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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 8392627" data-attributes="member: 150">Once again I'm apparently able to get my judgement in first, which means I'm safe from being the tiebreaker again.And that's pure cowardice on my part. But here goes:3rd Place Match: el-remmen vs Neurotic[spoiler]All right, you know my routines by now.  Fools Rush in vs. The Great Dream.The high wire act of doing something in just an hour is especially fun, and there's a lot of good work going in to both entries.  I'm impressed with what you've been able to produce in so little time.  IngredientsFools Rush InSo, for Fools Rush In this is not just the eponymous ingredient, it's a core part of the setup for the adventure -- aspiring jesters, bards, and entertainers are rushing in to a situation where they're likely to be killed -- fools in both senses of the term. For The Great Dream, the formian giants (fomorian?) who blunder into traps set by the players are the fools who rush in -- this isn't anywhere near as tight a use of the ingredient. So, Advantage FRI.  MechaFor The Great Dream, we have animated armor and a stash of mecha robots that is apparently driven by the fomorians who are bringing their lack of imagination to the dream landscape.  For Fools Rush In, the evil King has a special magical mecha suit that he can use to destroy music and kill all the terrible bards.  Both cover this base. I think the explanation is written up a bit better in FRI, but that's not enough to be more than a whisker of an advantage, so call this one even for now.  Weapon in WaitingAgain, this one appears to have been well used in both entries.  One Mecha or an army of them, they're waiting in the wings for the signal to attack.  If anything, the Mecha army in TGD doesn't really wait much, just marches across the border, but that may be a technicality.  Fading DreamscapeMuch as Fools Rush In was the central conceit of FRI, the fading dreamscape is the central conceit of TGD, and I think that TGD has the clear advantage for this ingredient.  The dream in FRI is covered, but it's not as central to the overall plot. Feast of FoolsFRI combines the ingredient Fools Rush In with the Feast of Fools and the two essentially become a single core ingredient -- it's always lovely when things socket together like lego bricks in that way.  For TGD, the feast is also closely related to the Fools Rush In ingredient, but because that ingredient was a bit weak, this one is also weak.  Frankly, the "of fools" could be removed from it's sentence in the entry and we would lose nothing in the story.  " ....so like fools they rush in in whatever traps the players prepare making a feast...for the carrion eaters." So, this one goes to FRI.Magical WorkshopBoth entries have adequate magical workshops, and I don't think one is inherently much better than the other. Overall,  then Fools Rush In has a bit of an edge on the ingredient part of this.  [/spoiler]Writing, Presentation, Playability[spoiler]Both entries are surprising solid and completely formed ideas given the time limit.  Time for polish would have helped both, but I think we can clearly see that there are great ideas here to work with.  There's a manic joy that I love about the evil king's desire to kill all the bards and put an end to music in Fools Rush In.  There's a graceful simplicity in the use of silence to stop the music and make it easy to just stomp around and crush those annoying buskers with their guitars and juggling torches.  And, at the same time, there's lovely world building that has started in The Great Dream -- a fey world where everyone has a little dream magic except the fomorian goons and their mechs who are going to come and bring their monstrous lack of imagination to the dreamscape.  Writing-wise, though, there's an element that I thing gives Fools Rush In an edge.  There's a neatness to the way the ingredients are woven and socketed together as if they were not a random batch of crap, and it makes the whole thing feel like a planned story.  I've talked about how Fools Rush In and Feast for Fools connect, which is easily done, but the idea that the magical workshop holds the weapon on waiting, which is the king's music-ending mecha, and the whole thing is draped in the idea that the secret weapon that makes the real world feel like a dream. The Great Dream does plenty of this sort of connecting the dots, too, but the connections lack the feeling of inevitability and natural connection in some cases that the ingredient weave in Fools Rush In all have.  So, for me, the better entry is Fools Rush In, and that makes this a vote for El-Remmen.  Neurotic, you've never disappointed at any stage of this competition, and this is no exception.  Thanks for an excellent entry. [/spoiler]-rg</blockquote>

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