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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 8174356" data-attributes="member: 221">Judgment for Round 3, Championship [USER=5948]@humble minion[/USER] vs. [USER=59816]@FitzTheRuke[/USER]We come to our championship match, with two very different entries; one a slice-of-life urban sci-fi-fantasy romp with time shenanigans, and the other a fairy-tale flavored Al-Qadim Dungeons and Dragons adventure.Our first entry, Pike Place Paradox (hereafter Pike), from FitzTheRuke, takes us back to the heady year of 1999. Located in Seattle, this adventure is almost a mini-campaign, sending the PCs on various side-quests to settle a dispute between NPCs whilst a mad-scientist type keeps plopping various things and people from out of time in front of them.Our second entry, The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not To Die (hereafter Tale), from humble minion, gives us three hags, one of whom is fated to die at the birth of a child, and who has made a deal with a demon in order to avoid this fate.Normally, this is where I would note that both were turned in one time and followed the rules, but one of them, unfortunately, in this case did not. FitzTheRuke forgot to include his ingredients (and title) in his entry, and though he posted it afterward, I feel compelled to dock a point for the oversight.That unpleasant task over, we move on to the heart of the competition: the ingredients.[spoiler=Ingredient Use]Our first ingredient is a Psychic Scream. In Pike, we have a DJ that can use his speakers to hurt the mind of the PCs. In Tale, we have a suffering hag, trying to give birth and whose mental anguish affects everyone. Tale, to me is the clear favorite with this ingredient.The second ingredient is Former Parrot. In neither case do we find a deceased fowl pushing up the daisies, rather we have, in Pike, an ex-gang member from a gang called the parrots (though there is also the off-chance if the PCs are too slow or clumsy to act, that a living parrot becomes an ex-parrot) and in Tale we have a servant of the hags who was a parrot but has been polymorphed into a human shape and who relives his bird life by playing a diving game. As the gang in Pike could have been called anything, I have to give the nod again to Tale. Though technically, the transmuted parrot could have been any other bird, I still think it is a stronger ingredient use.Both adventures take the ingredient of the Pink Unicorn and give us a plush. The plush in Pike doesn’t actually serve any purpose and is not even a good macguffin, whereas the plush in Tale is actually an enchanted unicorn which provides constant healing. For the third time in a row, I have to give the nod here to Tale.Our fourth ingredient is an Awakened Witch and once more I prefer Tale’s take, with a hag (one of two options) who awaken to the truth, and in once case awaken back to life from a comatose state. The witch in Pike is somewhat out of place, as every other part of the adventure is urban sci-fi, but she is not really awakened, she just has insomnia and does not sleep until she does sleep and then she sleeps too much and needs woken. There is a possibility of her making peace with a foe, and finding love, but neither of those really suggest an awakening to me. So Tale gets the nod once more.It is only when we come to our fifth ingredient, that I think Pike might finally have an edge with Time Stop. It’s a slim edge though, as I like the clever idea of having a baby frozen in time on the precipice of giving birth. This, combined with Pregnant Moment, is actually a strong usage, and taken as a whole, both are stronger together than in Pike, where the Pregnant Moment is just a feeling. But the idea of a momentary stop in time giving random PCs extra actions also makes for a nice effect. So, again, I give Pike a small edge on Time Stop, but Tale definitely uses Pregnant Moment better and as both are intertwined in both entries, this keeps Tale still ahead.Normally, when an entry makes up a new definition for a word, such as Tale does with Swoop, I cringe a little, but in this case as the game so named involves swooping down on a glider its going to get more of a pass than normal. And it is better than the use in Pike, where we have a pteranadon or three making flying attacks against the PCs. So once more, advantage Tale.Finally we come to the unusual ingredient of Turtles All the Way Down. I do actually like both uses, though they are both very different. The turtles all the way down into a well is a clever play on the words, while the heavy use of turtles, in various forms and shapes, as the reincarnated forms of the hag on her way to her final destination, is also clever. I’ll call this one a draw.Still, its obvious that Tale has a distinct edge, in my opinion, with its use of ingredients.[/spoiler]So lets see if the adventures themselves make a difference in how things stand.[spoiler=Usability and Appeal]Tale has the definite advantage with ingredients, so what about appeal and usability. At first I felt that the setup for Tale was a bit contrived, but from the player’s perspective, I am not sure that is going to matter all that much. Tale is a nice solid adventure, and its biggest negative is that the PCs are not going to appreciate many of the nice subtleties of the adventure until after it is over, as they will be thinking they are in a rather minor story-arc with saving a pregnant woman only to find out afterward the involvement of the coven. It might be nice to have some foreshadowing of witchcraft early in the story, so that it does not go suddenly from healing a pregnant woman to fighting a giant turtle with little time for the PCs to wrap their heads around what is going on. But those are minor nits that can be cleaned up as the adventure is fleshed out more. Overall, it’s a very useable adventure, with an enjoyable plot.Pike on the other hand feels a little more disjointed to me. On the one hand it’s a slice of life adventure with a rather minor feud between opposing businesses set against the backdrop of Y2K. On the other hand it’s a quirky throw the kitchen sink from the past and future at the PCs whenever the action slows down adventure. The Y2K factor doesn’t really become a factor, except as a motivator for the scientist, but he could have just as easily been motivated by the quest to find the perfect ice-cream temperature as he seeks to stop time. The adventure doesn’t really make too much of a connection between the events with the Karaoke bar and the random elements-out-of-time, and the strangeness of it all is going to be very confusing to the PCs as they try to figure out what the mastodon rampaging down the street has to do with the love triangle from years gone by (not much as it happens). I think it is going to be an easy to use adventure, but I am not sure that its going to be an easy to keep the players in the story-line adventure.[/spoiler]What is our final verdict?[spoiler=”Judgment”]Looking over everything, though I don’t dislike the urban wackiness of Pike Place Paradox, I feel that Tales has the better use of ingredients and holds together better as a story and an adventure. In the end, its not all that close for me, and in my estimation, The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not to Die gets the nod.Pike Place Paradox (Pike)Rules 5Ingredient UsePsychic Scream 1Former Parrot 1.5Pink Unicorn 1Awakened Witch 1Time Stop 2Pregnant Moment .5Swoop .5Turtles All the Way Down 2 (total 7.5/16)Useability 4Appeal 4TOTAL SCORE 20/34The Tale of When Grandmother Uzmah Decided Not to Die (Tale)Follows Rules 6IngredientsPsychic Scream 2Former Parrot 2Pink Unicorn 2Awakened Witch 2Time Stop 1.5Pregnant Moment 2Swoop 1.5Turtles All the Way Down 2     (total 15/16)Useability 5 Appeal 5TOTAL SCORE 31/34[/spoiler]</blockquote>

Verification