FitzTheRuke
Legend
Thanks! I had a lot of fun writing it. I'll return the compliment, too - I've loved all three of your entries.
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IRON DM 2020 Tournament Thread
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Where's the spoiler? We liked each other's entries?
Edit: Oh, I think I see what you mean.
Edit: Oh, I think I see what you mean.
humble minion
Legend
Spoiler tagged mine, sorry!
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
Judgement for Final Match: FitzTheRuke vs. humble minion
These are both really great adventures, though they both have their own difficulties in actually running them, for different reasons. We'll get to overall adventure quality later. First, let's see how FitzTheRuke's untitled adventure (henceforth "Y2K") and humble minion's "The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not To Die" (henceforth "Uzmah") handle these ingredients.
Psychic Scream
The psychic scream in "Uzmah" is a pretty important part of the hook in "Uzmah", and it also remains relevant throughout the adventure. That's a good ingredient usage. Is it "psychic?" Ehhh, it's a stretch, but not a terrible one. Meanwhile, I struggle to find this at all in "Y2K". The closest I can see is the DJ in the nightclub battle using an attack that seems to mimic the effects of a psionic blast, but it being like an ingredient is not the same as being the ingredient.
Former Parrot
The former parrot in Y2K refers to the former gang members, who named themselves after one of the members' pet, which seemed to relate to the dude's pirate fetish. Individually, those excuses for an ingredient would be pretty weak and easily replaceable, but layered upon each other makes the ingredient stronger. Meanwhile, the former parrot is a transformed minion of the hags in Uzmah, and it's a bit weaker here, as any animal would work. It's tied to a later ingredient, which helps a little, but still, any bird would've done.
Pink Unicorn
The unicorn is a little bit better here in "Uzmah". It's a stuffed animal (for the baby), and a transformed unicorn whose healing powers are useful for the villain's purposes. It also presents a handy NPC to complicate things if its polymorph is dispelled. In "Y2K" it's a prize for a karaoke contest that... might not even happen. A very weak ingredient.
Awakened Witch
I don't think this works super well in either adventure. It's actually not necessarily going to happen in either. "Uzmah" witch is "awakened" to the truth, which is... a little bit of a stretch. "Y2K's" witch sleeps a lot for... reasons (needing to be awakened, for the ingredient, natch). Doing this is trivial, if at all (the PC might just have the key!). Not great.
Time Stop
Both adventures tie their main plot to this element, which makes it really strong in both. I like the little time hiccup foreshadowing in "Y2K" a lot, and gives it just the slight edge for me in this case.
Pregnant Moment
Both adventures tie this into their Time Stop (which makes sense, given the linkage between Time and Moment). Again, this relates to "Y2K"'s clever foreshadowing, so it gives it just the slightest of edges.
Swoop
Now we get to the two oddball ingredients I provided for this match. "Uzmah" invents a game called "Swoop", but it does involve swooping, so I'll allow it. Its placement is a little more central (and PC-involved) than in "Y2K", where the swooping pterodactyls make an exceptional set piece, but just really isn't central enough.
Turtles All The Way Down
There's a couple of ways to take this. Firstly, the phrase relates to Flat Earth believers, with the notion that a flat world rests on the back of a giant turtle (ala Discworld), but if you try to ask them what the turtle is resting on, their only answer can be a bigger turtle (and ultimately, it's turtles all the way down). The more literal route would be more in the vein of "look at that pit, it sure is full of turtles". "Y2K" goes this route, and its relation the central plot is minimal, at best. "Uzmah", on the other hand, throws turtles at us like they're going out of style. Most of them feel do not feel at all essential, and the "All The Way Down" language twisting really just doesn't work for me, but the presence of the zaratan ultimately saves it for me in having an actual thematic purpose for there being so many turtles elsewhere.
So, ultimately "Uzmah" takes the edge on ingredients for me, though its closer than my initial reads suggested. "Y2K's" biggest weakness, as an Iron DM entry, it sadly one of its greatest strengths as an adventure. The way the business starts out so stakes that are low and personal, and the way the Time Stop starts intruding into the narrative as foreshadowing, is all genius. But too many of the ingredients are wrapped up in these earlier scenarios, which makes them less central, and thus, weaker as ingredients. If there were a stronger connection between the mad scientist and the PCs' social circle, it would have made a significant difference. As it is, the connection is tenuous at best. The other difficulty here comes from needing the PCs to have these pre-existing connections with NPCs. This is great, normally, but as a DM I prefer to have the players themselves assist with this sort of worldbuilding.
"Uzmah", meanwhile, is also an excellent adventure, and one with a number of very interesting moral dilemmas. Do the PCs really want to help with the miscarriage/murder of a pregnant woman? Even if she's a hag? There are a lot of missing pieces here, and a lot of paths for the PCs to take in solving this puzzle. The problem comes from the fact that the adventure is laid out in a kind of linear, as if the author is expecting certain things to come to pass that may not even happen. If Uzmah is trapped in a tiny, helpless, turtle, why kill her? That only seems to make her more powerful. It feels like this curse would've been more interesting, and fulfilling, had it gone the other way around, but I guess then you can't have that great set piece with the Zaratan.
These are both really great adventures, though they both have their own difficulties in actually running them, for different reasons. We'll get to overall adventure quality later. First, let's see how FitzTheRuke's untitled adventure (henceforth "Y2K") and humble minion's "The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not To Die" (henceforth "Uzmah") handle these ingredients.
Psychic Scream
The psychic scream in "Uzmah" is a pretty important part of the hook in "Uzmah", and it also remains relevant throughout the adventure. That's a good ingredient usage. Is it "psychic?" Ehhh, it's a stretch, but not a terrible one. Meanwhile, I struggle to find this at all in "Y2K". The closest I can see is the DJ in the nightclub battle using an attack that seems to mimic the effects of a psionic blast, but it being like an ingredient is not the same as being the ingredient.
Former Parrot
The former parrot in Y2K refers to the former gang members, who named themselves after one of the members' pet, which seemed to relate to the dude's pirate fetish. Individually, those excuses for an ingredient would be pretty weak and easily replaceable, but layered upon each other makes the ingredient stronger. Meanwhile, the former parrot is a transformed minion of the hags in Uzmah, and it's a bit weaker here, as any animal would work. It's tied to a later ingredient, which helps a little, but still, any bird would've done.
Pink Unicorn
The unicorn is a little bit better here in "Uzmah". It's a stuffed animal (for the baby), and a transformed unicorn whose healing powers are useful for the villain's purposes. It also presents a handy NPC to complicate things if its polymorph is dispelled. In "Y2K" it's a prize for a karaoke contest that... might not even happen. A very weak ingredient.
Awakened Witch
I don't think this works super well in either adventure. It's actually not necessarily going to happen in either. "Uzmah" witch is "awakened" to the truth, which is... a little bit of a stretch. "Y2K's" witch sleeps a lot for... reasons (needing to be awakened, for the ingredient, natch). Doing this is trivial, if at all (the PC might just have the key!). Not great.
Time Stop
Both adventures tie their main plot to this element, which makes it really strong in both. I like the little time hiccup foreshadowing in "Y2K" a lot, and gives it just the slight edge for me in this case.
Pregnant Moment
Both adventures tie this into their Time Stop (which makes sense, given the linkage between Time and Moment). Again, this relates to "Y2K"'s clever foreshadowing, so it gives it just the slightest of edges.
Swoop
Now we get to the two oddball ingredients I provided for this match. "Uzmah" invents a game called "Swoop", but it does involve swooping, so I'll allow it. Its placement is a little more central (and PC-involved) than in "Y2K", where the swooping pterodactyls make an exceptional set piece, but just really isn't central enough.
Turtles All The Way Down
There's a couple of ways to take this. Firstly, the phrase relates to Flat Earth believers, with the notion that a flat world rests on the back of a giant turtle (ala Discworld), but if you try to ask them what the turtle is resting on, their only answer can be a bigger turtle (and ultimately, it's turtles all the way down). The more literal route would be more in the vein of "look at that pit, it sure is full of turtles". "Y2K" goes this route, and its relation the central plot is minimal, at best. "Uzmah", on the other hand, throws turtles at us like they're going out of style. Most of them feel do not feel at all essential, and the "All The Way Down" language twisting really just doesn't work for me, but the presence of the zaratan ultimately saves it for me in having an actual thematic purpose for there being so many turtles elsewhere.
So, ultimately "Uzmah" takes the edge on ingredients for me, though its closer than my initial reads suggested. "Y2K's" biggest weakness, as an Iron DM entry, it sadly one of its greatest strengths as an adventure. The way the business starts out so stakes that are low and personal, and the way the Time Stop starts intruding into the narrative as foreshadowing, is all genius. But too many of the ingredients are wrapped up in these earlier scenarios, which makes them less central, and thus, weaker as ingredients. If there were a stronger connection between the mad scientist and the PCs' social circle, it would have made a significant difference. As it is, the connection is tenuous at best. The other difficulty here comes from needing the PCs to have these pre-existing connections with NPCs. This is great, normally, but as a DM I prefer to have the players themselves assist with this sort of worldbuilding.
"Uzmah", meanwhile, is also an excellent adventure, and one with a number of very interesting moral dilemmas. Do the PCs really want to help with the miscarriage/murder of a pregnant woman? Even if she's a hag? There are a lot of missing pieces here, and a lot of paths for the PCs to take in solving this puzzle. The problem comes from the fact that the adventure is laid out in a kind of linear, as if the author is expecting certain things to come to pass that may not even happen. If Uzmah is trapped in a tiny, helpless, turtle, why kill her? That only seems to make her more powerful. It feels like this curse would've been more interesting, and fulfilling, had it gone the other way around, but I guess then you can't have that great set piece with the Zaratan.
I thought, going into this, I knew who I was going to pick. Writing this out has made me second guess this. These are both great adventures. Personally, I think I like "Y2K" a little better than "Uzmah" here, It's a slightly stronger adventure, and its structure appeals to me more.
But is that enough to make up for the ingredient deficit?
Ultimately, I have to say no. "Uzmah" is also an excellent adventure with a lot of moving parts and it just did a better job of incorporating its ingredients more centrally.
@FitzTheRuke, you've clearly got a handle on how to do this, and, as we requested, you gave us an instantly memorable adventure. Work on making those ingredients more central to your overarching plot (and tie those disparate elements together in a stronger way), and you'll be back to this final round before too long.
For now though, I have to recommend @humble minion's "The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not To Die" for the Iron DM 2020.
But is that enough to make up for the ingredient deficit?
Ultimately, I have to say no. "Uzmah" is also an excellent adventure with a lot of moving parts and it just did a better job of incorporating its ingredients more centrally.
@FitzTheRuke, you've clearly got a handle on how to do this, and, as we requested, you gave us an instantly memorable adventure. Work on making those ingredients more central to your overarching plot (and tie those disparate elements together in a stronger way), and you'll be back to this final round before too long.
For now though, I have to recommend @humble minion's "The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not To Die" for the Iron DM 2020.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
@Gradine 's judgement does not surprise me, really. I knew I was taking risks with my ingredient uses. Some I felt were clever, and others I knew were lacking. Some got lost a bit in editing, too.
Here's my thinking on them:
Psychic Scream - Originally, the dance club was named the Psychic Scream. At one point, I decided that it was too on-the-nose (and I remembered judges saying that using the ingredients as names always brings the question: "Why couldn't they be named something else?") In addition, I tried at one point for a pass that didn't actually use the words of the ingredients, but invoked them anyway. This was too hard, and I felt that judges might miss my references entirely. In the end, I think I should have left the name, and kept the DJ too... I understand that technically, the speakers are a Sonic Scream (and I seem to have used the word Screech instead - this is still a remnant of my attempt to leave the words out. I should have fixed it, I think.
Former Parrot - I started with Jim being the only former gang-member, but with him giving out missions, he seems like he's still involved, really. I like how this one worked out. On top of Agata, Brock, and Jim, being Former members of the Parrots - If Pete the Parrot gets killed, then he's an ex-parrot, Python style.
Pink Unicorn - When the Dance Club was the Psychic Scream, the Karaoke Bar was named the Pink Unicorn. Maybe I should have kept that too. Either way, I knew that it had to be more than just a name, so I came up with Amiko-Chan the popular anime unicorn as a karaoke prize. (And theSonic Psychic (well, head-hurting, at least) attack from the DJ at the Dance Club.)
Awakened Witch - I just thought it was funny that you had to wake Agata up (you'd still have to wake her, even if you used a key to get in!)
Time Stop - Professor Black's machine was the first idea that came to my head for the whole thing.
Pregnant Moment - There's basically one of these every time the machine shuts off, right?
Swoop - One of my drafts was far more linear than what I ended up with. At that point, the first time stop had a PC noticing a Seagull diving for a clam in frozen mid-swoop. I lost that when I couldn't figure out how the PCs were still moving with Time being Stopped.
Turtles All the Way Down - The term may have been co-opted by Flat Earthers, but it predates them. I had Prof. Black quoting Hume and using the concept to describe how time works (a remnant of that is still in the text) but I couldn't get it to make enough sense (or to be clear enough) that I trusted that anyone would get it. So I went for the obvious. They're turtles. They gotta go all the way down. Yeah, I know, it's not the most inspired, but I think it's cute.
I really enjoyed writing my first entry in this competition, but for the second one, I got too serious about it (in my head) and (as I mentioned before) I took all the fun out of it for myself by second-guessing everything I was writing, all the time, for how it might be judged. I barely made it through, so I decided this time that I was just going to enjoy myself, and if it costs me, so be it.
I think I pulled that off, in that I loved every minute of writing that one. Sure, I probably could (and should) have done another pass specifically looking at my ingredient use (I've done that since, and I do see a whole lot that I could fix). Didn't help that I posted my second-to-last draft, too.
I'm glad everyone seems to have enjoyed the thing, even if it doesn't win in the end. (Still a chance!)
Here's my thinking on them:
Psychic Scream - Originally, the dance club was named the Psychic Scream. At one point, I decided that it was too on-the-nose (and I remembered judges saying that using the ingredients as names always brings the question: "Why couldn't they be named something else?") In addition, I tried at one point for a pass that didn't actually use the words of the ingredients, but invoked them anyway. This was too hard, and I felt that judges might miss my references entirely. In the end, I think I should have left the name, and kept the DJ too... I understand that technically, the speakers are a Sonic Scream (and I seem to have used the word Screech instead - this is still a remnant of my attempt to leave the words out. I should have fixed it, I think.
Former Parrot - I started with Jim being the only former gang-member, but with him giving out missions, he seems like he's still involved, really. I like how this one worked out. On top of Agata, Brock, and Jim, being Former members of the Parrots - If Pete the Parrot gets killed, then he's an ex-parrot, Python style.
Pink Unicorn - When the Dance Club was the Psychic Scream, the Karaoke Bar was named the Pink Unicorn. Maybe I should have kept that too. Either way, I knew that it had to be more than just a name, so I came up with Amiko-Chan the popular anime unicorn as a karaoke prize. (And the
Awakened Witch - I just thought it was funny that you had to wake Agata up (you'd still have to wake her, even if you used a key to get in!)
Time Stop - Professor Black's machine was the first idea that came to my head for the whole thing.
Pregnant Moment - There's basically one of these every time the machine shuts off, right?
Swoop - One of my drafts was far more linear than what I ended up with. At that point, the first time stop had a PC noticing a Seagull diving for a clam in frozen mid-swoop. I lost that when I couldn't figure out how the PCs were still moving with Time being Stopped.
Turtles All the Way Down - The term may have been co-opted by Flat Earthers, but it predates them. I had Prof. Black quoting Hume and using the concept to describe how time works (a remnant of that is still in the text) but I couldn't get it to make enough sense (or to be clear enough) that I trusted that anyone would get it. So I went for the obvious. They're turtles. They gotta go all the way down. Yeah, I know, it's not the most inspired, but I think it's cute.
I really enjoyed writing my first entry in this competition, but for the second one, I got too serious about it (in my head) and (as I mentioned before) I took all the fun out of it for myself by second-guessing everything I was writing, all the time, for how it might be judged. I barely made it through, so I decided this time that I was just going to enjoy myself, and if it costs me, so be it.
I think I pulled that off, in that I loved every minute of writing that one. Sure, I probably could (and should) have done another pass specifically looking at my ingredient use (I've done that since, and I do see a whole lot that I could fix). Didn't help that I posted my second-to-last draft, too.
I'm glad everyone seems to have enjoyed the thing, even if it doesn't win in the end. (Still a chance!)
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
Generally speaking, naming something after the ingredient is seen as one of weakest ways to use it, and sends a red flag to the judges.
The one issue with your adventure is that Act 1 and Act 2 don't tie together very well, thematically. This normally wouldn't be a huge issue, as a general adventure. With Iron DM, we want all the ingredients to feel central to the main adventure. This is why I say that if the two acts felt more strongly connected, then the first act would ultimately feel weightier and the ingredients from that act would feel more central and critical as part of the whole.
This is just me, though. We've still got two more judges, and we all think and judge a little bit differently. I'm excited to see how the rest of them go!
The one issue with your adventure is that Act 1 and Act 2 don't tie together very well, thematically. This normally wouldn't be a huge issue, as a general adventure. With Iron DM, we want all the ingredients to feel central to the main adventure. This is why I say that if the two acts felt more strongly connected, then the first act would ultimately feel weightier and the ingredients from that act would feel more central and critical as part of the whole.
This is just me, though. We've still got two more judges, and we all think and judge a little bit differently. I'm excited to see how the rest of them go!
humble minion
Legend
Yeah, i continually make the mistake of focusing a bit too much on the adventure rather than the ingredients once I've gotten the general shape of things sorted, and it continually costs me.
Nua'ir being a former parrot (rather than a random other bird) was entirely planned around him retaining his parrot-like memory and mimicry abilities, and the PCs being able to leverage that parrot-like quality to learn more about the hags. But I tossed that off in half a sentence where it could easily be missed. And of course the setup had so many moving parts that the PCs could easily get the info elsewhere (fromthe unicorn, for instance) which drew the focus off the whole parrot plot. I should have given Nua-ir a parrot girlfriend who tried to enlist the PCs to restore him. Same with the turtles - I spent so much wordcount on planning out the various iterations of Uzmah's turtle shape that I didn't spell out my actual use of the ingredient enough, how Ghomollod tricked Uzmah into assuming that he meant the figurative meaning of 'turtles all the way down' (the infinite unbounded series) whereas what he actually gave her sprang from a literal reading.
And yeah, I knew there were plot holes and permutations i hadn't accounted for, but the possibility PCs not killing Uzmah in her first reincarnation simply didn't occur to me. That incarnation only existed so the PCs could learn the ground rules for the rest of the adventure - she reincarnated, she still has her intellect in her new form, and she crumbles to dust and is reborn when the current form dies. Didn't even cross my mind they might pick her up and stuff her in a terrarium!
Swoop was - by far - the hardest ingredient for me here. It's a single discrete action, so it can't be a recurring theme through the adventure. It isn't really a word that has any ambiguity or multiple meanings ('scoop', or 'sweep', or even 'steep' would have given so many more options!). So damn hard to use. I eventually tried to make swooping a theme of the adventure - rather than a singular swoop. The game Swoop is entirely centred around the act of swooping so i was hoping for some understanding and leniency around this slight re-interpretation, but still i know the judges hate it when you invent something and call it by the name of the ingredient, so all i could do was cross my fingers there.
As for of Pike Place Paradox, if i was to run it, I'd run it as something like a convention one-shot with pre-written characters. It lets your PCs arrive with pre-existing ties to the significant NPCs and each other, and lets you give them additional linkages to the weirder ingredients (turtles, pteranodons...) which'd strengthen the integration of the adventure as a whole. But having to write up a few PCs as well as all Fitz's wonderful NPCs, and still stay within an Iron DM word count? Reeeeaaal hard. Though you could MAYBE pull it off if you made it a solo (or 2-PC adventure). Has there ever been an Iron DM entry that included pregen PCs? It'd be an interesting option, if word count was kind.
Nua'ir being a former parrot (rather than a random other bird) was entirely planned around him retaining his parrot-like memory and mimicry abilities, and the PCs being able to leverage that parrot-like quality to learn more about the hags. But I tossed that off in half a sentence where it could easily be missed. And of course the setup had so many moving parts that the PCs could easily get the info elsewhere (fromthe unicorn, for instance) which drew the focus off the whole parrot plot. I should have given Nua-ir a parrot girlfriend who tried to enlist the PCs to restore him. Same with the turtles - I spent so much wordcount on planning out the various iterations of Uzmah's turtle shape that I didn't spell out my actual use of the ingredient enough, how Ghomollod tricked Uzmah into assuming that he meant the figurative meaning of 'turtles all the way down' (the infinite unbounded series) whereas what he actually gave her sprang from a literal reading.
And yeah, I knew there were plot holes and permutations i hadn't accounted for, but the possibility PCs not killing Uzmah in her first reincarnation simply didn't occur to me. That incarnation only existed so the PCs could learn the ground rules for the rest of the adventure - she reincarnated, she still has her intellect in her new form, and she crumbles to dust and is reborn when the current form dies. Didn't even cross my mind they might pick her up and stuff her in a terrarium!
Swoop was - by far - the hardest ingredient for me here. It's a single discrete action, so it can't be a recurring theme through the adventure. It isn't really a word that has any ambiguity or multiple meanings ('scoop', or 'sweep', or even 'steep' would have given so many more options!). So damn hard to use. I eventually tried to make swooping a theme of the adventure - rather than a singular swoop. The game Swoop is entirely centred around the act of swooping so i was hoping for some understanding and leniency around this slight re-interpretation, but still i know the judges hate it when you invent something and call it by the name of the ingredient, so all i could do was cross my fingers there.
As for of Pike Place Paradox, if i was to run it, I'd run it as something like a convention one-shot with pre-written characters. It lets your PCs arrive with pre-existing ties to the significant NPCs and each other, and lets you give them additional linkages to the weirder ingredients (turtles, pteranodons...) which'd strengthen the integration of the adventure as a whole. But having to write up a few PCs as well as all Fitz's wonderful NPCs, and still stay within an Iron DM word count? Reeeeaaal hard. Though you could MAYBE pull it off if you made it a solo (or 2-PC adventure). Has there ever been an Iron DM entry that included pregen PCs? It'd be an interesting option, if word count was kind.
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