Fall '03 Iron DM Tournament -- Wulf Ratbane is Iron DM!

[MerakSpielman]

...such matches are very difficult to judge, damn you guys....

C'mon, you're an IRON DM judge, don't be such a whiner... You need to tone down the nice guy act and get MEAN! Like, "Maybe if one of you guys had turned in a decent entry this would have been easier..." or something.

I mean, I just expected more blood splattered on the audience! And don't hand 'em band aids afterwards! I don't think the contestents will hold it against you.

Edit: I forgot the smilies. Let's see...

 

[Pielorinho]

I tell ya, I feel like I AM being brutal. I worked for four years as a writing tutor, and it's hard ignoring that training . You're not gonna get more brutal than I'm being now: if my judgments have value, it's in specificity, not insults.

Daniel

 

[el-remmen]

I've said it before, but my favorite reply to a round as an IRON DM JUDGE was "Man, It is entries like these that make me wish I could eliminate the both of you."

Anyway, Daniel, traditionally the ingredients should get harder as the rounds progress - and I don't know about anyone else - but that is what I expect.

 

[alsih2o]

I tell ya, I feel like I AM being brutal. I worked for four years as a writing tutor, and it's hard ignoring that training . You're not gonna get more brutal than I'm being now: if my judgments have value, it's in specificity, not insults.

Daniel

you rock peilo, don't let them get you down. and if they do get you down, bite their ankles like you eman it!

 

[MerakSpielman]

Now that the ingredients for the first four matches have been chosen, I have a question. I've heard from one source that the ingredients are a little on the easy side; on the other hand, Dave suggests that they were plenty difficult. Shall I ratchet up the difficulty of ingredients for the next round? Require more ingredients? Or are things fine?

It does seem that some ingredients natrually fit together. "Filthy Nursery" and "Zombie Swarm" fit because filth is associated with zombies. "Crippled Aboleth" and "Dragon Turtle" are both ocean creatures. "Bhargest" and "Nightmare" both lead into a Fiendish plotline. The first set of ingredients didn't seem to have any clear correlations, though, which is perhaps why Dave in particular thought it was difficult.

I don't have much experience participating with these contests, but the common method seems to be to fit together two or three ingredients that the writer can think of something REALLY good for, and then work in the rest as best they can. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The more clear correlations between ingredients the easier it is to come up with an initial plot and the more likely it is for the two entries to be similar.

Recommendations: It's hard to consistantly estimate the difficulty of the ingredients, but the only way I can see to do it would be to consistantly try to avoid ingredients that look like they go well together. Example, change the "filthy nursery" to the "Tidy nursery," except that would go well with familial love. But I think you get my point. This makes it more difficult, but at least it's difficult for everybody.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Judgment posted for Rune vs. Macbeth.
Daniel

As someone who reads the thread regularly and sequentially, I have to say that going back into the thread to find the judgement doesn't really ease the reading any...


Wulf

 

[Pielorinho]

I'd also noticed that several sets of ingredients seem to fit together naturally. Since they're being chosen randomly, I ascribed it to the luck of the draw. For future rounds, I'll break randomness enough to make them not fit together well; you might end up seeing instead see sets like Zombie Swarm, Forgotten Tongue, Crippled Aboleth, Nails, Field of Poppies, and Familial Love. (I at least don't see any immediate connections in that set).

No more letting you wankers randomly choose ingredients that fit well together!
Daniel

 

[el-remmen]

As someone who reads the thread regularly and sequentially, I have to say that going back into the thread to find the judgement doesn't really ease the reading any...


Wulf

Poor Pielorinho - everyone is biting and sniping at him

What a role reversal for the judge!

Anyway, I was gonna recommend adding a link to the specific ijudgement post in your post announcing that the judgement has been posted (say that five times fast) - you can get it from the address window after you've edited the original place-holder post.

 

[Pielorinho]

As someone who reads the thread regularly and sequentially, I have to say that going back into the thread to find the judgement doesn't really ease the reading any...

Fair point, Wulf; in the future, I'll give a link to the judgment when I post it. I'm going to retain the format of trying to put the judgment post as close as possible to the entries, however; when I read tournaments, I like to be able to scroll up to the entries and refer to them when I'm reading judgments.

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

Poor Pielorinho - everyone is biting and sniping at him

Oh, I don't much care about that; if writing tutoring taught me anything else, it was to discount the complaints of whiny, self-absorbed freshmen .

Daniel