Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gregor" data-source="post: 5881805" data-attributes="member: 11751">Gregor's JudgementRound 2, Match 1Phoamslinger’s ‘The Favor’ vs. Piratecat’s ‘Repo the Seal’ vs. UselessTriviaMan’s ‘Royal Pains’Apologies all around for the extreme delay in getting my post up.  I've been  really busy at work and just bought my first house (who knew there was so much paperwork!?) which has distracted me from this competition.  I apologize again for keeping you all waiting.  I'll endeavor to be way more punctual in the future.Now, onto the judgement!  Writing Style & SkillAs per usual in this contest, and especially so in the second round, the writing quality is crazy high.  There generally isn't anything constructive to recommend to you lads since you delivered such tight tales.  However, lets go through them.Phoamslinger, I think you delivered a pretty well written story.  The style was pretty slick and your concept of players as PCs within a D&D game was delivered in a pretty clever way.  The pace is snappy, the flow is good and you deftly wrote in some legitimate humor.  Piratecat, you delivered another very well written story.  You produce really great scenes that have discernible texture and you write believable and convincing characters.  Everything in the story feels the way it should and its a product of the little details you weave in.  Its sharp, snappy, witty and clever.  The only issue I noted was the weird name change at the end and I could not decide whether it was a typo or if Sheila was trying to protect Tony … but I oscillated back to it being a typo because I wasn’t convinced that Sheila was that smart based on the story.  After mulling this over, I admit that I read your thoughts following the story and saw that you in fact meant to do it.  That quenched my own thirst for the answer, but I think the lack of clarity on what you meant in the story remains.  It’s the only blemish in an otherwise air-tight tale.UselessTriviaMan, you also produced a well written and tight story.  You had excellent pacing, good scene description and frequent but appropriate scene changes.  The character dialogue is great and there was a taste of game design in the story (monster descriptions and abilities lend themselves to a great game.  Gatorbear? Vipers whose venom turn you to stone ... great stuff).Use of the Photo ElementsPhoamslinger, I think you did a pretty good job of using the pictures that were given to you.  The candles didn’t blow me away, but they made sense as a set piece in the context of a Temple to Pelor.  I like that you used the seal as a character who had lines and played a part in the story.  The desert was the least interesting image we provided in this group and I think you did exactly as much as you could have with it: a setting.  I’m torn on the earth head.  On the one hand, you used it exactly as I thought you would at the beginning of your story: the earth creature the two adventurers are searching for.  But maybe I was expecting more out of it when it was finally used.  Though I don’t think that is a picture use issue per se so I’ll mull that over in the personal enjoyment section.Piratecat, you used the same recipe for success that catapulted you over the competition in the first round: you draw your main characters and concepts from the pictures given to you, which keeps them going through the whole story.  The perfect example of this is the seal.  Also, you are deft at describing the image early in your work but you save the reveal of the illustration for a more appropriate time.  I like that you focused on the white shrouded woman’s face behind the candelabra instead of the candelabra itself.  The weakest picture is the desert, but as I mentioned in Phoamslinger’s review, there isn’t much to do with the desert picture beyond using it as a set piece.UselessTriviaMan, you did a pretty great job using the pictures.  I like that the seal was a key character (wizard's familiar) with a name and personality which was consistent across the whole story.  You used good foreshadowing of your later use of the image of the stone head when you tell us about savage Halflings who believe the flowers to be sacred and turn their enemies to stone.  As with the other competitors, the desert is a desert and while the candelabra didn't wow me, you used it fairly as the illustration for the opulent church where the royal wedding would take place.  Personal EnjoymentPhoamslinger, I think you delivered something clever, charming and legitimately funny.  I really enjoyed the perspective of characters in a game world being manipulated by the DM who the world perceives as a god.  I've sort of toyed with this idea myself and I'm impressed with how you delivered it.  There are snips of really great writing in here (e.g. “wheels turned, synapses fired, and a bit of thinking went on outside of regularly shaped boxes”) which I wish there was a little more of.  What I mean is that you have a definite talent in delivering lines like this and they turn sections of your story from just enjoyable to down right fantastic.  I would have liked to have seen more of it.  I like the running gag/theme of Asperon’s furs (blood splattered, too hot in the desert, forgets them before he goes somewhere chilly) and the teleporting was a neat way of tying together some rather divergent images especially in terms of environment/ecology.  However, the ending left me a bit cold after what I considered to be a really engaging tale that held my attention.  From my perspective, it begged for a more memorable final sentence so that you finish with a smile … maybe Asperon laying on his bedroll, staring at the skies and just mumbling to himself: “Wastelands…I told you it would be wastelands.” Piratecat, you delivered another home run with this story.  I'm not sure if you’re playing to my heritage, but I found the whole debate about where in Canada this seal might be from extremely entertaining (Tonto … haha).  I am continuously impressed by your ability to craft great stories out of a pile of bizarre images.  You distilled a storyline about a skeezy repo man, coke sniffing / idiot partners, a heist of a First Nations archaeological relic, a poor seal who wants to be eaten and a Wayne Newton criminal mob bad guy.  Can I read this novel please ...  or better yet, the movie.  But in all seriousness, this story was absolutely fantastic.  It had solid dialogue, great characters, fantastic scenes and was legitimately funny.  I don't know what else to say other than you hit it out of the park and I hope to read more stories about that repo man.UselessTriviaMan, I think you put something really great together.  You sort of blended in some fairytale type vibes along with humour, high fantasy and then a bit of a dark turn towards the end.  The frequent scene changes give the story some great pace, but things happened almost too quickly for me to get invested.  Yet, its a testament to your world building that I wanted to learn more about those halfings, the story of Gregan, the relationship between Nuki and your court wizard protagonist, etc.  I was a bit confused by the ending and since it all happened so fast, I had to go back and read it a couple of times.  I didn't really piece together what was taking place and I thought that it was just inserted as a quick way to finish off the story.  I would have happily read another five or six hundred words if the ending flowed a bit better.  That being said, the overall story was highly engaging and you have a definite knack for dialogue.  The conversations with the court wizard and Nuki, the discussion in garden with the princess, etc. were all solid.  Final VerdictBased on the use of images and my own personal enjoyment, my vote for the winner of this round is Piratecat.</blockquote>

Verification