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="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 1170347" data-attributes="member: 259">Wow, you guys aren’t starting me off easy, are you?  I was hoping my first match would be an easy judgment, and instead, I get two entries that are not only both high-quality, but are also eerily similar to one another.  Luckily for me, one of the entries made a very serious error, making my call much easier.  Let’s begin.First, I want to talk about some overall issues.  Both entries were well organized and reasonably easy to read.  I liked Nemm’s touch of describing in the beginning how he’d use ingredients; I didn’t like Dave’s apology prefacing his adventure.  If you need to apologize for an entry (hint:  you don’t need to apologize for an entry), do it in a separate post.  On the other hand, Nemm’s entry contained enough typos and missing words that it was in places difficult to read.Each entry contained one strong spectacle; predictably (and wisely) both spectacles occur at the climax of the adventure.  Nemm’s funeral scene, with the funeral pyre, gathering clouds, and sudden appearance of the master of the hunt, was very cinematic; Dave’s climactic scene, with the glowing greeny-black heart of the forest surrounded by shadowy minions, was also very cool.  Because Nemm’s spectacle hinged on one of the ingredients, and because it seemed more dramatic, I consider it stronger.Characters, on the other hand, were Dave’s strong suit in this entry.  The satyr, the centaur, the unicorn, and the ranger-shadow were all distinct and interesting.  Nemm’s adventure had few detailed NPCs, and only one of them was really relevant to the plot.  Furthermore, while Nemm’s ranger-shadow had a more detailed background that Dave’s ranger-shadow (note that ranger-shadow wasn’t an ingredient <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />), his motive was a little weak.  I would have preferred Nem’s ranger to have had a better reason for going to the Dark Realms than wanting power.  While Dave’s ranger-shadow was kind of flat, at least his motives (I’m an evil undead, duh!) were more plausible to me.In terms of pathos, both of you play with different themes here.  Dave’s adventure, hinging around asking an old senile unicorn to sacrifice his life for the greater good, was poignant.  Nemm, however, played up the theme of betrayal quite well:  once you get past the ranger-shadow’s initial flimsy motives, his betrayal of his master is uber-icky.  And betrayal was one of the ingredients, after all.  Points for Nem.Okay, onto the specific ingredients.Insane Unicorn:  Nem had the clever idea of having the insane unicorn be a red herring:  there really wasn’t an insane unicorn at all.  That was a fine stretch of the ingredients.  However, I was a little confused as to the mechanics:  how come the shadow-mastiffs are all shadowy, but the shadow-unicorn is golden and indistinguishable from a real unicorn?  The lack of an explanation for this weakened Nem’s use of this ingredient.  Dave’s insane unicorn was much stronger, I thought – in fact, it was his strongest use of an ingredient, with a great moral dilemma.Shadow Mastiffs:  Nem’s kidnapped shepherd’s dogs turned shadow was a cool touch, and the shepherd was a great if minor character.  I didn’t really buy the explanation about the druid taking them off for a weeklong checkup, however – first, why would the druid have taken them off, and second, how does the farmer get by without sheepdogs?  Dave’s shadow mastiffs were tied into the story better, I thought, without plausibility issues, and were pretty strong.Slow Transformation:  Both of you had a pure forest inhabited by fey slowly transforming into an evil forest via energy from a shadowy plane.  I’m not even going to try to judge this ingredient one way or the other – it’s kind of freaking me out how identically you guys used it.Betrayal:  Nem’s betrayal was at the heart of the adventure, and made me hate hate hate the betrayer.  Dave’s betrayal, on the other hand, was kind of weak, inasmuch as the betrayal was a side-effect of becoming undead.  I mean, you EXPECT undead to act evilly.  I would’ve been more impressed if Dave’s unicorn had been betraying the forest by refusing to die, or something like that.Funeral:  Again, Nem put the funeral at the heart of the adventure, turning it into a climactic and frightening scene with various possible outcomes based on player activities.  Dave’s funeral was clearly an afterthought, mentioned only in passing in the context of the funeral rites that needed to be performed over the dead unicorn, and was his weakest actual use of an ingredient.Broken Teeth:  I was kind of expecting someone to use broken teeth as a location, possibly as standing stones, and Nem didn’t disappoint – but he surpassed my expectations by turning them into actual broken teeth at the same time.  I didn’t really understand why the ritual needed to take place there, and therefore this great image was weakened slightly by not being necessary to the story; still and all, it was pretty cool.  Dave’s broken teeth, on the other hand, were-- um--Dave?  Did you forget about the broken teeth?  I’ve read through your entry twice and searched it, and the broken teeth don’t appear anywhere.Skipping an ingredient is a cardinal sin in these tournaments.  I think that Nem probably still would have won a narrow victory if you’d done a good job with the broken teeth – he used more ingredients better than you, even though you gave him a good run for his money.  But with the missing ingredient, it becomes a very clear win for Nemmerle.Dave, again, no need to apologize:  other than the missing ingredient, you had a very strong entry, enough so that you challenged the defending champion and gave me a hard time deciding.  I hope to see you in future tournaments.Nem, congratulations; your entry was as strong as ever, with some great scenes, unusual backgrounds, open-ended plots, and plenty of possibilities for future adventures.  I look forward to judging you next entry!</blockquote>

Verification