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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 5243683" data-attributes="member: 50987"><img src="http://perpetuallyperegrine.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/alton.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Well, ladies and gentlemen, our competition is at an end!  Our final contestants have submitted their entries into the Iron DM 2010 thread, and we now wait for the judges to, um, judge them.  Will it be Iron Sky, or ajanders?  Stay tuned!  But for now, let's take a quick look at our final entries.[Spoiler=Iron Sky]Iron Sky gives us our first Star Wars adventure in this year's competition...an inspired choice, really, but risky.  Star Wars is a highly-specific game setting, and trying to shoehorn this adventure into the Average Gamer's campaign would likely ruin it.  I expect this to cost him a few points in the "playability" category.  But for the D&D gamers who also happen to play SW, well, this entry is solid gold.This is probably my own personal hang-up, but I never like adventures that start out in a random bar.  "So you guys are, like, sitting in the Inn of the Galloping Gladiator, and this guy with a McGuffin walks in."  Yep.  That's the one.  This plot hook is a classic, to be sure, but it is also very over-used.But you know what?  That's all I can complain about.  Because the adventure is truly awesome.  Action, intrigue, ancient relics, body-snatching...it's got it all.  Plus I really like the layers of human emotion that Iron Sky gives us, with the quest to restore a child to life...GMs and players who like deep roleplay have a great deal of material to work with here.In all, this is a well-conceived adventure that tells a great story.  But since I don't play SWSE, I will probably never get to run it.[/Spoiler][Spoiler=ajanders]Ajanders puts together a really fascinating 4E adventure, that revolves around an actual, evil heart...not a metaphorical one.  Compared to Iron Sky's entry, this one is much more adaptable and playable for the average gamer...but unfortunately, it was submitted late.  But hey--a late entry is better than no entry at all.  As if their job wasn't hard enough, the judges will also have to weigh playability vs. punctuality to pick our winner.My favorite part of ajander's entry is the poisonous heart.  I like that it depends on the vulnerability and humanity of an NPC (Gaston), and I like the "we must stop the heart transplant!" plot.  There are a great deal of skill challenges to keep everyone engrossed, and enough combat to keep it exciting.One thing that I would have liked to see is more of Her, the NPC woman responsible for Gaston's broken heart.  We are given absolutely nothing about her in this adventure, and it would have been great if she could have had at least a cameo.  Perhaps she could have been the one to contact the party out of concern for her ex, joined the party to help them find Gaston, and along the way realize her feelings for him had not faded.  In the finale, she helps the party to convince Gaston to keep his own heart, not because she fears him becoming evil, but because she still loves him.What can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic.[/Spoiler]Stay tuned for the judgments!</blockquote>

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