Not the Iron DM Tournament

[Fenris-77]

@pemerton - it's my experience with reading and writing for IDM that stats are mostly extraneous to the first round. The focus is on the ingredients and adventure design. It can help to write for a specific game, but you're running the risk that the judge you get doesn't know that game at which point the stats are wasted. Even if they aren't wasted, the stats are chewing word count that could be better spent on tying the actual adventure together.

The bit about dim light was to index that despite the above, there's no specific need to toe that line here, unless practice for future IDMs is the specific plan.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton - it's my experience with reading and writing for IDM that stats are mostly extraneous to the first round. The focus is on the ingredients and adventure design. It can help to write for a specific game, but you're running the risk that the judge you get doesn't know that game at which point the stats are wasted. Even if they aren't wasted, the stats are chewing word count that could be better spent on tying the actual adventure together.

The bit about dim light was to index that despite the above, there's no specific need to toe that line here, unless practice for future IDMs is the specific plan.

Well, I don't think I would enter Iron DM. It takes a fairly different view from mine of what scenario design looks like.

But I would assert that each of my "entries" takes the ingredients pretty seriously! And I think each of them is pretty playable, though I'll admit that none of them has actually been played yet.

EDIT: To explain a bit more - without some sense of system, I don't think a scenario is playable. For instance, my Prince Valiant scenario makes no sense in D&D (even a 1st level Cleric can stop a knight from dying). My Agon scenario makes no sense in Prince Valiant - the Signs of the Gods are a distinctively Agon thing. And my Burning Wheel scenario depends on robust non-combat PvP resolution.

And I don't need to assert that Dragoliir is a terrible bard; or that Tripp lives in a wonderful world. The PC write-ups reveal it!

 

[Fenris-77]

Don't get me wrong, you used the ingredients well, my post was as much for the people following along at home as it was for you. IDM is very much a specific thing, and I think it's useful in this particular thread to pay some attention to that.

 

[pemerton]

Ghost Mushrooms
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel

I'd left this one alone, because I don't think I can compete with @chaochou's cyberpunk!

But my mind goes to something Cthulhu-esque, set in the late nineteenth century: a decrepit circus set up in a somewhat desolate field, with an animal show (starving bears; a komodo dragon) and a big top held up by an old tree trunk; of course it collapses.

The broken angel might be a Christmas allusion, or a person. In my mind that would depend on the PCs the players brought to the situation, and hence the trajectory of the game.

EDIT: This could also be done in Wuthering Heights, although the ghost mushrooms become more contingent - perhaps if a PC eats the poisonous mushrooms they return as a ghost?

 

[Wicht]

for a one-shot (which I take it is the logic of Iron DM)

This is sometimes true but not universally true. As with Dungeon magazines offerings of old, there is no reason a scenario must be a one shot. My first round scenario this go assumed a broader campaign. One year I linked my entries in all three rounds to one another. Entries come in all shapes and sizes.

 

[Manbearcat]

Ghost Mushrooms
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel

This one is a good one for Dogs in the Vineyard so here is what Town prep might look like under these directives:

PCs

* Brother Elijah

Trait: My pa said I came out of ma twice the size I should have and with huge paws for hands. If I get into a tussle I've always got the Bear Necessities he used to joke (2d6).

Relationship: That is before some scoundrels from the east killed him in cold blood over a game of cards. I don't suffer eastern scoundrels well (1d8).

Relationship: My mother had to peddle flesh so I wouldn't starve. The Lord of Life says that's bad. I guess he took her for it. I'm so sorry mama (2d4).

* Sister Rootless Tree

Relationship: My mother was of the Mountain People. She was a wanderer and a healer. I took her namesake as I took her life in birth. In my service as a Dog I hope to honor it (1d4).

Belongings: My mother's medicine pouch (1d8).

Belongings: My father's Colt Dragoon from service (1d4, 1d8).


Town/Sitch

Palestone is Bridal Falls sister across a field of low slung buttes. It was once a little slice of Faith and utopia. It is rotting.

The government and people of the east bring strange words, fetishes, practices. Familiar Sin.

Florida Man's spectacle of a giant armored lizard maimed a child. The infection that's settled in is nearly claiming her. The man won't make amends of his own and the barrister is too frightened of the beast to prosecute. Who heard of such things? Injustice. Seems like Deceit on behalf of the barrister too...but I ain't that well versed in the nuance of The Faith.

The city folk bring the pestilential Ghost Mushroom. The peddlers promise secret visions of the other side and speaking in languages not of man but of the angels themselves? Apostasy and False Doctrine. And it reeks of Sorcery.

Someone's taking matters into their own hands. A hotel's seen three alleged working women killed something awful in their rooms these last weeks. A broken angel statuette sitting in front of the room door as an omen. Like a gargoyle from the old tales. Only Dogs are commissioned to root out Sin and mete out justice. Violence and False Priesthood. I think that inn keep needs a talking too as well on account of Wordliness at the very least.


NPCs (I'm not carving them out in full...just a hair...you flesh them out during play as needed)

* FLORIDA MAN

Stats - Acuity 4d6, Heart 3d6, Body 4d6, Will 4d6
Traits - 2d4 (Stubborn as a Mule), 1d10 (Smarter than He Looks), 1d10, 1d4
Relationships - 2d6, 1d4, 1d6 (Blood)
Belongings - 2d8 + 1d4 (Huge, Scary Gator)

* BROTHER FENWICK THE BARRISTER

Stats - Acuity 4d6, Heart 2d6, Body 3d6, Will 3d6
Traits - 1d6, 2d10 (Always Reframe the Argument), 1d10, 1d4 (Shrink from Physical Challenge)
Relationships - 2d6, 1d10 (Connected), 1d6 (Blood)

* SHROOM PEDDLAR

Stats - Acuity 3d6, Heart 4d6, Body 4d6, Will 4d6
Traits - 1d6, 2d4 (Charlatan), 1d10, 1d4
Relationships - 3d6, 1d4, 1d6 (Blood)
Belongings - 2d8 (Pouch of Stuff Like Rootless Tree)

* SISTER ROSA (INN KEEP)

Stats - Acuity 5d6, Heart 5d6, Body 4d6, Will 3d6
Traits - 1d6, 2d4 (Short Fuse), 1d10 (Proper), 1d4
Relationships - 3d8 (Govt Protection), 1d4, 1d6 (Blood)
Belongings - 2d6 (Sturdy and Well-Kept Logbook)

* SERIAL KILLER? RETIRED DOG?

Stats - Acuity 6d6, Heart 5d6, Body 5d6, Will 4d6
Traits - 2d6, 2d10, 2d4, 1d4
Relationships - 1d6, 2d4, 1d6 (Blood)

---

That's pretty much Dogs. Come up with Sins and Sitch that interact with your PCs' thematic portfolio (and the general premise of play). Roll up and lightly sketch out some NPCs in broad brush strokes. Sort out their extra dicepool later as needed. Provoke with situation/NPCs, escalate, reflect on the calamity and revelations that resulted from the various collisions of play.

 

[Rune]

Thoughts on Untitled Dogs in the Vinyard Scenario:

Looks very interesting!

First, about the system itself. I’ve never had a chance to come across it, but I think I can see some seeds of design philosophy that would end up later on in Apocalypse World (and, hence, it’s many offspring). Looks very much like a system intended to let conflict lead to narrative, to mechanical resolution, to narrative, to conflict, and so on.

I assume the unassigned dice in the NPCs’ write-ups are meant to be filled out as needed in play. The serial killer, in particular, might end up being anybody. Even another NPC?

I like the varied conflicts presented here. Seems like kind of a lot to do here before moving on to the next town.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

On the one hand, I approve of any scenario that can work in Florida Man! I suppose once you have an armored lizard ...

On the other hand, I'm not sure that "smarter than he looks" is the appropriate trait? There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than Florida Man in the depths of a bath salts & meth binge, and I knew he'd get a hankerin' for the Crystals drive thru pretty soon ....

 

[Manbearcat]

Thoughts on Untitled Dogs in the Vinyard Scenario:

Looks very interesting!

First, about the system itself. I’ve never had a chance to come across it, but I think I can see some seeds of design philosophy that would end up later on in Apocalypse World (and, hence, it’s many offspring). Looks very much like a system intended to let conflict lead to narrative, to mechanical resolution, to narrative, to conflict, and so on.

I assume the unassigned dice in the NPCs’ write-ups are meant to be filled out as needed in play. The serial killer, in particular, might end up being anybody. Even another NPC?

I like the varied conflicts presented here. Seems like kind of a lit to do here before moving on to the next town.

That’s correct. Dogs and Torchbearer are the only “prep-intensive” (lol?) games I GM outside of Moldvay dungeon crawls.

This entry is a fair enough example of Dogs prep. Sin + Situation + NPCs hooking into PC Relationships/Traits and the premise of the game. Each Town probably takes me 15 minutes of prep (on the high end). Nail some stuff down but keep most things (some of situation and about 50 % of NPC stuff) unfixed until play firms them up.

Provoke the players to action > Follow their lead > Escalate > Tally Fallout > Reflect.

On the one hand, I approve of any scenario that can work in Florida Man! I suppose once you have an armored lizard ...

On the one hand, I approve of any scenario that can work in Florida Man! I suppose once you have an armored lizard ...

On the other hand, I'm not sure that "smarter than he looks" is the appropriate trait? There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than Florida Man in the depths of a bath salts & meth binge, and I knew he'd get a hankerin' for the Crystals drive thru pretty soon ....

I can confirm this firsthand!

 

[pemerton]

Each Town probably takes me 15 minutes of prep (on the high end). Nail some stuff down but keep most things (some of situation and about 50 % of NPC stuff) unfixed until play firms them up.

Of the three scenarios I wrote up, the quickest I think was After the battle. I came up with the idea pretty-much straight away, as soon as I looked at it through the lens of Prince Valiant. But then I had to write it up in the canoncial style which took a bit of time. And while I was writing it up I had the idea for the alternative "secret situation".

I started writing Kassos in the evening, and it took me probably 15 minutes just to settle on my signs of the gods! But then had to sleep on it: it was only when I woke up that I had come up with an idea of how to connect the two or three key NPCs, and get the cult worked in without multiplying the complexity too much.

With the Burning Wheel scenario I had the idea for the "historic bridge", the "uncivil war" and the "terrible bard" right away: the latter in particular reflects the fact that I'm currently a bit obsessed with the "Paths of Spite". And I wanted Rhyme of the Unraveller because of its possible interaction with the ruined bridge. It still took a while to write up Dagoliir's character, though, because BW is pretty stat-intensive. Sorting out Tripp's character took longer - I was pretty sure I wanted Bastard in there from the start, to establish the conflicted link with the human warband leader, but finding the right set of lifepaths to produce a character who fits the situation, and has the mechanical oomph to stand up to one of Burning Wheel's overpowered Elves took quite a while (certainly more than an hour). And once I had both characters statted up I then had to sort out the Beliefs and Instincts, which took a while too as those are pretty crucial to the situation.

Also, the idea for the shoes flowed from the fact that when building Dragoliir I had enough resource points to buy a remote refuge (the foundation hall), and clothes, and finery, but not shoes. This is a different illustration of @chaochou's comment in the OP about creating situations under constraints!