him:

The premise of the adventure is that Bigby labors under a curse that makes him unable to employ potions of longevity and thereby extend his life. Rather than die, he placed himself in suspended animation within an artifact, where he would rest until brave adventures might find him, lift the curse, and deliver to him the desired potion. The dungeon surrounding the artifact is not really a tomb, since Bigby isn't dead, but it is a deadly place filled with lots of tricks, traps, and challenges, just as you'd expect of a good tournament dungeon.

"Encounters," yet another piece by James M. Ward, features the Aquabot for Gamma World, about which I've written before, as I noted above. In my youth, I remember finding the article somewhat jarring, because, up until this point, the setting of Gamma World had never included anything like this in any of its previous supplementary material and I didn't quite know what to make of it. Years later, I'm still not sure, but there's no denying that it made an impression on me, so I suppose it achieved its purpose.

The antepenultimate section of this issue is a doozy: Roger E. Moore's three-page essay on "Women in Role Playing." The article is a very well-intentioned and reasonably thoughtful attempt to broach a number of topics relating to the entry of more women into the overwhelmingly male dominated hobby of roleplaying. While I suspect that many readers today, male or female, might detect the occasional air of condescension in Moore's prose, I think that's probably the wrong lens through which to view this piece. TSR, to its credit, was always quite keen to expand the hobby beyond its traditional male fanbase and articles like this suggest, I think, that they were at least partially successful. 

Roger Moore returns with "Now That It's Over ...," another report on the most recent GenCon (17 for those who care). Unlike "Notes from HQ," Moore's article focuses not solely on RPGA matters but on the entire con. Consequently, there's some genuinely interesting bits of historical trivia, like the performance of a dramatic reading from the first Dragonlance novel that received "a standing ovation." He also highlights all the new RPGs that appeared that year, like Paranoia, Toon, Ringworld. and Chill, not to mention TSR's own additions, like Marvel Super Heroes and The Advenures of Indiana Jones – quite the banner year for new releases!

Finally, there's "Dispel Confusion," with answers to questions about D&D, AD&D, Gamma World, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret. Only the AD&D questions have any lasting importance, largely because they're questions put directly to Gary Gygax himself at the latest GenCon. One concerns the appearance of the mythical module T2, whose manuscript Gygax says is now complete, though without committing to a release date. The second monsters that are "pretty useless" and that "are never seen in the modules." Oddly, Gygax replies that "work is being done to update and improve the Fiend Folio," even though the questioner, at least as reported, did not specifically mention that book of monsters. It's well known that Gygax didn't like the Fiend Folio and many of its entries, so perhaps he simply took this question as another opportunity to vent his spleen about it.

Polyhedron: Issue #19

Issue #19 of Polyhedron (September 1984), like the previous issue, features a cover illustration promoting one of TSR's licensed RPGs, in this case The Adventures of Indiana Jones. The reputation of the Indiana Jones game has long – and somewhat understandably – suffered as a result of the game's narrow focus and presentation, squandering its real potential as a vehicle for pulp adventure. The scenario included in this issue, "The Temple of the Chachopoyan Warriors "(written by Doug Niles), does little to correct this. The adventure reframes the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark as a means of introducing the game and its rules to newcomers. While adequate to that specific task, it also reinforces the sense that the RPG would never really rise above its limited source material and that's a pity.

This issue's "Two Cents" is a rebuttal to last issue's rebuttal to another article, appearing in issue #14 – yikes! If nothing else, it's a reminder that roleplayers have always liked to argue with another about almost anything. It's also a reminder that my patience is very limited when it comes to such things, then or now. That said, this issue's installment, by Christopher Gandy, at least makes a few solid points, most importantly that, for many players, roleplaying is an escape and an opportunity to do and experience things they'd never be able – or want – to do in real life. There's nothing wrong with this and it can, in fact, serve a useful purpose.

"Lost Ships, Madmen, and Pirate Gold" by Antonio "Crazy Tony" O'Malley is a fun article intended for use with Gangbusters, Call of Cthulhu, Daredevils, or any other roleplaying game set in the 1930s (interestingly, Indiana Jones is not mentioned). The general thrust of the three-page piece concerns the care and feeding of pulp adventure campaigns. O'Malley covers a wide range of topics – legendary treasures, historical mysteries, gangsters, and ghosts, among others – with an eye toward offering advice on how best to make best use of them in play. The article is both creative and practical and I remember enjoying it when I first read it long ago, an opinion that didn't much alter upon re-reading it.

"... And the Gods Will Have Their Way" by Bob Blake concludes the "Prophecy of Brie" series of adventures begun back in issue #16. The adventure takes up the interior twelve pages of this issue and is designed to be removeable by bending back the staples that hold it together. Though I never mad direct use of it, I appreciated its attempt to provide a consistent cultural backdrop for the scenario, in this case, pseudo-Celtic, rather than the usual vague mishmash found in most Dungeons & Dragons modules at the time. On the other hand, the fact that this "mini-module" took up half of the issue's page count was a bit of an annoyance. As always, I suspect that the editors of Polyhedron were struggling with figuring just what the 'zine was supposed to be and how it differentiated itself from TSR's other gaming periodical, Dragon.

Frank Mentzer presents the results of the RPGA Network Item Design Contest, consisting of six winners selected from a pool of "almost a hundred." The items were judged in the categories of "usefulness," "originality," and "rules compliance." The grand prize winner, whose creator received a lifetime membership to the RPGA, is the talisman of the beast. Written for AD&D, the talisman enables its wearer to shapechange into the animal associated with it, as well as to speak with animals of the same type. Usable seven times a week, any attempt at an eighth use traps the wearer in anima form until the curse is dispelled by the Great Druid. With the exception of the taser rifle, intended for use with Star Frontiers, all the other winners are for AD&D – a reminder, I suppose, of just how much more popular it was than any of TSR's other offerings.

Tim Kilpin's "If Adventure Has a Game ... er, Name, It Must Be Indiana Jones!" is a two-page overview of The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game. It's essentially an advertisement masquerading as an article, though I do appreciate that there are some quotes from David Cook, in which he explains his intentions while designing the game. Alas, his intentions included not just a desire for "fast action" but also hewing as closely as possible to the characters and events of the two movies released at the time. Not to sound like a broken record, but it's a real shame that TSR either didn't (or couldn't – I've seen claims that it was Lucasfilm that dictated this) open up the world of Indiana Jones a little more, so as to include original characters and situations. Ah, well!

James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month" looks at The Created, a group of sentient androids and robots that believe themselves superior to the human beings who created them. The Created make for a great antagonistic cryptic alliance in Gamma World campaigns, which is why I like them. Compared to earlier articles in this series, this one doesn't add much to our knowledge beyond making The Created even more explicitly villainous than we already suspected (their leader is android/robot hybrid called V.A.D.E.R. X and, no, there's no explanation for that acronym). 

"The Laser Pod" by Jon Pickens is a nice – and very useful – addition to the Star Frontiers starship combat system found in Knight Hawks. One of the oddities of baseline Knight Hawks is that fighter craft are too small to carry any type of laser weapons. Instead, they're armed exclusively with rockets. While this makes sense within the context of the starship construction rules, it nevertheless felt a little disappointing to those of who'd grown up imagining fighters dogfighting with lasers. Pickens presents a clever little option that simultaneously stays true to the original rules while also giving us laser fanatics what we've wanted all along. Bravo.

Finally, there's "Dispel Confusion" with more questions and answers about TSR's various RPGs. While reading this issue's sampling, a few thoughts occurred to me. First, the AD&D questions are overwhelmingly technical in nature, which is to say, they're about how to interpret the text of the rules as written, whereas the questions for most of the other games are much more in the realm of advice on how to handle situations the rules don't explicitly cover. This might simply be a consequence of AD&D having more rules than other TSR games, but I suspect it may speak to the culture surrounding AD&D as well. Second, there are no questions in this issue about Boot Hill. I can't help but wonder if this is reflective of its relatively small fanbase at the time.

As always, Polyhedron continues to be something of a moving target. Every issue offers a different mix of content, coverage, and quality, which, I suppose, is fairly typical of a zine that is increasingly relying on outside submissions for its content. Still, I find the inconsistency a little bit frustrating, making my enjoyment of this series similarly inconsistent.

Polyhedron: Issue #18

Serendipity is a funny thing. No sooner did I mention my childhood affection for Spider-Man than I find that issue #18 of Polyhedron (July 1984) features everyone's favorite web-slinger facing off against the Scorpion on its cover. This only makes sense, of course, since TSR's Marvel Super Heroes debuted around this time and was a big hit for the company. In fairly short order, it seemed as if there were nearly as many adventures being released for MSH as there were for Dungeons & Dragons, though my memory might well be faulty.

Spidey and the Scorpion form the basis for this issue's "Encounters" article, written by none other than Jeff Grubb, the designer of Marvel Super Heroes. Like all previous "Encounters" articles, this one is brief, but Grubb nevertheless makes the most of the limited space, presenting a scenario in which Spider-Man must rescue J. Jonah Jameson from a subway car that's been commandeered by Scorpion. It's straightforward and simple but does a good job, I think, of presenting the kind of situation in which the Web-head often found himself.

James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month" focuses on the mutant mirror image of the Knights of Genetic Purity, the Iron Society. Also known as the Mutationists, the Iron Society seeks to rid the post-apocalyptic Earth of all non-mutated life, with pure strain humans being the primary target of their ire. Needless to say, this makes the Society an object of fear in Gamma World and I always felt that they'd be used primarily as antagonists in most campaigns. Compared to the Knights, who might excellent villains in my opinion, the Iron Society somehow feels a bit more one-note and the article does little to change my mind on this, alas.

"Remarkable, Incredible, Amazing" by Steve Winter. As you might guess from its title, it's an overview of the then-newly released Marvel Super Heroes RPG. It's basically an advertisement intended to entice gamers into buying TSR's latest product and, in that respect, it does a fair job. Much more interesting is Roger E. Moore's "Kobolds and Robots and Mutants with Wings." Over the course of three pages. Moore talks first about the joys of "hybrid" games that mix and match rules and setting elements, something that even the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide discusses briefly. He then moves on to talk about various hybrid games he's run, such as when AD&D adventurers made use of a well of many worlds to travel to the universe of Bunnies & Burrows to fight rats in thrall with agents of the Cthulhu Mythos. Finally, he presents a lengthy discussion of kobalts – kobolds who traveled to Gamma World's setting, were mutated by radiation, and then bred true as a distinct species. Moore stats them up for both GW and AD&D and presents lots of information on how they could be used in both games. As I said, it's a very interesting article and a reminder of just how imaginative a writer Moore was.

"The Magic-User" by James M. Ward presents yet another "archetypical" [sic] example of a Dungeons & Dragons class, including her personality, skills, possessions, and holdings. In this case, that's Delsenora, an older woman who uses potions of longevity to retain her youth, who has a particular hatred for powerful undead, like vampires and liches. She also has a passion for flying through the use of magic. Consequently, she's built her castle high in the mountains, in a place otherwise inaccessible to those without flight. Appended to the end of Delsenora's description are two more magic-users, one by Ward (named Lidabmob – Bombadil spelled backwards) and another by Susan Lawson, presumably a RPGA member.

"Two Cents" by Joseph Wichman is a rambling opinion piece in which the author, another RPGA member, covers a number of vaguely related topics under the header of "roleplaying." He begins by arguing, contra the "Two Cents" column in issue #14, that roleplaying is not the same as acting and that any referee who expects his players to immerse themselves deeply in their roles is being unreasonable. He also touches on "troublesome" players, evil characters, and player vs character knowledge – all perennial topics in the gaming magazines of my youth. While I don't disagree with anything the author writes here, the article is somewhat frustrating to read, since it bounces around from one subject to the next.

"Layover at Lossend" by Russ Horn, yet another RPGA member, is a short Star Frontiers scenario set on the titular planet of Lossend. The format of the single-page scenario reminds me a bit of the "Encounters" feature, in that it includes of player characters to be used in conjunction with it. The adventure itself isn't particularly worthy of comment, since it's very short and sketchy, leaving most details to the referee to work out. What is interesting is that Horn refers to the referee – the official term for the Game Master in the game – as "the DM."  This is obviously just a small slip-up, both on the part of the writer and the Polyhedron editorial staff. However, I think points to the extent to which the terminology of Dungeons & Dragons had become the defaults in RPG discussions, even discussions about other games.

"Money Makes the World Go Round" by Art Dutra – again, an RPGA member – is a thoughtful little piece about the role of money and treasure in an ongoing D&D campaign. Dutra's focus is primarily from the side of the referee, highlighting the ways that money can be used to both motivate and impede player characters. He points out all the costs that PCs can incur during a campaign, especially those that are overlooked, like training and converting gems into coins, among many others. Dutra is absolutely correct, in my opinion, that referees often fail to take into account the, if you'll forgive the pun, value of money as a driver of a campaign. My only criticism is that focusing on taxes, exchanges rates, hidden costs, and other expenses can very quickly become tedious, or at least that's been my experience. Finding a way to keep money in mind without degenerating into an exercise in bookkeeping would be truly worthwhile topic for an article or essay.

Speaking of tedious, this issue's "Dispel Confusion" is largely filled with very persnickety rules questions of the sort that bore to tears. Whether because of laziness or a lack of intelligence, I've always been much more of a rulings guy rather than a rules guy, so this stuff frequently baffles me. I'm especially baffled by questions that begin "Can I ...?" as if the sender felt he needed TSR's permission to introduce something into his own campaign. I suppose these are the inevitable fruits of the company's attempts to maintain tight control over all of its games and to discourage its customers from buying or making use of "inferior" supplementary materials.

Issue #18 of Polyhedron shows the continued evolution of the 'zine. Perhaps the biggest change is the inclusion of many more articles submitted by RPGA members. That's a welcome change, though the quality of those submissions seems to vary quite a bit. Over time, I suspect that, too, will change, but, for the moment, it gives the issue a much more uneven feel than some of its immediate predecessors. Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing what future issues have in store. 

Polyhedron: Issue #17

Issue #17 of Polyhedron (May 1984) is immediately notable for its cover, which features an uncredited 19th century engraving rather than an illustration by one of TSR's staff artists. Nevertheless, the engraving is being used to illustrate one of this issue's articles, a long "Encounters" piece by Kim Eastland about which I'll speak shortly. Because of hos different this cover looks compared to its predecessors, it's one that I remember well, even if I didn't recall anything about the article to which it's connected.

The issue kicks off with a long letter in which a reader comments that he is "not a member of the RPGA Network in order to get a second helping of articles every month. DRAGON does a good job monthly." Instead, the reader wants to hear the opinions and ideas of RPGA members rather than "professional writers." It's a fair criticism, I think, though, as I noted last week, it's not one I shared. Editor Mary Kirchoff explains that the preponderance of articles by TSR staff members is due to a lack of submissions by RPGA members. Reading this now, I must admit to some surprise at this. I would have imagined that members would have jumped at the chance of writing for Polyhedron, but apparently not. (Of course, given that I never submitted anything during the time I was a subscriber means that I have no room to criticize.)

Kim Eastland's "Encounters" concerns a ruined temple that the characters came across while traveling elsewhere. Outside the ruin is the servant of an adventurer whose employer left him outside while he ventured within to investigate. That was more than a day ago and the adventurer has not returned since. What then follows is a three-page description of the temple, its contents, and denizens, accompanied by illustrations that (mostly) are in the same style as the cover. Though lacking a map, the temple is quite fascinating, since it includes a number of tricks and traps within it, as well as some valuable treasure. I think it'd make an intriguing side encounter for an ongoing campaign.

The Knights of Genetic Purity are James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month" for use with Gamma World. Pure strain human supremacists, the Knights fall squarely on the side of villains, at least in most of the GW campaigns with which I am familiar. The article thus devotes most of its two pages to details of the alliance's personnel and weaponry, so as to aid the referee in using them as adversaries. We also get a couple of legends associated with the cryptic alliance, such as "Pul Banyon," a seven foot-tall mutant slayer and a king named "Art" who was betrayed by his "human-looking mutant" wife. I remember liking this article more than is probably deserved upon re-reading it. I don't think it's bad so much as uninspired, which is a shame, because I think the Knights of Genetic Purity make great adversaries for a Gamma World campaign.

"Variants, House Rules, and Hybrids" by Roger E. Moore, on the other hand, is a terrific article. Over the course of three pages, Moore looks at the merits and flaws of introducing variant rules into your ongoing RPG campaign, as well as presenting examples of such variants (critical hits, new classes, etc.). What's most remarkable about this piece is not Moore's advice, which is indeed good, but the fact that it appears in the pages of Polyhedron at all. Moore acknowledges, at the start of his article, that TSR's policy is that "it's better to game with the rules as they are," but he nevertheless feels that "everyone has different ideas on what makes a game fun." From the vantage point of 2024, this might seem non-controversial, but, at the time, for people like myself, who hung on every word that proceeded from the mouth of Gygax, it was a Very Big Deal and I am grateful for it.

"The Fighter" by James M. Ward is the start of a new feature, intended to present an "archetypical [sic]" example of a Dungeons & Dragons character class "to give a general idea of what characteristics and/or quirks a superior, balanced character in a particular character class would have." Ward presents Ian McPherson as his example of the archetypal fighter, detailing his personality, skills, equipment, and holdings. It's notable that the article is light on game mechanics, which surprised me. I would have thought we'd at least get game statistics for Ian, but we do not. Instead, the following article, "Two New NPCs," presents two brief write-ups of unique fighters, one a dwarf and one a half-orc, written by Ward and Roger E. Moore respectively. These write-ups do include stats and are thus more immediately usable.

"Disguised Weapons" by Nicholas Moschovakis presents six hidden weapons for use with Top Secret. This is a no-nonsense "meat and potatoes" gaming article of the sort that used to fill gaming magazines at the time. Likewise, Kim Mohan's "Wishes Have Their Limits" also belongs to a hoary gaming magazine genre, namely, articles about how to constrain and otherwise rein in the power of magic wishes in D&D. Mohan attempts to present, over the course of three pages, a series four "laws" for adjudicating wishes. His laws are all fine, if you feel the need for such things, but, these days, I'm generally quite lenient with wishes and reality warping magics, because I see in them the opportunity to inject a little chaos into the status quo of a campaign. Maybe I'm weird.

"DM Talk" by Carl Smith looks at the various approaches to refereeing D&D, offering thoughtful insights and advice. Though obviously geared more toward novice DMs, I think he still says things of potential interest to more experienced ones. In particular, I like his division of RPG players into one of three "levels," each of growing sophistication, with Level 1 being "roll playing" and Level 3 being a high degree of immersion. He then tailors his advice for the referee based on the current level of the campaign and the needs of its players. It's not a world changing article, but it's solid and looks at the subject from a slightly different perspective, which I appreciate.

"Dispel Confusion" presents the usual assortment of questions and answers related to TSR's various RPGs. The most notable questions this time around are one concerning the fact that the monster Zargon from The Lost City is stated to be "no god" and yet his clerics have spells. How is this possible? According to the answer, "there is in fact a greater evil force behind Zargon" and it is this mysterious being who is granting spells to his cleric. I have to admit that's quite intriguing! Another question concerns whether there are female dwarves, which the questioner apparently doubted. Obviously, the answer is in the affirmative. Did anyone seriously doubt this?

Issue #17 also includes another mini-module, "The Incants of Ishcabeble," by Bob Blake. It picks up from the mini-module included in the last issue and takes the characters to the abandoned tower of the ancient wizard, Ishcabeble. I have an affection for abandoned towers of all sorts, so I'm naturally inclined to like this one, too, which features a good mix of puzzles, tricks, traps, and combat. 

The transformation of Polyhedron continues, though, as I theorized previously, not all of its readers are entirely happy with its new direction as Dragon Jr. Of course, Polyhedron was, to my recollection, always in a state of flux, never quite knowing its niche within the larger constellation of TSR gaming periodicals. As a result, each issue was, to some degree, an experiment to determine what worked and what didn't. This one is no different in this regard and, as we shall see in weeks to come, quite a lot didn't work, hence the regular need to launch new columns and features that soon disappear, only to be replaced by others. 

Polyhedron: Issue #16

Issue #16 of Polyhedron (February 1984) is the beginning of a couple of new features for the RPGA newszine. First and most notably, the issue includes an 8-page removable "mini-module" in its center. I'll have more to say about this shortly, because it was a fairly big deal at the time. Secondly, this issue marks the start of James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month" series for use with Gamma World. I was (and remain) very fond of this series, so I'll likewise have more to say about it later in this post.

In her "... from the editor" column, Mary Kirchoff explains that the RPGA has decided to stop producing exclusive merchandise, including exclusive AD&D adventure modules. Consequently, each issue will no longer include a catalog, freeing up about ten pages for additional gaming material. This month, that means the aforementioned mini-module. Kirchoff also mentions that, with the increase in space available for game material, she's looking for more submissions from readers. This call will bear some interesting fruit in future issues.

The issue proper begins with "Encounters" by Doug Behringer. This Top Secret scenario pits "NATO agent" – whatever that means – Dean Wiles versus two GRU operatives (Mike Duplie and Gregor Campleliski – I guess these are supposed to be Russian ...) as he attempts to help an East German laser scientist defect to the West. Other than the cool illustration by Roger Raupp depicting Wiles flying a gyrocopter, there's not much to recommend this article. I wish it were otherwise, as Top Secret was a game I greatly enjoyed in my youth.

Much better is "The Followers of the Voice" by James M. Ward, which details the titular cryptic alliance for Gamma World. Ward begins the article by explaining that "90% of all the adventure that goes on in the GAMMA WORLD game" is instigated by cryptic alliances, which gives some insight into how Ward views the play of the game. For that reason, each installment of the series will provide information about history, leadership, goals, geographic locations, and legends associated with each alliance. It's a solid format and one that I appreciated back in the day. The Followers of the Voice, who worship computers, were never my favorite alliance, however, and reading this article did little to change that. Even so, there's something amusingly quaint about seeing the alliance's symbol from the vantage point of 2024:

There's also a legend about a Follower named Jony who scatters seeds that grow into trees whose fruits are computer programs. As I said, it's all very quaint.

"The Shady Dragon Inn" by Carl Smith is an expansion of the Dungeons & Dragons product of the same name, providing additional details about the eponymous inn. "Hot Shots and Cold Water" by Roger E. Moore offers advice on handling "hot shot" players and their over-powered characters. This is precisely the sort of question that led Gary Gygax to create The Tomb of Horrors. For his part, Moore counsels not simply trying to humble boastful players by killing their characters but rather trying to find new and interesting ways to challenge them that don't involve combat or even game mechanics – social maneuvering, politics, religious strife, etc. He also suggests that referees consider the role their own practices may have played in creating hotshots with high-level PCs and course correcting so as to avoid the problem in the future. Like most Moore efforts, it's a good piece, filled with solid advice clearly born of years of experience.

Kim Eastland pens a pair of articles this issue. The first, "Boredom," focuses on those aspects of play that can lead to yawning during a session and how best to deal with them. He briefly covers eight sources of boredom: 

1. Impossible odds
2. Mont Haul worlds
3. Long-winded GMs
4. Unprepared GMs
5. Random encounters GMs
6. Map-crazed GMs or players
7. Overly creative GMs
8. The "stuck-in-a-rut" campaign

Some of these problems are fairly obvious, while others are less so. For example, by "overly creative," Eastland means simply a GM who is constantly inventing new and unusual game elements that make it impossible for players to properly judge how to approach them, leading to a "why bother trying?" attitude that kills enthusiasm. 

Eastland's other article, "Research is Not a Dirty Word," is a kind of alternate Appendix N, focusing primarily on non-fiction books that Eastland feels offer inspiration to harried referees. For example, the Osprey "Man-at-Arms" series is given an endorsement, as is The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. As you might expect, it's a very idiosyncratic list and regrettably short, but it's probably useful, especially to younger referees who haven't read as widely as have us oldtimers. "Photo Session," on the other hand, is just a filler article consisting of public domain NASA concept art of space platforms and lunar rovers. The accompanying text (with no listed author) attempts to connect the illustrations to Star Frontiers by offering cursory ideas of how to use them as inspiration. 

"Monty Haul and the German High Command" by James M. Ward is another reprint from Dragon. It is, however, a very fun article, recounting a game of the World War II miniatures game to which fantasy elements, such as magic. Though mostly played for laughs, I found the article fascinating in the way it casually depicts the introduction of ahistorical and indeed fantastical things into a WWII game. I remember reading about many such incidents in the early years of the hobby. I'm not sure it was ever a commonplace practice, but the fact that it happened at all intrigued me, particularly given my own hidebound prejudices at the time.

"Dispel Confusion" continues to grow in size, taking up three pages in this issue. As is often the case, the questions often seem to arise out of a failure at reading comprehension. I suppose one could be more charitable and suggest that the real problem is that many rules were poorly or unclearly phrased and that's fair. RPG rulebooks have never been paragons of clarity. Still, reading these now, I find myself shaking my head at the things players actually bothered to ask TSR for "official" clarification. But that's the kind of mindset the company encoureaged and one to which I was myself sometimes prone.

Finally, there's "The Riddle of Dolmen Moor" by Bob Blake. It's an AD&D scenario that was apparently first used as part of a series of connected scenarios for use in RPGA tournaments. As a stand-alone adventure, it doesn't offer much other than fighting undead among some barrow mounds on the titular Dolmen Moor. However, it's got an interesting pseudo-Celtic flavor to it that I found intriguing at the time. It's being part of a larger narrative about the prophesied return of an ancient king was similarly novel. Consequently, I have a strange fondness for this "mini-module" and its sequels. They'd eventually all be collected into two AD&D modules that were published in 1985.

Issue #16 of Polyhedron marks, as I wrote earlier, yet another step along the road toward the transformation of the newszine into something more akin to "Dragon Jr.," albeit with its own unique flavor. I welcomed this when I was a subscriber, precisely because I was never an active member of the RPGA and cared little for keeping up with the latest news and views about conventions. I rather suspect that TSR came to understand that many of their subscribers were like me and so began to tailor Polyhedron's content accordingly. I wonder how this might have been seen by RPGA members who actually did care about cons and tournaments.

Polyhedron: Issue #15

Could the cover of issue #15 of Polyhedron (December 1983) by Keith Parkinson be any more 1980s if it tried? Like most recent issues, the illustration depicts a character from the "Encounters" feature, in this case an 8th-level Dungeons & Dragons fighter named Edrie Solo. Edrie is the player character of Randy Solo (no relation), who was the second-place winner of the RPGA membership drive announced all the way back in issue #3. His prize included an illustration of his character by his favorite artist (Parkinson), as well as a brief scenario involving her, written by James M. Ward. My teenage self thought that was a pretty cool prize – and it is.

The issue marks the department of Kim Eastland as publisher of Polyhedron, a role he took over from Frank Mentzer about a year and a half prior. Eastland is, for me anyway, one of the more mysterious members of TSR's staff. I remember his name, but, until I started re-reading Polyhedron, I don't think I could have told you what he did at the company. Looking back over his credits, he wrote or contributed to a number of modules for TSR RPGs throughout the '80s, though, as I said, until I made the effort, I don't think I could have recalled any of them. That probably says more about my aging memory than it does about him.

Issue #15 also marks the end of the RPGA catalog as part of Polyhedron. Apparently, like me, many readers felt that it took up too many pages that could have been more profitably used for gaming content. From this point on, all RPGA merchandise was sold exclusively through the Dungeon Hobby Shop in Wisconsin. I remember this shift, because I suddenly started receiving a copy of the DHS catalog in the mail a couple of times a year. I adored the catalog, because it included both gaming products I'd never heard of before and those I of which I had heard but never seen in the wild. I wish I still had my copies, because I suspect they'd be a treasure trove of information and nostalgia.

The letters page is mostly ephemera, but one letter and its response stood out:

While I don't doubt the sincerity of the response, I nevertheless find it odd, because, so far as I can recall, no other periodical, then or now, includes copyright or trademark symbols when printing the name of a product that's under legal copyright. As a practice, it's something I only ever recall seeing in TSR's '80s-era magazines and publications. I really can't fathom who advised TSR to undertake this approach, because it's absolutely obnoxious.

"Dispel Confusion," as always includes a wide variety of questions about all of TSR's roleplaying games. The only one that really caught my attention was the following, since it pertained to a favorite adventure of mine.

As I stated in my original retrospective post about Murder in Harmony, its central mystery is difficult to unravel, but it's far from impossible. I find it amusing that someone actually bothered to write into Polyhedron, hoping that author Mark Acres would confirm the identity of the murderer.

"The AD&D Game Exam" by Philip Meyers is a reprint of an article that originally appeared in issue #47 of Dragon. Polyhedron editor Mary Kirchoff mentioned earlier in this issue that she'd be reprinting articles from Dragon that would otherwise never seen reprinting in, say, The Best of Dragon anthologies, no doubt in order to find more material to fill the 'zine's pages now that the RPGA catalog had been removed. The exam presented in the article is pretty tough, bordering on the obsessive in my opinion. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about AD&D, but many of the questions asked here are beyond my feeble intellect. 

"Do It Yourself" by Roger E. Moore tackles solo adventuring in AD&D. Like all of Moore's articles, this one is pretty good, touching on a lot of matters that are of relevance to its subject. Moore spends time discussing arena combat, dungeon delving, and wilderness adventures as options. In each case, he provides not only ideas for how to proceed but points the reader toward existing tools, like the random tables in the Dungeon Masters Guide, that would be of assistance. He also, wisely, I think, suggests that characters used in a solo campaign should not be integrated into a "regular" campaign, because of the differences in style and outcome. I suspect many solo characters acquired a much more impressive array of magic items, for example, than would be typical in a well-refereed multi-player campaign.

Moore returns with an installment of "Notes for the Dungeon Master" aimed at high-level adventures. Again, lots of solid and useful advice here. Though I rarely had the opportunity to make use of any of his suggestions, I nevertheless recall wishing I could have, because he made high-level adventures sound like fun. I also recall the article for its delightful accompanying illustration by Larry Elmore:

To this day, I make references to Sir Kay Mardt from time to time. No one else seems to know what I'm talking about.

"Mas Day in New Hope" is a bit of Christmas-themed nonsense for Gamma World by James M. Ward. The scenario involves an "X.M.A.S. Unit" – a robotic Santa Claus with a grav sled pulled by similarly robotic reindeer – that's been modified to act as a weapon of mass destruction attacking a peaceful village. As I said, it's nonsense but amusing enough, if you're in the right frame of mind. "House Rules In" by Mike Carr looks briefly at some Dawn Patrol rules variants that players might find useful. Carr notes that house rules are often the test bed for eventual rules changes, so there's nothing inherently wrong with them, so long as all the players are on board with them.

There are two Gangbusters articles in this issue, starting with "The Vesper Investigation" by Antonio O'Malley. This is a short, two-page scenario intended for one to three private investigator characters. Ostensibly an investigation into the disappearance of a young woman's uncle, the adventure turns into more than that – including, possibly, a ghost story. David Cook's "Casin' the Joint" looks at sources of literary inspiration for Gangbusters games, particularly pulp novels. Among those he suggests are the stories of Doc Savage and other globetrotting heroes, like the Shadow and the Spider. Taken together, the two articles point toward an alternate future where Gangbusters broadened its subject matter to include a wider range of interwar subject matter, not just cops and robbers.

"Cash & Carry for Cowboys" by Glenn Rahman is another reprint from Dragon, in this case issue #54. The article is a listing of historical prices for various items not listed in the equipment list for Boot Hill. I love articles of this sort, especially so back before the Internet made it possible to find this sort of information with relative ease. Finally, there's Merle Rasmussen's "College Courses and Vital Statistics," which presents a series of courses Top Secret agents can attend – and their costs and the time required to do so. These courses increase an agent's skills and abilities once completed. I've always liked the idea of characters undertaking training in-game to improve themselves, so this article had defnite appeal for me. I wish I'd had the chance to use it when I last played the game.

Polyhedron continues to transition into something. Based on various comments in this issue, it's clear that, like me, a lot of its readership wanted to see more gaming material in its pages rather than updates about conventions and other RPGA activities. At the same time, it's also clear that the 'zine's staff was not prepared for this shift in focus, hence the reprinting of Dragon articles to pad out its page count. As I recall, the staff eventually gets the balance right and Polyhedron became something quite good and distinctive. How long that process takes is something I'm keen to see, as I continue to re-read these issues from my youth.