Holiday Iron DM!!!! {Final Judgment Posted!}

[Wicht]

Congragulations Mirthcard!

Are you ready to go?

 

[KDLadage]

Re: KDladage vs. mirthcard - judgment

KDLadage vs. mirthcard – Round One – Judgment

Anyway, I just have to begin by saying that Kdladage’s entry caused me some consternation. . . “Should I just immediately disqualify the entry because it kind of violates the spirit of the rules?” I mean, it isn’t really one adventure – but a series of encounters meant to be played out over the course of a larger campaign – which kind of circumvents the idea of making the ingredients work together by spreading them out over many levels.

But, in the end, I decided not to disqualify the entry right off the back – but in my mind I knew Kdladage would be working from a deficit –and entry would have to work hard to win.

.
.
.

Kdladage’s entry, despite being sprawled out over a great period of time has a “rail-roading” feeling that I chafe against – while it is good to include suggestions as to how to handle “uncooperative” parties – it seems to me that the series of events are so far apart and heavy-handed as to be contrived – I think most players would go along “because it seems that is where the DM wants us to go.” In addition, the naga seems completely shoe-horned into the scenario – esp. after the effort to include the snake-skin clues throughout – that they are the skins of the naga offspring (why would they keep having offspring?) that he kills for his own amusement seems like a pretty thin motivation.

Finally, mirthcard’s explanation of the scroll of miracle – is better than Kdladage’s. Such a powerful object even though it is “only” a scroll – either needs a strong connection to the rest of the adventure – or a backstory in and of itself.

In the end, I have to give this round to mirthcard.

Kdladage, I admire you attempt to do something a little “different” – but in the end it really fell short of being a neatly tied together adventure.

An honest and fair judgement. I bow to you, sir!

Go get 'em Mirthcard!

 

[incognito]

KD: FWIW, I though that the concept of having the ingredients disperesed over time, to become a cohesive story thread later was inventive! It can be difficult to expres in a tight knit adventur epackage though.

Now that the round is over: Can I get a critique on my attempt at this set of ingredients over in the home game...pretty please?

maybe one from mirthcard as well.

Since both of you have USED the ingredients, your opinions are pretty relavent, in my mind.

 

[Mirth]

Re: KDladage vs. mirthcard - judgment

I can't believe I won. Finally in a Iron DM and I actually made it to the second round over a KD who is a creative powerhouse (Umbragia rocks ). Thanks Nem & thanks KD (see more comments in my reply to your post).

On to some constructive replies:

KDLadage vs. mirthcard – Round One – Judgment
Mirthcard’s entry begins weakly – I mean, the whole “someone approaches you in a tavern” thing has been done to death, came back as the cool “retro” thing to do and then died again – or at least it should have.

Ok, ok. Guilty as charged. I'm an ol skooler when it comes to D&D (started playing in 1979 in 5th grade). I can understand it's not your taste, but I'm a sucker for the old tried and true cliches. Point taken and it won't come up in following rounds (at least not on purpose).

However, from there mirthcard’s entry really takes off and is quite impressive. The “need” for Jingquan to hide her true form from the party, and the likely confusion resulting from the nighttime korobokuru attack and her assuming her naga form should make for a great encounter in and of itself – but the unknown race again time to defeat the evil naga before she can create a simulacrum of the dragon was a excellent touch and works the ingredients together really well.

Thanks. When I first went into this scenario, I was going to do a Time Bandits thing with it, because of the first ingredient. It was called "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" and revolved around the PCs running across and then being stuck in an otherworldly bar where they contested against a group of dwarves to track down a bunch of items and win a chance at spinning the wheel of fortune and getting great (or not so great) stuff at the end. Let's say an ol skool return to the first time you might have encountered a deck of many things in 1st ed, but with a bit more plot involved.

Because of the naga and the monk, I knew that I wanted to have an asian spin to it. I conceived of the bar as a place for the Celestial Bureaucracy to blow off steam and relax, since they were usually so organized and lawful, but the element of luck always played a big part in their pantheon. The bartender would be a Naga. The monk would be a god in disguise and so on. The bar would appear on the prime material plane every 100 years or so, the gods would know of it and arrive there to party, some mortals (like the dwarves) would be invited as entertainment, and some mortals (the PCs) would just stumble across it. But something didn't feel right. It kept feeling more like a location description, rather than a plot-driven adventure. I tried to brainstorm...

I began researching the other ingredients that were spells and found that simulacrum was a 7th level Wiz/Sorc spell. Knowing that Wizzes weren't in OA, I looked up Sorc in OA and saw the mention of sorcerors being descended from dragons. I had also read that female Shinomen Nagas can appear as human. At that point, my concept of Xiangkou and Jingquan came together, along with their mistaken identity problem, forcing a rewrite of the whole scenario (also why I was so close to the deadline).

From there, everything just sort of fell together -the korobokuru, the blue brain pearl (just love saying that), the evil Xiangkou, the igloo in the jungle, etc. Typing it out was what took the longest. I probably kept the bar in the beginning just because of the first scenario idea.

Finally, mirthcard’s explanation of the scroll of miracle – is better than Kdladage’s. Such a powerful object even though it is “only” a scroll – either needs a strong connection to the rest of the adventure – or a backstory in and of itself.

I thought that was my weakest use of an ingredient, actually. I couldn't figure out how to shoehorn it in there and not overpower everything else, so I left it as a DM choice.

In the end, I have to give this round to mirthcard.

Thanks nemmerle It was a tortuous few days waiting for that verdict, let me tell you. But I'm ecstatic now!

 

[Mirth]

Re: Re: KDladage vs. mirthcard - judgment

An honest and fair judgement. I bow to you, sir!

Go get 'em Mirthcard!

WOW! Thanks KD ... I think you did a great job and I humbly accept this win. It's really hard to bring together all of the elements and make them ALL work. Some of yours definitely stood out better than mine, so I consider it a tough win overall. Thanks again. On to round two

 

[Mirth]

Congragulations Mirthcard!

Are you ready to go?

Holy Crap! Now I have to face Wicht

I guess I'm ready when you are, big guy.

Still a little dizzy, though.

 

[el-remmen]

Wicht? Mirthcard? Still around?

Quickbeam? Arwink?

 

[Wicht]

I am here and should be for the rest of the day.

 

[Mirth]

I'm here (just wet myself, thinking about facing Wicht)

 

[incognito]

REALLY looking forward to Wicht vs. Mirthcard

Mirthcard - excellent job, I have to say! Including good exposition.