How can Iron DM help you?

[Rune]

Did you know that there is a source of free, wildly creative, and high-quality adventurers to be found, right here, in the ENworld Forums?

Yes! Adventures created for the Iron DM Tournaments have a reputation for being tremendously inspiring, breaking convention, and providing excellent opportunities for solid gaming.

But can they be adapted for different games?

Yes! In most cases, game mechanics are included only when absolutely necessary to express the concepts of the adventures. Various editions, systems and genres have been well-represented over the past decade of Iron DM tournaments.

How can something written under such difficult restraints be that good, anyway?

You'd be surprised! Adventures forged in the Iron DM must be concise, creative, and downright fantastic because competition is very tough. Only the very good entrant can hope to be the Iron DM.

Here are but a few of my favorites:

The Invisible Tavern by Wulf Ratbane: A whimsical and allegorical adventure featuring an intriguing game of sport and a cumbersome companion.

The Dreaming Lords by Iron Sky: A surreal and fascinating step inside a dream sequence-puzzle.

untitled white tower entry by Wulf Ratbane: A tower that sucks the life out of those trapped within? How can you go wrong?

St Margaret’s Tear by seasong: Is it an adventure or a campaign? Could be both. Well detailed charaters, insidious motives, and an illithid egg. Deelicious.

The Fishy God by Rune: A dead god’s double weighs the characters for crimes they may or may not have committed, but who is really on trial, here?

untitled Memento tribute by Wulf Ratbane: Ever watch Memento? All I can say about this one is…wow!

The Dying Flame by Rune: A web of political intrigue, tragedy, and redemption that characters are sure to get caught in; but how will their presence play out?​

Good stuff, but maybe you want to test your skills?

The Qualifying Round of Iron DM 2011 is underway now!

 

[MarauderX]

My experience is there are too many ingredients forced to be in the same stew. It taught me how not to begin composing adventures.

 

[Rune]

I'm sorry to hear that. My experiences, and those of many others, differ from yours, as the links in my original post testify. But, although I have found the experience of being a contestant to have unquestionably improved my own adventure writing skill, the purpose of this thread is to call attention to the utility of these adventures for quick and easy insertion or adaptation into virtually any campaign. They're great for when a DM doesn't have much time to prepare.

I could, given time, offer many more good examples of solid and excellent Iron DM Adventures, but, perhaps it would be better to pose this question...

What are some other folk's favorites?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I can appreciate that feeling -- it's pretty typical. In most cases there are a majority of the ingredients that seem to fit together well, and then there's one that just hangs there like a hangnail, painfully obviously not quite where it belongs.

What's interesting is that, in most cases, that hangnail ingredient is different for each given entry.

I'd hate to see fewer ingredients. It's supposed to be hard. The challenge is frequently decided in how each DM handles that last ingredient, how he weaves it all together, etc.

Heck, usually, when we have the finals, we throw in a 7th, bonus ingredient because the two DMs competing are so good we need another factor to try to make distinctions between the two.

Here's an example from two years ago -- Iron Sky and InVino Veritas had this set of ingredients:

Round 4, Final Match
Damned Alley
Non-Reflective Mirror
Sleeping Watcher
Giant Mafia
Flying Piranhas
Rod of Fumbling

Bonus Ingredient:
Flaming Dragon

Brutal, right?

Here's a link to their entries (Iron Sky and InVinoVeritas) -- keep reading and you'll see how I and two other judges rated their adventures -- they're both truly dynamite.

I'd argue that without the tough ingredients we wouldn't be inspired to stretch into some of the weird and wonderful places these Iron DM adventures take us.

-rg