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IRON DM 2023 Tournament Thread
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<blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 9182164" data-attributes="member: 57112"><p><strong><u><span style="font-size: 18px">Judgment for Round 1 Match 1: [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] vs [USER=67]@Rune[/USER] </span></u></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong><em>Rules and Readability</em></strong></p><p></p><p>Both <em>Memory is Burning </em>(hereafter referred to as "Burning") and <em>Echoes of Regret </em>("Regret") were turned in on time (though <em>Regret </em>certainly cut it close with 8 minutes to spare!). Both entries came in at or under 750 words (with <em>Burning </em>at exactly 750 and <em>Regret </em>at just under 700). Neither entry has been edited, and with one exception, both entries follow all of the necessary rules. That one exception comes with <em>Regret, </em>which failed to post the ingredient list at the top of their entry. This is a minor quibble at worst, but in the case of an extremely close contest it bears weighing in. We'll see if this is such a contest.</p><p></p><p>Both entries are well written, organized, and highly readable. The clipped style of <em>Regret's </em>writing suits the surreal, dreamy nature of the adventure, and neither entry proved difficult to read or understand. I'm not a copy editor by any means, but I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling errors that took me out of the experience. Top marks to both on this front.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Adventure Flow & Potential</em></strong></p><p>This is my subjective "what did I generally like/dislike about the adventures" section of the judgment. Both entries here are morose and somber, reflections on loss and death. They both are, in a word, tragedies. Fun stuff! Let's dive in.</p><p></p><p>I'll start with <em>Burning</em>. This is an incredibly strong, gutting, and effective setup for an adventure. The hook is compelling and the stakes couldn't be clearer. I was required to do a little bit of research to fully grasp it (first in the nature of <em>10 Candles </em>and second in brushing up on my 80's northeast queer vernacular). On the one hand, we specifically call out not wanting to have to look up too many things in our rules; one the other hand I don't want to discourage utilizing interesting indie game systems and clever ingredient interpretation. I'll call it a wash. In any case, yes, this is an extremely effective <em>setup </em>for an adventure. I suppose in some systems that's all you'll need, but for Iron DM I'd prefer to have at least a little more guidance as to what the actual play of the adventure will look like. Here all but a fraction of <em>Burning's </em>length is spent on getting us up to the starting point. Fortunately much of the background seems likely to be directly relevant in play; I will hope that this is especially the case for the ingredients used therein.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, if anything, <em>Regret </em>suffers from not having enough background. We get pieces of the puzzle that is Dabda's past, but it's all colored through his own recollection of his memories, and they ultimately don't come to together to paint anything remotely close to a clear picture. Now, for the players, this is absolutely fantastic, and it plays highly into the foggy and incomplete nature of memory. Beautiful. As a DM, though? I'm going to need to fill in a lot of those gaps if I'm going to be able to effectively run Dabda, let alone the memories the players will be travelling through. How do they connect? Why are these the most significant of his memories? What do they teach us about Dabda beyond being full of regret, something that anyone talking to him for thirty seconds is likely to pick up on? As a central character Dabda is a bit of an enigma, which again is fantastic for players, but give the DM a little bit more. As for the hook, it's fine, as far as hooks. Curiosity is a solid motivator, and I could see how this could tie more directly into a broader campaign (a PC or ally is having trouble recalling an important memory, and lo and behold they see the flyer). The stakes are a little bit wobblier; a PC losing a memory could have a wildly variable consequence for each player. Beyond that, the biggest danger is for Dabda himself, and outside of altruistic do-goodery (which I am certainly not opposed to!) there's not really a compelling reason to either help or ultimately save him.</p><p></p><p>Both adventures have room to grow, though clearly the word count and the time frame played a role. Ultimately, I can conclude that <em>Burning </em>is the much more compelling and engaging setup, while <em>Regret </em>is the more tightly designed adventure.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>The Ingredients</em></strong></p><p>At this point, I have to give <em>Burning </em>an edge over <em>Regret, </em>but a lot can change in a deeper dive through the ingredients.</p><p>I'll say that this was a significantly difficult set of ingredients, with more abstract themes than had initially dawned on me as I posted them; this perhaps reflects in the similar tones both strike. Let's see how our contestants tackled it.</p><p></p><p><strong>Memory Merchant</strong></p><p>In <em>Regret, </em>this is Dabda himself. As the central character in this adventure, and one deeply entwined with memories, this feels like it should be an incredibly strong use of the ingredient. However, the "merchant" angle is dubious at best, and seems to only really be relevant as part of the flyer-as-hook. Once the PCs actually meet Dabda, all pretensions of being a merchant of anything, let alone memories, is completely absent. He can call himself the Memory Merchant all he wants; he's not selling anything. He's asking, almost begging, for help.</p><p></p><p>It's still a better use than in <em>Burning</em>, sadly, where, as near as I can tell, the use of this ingredient were the nameless inventors and sellers of the memory machine that forms the framing the device of the adventure. Now, the machine itself is directly relevant to the adventure. The Merchants themselves? Long dead somewhere in the empty remains of the Earth.</p><p></p><p><strong>Fading Light</strong></p><p>In <em>Burning, </em>this ingredient seems to be called out in the phrase "the light of humanity is nearly out, nearly extinguished". The much stronger use, and I think the intentional use, comes from how the system of <em>10 Candles </em>works. For everyone's edification, play takes place in a table with 10 lit tea candles; character sheet are literally burned in the fire, and once the last light goes out, it means that everyone has died. This is extremely clever, powerful even. It might be one of the best ingredient uses I've ever seen tied directly into the mechanics of the game. <strong><em>But, </em></strong>and that's a big "but", none of that information is in the text of the adventure. I'd never heard of the system before, and in my curiosity I went to look it up, something I probably should have waited to do until after judging. In our rules we clearly remind players not to count on the judges' familiarity with systems. I don't know that I can incorporate what I know now about the system into my judgment of the adventure where those mechanics aren't specifically called out. It's tricky, and I hope that it serves a lesson for future contestants: outside of D&D, you're playing with fire* relying on system knowledge without spelling the mechanics out themselves. As it is, I'm torn. Leaving my mechanical knowledge out, we're left with that first sentence, as well as the shortening days as The Color infects The Machine. Which isn't bad by any stretch. But it isn't what it could be. Trimming 20-30 words elsewhere to explain the mechanic in the text would have elevated this significantly. Also, the idea of something called "The Color" bringing darkness hurts my brain a little.</p><p>*Yes, this pun was very much intended.</p><p></p><p>In <em>Regret, </em>this is one of two ingredient uses I struggle with, though I think this one is better than the other. The ingredient in this case is one of the memory trinkets, in this case the fading holy symbol from Dabda's priestly days. I <em>think, </em>if I'm reading between the lines correctly, part of what is going on is that Dabda turned against his god because its light could not fill him with hope to overcome his despair and regrets, and that said deity is responsible for cursing him? If that's the case, then yes, it is a fairly strong ingredient usage, made even stronger by the usefulness of the item's power in a later puzzle situation. But a lot of that isn't in the text, I'm not even sure how much of it is implied. The curse is definitely a metaphor for mental health, but it's also definitely real, it does take away his memories and kill him eventually, but as much as we're told to find the "source of the curse" in the center of the labyrinth, all we really find is a single man, plagued by severe depression (and perhaps social anxiety). Going by just what's in the text, though, the deity, the religious iconography... seems to exist solely to satisfy the ingredient usage. Removing it changes little, especially if the deity has no relation to the curse. It's a <em>good </em>ingredient, but it's not <em>essential</em>.</p><p></p><p><strong>Labyrinth of Echoes</strong></p><p>In both adventures this is more or less the setting. Both are maze-like, either literally or metaphorically, and both consist of echoes of memories of times long gone. I don't see any reason to elevate either use above the other. Just a great job all around.</p><p></p><p><strong>Serious String</strong></p><p>This is the second ingredient that I struggle with in <em>Regret, </em>and while my imagination can fill in the gaps for why the <em>story </em>and <em>memory </em>behind the holy symbol would be imminently relevant to the adventure, here I am fully at a loss. Dabda gets a gift he doesn't know how to react well to? It's a gag gift meant to put him down? What's the point of the sweater, who is the Eladrin who gave it to him, and why are they laughing? I don't know. And I don't really have enough subtext to dig through to make a reasonable guess. We're left with a roll of yarn. Granted, the yarn has again a useful power, and tying it to the Labyrinth ingredient as a tool for tracking makes it feel a little bit stronger. But I still can't help but think how the adventure wouldn't change much if the yarn didn't exist.</p><p></p><p>In <em>Burning</em>, the string is a musical note that indicates the presence of The Color. It's not the greatest usage; there's no reason why The Color couldn't make some other kind of noise, and its appearance denotes danger more so than seriousness. But it is central and immediately relevant to the players for the entire adventure, start to finish. I could see having a soundboard or app to play the note in person while playing the game whenever an NPC gets taken over. Gives me chills.</p><p></p><p><strong>Rainbow Masquerade</strong></p><p>Now is another excellent ingredient use from both entries. The joyful masquerade ball at the center of Dabda's memory labyrinth in <em>Regret </em>is a very clear and strong depiction, if not culmination, of the depression and anxiety that have plagued him for so long. Even lacking any further context about Dabda's actual backstory, the meaning is clear and relevant.</p><p></p><p>But the way it is used in <em>Burning </em>lifts it even higher. Normally, I am leery of ingredient interpretations that lean into LGBTQ terms (Rainbow here, Queen and Fairy are others I've seen), but the setting here, of queer folks in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic and subsequent panic, is a perfect representation of the idea of deriving joy out of a bleak and oppressive situation that mirrors the actual situation of the last remnants of humanity as they are finally hunted down. This alone would be quite strong, if not as strong as the usage in <em>Regret</em>. Add in double-meaning of The Color, literally infecting the "NPCs" of the memory machine and wearing them as "masks" to hunt and torment the players, though, elevates the usage here even higher. </p><p></p><p><strong>Harrowing Reading</strong></p><p>Yet another fairly strong ingredient in both cases. A note about <em>Burning; </em>to "read" someone in this instance is slang from the 80's queer and POC communities that basically represented a "callout" or a "burn"; though it's not a playful callout; it's intended to sting, if not air out dirty laundry for everyone to see. While I did have to go look that up (no I haven't watched <em>Pose </em>yet, I'm working on it), I don't find that to be as outside the bounds of judgment as looking up how a specific game's mechanics work. My judging philosophy, in any case, is you're using an ingredient in a way I don't grok, I think it's fair to take the time to figure out what I'm missing. The use of the slang term is setting accurate, and the "read" in this case is certainly harrowing! The "read" is a little vaguer in the case of <em>Regret </em>but no less harrowing, and I think no less of an airing of dirty laundry for Dabda. </p><p></p><p><strong><em>In Conclusion</em></strong></p><p></p><p>I'll be honest; going into the deep ingredient judgment mode, I was anticipating that <em>Regret </em>would top <em>Burning </em>in terms of ingredient usage. <em>Burning </em>is, after all, almost entirely setup. But the deeper I dug the more questions I found myself having as to the relevance of a lot things in <em>Regret</em>, and the more I was able to pick up on the clever turns of ingredients found in <em>Burning's </em>setup that were still incredibly relevant throughout the adventure.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="The Judgment"]</p><p>It should come as no surprise, then, that I declare <em>Memory is Burning </em>the winner of this match, and thus, [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] will be moving on.</p><p></p><p>[USER=67]@Rune[/USER], I most definitely do not have any business handing out advice to you. I worry that maybe the time got away from you, and that those extra 50 words would've contained a lot of that connective tissue that I was sorely missing in this judgment. I'm not sure it would've been enough in this case; Snarf put out an absolute classic. I'm sure we'll see you again.</p><p></p><p>But congratulations are in order for [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER]! I'll see you in the second round!</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Bring on Match 2!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Gradine, post: 9182164, member: 57112"] [B][U][SIZE=5]Judgment for Round 1 Match 1: [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] vs [USER=67]@Rune[/USER] [/SIZE][/U] [I]Rules and Readability[/I][/B] Both [I]Memory is Burning [/I](hereafter referred to as "Burning") and [I]Echoes of Regret [/I]("Regret") were turned in on time (though [I]Regret [/I]certainly cut it close with 8 minutes to spare!). Both entries came in at or under 750 words (with [I]Burning [/I]at exactly 750 and [I]Regret [/I]at just under 700). Neither entry has been edited, and with one exception, both entries follow all of the necessary rules. That one exception comes with [I]Regret, [/I]which failed to post the ingredient list at the top of their entry. This is a minor quibble at worst, but in the case of an extremely close contest it bears weighing in. We'll see if this is such a contest. Both entries are well written, organized, and highly readable. The clipped style of [I]Regret's [/I]writing suits the surreal, dreamy nature of the adventure, and neither entry proved difficult to read or understand. I'm not a copy editor by any means, but I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling errors that took me out of the experience. Top marks to both on this front. [B][I]Adventure Flow & Potential[/I][/B] This is my subjective "what did I generally like/dislike about the adventures" section of the judgment. Both entries here are morose and somber, reflections on loss and death. They both are, in a word, tragedies. Fun stuff! Let's dive in. I'll start with [I]Burning[/I]. This is an incredibly strong, gutting, and effective setup for an adventure. The hook is compelling and the stakes couldn't be clearer. I was required to do a little bit of research to fully grasp it (first in the nature of [I]10 Candles [/I]and second in brushing up on my 80's northeast queer vernacular). On the one hand, we specifically call out not wanting to have to look up too many things in our rules; one the other hand I don't want to discourage utilizing interesting indie game systems and clever ingredient interpretation. I'll call it a wash. In any case, yes, this is an extremely effective [I]setup [/I]for an adventure. I suppose in some systems that's all you'll need, but for Iron DM I'd prefer to have at least a little more guidance as to what the actual play of the adventure will look like. Here all but a fraction of [I]Burning's [/I]length is spent on getting us up to the starting point. Fortunately much of the background seems likely to be directly relevant in play; I will hope that this is especially the case for the ingredients used therein. On the other hand, if anything, [I]Regret [/I]suffers from not having enough background. We get pieces of the puzzle that is Dabda's past, but it's all colored through his own recollection of his memories, and they ultimately don't come to together to paint anything remotely close to a clear picture. Now, for the players, this is absolutely fantastic, and it plays highly into the foggy and incomplete nature of memory. Beautiful. As a DM, though? I'm going to need to fill in a lot of those gaps if I'm going to be able to effectively run Dabda, let alone the memories the players will be travelling through. How do they connect? Why are these the most significant of his memories? What do they teach us about Dabda beyond being full of regret, something that anyone talking to him for thirty seconds is likely to pick up on? As a central character Dabda is a bit of an enigma, which again is fantastic for players, but give the DM a little bit more. As for the hook, it's fine, as far as hooks. Curiosity is a solid motivator, and I could see how this could tie more directly into a broader campaign (a PC or ally is having trouble recalling an important memory, and lo and behold they see the flyer). The stakes are a little bit wobblier; a PC losing a memory could have a wildly variable consequence for each player. Beyond that, the biggest danger is for Dabda himself, and outside of altruistic do-goodery (which I am certainly not opposed to!) there's not really a compelling reason to either help or ultimately save him. Both adventures have room to grow, though clearly the word count and the time frame played a role. Ultimately, I can conclude that [I]Burning [/I]is the much more compelling and engaging setup, while [I]Regret [/I]is the more tightly designed adventure. [B][I]The Ingredients[/I][/B] At this point, I have to give [I]Burning [/I]an edge over [I]Regret, [/I]but a lot can change in a deeper dive through the ingredients. I'll say that this was a significantly difficult set of ingredients, with more abstract themes than had initially dawned on me as I posted them; this perhaps reflects in the similar tones both strike. Let's see how our contestants tackled it. [B]Memory Merchant[/B] In [I]Regret, [/I]this is Dabda himself. As the central character in this adventure, and one deeply entwined with memories, this feels like it should be an incredibly strong use of the ingredient. However, the "merchant" angle is dubious at best, and seems to only really be relevant as part of the flyer-as-hook. Once the PCs actually meet Dabda, all pretensions of being a merchant of anything, let alone memories, is completely absent. He can call himself the Memory Merchant all he wants; he's not selling anything. He's asking, almost begging, for help. It's still a better use than in [I]Burning[/I], sadly, where, as near as I can tell, the use of this ingredient were the nameless inventors and sellers of the memory machine that forms the framing the device of the adventure. Now, the machine itself is directly relevant to the adventure. The Merchants themselves? Long dead somewhere in the empty remains of the Earth. [B]Fading Light[/B] In [I]Burning, [/I]this ingredient seems to be called out in the phrase "the light of humanity is nearly out, nearly extinguished". The much stronger use, and I think the intentional use, comes from how the system of [I]10 Candles [/I]works. For everyone's edification, play takes place in a table with 10 lit tea candles; character sheet are literally burned in the fire, and once the last light goes out, it means that everyone has died. This is extremely clever, powerful even. It might be one of the best ingredient uses I've ever seen tied directly into the mechanics of the game. [B][I]But, [/I][/B]and that's a big "but", none of that information is in the text of the adventure. I'd never heard of the system before, and in my curiosity I went to look it up, something I probably should have waited to do until after judging. In our rules we clearly remind players not to count on the judges' familiarity with systems. I don't know that I can incorporate what I know now about the system into my judgment of the adventure where those mechanics aren't specifically called out. It's tricky, and I hope that it serves a lesson for future contestants: outside of D&D, you're playing with fire* relying on system knowledge without spelling the mechanics out themselves. As it is, I'm torn. Leaving my mechanical knowledge out, we're left with that first sentence, as well as the shortening days as The Color infects The Machine. Which isn't bad by any stretch. But it isn't what it could be. Trimming 20-30 words elsewhere to explain the mechanic in the text would have elevated this significantly. Also, the idea of something called "The Color" bringing darkness hurts my brain a little. *Yes, this pun was very much intended. In [I]Regret, [/I]this is one of two ingredient uses I struggle with, though I think this one is better than the other. The ingredient in this case is one of the memory trinkets, in this case the fading holy symbol from Dabda's priestly days. I [I]think, [/I]if I'm reading between the lines correctly,[I] [/I]part of what is going on is that Dabda turned against his god because its light could not fill him with hope to overcome his despair and regrets, and that said deity is responsible for cursing him? If that's the case, then yes, it is a fairly strong ingredient usage, made even stronger by the usefulness of the item's power in a later puzzle situation. But a lot of that isn't in the text, I'm not even sure how much of it is implied. The curse is definitely a metaphor for mental health, but it's also definitely real, it does take away his memories and kill him eventually, but as much as we're told to find the "source of the curse" in the center of the labyrinth, all we really find is a single man, plagued by severe depression (and perhaps social anxiety). Going by just what's in the text, though, the deity, the religious iconography... seems to exist solely to satisfy the ingredient usage. Removing it changes little, especially if the deity has no relation to the curse. It's a [I]good [/I]ingredient, but it's not [I]essential[/I]. [B]Labyrinth of Echoes[/B] In both adventures this is more or less the setting. Both are maze-like, either literally or metaphorically, and both consist of echoes of memories of times long gone. I don't see any reason to elevate either use above the other. Just a great job all around. [B]Serious String[/B] This is the second ingredient that I struggle with in [I]Regret, [/I]and while my imagination can fill in the gaps for why the [I]story [/I]and [I]memory [/I]behind the holy symbol would be imminently relevant to the adventure, here I am fully at a loss. Dabda gets a gift he doesn't know how to react well to? It's a gag gift meant to put him down? What's the point of the sweater, who is the Eladrin who gave it to him, and why are they laughing? I don't know. And I don't really have enough subtext to dig through to make a reasonable guess. We're left with a roll of yarn. Granted, the yarn has again a useful power, and tying it to the Labyrinth ingredient as a tool for tracking makes it feel a little bit stronger. But I still can't help but think how the adventure wouldn't change much if the yarn didn't exist. In [I]Burning[/I], the string is a musical note that indicates the presence of The Color. It's not the greatest usage; there's no reason why The Color couldn't make some other kind of noise, and its appearance denotes danger more so than seriousness. But it is central and immediately relevant to the players for the entire adventure, start to finish. I could see having a soundboard or app to play the note in person while playing the game whenever an NPC gets taken over. Gives me chills. [B]Rainbow Masquerade[/B] Now is another excellent ingredient use from both entries. The joyful masquerade ball at the center of Dabda's memory labyrinth in [I]Regret [/I]is a very clear and strong depiction, if not culmination, of the depression and anxiety that have plagued him for so long. Even lacking any further context about Dabda's actual backstory, the meaning is clear and relevant. But the way it is used in [I]Burning [/I]lifts it even higher. Normally, I am leery of ingredient interpretations that lean into LGBTQ terms (Rainbow here, Queen and Fairy are others I've seen), but the setting here, of queer folks in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic and subsequent panic, is a perfect representation of the idea of deriving joy out of a bleak and oppressive situation that mirrors the actual situation of the last remnants of humanity as they are finally hunted down. This alone would be quite strong, if not as strong as the usage in [I]Regret[/I]. Add in double-meaning of The Color, literally infecting the "NPCs" of the memory machine and wearing them as "masks" to hunt and torment the players, though, elevates the usage here even higher. [B]Harrowing Reading[/B] Yet another fairly strong ingredient in both cases. A note about [I]Burning; [/I]to "read" someone in this instance is slang from the 80's queer and POC communities that basically represented a "callout" or a "burn"; though it's not a playful callout; it's intended to sting, if not air out dirty laundry for everyone to see. While I did have to go look that up (no I haven't watched [I]Pose [/I]yet, I'm working on it), I don't find that to be as outside the bounds of judgment as looking up how a specific game's mechanics work. My judging philosophy, in any case, is you're using an ingredient in a way I don't grok, I think it's fair to take the time to figure out what I'm missing. The use of the slang term is setting accurate, and the "read" in this case is certainly harrowing! The "read" is a little vaguer in the case of [I]Regret [/I]but no less harrowing, and I think no less of an airing of dirty laundry for Dabda. [B][I]In Conclusion[/I][/B] I'll be honest; going into the deep ingredient judgment mode, I was anticipating that [I]Regret [/I]would top [I]Burning [/I]in terms of ingredient usage. [I]Burning [/I]is, after all, almost entirely setup. But the deeper I dug the more questions I found myself having as to the relevance of a lot things in [I]Regret[/I], and the more I was able to pick up on the clever turns of ingredients found in [I]Burning's [/I]setup that were still incredibly relevant throughout the adventure. [SPOILER="The Judgment"] It should come as no surprise, then, that I declare [I]Memory is Burning [/I]the winner of this match, and thus, [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] will be moving on. [USER=67]@Rune[/USER], I most definitely do not have any business handing out advice to you. I worry that maybe the time got away from you, and that those extra 50 words would've contained a lot of that connective tissue that I was sorely missing in this judgment. I'm not sure it would've been enough in this case; Snarf put out an absolute classic. I'm sure we'll see you again. But congratulations are in order for [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER]! I'll see you in the second round! [/SPOILER] [B] Bring on Match 2![/B] [/QUOTE]
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