2018 IRON DM Tournament

Gradine said:

Wow, that... really ended up messing up my formatting. That's what I get for not previewing it first

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And another reason to do so is that it will force an autosave of your text (at least in the desktop mode of the web browser. Not sure about other mediums.).

Rune said:

And another reason to do so is that it will force an autosave of your text (at least in the desktop mode of the web browser. Not sure about other mediums.).

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Oh, I already learned the lesson to type it up in another platform a long time ago. New lesson learned: the "WYSIWYG" editor lies!

Some thoughts on the two entries:

[sblock]Those are both very interesting takes on the ingredients. Funny how both adventures feature a deathtrap labyrinth set in an abandoned warehouse to achieve the perfect game. The carnival should be a nice backdrop to the struggle in 'Speak Of The Devil'. As for 'The Little Bloodhounds', I find the theme absolutely charming; it feels like it would make a great Halloween one-shot.[/sblock]

My spectator commentary for Match 2:

[sblock]I like the puzzles in [MENTION=6855204]tglassy[/MENTION]’s entry. Simple enough to not bog down play, but interactive enough to set them apart from the maze itself. I was at first skeptical about distilling the maze down to a series of die rolls, but then I considered the implications of doing so: the DM could still have the players map as they went along, only to realize some time in that their maps are worthless. I quite like that.

Meanwhile, [MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION]’s piece had some delightfully greusome undertones for something meant to evoke a childrens’ cartoon. Even better, there are several places that encourage hijinks. Looks like fun. [/sblock]

Judgment of Round 1, Match 2: Gradine vs tglassy

First of all, let me apologize for the hiccup in the number of ingredients. It should have been six, and I posted five. [MENTION=67]Rune[/MENTION] graciously bailed me out from my mistake. Second, let me thank the patient participants for volunteering in the first place. It’s difficult to post a piece for critiques when you put so much of yourself into it.

Accordance to the Rules

Both entries were posted in time, so no advantage on either side here. My word counter says that tglassy’s entry was 739 words, while Gradine’s was 747 words. Again, no advantage to either side as both made the 750 word limit.

Grammar and Readability

“Speak of the Devil”, by tglassy, is a creepy tale appropriately taking place in a carnival. The entry is easily understood, though I only found one small error where the villain, Piddlestomper, uses the word ‘whether’ where tglassy meant ‘weather’. Gradine’s “Have you seen this calf?” is a lot more whimsical in tone, but equal to “Speak of the Devil” in readability. “Have you seen this calf?” also has a slight spelling error as “...they most search...” should have been “...they must search...”. I think it’s interesting that both entries used the words ‘checkmate’ and the idea of a carnival, despite the lack of ‘carnival’, ‘chess’, or ‘checkmate’ in the list of ingredients.

No advantage to either entry.

First Ingredient: Lost Minotaur

In “Speak of the Devil”, the minotaur is a prized exhibit for a traveling carnival, while in “Have you seen this calf?” he is a classmate. Both are ‘lost’ in the sense they are missing and stuck in a maze, but neither of them are really lost in the maze itself. The minotaur in “Speak of the Devil” has a knack for working his way through the maze and chasing the party. He has no personality, but serves as a threat. In “Have you seen this calf?”, the entry specifically says that Minnie Taur is not lost in the maze, but is instead bad at the puzzles. Minnie Taur has more personality and is friendly to the party, but the challenge is getting him to help the kids out due to his sour relationship with Connor.

Both entries have creatures missing, stuck in a maze, but using their navigation skills as minotaurs to enable themselves to find their way through. Both are integral to the story, since if they weren’t lost, the heroes wouldn’t be looking into what happened to them. Both need to be minotaurs due to their ability to navigate the mazes. Good job to both writers.

No advantage to either entry.

Second Ingredient: Disguised Warehouse

In “Speak of the Devil”, the warehouse is disguised as something mundane, while hiding a labyrinth. It’s not clear whether the warehouse has been changed into a maze through a powerful illusion or whether it is in some sort of pocket dimension. Further, although it definitely is disguised, I came away thinking that I could have switched the warehouse with an old courthouse, temple, etc. and have the same transition. In “Have you seen this calf?”, the warehouse is also used to hide a maze, but it also served as the old storage facility of a gaming company, which is a lure for the children. This connects to a later puzzle and thus becomes more integral to the overall entry.

One point to Gradine.

Third Ingredient: Idiomatic Confusion

In “Speak of the Devil”, idiom-based puzzles serve as the idiomatic confusion. The antagonist hints at this when he delivers his monologue that opens the challenge of the labyrinth. In “Have you seen this calf?”, the idiomatic confusion comes from the young kids looking for the perfect game for them to play and being drawn to the challenge of the maze in its pursuit. In actuality, the prize is a card commemorating a perfect game from a sport.

“Speak of the Devil” makes the idiomatic confusion integral to several challenges the party will face in the maze, while “Have you seen this calf?” makes the confusion a motivator and connection to another ingredient.

Both writers did a fantastic job here, but neither has an advantage over the other. I am very pleased with how cleverly both of you managed a difficult ingredient. Great job!

Fourth Ingredient: Affably Evil

Both entries used affable as a descriptor for their antagonist. In “Have you seen this calf?”, it serves to hide the culpability of the villain, Explicia Malevolen. The use of affable is a bit weaker in “Speak of the Devil”, as people that know Piddlestomper are wary of him, despite him being openly friendly and polite.

Although Explicia Malevolen is evil in that she wants to use children as hostages, she could easily be replaced with a warehouse owner that is concerned about the missing children but is fearful about going to the authorities. Piddlestomper’s evil is integral to the structure of “Speak of the Devil” since he is a more active opponent and consorts with a devil that ultimately decides the fate of the participants.

I was actually hoping for some fleshed out villains with this one. Ah well.

One point to tglassy.

Fifth Ingredient: Perfect Game

In “Speak of the Devil”, perfect game is used in two ways. First, the adventurers have to run through the maze perfectly to avoid being grabbed by the devil. Second, the antagonist has to have a set series of 10 out of 10 victories to avoid his soul being taken by the devil. However, the terms could have been altered so that he has to win close to a perfect game. Maybe a less than perfect game with 7 out of 10 victories. Perhaps other participants that escaped previous matches had wild tales about something that happened to them in a traveling carnival that just passed through, causing the adventurers to go investigate.

In “Have you seen this calf?”, the perfect game is a McGuffin that is a motivator for the children. With some tweaking, it could have been replaced with any other McGuffin, like a ‘Really Neat Game’. However, this ingredient is directly connected to the Idiomatic Confusion, and taking it out would also ruin a second ingredient. Here, the ‘Perfect Game’ ingredient and the ‘Idiomatic Confusion’ ingredient are tightly bonded.

It’s that integration that has me lean to giving one point to Gradine.

Sixth Ingredient: Found Wanting

Neither entry does anything clever with this ingredient. “Speak of the Devil” uses it to tie into the devil taking the souls of those that lose. It is integral to the adventure, and taking this away from the devil’s motivation ruins the conclusion of the adventure. However, it is only integral at the very end. “Have you seen this calf?” uses this as a motivator for a minor villain in the story, since he bullies Minnie Taur at the start of the adventure, and then continues to try to steal from the minotaur he doesn’t respect at the end. Take this opinion of Minnie Taur away from Connor, and the party suddenly has a lot less of a challenge navigating this adventure with the NPCs.

No advantage to either.

Potential for a Dungeon Master

“Speak of the Devil” has a lot of utility and can be placed in just about any campaign world. It would make for a short adventure as it is written, which is more of an observation than a critique. “Have you seen this calf?” has a lot more going on when it comes to dynamics between its various NPCs, but it is quite limited for how it can be incorporated into other campaigns. “Have you seen this calf?” is also short, like “Speak of the Devil”, but I believe it has a bit more charm.

No advantage to either.

Judgement

This was difficult for me to judge, as both of you are experienced in this competition and it shows here. However, I am giving the slight advantage to Gradine. In the end, it was the weak use of warehouse as a location that hurt tglassy. Such a minor flaw, but so important when going against an experienced contestant.

Gradine advances to the next round.

Round 1, Match 3: Imhotepthewise vs. CleverNickName

[MENTION=976]Imhotepthewise[/MENTION] and [MENTION=50987]CleverNickName[/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:

Pressing Deadline
Wishing Well
Time Flies
Unscripted Revelation
Saving Throw
Interminable Wait

Good luck [MENTION=50987]CleverNickName[/MENTION] !

Best of luck to you as well, [MENTION=976]Imhotepthewise[/MENTION]!

So, some post-judgment analysis:

I struggled a long time figuring out how to tie any of these ingredients together. It wasn't until I was trying to figure out what the heck to do with Affably Evil that I realized that all of the loose ideas I was jotting down belonged in a more comedic, Saturday morning cartoon type of setting. The other major revelation was in how to tie together Perfect Game, Idiomatic Confusion, and Disguised Warehouse. Meanwhile, Lost Minotaur and Perfect Game seemed to scream Labyrinth, and I love how between our entries we had a Labyrinth disguised as a Warehouse, and a Warehouse disguised as a Labyrinth.

In the past I've tried to write the best adventure I possibly could, then focused on whittling it down to fit the word count. What I was finding when I was doing that was that I was losing too much of the connective tissue, and sacrificing both tone and readability just to squeeze it within the limit. Sometime last year I decided instead to start simple and build up where I can. My first draft of Have You Seen This Calf? clocked in at about 530 words. This gave me room to expand, which was a much more liberating approach that I think led to a much more cohesive adventure. This additional room gave me space to, among other things, link the warehouse to Giveaway Games, and describe Minnie Taur's skill at navigating, both important points that strengthened their respective ingredients (the whole first paragraph describing the Little Bloodhounds, and all of the little details like Cheddar Hobbits, were also additions).

I can't say why tglassy went with Checkmate; for me it was a reference to "Atari" being the name of a Go move roughly relevant to a "Check" in Chess (Checkmate sounded better than Check).

@tglassy, let me say congratulations on putting together a great adventure and a great Iron DM entry (recognizing the two aren't always entirely correlated)! I know how frustrating and discouraging a first round loss can be, but try not to get too discouraged; you're already pretty damn good at this, as evidenced by the fact that in three matches you've knocked out one previous champ and came close to beating two others. Keep plugging away and I'm sure pretty soon you're going to win one of these. I look forward to seeing what you're able to put together next year

Edit: Man the WYZIWIG editor just cannot figure out if it wants to read my paragraph breaks or not.
Which reminds me: now that judgment is posted is it copacetic if I go back and re-edit my entry so the formatting is fixed? Won't change the content, but it will make it more readable.

One Soul's Ransom
Pressing Deadline
Wishing Well
Time Flies
Unscripted Revelation
Saving Throw
Interminable Wait

Prelude: this quest triggers when the party casts raise dead for the first time, and serves as a story-based explanation of the afterlife and why it requires an expensive material component.

When the party attempts to raise their friend, require (then ignore) a save throw. Announce that the spell doesn't function as expected: the components aren't consumed, and the body is not reanimated. Instead the corpse whispers a cryptic message:

"And I saw an angel from Heaven, having the key to the Nine Hells and holding a great chain. He seized the demon and bound him for a thousand years, to bind his power over nations until the time has..."

The corpse howls, then continues.

"...ended. After 1000 years, the demon must be set free for a short time, and will go forth to deceive the nations once more, and gather them for battle."*

Anyone may attempt a Religion check (DC 15); followers of Pelor have Advantage. Success indicates that the first part of the message is a famous passage from The Revelation from Pelor, a holy prophecy of the end times. It's famous because the rest of the prophecy has been lost. It would seem the second part, that followed the scream, is the continuation!

The party must carry the body to the local temple to learn more. Remind them of the deadline--the spell can only restore a body that has been dead for up to 10 days.

I: The Temple
Run this section when the party arrives at the temple. The priests and clerics of Pelor look the body over, attempt numerous skill checks, then confer with the party. They conclude the raise dead spell is "stuck" on the final word of the incantation: the soul is willing to return, but unable to do so. Some unknown force is holding the soul back.

Give the player of the fallen PC a temporary character to play: Niddrow the Wise, an elderly widower and cleric of Pelor.

Roleplay the priests however you wish, and allow the party to ply them with social skill checks. Tailor the information you provide to the pacing of the story, the quality of their roleplaying, and their skill check results. At minimum, the party learns that unless they can find the source of the interruption and stop it, their friend's soul will be doomed to Purgatory for an interminable amount of time.

To reach Purgatory, the party must travel through a magical portal called The Well of Worlds. The portal is powered by desire and will, so each member of the party must roleplay their favorite memory of the fallen character, and it is important that they express their wish to see him/her again before stepping into the well. If they fail to do so (Wisdom save throw, set the DC based on roleplaying), the Well of Worlds might send them to the wrong part of Purgatory.

II: Timekeepers of Purgatory
Purgatory is a demiplane between the Gates of Heaven and the Nine Hells, where the souls of mortals must wait interminably (this sentence can be shortened by loved ones back on the Prime Plane making offerings to certain temples.) This plane is swarming with flies, and the wind carries the cries of lost souls desperately seeking a way home.

This is the realm of the Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies. He and his coloxus minions collect and enforce records of every lost soul and the amount of time each has spent. These time-flies are the main henchmen of the dungeon, with undead and lesser devils for flavor and pacing.

III: Lord of the Flies
Ultimately, the party will find the soul of their lost companion, currently being sentenced to a thousand years of service unless they can pay their passage back. The cost is one diamond, and the soul of another willing mortal.

Allow the party to proceed however they wish. They may attempt to bargain, but arrangements lacking a 300gp diamond and the soul of another mortal will not succeed. (Some options: a player who has been considering multiclassing with Warlock may take Beezelbub as patron, or Niddrow will volunteer to stay to be reunited with his late wife.)

The adventure ends with Beelzebub agreeing to the new arrangement & sending everyone back to the Prime Plane. The raise dead spell ends, the fallen character is restored, and everybody learns about the politics of the afterlife.

*Rev20:1-4, paraphrased