Master Piece (MP) vs Curious Case of the Suspended Clergyman (CC)
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Ingredients
Artist's Studio- In MP, the artist's studio is a location the investigating PCs visit as they try to track down the robe of bones. It works, no problems there. In CC, the treatment is pretty much exactly the same -- a location the investigating PCs visit. No advantage to be gained here.
The Final Dragon - The final dragon in MP is the product of the transformation created by the Robe of bones. It's all right, but I didn't really feel the "final" part of "final dragon" in this. My favorite test for something like this is to replace the word "final" when it appears with something else -- if that makes no appreciable difference, then that part of the ingredient isn't really doing much in the adventure. In this case, replace "final" with "sugarplum" and we don't lose any real meaning in the adventure. I mean, what was really final about the dragon?
In CC, the final dragon is the form being taken by Thalidan Creed. The ingredient inventory indicates that "final modifies the nature of the beast? but I don't see that clearly in this entry. I could be missing it, but Sugarplum works just about as well here as it does in MP (and maybe better, given the way CC uses "battered". So, no advantages here, either.
Battered Manuscript - in MP the manuscript that describes the ritual and a dingus at an early stage of the adventure. It works, but it isn't especially cool. But in CC, we get a surprising use -- the manuscript has been literally battered and cooked and fed to Arian the artist. I wished for a bit more discussion of how eating the manuscript pages worked to compel Arian to complete the ritual, but overall I like this use. Advantage CC.
Suspended Clergyman- In MP, the suspended Clergyman is Hanar, banished to the bookkeeping offices of a religion because he's a paranoid nutcase who sees conspiracy behind every door. I was amused by the combination of these two ingredients, and there's a bit of fun to be had with this version of suspended -- like a suspended cop going rogue -- that is a potential I see in Hanar. It's a bit of a challenge, though -- Hanar has a lot of potential to take over driving the narrative of the adventure, rather than the PCs.
In CC, the suspended clergyman is doubled. In this case the "suspended" is literal -- at the opening of the adventure, the PCs enter the temple and see Arian suspended in air by his musical chant. Later, in a parallel ritual, they find Thalidan suspended by his own chant. Since these two are two sides of one coin, the doubled use of the ingredient isn't the problem that it often indicates. And while the more literal use of "suspended" works well, it didn't really do much more than flavor those scenes -- their suspension doesn't do anything in the story. So, cool, but I think MP has an edge here.
Checks and Balances - in MP, while I liked that Hanar was suspended from preaching, and that his banishment to the financial office was how the two ingredients, I was actually a little disappointed in reading "checks and balances" as "accounts receivable". It works, but left me sort of "meh."
In CC, the checks and balances the dual structure of the faith -- the light and the dark, both having their own high priest, and the two sides lead the faith as a joint effort. I liked this interpretation better, and it gives shape to the story, so I'm going to give CC the advantage here.
Robe of Bones - In MP, this is the The artifact that transforms a subject into a dragon. It works pretty well. I like the description of how it works. In CC, it's a magic item used to impersonate a target it's used to kill. It sounds like an interesting item, but the idea of using bones (interior) to take on the appearance (exterior) of a target is problematic, as is the idea that you have to get the robe onto the body of your target somehow -- I mean, it's interesting, but it's a long way to go and feels like it's just bending over backwards to include it as an ingredient. So advantage MP.
So, after all six ingredients, we are tied at 2-2. Awesome.
Creativity.
Both adventures are good -- they'd be interesting stories to play through and have some cool ideas. It's tough to draw big distinctions between the two.
CC has, at least to my mind, a big flaw, though. I struggle with the description of the two sides of the musical faith as "light" and "dark". It's true that since Star Wars (and really long before that) the ideas of light and dark were bigger than visual, but still, there seem to be so many other, more interesting dualities in music to capitalize on to make an interesting, two-sided faith. Major/Minor, Harmonic/Dischordant, whatever. Those would feel like they were part of the music faith. Especially when you're using terms like "chord" as a position title in the faith, why resort to light and dark for the two sides? Every time I read "light" or "dark" in regards to the music I found myself frustrated that a musical faith would be described in visual instead of aural opposites.
MP also has it's problems. I struggled with the checks and balances thing -- I was hoping for something better than accounting out of that ingredient, but in the end it satisfies the ingredient, even if it's not a very satisfactory use. It might have helped if that accounting reading were actually made more important to the whole story. Also, the temple or church was a lot less interesting. This is a modern (cyberpunk) setting, so it's theoretically possible that this is some sort of christian church, but the term "temple" is used, and that makes me thing jewish. But, really, there isn't much of any sort of flavor to this faith at all, and given it's role in the background to the story, that could really have helped.
Playability -
There are some truly striking similarities between these two adventures -- they're both investigations and have a very modern feel, even if CC wasn't explicitly set in a Cyberpunk/modern setting the way MP was. I didn't find a lot of style or playability difference between the two.
Overall --
I found these two entries had a lot of similarities -- they struggled with a lot of the same ingredients, and succeeded with a lot of the same elements. The judging has been especially difficult.
In the end, I think that I found the idea of the church of music -- a divided, dual-led church -- to an interesting element that I can really see making for some creative, interesting gaming. While I still struggle with the light/dark thing, it's still, to me, the strongest and most interesting creative element in both entries. So, by a narrow magin, I'll cast my vote for the
Curious Case of the Suspended Clergyman, by Waylander the Slayer.
Bear in mind, I was the minority report in the other semifinal match, so this might be the kiss of death, Waylander.
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-rg