IRON DM 2022 The Tournament Thread

[FitzTheRuke]

@Radiating Gnome Thank you for your fair and considered judgement!

Yes, the rate-mechanics behind the melting ice got cut for space. As did more depth to the encounter with Greymalkinous. I couldn't cut enough from the ice-mission to add to the other two without ruining everything I liked about it. Such is Iron DM!

Thanks for the excellent match, @Helena Real ! I enjoyed your entry and didn't know which way it would go.

 

[Helena Real]

Thanks for judging, @Radiating Gnome ! I appreciate all your commentary and the way you compared and contrasted both entries.

Congrats to my fellow competitor and winner, @FitzTheRuke ! As I said before, I really enjoyed reading your entry and I wish you all the best in the next round

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Round 1, Match 3

Andrew Anderson vs Kobold Stew

Below I'm going to copy the format from the other two judges to start off your match. However, I just wanted to thank Wicht for the kind words about my having the most Iron DM wins. What he didn't mention is I also have an incredible amount of losses. In fact I failed more often than succeeded in my first few competitions. But I just kept at it and became sharper over time despite the frustrations. One lesson I learned was the following: it doesn't matter how awesome your idea for an entry is if your ingredients usage is not integral to your entry. If I am able to replace any of your ingredients with a random McGuffin or location and it doesn't harm your entry, it probably isn't a clever or integral use of the ingredient. Over time I learned that if I had to sacrifice an awesome story idea or an integral ingredient, it was always better to sacrifice the awesome idea first. The word count limit often makes such sacrifices necessary. Now if you can manage both and even link ingredients together... well, you probably have a solid entry. With that, here we go...

@Andrew Anderson and @Kobold Stew, you have 24 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 750 additional words. Remember that if you include descriptions of your ingredients with the ingredients list, those descriptions will count against your word-limit! Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; everything after will be ignored.

The judges will be using Wordcounter.net to ensure that our counts are consistent.

Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.

Your Ingredients Are:

Imprisoned Hope
Transparent Mask
Alchemist's Machine
Smoking Alembic
Mountain of Debris
Profitable Blackmail


Your 24 hours starts now!

 

[Kobold Stew]

IRON DM 2022 Round 1, Match 3
Imprisoned Hope
Transparent Mask
Alchemist's Machine
Smoking Alembic
Mountain of Debris
Profitable Blackmail

Scree-crawlin’ (with apologies to Tom Petty)​

A D&D sidequest for characters level 5-6.

The town of Rock Bottom, beneath the fabled basalt cliffs known as the Wall, has a small magic shop, from which adventurers may purchase consumable items. When the players arrive, they find the shop ransacked, with a smoking alembic still under heat, the potion being brewed reduced to a residue now filling the room with a nauseating cloud. Even if they do not need supplies, smoke is visible and is pouring out the shop’s window. Gauvine Gramercy, the gnome artificer who runs the shop, is missing, and the flask’s burning residue suggests her disappearance took place in the past few hours.

Robbing the emptied store, if such were the players’ intent, nets only a few healing potions and the attention of the local constabulary. That is because Gauvine uses an interplanar secret chest to store the wares she sells. This was news to her abductors, too, a band of bugbears who did not know that the tiny chest in the child’s dollhouse, next to the empty crib in the back room, is the material counterpart of the ethereal treasure chest. Nearby, a chain connected to the wall, the shackle of which has been snapped off.

Rescuing Gauvine is possible, though villagers will discourage such recklessness. Indeed, it is suspicious how firmly they are dissuaded from attempting rescue. Gauvine is held by the bugbear band, at the top of a hill of scree that has accumulated from repeated rockslides off the cliffs. It is not so much of a hideout as simply a place hard to access: climbing the mountain of debris is difficult terrain, and offers nowhere to hide; any move upwards risks rocks falling on those below.

Finding the culprits is not the main challenge. The abductors have even left a trail to follow, pieces torn from the alchemist’s machine: coiled springs, counterweighted plates, trap doors from a device meant to ensure fairness of transactions (the object purchased and the payment price, each in a separate container, locked and requiring both parties to press buttons on opposite sides to signify agreement and conclude a contract). Unable to open both sides at the same time, the bugbears have taken it apart in hopes of finding a reward inside, and this has left a trail out of town that is easily followed.

The bugbears have always been a nuisance, and while they keep the road free from other bandits, when they do descend from their hole in the Wall, Rock Bottom is effectively cut off. Even without the abduction of Gauvine, their elimination ought to have been a priority.

At the same time, direct assault is not easy: thrown rocks and javelins, with the advantage of the high ground and the difficult approach, reinforce the bugbear position. If players make it to the top, the shallow cave reveals what appears to be an abomination: oversize legs, arms and bulky torso, ten feet tall. This is their leader, whom they call the Gut. In fact it is a hill giant, wearing a transparent mask: an invisible bag with two eyeholes cut out, worn as a hood. This creates the appearance of the Gut’s headless form.

Resolution does not require combat: the bugbears had hoped to extort magic from Gauvine. She has been selling to them as well as the village, and they know that her position in the village would be threatened if that were revealed. They were attempting to blackmail her, asking for the contents of her shop or all would be revealed. Because they did not know about the chest, they were frustrated and took her as a hasty alternative. The bugbears simply want to make blackmail profitable.

Gauvine is herself compromised, and can be ransomed if the Gut is offered something to make the whole misadventure worth his while. The villagers have tolerated the bugbear presence, because they know that with a threat just outside their walls, Rock Bottom has a strong economy providing for travellers safety and shelter, and they can justify inflated prices. This is profiteering, and can explain their indifference to losing a cornerstone of their town’s economy.

Also in the cave is the creature which had been shackled in the magic shop: a sprite named Hope, who is now being kept in a cage in the cave. The imprisoned Hope has been held by Gauvine, and if freed can be persuaded to accompany the party as a sidekick.

 

[Andrew Anderson]

Ingredients
Imprisoned Hope
Transparent Mask
Alchemist's Machine
Smoking Alembic
Mountain of Debris
Profitable Blackmail

Don't Forget to Remember
Ameles is the devil of remembrance and forgetfulness. He traps memes in blocks of concentrated frozen Lethe water to keep them forever forgotten.
There is a hero who has committed a sin. Afterward, they had a brief hope of redemption. Ameles captured this hope and imprisoned it in a block of Lethe ice. Then he bargained with the hero: in exchange for service, Ameles will make the sin forgotten to everyone. The hero, with no hope of redemption, is falling into despair and will accept this blackmail, to Ameles' profit.

Hooks:

• Causing an idea to be forgotten, rather than keeping a forgotten idea forgotten, disturbs the universal balance. Lawful powers wish the imprisoned hope freed and restored to the paladin, returning to the balance.
• Good powers wish the hero to be redeemed.
• Evil powers are determined not to let Ameles get the hero for himself.

These powers send omens to their respective followers, bidding them to free the imprisoned hope. Unfortunately, they've forgotten where it is, who might have it, and how it can be freed.

Figuring out the problem

• The River Lethe causes forgetfulness and traps ideas. It is the best place to look for an artificially forgotten and imprisoned idea.
• A mask of perfectly clear thought will protect you from Lethe water.
• All else has been forgotten.

Thinking up the Masks

• Characters must give up a memory and solve a logic puzzle to make the mask. (If the mask is broken the memory returns.)
• Each character has to give up their own memory. The group solves a single puzzle.

Going to the Lethe
Impressions

• The descent into Hell is easy; the return may be less so.
• The foggy clouds of the Lethe are an easy landmark to follow.

Threats
- None entering: a host of devils leaving. The party will need a big distraction to avoid a big fight.

Finding the Hope
Impressions

• An infinitely high mountain of intellectual debris: forgotten ideas: ancient spells, secrets of history, Nehru jackets, birds that call "O RLY?"...
• Infernal alchemical machines heat the air to drive away the Lethe fog or distill and concentrate it to imprison specific ideas
• Infernal work gangs in masks made of clear thought and rationality comb the mountain for useful ideas, maintain the machines, ensure that imprisoned ideas stay imprisoned.

Goal
- Find the hero's imprisoned hope of redemption.
Interactions

• The hope of redemption is a very good thing. Characters detecting good will find it easily.
• The hope of redemption is trapped in a block of ice. Following the workings of the alchemical machines here will show where the ice is and reduce the area to be searched.
• The infernal minions will provide information if bribed or intimidated.

Threats

• Distilled Lethe water - if it touches a character, it freezes them in place and causes the rest of the party to forget their existence, so they will not be able to help the frozen character get out.
• Minions -- attack characters with fire from Plegethon.
• Plegethon burners -- get too close and you get burned.
• Alluring information -- characters will find valuable forgotten knowledge if they delay.

Freeing the Hope
Impressions

• A feathered thing imprisoned in a block of ice made of frozen Lethe water
• The block grows as distilled Lethe water flows over it from a steaming alembic heated by a burner of plegethon water.

Goal

• Melt the ice and free the hope of redemption.
• Shatter the great alchemical machines that sustain Abelard's domain and power?

Threats

• Ameles -- causes characters to forget what they are doing, makes distressing revelations
• Minions -- in previous section

Interactions

• Only the flame of the river Plegethon can melt Lethe ice.
• Characters can melt the ice slowly by turning the Plegethon burner all the way up. The Lethe water will burn away and the alembic will smoke and burn slowly.
• The ice could be melted away quickly by dropping Plegethon water into the alembic. The Lethe water will boil away and the block will melt.The alembic will begin to smoke and burn quickly from the heat of the Plegethon water.

Consequences

• If the hope is not freed, the good guy begins to redeem himself;otherwise, he falls into despair and agrees to serve Ameles.
• Placing Plegethon water into the alembic causes a backflow through the machines. All the alembics and braziers explode, shattering the mountain of debris and Ameles' power. This distraction allows the characters to escape without a fight.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Judgement of Round 1, Match 3: Andrew Anderson's "Don't Forget to Remember" vs Kobold Stew's "Scree-crawlin’"

@Kobold Stew presents us with an adventure filled with monsters and villagers that aren't all what they seem. @Andrew Anderson gives us a an adventure that could easily fit into a Planescape or Greek mythology-based fantasy RPG.

I am going to grade each entry on whether or not they made the time and word count limit, each entry's readability, use of each ingredient, and finally the potential for a potential Dungeon Master. Each section has a possibility of 2 points to be awarded.

And here we go....

Spoiler

Accordance to the Rules

Both entries were posted within the allotted amount of time and under the word count limit. Good job!

Andrew Anderson (AA)- 2 points
Kobold Stew (KS)- 2 points

Grammar and Readability

The only problem I had with "Scree-crawlin'" was the following poorly structured sentence: Nearby, a chain connected to the wall, the shackle of which has been snapped off.

Still, it's a minor quibble. Otherwise I was able to breeze through the entry easily enough in one go. I award KS full points for this category.

"Don't Forget to Remember" is a great title and it reminds me of Phillip K. Dick. Unfortunately, the rest of the entry is written in a choppy, almost categorical format. I suppose this was done to better make the word count, but it also makes for difficult reading. I can only give one point here.

AA- 3 points
KS- 4 points

First Ingredient: Imprisoned Hope

In "Don't Forget to Remember", the Imprisoned Hope is a literal embodiment of the main NPC's despair. This fits well narratively with the theme of being trapped in the afterlife by a myhological devil. It hits upon both Greek beliefs of emotions equating to spirits that can be released to infect people or locked safely away, and on Christian themes of repentance. I award full points to AA for this ingredient.

In "Scree-crawlin'", the imprisoned Hope seems almost an after thought. It's just a sprite that has been imprisoned and if I removed the sprite entirely from the adventure it would not be noticed. I award zero points to KS here.

AA- 5 points
KS- 4 points

Second Ingredient: Transparent Mask

In "Scree-crawlin'", the mask is not too critical for the story as it just make's the hill giant appear as a headless monstrosity. Still, it is a clever use of the ingredient and I'll award a point.

In "Don't Forget to Remember", we have a similar issue. The ingredient is more important to the story here as the characters have to create it to advance, but it could just as easily have been a helm or bubble. There is no real reason for it to be a mask.

This is a wash and each entry gets only one point.

AA- 6 points
KS- 5 points

Third Ingredient: Alchemist's Machine

In "Don't Forget to Remember", there are alchemical machines used to heat the area around the River Lethe. Although this works, the machines could just as easily have been thermal vents that need to be sealed or hot springs that need to be clogged. Nowhere does it seem to be important that the heating needs to be done by a machine. And who is Abelard? He is only mentioned once in the entry, and that's in regards to the machine. I can only award one point and I suppose Abelard would have been more important to the necessity of these being machines if he had been written more about.

In "Scree-crawlin'", the Alchemist's Machine is central to the tale. They kidnapped the alchemist, grabbed the machine from the same shop, and broken parts from it create a trail for the characters. Most excellent. I award full points here.

AA- 7 points
KS- 7 points

Fourth Ingredient: Smoking Alembic

In "Scree-crawlin'", the smoking alembic works perfectly in this entry. It shows that the destruction of the shop occured only recently and that the players may be able to catch up to the offenders. And the alembic works well with the alchemist machine ingredient. I award full points for its use here.

In "Don't Forget to Remember", the smoking alembic is the weakest ingredient of the entry. Why is it important that it is a smoking alembic that heats the ice? It seems that the alembic's smoking is incidental to the story. So is the alembic for that matter. Why couldn't the party use torches or a fireball spell? Is the alembic some sort of artifact and if so, what more can be said about it? I can't award any points here.

AA- 7 points
KS- 9 points

Fifth Ingredient: Mountain of Debris

Nothing much to say here. In both cases the Mountain of Debris is just an obstacle to overcome. In "Don't Forget to Remember", it is a mountain of discarded ideas that needs to be climbed down. This ties narratively with the entry, but nothing much else is done with it. In "Scree-crawlin'" it's a mountain of loose rocks used as the monster's base that needs to be climbed up. 1 point for each entry.

AA- 8 points
KS- 10 points

Sixth Ingredient: Profitable Blackmail

In "Don't Forget to Remember", the profitable blackmail drives the background narrative. A hero agrees to work with a devil to hide a shameful sin. The hero serves the devil, which the devil is profiting from. The players get involved to free the hero from the trap he is in. The ingredient's use is integral and I award full points.

In "Scree-crawlin'", this ingredient is a bit of a mixed bag. The blackmail plot is a little weak and has a couple of narrative holes. If the villagers are scheming with using the monster's presence, why would the alchemist be able to be blackmailed for scheming with the monsters? It seems like the villagers might want to be in on it. If they want to blackmail the alchemist, why would the monsters capture the alchemist instead of smashing some stuff as a warning that the alchemist better pay up? The intent to blackmail is there in the story, but it certainly isn't profitable for the monsters once they capture their target.

AA- 10 points
KS- 11 points

Potential for the DM

I'm going to give both entries some credit here... both of them have multiple solutions to the main problem and the players are not required to use force to progress. This is much appreciated and to their benefit.

"Scree-crawlin'" is an adventure that can be played with little tweaking. The adventure doesn't really stand out, but it is written in a way that a DM could set-up and run with maybe an hour or two of prep time.

"Don't Forget to Remember" is a lot more memorable, but it seems incomplete. A Dungeon Master is going to have to put in a few hours to seal the cracks and fill in some of the blanks. This entry had some very good ideas, but it needed more time in the oven. It probably would have won if Andrew Anderson had another day to rewrite it, but alas that time limit...

AA- 11 points
KS- 13 points

Judgement

I am only human and ultimately my decision is subjective. Please do not take my critiques personally, but at least consider them so that you may improve future entries.

Spoiler

Kobold Stew advances to the next round. He's an old pro at this and tied his ingredients well to a clean narrative.

Andrew Anderson, you have the imagination to compete in these tournaments and I approve of the direction you were going, but you need to make your entries more readable and polished in the future. I believe you simply ran out of time. I look forward to seeing more from you.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Thank you, @Deuce Traveler, for your thoughtful and generous comments. I really struggled with the ingredients, and particularly with integrating blackmail into the adventure -- I'm going to think more on that (I wanted to make it profitable for the players, but could not find a way to do so). And your observation that Hope needs better integration into the whole thing is completely fair.

@Andrew Anderson, your entry was an amazing read. I was totally charmed by the idea of Lethe ice (yoink!), and I love the whole season-of-mists vibe that you created here. Really cool.

 

[Andrew Anderson]

@Deuce Traveler
Thank you for your notes. You are right: I stole this format from Rune, thinking it would be a good way to reduce word count. I understand Rune used the Dungeon World concept for his entry and your notes are why I have a hard time with Dungeon World.
@Kobold Stew, good job with a complete adventure concept. Now go ahead and win this thing so I can say at least I was beaten by the best.

 

[Imaculata]

Got to remember to steal Lethe for a future campaign. So many great ideas here. Inspiring!

 

[Kobold Stew]

Marketing idea.

Lethe ice: every sip feels like the first time.