2018 IRON DM Tournament

[sblock]
Well... that was a wild one.
[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION], your adventure is excellent. I really like your take on the Iron Law. I think we both made good use of that element, but in entirely different ways. Your Deadly Ink is fascinating; to use the corruption of Ravenloft to change a recipe is inspired, sir.

Speaking of the recipe... I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that we both took the cannibal route with the Pie Wagon.

Your unicorn's fur turning red with blood is an excellent Ravenloft touch.


On the topic of my own adventure, I had an early draft set in a forest. The Swan stood at a crossroads with an obelisk marking an ancient necromancer's tomb nobody knew about. The tomb had an ancient guardian; Shugo. And the pie wagon was driven by a halfling who was a necromancer who required Elsie's strength to break into the tomb. I feel like shifting the setting to a town and adding the fey element tied things together nicely.

One of my big challenges writing this was to organize the information. At times, I had a separate NPC block at the end with each villain, their goals, and their capabilities. And when I'd mention them in the text, I'd write 'see below'. It always read strangely. I compromised here by detailing each character in their own section but adding some reactive plans at the end.

Somewhere, in my edits, I seem to have misplaced Shugo's cold iron sword.
[/sblock]

Final Round

Here's how I judge:

My first pass will be literary: how well does it read? Are there typos? Is it coherent? Is the phrasing awkward, awesome, or ambivalent? Did the writing help or hurt the entry? Does the adventure tell a good story?

Second pass will be as a GM: would I want to run it? Is there a good hook? Does it flow? Do I have all the information I need? Is it mostly backstory or mostly adventure? If I bought this adventure to save prep, how much prep does it require? Is the conclusion satisfying?

Third pass will be as a player: would I want to play it? Are there any interesting choices? Do my actions matter? Does it have interesting things to do for different types of players? How about characters? Is the conclusion satisfying?

Fourth pass will be ingredients: how well were they used? Could any be removed or altered without changing the adventure in major way? Are they tied together tightly? Any particularly clever uses?

I'll finish with a conclusion that sums it all up and throws in anything else that doesn't fit into one of these categories such as logical breaks, major inconsistencies, or other elements that "break" the adventure as posted.

A final note before jumping in: I try to be entirely constructive and honest with my feedback since that's been the main benefit for me doing the half-dozen Iron DMs I've competed in and my ability to write has been drastically honed by them for all types of writing, not just adventures. Empty praise or skirting problems to be "nice" is pleasant and useless. If I like it, you'll know and if I think it could use work... you'll know. Feel free to discard it if you don't agree, my main goals are to be fair, honest, and critical.

Literary Pass, Writ in Blood:

Reading through, I really dug the tone and feel of this adventure. The subtle manipulations of the Dark Powers (totally stealing them changing writing and memory – is that canon or something you made up?) The writing is much better than previous though some paragraphs are still quite long and the amount that happens in one can be daunting.

There were also a few random errors: "the edict in paper called had been corrupted..." for example.

My original read-through of this, I made the mistake of not looking up the Ravenloft setting first. I know vaguely that it was the "D&D horror" setting, but didn't know exactly what the Dark Powers were or how they rolled. As such, this pass is two passes one pre-wikipedia, one post-.

After the second pass, with everything in context, it makes much more sense though I'm not sure I have the arc of the story or the relevance of all the information for the game. I have the sinking feeling that as dark and cool as this adventure is, it might be heavy on backstory and light on action.

Literary Pass, The Culling of Carriage Court:

The wordcounter gave 2005 words since it started at "A macabre adventure...". As such, I considered it to end at "If the heroes are foolish enough to listen, they will find great..."

I noticed the odd typo here and there, but otherwise the writing was very active and well written.

The first real hiccup was Shugo who is "They told Greel about Shugo, a revenant assassin who awaits orders, walled away from the ruins with cold iron." Whose orders is the revenant awaiting? What do revenants have to do with fey? What does "walled away from the ruins" mean? Is he trying to get into the ruins or is he in a separate cold iron walled enclosure? Are revenants fey?

At least some of that is answered in that apparently he won't do anything without orders, though it raises the question if Shugo will take orders from a random village girl, if he came to kill you and you said "oh god, no, stop!" would he obey that order too?

Moving on, "the wagon" comes once a week. What wagon? By inference I'm assuming it's a pie wagon, but there's nothing that connects the two in what you wrote except they were delivered and wagons can be used to deliver things. Also, since I'm in hyper analysis mode now, do the heroes have to ask around? What happens if they just look?

And then Annabelle disappeared at "the Swan". Is that a tavern? An inn? A palace? I read everything leading up to it again to see if I missed it, but nope.

Then the growing unease that something's stalking the nobility... who's uneasy? Given way nobles throughout history often treated the commons, I would think everybody else might be celebrating.

Jumping to Barric's perspective, my daughter went missing, a band of strangers/foreigners show up saying they heard she's missing and want to help (what's in it for them?), then show me her necklace and say it was found it a meat pie... I think I'd be a bit suspicious and maybe a bit afraid for myself. Reading on...

Ahah! The Swan's an inn! Wait, it's drafty due to the windows... are they unpaned? Unshuttered? Open holes?

So, after the long wait to see what Greel's doing with the bodies, she's turning them into zombies then having them carve themselves to be eaten? Do we have any hints she's a necromancer? Are hags normally necromancers now? It struck me as somewhat disjointed and non-obvious, like cops looking for missing persons and finding out a gang of street thugs has been kidnapping them and turning them into cyborg pets.

More answers to some of the questions above about Shugo's orders, all of which is pretty rad. One question that gets added though; if the Empire found Shugo such a useful tool for killing fey, why would they put his control unit right next to their abandoned prison? Like parking an Apache next to a maximum security prison.

Also, that the fey want to be entertained above all else seems a bit odd. Most things in prison seek freedom above all else. Maybe that lack of seemingly-obvious prioritization is why they lost the war.

Literary Pass, Comparison:

I think MortalPlague's writing was more active and compelling, yet Carriage also raised far more questions.

Writ in Blood's setting was evocative while Carriage's was fairly generic. That said, I had to read up on Ravenloft and reread Writ in Blood to get sufficient context to not find it bewildering.

I'm tilting slightly in favor of Carriage here.

GM Pass, Writ in Blood:

There's no clear hook to bring the PCs onboard here. I know it says "intrepid investigators" will jump into solving the crime, but Gradine must have a much more selfless and self-motivated group of players than most of the ones I've played with. It seems like as a GM my primary way of hooking the PCs is by ensuring that nothing else interesting is happening to be sure the PCs care about a missing persons case after they've just suffered a planar abduction.

Breaking it into scenes:

Hook(players hopefully decide to investigate) → Investigation (PCs tracking the pie wagon) → Confrontation (Pan-ya confesses) → Taneka's reveal (PCs exposited and asked to determine what the Beast is) → Meet Qi'lin → Resolution (Let Qi'lin do his thing OR tell Ooma to move on)

A few problems here, the first being with the hook that I mentioned previously. Second, I'm not sure how to get players to the pie wagon without seemingly leading them by the nose to it. Sure it is strange that none of the 150 missing people came from Atakakune, but I'm not sure how I, as GM, would help the find the wagon, then convince them to search the wagon of a well-loved, gregarious man.

There's no mention of tracking him as he kills people and disposes of their bodies or any clues that might make them think that this dude out of all the many markets and eateries in the district did it. It seems like this section would go like this:

PC: "So, people said only one district hasn't had anyone killed?"
GM: "Yep."
PC: "What's in that district?"
GM: "Markets and eateries, none so treasured by the people of the district as Pan-ya's famous Meat Pies. A Shodō institution for generations, Pan-ya’s meat pie recipe is a closely guarded family secret. Pan-ya himself is a well-loved, gregarious man; his pies aren’t cheap, but he never turns away a hungry stomach, whether they can pay or not... and, um, there are a lot more places you might check too run by... other people."
PCs: "Um, yeah, we go to that one."

Then they are hired by a dude to walk with a lady who dies on her own, then a unicorn says he's trying to escape using symbols written in her blood. No worries, she'll resurrect and be back and you all can probably come through the portal with me to get back to your own world.

I'm pretty sure at that point most PCs would say "that sounds great!" Well, that or kill him because he's a unicorn that's red and so must be bad and xp. Then the PC wizard or scholar will be tracing blood runes once a month until they're free. Not sure how they'd ever know that Ooma can be laid to rest and everything will be hunky-dory since that's not established anywhere previously.

Unless I'm misreading, this seems like a GM chore to steal the PCs from what they were doing, lead them by the nose through an investigation, drop some (admittedly cool) backstory on them, then show them the exit.

Hrm.

GM Pass, The Culling of Carriage Court:

Scenes:

Hook (necklace pie) → House Daleen (clues to Swan) → Swan (Daniel leaks secret tunnel/Elsie suspiciouns) → Ruins (dungeon crawl) → Greel (fight or talk) | Shugo (Elsie secrets revealed) | Fey (free us) → Resolution

The clues are fairly obvious, but the PCs do have to do a bit of snooping around to get to them. They lead to a bit of a dungeon crawl which houses all three of the main villains and they get to decide how it ends.

This seems fairly fun to run. The zombie pies is fun, bizarre scene, dungeon crawls are almost always entertaining, and watching PCs piece through an investigation is fun. The coolest NPC doesn't do anything but kill, though getting to tempt the PCs via the fey could be entertaining.

GM Pass, Comparison:

Writ in Blood seems both short and linear. It also seems to require the GM to do most of the work to guide the PCs through it instead of the players navigating it.

Culling of Carriage Court never excited me (Shugo was cool and I'm stealing him), but offers a quick, simple investigation, a dungeon crawl, and the PCs decide how it ends.

Carriage on this one.

Player Pass, Writ in Blood:

So we're hunting down the orcish raiding party that sacked the fort, chasing them through the forests of... wait we're in a town and people are going missing. How do we get back to the orcs? Wait, there's some monster called Nagato, can we kill it? No one knows what it is? Okay, so we're obviously supposed to look into these missing people, obviously this Atakukune place has some relevance.

There's like fifteen restaurants here? Great, well, the GM seemed to talk about the pie wagon thing the most so lets go there. This guy seems super nice, let's go check another place... no the GM keeps on hinting stuff, I guess let's search his wagon or just see if he knows something. Oh, he just confessed? You found a recipe with humans in it? Gross, but I guess we win? How do we get back to hunting orcs?

So, this guy from the court seems to be important, for some reason we need to know about the dead noble guy and a curse and stuff. He wants us to follow this chick and see what happens to her? Sounds easy. Um, red unicorn, probably bad. Ah, he's just trying to get home too? And the princess resurrects? Yeah, let's just help him out and get out of here.

Player Pass, The Culling of Carriage Court:

OMG, there's a necklace in my pie! WTF? Where the hell did these pies come from? A wagon across town? Anyone know who this belongs to, looks kinda special. Oh some noble lady with a secret lover and a swan? Wait, nobles have been killed and their bodies are missing? Related? Maybe we should check out her house?

Hello, my lord, we found this necklace in a pie. Yes, we know it's your daughter's, we think maybe... oh, you want to show us her room? Um... strange but sure. Anyone find anything? A bloody iron throwing star? Yo, what did the maid tell you while we were searching the place? Maid said she was meeting some Daniel guy at the Swan? And she said they are underground troll pies? Okay... I guess we go to the Swan? Wait, there's a reward? Hell yeah!

This is the Swan? Place is a dump. Anyone else get a weird vibe about the young lady that runs this place? Where did she go anyway? Oh, you talked to the Daniel dude? What'd he say? Annabelle never showed up and Elsie has a secret tunnel in the cellar? Pretty sure I know where we're going.

<1.5 floors later>

I'm so sick of those damn oozes. Wait, what's that light ahead? <sneak> Anyone else creeped out by these zombies? Are they making pies out of.. themselves? Crap, guys, that's a hag. Anyone know how high level they are? She's just staring at us, maybe she's not hostile? Bard, go talk to her.

Right, so Elsie's been using a monster named Shugo to kill nobles and this hag will pay us to capture her? How's it compare to that noble's dude's reward? She said this Shugo think lives north of here, let's check it out. <dungeon>

I don't think we can fit through this hole with armor on, let's send the bard in since he's expendable, I mean, unarmored. Whoa, undead assassin? I guess lets squeeze in. Yep, written right here, this guy kills whoever's name you write in it and somebody's been using him forever. I say we write Greel's name here, wait for Elsie, capture her and turn her in to Deleen for the reward, get some zombie xp, then set up a base here with our badass undead assassin.

<once that is done>

We should clear the bottom level.

Anyone else hear creepy voices talking through those holes in the floor. Yeah, I think the third level is off-limits, permanently.

Player Pass, Comparison:

Carriage it is.

Ingredients Pass, Writ in Blood:

♦ Byzantine Schemes: the plotting of Ooma's court. Only tangentially related and mostly unseen by the PCs except for Taneka whose main feature is that he has managed to avoid them.
♦ Elder Signpost: I think this is the iron edict? The contract signed in blood? Not sure what makes it either elder and neither seem to be sign posts. I half-read/half-skimmed the whole thing again to find this ingredient and don't think I did. Was there supposed to be and old sign noting Atakakune or something?
♦ Dread Ninja: Nagato whose main feature now is that he's a dead ninja. I guess the people still fear his whispers?
♦ Pie Wagon: The meat-pie wagon the PCs need to search for the investigation.
♦ Red Unicorn: Qi'lin who is red due to blood, though that he's a spirit is more important. He does have a maiden he is guarding that does make him more unicorn like.
♦ Deadly Ink: Jinsui's blood, deadly since she dies to make it and ink as it's used to write the portal sigils. Strongest ingredient so far.
♦ Iron Law: Okay, this is the iron edict. It's less a law than a statement of what she's doing however. It's ironness is important mostly since it was decided that the Dark Powers can't manipulate iron. I looked it up and don't think that's canon, so it could just as easily have been ivory they couldn't manipulate. If it was explicitly stated that the iron in blood was what made them not able to mess with it it would be stronger....
♦ Traitor: Nagato who started all this, but whom the PCs will likely never meet.

Let's try a sentence.

A Dread Ninja turns Traitor, killing a noble's family and causing the noble's daughter to write an iron edict that she will offer herself to a Red Unicorn who will use the Deadly Ink of her blood to escape while an agent who is not involved in Byzantine Schemes hears of the PCs uncovering a murderous Pie Wagon and asks them to follow her. Also an Elder Signpost... somewhere?

That was... difficult to compose.

Ingredients Pass, The Culling of Carriage Court:

♦ Byzantine Schemes: Pretty sure this is the Fey's manipulations of Greel and Elsie. Byzantine seems to imply vast and convoluted while they are mostly manipulating a young woman and a hag for chuckles.
♦ Elder Signpost: The monolith in the center of town warning of the Fey. Who knows if the PCs find it or if they do, decipher it.
♦ Dread Ninja: Shugo, dread since his a revenant murder, which would be stronger if people know about him. They dread something nameless which happens to be Shugo. Also my favorite thing in this round and totally stolen.
♦ Pie Wagon: The wagon that delivers the pies. Doesn't seem to be important at all and the adventure would run the same if it didn't exist.
♦ Red Unicorn: The unicorn necklace found in the pie. I don't see any reason why the pie has to have red juice or that this has to be a unicorn. It is the hook though so at least it's used.
♦ Deadly Ink: The ink used to give Shugo his murderous orders.
♦ Iron Law: The cold iron flagstones that keep the Fey contained in their prison. Cool, but not as strong as I'd like.
♦ Traitor: Elsie, commanded to get Shugo but using him for herself. She's really more of an opportunist since traitors most commonly betray someone to another side.

Sentence:

A Red Unicorn necklace discovered by eating a pie recently off a Pie Wagon leads the PCs to track a murderous Traitor who uses Deadly Ink to command a Dread Ninja as part of the Byzantine Schemes of fey bound by Iron Law and warned of by an Elder Signpost.

It seems like the Fey could be ignored by the PCs and Elsie and Greels drama could just as easily have been free of their involvement which weakens the last three ingredients significantly.

Ingredients Pass, Comparison:

The ease or difficulty of composing a sentence to encompass the ingredients says a lot to me about how essential they are. Writ in Blood's ingredients seem somewhat weaker over all and they are also mostly backstory. The PCs will only interact with the Pie Wagon, the Red Unicorn, and the Deadly Ink.

In Carriage, they may use the Deadly Ink to command the Dread Ninja to capture the Traitor, all started by a Red Unicorn (that could have been a Brown Griffon or a Unique Necklace). The Fey are lurking in the background always but it could easily transpire that the PCs never interact with or even know of their existence which weakens the ingredients tied to them.

I was already leaning a bit towards Carriage, but that I can't find what the Elder Signpost is in Writ in Blood seals the deal.

Conclusion:

Both entries seemed to suffer from a glut of backstory that the PCs will likely never touch on and both had many ingredients buried in this backstory.
[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION], Writ in Blood was much more readable than your previous entry but I have several critiques that are similar. On the plus side, while I did slow down a few times in some of the longer, denser paragraphs none stopped me cold in an onslaught of names. The cursed feudal Japan-flavored setting was also great.

The lack of a hook, again, makes me wonder if you just are used to really proactive players with good-aligned PCs that jump right in to solving things on a hint vs the vast majority of players in my experience that are mostly interested in doing their own thing in various shades of gray.

There also is a sea of backstory and a brook of action. I don't know completely what was supposed to happen in your last adventure (better now after reading the others' judgment of it), but this one I do and it seems like the PCs are mostly unnecessary.

In future contests, in might be helpful to ensure all of your ingredients are interacted with by the PCs – touched, handled, hunted, killed, walked through, etc. Also, frontstory (if that's a thing). Have the story of the adventure mostly to do with what the PCs do instead of what has already happened before they get there.

As with all criticism, take what I have to say with a grain of salt. You won last year, after all and won last round in spite of my inability to grok your adventure. It's entirely possible I'll be the odd opinion again.
[MENTION=62721]MortalPlague[/MENTION], I'll admit after the great initial setup, this adventure didn't inspire me flavor-wise in spite of being quite solid, gameplay-wise. A quick investigation tracking clues leading to a dungeon crawl and a choice of actions was cool. I think making the Fey stronger and somehow forcing the PCs to interact with them would have made all their related ingredients stronger.

I'd imagine their "Byzantine-ness" had you pushing them to the background, but they went perhaps to far.

Your writing remains active, rich, and varied and Shugo is awesome.

I vote MortalPlague for IronDM 2018, we'll see what my compatriots think.

[sblock]
Thanks for the write-up, Iron Sky. You guys have been doing a lot of work going through the entries and I really appreciate the critique. Over the years the feedback has made me a much better writer.

Specifically; I used way less commas this time around.

Iron Sky said:

The wordcounter gave 2005 words since it started at "A macabre adventure...". As such, I considered it to end at "If the heroes are foolish enough to listen, they will find great..."

Click to expand...

I considered that line to be part of the title, similar to my 'A sci-fi adventure' from last round. But fair enough.

Iron Sky said:

The first real hiccup was Shugo who is "They told Greel about Shugo, a revenant assassin who awaits orders, walled away from the ruins with cold iron." Whose orders is the revenant awaiting? What do revenants have to do with fey? What does "walled away from the ruins" mean? Is he trying to get into the ruins or is he in a separate cold iron walled enclosure? Are revenants fey?

Click to expand...

Organizing the information in an entry like this is always a challenge. As you noted in your write-up, the adventure has a lot of backstory. I decided to write a short version of what's going on in the backstory section and a longer, more detailed write-up in the appropriate sections. This was probably the biggest thing I went back and forth on while writing the entry.

Iron Sky said:

So, after the long wait to see what Greel's doing with the bodies, she's turning them into zombies then having them carve themselves to be eaten? Do we have any hints she's a necromancer? Are hags normally necromancers now? It struck me as somewhat disjointed and non-obvious, like cops looking for missing persons and finding out a gang of street thugs has been kidnapping them and turning them into cyborg pets.

Click to expand...

I think hags have enough ties to vile magic for necromancy to feel appropriate. They aren't specifically known for it, but if a human can learn it, why not a hag?

Iron Sky said:

One question that gets added though; if the Empire found Shugo such a useful tool for killing fey, why would they put his control unit right next to their abandoned prison? Like parking an Apache next to a maximum security prison.

Click to expand...

Recall that in the days of the Empire, this location was a secured, manned fortress. When the Empire fell, Shugo remained.

Iron Sky said:

OMG, there's a necklace in my pie! WTF? Where the hell did these pies come from? A wagon across town? Anyone know who this belongs to, looks kinda special. Oh some noble lady with a secret lover and a swan? Wait, nobles have been killed and their bodies are missing? Related? Maybe we should check out her house?

Click to expand...

This is just funny. And pretty accurate to how it would go at the table, I suspect.

Iron Sky said:

MortalPlague, I'll admit after the great initial setup, this adventure didn't inspire me flavor-wise in spite of being quite solid, gameplay-wise. A quick investigation tracking clues leading to a dungeon crawl and a choice of actions was cool. I think making the Fey stronger and somehow forcing the PCs to interact with them would have made all their related ingredients stronger.

I'd imagine their "Byzantine-ness" had you pushing them to the background, but they went perhaps to far.

Click to expand...

True enough. Their rat-minions are really supposed to drive action if the DM wants to bring them more to the forefront. Having one of those steal a character's coin purse and scurry down into the lower levels of the ruins would be a great way to bring them more into the adventure...

Iron Sky said:

Your writing remains active, rich, and varied and Shugo is awesome.

Click to expand...

I'm glad you enjoyed Shugo so much. I had a lot of fun writing him. He went through a few iterations; at one point he was a scheming creature himself who would pervert what was written as much as he could to his own agenda while feigning total obedience. That version sought freedom from his bonds at all costs. But in the end, he became more interesting in the adventure as a directed, merciless, unstoppable tool of assassination.
[/sblock]

Final Match: Gradine’s “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood” vs MortalPlague’s “The Culling of Carriage Court”

This is it folks. Caesar vs Pompey. Foreman vs Frazier. Freddy vs Jason. Gradine’s “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood” vs MortalPlague’s “The Culling of Carriage Court”.

Accordance to Rules
Both entries were easily on time, so full credit to both writers there. “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood” comes in at a light 1,941 words. Meanwhile “The Culling of Carriage Court” is 1,999 words if I were to count “A macabre adventure for low-level characters” as part of the title. And I will, so both entries receive 2 points from me.

Score:
Gradine: 2, MortalPlague: 2


Grammar and Readability
Gradine’s entry has a nice, creepy feel to it; perfect for this Halloween season. However, there are a lot of characters to keep track on. I also felt more confused by the background information and had to reread a few sections in order to have a fuller understanding. Some of the logic doesn’t flow, such as if the population is losing five people every night to murders then how is the population maintaining itself? Is this a large city brimming with people? Are some of the people brought back when the cycle starts again? Whether or not it does, how long has this situation been going on? If the city was just recently brought to this evil realm, is it possible the heroes have been sucked in along with it?

MortalPlague’s story had some punctuation errors such as a missing comma in the phrase “After their great victory the Empire built a...” I think that should read as “After its great victory, the Empire built a ...”

There are spelling errors also: “...each face is scribed with ancient runes...” The word ‘inscribed’ should be used instead.

Overall, MortalPlague’s story was much more easy to follow and understand, though. The motivations of each of the NPCs are easy to comprehend, as is how each event leads onto the next.

I’m giving one point to Gradine for his excellent punctuation and word use, and one point to MortalPlague for his entry’s readability.

Score:
Gradine: 3, MortalPlague: 3


First Ingredient: Byzantine Schemes
Our first ingredient can be translated to mean complex and devious plots. “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood” definitely has that and more. You have a plotting court (though what their plots are remains vague), a plotting assassin, plotting evil beings that control the wrecked land, etc. The schemes are vital to the plot, too, since each of these actors drive the series of events that the characters find themselves in. There is almost too much going on, and its hard to keep track.

Although not as complex, “The Culling of Carriage Court” has its twisting plots from the hag building her undead army, the woman who controls the assassin, and the fey court, whose members are enjoying the results of their murderous mischief. The schemes are also vital to the entry, especially that of the fey court. Both entries get the full two points.

Score:
Gradine: 5, MortalPlague: 5

Second Ingredient: Elder Signpost

The elder signpost in “The Culling of Carriage Court” is an ancient monolith warning the townsfolk of an ancient evil that lies sealed. No one remembers what it is referring to and its importance, and it really isn’t integral to the story outside of giving clues to the characters. I’ll give its use here one point.

I had trouble figuring out what the elder signpost was in “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood”. The only thing I can figure out is that it might have something to do with the seals that the unicorn is repairing. As in, it might be used as a sort of signpost leading people out of the Demiplane of Dread. But that’s a bit of a stretch, and I don’t see its use being vital to the story. I am awarding no points for its use.

Score:
Gradine: 5, MortalPlague: 6

Third Ingredient: Dread Ninja

In “Ravenloft: Writ in Blood”, the assassin is a major part of the story. He is very much a fictional ninja, complete with the Japanese-themed setting. He is also ‘dread’, as he is more of a spirit enacting his evil will upon others. As a major NPC, he is also pretty vital to the entry. Two points here to Gradine.

Shugo does not have to be a ninja in “The Culling of Carriage Court”. Instead Shugo could have easily been made into any generic assassin. You could tweak the story a bit on how he travels to avoid detection and make him a flesh golem. He is still dread when activated, but he spends most of the events in hibernation unless given an assignment. I’m only awarding a point here.

Score:
Gradine: 7, MortalPlague: 7

Fourth Ingredient: Pie Wagon

I thought we were going to get some comedic entries when I saw ‘pie wagon’ as an ingredient. A wagon makes me think that this is a mobile ingredient, which would make part of the adventure be on some sort of travel. But both adventures were set in a static town and its outskirts. It truly surprised me that both writers went full speed ahead with a Sweeney Todd set of human meat pies. Well, anyway here we are…

In “The Culling of Carriage Court”, a meat pie is delivered to the heroes as a hook and they find a piece of jewelry inside inside (as the unicorn ingredient). The wagon portion of this clue is a delivery vehicle that the heroes can track down in order to find one of the antagonists. Therefore the wagon part of this is somewhat significant, although weakly. I’m not giving any points for the pie portion, because this could have been any sort of food and it only works as a weak adventure hook. Only one point awarded, and just barely that.

Meanwhile, in “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood”, the use of the ingredient is almost exactly the same. The wagon is stationary, however, and can easily be interchanged as a shop. There is no reason that the butcher/baker, Pan-ya, has to be making pies as he could just as well have been killing people and turned them into leather (making him a tanner) or been serving meat soup. In fact, Pan-ya has literal relevance to the core of the story except to pad out the adventure, and removing this quest would have little impact on the entry. No points here.

Score:
Gradine: 7, MortalPlague: 8

Fifth Ingredient: Red Unicorn

I’m struggling to find the significance of the red unicorn in “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood”. First, the red portion of the ingredient is mostly ignored unless we stretch the fact that the unicorn uses blood magic, and blood is red and effects the fur. Also, the only way he stands out as a unicorn is that he lives in a forest and deals with nature seals. I wonder if another evil forest spirit would work better.

On the other hand, “The Culling of Carriage Court” has the party find an unicorn necklace in their meat pie. It is dripping with red juices. The red unicorn has no other significance and could just have easily been a necklace with ‘Annabelle’ spelled out on it.

I’m going to give a point for the weak effort to Gradine, opposed to MortalPlague who gets nothing.

Score:
Gradine: 8, MortalPlague: 8

Sixth Ingredient: Deadly Ink

No we’re talking! This ingredient is used wonderfully in “The Culling of Carriage Court”. There is a book next to a container of magical red ink. When a name is put into the book, the killer Shugo is activated and he goes to eliminate that person. Pretty darn deadly. Since Shugo is the ‘dread ninja’ ingredient, this also ties nicely with that one. Bravo! A full two points.

In “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood”, there is definitely a Mistborn series vibe with writing things down on paper. The unicorn finds out that he can write with blood without his messages becoming corrupted. Put together, the ingredient doesn’t really work. The ink is purely blood, and not really ink. The unicorn is writing with it, though, so I guess it could work. Or maybe he's etching. And the ink definitely isn’t deadly. Sure, someone died so that the unicorn could have it, but the ink in itself isn’t deadly nor does its use lead to something deadly. Now if it was dead ink, or body ink, blood ink, etc, then it might have worked. I’ll give this a point.

Score:
Gradine: 8, MortalPlague: 9

Seventh Ingredient: Iron Law

The Iron Law is a continuation to the problem we just discussed in the previous ingredient for “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood”. That issue is that the trapped people can’t trust words put to paper in normal ink. To prove it, an edict is written on paper and engraved in iron. The iron edict is shown to be uncorrupted. So the iron part is pretty important, but why would the evil beings manipulating everyone bother to corrupt one document when they know they couldn’t have been able to corrupt the other? Did they want to be caught? Was the change to the edict important? Did one of the documents get corrupted to change her name to another? If everyone knows the princess has volunteered to be sacrificed, and she is willing to volunteer, why would a corruption of the edict matter? Why does this ingredient matter?

Cold Iron is hugely important in “The Culling of Carriage Court”, and there were ancient instructions to have iron on hand and maintained to keep the fey trapped. But I don’t know if you can really call those instructions a law, especially since everyone now living has forgotten the old ways and are not maintaining the barriers. In this entry, the iron is critically important while the law part is waved somewhat.

I’ll give a point to each.

Score:
Gradine: 9, MortalPlague: 10

Eighth Ingredient: Traitor

Such a simple ingredient.

The ninja in “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood” is a very important character, and it is his treasonous behavior that drives the entire narrative. He is not only a traitor, but he is also the ‘dread ninja’ ingredient. The full two points goes to Gradine.

In “The Culling of Carriage Court”, Elsie is a traitor to her ruling government, using this adventure’s ‘dread ninja’ ingredient as her method for revenge. It’s funny to see both entries tie the same two ingredients together, but with different methods. A full two points here, too.

Score:
Gradine: 11, MortalPlague: 12

Potential for Dungeon Master

Honestly, both adventures have their problems. Let’s start with ““The Culling of Carriage Court”. Why the hell is Greel making meat pies and distributing her goods around town? If she lays low, she’ll continue to slowly build up her undead army. Why do something so dumb that would call attention on her? Especially for a product that might earn her a few silvers at the most. Was she attempting to frame Elsie? Also, the adventurers might not go visit Anabelle’s father right away, and might track down the wagon first, which would lead them right to the climax. Still, the larger backdrop of the adventure is pretty good and there are a ton of really good directions this adventure could lead depending upon the decisions the party makes.

However, “Ravenloft: A Writ in Blood” is full of logical errors. First, we have a unicorn that writes in blood. I’m having trouble visualizing what the unicorn is actually doing. If he etches his symbols in the trees without blood, I suppose the evil beings warp the symbols? What if the unicorn asked some nice locals to make some iron symbols and help him push them into the tree? Would that work so he could avoid the whole grisly murdering?

What’s up with the butcher? He’s horrified by what he is doing, so he should just stop or tell someone to get help and that he can’t stop. Supposedly the evil entities involved changed his cooking recipe, which prompted him to kill. Is this a possession? Are there numerous ways to self this problem non-violently?

When the edict was changed by the entities, did the people who read the paper version suddenly become possessed or geased to also act in evil ways, like the butcher? If so, how?

If people keep losing their memories of certain incidents, like the princess being killed, are they also ghosts who reset after some days? Are they really alive? If the party fails, will the butcher and people involved in bringing him to justice all forget what happens so that he goes on killing again? If they are not all reviving after some time then I bet they will all have been killed off within a matter of years. There’s some good stuff here, but I just don’t think it comes cleanly together.

One point for Gradine, and two points to MortalPlague.

Score:
Gradine: 12, MortalPlague: 14

Judgment

Despite its problems, I’m voting for “The Culling of Carriage Court”. Despite the weak hook, it flows well, has three different antagonists with competing interests, and has a lot of depth and flexibility for follow-on adventures. As good as Gradine is, I believe MortalPlague is the Iron DM of 2018.

I want to apologize to Gradine. After reading IronSky's interpretation, I now understand the connection I missed before with the Red Unicorn ingredient. So I gave a point more for the use of red fur than I did the unicorn bit, but I now see the connection of the virgin princess with the unicorn lore. This might have pushed me to giving a full two points instead of one. This would not have mattered in the final tally, but I would have given a more complimentary write-up than I did in the above post.

At the same time, the unicorn definitely isn't a protector by the time the party is involved, and they seem like they could get in contact with the beast regardless of their own virgin status. It's also interesting to see that the unicorn is not part of the cycle of forgetfulness everyone else suffers. If I were to run this, I would take the virginity mention, spiritual protection, and unicorn out altogether and replace it with an ogre-mage, which would have fit much better. The ogre-mage has a Japanese-themed variant in D&D lore and it would have been a better match for the blood magic piece and its understanding of strange lore.

[sblock]

Deuce Traveler said:

I want to apologize to Gradine. After reading IronSky's interpretation, I now understand the connection I missed before with the Red Unicorn ingredient. So I gave a point more for the use of red fur than I did the unicorn bit, but I now see the connection of the virgin princess with the unicorn lore. This might have pushed me to giving a full two points instead of one. This would not have mattered in the final tally, but I would have given a more complimentary write-up than I did in the above post.

At the same time, the unicorn definitely isn't a protector by the time the party is involved, and they seem like they could get in contact with the beast regardless of their own virgin status. It's also interesting to see that the unicorn is not part of the cycle of forgetfulness everyone else suffers. If I were to run this, I would take the virginity mention, spiritual protection, and unicorn out altogether and replace it with an ogre-mage, which would have fit much better. The ogre-mage has a Japanese-themed variant in D&D lore and it would have been a better match for the blood magic piece and its understanding of strange lore.

Click to expand...

No worries; if it isn't obvious to the judge through the frame of the judgment it probably isn't worth the point anyway. I'm sure we've all lived or died on stuff judges have missed (or read more into happy coincidences than intended).

I think if this adventure we not set in Ravenloft I'd totally agree that an Oni would be better fit, not only as a villain but potentially the villain; that is, responsible for the curse but now trapped there themselves. In Ravenloft, however, corrupting and twisting others to the Dark Powers' own amusement is a pretty major theme. This, even more than "Dread" is why I was convinced to stick with Ravenloft; I could have a Unicorn but also have it be another sign of the corruption of the place the adventurers find themselves in; a reminder that if this place could corrupt a Unicorn of all things, what chance do they themselves have if they don't find a way to escape? The blood-red connection was just the cherry on top

Gradine said:

Congratulations, @MortalPlague! Your adventure was, as always, excellent. I'll get you next time!

Click to expand...

@Gradine, thank you. It's always a pleasure to compete with you. I'm sure this won't be the last, and I look forward to it. As always, the finish of this competition leaves me chomping at the bit to get involved again.

I also have a couple of friends who might like to jump in for next round, and I've promised to furnish them with the link to the contest. I don't believe either of them are current ENWorld members, but that's a deficiency easily fixed.

Gradine said:

Iron DM is not an easy thing to win consistently.

Click to expand...

I've competed five years in this competition. I've won twice, but I've been knocked out in the first round three times. It's really a feast or famine thing for me.

On the topic of the ingredients, these were certainly a challenge to work with. I started by examining the Pie Wagon. It had to be important that the thing was mobile, and it had to be a food that couldn't be anything but pie. What's significant about pie? You fill it with something. And what's more sinister, more October appropriate than to fill it with people?

So right away, my entry had a Sweeney Todd thing going on.

The tough element for me was the Red Unicorn. I just couldn't conceive of a way to have the actual creature in my adventure. I put the necklace in the pie early on, and never thought of anything better.

The early drafts had Elsie and Greel, but I always wanted to have a third antagonist to help push things. The Iron Law was that the ink to command Shugo was iron ink, but that meant I was using two elements as one. When I came up with the idea of fey walled away by cold iron, it really solved a lot of problems for me. Things clicked nicely into place from there.

---

On a separate note, I have a question for all Iron DM competitors. How many of your adventures from Iron DM have hit the table? How many adventures from other contestants have you used?

I have only ever run Beneath Ratter's Dell, though I have run it three different times.

I wanted to run @Iron Sky's Against The Abberancy from the same year (and I still do).

I'm also hoping to run Carriage Court from this round. In fact, I've started to put together stat blocks and draw up a map of the ruins.

Has anyone else had experiences running the competition adventures?

Gradine said:

What has frustrated me a little, however, is the seemingly irreconcilable differences in our respective DMing styles (or, more to the point, between the playstyles of our respective players). The notion that the existence proactive, altruistic adventurers being so rare, so mythical (like a unicorn, perhaps? ), so odd as to be worthy not only of mention but also demerit? Believe when I say that that concept is as foreign and alien to me as such players' existence seems to be to you. You are right about one thing; I have no doubt that my players would be more than happy to follow any of the hooks I've presented in these adventures. I get that "sense of wonder or mystery" is not of universal appeal to players, but... it's not that uncommon? Is it?

Click to expand...

My critique there isn't that your style of players are bad or wrong in some way, but that they are assumed i.e by not creating hooks for the predominant type of players I have encountered, it could be said you are implying by omission that players the likes of which I have played with are worthy of demerit.

A "sense of wonder and mystery" does have widespread appeal and even the extremely pragmatic players I've played with might indulge once in a while. After being abducted into a strange realm full of murder and hinted darkness, however, I'm fairly certain most of the players I've known would be focused on getting home rather than solving murder cases.

As for using adventures, [MENTION=62721]MortalPlague[/MENTION], I've unfortunately only been able to run on brief campaign and a few one shots in the last five years or so. The group I'm in is cursed with three GMs and both the others have been in the group longer than me so I'm stuck as a player.

I do have a file on my computer where I've jotted down bits of adventures I'd like to steal should I get to run a game again someday (Shugo is now in it), but I don't know if or when that will ever happen.

After just re-skimming Aberrancy, it could easily be adapted to any world or setting and the centaurs replaced with any race. Might be a good "Season 1" finale/mid-campaign twist. If you do ever run Aberrancy, let me know how it goes!

Iron Sky said:

My critique there isn't that your style of players are bad or wrong in some way, but that they are assumed i.e by not creating hooks for the predominant type of players I have encountered, it could be said you are implying by omission that players the likes of which I have played with are worthy of demerit.

Click to expand...

<shrug> I do not think any style of play to be worthy of demerit, simply to state that your apparent style of play is as alien to me as mine is apparently to you. There's no judgment in there at all. I was just taken a bit aback at being critiqued for writing adventures in which it is assumed the PCs are... you know... heroes...

A "sense of wonder and mystery" does have widespread appeal and even the extremely pragmatic players I've played with might indulge once in a while. After being abducted into a strange realm full of murder and hinted darkness, however, I'm fairly certain most of the players I've known would be focused on getting home rather than solving murder cases.

Click to expand...

Hence, why I should have put more emphasis on the way Ravenloft adventures tend to play out, in which "getting home" and "solving [insert local problems here]" tend to go hand-in-hand. Had I made that more clear, (and I would, at an actual table) I think the adventure would have come across a little better. In this case, I failed to follow everyone's advice (including both yours and my own) from last round.

But then, that's a significantly different critique then treating "proactive players with good-aligned PCs" as if they were some sort of pod people.