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Hey, from a non american gamer POW : what's Iron DM about ?
From previous posts I gathered that it nvolved GMing a lot at the expense of sleep, but aside from that ?
sorry for the newbie question.
Iron DM, as played here, involves the judge giving each participant in a round a list of ingredients. The participants must then devise an adventure summary/outline that utilizes all the ingredients. The adventure summary the judge likes best wins.
I was just thinking about how many different Food Network competition shows could be made into interesting D&D contests.
DM vs. City: This contest pits two DMs from a random city, against two DMs from the Rat Bastard DM group. Each team completes a series of challenges designed to prove once and for all which team rules the town. These challenges are designed to test a DMs ability to run a fair and entertaining game...things like, "In twenty words or less, resolve this conflict between two players" or "write a riddle that has 'ink' as its answer."
Chopped: A game for 4 DMs, played in three rounds: Magic Item, Monster, and Adventure. Each round has its own list of ingredients, and the DMs must create a unique magic item (or monster, or adventure) using those ingredients. One DM is chopped after each round, until only one remains.
RBDM Challenge: <Ingredient>: Like Iron DM, except there is only one incredibly difficult ingredient and all applicants compete at once and a single winner is chosen from all.
Ace of Dungeons: a glorified art contest, where DMs submit their most awesome, most kickass custom maps and terrain for a particular setting.
Personally, I can't even speak 4ese, so I'll be sticking to d20 systems I am much more familiar with. Design for what you know and love.
For me, it would probably come down to the ingredients. I like the BECM gargoyle better than the d20 one, for example, so if I get "gargoyle" as an ingredient, I would reach for my Rules Cyclopedia first.
I was just thinking about how many different Food Network competition shows could be made into interesting D&D contests.
Of course Iron Chef predates Food Network by almost 10 years....
Quote:
DM vs. City: This contest pits two DMs from a random city, against two DMs from the Rat Bastard DM group. Each team completes a series of challenges designed to prove once and for all which team rules the town. These challenges are designed to test a DMs ability to run a fair and entertaining game...things like, "In twenty words or less, resolve this conflict between two players" or "write a riddle that has 'ink' as its answer."
Where's the city? The whole point of the food show is that the local foodies are supposed to have an advantage based on location.
Quote:
RBDM Challenge: <Ingredient>: Like Iron DM, except there is only one incredibly difficult ingredient and all applicants compete at once and a single winner is chosen from all.
Having one ingredient also makes it more like the original Iron Chef
I want "Throwdown" (no need for name alteration), "Scenario: Impossible", and of course "Dungeons, Dragons and Dice".
__________________ Joe Mucchiello, Head Honcho at Throwing Dice Games
Priority One: Fatherhood.
Priority Two: Sanity.
Down on the list: seemingly real close to releasing a notebook essential. It's in layout! Has been for months now. (Just nod politely so I won't cry about this.)
"I've never heard of the term Flavor lawyer..." -- Scribble
Scenario: Impossible could really work. Not sure exactly what the overwhelming odds would be. More ingredients, perhaps, or something that really stretches the limits of a person, something like create an Adventure Path in 3 days!
Scenario: Impossible could really work. Not sure exactly what the overwhelming odds would be. More ingredients, perhaps, or something that really stretches the limits of a person, something like create an Adventure Path in 3 days!
Scenario: Impossible idea: "You have thirty minutes to write a balanced, playable house rule for grappling a troll. Using the Red Box rules only. GO!"
Scenario: Impossible could really work. Not sure exactly what the overwhelming odds would be. More ingredients, perhaps, or something that really stretches the limits of a person, something like create an Adventure Path in 3 days!
Perhaps too outrageous. And I like the idea of having helpers who aren't "cooks" that often happens on that show. So make this a team game with 1 main DM and 4 sous-DMs. The event runner chooses an overall location and creates a list of 15 ingredients and a list of 3 forbidden elements. The DM receives the parameters and has 24 hours to divvy up 1-2 ingredients (at most) to each sous-DM and a one sentence description. The sous-DMs don't know what the other sous-DMs are working on nor what their ingredients are (they do know what is forbidden). They have 24 hours to give the DM a 1-2 room encounter involving their ingredients. The DM then has additional 48 hours to turn those 4 encounters plus as many other events, background material, etc as he likes (which presumably include the missing ingredients) into a cohesive adventure. He must use 90% of each sous-DM's work in the final work. He can rearrange, split, spindle and mutilate them but it should "easy" to find the majority of the text they turned in within the finished product. 24 hours before the deadline the DM receives a 16th ingredient "twist" that he must add to the adventure.
Summary:
time= 0: DM receives 1 major location, 15 ingredients, 3 forbidden elements
time=24: DM send up to 3 ingredients (and location and forbidden info) to his 4 sous-DMs. He may give them guidance in a single sentence no more than 15 words long.
time=48: The sous-DMs post what they've done. They could have written 1-2 dungeon rooms. They could have written 1-2 timed events in a city/style adventure. At this time, the event coordinator can reveal the total list of ingredients.
time=72: The DM receives a surprise 16th ingredient.
time=96: Final adventure is due.
(If there's interest, perhaps I'll run it a month or two after the Iron DM competition is complete.)
__________________ Joe Mucchiello, Head Honcho at Throwing Dice Games
Priority One: Fatherhood.
Priority Two: Sanity.
Down on the list: seemingly real close to releasing a notebook essential. It's in layout! Has been for months now. (Just nod politely so I won't cry about this.)
"I've never heard of the term Flavor lawyer..." -- Scribble
Wow, that was fast. I thought you had 48 hours to finish. You are, what? a day ahead of schedule?
The 48 hours is just a scheduling courtesy. You really ought to be able to finish up your entry in under 24 hours. Still, as I did have a things to do both last night and this morning, I appreciated having just a little extra time.
Good work on it all, Wicht. I've been playing around with your ingredient list, to get into practice. I totally did things differently, but I like how you laid yours out. I'd say more, but of course, that'd break the rules.
Hoping I get to play you later on... a Wik/Wicht showdown would just be too good.
__________________ Current Campaign:The Shattered Isles Homebrew - Hammer (Minotaur Fighter 8), Kirra (Drow Rogue 8), Shedin (Dragonborn Paladin 8), Zahar (Half-Eladrin/Half Drow Bard 8), and Seahorse (Halfling Rogue 8). Currently the group is in the Feywild, trying to discover who is poisoning the drow.
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