IRON DM 2019: Round 1, Match 3, MortalPlague vs lowkey13 @MortalPlague and @lowkey13 , you have 24 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 750 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.
Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 675. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 525. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 375. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; I will ignore everything after.
Your ingredients are:
• Bleeding Moon
• Lifeless Doll
• Forbidden Library
• Missing Puzzle Piece
• Master of the Seas
• Manufactured Chaos
Ingredients:
Bleeding Moon
Lifeless Doll
Forbidden Library
Missing Puzzle Piece
Master of the Seas
Manufactured Chaos Torpor A science fiction adventure
Chiasmus Station; an illegal mining outpost built on a moon orbiting a barren planet. The yield was minerals at first, but when they pierced the crust they began bringing up blood. The startled miners found they were drilling into Czerentoag, an ancient, malevolent creature who once sailed the solar currents, leaving destruction in his wake. The drill was rousing him from his hibernation.
While sleeping, Czerentoag’s psionic electrokinesis allowed him control the android CZ-4, who began to interfere with attempts to stop the drilling. Things became violent. Before CZ-4 could murder them all the crew killed the generator, stole a piece from the drill, and encrypted the archives to prevent erasure. With the crew dead Czerentoag tried to have CZ-4 re-activate the generator, but before he could, he succumbed to torpor.
This adventure tracks Czerentoag’s awareness; PC actions may raise or lower it.
0–Torpor (starting point) 1–Dreaming: Czerentoag can puppet CZ-4. 2–Stirring: Czerentoag can control simple systems; manipulating doors, triggering alarms, powering down computers. 3–Rising: Czerentoag can force systems to override their safeties and break. He can slice people in half with doors. He can cycle and open the airlock, exposing Chiasmus station to vacuum. 4–Awake: Czerentoag begins to sail through the cosmos once more.
Important: The drill has a nanite coating to help pierce hard materials, but it also blocks Czerentoag from controlling it directly.
ADVENTURE
The PCs are hired to investigate why Chiasmus Station went dark.
Chiasmus Drilling Station has been offline for a month. The exterior of the station, like much of the moon, is crusted in ice. Once the PCs get through the ice they must pry open the airlock doors and force their way into the station. The interior has a thin layer of frost on everything.
POWER
The generator is easily found and activated. The airlock doors automatically close and begin to cycle. Heaters turn on throughout Chiasmus. Awareness up.
DRILL
In the center of the station the drill is silent, poised above a hole in the carapace. The missing drill piece is with the crew remains at maintenance.
ARCHIVES
The systems boot up fine. PCs may attempt to decrypt the archives, but the progress is slow and difficult. Decryption will reveal the ancient and malevolent nature of Czerentoag. It will also reveal that severe cold can reduce his awareness.
MAINTENANCE
A dozen insectoid predators (hitchhiked aboard a supply shuttle) are thawing out here, put into hibernation by the cold. They dragged the bodies of the crew here and picked their bones clean, though the blunt trauma wounds on the skulls are inconsistent with the predators’ jaws. The missing drill piece is here.
For every area the PCs investigate before this, three predators have thawed and slipped into the ventilation ducts. There is a cache of heavy liquid nitrogen canisters stored here.
CZ-4
CZ-4 is a hollow android shell controlled by Czerentoag. His cybernetic brain and motors are missing. He will resist any attempts to examine him.
Czerentoag needs the generator to remain online to keep thawing him out. CZ-4 will stop any attempts to shut down the power. CZ-4 will also search for the drill piece and use it to re-activate the drill.
DRILLING
Every three rounds of drilling; Awareness up.
CZ-4 does not need to remain at the drill’s controls to keep it going. He tries to prevent the PCs from shutting down the drill or the power generator. The thawed insectoids, attracted by the noise will attack here, trying to pick off lone PCs. Czerentoag will manipulate doors and make it difficult to help. If Czerentoag is rising, he will try to kill the PCs.
Any explosives used by the PCs will cause Awareness up. Any extreme cold applied to the carapace will cause Awareness down.
By shutting down both drill and power, and applying cold, the PCs can put Czerentoag back into hibernation.
The PCs can override the drill’s safeties and force it into overdrive. If they successfully do this, the drill can be used to bore a hole directly through Czerentoag and stop the ancient creature for good. If Czerentoag reaches awake, this is the only way to stop him.
Less heroic PCs could opt to simply escape. While Czerentoag won’t show them any mercy, he won’t go out of his way to stop them from leaving. The PCs will hear about horrific spacefaring accidents over the next few months which are all thanks to their failure.
@lowkey13: What a great fit for an Emperor’s New Clothes scenario! Looks like tons of fun!
@MortalPlague: Solid structure. Looks like it would make for a great sci-fi horror. Serious Alien/Aliens vibes with the murderous android and the predators in the ducts.
Both "What a Troubleshooting Fool Believes" (henceforth "Fool") and "Torpor" fall within the 750 word limit. Both are well edited and well structured. Well done on both fronts. Adventure Flow & Potential
This is my subjective "what did I generally like/dislike about the adventures" section of the judgment. I'll start "Fool". "Fool" gives us useless equipment, impossible demands, enforced backstabbing, and payoff that, when it comes at all, is incredibly, pointlessly stupid. In other words, "Fool" provides the quintessential Paranoia experience. Paranoia, by its very nature, provides built-in hooks (Master Computer has a job for you!) and stakes (Master Computer will kill you for doing anything wrong. Or for doing most things right) and complications (your secret society wants you to accomplish X, hopefully without Master Computer or your teammates/rivals finding out and killing you). The structure of the adventure leaves a little to be desired; wander around Alpha Complex until a robot literally named DEUS EX shows up to provide a map, and the musical geniuses behind "Maneater" pick a fight. However, the complications and on-the-nose references are fun and fitting, the puzzle at the end is actually pretty clever, and I've already covered the payoff. It's a shame there wasn't more room for a little more guidance on the briefing and de-briefing, which are always some of the best scenes in a Paranoia adventure. Overall, however, this is a really great adventure that shows off what the system does so well.
"Torpor" is, likewise, a classic take on a classic genre, in this case, the "scary monster in a spooky space station". It ticks all of the usual boxes wih gusto: an android that cannot be trusted, inhuman monsters stalking the vents and ducts, and the station itself acting out of malevolence. It's like Aliens meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. Very fun, very hectic stuff. My main concern here is that while the hook and stakes are perfectly fine on their own, I worry that they may end up working against each other. The sort of unscrupulous band of mercenaries that would take a job to investigate an illegal mining station going dark also seems less likely the sort that would stick their necks out to stop an evil entity on their own. This would still be fine if "escape" was almost as difficult a goal as "heroics", but the line calling out Czerentoag not going out of their way to stop them I think diminishes that somewhat. Or maybe if their failure in some what more directly impacted them rather than second-hand stories meant to simply give them shame. Ultimately, though, this is as fantastic an adventure as "Fool", especially if the PCs are putting in the extra effort to figure out how to stop the creature, especially since there appear to be multiple ways to accomplish that. The Ingredients
Once again, it's looking like this is probably going to come down to the ingredients.
Bleeding Moon
One thing "Fool" does well is tie its ingredients together in such a way that several elements are pulling double duty. It's a clever way to incorporate ingredients together. Unfortunately, I don't really get the sense that the moon is "bleeding". At least not in the sense that Czerentoag does in "Torpor". That alone makes it a better ingredient usage; tying it directly to the main antagonist of the adventure makes it all the stronger.
Lifeless Doll
Admiral BERN-I is "Fool's" lifeless doll, and its status as such is the exact sort of idiotic twist that makes Paranoia adventures so unique. That the Troubleshooters have to "Weekend at Bernies" with it around Alpha Complex lest face the wrath of Master Computer (and the fact that everyone else has to play along too) makes it an even more fun complication. Meanwhile CZ-4 in "Torpor" plays a pretty central role as Czerentoag's main avatar on the station (at least until it begins to Rise). Both are cleverly utilized ingredients that are key pieces of their respective adventures.
Forbidden Library
The Forbidden Archives versus the Encrypted Archives. Both are clever uses of the ingredient, but I have to give the point to "Fool" here; its Archives are a little more central to the adventure, and their nature as Forbidden a bit more of a complication in the lives of the Troubleshooters (ie, they're not even supposed to know about the Archives).
Missing Puzzle Piece
In "Torpor" this is the missing piece of the drill. As a macguffin that drives not just the plot but the motivations of both CZ-4 and the PCs, not to mention that the PCs have to make a tough decision on whether to keep it hidden or use it to try to kill Czerentoag, it's a pretty solid use. It just doesn't match the "Puzzle" aspect as used in "Fool". The Pink Moon is an actual puzzle piece, and it ultimately serves as more than just a video-gamey insert-key-in-lock item, as the Troubleshooters need to figure out that the "Pink Moon" is pulling double-duty for both the Pink Heart and Blue Moon spaces. In any other type of game a puzzle relying on that kind of meta-gamey esoteric breakfast cereal knowledge would be frustrating and kind of awful; once again though it kind of fits Paranoia perfectly.
Master of the Seas
I'll admit this was a tough ingredient, and it seems like this was a struggle for both entries. I'll give the slight edge to "Torpor" though; using "seas" as a metaphor for "space" helps Czerentoag fit the ingredient pretty well. In "Fool" BERN-I's status as an "Admiral" is ultimately pointless (though admittedly hilarious, given Alpha Complex is an underground facility). Also, this was a perfect opportunity for Captain and Tennille or Commodores reference that went wasted.
Manufactured Chaos
Here, "Fool" gets the edge again, though it cheats a little to get there ("Manufactured Chaos" could almost be considered Paranoia's subtitle). The Secret Societies here provide most of the impetus for the chaos: each Troubleshooter is given a different motivation or responsibility to ensure the mission's success/failure, and while that's a feature of any Paranoia adventure, it's played up to amusing effect here. I have a bit more trouble parsing where the Chaos in "Torpor" is, and how exactly it's being Manufactured. My best guess for its intended use is the awakening of Czerentoag, and as a "failure" condition that's not a bad use for an ingredient, but I would have liked it to be a little more clear the kind of chaos a fully awake and released Czerentoag is likely to create.
In Conclusion
These are both great entries; they both do a really good job with the ingredients, and both are filled with a lot of potential for ending in a lot of different ways. I think, ultimately, "Torpor" is a slightly better adventure on balance, but "Fool" does slightly better on the ingredients.
Ultimately, "Fool"'s lead in ingredients edges out "Torpor"'s lead in overall design. Again, this is was an extremely close match that very easily could have gone either way.
Mortal Plague, you've not only won these twice, but both times you steamrolled over me to do it. So I have no business giving you any Iron DM advice. You know what you're doing, and it shows. "Torpor" was a really great entry that just had the misfortune of coming against a slightly greater entry.
As it is however, I say congratulations to lowkey13 for making it through the next round! Keep up the great work!
IronSky and Psykick, you have 24 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 750 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.
Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 675. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 525. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 375. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; I will ignore everything after.
My evaluation will focus on the use of the ingredients, especially their imaginative use in a way that seems natural and creative. I value playability highly, and hope to see adventures that give good opportunities for memorable player engagement with the overall story.
