Yeah, my concept for a weekly round structure was that each individual component would be smaller (or at least less involved) then a typical full adventure. Then give the finalists a little more time to put together their final product.
I was hoping to avoid a bracket structure, that way to give more people more opportunity to produce content across multiple rounds.
Peeking my head back in from where I decided to start archiving Holiday IRON DM 2002 while half watching the Inauguration TV special thing to say that, at one time I suggest IRON DM entries be 500 words!
Also, someone (incognito?) mentioned writing a 10000 word! entry as part of the "home game" threads people would run back then (confession: I never checked them out).
Peeking my head back in from where I decided to start archiving Holiday IRON DM 2002 while half watching the Inauguration TV special thing to say that, at one time I suggest IRON DM entries be 500 words!
Also, someone (incognito?) mentioned writing a 10000 word! entry as part of the "home game" threads people would run back then (confession: I never checked them out).
Some ideas on theme weeks, in no particular order (and of variable usefulness):
Random Encounter Week
Contestants compete with each other to develop the best random encounter. Each contestant has 24 hours to write a random encounter that fits the brief set forth by the judges. The brief can be a list of ingredients, a specific monster or terrain, a theme, whatever. If it were up to me, I'd stay away from making it game-specific or edition-specific.
Cartography Week
As above, except the brief is to develop a map of some sort. See the comments upthread about potential pitfalls.
Beach Week
To kick off the start of summer, the contestants must write a beach-themed adventure. The judges provide a brief full of summertime, beach-party ingredients.
NPC Week
The judges provide a brief to the contestants to write a colorful, imaginative, and detailed Non-Player Character. Especially if the NPC isn't a standard humanoid...I'd love to see functional NPCs built from ghouls, oozes, or elementals. As always, I think this should avoid being edition-specific, and shouldn't include game mechanics or stat blocks.
Free RPG Week (for the week of July 25th)
The judges choose one or more of the free products available for download on Free RPG Day, and the contestants must create an adventure or whatever from those ingredients. I think this could be really fun.
Monster Week
As above, except the brief is to create a brand-new monster. If it were up to me, I'd avoid making it specific to a particular game or edition...I'd avoid stat blocks altogether and focus more on descriptions, ecology, and non-mechanical descriptions of attacks (Writing "this monster breathes fire" would be fine, but writing "this monster's breath weapon deals 4d6 fire damage on a failed DC 12 Dexterity save" would not be.)
Riddle Week
The contestants must create a riddle, puzzle, cipher, or similar brain-teaser. This is always the hardest part of writing an adventure for me, and I'd love to see what others come up with.
Trap Week
Just what's printed on the tin. The contestants must create an interesting trap or environmental hazard based on the judges' brief. As with the NPCs and the monsters, I think this would work best if it weren't edition-specific, and didn't include specific game mechanics.
Golden Oldies Week
The judges pick a classic adventure module that is long out of print, like "Keep on the Borderlands" or "Under the Dark Fist," and the contestants must write a re-imagined version of it. Maybe they update it for the next generation? Maybe they "fix it" with a new and improved version? Maybe they import it into a completely different campaign setting or game system?
Finals Week
All of the gold-star winners' ingredients are combined into a single brief! The last three finalists must write an adventure using some (or all) of the previous winning ingredients: the winning monster, the winning riddle, the winning NPC, etc.
Welcome to Beach Week!
Write an adventure using the following ingredients:
Beach Towel
Sand Castle
Giant Crustacean
Sunburn
Killer Mai Tai
Your adventure must take place entirely on a beach of some sort.
Your adventure must be 750 words or fewer.
You have 24 hours, starting now. Good luck!
Here is my first draft of a potential spin-off competition. I decided not to go with elimination as I think it would be more fun, longer without it, and instead of week long rounds, went with ten three-day rounds with a fairly flexible submission schedule and the ability to do some work ahead on the part of contestants. I am thinking it would work with anywhere from 1-3 judges, and 5-10 competitors.
Iron DM Tactics (Draft 1)
The Concept:
Over the course of 1 month, and 9 rounds, contestants use given ingredients to craft various role-playing adventure accoutrements and score points for doing so. The three highest scorers compete in a 10th round and craft an adventure summary using ingredients, including one of the previous creations of each competitor (including themselves). Judges score each round and in the tenth round decide which adventure is the best.
Ingredients and the Ingredient Pool:
At the beginning of the competition, a pool of twenty ingredients will be provided to the participants. Each round, each competitor must choose two of the ingredients from the pool to use, and they may not reuse any ingredient twice (doing so will disqualify the participant from scoring that round). Additionally, for each of the first 9 rounds, the judge(s) will supply two ingredients which must also be used. At the judges’ discretion, after the second round, one of the two ingredients they supply can instead be supplied by the competitor with the lowest score. In the tenth and final round, the three contestants will be given four additional ingredients by the judges and must use all four, as well as their final two pool ingredients, and one prior creation of each of the competitors.
Entries:
Each entry in each round must include a name for the entry and a list of the ingredients used. Entries in the first 9 rounds must be 500 words or less. Adventure summaries crafted for the final round must be 2500 words or less. Titles and ingredient lists do not count against the word count.
Timetable:
Each round will be three days in length. Entries must be submitted within the first 48 hours to score and judges will use the third day to make a judgment about entries and tabulate scores. Competitors do not disqualify themselves from the competition if they do not submit an entry for a given round in the time given, but neither can they score for that round. After the first round, the topic for the next round, as well as the judge’s ingredients, will be posted at the end of the third day of the previous round.
Round Topics:
The nine topics for the first nine rounds will be posted at the beginning of the competition. Judges, however, will determine which topic will be used for each round. Thus competitors can be brainstorming outside each round for subsequent rounds but will not know all of the ingredients for that round ahead of time. Potential topics include: a cursed item, a magical item, an interesting NPC, a recurring villain, a side-quest, an interesting wilderness locale, an interesting urban locale, a new monster, a cult, a non-random encounter, a non-magical treasure, a unique trap or trapped room, a dungeon room.
Scoring:
Each round, the top five submissions will score points from each judge. Each judge will give one submission 5 points, one 4 points, one 3 points, one 2 points, and one 1 point, in order of that judge's preference. Each judge is free to choose however they desire, but are encouraged to briefly explain their reasoning, and are expected to take ingredient use into consideration. In the last round, each judge assigns their favorite adventure 20 points, and their second favorite 10 points. The player with the highest over-all score is the winner of the competition.
Genre and Mechanics:
Entries are not required to be genre specific, nor should they utilize game-specific mechanics. In the final round, the previous creations utilized in crafting the adventure summary may be altered to be moved from one genre or game setting to another, but such alterations must be slight, only altering such “window-dressing” as is necessary to make it fit in the new world. For example, a ray gun could be altered into a wand or a crossbow, but the effects of the ray could not be altered. A shop-keeper ported from a modern setting to a medieval setting would no longer be expected to be proficient at computers, but might still be proficient with building or repairing machines or crystal balls as appropriate
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