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IRON DM 2013--Entries, Judgements, Commentary, & Trash-Talk
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<blockquote data-quote="Dragonwriter" data-source="post: 6160021" data-attributes="member: 54988"><p>Sure. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>While last round was pretty quick in how I managed to think something up, this set had me puzzled.</p><p></p><p>The really troublesome ones for me were Diplomatic Immunity and Impossible Dream. Impossible Dream is, of course, easily a thematic element, but how do you use it and make it really impossible? It ended up becoming motivation for the bad guy, but that came about later. Diplomatic Immunity was just a pain. It seemed there was not much in the way of making it really interesting to the adventure, particularly with the state of the other ingredients.</p><p></p><p>Over a few hours at work, I got to thinking about an Artificial Intelligence and how it might interact with things, especially with regard to the “natural order” and the divine. Being artificial, there really wouldn’t be a place for it among nature or the creations of the various deities. The other part of the AI bit that stuck out to me was the idea that, however advanced it was, it would still be similar to a computer and thus governed by certain rules. The most prominent of those rules, for a thinking machine, would likely be logic. And over the many, many years of its existence, it would witness the numerous holy wars instigated by all manner of gods, followed by the mass deaths of the mortals following them. Coming to hate this pointless order of things would drive it to cause the End of the World so as to kill the gods to fulfill an Impossible Dream. The dream’s impossibility is because, largely due to the nature of how the divine seems to work in D&D, mortals will ascribe power to various things and then believe them to be gods, thus fueling the creation of gods with their worship. And with the AI’s plan to rebuild the world free of gods, the new mortals would be confronted with this nigh-indestructible, impossibly powerful mechanical creation that was clearly bigger and stronger than they were and capable of performing what would seem like miracles. Sounds like a clear recipe for immediate worship, especially from a primitive people.</p><p>I think I ended up kinda going for a fanatic-style Shockwave (from Transformers, particularly the new material in the Fall of Cybertron game and the Prime TV show, as I really haven't had much experience with him in Gen1).</p><p></p><p>I settled on using Unearth both in its standard definitions (literally digging or figuratively doing so to uncover evidence) and as a quick name for the engine created by Arkaz to allow him to remake the world. Had I had more words, I would have gone into a better explanation of the place. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>Diplomatic Immunity finally came around as the concealment used by Arkaz as it made rounds of the planes, weakening the gods. The idea was, “Arkaz did it? You can’t be serious. It came here under banner of diplomacy and wouldn’t threaten relations like this. It must be caused by someone else,” would be the sort of reaction to anyone suspecting Arkaz. And to make the PCs interact with it a bit (and hey, they could throw a little weight around some godly courts), I decided to offer it to them, too.</p><p></p><p>I came up with Harleckee as an additional sort of visitor to the various divine realms. I thought it was an okay use, but I wasn’t thrilled with him. Mainly it was a way to use the ingredient and provide some hints/clues to the PCs. And like I said before, I hadn’t even thought of Wise Fool applying to Arkaz, which is a far better interpretation of the ingredient.</p><p></p><p>With those building blocks, I came up with some events to set things in motion, things for the PCs to interact with and handle (I would have really liked to highlight more of the strife happening on the Material Plane), and a work-up of events. It took a while, and I honestly wasn’t thrilled with the result. My previous entry seemed to ooze (if you’ll pardon the little joke) style, while this one seemed more flat. It didn’t help that I wasn’t really pleased with my own use of a few of the ingredients. </p><p></p><p>When I had finished writing it up, I stepped away for a bit. I came back to try to edit and tweak things, but I just couldn’t find anywhere I could feasibly do so while maintaining the adventure. And at that point, there was no way I was going to cut and rework large portions of it, however much it turned out I should have. </p><p></p><p>By the way, curse you, limited word count! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>Regardless, I did have fun during all this. If anyone reading this is on the fence about whether to sign up next year, I say to go for it. The competition is amazing for making you think and write quickly, while also making you throw together some really weird and engaging stuff.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dragonwriter, post: 6160021, member: 54988"] Sure. :) While last round was pretty quick in how I managed to think something up, this set had me puzzled. The really troublesome ones for me were Diplomatic Immunity and Impossible Dream. Impossible Dream is, of course, easily a thematic element, but how do you use it and make it really impossible? It ended up becoming motivation for the bad guy, but that came about later. Diplomatic Immunity was just a pain. It seemed there was not much in the way of making it really interesting to the adventure, particularly with the state of the other ingredients. Over a few hours at work, I got to thinking about an Artificial Intelligence and how it might interact with things, especially with regard to the “natural order” and the divine. Being artificial, there really wouldn’t be a place for it among nature or the creations of the various deities. The other part of the AI bit that stuck out to me was the idea that, however advanced it was, it would still be similar to a computer and thus governed by certain rules. The most prominent of those rules, for a thinking machine, would likely be logic. And over the many, many years of its existence, it would witness the numerous holy wars instigated by all manner of gods, followed by the mass deaths of the mortals following them. Coming to hate this pointless order of things would drive it to cause the End of the World so as to kill the gods to fulfill an Impossible Dream. The dream’s impossibility is because, largely due to the nature of how the divine seems to work in D&D, mortals will ascribe power to various things and then believe them to be gods, thus fueling the creation of gods with their worship. And with the AI’s plan to rebuild the world free of gods, the new mortals would be confronted with this nigh-indestructible, impossibly powerful mechanical creation that was clearly bigger and stronger than they were and capable of performing what would seem like miracles. Sounds like a clear recipe for immediate worship, especially from a primitive people. I think I ended up kinda going for a fanatic-style Shockwave (from Transformers, particularly the new material in the Fall of Cybertron game and the Prime TV show, as I really haven't had much experience with him in Gen1). I settled on using Unearth both in its standard definitions (literally digging or figuratively doing so to uncover evidence) and as a quick name for the engine created by Arkaz to allow him to remake the world. Had I had more words, I would have gone into a better explanation of the place. :p Diplomatic Immunity finally came around as the concealment used by Arkaz as it made rounds of the planes, weakening the gods. The idea was, “Arkaz did it? You can’t be serious. It came here under banner of diplomacy and wouldn’t threaten relations like this. It must be caused by someone else,” would be the sort of reaction to anyone suspecting Arkaz. And to make the PCs interact with it a bit (and hey, they could throw a little weight around some godly courts), I decided to offer it to them, too. I came up with Harleckee as an additional sort of visitor to the various divine realms. I thought it was an okay use, but I wasn’t thrilled with him. Mainly it was a way to use the ingredient and provide some hints/clues to the PCs. And like I said before, I hadn’t even thought of Wise Fool applying to Arkaz, which is a far better interpretation of the ingredient. With those building blocks, I came up with some events to set things in motion, things for the PCs to interact with and handle (I would have really liked to highlight more of the strife happening on the Material Plane), and a work-up of events. It took a while, and I honestly wasn’t thrilled with the result. My previous entry seemed to ooze (if you’ll pardon the little joke) style, while this one seemed more flat. It didn’t help that I wasn’t really pleased with my own use of a few of the ingredients. When I had finished writing it up, I stepped away for a bit. I came back to try to edit and tweak things, but I just couldn’t find anywhere I could feasibly do so while maintaining the adventure. And at that point, there was no way I was going to cut and rework large portions of it, however much it turned out I should have. By the way, curse you, limited word count! :p Regardless, I did have fun during all this. If anyone reading this is on the fence about whether to sign up next year, I say to go for it. The competition is amazing for making you think and write quickly, while also making you throw together some really weird and engaging stuff. [/QUOTE]
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