Polymancer magazine

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Polymancer

Editor	Andrew Bernstein
Categories	Games magazine
Frequency	Monthly
First Issue	December 2004
Company	Polymancer Studios, Inc.
Country	Canada
Language	English
Website	www.polymancerstudios.com
ISSN	1708-4474

Polymancer is a magazine covering roleplaying games and related hobbies such as miniatures, wargaming, and LARPs. The magazine is published in Canada; its first issue was published in 2004. Polymancer is different from other game magazines in several ways:

Articles (except adventure scenarios) are written without reference to rules. The magazine touts itself as being “system-independent” so that “players of different game systems may make use of them”^[1]
The magazine covers many gaming genres such as fantasy, sci fi, horror, modern day, pulp (most just cover fantasy).
It is printed (many gaming magazines are only available online).
There is a complete adventure scenario in every issue of the magazine “playable right out of the box.”^[2] The scenario map is in the magazine’s center spread. There is downloadable material to aid the gamemaster available at the publisher’s web site.

Articles in Polymancer tend to be long (over 4 pages) and the black and white illustrations have a “classic” feel to them. It has been compared Polymancer to how Dragon was in the 1980s.^[3] The articles in Polymancer are eclectic but they appear under a few regular headings:

“Jousting With Words” is the editorial
“The Lich’s Niche” is a ranting opinion column written in the form of an interview with a lich.
“Tech Talk” is about ways to use technology (especially computers) in gaming.
“Gaming Digital” is about play by email games.
There is a full adventure scenario in every issue. So far Polymancer has had horror, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, pulp, and cyberpunk scenarios. One scenario was written to be played as a set of linked miniatures wargame battles, as an RPG adventure, or both.^[4] Most Polymancer adventures are written for use with any RPG rules system, however, three adventures were written for specific RPGs: C.J. Carella's Witchcraft (by Eden Studios),^[5] Jovian Chronicles (by Dream Pod 9),^[6] and HARP (by I.C.E.).^[7] The latter two adventures had the statistics that are compatible with the rules for the games the adventures were written for side-by-side with Polymancer's own "Mojo" rules system (see below), which is written to be convertible into other game rules systems. The Witchcraft adventure contains very few references to rules so it is likely to be easy to convert into the rules for other horror RPGs.
“Gauntlet” seems to be generally about problems gamemasters might face and how to solve them. They tend to be instructional in tone.
“Mojo” is Polymancer’s own game rules system. Each article is a new category of rules for Mojo. This means Mojo is developed on a serial basis. The article announcing it in issue #2 says Mojo is meant to be easy to convert to other game systems.
“Plot Fodder” is about getting adventure ideas from general topics.

There is a serial comic in Polymancer called “SideQuest” about a group of gamers. Other comics have appeared in Polymancer: "Quotable Quotes" (based on humorous quotes from games that have been supplied by the magazine's readers by email) and "Dice Quest" (in which the characters are anthropomorphized polyhedral dice).

[edit] Notes

^ http://www.polymancerstudios.com/polymancer_site_submission_guidelines.html
^ Ibid
^ [1]
^ B, A (2006), "Operation Burning Chain", Polymancer, vol. 1, no. 10, p. 18
^ G, L (n.d.), "Hush", Polymancer, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 24
^ R, T (n.d.), "Wolf In Sheep's Clothing", Polymancer, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 20
^ The Unknown Gamer (n.d.), "A Darkness Whispered", Polymancer, vol. 1, no. 8, p. 16