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IRON DM 2022 The Tournament Thread
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<blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 8752753" data-attributes="member: 150"><p>Hey all, Thanks for participating in Iron DM. This is a judgement on round 1, match two, between [USER=59816]@FitzTheRuke[/USER] and [USER=84320]@Helena Real[/USER].</p><p></p><p>My style of judgement is a bit less structured than Wicht's - and part of the fun of Iron DM is just how subjective it all is. I focus on the ingredient use as a primary consideration, and then that is influenced by comparative playability, creativity, presentation, and of course a certain amount of "rule of cool."</p><p></p><p>FitzTheRuke's entry, Agents of the Aerie (Agents) is a sequence of quests on behalf of Yarakromba, a foppish birdfolk nobleman.</p><p></p><p>Helena Real's entry, The Duchess' Divergent Desires (DDD) provides a pair of quests on behalf of a Duchess who is trying to get knocked up in a big way.</p><p></p><p>Both are fairly whimsical adventures, which is an interesting outcome, and they're both good fun on a first read. So, let's get down to brass tacks.</p><p></p><h3>Ingredient use</h3><p>[spoiler]</p><p>I evaluate ingredients for how well they are woven into the plot, and how well used they are. I look for ingredient use that is clever, and that makes that ingredient a crucial part of the story -- the details of the ingredient should be so well woven in that an alternative ingredient in the same place wouldn't work. And I just note which entry makes the best use of each ingredient, and which overall seems to have the best ingredient use.</p><p></p><p>So, here we go:</p><p></p><p><strong>See of Grass - </strong>For Agents, the sea of grass is part of what the party must take while they are trying to deliver their block of ice to Lord Mudglub. It's an interesting setting detail that presents a challenge to the party. In DDD, the sea of grass is a similar episodic impediment, this time a place where the party will have to find and fight Bucephalus, the two-headed cat-beast. The usage is really very similar, but I find that I like the use in Agents better for one very specific reason: it provides a more flavorful, interesting setting. For Agents, the characters have to deal with setting-based challenges, might work with specific NPCs, might get a sledge ship, etc. Lots of choices, lots of interesting activities. But in DDD, while the sea of grass presents some location-specific challenges, many of them are immediately removed by Duchess providing potions of grass(water) breathing to the party. It's an odd dance -- here's a problem, let me solve it for you -- and I think it would have been stronger if the potions were something that the party needed to do something to find/make/earn. So, Sea of Grass goes to Agents.</p><p></p><p><strong>Mountain of Ice </strong>- In DDD, the mountain of Ice is another location hazard that is where the Truthful Mirror is found. In a longer writeup, we could hope for some time to explain why the mountain of Ice was a mountain of Ice -- and why the mirror was there in the first place. It's not particularly strong use. Meanwhile, in Agents, the mountain of ice is the massive block of ice the party starts with, and that slowly melts as they try to make it to the court of Lord Mudglub. I get awesome Mosquito Coast vibes from that quest, and it makes the Mountain of Ice a much more important part of the adventure. So, advantage to Agents here, too.</p><p></p><p><strong>Feather Wig </strong>- in Agents, the feathered wig is actually two wigs -- the initial wig that Yarakromba wears to cover his bald molted pate, and the second one is the cursed one that his rivals try to use to subvert him. In DDD, the feathered wig is created by the Duchess with the feathers that the party recovers from Bucephalus, and that is used to help her make the fertility wig of feathers.</p><p></p><p>The Fertility wig is a great idea for an item, but what I struggle with is the idea that a wig is used to help someone carry multiple births safely to term. If we were to design an item to do that sort of magic, outside of needing to make an ingredient fit, would it be something worn on the head? It's a fairly awkward choice -- and what the entry doesn't do is make sense of the awkward choice for me.</p><p></p><p>So, again, advantage Agents.</p><p></p><p><strong>Two-headed Cat</strong> - Both Agents and DDD have two-headed cats used in significant ways. In DDD, we have Bucephalus the Bicephalus cat-beast. I scratched my head at a few things with Bucephalus -- we are never given an explanation as to why this cat-beast has feathers, and while I know the historic Bucephalus's name meant "bonus head", using the recognizable name of a horse from antiquity made me look for horse-like elements to the beast, which was a bit of a misdirection. And writing up this entry I can't tell you how many times a name with "phalus" in its root has led me to mis-gender the beast. At the same time, the Big B presents a fun, interesting challenge -- as do her kittens -- and it's certainly flavorful.</p><p></p><p>I liked the usage of the two-headed cat in Agents less well -- it's there, and presents a very cat-like set of solutions, but the usage is playful and goofy in a way that makes the silly tone of the adventure for children very silly indeed -- but I don't know that I think that tone matches the grind of trying to get the ice delivered before it melts away completely -- but there are mechanics and playability things there that I'll talk about in a minute.</p><p></p><p>In the end, I liked Bucephalus best, so advantage goes to DDD.</p><p></p><p><strong>Truthful Mirror </strong>- Both adventures present a mirror that reveals the truth. And, at first glance, they're both just sort of a quest MacGuffin. Agents has somewhat better use here -- because the MacGuffin is a critical tool necessary to solve the third quest, to reveal the cursed wig for what it is. In DDD, there's also a more intrinsic use: the mirror is necessary to validate the feathers retrieved by the party. I think this one is a wash -- no one is using it better than the other.</p><p></p><p><strong>Swindled Noble</strong> - In DDD, the Duchess has been swindled in the past, and that's why she demands the mirror to prove the provenance of the feathers. In Agents, the noble Yarakromba is swindled by rivals and the party must help prove that he's under the influence of his enemies. They're both working, and I don't think either is doing it more successfully than the other.</p><p></p><p>So, in the balance, I've given Agents the edge on more ingredient use than DDD, about 3-1. They're both doing a great job in a lot of cases, but I think Agents is just a better example of making the ingredients really intrinsic to the details of the story.</p><p>[/spoiler]</p><h3>Playability, Creativity, Presentation -</h3><p>[spoiler]</p><p>I think in both, the presentation is great -- I think that perhaps DDD could have saved some word count on explaining details of encounter tables, etc. But really both were great.</p><p></p><p>There are things that I just love -- the grind with the massive block of ice, and the effort to get it to the bog before it melts away is hugely evocative to me -- and at the same time, the challenge of trying to fight the big cat and recover feathers is a terrific scene (although, why not just kill the beast and take feathers of Bucephalus' dead body? Do the need to be harvested while she's still alive?) .</p><p></p><p>Both have their issues, of course. I found myself really wanting to get some sort of structure for the melting of the ice out of Agents. Like, what mechanic would be used, how will that create a ticking clock. For a short, first-round entry it's not strictly necessary, but the more concrete treatment of the feathers in DDD made me wish for something comparable in Agents.</p><p></p><p>And in DDD, Bucephalus suffers from the fiat of her having feathers for no apparent reason (other than the need to collect feathers for the wig). We're accepting that she has two heads, but why also feathers? Are both heads cat heads? It would be much more interesting if there were a reason for the feathers -- and I'd have sacrificed mechanical details to have that in a heartbeat.</p><p></p><p>There's another way we can look at these adventures -- and that's a sort of conceptual economy or efficiency. How many important elements in the story come from things that were NOT ingredients? In Agents, the frogfolk in the bog -- they're a destination, they hold the MacGuffin, but if something else were here, it wouldn't mess up the ingredients.</p><p></p><p>In DDD, Snuli the kobold bard isn't key to any of the ingredients. I started to say that the idea of childbirth was not important to the ingredients, then caught myself -- the idea of nobility is all about the need for children and the desire to preserve the line, so that IS keyed to an ingredient. So, I think that I have to give an edge to DDD for narrative economy.</p><p></p><p>DDD is actually marginally more playable, in its present form. While the concrete references to monsters and tables from specific books is not strictly necessary, it does make this entry something I could pick up and run with a bit easier than I could Agents.</p><p></p><p>So, there are some ways in which DDD is a bit stronger than Agents -- as much as I loved the melting ice and sail-sledging on the sea of grass, in most other ways I appreciated the creativity and economy of DDD better.</p><p></p><p>[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p><strong>Final Judgement</strong></p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>In the end, though, I think the ingredient use in Agents of the Aerie was stronger than that of the Duchess' Divergent Desires. There were things that I really appreciated and even loved about the Duchess's Desires, but they are not enough to overcome the stronger ingredient use in Agents.</p><p></p><p>So, FitzTheRuke will advance. Helena Real, you're a gentleperson and a scholar, and I am heartily impressed by your entry.</p><p></p><p>Thanks to both of you for the entries!</p><p></p><p>-rg</p><p></p><p>[/spoiler]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Radiating Gnome, post: 8752753, member: 150"] Hey all, Thanks for participating in Iron DM. This is a judgement on round 1, match two, between [USER=59816]@FitzTheRuke[/USER] and [USER=84320]@Helena Real[/USER]. My style of judgement is a bit less structured than Wicht's - and part of the fun of Iron DM is just how subjective it all is. I focus on the ingredient use as a primary consideration, and then that is influenced by comparative playability, creativity, presentation, and of course a certain amount of "rule of cool." FitzTheRuke's entry, Agents of the Aerie (Agents) is a sequence of quests on behalf of Yarakromba, a foppish birdfolk nobleman. Helena Real's entry, The Duchess' Divergent Desires (DDD) provides a pair of quests on behalf of a Duchess who is trying to get knocked up in a big way. Both are fairly whimsical adventures, which is an interesting outcome, and they're both good fun on a first read. So, let's get down to brass tacks. [HEADING=2]Ingredient use[/HEADING] [spoiler] I evaluate ingredients for how well they are woven into the plot, and how well used they are. I look for ingredient use that is clever, and that makes that ingredient a crucial part of the story -- the details of the ingredient should be so well woven in that an alternative ingredient in the same place wouldn't work. And I just note which entry makes the best use of each ingredient, and which overall seems to have the best ingredient use. So, here we go: [B]See of Grass - [/B]For Agents, the sea of grass is part of what the party must take while they are trying to deliver their block of ice to Lord Mudglub. It's an interesting setting detail that presents a challenge to the party. In DDD, the sea of grass is a similar episodic impediment, this time a place where the party will have to find and fight Bucephalus, the two-headed cat-beast. The usage is really very similar, but I find that I like the use in Agents better for one very specific reason: it provides a more flavorful, interesting setting. For Agents, the characters have to deal with setting-based challenges, might work with specific NPCs, might get a sledge ship, etc. Lots of choices, lots of interesting activities. But in DDD, while the sea of grass presents some location-specific challenges, many of them are immediately removed by Duchess providing potions of grass(water) breathing to the party. It's an odd dance -- here's a problem, let me solve it for you -- and I think it would have been stronger if the potions were something that the party needed to do something to find/make/earn. So, Sea of Grass goes to Agents. [B]Mountain of Ice [/B]- In DDD, the mountain of Ice is another location hazard that is where the Truthful Mirror is found. In a longer writeup, we could hope for some time to explain why the mountain of Ice was a mountain of Ice -- and why the mirror was there in the first place. It's not particularly strong use. Meanwhile, in Agents, the mountain of ice is the massive block of ice the party starts with, and that slowly melts as they try to make it to the court of Lord Mudglub. I get awesome Mosquito Coast vibes from that quest, and it makes the Mountain of Ice a much more important part of the adventure. So, advantage to Agents here, too. [B]Feather Wig [/B]- in Agents, the feathered wig is actually two wigs -- the initial wig that Yarakromba wears to cover his bald molted pate, and the second one is the cursed one that his rivals try to use to subvert him. In DDD, the feathered wig is created by the Duchess with the feathers that the party recovers from Bucephalus, and that is used to help her make the fertility wig of feathers. The Fertility wig is a great idea for an item, but what I struggle with is the idea that a wig is used to help someone carry multiple births safely to term. If we were to design an item to do that sort of magic, outside of needing to make an ingredient fit, would it be something worn on the head? It's a fairly awkward choice -- and what the entry doesn't do is make sense of the awkward choice for me. So, again, advantage Agents. [B]Two-headed Cat[/B] - Both Agents and DDD have two-headed cats used in significant ways. In DDD, we have Bucephalus the Bicephalus cat-beast. I scratched my head at a few things with Bucephalus -- we are never given an explanation as to why this cat-beast has feathers, and while I know the historic Bucephalus's name meant "bonus head", using the recognizable name of a horse from antiquity made me look for horse-like elements to the beast, which was a bit of a misdirection. And writing up this entry I can't tell you how many times a name with "phalus" in its root has led me to mis-gender the beast. At the same time, the Big B presents a fun, interesting challenge -- as do her kittens -- and it's certainly flavorful. I liked the usage of the two-headed cat in Agents less well -- it's there, and presents a very cat-like set of solutions, but the usage is playful and goofy in a way that makes the silly tone of the adventure for children very silly indeed -- but I don't know that I think that tone matches the grind of trying to get the ice delivered before it melts away completely -- but there are mechanics and playability things there that I'll talk about in a minute. In the end, I liked Bucephalus best, so advantage goes to DDD. [B]Truthful Mirror [/B]- Both adventures present a mirror that reveals the truth. And, at first glance, they're both just sort of a quest MacGuffin. Agents has somewhat better use here -- because the MacGuffin is a critical tool necessary to solve the third quest, to reveal the cursed wig for what it is. In DDD, there's also a more intrinsic use: the mirror is necessary to validate the feathers retrieved by the party. I think this one is a wash -- no one is using it better than the other. [B]Swindled Noble[/B] - In DDD, the Duchess has been swindled in the past, and that's why she demands the mirror to prove the provenance of the feathers. In Agents, the noble Yarakromba is swindled by rivals and the party must help prove that he's under the influence of his enemies. They're both working, and I don't think either is doing it more successfully than the other. So, in the balance, I've given Agents the edge on more ingredient use than DDD, about 3-1. They're both doing a great job in a lot of cases, but I think Agents is just a better example of making the ingredients really intrinsic to the details of the story. [/spoiler] [HEADING=2]Playability, Creativity, Presentation -[/HEADING] [spoiler] I think in both, the presentation is great -- I think that perhaps DDD could have saved some word count on explaining details of encounter tables, etc. But really both were great. There are things that I just love -- the grind with the massive block of ice, and the effort to get it to the bog before it melts away is hugely evocative to me -- and at the same time, the challenge of trying to fight the big cat and recover feathers is a terrific scene (although, why not just kill the beast and take feathers of Bucephalus' dead body? Do the need to be harvested while she's still alive?) . Both have their issues, of course. I found myself really wanting to get some sort of structure for the melting of the ice out of Agents. Like, what mechanic would be used, how will that create a ticking clock. For a short, first-round entry it's not strictly necessary, but the more concrete treatment of the feathers in DDD made me wish for something comparable in Agents. And in DDD, Bucephalus suffers from the fiat of her having feathers for no apparent reason (other than the need to collect feathers for the wig). We're accepting that she has two heads, but why also feathers? Are both heads cat heads? It would be much more interesting if there were a reason for the feathers -- and I'd have sacrificed mechanical details to have that in a heartbeat. There's another way we can look at these adventures -- and that's a sort of conceptual economy or efficiency. How many important elements in the story come from things that were NOT ingredients? In Agents, the frogfolk in the bog -- they're a destination, they hold the MacGuffin, but if something else were here, it wouldn't mess up the ingredients. In DDD, Snuli the kobold bard isn't key to any of the ingredients. I started to say that the idea of childbirth was not important to the ingredients, then caught myself -- the idea of nobility is all about the need for children and the desire to preserve the line, so that IS keyed to an ingredient. So, I think that I have to give an edge to DDD for narrative economy. DDD is actually marginally more playable, in its present form. While the concrete references to monsters and tables from specific books is not strictly necessary, it does make this entry something I could pick up and run with a bit easier than I could Agents. So, there are some ways in which DDD is a bit stronger than Agents -- as much as I loved the melting ice and sail-sledging on the sea of grass, in most other ways I appreciated the creativity and economy of DDD better. [/spoiler] [B]Final Judgement[/B] [spoiler] In the end, though, I think the ingredient use in Agents of the Aerie was stronger than that of the Duchess' Divergent Desires. There were things that I really appreciated and even loved about the Duchess's Desires, but they are not enough to overcome the stronger ingredient use in Agents. So, FitzTheRuke will advance. Helena Real, you're a gentleperson and a scholar, and I am heartily impressed by your entry. Thanks to both of you for the entries! -rg [/spoiler] [/QUOTE]
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