Scheduling for IRON DM 2015
- Thread starter Rune
- Start date
Wicht
Hero
As mentioned above, I'll be taking off tomorrow and won't have any internet for a week. I can do round 2 next Saturday afternoon sometime, or any time thereafter, if round 1 is finished up by then (likely I think, considering). 
Good luck to all the round 1 participants yet to be judged (and condolences to half of you beforetime; you'll know who you are when the time comes). I'll see one of you in round 2.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Good luck to all the round 1 participants yet to be judged (and condolences to half of you beforetime; you'll know who you are when the time comes). I'll see one of you in round 2.
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
My entry has also been posted. I usually follow three rules.
1. Don't let a good idea waste an entry. I really liked the Painful Pun ingredient and had thoughts of using it as the central part of the story. A cursed joke that killed someone after some time unless they found someone to pass it onto. Nothing fit well with this to make a cohesive adventure, so I dropped it.
2. Play to your strengths. I still struggled to put the jovial innkeeper and a desperate gnoll together in a story. A jovial gnoll and desperate innkeeper would be easy, the reverse is hard. So now I thought about a light-hearted romp where you could play an evil party helping a problem among monstrous NPCs. But the problem is that my writing and imagination has often failed with comedy. Since I had trouble with a humorous way to make an adventure that connected these ingredients, I reluctantly started looking at how to put it together in a macabre way.
3. Remember to make the ingredients integral. It's all about the points. If I use an ingredient that is so integral that removing it would make the adventure fall apart, I give the ingredient use 2 points. If I use an ingredient that is not integral, but still well-used, I give myself 1 point there. If I do not use an ingredient, or only use the name of the ingredient for a place or person, then I give myself 0 points there. I then look over some of my drafts, either in my mind or on paper, and the path that seems to lead to the most points is the one I run. I think it over before I fall asleep and start writing it the next day.
One more for when it's done.
4. Never Take it Personal. If I lose, I never take things personal. I've lost plenty of times when I felt I had a better entry (and more when I didn't) than my opponent, but much of this is subjective. Instead, enjoy the practice in writing and be satisfied when you made a solid entry, even when you lose.
1. Don't let a good idea waste an entry. I really liked the Painful Pun ingredient and had thoughts of using it as the central part of the story. A cursed joke that killed someone after some time unless they found someone to pass it onto. Nothing fit well with this to make a cohesive adventure, so I dropped it.
2. Play to your strengths. I still struggled to put the jovial innkeeper and a desperate gnoll together in a story. A jovial gnoll and desperate innkeeper would be easy, the reverse is hard. So now I thought about a light-hearted romp where you could play an evil party helping a problem among monstrous NPCs. But the problem is that my writing and imagination has often failed with comedy. Since I had trouble with a humorous way to make an adventure that connected these ingredients, I reluctantly started looking at how to put it together in a macabre way.
3. Remember to make the ingredients integral. It's all about the points. If I use an ingredient that is so integral that removing it would make the adventure fall apart, I give the ingredient use 2 points. If I use an ingredient that is not integral, but still well-used, I give myself 1 point there. If I do not use an ingredient, or only use the name of the ingredient for a place or person, then I give myself 0 points there. I then look over some of my drafts, either in my mind or on paper, and the path that seems to lead to the most points is the one I run. I think it over before I fall asleep and start writing it the next day.
One more for when it's done.
4. Never Take it Personal. If I lose, I never take things personal. I've lost plenty of times when I felt I had a better entry (and more when I didn't) than my opponent, but much of this is subjective. Instead, enjoy the practice in writing and be satisfied when you made a solid entry, even when you lose.
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Rune
Once A Fool
[MENTION=60965]Iron Sky[/MENTION] and [MENTION=976]Imhotepthewise[/MENTION], judgement for your match has been posted.
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
Rune, did we fail to get the three judge panel this time around? I may consider judging in the future if that is the case.
Or are we moving to a one judge format?
Or are we moving to a one judge format?
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
[MENTION=67]Rune[/MENTION], ping me next year when you do this. I'm interested in playing, work schedule permitting.
Wicht
Hero
It was going to be just Rune and I, so Rune gallantly volunteered to do all the judging and let me participate once more. We did talk about opening up the judging pool after this contest, so your offer will be taken very seriously.
Rune
Once A Fool
It was going to be just Rune and I, so Rune gallantly volunteered to do all the judging and let me participate once more. We did talk about opening up the judging pool after this contest, so your offer will be taken very seriously.
The single-judge format is nothing new; they (all of the EN World Tourneys, that is) were all done that way back in the day. When IRON DM returned to EN World in 2009, it did so with three judges. It's a good format, which offers a degree of protection to the contestants against bias through the later rounds.
It does bring its own challenges with it, however. First, it requires that three judges be available, which, as happened this year, isn't always the case. There isn't much point in running with two judges (no tie-breaker), so, in such cases, we go with one.
Another challenge that having multiple judges presents is an increase in complexity in scheduling the later matches. Every year that we use three judges, there is a point when we get hung up. On more than one occasion, we've had to put a call out for an alternate judge--even while the tournament was in progress.
Still, we generally feel that that single benefit is worth the trouble, so we do start by trying to pull three judges together.
I actually buried a mention of recruiting new judges in the history section of the OP. If anyone out there is interested in being considered as a new judge, send me a PM with a link to at least one previous entry you have submitted (so, yes, you will have to have been a contestant at least once).
We (the RBDM Club, that is) will not be discussing the topic until after this tournament, though, so no rush.
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Rune
Once A Fool
[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION] and [MENTION=40177]Wik[/MENTION], judgement for your match has been posted.
