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Message: <blockquote data-quote="phoamslinger" data-source="post: 4989291" data-attributes="member: 2342">better something than nothing, IVV.I'll take a better look at this tomorrow.edit: judgment done.  waiting on the other two judges now...[sblock]ok.  InVinoVeritas, you went way over the time limit and your entry clearly needs more work (it doesn’t even have a title).  and your opponent finished and submitted his entry within the time constraints.  the first two are bad, but the third one is the real killer.  but as an intellectual exercise, let’s take a look at what we have.Wulf has a full adventure laid out with hooks and a storyline.  IVV has a side adventure that could actually be dropped into any high end dungeon as a side encounter.IngredientsExhumed Grave Wulf’s entry used the grave as a plot hook to motivate the players, but it never really comes into the story much beyond that.  IVV’s entry used the partially exhumed grave as the resting place of a dracolich which held the beholder in place.  so this was actually a much stronger usage.  point to IVVTail End Wulf’s Tail End is the back of the mine where the arsenic was being dug out.  IVV’s Tail End lies in the Grave and is the threat that holds the Beholder and the rest of the story depends on more than just the tail end not being revealed.  again, point to IVV.Unmentionable Services Wulf’s services were not to tell the other side.  IVV’s services involved “a magic skin that turns someone into a goat, a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity, a bladder of warm milk, and a scroll of Remove Curse.”  truth be told, I’m almost glad that IVV didn’t have more time to go into details on this one.  blech!  unmentionable in the extreme.  third point to IVV.Unhappy Goatherd Wulf’s Goatherd was a disguise, made acceptable by the presence of Kip’s goats.  IVV’s entry wasn’t particularly inspiring either, but at least it was an actual Goatherd, not a Rakshasa pretending to be a Goatherd.  not a strong point, but an edge to IVV.  Cross-Eyed Beholder I was wondering how you were going to pull this one off.  Wulf’s curse and subsequent mis-fire rules were a much better idea than IVV’s cage trap that pushed the eye stalks around.  point to Wulf on this one.Gloves of Arrow SnaringI can see where a Rakshasa would go out of his or her way to keep their hands on this item, to the exclusion of a whole bunch of other things.  it is the Gloves which provide a background for most of Wulf’s storyline.  IVV, stopping an arrow of slaying from killing the Beholder, wouldn’t it have been easier to just put a tower shield in front of the trap?  and I personally can’t stand High Magic campaigns where even the lowly Goatherders have magic items lying around worth hundreds or thousands of gold pieces.  Wulf got the point on this one as well.so at the end of the ingredients, we have Wulf with two points, but IVV with three and an edge.Connections:Wulf your Grave didn’t tie to the End or the Goatherd very much at all, other than lipservice.  and I found Your services were fairly weak as well.  the Beholder that stole the Arrow which drives the rest of the adventure works ok, but even though you’ve got the various ingredients dropped in here and there, they really didn’t connect for me all that well.IVV, your Grave holds the Tail End (of a monster, but that monster is just a mcguffin that never really comes into play) keeping the Beholder trapped and for it to escape the trap, it needs the players to perform Services for the Goatherd to get the Gloves.Generally if I can string all six ingredients into a single (mostly) grammatically correct sentence, that’s doing pretty well.  another nod towards IVV’s entry.UsageWulf’s entry clearly dominates here.  IVV, if I were playing in a game and walked into the setting you’ve described, I’d laugh my a$$ off at the monster and walk back out of the room.  but it would be worthy of a laugh, once the situational stupidity of the beholder and the whole scenario was exposed to light.  we the players would be asking the DM, “What were you thinking…” and it would have hung around as one of those bizarre stories of failed adventure hooks for generations to come…  not a point there, but maybe half a grin.Wulf.  the biggest problem I had with your entry, more than anything else was your 7th ingredient, and that’s because it’s such a major dominating part of the whole storyline: Kip the Rakshasa.  your entry is great and would make a fine adventure to run (especially since we three judges are actively trying to find some really tough finale ingredients for the end).  I was and am impressed that you came up with anything with all six ingredients, much less that it was coherent and at least tried to string them all together.  but there's a lot of extra stuff in there as well and without that extra stuff, your adventure based only on the six main ingredients just doesn't happen.  each judge has his own grading system.  mine looks, more than anything else, at the six core items.  everything else is just touchy feely stuff.IVV.  I think it was Napoleon who said “Ask me for anything but time.”  in my opinion, the basic ideas you had for stringing together the ingredients without a whole lot of extra stuff would have been a much stronger entry than Wulf’s and would have put you into the final running, if you could just have polished out the little bumps along the way and come up with a finished product within the time.  a couple of your items were weak, but overall you had a much tighter usage of all six and used more of them better, without needing to drag in more stuff (Kip, the duergar, etc).for these final three rounds, all three of us (Radiating Gnome, Nifft, and I) will be submitting a judgment.  best two out of three judgments wins.  even though IVV went over on time, on the basis of the ingredients and the way he used them, I would have given him the round on a wide margin - Iron DMs are not setting specific and a side trek or single encounter is just as valid as an entire campaign setting would be.  it is the usage of the ingredients and ONLY the ingredients that should make up the core of an entry. but due to all the other negative factors involved with IVV’s entry, since my other two judges haven’t posted yet, here’s what I’m going to do.in radically different ways, I found both entries needed a lot more work to be what I would consider a winning entry.if either of the other two judges gives InVinoVeritas a win, or even if one of them is undecided and puts forth a split decision (like mine), then I will give IVV the win for this round.  but if they both throw it to Wulf (which I find rather likely in all honesty), then the decision will be unanimous and Wulf will advance.so which of these two advances will now depend on RG and Nifft (which was the case anyway, come to think).[/sblock]</blockquote>

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