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Iron DM 2012 -- R2 complete, Finals in Progress
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<blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5936852" data-attributes="member: 150"><p>This is a match between Secrets of the Green (SotG) and the Island of Dokar Muray Arthy (IDMA)</p><p></p><p>I suspect this was a particularly difficult batch of ingredients. Of course, that doesn't really matter -- both contestants get the same ingredients, so easy or hard, the match is still fair. Actually, from a judging point of view, tough ingredients make for easier judging. Easy ingredients have obvious combinations that both contestants will take on, making the differences between the two entries harder to spot and evaluate. </p><p></p><p>In this case, we have a couple of very different adventures, and very different uses (or attempted uses) of the ingredients. </p><p></p><p>So, let's start there. <strong>Ingredients</strong>. </p><p></p><p><strong>Awakened Bear </strong>- in SotG, we have Shardin Baixista, who has been turned into a bear -- while his brothers were also turned into beasts. It's a colorful, evocative story that this entry hints at, but in the final accounting a man shape shifted into a bear is not an awakened bear. It's close, certainly, but it's a point of weakness -- a better, more precise use of the ingredient might be enough to tip this ingredient towards IDMA. </p><p></p><p>So, what do we have in IDMA? An intelligent animal companion? Sharbo is an awakened animal, and so at least covers the letter of the ingredient. The stained fur spelling "sacred" to me felt a little too much like a Charlotte's Web moment ("That's Some Bear!"??). His role is to maybe help the players, but also point them in the direction of the problems on the island - herald or gatekeeper. </p><p></p><p>The image of the bear holding the pale blinded child is more evocative and visually interesting than the imagery around Sharbo, but once you're past the imagery, Baixista doesn't seem to do a whole lot in the story. He rages and fights with the Pcs, then blurts out what they need to know to move on to the next beat, and that's about it for him. His "bearness" doesn't seem to matter much in the story -- not that Sharbo's does much, either, for that matter, but at least he is what he's supposed to be. I'm going to give a slight advantage to IDMA, but it's close.</p><p></p><p><strong>Sinking Island</strong> -- In IDMA, the whole adventure is set on an island that is sinking -- animals are fleeing and acting strange, weird energies are being released, and so on. It works.</p><p></p><p>In SotG, the sinking island is a confusing encounter -- a tournament involving twelve men that I am still not sure I understand after reading over it several times. It's a "grand multilayered desert island dungeon" that spirals up with "views of the interior" created by illusionists for spectators? I'm still confused. Where are the spectators? In a spiral, what marks the end of one layer and the beginning of another? </p><p></p><p>Then, "twelve men are allowed into the dungeon, from the bottom to the top" -- are these PCs? Why 12? Does each PC act independently? Who are the other contestants? Do all the PCs have to take part? The mechanics of the contest are also confusing -- when any man reaches the next level the water level rises one level? I mean, depending upon how long it takes to cross each level, if it takes about the same amount of time for each contestant, they should each reach the next level at about the same time, and the water level would rise to the top in a instant? </p><p></p><p>Once again, like the bear, the visual imagery is a lot stronger, but in this case I just don't quite understand what your intentions are. Advantage IDMA. </p><p></p><p><strong>Esoteric Scholar</strong> - There's something really wonderful about SotG's Casked Mage. Again, very visual, very striking, very visually compelling. But, as cool as he is, he's not exactly esoteric (his studies seem to be pretty accessible to ordinary folks) and his role in the story could have been stronger. Still, once hits cask is broken and he's farting out puddings…. I mean, really. That's kinda awesome, even if it's not esoteric. </p><p></p><p>In IDMA, Lorcan the wizard, has some story information to pass along to the PCs, and he rumbles on about esoteric topics. He's nowhere near as interesting and cool as Malmsey the casked mage. His esoteric nature is there, but it doesn't really serve the story any, doesn't really do much for him. I'm going to give an edge to SotG. </p><p></p><p><strong>Family Reunion</strong> - in IDMA, a perverse family of elves gather on the island, but to be honest i'm not clear what it was that the elves were trying to do. They've obviously got some apparatus there -- my best guess is that they're trying to create a "super-mage", and complete the ritual that Dokar Muray Arthy tried and failed to do -- but that wasn't totally clear to me after a couple of readings. Anyway, there's a group of them, they're family, but that doesn't really add much to the story -- there's on reason that they HAD to be family for the sake of the story, they could just as easily have been a coven or book club. </p><p></p><p>In SotG, the "family reunion" isn't quite there in any classic sense. Prata and Bianca are sisters. This is another area of the entry that really seems to suffer problems of clarity. I'll get to this later when I'm not talking about ingredients specially, but the rough outline here seems to be that bianca, who is somehow all of a revenant/dryad/witch and little girl with clawed-out eyes wants to be restored to life and reunited with her lover and get revenge on her sister -- which is what passes for the reunion. </p><p></p><p>I'm not happy with either application, so no one gets an advantage here. </p><p></p><p><strong>Treehouse</strong> - In SotG, the treehouse is Fiddler's Crown, a castle that both guards and is high up in the Tree of the Worlds. In this case, I felt like the visual evocative power we see in so many of the scenes in SotG fails -- we don't see the tree very much, Fiddler's Crown is only described as having beautiful architecture, but we don't really have a sense for what makes it beautiful. </p><p></p><p>Take this passage: "Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land." So, somehow, Fiddler's crown is all of these things: placed between mountain peak and a forest, and the guardian of a tree that it's also built high up within? So, is the tree of worlds between the mountain and the forest, and fiddler's crown is in the tree? Or do the branches of the tree hold the crown up in place somehow between a mountain peak (high) and a forest (on the ground)? It's both high above sea and land AND buttressed between the peak and the forest? </p><p></p><p>And what exactly is this "tree of worlds" anyway? I'm guessing, based on the setting for the tournament (the possibly extra-planar spiral 12-stage sinking island place) that the tree somehow is an extra planar gateway, but it's never described or explained. </p><p></p><p>At a certain point, I don't see the value that the tree brings to this entry. Fiddler's Crown could have been some cliffside keep, with the seaside solarium and the tournament -- the tree adds no value. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, in SotG, like so many other ingredients, covers the bases but doesn't do it with a whole lot of panache. It's there, it's the setting for some exploration and many of the scenes, but I felt like it could do a lot more. </p><p></p><p>Again, no real advantage to either entry here. </p><p></p><p>Gauntlets of Ogre Power - in SotG, we're told that the gauntlets were the Favor that Filo wears, but I have to imagine that this detail was the victim of editing or word count, because I just don't see it. Filo is there, when he's killed the curse is lifted, but.. how is that the gauntlet of ogre power? How was it important that it was that magic item and not some other magic item or mundane things that was the favor? </p><p></p><p>In IDMA, the gauntlets are there, so there will be an advantage IDMA, but it's pretty tenuous. You could completely remove the gauntlets and the story would be exactly the same -- a requirement of great strength to operate the arcane gewgaws has been tacked on to make the gauntlets necessary, but it's just an excuse. Still, they're really there, and they're really gauntlets of ogre power. </p><p></p><p>So, at the end of our examination of the ingredients, IDMA has a lead over SotG. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Creativity -</strong></p><p></p><p>I think that it's pretty clear that SotG has a strong advantage here -- at least in terms of visual imagery. The Casked Mage alone is a little bit of awesome, and there are some other very cool moments and visuals. </p><p></p><p>There were places, though, where SotG's creative efforts made things confusing. The tournament was one example we've already covered, but there are others. </p><p></p><p>IDMA, on the other hand, didn't wow me with it's story or visuals or characters. Worse, it disappointed me in a very specific way. </p><p></p><p>A title like "The island of Dokar Muray Arthy" is a promise. I was expecting shades of Island of Dr. Moreau and Dr., Moriarty's criminal genius (the napoleon of crime?). But instead we get a chubby, lazy, failed mage who killed himself and broke the island -- and whose work is the doom of those who seek to follow in his footsteps. Nothing like Moreau, nothing like Moriarty. Remove those promises and I would have been a lot less frustrated and disappointed -- I would not have had an expect ion that fell so far short. </p><p></p><p>So, anyway, SotG has an edge here. </p><p></p><p><strong>Playability</strong></p><p></p><p>I think there are some moments like the Tournament in SotG where my confusion about what the adventure's intentions are make this sort of challenging. </p><p></p><p>IDMA wasn't confusing -- and I felt like it could be dropped into an ongoing campaign with little trouble.</p><p></p><p>So, IDMA has an edge there. </p><p></p><p><strong>Overall</strong>. </p><p></p><p>In the end, I wasn't particularly happy with either of these entries. Maybe I'm just getting grouchy in my old age. There were some really wonderful moments, some good work in both, but I don't think either really quite did what it needed to do.</p><p></p><p>SotG felt like a adventure that was already written, that had the ingredients added to it. That may not be the case at all, but it really does not read like the story came from the ingredients, but more like the ingredients were shoehorned into it. </p><p></p><p>IDMA reads more like an adventure that did grow out of the pile of disparate ingredients, and it does a workmanlike job -- but it only just does that. I was not delighted or surprised by anything in the adventure, and the Title promise problem left me feeling more disappointed in the entry than I might have been without that baggage. </p><p></p><p>In the end, though, Island of DMA is a bit more playable in it's current state, and makes better use of the ingredients. so <strong>Lwaxy wins</strong> and advances to the next round. </p><p></p><p>Loonook, I'm totally stealing Malmsey the Jugged Mage, and a few other elements, but those colorful moments were not enough to tip the scales. Your vivid, poetic imagery cuts both ways -- often it hurts more than helps. In future contests, make sure that your creativity doesn't create confusion for your reader. </p><p></p><p>-rg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Radiating Gnome, post: 5936852, member: 150"] This is a match between Secrets of the Green (SotG) and the Island of Dokar Muray Arthy (IDMA) I suspect this was a particularly difficult batch of ingredients. Of course, that doesn't really matter -- both contestants get the same ingredients, so easy or hard, the match is still fair. Actually, from a judging point of view, tough ingredients make for easier judging. Easy ingredients have obvious combinations that both contestants will take on, making the differences between the two entries harder to spot and evaluate. In this case, we have a couple of very different adventures, and very different uses (or attempted uses) of the ingredients. So, let's start there. [B]Ingredients[/B]. [B]Awakened Bear [/B]- in SotG, we have Shardin Baixista, who has been turned into a bear -- while his brothers were also turned into beasts. It's a colorful, evocative story that this entry hints at, but in the final accounting a man shape shifted into a bear is not an awakened bear. It's close, certainly, but it's a point of weakness -- a better, more precise use of the ingredient might be enough to tip this ingredient towards IDMA. So, what do we have in IDMA? An intelligent animal companion? Sharbo is an awakened animal, and so at least covers the letter of the ingredient. The stained fur spelling "sacred" to me felt a little too much like a Charlotte's Web moment ("That's Some Bear!"??). His role is to maybe help the players, but also point them in the direction of the problems on the island - herald or gatekeeper. The image of the bear holding the pale blinded child is more evocative and visually interesting than the imagery around Sharbo, but once you're past the imagery, Baixista doesn't seem to do a whole lot in the story. He rages and fights with the Pcs, then blurts out what they need to know to move on to the next beat, and that's about it for him. His "bearness" doesn't seem to matter much in the story -- not that Sharbo's does much, either, for that matter, but at least he is what he's supposed to be. I'm going to give a slight advantage to IDMA, but it's close. [B]Sinking Island[/B] -- In IDMA, the whole adventure is set on an island that is sinking -- animals are fleeing and acting strange, weird energies are being released, and so on. It works. In SotG, the sinking island is a confusing encounter -- a tournament involving twelve men that I am still not sure I understand after reading over it several times. It's a "grand multilayered desert island dungeon" that spirals up with "views of the interior" created by illusionists for spectators? I'm still confused. Where are the spectators? In a spiral, what marks the end of one layer and the beginning of another? Then, "twelve men are allowed into the dungeon, from the bottom to the top" -- are these PCs? Why 12? Does each PC act independently? Who are the other contestants? Do all the PCs have to take part? The mechanics of the contest are also confusing -- when any man reaches the next level the water level rises one level? I mean, depending upon how long it takes to cross each level, if it takes about the same amount of time for each contestant, they should each reach the next level at about the same time, and the water level would rise to the top in a instant? Once again, like the bear, the visual imagery is a lot stronger, but in this case I just don't quite understand what your intentions are. Advantage IDMA. [B]Esoteric Scholar[/B] - There's something really wonderful about SotG's Casked Mage. Again, very visual, very striking, very visually compelling. But, as cool as he is, he's not exactly esoteric (his studies seem to be pretty accessible to ordinary folks) and his role in the story could have been stronger. Still, once hits cask is broken and he's farting out puddings…. I mean, really. That's kinda awesome, even if it's not esoteric. In IDMA, Lorcan the wizard, has some story information to pass along to the PCs, and he rumbles on about esoteric topics. He's nowhere near as interesting and cool as Malmsey the casked mage. His esoteric nature is there, but it doesn't really serve the story any, doesn't really do much for him. I'm going to give an edge to SotG. [B]Family Reunion[/B] - in IDMA, a perverse family of elves gather on the island, but to be honest i'm not clear what it was that the elves were trying to do. They've obviously got some apparatus there -- my best guess is that they're trying to create a "super-mage", and complete the ritual that Dokar Muray Arthy tried and failed to do -- but that wasn't totally clear to me after a couple of readings. Anyway, there's a group of them, they're family, but that doesn't really add much to the story -- there's on reason that they HAD to be family for the sake of the story, they could just as easily have been a coven or book club. In SotG, the "family reunion" isn't quite there in any classic sense. Prata and Bianca are sisters. This is another area of the entry that really seems to suffer problems of clarity. I'll get to this later when I'm not talking about ingredients specially, but the rough outline here seems to be that bianca, who is somehow all of a revenant/dryad/witch and little girl with clawed-out eyes wants to be restored to life and reunited with her lover and get revenge on her sister -- which is what passes for the reunion. I'm not happy with either application, so no one gets an advantage here. [B]Treehouse[/B] - In SotG, the treehouse is Fiddler's Crown, a castle that both guards and is high up in the Tree of the Worlds. In this case, I felt like the visual evocative power we see in so many of the scenes in SotG fails -- we don't see the tree very much, Fiddler's Crown is only described as having beautiful architecture, but we don't really have a sense for what makes it beautiful. Take this passage: "Buttressed between Widow’s Walk Peak and the Quiet Forest, Fiddler’s Crown is the castle that guards the Tree of the Worlds, built high within its branches and overlooking sea and land." So, somehow, Fiddler's crown is all of these things: placed between mountain peak and a forest, and the guardian of a tree that it's also built high up within? So, is the tree of worlds between the mountain and the forest, and fiddler's crown is in the tree? Or do the branches of the tree hold the crown up in place somehow between a mountain peak (high) and a forest (on the ground)? It's both high above sea and land AND buttressed between the peak and the forest? And what exactly is this "tree of worlds" anyway? I'm guessing, based on the setting for the tournament (the possibly extra-planar spiral 12-stage sinking island place) that the tree somehow is an extra planar gateway, but it's never described or explained. At a certain point, I don't see the value that the tree brings to this entry. Fiddler's Crown could have been some cliffside keep, with the seaside solarium and the tournament -- the tree adds no value. Meanwhile, in SotG, like so many other ingredients, covers the bases but doesn't do it with a whole lot of panache. It's there, it's the setting for some exploration and many of the scenes, but I felt like it could do a lot more. Again, no real advantage to either entry here. Gauntlets of Ogre Power - in SotG, we're told that the gauntlets were the Favor that Filo wears, but I have to imagine that this detail was the victim of editing or word count, because I just don't see it. Filo is there, when he's killed the curse is lifted, but.. how is that the gauntlet of ogre power? How was it important that it was that magic item and not some other magic item or mundane things that was the favor? In IDMA, the gauntlets are there, so there will be an advantage IDMA, but it's pretty tenuous. You could completely remove the gauntlets and the story would be exactly the same -- a requirement of great strength to operate the arcane gewgaws has been tacked on to make the gauntlets necessary, but it's just an excuse. Still, they're really there, and they're really gauntlets of ogre power. So, at the end of our examination of the ingredients, IDMA has a lead over SotG. [B]Creativity -[/B] I think that it's pretty clear that SotG has a strong advantage here -- at least in terms of visual imagery. The Casked Mage alone is a little bit of awesome, and there are some other very cool moments and visuals. There were places, though, where SotG's creative efforts made things confusing. The tournament was one example we've already covered, but there are others. IDMA, on the other hand, didn't wow me with it's story or visuals or characters. Worse, it disappointed me in a very specific way. A title like "The island of Dokar Muray Arthy" is a promise. I was expecting shades of Island of Dr. Moreau and Dr., Moriarty's criminal genius (the napoleon of crime?). But instead we get a chubby, lazy, failed mage who killed himself and broke the island -- and whose work is the doom of those who seek to follow in his footsteps. Nothing like Moreau, nothing like Moriarty. Remove those promises and I would have been a lot less frustrated and disappointed -- I would not have had an expect ion that fell so far short. So, anyway, SotG has an edge here. [B]Playability[/B] I think there are some moments like the Tournament in SotG where my confusion about what the adventure's intentions are make this sort of challenging. IDMA wasn't confusing -- and I felt like it could be dropped into an ongoing campaign with little trouble. So, IDMA has an edge there. [B]Overall[/B]. In the end, I wasn't particularly happy with either of these entries. Maybe I'm just getting grouchy in my old age. There were some really wonderful moments, some good work in both, but I don't think either really quite did what it needed to do. SotG felt like a adventure that was already written, that had the ingredients added to it. That may not be the case at all, but it really does not read like the story came from the ingredients, but more like the ingredients were shoehorned into it. IDMA reads more like an adventure that did grow out of the pile of disparate ingredients, and it does a workmanlike job -- but it only just does that. I was not delighted or surprised by anything in the adventure, and the Title promise problem left me feeling more disappointed in the entry than I might have been without that baggage. In the end, though, Island of DMA is a bit more playable in it's current state, and makes better use of the ingredients. so [B]Lwaxy wins[/B] and advances to the next round. Loonook, I'm totally stealing Malmsey the Jugged Mage, and a few other elements, but those colorful moments were not enough to tip the scales. Your vivid, poetic imagery cuts both ways -- often it hurts more than helps. In future contests, make sure that your creativity doesn't create confusion for your reader. -rg [/QUOTE]
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