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<blockquote data-quote="UselessTriviaMan" data-source="post: 6501187" data-attributes="member: 6678460"><p>First and foremost, congratulations to Gradine and kudos for writing one hell of an adventure. Your combination of Celebrated Orc and Universal Language was especially bloody well brilliant.</p><p></p><p>The 24-hour time crunch killed me. I actually rewrote this thing three times, trying to come up with better plots and uses for all of the ingredients. My first attempt was going to be titled Attempted Murder on the Orcish Express, but I just couldn't get everything to coalesce into something workable. The second attempt fixed several ingredient problems from the first, but then made other ingredients completely irrelevant to the story. The third attempt took parts and pieces of the first two and smooshed ‘em together with baling wire and duck tape, and became my official submission. I knew that I had several really weak ingredients, but I simply ran out of time. I totally agree with all of phoamslinger's criticisms, especially the use of bad macguffins.</p><p></p><p>Heavy water was the ingredient that initially caused me to head down a steampunk path. The scientific definition was very specific, so I tried to imagine a world where a nuclear reactor would somehow marry into an adventure with orcs. Steampunk seemed most likely. </p><p></p><p>The distant terminus and steampunk made me think of Iron Dragons (I love that board game) which I then took another step further toward the fantastical, with tank tread feet instead of rail lines.</p><p></p><p>The title would have made more sense had it been Power Struggles. The multiple layers of struggle were intentional, but I didn't describe them nearly as much as I should have - especially between the relationship between the Oracle and the Crystal Rose. I really wanted to better define several scenes; the Crystal Rose give-or-take was the biggest. </p><p></p><p>I wasted a lot of time at the end, trying to compose a rhyming verse for the Oracle's info dump at the beginning, but had to scrap it.</p><p></p><p>What I learned: Writing an adventure that fully integrates a half-dozen oddball ingredients is friggin' <em>HARD.</em> When writing with that kind of time constraint, be willing to throw away ideas that don't quite work and start fresh. I should have, but didn't.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Thanks for letting me join in the fun. It was an enjoyable (though frustrating) writing exercise, and a lot tougher than I expected it to be. I'll definitely be watching for the next one. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="UselessTriviaMan, post: 6501187, member: 6678460"] First and foremost, congratulations to Gradine and kudos for writing one hell of an adventure. Your combination of Celebrated Orc and Universal Language was especially bloody well brilliant. The 24-hour time crunch killed me. I actually rewrote this thing three times, trying to come up with better plots and uses for all of the ingredients. My first attempt was going to be titled Attempted Murder on the Orcish Express, but I just couldn't get everything to coalesce into something workable. The second attempt fixed several ingredient problems from the first, but then made other ingredients completely irrelevant to the story. The third attempt took parts and pieces of the first two and smooshed ‘em together with baling wire and duck tape, and became my official submission. I knew that I had several really weak ingredients, but I simply ran out of time. I totally agree with all of phoamslinger's criticisms, especially the use of bad macguffins. Heavy water was the ingredient that initially caused me to head down a steampunk path. The scientific definition was very specific, so I tried to imagine a world where a nuclear reactor would somehow marry into an adventure with orcs. Steampunk seemed most likely. The distant terminus and steampunk made me think of Iron Dragons (I love that board game) which I then took another step further toward the fantastical, with tank tread feet instead of rail lines. The title would have made more sense had it been Power Struggles. The multiple layers of struggle were intentional, but I didn't describe them nearly as much as I should have - especially between the relationship between the Oracle and the Crystal Rose. I really wanted to better define several scenes; the Crystal Rose give-or-take was the biggest. I wasted a lot of time at the end, trying to compose a rhyming verse for the Oracle's info dump at the beginning, but had to scrap it. What I learned: Writing an adventure that fully integrates a half-dozen oddball ingredients is friggin' [i]HARD.[/i] When writing with that kind of time constraint, be willing to throw away ideas that don't quite work and start fresh. I should have, but didn't. Thanks for letting me join in the fun. It was an enjoyable (though frustrating) writing exercise, and a lot tougher than I expected it to be. I'll definitely be watching for the next one. :) [/QUOTE]
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