ROUND I: Match 6
Hellefires' MMI-7
vs.
Daeja's The Shift
This round laid to rest, for me, something that I had seen in the beginning criteria and was wondering about in the subsequent rounds. Namely, that the Ceramic DM posts early on had mentioned that the pictures be used to write an "adventure" or a "short story." Given the entries thus far, I had been assuming that I had misinterpreted that and it was really a writing workshop for short stories.
Here, we have a delightful match up of a literal "module" adventure against a fanciful tale of the folly of some ambitious young sorcerer's apprentices. If I thought judging between two stories had been a handful in the past rounds, trying to judge these two divergent styles of material really knocked that out of the park.
It becomes necessary to look and judge each individually, to a point. Am I a reader taking in a casual fantasy short story read OR am I a DM, paging through a module? Not mutually exclusive, certainly, but a certain amount of different mindset is required.
1) Writing Skill/Style: Both "stories" are enjoyable in their own ways. Shift's story of a pair of apprentices delving into the "deep end of the pool" as it were, and the consequences that ensue was a decent well-known trope/story. But there are a few missed words (which I chalk up to speedy typing as I all too often do, myself) and a couple of areas that I would have liked the story taken a bit "deeper", I suppose.
Characterization was generally weak, I thought. What does Shanna actually look like? Is Shanna a "she"? I was assuming so from my understanding of fantasy naming conventions, but that is not assured. What does Felix look like? Yevin? Some small word or sentence of detail is all that's needed, but just isn't there. These are not concerns for understanding the story, as a whole, of course. Their roles are easily understood to the fantasy genre reader, but a little more description could not have hurt.
In MMI-7, we have a short adventure of a group trying to get off, what sounds to be, a particularly deadly island. There was humor intermixed with the danger...mostly in the character of Rollin' Robby, but also the idea of the "Mystical Marvin" (was anyone else envisioning a short squat wizard, whose face you never saw, with large sneaker-clad feet?).
The humorous bits interspersed with the "stats" entries and a random table, always necessary for a module, did lend to a bit of tearing one out of the read and into the realm of DM perusing a module. But, at the same time, it worked and read like I recall module adventures reading.
There were also the historically appropriate touches of inconsistency such as Robby "will respond to direct questions...but won't say anything specific" which gives me, as a DM reading an adventure, pause. Similarly, the bits about what the party might do with the foot gave me pause, while at the same time being completely appropriate for the genre of the piece. We all (or, rather, any DM would) know the party would come up with something else entirely that's not in the descriptions of "if they do this" or "if they do that".
But, again, these are a hallmark of many older modules and between that and the "jokey" names of "Robby" and "Marvin", it left me to wonder if what I was reading was supposed to be an adventure or a spoof/farcical telling of one.
Personally, and it's really neither here nor there, if this were meant to be read as part of a "real" module and not a spoof, then the stuff about "for use with the Expert rules" and "PC levels x-z" should have been in the beginning, not the end notes. But, again, I'm not sure if its a spoof or not.
2) Picture Use: Solid use in each piece. I felt the use of the plant creature pic as the result of "spores" from the weird stones on the beach pic was a bit more creative tie in between the two. However, MMI-7's depiction of them as vulture-turtle eggs worked well for the adventure telling...and tied them, nicely to the shark-gulls, giving the island, if not the world, a bit a consistency in the types of creatures to be found there.
That said, Shift's use of the shark-gull as one of the main characters was a pleasantly unexpected surprise.
The stones (or whatever they actually are, I'm still not sure! hahaha) as some kind of spore-producing "this is how shambling mounds are born" kinda thing was also clever and unexpected. Again, nicely tying two of the images together as necessary elements of the story. But I don't think any more creative or enjoyable than them being egg-pouches for vulture-turtles (which I will definitely be stealing...er..."incorporating" into an adventure along with the shark-gulls, if you don't mind.)
The foot...ahhhh, the foot in the box. I had some hopes for this which neither piece met. However, I can' judge them against what I think/how I would use them, but how they were used in the story. I thought the use of both were a bit plain. Yet, both work perfectly well for what they are supposed to do.
In a way, Shift's use of the foot as a poignant reminder for Yevin and an implement needed for the casting of the Shift spell was more intriguing and essential to the story.
But then, making it a supreme treasure/"artifact" and, from what we're told, a point of the initial expedition of the party/why they're there in the first place, is also good.
First thing I thought of when I saw that pic (from one of my fellow judges, sorry I don't recall which one of you) was "Ah! We're gonna get a "Monkey's Paw" sorta story with that one." And making it a much sought after and heavily defended artifact touched on that, for me. Again, the B/X or BECMI randomness of elves and thieves getting a roll to notice to dig for the box made me nostalgically smile. However, it certainly made it able to be "missed" and, while relevant, not really essential to the adventure. It felt a bit like an afterthought and just "stuck in there."
[EDIT: Apologies! I somehow segued straight from Pictures to Personal Enjoyment to Final Judgement!
3) Personal Enjoyment: I like both. But as mentioned, previously, they were completely different types of reads, not just different genres or settings of a story.
For the tale it was, The Shift rises and falls on the style/skill and picture use. Just as much as MMI-7 does as a module. So there are no points or edges to be gained from this criteria. My ruling does not change due to anything in the area of "Personal Enjoyment."
/EDIT]
Final Judgement: In my view, the judging of these works is the most difficult task we, the judges, have had. Even though we have been treated and entertained by many divergent stories, we haven't had to judge completely divergent types of work which a straight narrative and a module, complete with stats and random tables, certainly are.
For general enjoyment and some better tying together and overall use of the requisite images, Steel Dragons' vote for winner of Round I: Match 6 goes to...
Daeja
for the Round 2 matches.
