2018 IRON DM Tournament

Welcome, one and all, to the 2018 IRON DM Tournament. Eight contestants enter the arena. One emerges as the IRON DM 2018.

To keep down the clutter, all scheduling will take place in the scheduling thread. Ingredients, entries, and judgements will all be posted in this thread. As usual, commentary and trash-talk also should be posted in this thread (for posterity).

This post will be maintained with a link to every entry and every judgement, with latter ones hidden behind sblock tags. Be warned, however, that tags are not universal between the different viewing mediums available nowadays, so use this resource with caution if you don’t want to know who won a match before reading its judgement(s).

[sblock=The RulesThe Basics:

The tournament is set up in a single-elimination bracket style, with each match determined based on scheduling availability among the eligible contestants.

Each match will consist of two contestants given a single set of ingredients with which to construct a brief adventure or adventure synopsis in any game system or genre. You should waste neither time, nor words, on overly detailed stats, but you should also not assume familiarity with any given system or genre. Explain what you need to explain, and stop there!

These entries will be evaluated on their own merits and those evaluations will then be compared to determine the winner of a match, who will then proceed to the next round.

All matches will be given a time-frame to submit the entries within. An entry that is late will still be accepted, but with a penalty applied to its word-limit. Late entries that are less than 1 hour late will have their word-limits reduced by 10% (meaning, for example, a first-round entry would have its word-limit reduced from 750 to 675, which is harsher than it looks). Entries that are at least 1 hour late, but less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced by 30%. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced by 50%. Entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the other competitor and judges. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; we will ignore everything after.

Obviously, you really want to avoid being late, especially in the first round, but life happens, and sometimes you just can't make it. In such cases, you should take the extra time (before your next threshold) to polish your entry with your new word-limit in mind. It won't be easy, but you might still win. Even if you don't win, you may at least find the judgement enlightening for future IRON DM tournaments!

Entries are expected to make good use of all of the ingredients submitted. The ingredients should be creatively applied, well-integrated, and fundamentally necessary to the adventure that they are used in. This is the crux of the tournament, so don't think that maybe (for example) doing a good job with three ingredients will be enough, as long as you can craft a better adventure! I wouldn't count on it, if I were you.

Finally, matches have traditionally (but not always!) had exactly six ingredients. This will not be the case in this tournament. The list of required ingredients will get longer as the rounds progress!

Formatting:

All entries are to be submitted with the list of ingredients at the top and are not to be edited, once submitted. Let me repeat that last part: DO NOT EDIT YOUR POST, ONCE YOU HAVE SUBMITTED IT! Check your work before you send it in. Then check it again. We will not look favorably upon any entry that has been edited and may penalize the entry as we see fit, including, possibly, outright disqualification. Part of the challenge of IRON DM is in the development and use of discipline in editing and time-management.

Please do not expect us to follow links within your entry. You may include links for others to follow if you choose to do so, but understand that any information that is necessary to the entry must be in the actual entry. We will be reading each entry multiple times and, thus, unlikely to also be willing to go outside the entry to find context for it. More importantly, expecting outside sources to carry the load of exposition very much defeats the purpose of the word-limit.

Along those lines – I reiterate: we will be reading each entry multiple times. Please don't make that difficult for us. Don't bore us and don't make our eyes bleed. Please.

Judgement:

Each of the first-round matches will have a single judge. The second- and third-round matches will have the full panel of three. As I said before, each entry will be judged on its own merits and then the two competing entries' critiques will be compared for the final judgement. In the latter rounds, the majority opinion will determine the victor. Different judges have traditionally had different processes to arrive at such outcomes – for instance, some may use a point-based grading chart, while others may prefer a more abstract analysis.

We will endeavor to be Nemmerelesque in our judgements – critical, but also fair and constructive in that criticism. It's tradition. Even so, please understand that not everybody will agree with every decision that we make – that's the nature of the game. Traditionally, trying to figure out what the judge will want to see is all part of the game (though not necessarily a recommended strategy) – and that can lead to some undesired outcomes. It can sting sometimes (believe me, I know!), but it is a game. Let's have some fun with it!

That said, those wishing to gain a little insight into the judges’ thinking will need to do a little research to do so, but the information is out there. Be warned, though! We may have changed our thinking on some of these things within the last couple of decades!

Tournament Structure:

Round 1: The Crucible

All matches in the first round will have a 24 hour time-limit! All matches in the first round will have six ingredients, all of which are to be used in each entry. Entries in these matches will have a 750 word limit, not including the title and ingredients list. Any descriptions or definitions of ingredients included with the list will count against the limit! That may not seem like a lot, but I assure you, it's even less than you think! Contestants who win their Round 1 matches will proceed to Round 2.

Round 2: The Refinement

All matches in the second round will have a 48 hour time-limit. These matches will each have seven ingredients, all of which are to be used in each entry. Entries in these matches will have a 1500 word limit, not including the title and ingredients list. Any descriptions or definitions of ingredients included with the list will count against the limit! Contestants who win their Round 1 matches will proceed to Round 2.

Round 3: The Tempering

The third round match will also have a 48 hour time-limit. This match will use eight ingredients, all of which are to be used in each entry. Entries in this match will have a 2000 word limit, not including the title and ingredients list. Any descriptions or definitions of ingredients included with the list will count against the limit! The contestant who wins this match will become the IRON DM 2018!

Scheduling, Discussing, and Spectating:

As previously mentioned, the scheduling thread will be used for scheduling the matches.

This tournament thread will be used to post the ingredients, the entries, and the judgements for each match. Commentary will also be welcome in that thread, but, please, if you are commenting on an entry that has not yet been judged, hide that commentary with sblock tags, [sblock]like this,[/sblock] so that we can view the entries with fresh eyes!

If spectators would like to play the home game, please do that in another thread.

One final note:

Once these tournaments have been completed, we try to archive them on these boards for posterity, and so that the adventures can be run or plundered by future Internet generations. We make no claim of ownership over the entries, but we do request that you do not remove your entries once the tournament has concluded. [/sblock]

Our Contestants:

1: Gradine (IRON DM 2017)
2: tglassy
3: Imhotepthewise
4: CleverNickName
5: LongGoneWrier
6: MortalPlague (IRON DM 2014)
7: Mister-Kent
8: hawkeyefan​

Good luck, y'all.

Round 1: The Crucible

Match 1: MortalPlague vs. Mister-Kent. Iron Sky’s Judgement.
Match 2: Gradine vs. tglassy. Deuce Traveler’s Judgement.
Match 3: Imhotepthewise vs. CleverNickName. Rune’s Judgement.
Match 4: LongGoneWrier vs. hawkeyefan. Deuce Traveler’s Judgement.

[sblock=Round 2: The Refinement] Match 1: MortalPlague vs. hawkeyefan. Iron Sky’s Judgement. Deuce Traveler’s Judgement. Rune’s Judgement.
Match 2: Gradine vs. CleverNickName. Iron Sky’s Judgement. Deuce Traveler’s Judgement. Rune’s Judgement. [/sblock]

[sblock=Championship Round: The Tempering]Gradine vs. MortalPlague. Iron Sky’s Judgement. Deuce Traveler’s Judgement. Rune’s Judgement. [/sblock]

IRON DM 2018: Round 1, Match 1, MortalPlague vs Mister-Kent
[MENTION=62721]MortalPlague[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6972087]Mister-Kent[/MENTION], you have 24 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 750 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.

Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 675. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 525. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 375. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; I will ignore everything after.

Your ingredients are:
• Blind Faith
• Blood Debt
• Body Count
• Ethereal Courtier
• Odd Cube
• Regicide

Happy writing!

The Elements:
Blind Faith
Blood Debt
Body Count
Ethereal Courtier
Odd Cube
Regicide

The City-State of Banderwall has been protected by a ritual since before anyone can remember. On Midsummer's Eve, six names - the Fortunate - appear on an iron cube called the Auspicate. For a week, they are celebrated, and the city revels. At dusk on the seventh day, the die is cast. One of the Fortunate is sacrificed. The others return to their lives, and the city is safe for another year.

Ten years ago, King Jolan's name came up. At the King's command, the Court Wizard Methael created a ritual to replace the King's name with another, one that King Jolan selected. The King presented the altered cube to the population, and at the close of the week, the name that had replaced his was chosen and sacrificed. The next year, the King's name appeared again. The ritual was conducted once more, and the added name was the one who perished. And again, the next year. And again.

This is the eleventh year of the deception. Methael has been dead six years; the King murdered him for developing a conscience. He learned to conduct the ritual himself, picking people who have become inconvenient. Nobody is any wiser.


The Auspicate
A smooth iron cube the size of an apple, heavy in the hand and utterly featureless except during the feast. The six names appear written in common, engraved into the surface. The cube is an artifact, and radiates strong divination magic. Methael's ritual changes the face without altering the magical aura, and the ritual cannot be dispelled by normal means.

If one of the Fortunate die during the week, their name disappears from the cube, and it is rolled with one face blank. A blank face has never come up. Furthermore, nobody can recall a time when a name has appeared for a second time.


Feast of the Fortunate
The heroes are in Banderwall when the Auspicate is presented. There is a grand ceremony where the Fortunate are named; they become celebrities. Throughout Banderwall, there is drinking, feasting, and merriment. These Fortunate have been chosen to keep Banderwall safe from threats. Their bravery must be celebrated.


An Apparition
Late the first night, the ghost of Methael appears to the heroes. He explains the truth: the ritual has been compromised for years through his actions. He cannot rest until the deception is exposed and his debt is paid. He has tried for six years to find someone to listen to him, but no citizen of Banderwall believes the Auspicate can be compromised.

Methael can guide the heroes in dispelling the ritual, but he requires several components. The only challenging ingredient; a drop of the King's blood.


Out For Blood
The heroes have six days. During the feast, the King is often in the streets, surrounded by his royal guard. Banderwall soldiers are slow to violence, due to the long-standing peace they have enjoyed.

King Jolan also spends time in the palace. A wall with battlements and a courtyard garden ring the estate, which is, itself, a labyrinth of corridors and chambers. Finding the King would take time, and the heroes would have to deal with servants and soldiers.

The heroes may employ many skills and tactics to achieve their objective. Creative plans should yield some opportunity for success. The people of Banderwall are peaceful, and may be cowed by displays of aggression.


Changing Fate
With King Jolan's blood, Methael will help the heroes set up the counter-ritual. It must be within five hundred feet of the Auspicate, and the heroes should wait until the king has emerged from the palace to enact the ritual. King Jolan should not be given a chance to detect the reverted name.

With the ritual complete, when the Auspicate is cast, it will come up with the King's name. A ripple of confusion spreads through the crowd, and a look of horror dawns on the face of the King. Methael appears to the crowd at large and tells the people that the ritual can be undermined. That King Jolan has manipulated the result for years. He reads a count of those killed by the King's hand, including himself. The angry crowd drags the King to the block and sacrifices him.

Banderwall is safe for another year.


Moving On
The people of Banderwall are too set in their ways to abandon the ritual, but where there was utter certainty before, now there is doubt. There is a murmur, that perhaps one day will grow to a roar.

Less than one hour to go, [MENTION=6972087]Mister-Kent[/MENTION]! Crunch time!

BLIND FAITH

BLOOD DEBT

BODY COUNT

ETHEREAL COURTIER

ODD CUBE

REGICIDE

BLOOD TITHES by Mr. Kent

The capital of MARROWVANE is all that is left of an embattled kingdom, whose doom began generations ago with the death of King REDIVAN. His closest friend, SANDRUGO—vizier, court doctor, and mage—seized power. He channeled the people’s burgeoning paranoia and used sacrifices to place warding spells against threats to the kingdom. When the next attack against the kingdom failed, the people swore an oath to serve the new king, forever indebted to his dark power.

Today Marrowvane’s inhabitants huddle under the thrall of the long-lived vizier, now the self-styled “SANGUINARIAN”, who claims he requires a sustained influx of blood. The citizens always dutifully offered up their neighbors if it ensured survival, but after a few generations locally-sourced sacrifices are scarce. The Marrowvanians send scouts seeking fresh meat.

On the road betwixt adventures, The Party discovers a series of corpses missing various organs. At the end of the bloody trail is a maiden, her freshly-wounded eye dressed with a makeshift eyepatch. FAITH trembles but speaks boldly, claiming cultists ravaged her merchant caravan and took her family as sacrifices for the Sanguinarian. As proof, she presents an item dropped by the raiders—a wooden box, perfectly cubical, engraved with the Marrowvanian seal. Within the box is a heart, recently belonging to Faith’s mother. Faith urges the party to rescue her kin. The girl and her family are in truth brigands whose caravan robbery was interrupted by cultists, but neither she nor her family (should they be found) will betray The Party if given aid.

The keen-eyed survivalist Party may track the cultists’ horses to the secluded city. Alternatively there is a hillside hovel overlooking the massacre site—the hermit within knows Marrowvane’s location. ISPER GRALE was raised here, but his great-great-grandfather served Redivan. Fearing Sandrugo, Isper’s ancestor fled Marrowvane and never returned. Isper believes his ancestor discovered Sandrugo was behind Redivan’s death. The old servant knew of another entrance to the palace, an underground tunnel accessed from the South. Isper can be paid or persuaded to share this secret.

The city’s outskirts are littered with canopic cubes, stacked in cairns or arranged in symbols. The boxes are empty. There are no spells present should an attempt to detect magic be made. The capital is mostly empty houses coated in dust, their owners long since sacrificed by their neighbors to “save Marrowvane”. The Party will discover evidence of history throughout—tally marks scratched into walls to count the dead, final messages left by residents, alternately resigned and regretful about their fates. The houses are shells with stores of gold, metalwork, and fine goods, untouched for generations. In the streets are statues of Redivan, still clean and well-preserved.


The city’s patrolled by cultists as well as the Bloodless. When Marrowvanian’s die, their oath revives them as Bloodless—pallid translucent specters who become solid when hunting living blood. Near the palace is a hamlet of maintained homes. Marrowvane’s entire population has now dwindled to about four dozen people, mostly elders who send the young and vicious out for new sacrifices. They will desperately defend their homes against intruders, alongside the Bloodless, with any arms available and down to the last man, driven by the belief that they MUST LIVE no matter the cost. Within the Governor’s Manse, the cellar has been converted into a dungeon—Faith’s siblings are held here, with no sign of their father. Once freed, the siblings are eager to join the search for their father. If they make it safely back to Faith, they will share some of their stolen loot.

Within the palace, The Party finds a court of less immediately-hostile Bloodless tending the Sanguinarian. (Taking Isper’s secret tunnel reveals the “sacrifice room”, full of occult artifacts and a freshly carved victim, Faith’s father.) The Sanguinarian sits atop a throne of canopic cubes as his courtiers replace his shallowly beating heart with a fresh one. Sandrugo saw Redivan slain by servant conspirators (including Isper’s ancestor), breaking his heart and mind, causing him to dread his mortality. He preyed on his subjects fear to supply himself with fresh bodies, necromantic fuel to keep himself alive forever. The canopic cubes were never warded—people stayed away for fear of the bloody-minded Marrowvanians, not any protection spell. The Sanguinarian will not let The Party leave alive without swearing an oath never to reveal his secrets to the outside world—breaking the oath results in transformation into a Bloodless. Otherwise, he will have his courtiers attack.

Off to consider my judgement. Feel free to talk post-writing about your entries now that they are done and before the judgement. I've copy-pasted them into a doc and won't read anything else in this thread until after I post my judgment so don't worry about me reading them.

A brief bit of commentary, since I’m not judging this one:

[sblock]As is not completely unusual with these matches, these two entries look like they would combine pretty well. The similarities in the scenarios would allow for the strengths of each take to enhance the other. I quite like the foreboding and creepy atmosphere of [MENTION=6972087]Mister-Kent[/MENTION]’s piece and [MENTION=62721]MortalPlague[/MENTION]’s scenario looks like a solid bit of trouble for the PCs.[/sblock]

My own commentary:

[sblock] These are both pretty solid adventures, both giving the players a range of options either in how to accomplish their task or in what tasks to try to accomplish. It seemed like there would be some issue of ingredients being strictly background elements at first, but I think both entries eventually handled most of those issues quite handedly, often in ways that put them directly in the PC's hands. I actually tried coming up with a rubric to score the ingredient usage, and I came up with a tie both in a case-by-case basis (2-2-2) and in overall points. That probably means I would score them again, this time with a bit more critical of an eye, but I feel like this is a pretty close match, when all is said and done. If I had to guess, I'd say one of these entries probably has a slight edge on ingredients usage, but the other I think is a more interesting adventure overall and also has a slightly better take on ingredient interpretation. Interested to see how the judgment comes down, but these are both good adventures and great Iron DM entries! [/sblock]

On my opponent's entry:
[sblock]I feel like you've crafted an evocative, atmospheric adventure. I really like how we both tackled the idea of a culture of sacrifice, but approached it in entirely different ways. Both from a cultural perspective, but also in the focus of the content; stealth / combat vs subterfuge / social challenge. Your names are really good, too. I really like the idea of the Sanguinarian doing organ transplants to prolong his life; it's some wonderful body horror, and would make for a memorable villain.

I may have to put your adventure on the table sometime. It reads like it would play very well.[/sblock]

On my entry:
[sblock]I toyed with a few ideas before I settled on this one. I entertained the notion of the PCs hunting a T-Rex (Tyrant King) as Regicide. I did a rough draft of a murder mystery at a mountain retreat where the king is found dead, but I didn't have enough space in 750 words to outline a cast of suspects and fill in a timeline.

My entry came together when I thought of using the Odd Cube as a die to select who gets sacrificed. I thought Regicide would make an interesting element if it was something the PCs caused. My first draft was an adventure where the PCs uncovered the secrets of the ritual and had to expose or kill the king. But I think things really came together when I added the requirement for a drop of blood. As a DM, I would love to see how my players came up with a way to get close to the king and get some of his blood. And I don't think two groups would do it the same way.

If I had more words to use, I'd want to lay out the city in more detail, put in some NPCs (especially the Fortunate), and really add in the finer detail that would be needed at the game table. But for an adventure overview, I feel pretty happy about my entry.
[/sblock]

Round 1: Gradine vs tglassy

IRON DM 2018: Round 1, Match 2: Gradine vs tglassy

[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6855204]tglassy[/MENTION], you have 24 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 750 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.

Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 675. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 525. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 375. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; I will ignore everything after.

As a judge, I favor entries where the ingredients are integral to the entry.

Your ingredients are:

- Lost Minotaur
- Disguised Warehouse
- Idiomatic Confusion
- Affably Evil
- Perfect Game