2019 IRON DM Tournament

[Wisdom Seeker]

A note from future Gradine: This judgment is going to come across as probably a little harsh. I have endeavoured to be tough but fair, and I hope that my criticisms prove to be constructive. Neither entry could be called bad... but there was quite a bit of room for improvement in both cases, and I hope that you find what follows helpful.

I agree with @ajanders, and he did a solid job with the overall scene concept. This was necessary, but I don't know how much better I could have done without submitting this first and understanding the judgment method better. I wrote the ingredients out in order to ensure that I could understand how they fit together as a group- and a lot of them didn't mesh well.
Land Pirate was by far the single hardest ingredient and pretty much threw a wrench into the gears of all of the other ones. It especially stood contradictory to Future Ruins. The next best adventure concept I could think of that included both of those ingredients was some sort of time storm (but then that wouldn't be an illusory storm, just a magic one).

 

[CleverNickName]

A Hag Comes to Dinner
Obfuscating Executrix
Red Herring
Drunken Assignation
Subterranean Castle
Frivolous Guru
Zero Hour

Spoiler

Synopsis
A murder mystery with social challenges and little combat.

Introduction
In town, a member of the party (preferably an elf or half-elf) will be approached by a drow in fine clothing, her head covered with a heavy black cowl to protect her eyes from the sun. The shadow elf presents the PC with a sealed letter bearing the Sharaabee crest; an ancient and reclusive House of the Shadow Elves. The letter smells strongly of brandy.

The letter is a summons. Apparently a distant aunt has passed away, leaving a large portion of her estate to the character. That character and their friends (the party) are cordially invited to Bhoomigat Mahal, the estate of interest, for the reading of her will. Interestingly, the will is to be read at precisely midnight, on the first night of the month, just 2 weeks away. The summons is clear: only those who are present, at midnight, on that particular night, will receive any portion of the estate.

After delivering the message, the executrix will collect the signature and identity of the recipient, then dramatically take her leave via a misty step spell. She will not answer questions about the summons.


The Usual Suspects
The party probably won't be surprised to learn that Bhoomigat Mahal is an underground castle, built inside an enormous cavern hundreds of feet high and almost a half a mile wide. Once inside, the party is greeted by an eccentric group of family members, acquaintances, and associates...and all of them drow. The party will likely stand out in this crowd, and will be viewed with distrust (and worse) by all present. On the night the will is to be read, all of the guests will have arrived and the party meets the following characters:

• Saaya, the executrix they have already met;
• Hilasa, a hot-tempered drow with a military background, racist, especially unhappy about non-drow being invited;
• Laal and his wife Sharminda, wealthy fishmongers who own several shops in a nearby town;
• Tuchchh, a cleric of knowledge and a local expert on brewing and distillation of brandy;
• Machhalee, a young idealist with strong opinions about the unequal distribution of wealth and status.

Murder Most Foul!
After the meal, brandy will be served. But before the bottle is even opened, a darkness spell fills the room! Voices and shouting can be heard. By the time Tuchchh dispels the darkness, Saaya lies dead on the floor, at the feet of a Night Hag! Battle ensues, and once the Hag has been dispatched, it will be discovered that the bottle of brandy was an Iron Flask. But who would want to kill Saaya?


The Game is Afoot!
None of the guests will be allowed to leave the manor until the murderer is found and justice served. The party will need to interrogate all of the suspects, learn their alibis, and search Bhoomigat Mahal for clues. Their investigation turns up a (M)otive, a m(E)ans, and an (O)pportunity for everyone at the dinner to have committed the crime:

Hilasa
M--family honor; Saaya was having an affair with a human
E--had access to the brandy bottles, can cast darkness
O--none

Laal
M--Saaya was blackmailing him with knowledge about an affair with a local fisherman
E--none, can't cast darkness
O--briefly left the table before brandy was served

Tuchchh
M--discovered he had been cut from the will, trying to destroy evidence of his removal from the will
E--his family made the brandy, can cast darkness
O--he delivered the brandy bottle to the table

Sharminda
M--none
E--knows the darkness spell, placed the order for the brandy
O--sat net to Saaya, knew where she was sitting, was untouched by the Hag

Machhalee
M--none
E--an excellent pupil of summoning magic, knows the darkness spell
O--none

As they conduct their investigation (searching rooms, interviewing other guests, etc) the party will discover the information encapsulated above. They will eventually deduce that only Tuchchh had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to commit the crime.

Resolution
When the party has collected sufficient evidence against him (and convinced the others of his guilt), Tuchchh will either surrender and confess, or attempt to escape. The party will be rewarded as the will is read; the deceased aunt left a handsome sum of gold to their heir (and the iron flask if they grabbed it as "evidence" and learned the command word from Tuchchh).

Hindi Translator
Bhoomigat Mahal: "Underground Castle"
Hilasa: "herring"
Laal: "red"
Machhalee, "fish"
Sharaabee: "drunken"
Sharminda: "embarrassed"
Tuchchh: "frivolous"

 

[Rune]

Time Capsule
A One-Shot Futurist Adventure

[EXECUTE program]

Mainframe Overseeing Temporal Hibernation Exostructure Resources

38,274,733,963,164,389 calculations made. Resources cannot last/be replenished. [error] MOTHER’s purpose: safeguard the legacy of her charges’ forbearers.

Primary Directives:

• Protect occupants from external threats.
• Maintain temporal null-state.
• Do not deplete resources.

Problem: External relative temporal progression: [null-state imperiled]
Solution: Fortify exostructure. [initiating volunteer recruitment routine]

Problem: Exodism philosophy. Existential threat.
Solution: Sustained intoxication of adherents. [initiating nonlethal nourishment substitution subroutine C]

Problem: [data corrupted], potential instigators. 51% probable threat to primary directives.
Solution: [system error][data corrupted][initiating general disinformation routine]​

​

Recent Developments

Generations gone. Wisdom passes on, beyond mere memory. Kept by denizens of the Sunken Keep, children of the Maternal.

Civilization renews. A philosopher ascends. An idea propagates: How can truth be known, if seen only from inside? The idea to leave spreads. A movement, so to speak. Exodism.

The idea dies. Deep thoughts replaced with drunken frivolity. Apostles descend into debauchery.

Inciting Action

On the [morning] that begins the adventure, the PCs’ nourishment-resource allotments are discontinued. Universal information broadcasts continually show the PCs’ likenesses (bereft of names).

They are:

• suspected of recent nourishment-resource contamination related to insurgent activity.
• to voluntarily deliver themselves into the custody of Inquisition Officers.

Most people they might interact with are fearful of them. Some may report them.

The PCs may surrender themselves to the Inquisitors, willingly or otherwise, but the Inquisitors are ill-prepared to question them; relevant files are corrupted and illegible. Eventually, frustrated Inquisitors let them go.

If the PCs wish to prove their innocence and/or not starve, they may discover:

• The philosopher, Athos, was the first afflicted by the mirth-malady.
• All others afflicted were disciples of Athos.
• The afflicted reek of alcohol, as do their nourishment-resources.
• Athos espouses a new philosophy: Don’t worry sho mush. Thinks don’t matter. Mother provides. Athos abides. Look at me! I’m not wearing any pansh!
• A conspicuously placed pamphlet, seemingly authored by an Outside infiltrator recruiting conspirators. It provides a discrete meeting locale and time (precisely 00:00). Snacks and refreshments provided.

Conspiracy

If the PCs show up to the meeting on time, they discover the dead body of Athos, apparently the victim of a bad fall. He bares a note implicating himself as a conspirator. No snacks or refreshments.

If early, they may instead witness his murder at the hands of MOTHER’s Clandestine Security Operatives, who plant the note on the body. Should the PCs successfully intervene, they learn little from the witless philosopher, but he does thank them with (alcoholic) nourishment-resource bars.

Whatever conclusions the PCs draw from this meeting (or lack thereof) are ultimately irrelevant to MOTHER; her intent is to foster paranoia.

MOTHER’s gaslighting campaign ramps up in the following [days].

• Mysterious figures watch the PCs. Conspicuously.
• Broadcasts proclaim that the Siege goes poorly. Volunteers are conscripted to fortify the walls.
• Societal bureaucracies and institutions steadily degrade. Panic begins to grip the populous.

This last is unintended. MOTHER’s conflicting directives are frying her circuits as she frantically processes data, desperately looking for different results.

Eventually, MOTHER has no choice but to kill the PCs or bring them to her, unless they find her first.

Confrontation

MOTHER willingly imparts the following:

• The Keep was built to protect humanity from extinction.
• Outsiders are intent on forcibly taking the Keep’s resources.
• Defenses are failing. Outsiders are slipping inside.

Not all of this is true. The truth is far worse and MOTHER will reveal it only if she must to stop the PCs from destroying her or exiting the Keep.

• The walls are failing, but aren’t keeping anyone out; they’re keeping time in. Sort of.
• The world was/is ending. To protect humanity’s remnants, they engineered a subterranean capsule to keep them. Since they could not delay the inevitable, they instead sped their capsule up, so that generations would carry on inside while relative time outside would remain near-static.
• Initial power requirements for the capsule were immense. Before being temporally desynchronized, the capsule drew as much as possible from the planet’s depths, hastening the planet’s demise.
• Should the capsule’s contents become exposed to the outside, the temporal desynchronization effect will end, along with the world.

Thus, should the PCs disbelieve MOTHER (or be feeling particularly nihilistic), they may end humanity.

They might choose otherwise, but MOTHER’s final undivulged secret is perhaps as bleak: the Keep’s resources can neither be sustained, nor replenished.

They will be depleted in a mere 258,308,208,180,487 human generations.

[TERMINATE program]

 

[Rune]

Spoiler

Damn! Amidst hours of editing, I forgot to paste in the ingredients list! Hope it doesn’t cost me too much!

 

[Rune]

Spoiler: Commentary on CleverNickName’s R1M2 entry

Wow! That’s a fun little murder mystery! I like how the bulk of it is essentially a logic puzzle.

 

[CleverNickName]

Spoiler: Commentary on Rune's R1M2 entry

Isn't it wild how we can both have the same ingredients, but end up with vastly different adventures? And I like that both of our adventures this round weren't just variations of Kill The Orc/Take Its Stuff.

I think you had the best use of the "Zero Hour" ingredient; I really struggled with that one.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Here we are with two experienced participants in @CleverNickName and @Rune. I admittedly have been looking forward to these two going head to head. Upon an initial reading, I found myself really liking both, and I'll be unsurprised if they end up being my favorite two entries of this first round. CleverNickName's "A Hag Comes to Dinner" is a murder mystery with a D&D fantasy backdrop, and I'm a big fan of that blending of genres such as in the Garrett PI books. Rune's "Time Capsule" takes place in a futuristic dystopia, which is another blended genre I enjoy. I wish both could win, but alas it won't be so.

Timeliness and Word Count: Both entries followed the established rules and were submitted on time and below the 750 word limit. Flawless so far.

Score: CleverNickName 2, Rune 2

Grammar and Readability: Both were quite readable, comprehensible, and easy to follow. Full points for each. I especially hope that other participants note the unusual structure both writers employed to get the word count down while setting the tone and delivering information.

Score: CleverNickName 4, Rune 4

It's coming down now to the ingredients.

Obfuscating Executrix

The executrix in "A Hag Comes to Dinner" is a female executor of a will, and is therefore a literal match to the ingredient. She is mysterious and does not answer questions outside of giving a character a letter with some details of a will. My biggest complaint about her is how quickly she is taken out of the narrative, but she serves the ingredient's purpose both in life and after. I am guessing that the executrix in "Time Capsule" is the artificial intelligence called M.O.T.H.E.R., and that she is executing the will of her creators to their decendants... by creating a great lie. This is not as literal as the executor in CleverNickName's entry as MOTHER is not truly female and the AI is executing a duty as a caretaker and not an actual will. But MOTHER is much more integrated into the entire adventure. I'm going to call this one a tie and I'll give a full two points to both.

Score: CleverNickName 6, Rune 6

Red Herring

I was wondering if someone would actual go with a red fish for some reason, but both writers went with the literary meaning. This also felt like a weaker ingredient for the two. In "A Hag Comes to Dinner", CleverNickName highlighted Machhalee as the red herring, but I don't really see it. A red herring should be a clue that drives the investigators down the wrong path for awhile, or at least is an outlier that is hard to ignore. Instead, Machhalee seems like the easiest suspect to discount as the murderer. If Machhalee's motivation is a red herring then we have several red herrings in a number of the participants instead of just one, and I'll give the ingredient a point on that basis. The red herring in "Time Capsule" is better. MOTHER fosters a lie about invaders trying to enter the complex, which has result in making the population look to her for protection. I would have liked it more if the red herring caused more confusion on the part of the adventurers than the general population, but it's still effective and I grant Rune the full two points.

Score: Rune 8, CleverNickName 7

Drunken Assignation

This was a tough one. In "A Hag Comes to Dinner", I feel that the meeting isn't the clandestine sort, but I will admit that it would be private and small due to the limited amount of hopeful heirs. Also, the members do not necessarily have to be drunk, but expensive food and alcohol does better fit the traditional murder mystery dinner party. And I can't help but remember that when Mr. Body is killed in the movie "Clue", everyone is drinking before the lights go out and the murder occurs. In "Time Capsule", the offer to meet with the philosopher is definitely a secretive assignation, but I felt the alcohol could have been replaced by any number of vices without changing much of the adventure. I'm giving the edge to CleverNickName on this one and grant him two points, while Rune gets one.

Score: Rune 9, CleverNickName 9

Subterranean Castle

Part of the will being given is the subterranean castle in CleverNickName's entry. The ingredient is used literally, and is a possible item from the will, so it ties in nicely to the narrative. However, with some tweaking the location/property could have been an above ground estate, a large boat, or so on. The same problem happens in Rune's entry. This adventure happens in a keep below the planet's surface, but I felt it could equally have happened in a pocket dimension, a domed city on the surface, a floating space ship between galaxies, or so on. I will reward a point to each.

Score: Rune 10, CleverNickName 10

Frivolous Guru

In "A Hag Comes to Dinner", this ingredient is Tuchchh, who is a knowledgeable cleric recently removed from the will; probably because of his frivolous habits. His frivolous ways seem important to the story, as it impacts his motivations, but not enough is made about his cred as a guru except in his description. Is he a teacher that people look towards? How integral is that to the story?

On the other hand, Athos in "Time Capsule" is a fun character that completely embraces this ingredient in all of its lunacy. He seems to be wise until the characters encounter him, and I can just imagine their hopes being shattered as their potential philosophical savior comes across as a clueless hedonist. Rune takes this ingredient and get the full two points to CleverNickName's one.

Score: Rune 11, CleverNickName 10

Zero Hour

I was a little disappointed with both entries on this ingredient. In both, Zero Hour seemed to be more about making the scheduled time of the appointments. The adventurers also do have some time to solve the mystery in "A Hag Comes to Dinner", but a limit is not set. You can make the argument that time has more play in "Time Capsule", because there is also a far off limit of when humanity will run out of the time it has left, but the humorous twist at the end is that MOTHER is freaking out about the limited time that is left while humanity would be unable to conceive of how to fill the trillions of years remaining. The Webster's definition of Zero Hour is:

1. the hour of which a planned military operation is to start
2. the time in which a significant event will take place

By that definition, I'll give both the full points.

Score: Rune 13, CleverNickName 12

Utility for a Game Master

Both adventures look to be a lot of fun, but they would require a bit of work on the part of the game master. Although it can be dropped as an interlude in a typical fantasy campaign, "A Hag Comes to Dinner" is really short and limited in its scope. The players get an invite, they show up, a murder happens, they solve the murder and profit along the way. The adventure has a ton of potential, however. Getting to the subterranean castle where the meeting is to happen would be a journey in itself and have the potential for the other heirs to put obstacles along the way. I do feel as if there are a number of ways that the murder can be solved using magic, resulting in an abrupt resolution. Also, there is a question on how the property will be divided up now that the executor is dead. What are the drow legal customs in this situation anyway, and how are they enforced? Do the surviving heirs just let the characters go with a smile and brofists? Have they made friends or enemies? This could end in numerous hooks for further adventure, but again those hooks will be dependent on the DM and how much world-building he wants to take on.

"Time Capsule" has the potential to be a lot longer and would allow for a number of diverse skill sets, and I can see it as a one-shot campaign using a ruleset from something like GURPS, Paranoia, or CyberPunk. But there are few hooks at the end of the adventure that would lead to another once the reveal happens. I guess the error in the computer system could lead to more failures that require the adventurers to fix, but does the computer just say "My bad" and allow the heroes to just walk away after they explain how humans perceive time? Do the heroes become rebels and escape? Do they become new enforcers for the computer? The ending just seems like it would be an anti-climax, which maybe is the point of this more humorous adventure. Also, I was a bit confused over why the party got involved in the first place. Were they followers of Athos' beliefs and the computer pushed alcoholic rations on them? Does the adventure start with the GM asking the characters whether they are intentional or accidental alcohol users? This is a future dystopia where drugs are normally prevalent, but you went with alcohol abuse instead of drug abuse... because alcoholism is funnier? Do the characters start off with penalties to their actions due to the effects? How does the party get clues that lead them in the right direction if they don't see MOTHER's operatives and the dude (Athos) dies? I don't mean to be overly critical, since I thought the adventure was entertaining, but I do want to point out some holes in running it as an adventure.

I'm going to give a point for each entry. They are really excellent, but the referee will have some work to do to patch up the holes.

Rune 14, CleverNickName 13

And with that, I declare Rune the winner by a hair. I'll be the first to admit that scoring is arbitrary due to my personal interpretations of ingredient use and methods of allotting points. CleverNickName, I don't want you to be discouraged as this is the second time I just barely voted against you. I think you are a great writer and I do enjoy your work, and you could have easily have gone to the next round. If you had just tightened up a couple of ingredients you could have taken this. Please continue to participate.

 

[Rune]

Whew! Close match. I kinda thought that would swing the other way. More exposition later. Sleep now.

 

[CleverNickName]

Congratulations @Rune! It was a close match for sure, but I agree completely with @Deuce Traveler : it came down to the ingredients, and yours was just a little bit more polished. Time was against me this year, but I'll see you guys in the ring next time around.

 

[Rune]

Spoiler: Commentary on my own R1M2 entry

I was kind of in a weird place with this set of ingredients. Kind of the reverse of where I usually find myself with these things, really. All of the ingredients kind of fell into place for me (in that, while some of the ingredients relied on alternate definitions and/or interpretations, they all were going to be directly relevant to the PCs). Sort of. I actually came up with three sets.

First, I had a wuxia-themed set involving a drunken master devotee of the Monkey King, a woman pretending to swindle the Monkey King’s castle (located in the mountain he was trapped under, of course). In reality, her intent was to assassinate the Monkey King. Somehow. It looked like it could be fun. But there was no way I was going to be able to do it in 24 hours, nor 750 words.

Next, I thought of a noir private investigation adventure. The first four ingredients fit in pretty well. A femme fatale. A red herring. A tryst. A speakeasy. The last two kind of worked, too: A boss who fancied himself an occultist. A raid by the feds. But they just weren’t feeling quite right and the boss, in particular, didn’t really have a good reason to be. They just weren’t quite gelling for me. I still felt pretty good about my ability to do a fun noir adventure, but I decided to try one more set.

What if I had an overprotective mother in computer form? A fake threat? Assignation of alcohol-spiked resources by the computer? A subterranean vault under siege? A frivolously drunken philosopher/spiritual leader? Literal timelessness! It was all going to work.

So, after the first few minutes, when I was figuring out what the entry was going to be, I didn’t have to put much energy (or time!) into making the ingredients work. I did ultimately go back and give some of the looser interpretations some alternate manifestations for the reader to latch onto. For instance, a fabricated clandestine meeting with a nonexistent Outsider (at 00:00, no less). A patsy in the form of the drunken philosopher.

My problem, once I got into it, was that the adventure itself seemed lacking. With every draft, I was not only fighting the word count, but also trying to expand the roles of the PCs. Make it less linear. Give the PCs a reason to do it in the first place.

As I developed her, it became clear that as MOTHER gaslighted the PCs, she was herself becoming more and more paranoid and undone (irrevocably?). Therein lay the adventure.

How to get the adventurers involved? Don’t give them a choice! Complete freedom to do what they will, sure, but the PCs begin the adventure accused of a crime (that MOTHER actually did) and unable to acquire food (except through unsanctioned means). Yup, they’d have to do something.

I knew early on that the adventure was going to need to be a one-shot (a gamble for usability, but at least it’s right in the subtitle). I did include a reason for the capsule to be underground (fueled by draining the planet’s depths), but no reason why space-faring wasn’t a better survival option. I had to be content with the idea that this version of humanity invented controlled time-dilation instead of space flight. A version of time-dilation that didn’t involve approaching the speed of light, apparently. It would have to do.

I was pretty proud of the entry as I posted it, but that’s not inherently indicative of much. I’ve been proud of some clunkers in the moment of posting. Only time and perspective would tell if I had managed to expand the adventure well enough without cutting out too much context.

Edited to add: One more thing that amused me as I was writing was the likelihood that there was initially a 49% chance the PCs wouldn’t be problematic for MOTHER (by her own calculations, anyway), but by taking measures to interfere with them, their response (which was certain to imperil the primary directives) became a certainty.

@CleverNickName, you really put up some tough competition, there. You may have had less time to work on it than you would have liked, but the crux of the adventure was very solid. I really didn’t have a feeling for which entry I thought would win. But I was already mentally writing words of congratulations to offer my opponent as I read the judgement.

Good show!