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

[Wicht]

Mostly I am happy to have gotten past my Round Two curse! I also felt Wicht's entry didn't break any new ground, which is unusual-- and why I am sitting here feeling like he took it easy on me out of pity. I will do my best with the chance you've afforded me!

Took it easy on You!!!

You are talented enough that you don’t need my pity

Truth be told, I never try to break new ground or do anything that original, I just take the ingredients, see what events, people or places they suggest to me and then run with it. I do think however that the final stage in my adventure was quite provocative and full of potential for role-playing. A City in which a comet has just crashed, spreading chaos and bringing darkness. DMed right it would be a campaign centerpiece. It is granted, not completely original, catastrophes of such a nature have been movie fodder for years. But it does not normally, IMO happen in most DnD games.

On the other hand, you have been immersed in Cthulhuesque stories for a while and I have always found for some reason that Lovecraft and company always gets me at my most horrifically creative and your entries have both been excellent so I will surmise that you too have the same thing happen…

 

[Pielorinho]

Wicht, your adventure DID have some good scenes for roleplaying in it, and I could see playing through it and having fun. This was a case where you lost not because of a weakness in your adventure, but because of a strength in Wulf's.

I'm enjoying the entries in this tournament more uniformly than I've enjoyed the entries in any other. It makes judging tough, but these would be some easy adventures to steal from.

Daniel

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

And I got how you were using hysteria, but something about Greta's hysterical attacks just didn't quite ring true to me. I'm not sure why -- it just came across as her "playing to the camera," if you see what I'm saying, the NPC turning to the PCs and saying, "Here's a clue, fellas!"

Fair enough.

If I had more time, and if I didn't feel it would ultimately have diluted the entry, I would have played more to what was going on in the back of my mind: that Greta was both Chaos Beast and undergoing a change to Vampire. Her initial hysterical reaction is to the roses thrown at her (a rarely used weakness of vampires).

I backed off of this (leaving in only two references to roses) and chickened out: her psychological state has just been bubbling along for a while now, and only recent events with Dora (possibly finding out her secret, stealing another role away from her, the interference of Dept. 7) has really given rise to hysteria and her loss of control.

I leave it up to the DM to slowly transition from "hysteria, loss of willpower, paroxysms" to "That's not a facial tic-- SHE'S A FRIGGIN CHAOS BEAST!" In my mind, they were naturally linked, in terms of "scene."

The hysteria clue was also pretty much the deciding factor that my villain (and all of her victims) would be female. It played a much greater part in my thinking, apparently, than I was able to communicate.

Thank goodness for mood! That must have been a subconscious "read" of the judge.

Wulf

 

[Wicht]

Wicht, your adventure DID have some good scenes for roleplaying in it, and I could see playing through it and having fun. This was a case where you lost not because of a weakness in your adventure, but because of a strength in Wulf's.

I am not upset about losing. I thought Wulf’s adventure was superior to mine when I first read it. I am just aghast that he would think I took it easy on him

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Truth be told, I never try to break new ground or do anything that original…

Dryad, ship's mast... was that not you?

Of course, it was a curse, so it would only get you tossed out of the tournament these days.

Wulf

 

[Wicht]

I just meant I do not purposely sit down and think, "what would be original?" Often, two ingredients put together make a perfectly logical but unique idea, - ie. dryad in a shipmast. When I see something like that of course I use it. But most often I think much as I do when planning my own home adventures, not "What is original," but "What makes a good story?"

 

[el-remmen]

Dryad, ship's mast... was that not you?

Of course, it was a curse, so it would only get you tossed out of the tournament these days.

Wulf

Sorry, but the Dryad in the ship's mast was an idea from the original 1st Ed Book of Lairs from the mid-80's - and I remember when I judged that while I did not take away any "points" for idea (he might have never seen that product) - he certainly did not gain any points for originality.

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In other news, my upcoming entry is long. . . . But I hope it is just as good as it is long. . . kind of like my. . . uh, cadillac.

 

[Pielorinho]

Ahh -- I'd never heard that roses were a weakness of vampires. I actually asked my wife if she understood the tulips reference at the end of your story, since she'd seen that flick about the Making of Nosferatu (I've seen the original but not the fictionalized account of Schreck as an actual vampire). Both of us were confused by it, but figured it had some significance.

Now we know.
Daniel

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

In other news, my upcoming entry is long. . . . But I hope it is just as good as it is long. . .

I am hoping you lose.

Cause then, I can lose to Rune, completing my Loser's Trifecta.


Wulf

 

[Rune]

I am hoping you lose.

Cause then, I can lose to Rune, completing my Loser's Trifecta.


Wulf

You know it's gotta be some special sort of tournament when Wulf is the underdog. (Though I'm not really saying he is the underdog...)

As soon as I saw the Round 2 line-up, I thought, [Golly], I really wish I was judging this tournament!