Mini-Encounter Contest - Heat Seven

Morrus · Apr 30, 2002

Sorry about the delay, folks. I've been up to my neck in things recently.

For those who have forgotten, here is the mini encounter contest.

You can find the previous heats in the archive.

And here are the entries for this heat:

MavrickWeirdo · Apr 30, 2002

HEYYY

What happened to my entry???

the first time you put up heat 7, "Kommag's Box" was there, now we are doing heat 7 again and IT'S NOT THERE, and this is the END of primary heats???

After 4 months of waiting I was hoping I would get a chance to vote for myself.

smetzger · Apr 30, 2002

I voted for Fire Pool because:
1) There was a synopsis.
2) That synopsis sounded the most interesting of the ones that had a synopsis.

Kalendraf · Apr 30, 2002

What happened to my entry?

I'm also wondering what happened to my entry, "Hunt of the Black Hound"? Clearly, there's a few entries that haven't come up for voting in the various heats. The initial calculation was 8 heats at the rate they were being listed, IIRC.

I was looking forward to the feedback from the posts in the voting at the very least.

Morrus · Apr 30, 2002

I'll double check. If there are any left over, we can do another heat.

We've had 9x6+8=62 - I think there were actually about 70 entries, so ignore that about this being the last heat. In fact, I'd better edit the first post.

Mistwell · May 1, 2002

Man, I have just lost my motivation to read and comment on these. This contest is taking a third of a YEAR to complete. That is just silly. I just can't convince myself to care anymore. Really, I am sorry to those of you with entries in this contest. I know I liked comments on my entry when it came up...

If someone in particular wants me to comment on their entry, just post here and let me know, and I will try.

As for who is going to win this heat, there are so few people left voting, it will almost certainly be the entrant who has the most friends on this board to vote for his/her entry.

Nail · May 1, 2002

Mistwell said:
Man, I have just lost my motivation to read and comment on these. This contest is taking a third of a YEAR to complete. That is just silly. I just can't convince myself to care anymore.....

As for who is going to win this heat, there are so few people left voting, it will almost certainly be the entrant who has the most friends on this board to vote for his/her entry.

Ye forgot somethin' Mistwell....most of us can't even get on th' boards, as they're "locked down" so often. Th' boards used to be me favorite place ta hang-out....now I'm lucky if I can get in more than once a week........

.....so, sorry to all you kids out there that are in these last two heats. I don't plan on reviewin' yer material....'cause I know full well I'll never get ta post th' review..........

Here's hopin' the server pool gets larger real soon......so th' boards don't die......

-Nail

Twinswords · May 1, 2002

contest

My entry is finally here and i would be very honored if someone would review my entry. i didn`t enter for the prizes. (They would have made a nice bonus) i entered because this is the first encounter i wrote. So if anyone wants to take a shot. My entry is The blood falls.

Twinswords

Two swords are better then one

p.s. i think everybody wants a review. but They`re afraid to ask.
(hehehehe)

CullAfulMoshuN · May 2, 2002

Unlike in previous heats, I actually liked all of these adventures, so choosing who to vote for was actually quite difficult. In the end I went with The Mad Druid of Panar Mesa, mainly because of the character though. I thought the druid was an interesting character, not too powerful and the encounter was not combat driven. Plus I got an immediate visualisation of the Mummy from the movie of the same name as I read about him.

Out of the others though, they all had their strong points and I could have (and may do) used any of them IMC (except maybe the druid one

, wrong cultural setting).

The Goblin's Lair: Nothing ground breaking here, but a nice little introductory adventure for a group of 1st level characters. I liked the subtle hints about the interrupted card game that the girl is more than she seems.
Dangerous Honey: I liked the place and the bee scenario idea, could fit nicely into any city game. The character was not particularly innovative, but again, could easily fit into my Waterdeep game with a few modifications. He might even make for an interesting PC in a thief focused city campaign.
The Goblins at Howling Bridge: Simple scenario, but that worked to its advantage, could be dropped into any game in place of a random encounter. I think I liked this one because I was immediately thinking of how to tweak it to use it in another game I'm running for some guys at work (they have to cross that river in the mountains they are travelling north of Mirabar, there is a couple of goblin tribes in the area with an increasing threat of orcs to both travellers and the goblins...).
The Fire Pool: I liked the scenario in this one, interesting for the idea, possible to resolve without conflict and with ongoing adventure possibilities. While this one seems to be the most popular however, I didn't vote for it because I though the character could of been straight out of the monster manual, no flavour included. Also while the place was interesting enough in principle, I didn't really get a feeling of the room from the description, which sounded like the standard dungeon room description (20ftx20ft stone room with 2 doors, a monster and treasure chest.). This is not to say that I didn't like it mind you, It still may have got my vote in other heats.
The Mad Druid of Panar Mesa: Got my vote. The character had personality and gave me an immediate image of him. The place was very simple and not all that well described, but enough so that it provoked abit of an image. I'm not sure I liked how the scenario was implemented, but it was an interesting idea that could fit well into a campaign with the correct cultural feel. I liked this one best overall though, because it had strong feeling and the character and scenario fit well with the location.
The Burning Fields: I liked the location, always enjoy seeing environment used effectively rather than just a prop for the cast, but I thought the scenario element was basically non-existant (so you have this guy your chasing). I also liked the idea of the character, but really didn't feel that it was appropriate for the location, as he would have automatically set the tabacoo alight when he entered it. How can I guy with flaming hair hide effectively unless in an environment that supported it? So while I liked both the character and locations I don't think they should have been paired, and the lack of an engaging scenario is why it didn't get my vote.
The Blood Falls: Tactically this was a good encounter to challenge a combat strong party with, by creating difficult circumstances to bring the brunt of the parties power to bear. The characters were abit miss-matched though, why and how would the aboleth get to work with lizard men and why was the aboleth above ground to begin with? Maybe the adventure would have been better suited to an underground location with a couple of Kuo-toa rather than lizard men, but the idea of the illusionary bridge was the center point of the location as I saw it.
Enter Yib-Ilith: I liked the character, could make for an interesting villian, deviating slightly from the standard Illithid, but it was incomplete. Making the illithid a shaper rather than a telepath or Nomad was a cool idea, but you didn't actually list any of his psionic powers other than the base Illithid ones. The location was cool... except he doesn't appear to actually feature in it? Where is Yib-Illith in the scenario?

This is all just from my subject opinion however, and I really do think these are some of the best entries I've seen, shame they are all in the same heat. I guess the problem is that the heats were probably grouped in order of receival, and the ones that had more time spent on them were probably sent in later than the ones from the earlier heats, but by this time the people are getting less willing to devote time to read them all by this stage...