Gradine
🏳️⚧️ (she/her) 🇵🇸
Apologies for the delays, as well as the lack of great formatting, here. Jury duty is kicking my rear.
Judgment for Round 2 Match 2: @Snarf Zagyg vs @Iron Sky
Rules and Readability
Both entries come in just under the 1500 word limit, and came in on time. All rules have been observed.
Adventure Flow & Potential
This is my subjective "what did I generally like/dislike about the adventures" section of the judgment. "Everyone's Gone to the Rageture" (hereafter "Rage") is a post-apocalyptic one-shot game with one hell of a twist. Some of the elements are a bit gonzo, but it all fits together almost perfectly. There's an internal consistency to the entire game from start to finish, even with the midpoint twist.
The Dooms of Songport ("Dooms") on the other hand, is a game that covers a significant amount of conceptual ground, to the point where it feels, to read, as a much larger adventure than it ultimately is. What's here is quite good, but it is thematically a bit of a hodgepodge. At worst, this can lead to a confusing mess; at best, it can be a full throttle twenty car pileup of the most incredibly fun nature. In either case, it's harder for the DM to juggle and the players to navigate, but it can make it all the more satisfying to pull off.
On balance, though, I find "Rage" to be a more playable and coherent adventure, but not by such a margin that the ingredients won't be able to make the difference.
The Ingredients
These are some really wild ingredients, and some serious hits and misses between these two entries. Let's dive in.
Scary Stickers
I think in "Rage" this is served by the huge scary leeches. They're a fun and thematic element, but they aren't even a little bit essential the adventure. In "Dooms" these are the stickers that turn the bears into owlbears, and as such are both relevant and essential. What they aren't, though, is particularly internally consistent. I don't get the sense of why these druids have or are using stickers, or why something else wouldn't have made more sense. On balance, though, I have to give "relevant and essential" a bit of a leg up on "clever but irrelevant".
City in a Bottle
Both entries have cities in bottles, in one case metaphorical and the other literal. Both are absolutely critical to their respective adventures, and I can find no fault in either.
Misunderstood Owlbear
Both adventures also have owlbears, though in both cases neither of them are actually owlbears; one is a human and the other a regular bear. Only the owlbear in "Rage" could be said to truly being misunderstood, however; though how much can be attributed to misunderstanding and how much to misrepresentation is a matter of debate. The owlbear in "Dooms" IS an angry, violent owlbear, until he isn't anymore. He is not so much misunderstood as he is changed.
Copper Kettle
In "Rage" this is the copper cauldron. It's tied somewhat to the setting but it's more of a red herring than anything, and also, notably, not a kettle. "Dooms" gives us an actual copper kettle, and ties the copper into the setting, though the specific metal could be replaceable, and I also don't get why it's needed to purify the water, other than just because. Still, it's eminently central to the adventure, so that's not bad.
Sword of Echoing Sin
I'm sure the other judges touched on this already, but simply naming a thing after an ingredient isn't usually a good sign. The "sword" in "Rage"may be a weapon, and certainly does echo with sin, but it's not at all sword, no matter what you call it. "Dooms" has a sword, and it echoes sins, and it's pretty central to the adventure. Can't complain.
Uncaring Bears
This is well enough used in both adventures, though it feels a bit less of a non-sequitor in "Dooms". There's a pretty big caveat to that, though, which I'll get to later. As antagonists in "Rage" they're quite fun, if a bit of of left field.
Silent Choir
This is pretty weak in both issues, though given that its use is still substantially better used in "Dooms", where the choir is core to the climax of the adventure, even if I never am quite sure why they are silent in the first place. Much like the leeches, the song dogs in "Rage" are a fun obstacle and fantastic set dressing, but are otherwise fairly removable without much fuss.
In Conclusion
It's clear that "Dooms" has an overall edge in the ingredient usage. But there's something about ingredients that is much harder to capture with a blow-by-blow, one ingredient at a time approach, and that's how well the ingredients all tie together. In that sense, it's "Rage" that holds the edge. In "Dooms", nothing feels to quite fit right together. This might be a fully personal thing, but the all the elements (the songwizards, the myconids, the druids, the bears, the banshees) feel like at least two different adventures crammed together at once. That's not a deal-breaker necessarily, but it does make the overall ingredient edge a bit less impactful.
Judgment for Round 2 Match 2: @Snarf Zagyg vs @Iron Sky
Rules and Readability
Both entries come in just under the 1500 word limit, and came in on time. All rules have been observed.
Adventure Flow & Potential
This is my subjective "what did I generally like/dislike about the adventures" section of the judgment. "Everyone's Gone to the Rageture" (hereafter "Rage") is a post-apocalyptic one-shot game with one hell of a twist. Some of the elements are a bit gonzo, but it all fits together almost perfectly. There's an internal consistency to the entire game from start to finish, even with the midpoint twist.
The Dooms of Songport ("Dooms") on the other hand, is a game that covers a significant amount of conceptual ground, to the point where it feels, to read, as a much larger adventure than it ultimately is. What's here is quite good, but it is thematically a bit of a hodgepodge. At worst, this can lead to a confusing mess; at best, it can be a full throttle twenty car pileup of the most incredibly fun nature. In either case, it's harder for the DM to juggle and the players to navigate, but it can make it all the more satisfying to pull off.
On balance, though, I find "Rage" to be a more playable and coherent adventure, but not by such a margin that the ingredients won't be able to make the difference.
The Ingredients
These are some really wild ingredients, and some serious hits and misses between these two entries. Let's dive in.
Scary Stickers
I think in "Rage" this is served by the huge scary leeches. They're a fun and thematic element, but they aren't even a little bit essential the adventure. In "Dooms" these are the stickers that turn the bears into owlbears, and as such are both relevant and essential. What they aren't, though, is particularly internally consistent. I don't get the sense of why these druids have or are using stickers, or why something else wouldn't have made more sense. On balance, though, I have to give "relevant and essential" a bit of a leg up on "clever but irrelevant".
City in a Bottle
Both entries have cities in bottles, in one case metaphorical and the other literal. Both are absolutely critical to their respective adventures, and I can find no fault in either.
Misunderstood Owlbear
Both adventures also have owlbears, though in both cases neither of them are actually owlbears; one is a human and the other a regular bear. Only the owlbear in "Rage" could be said to truly being misunderstood, however; though how much can be attributed to misunderstanding and how much to misrepresentation is a matter of debate. The owlbear in "Dooms" IS an angry, violent owlbear, until he isn't anymore. He is not so much misunderstood as he is changed.
Copper Kettle
In "Rage" this is the copper cauldron. It's tied somewhat to the setting but it's more of a red herring than anything, and also, notably, not a kettle. "Dooms" gives us an actual copper kettle, and ties the copper into the setting, though the specific metal could be replaceable, and I also don't get why it's needed to purify the water, other than just because. Still, it's eminently central to the adventure, so that's not bad.
Sword of Echoing Sin
I'm sure the other judges touched on this already, but simply naming a thing after an ingredient isn't usually a good sign. The "sword" in "Rage"may be a weapon, and certainly does echo with sin, but it's not at all sword, no matter what you call it. "Dooms" has a sword, and it echoes sins, and it's pretty central to the adventure. Can't complain.
Uncaring Bears
This is well enough used in both adventures, though it feels a bit less of a non-sequitor in "Dooms". There's a pretty big caveat to that, though, which I'll get to later. As antagonists in "Rage" they're quite fun, if a bit of of left field.
Silent Choir
This is pretty weak in both issues, though given that its use is still substantially better used in "Dooms", where the choir is core to the climax of the adventure, even if I never am quite sure why they are silent in the first place. Much like the leeches, the song dogs in "Rage" are a fun obstacle and fantastic set dressing, but are otherwise fairly removable without much fuss.
In Conclusion
It's clear that "Dooms" has an overall edge in the ingredient usage. But there's something about ingredients that is much harder to capture with a blow-by-blow, one ingredient at a time approach, and that's how well the ingredients all tie together. In that sense, it's "Rage" that holds the edge. In "Dooms", nothing feels to quite fit right together. This might be a fully personal thing, but the all the elements (the songwizards, the myconids, the druids, the bears, the banshees) feel like at least two different adventures crammed together at once. That's not a deal-breaker necessarily, but it does make the overall ingredient edge a bit less impactful.
But the final straw for me is the role that the PCs play. In "Dooms", the two pieces that are necessary to solve the issue is the copper kettle and the sword. The thing is, those are both in there possession of people who have a pretty invested interest in using them to fix everything. Why are the Naturals, who are dealing with a schism caused by waterborne illness, not purifying the water themselves? Why does Lati give up the sword (and thus the responsibility for saving her people) to others? Why are any druids asking outsiders for help finding and subsequently calming down a beast? It can be argued that those factions don't know enough about the problems to solve it, but I don't see any way for the PCs to become better informed, except through learning more about the issues by interacting with these NPCs?
It's for this reason that I must therefore vote to advance "Everyone's Gone to the Rageture", and thus @Snarf Zagyg, to the final round.
And with the final vote of 2-1, @Snarf Zagyg is our winner. @Iron Sky, I almost have more to learn from you than you from me. You'll be back here again, and again, I'm sure.
It's for this reason that I must therefore vote to advance "Everyone's Gone to the Rageture", and thus @Snarf Zagyg, to the final round.
And with the final vote of 2-1, @Snarf Zagyg is our winner. @Iron Sky, I almost have more to learn from you than you from me. You'll be back here again, and again, I'm sure.