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IRON DM 2025 Tournament Thread
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<blockquote data-quote="FitzTheRuke" data-source="post: 9777453" data-attributes="member: 59816"><p><strong><span style="font-size: 22px">Iron DM 2025</span></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>FitzTheRuke’s Judgement for Round Two, Match One: AustinHolm vs Humble Minion. </strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Following the Rules</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Both @AustinHolm’s So Real It Burns (henceforth “Burns”) and @humble minion’s Forgotten Meat (“Meat”) came in on time and under word-limit, cutting it close on one or the other. </p><p></p><p>This part’s a tie.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Readability & Structure</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Both adventures are well-written and entertaining. I enjoyed both quite a bit.</p><p></p><p>I had a few very minor gripes with gripes with some of Burns' organization when I first read it, but after reading it a few times, I'm not sure that I remember exactly what they were specifically.</p><p></p><p>Meat has missing periods, the occasional words that are meant to be another word, or other absolutely extremely minor editorial mistakes (truly – this is terrible nit-picking, but I have an editor's eye and can't not see it.) </p><p></p><p>A teeny tiny bump to Burns.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Playing the Adventures</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Or at least, how I imagine they would play. Honestly, both seem like they’d be fun. I’ve never played Mothership, nor an Alien RPG, but I can imagine how both would work. They’re surprisingly similar – the PCs arrive by spaceship to a working-class settlement, interact with the locals, discover a mystery, find themselves in danger, and work to escape. The details are very different, though.</p><p></p><p>Ultimately, Meat seems a little bit too scripted – the events happen the way they happen with very little that the PCs can do, even to rearrange their order. The PCs simply survive the scenario, or they don’t. It’s a very well-done Alien story, and it would probably come together as very fun to play and evokes the typical Alien scenario while being its own thing. I like it, but Burns slightly beats it in this category for having what I can imagine to be more room for the players to alter the course of events.</p><p></p><p>Another small bump to Burns.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Ingredients Usage</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Of course, the most important thing is the use of ingredients. Let’s see how they do:</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Flaming Spirits</span></em></p><p></p><p>In Burns, we have a multi-use: The presumed-dead Katrina has an alien-imposed psychic glamour that makes her appear as a flaming ghost, but she’s also spent thirty years making moonshine, which keeps her free of the alien’s psychic influence (by being drunk all the time). To top it off, her booze-still is likely to go boom, and even if it doesn’t, the PCs can use it for its Molotov Cocktails. Not all the uses are strong (the psychic glamour could have theoretically made her look like anything, or possibly even erase her) but they definitely get the job done. There’s ultimately little way to avoid the adventure containing “spirits” which are “on fire”.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, we also have burning booze, in the form of Flamethrowers improvised using “Heckfire Hooch”. It’s fun, but by comparison feels a little tacked on. Besides, in an Alien game, would the Agents of the Company have need to improvise weapons? They might, if it was forced on them, but I feel like players sitting down to play an Alien game would want at least a few of them to be decked out with weapons, even if the scenario pretends that they don’t know that they’re going to run into Xenomorphs. The players know.</p><p></p><p>One might question if the same should be true for Burns, and it’s a good point, but those PCs are there to investigate a murder that happened thirty years prior, to inform the plot of a docu-drama! Unlike Company folk in the Alien franchise, I can imagine them being much less prepared for the events that transpire.</p><p></p><p>I’ll give another bump to Burns.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Harsh Reality</span></em></p><p></p><p>In Burns, we have another psychic glamour – on the whole colony, which appears to look just like it would have thirty years ago, a small farming colony just getting started. In truth, it is thirty years gone to ruin, fed upon by alien slime.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, well, the reality there is pretty harsh, I suppose, but I’m not sure that I spot a more specific use of the ingredient. In fact, as I see it, one of the drawbacks to calling out your own uses of the ingredients by explicitly naming them in (brackets), is that when you fail to do so, it looks like the ingredient is missing, when it’s not really. When I first wrote Iron DM entries, I did that too, and I was essentially told to cut it out by a judge (I don’t remember who). IIRC, the advice was “Trust the Judge to be able to find your ingredients. If they can’t, then you probably haven’t done a good job with them”. Of course, we judges are also fallible, but I admit, I feel like the “calling it out” takes me out of the narrative. It’s also a crutch – I may find that I quickly search for the spot where you call it out and miss your more expansive use of the ingredient elsewhere. Or, like this one, find trouble finding it <em>because</em> you didn’t call it out, when I would otherwise read the whole thing through with an eye out for just that single ingredient.</p><p></p><p>All that said, I’m giving it to Burns again.</p><p></p><p>I’m a little surprised at this point, because I want to make it clear – I really like Meat. It’s a matter of fine degree.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Gelatinous Pyramid</span></em></p><p></p><p>Burns has multiple distinct gelatinous pyramids. I want to make it clear here that generally <em>more</em> doesn’t equate to <em>better</em>. That said, I can’t find too much fault with these. Sure, it’s convenient that they look like gnomes but are really pyramids, they are somehow gelatinous, but at the same time flammable. I guess that might be the weakest part of this ingredient - <em>why gelatinous; why pyramids</em>? They don’t really shapeshift into gnomes, they just make you think that they look like them. And they are only in the shape of pyramids because the text says so. They could probably be any shape at all and otherwise be the same. They also ultimately serve as multiple ingredients, as we shall see.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, we have a Fatberg in the “Larder”. It appears to be a pyramid simply because the (let’s call it) “material” drops down a chute and piles up that way. It’s appropriately disgusting for the horrific tone of the adventure, and it’s where we find our Xenomorph, so it’s important for the plot.</p><p></p><p>That’s one goes to Meat.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Dead to the World</span></em></p><p></p><p>In Burns, we have Katrina. She was thought to be dead even before the Massacre and has been drunk for 30 years. She’s effectively been “Dead to the World” for years, sure.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, the Asteroid staff is expecting to get paid out and go home eventually, but the company has (without telling anyone, naturally) decided that it’s too expensive, and they’ve abandoned them. The PCs are the last ship in and out, and they’re ostensibly there for one last cargo pickup. They’re certainly dead, and the world has forgotten them, yet still it feels not quite as strong as it ought to be to me.</p><p></p><p>Here I’m giving a very, very weak bump to Burns.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Ancient Satellite</span></em></p><p></p><p>Burns has an upside-down pyramid in orbit. The PCs can dock with it, in which case they’ll find out that it’s not the technological satellite that it appears to be, but rather part of the alien collective. It’s not entirely clear what role it plays, but PCs can find clues here. Also, they can blow it up. Unfortunately, it seems possible that they could blow it up as the very first thing that they would do when they arrive on the scene. (I know players who would do this). This would derail most of the rest of the scenario. But as an ingredient, it’s fine, if not spectacular. It’s only “Ancient” because we are told that it is.</p><p></p><p>Meat’s Satellite, we’re told is Ancient, and it has the feel of being so – it’s a mining asteroid that is running dry. It’s a space rock, which are ancient by their nature, but also it seems that it’s been mined for a long time. It’s simple, but it works.</p><p></p><p>I give the edge here to Meat.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Knowledge Hoarder</span></em></p><p></p><p>In Burns, we have the underground pyramid. Twin to the satellite, and I suppose, some kind of parent or god-figure to the smaller, gnomish creatures. It extracts memories (skills), and the PCs can, I think, gain some of the colonist’s abilities, or perhaps lose some of their own. I think it’s pretty clever.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, our Knowledge Hoarder is Miss Primrose, the Company Synth, who knows more than anyone else about what’s going on and keeps it to herself. While this is typical for Alien, it seems that her twist is that the NPCs are really fond of her. If I were running it, I’d try to make that true for the PCs as well.</p><p></p><p>I’ll call this a tie.</p><p></p><p><em><span style="font-size: 18px">Rampaging Gnomes</span></em></p><p></p><p>Burns’ Gnomes go on a Rampage if the PCs set fire to either of the bigger pyramids, which seems likely to happen either at the very beginning, or (hopefully more likely) after most of the mysteries have been solved. They burn and thrash and chase. Works for me.</p><p></p><p>In Meat, the Non-Organic Mineworkers (NOMs, pronounced Gnomes) are reprogrammed by the Company Computers to protect the Xenomorph asset over their human companions. They destroy parts of the facility and attack anyone trying to defend themselves against the Alien. It’s not strong, but it does the trick.</p><p></p><p>This one’s also a tie.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 22px">In Conclusion</span></strong></p><p>[spoiler="Judgement"]</p><p>Adding it all up, it appears that my vote is for [USER=7054007]@AustinHolm[/USER] to move forward to Round Three.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure that I could have guessed it going in - I liked both entries enough to have not had a favorite between them when I started writing this judgement (a few days ago now).</p><p></p><p>I look forward to seeing what my fellow judges have to say![/spoiler]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FitzTheRuke, post: 9777453, member: 59816"] [B][SIZE=6]Iron DM 2025[/SIZE] FitzTheRuke’s Judgement for Round Two, Match One: AustinHolm vs Humble Minion. [SIZE=5]Following the Rules[/SIZE][/B] Both @AustinHolm’s So Real It Burns (henceforth “Burns”) and @humble minion’s Forgotten Meat (“Meat”) came in on time and under word-limit, cutting it close on one or the other. This part’s a tie. [B][SIZE=5]Readability & Structure[/SIZE][/B] Both adventures are well-written and entertaining. I enjoyed both quite a bit. I had a few very minor gripes with gripes with some of Burns' organization when I first read it, but after reading it a few times, I'm not sure that I remember exactly what they were specifically. Meat has missing periods, the occasional words that are meant to be another word, or other absolutely extremely minor editorial mistakes (truly – this is terrible nit-picking, but I have an editor's eye and can't not see it.) A teeny tiny bump to Burns. [B][SIZE=5]Playing the Adventures[/SIZE][/B] Or at least, how I imagine they would play. Honestly, both seem like they’d be fun. I’ve never played Mothership, nor an Alien RPG, but I can imagine how both would work. They’re surprisingly similar – the PCs arrive by spaceship to a working-class settlement, interact with the locals, discover a mystery, find themselves in danger, and work to escape. The details are very different, though. Ultimately, Meat seems a little bit too scripted – the events happen the way they happen with very little that the PCs can do, even to rearrange their order. The PCs simply survive the scenario, or they don’t. It’s a very well-done Alien story, and it would probably come together as very fun to play and evokes the typical Alien scenario while being its own thing. I like it, but Burns slightly beats it in this category for having what I can imagine to be more room for the players to alter the course of events. Another small bump to Burns. [B][SIZE=5]Ingredients Usage[/SIZE][/B] Of course, the most important thing is the use of ingredients. Let’s see how they do: [I][SIZE=5]Flaming Spirits[/SIZE][/I] In Burns, we have a multi-use: The presumed-dead Katrina has an alien-imposed psychic glamour that makes her appear as a flaming ghost, but she’s also spent thirty years making moonshine, which keeps her free of the alien’s psychic influence (by being drunk all the time). To top it off, her booze-still is likely to go boom, and even if it doesn’t, the PCs can use it for its Molotov Cocktails. Not all the uses are strong (the psychic glamour could have theoretically made her look like anything, or possibly even erase her) but they definitely get the job done. There’s ultimately little way to avoid the adventure containing “spirits” which are “on fire”. In Meat, we also have burning booze, in the form of Flamethrowers improvised using “Heckfire Hooch”. It’s fun, but by comparison feels a little tacked on. Besides, in an Alien game, would the Agents of the Company have need to improvise weapons? They might, if it was forced on them, but I feel like players sitting down to play an Alien game would want at least a few of them to be decked out with weapons, even if the scenario pretends that they don’t know that they’re going to run into Xenomorphs. The players know. One might question if the same should be true for Burns, and it’s a good point, but those PCs are there to investigate a murder that happened thirty years prior, to inform the plot of a docu-drama! Unlike Company folk in the Alien franchise, I can imagine them being much less prepared for the events that transpire. I’ll give another bump to Burns. [I][SIZE=5]Harsh Reality[/SIZE][/I] In Burns, we have another psychic glamour – on the whole colony, which appears to look just like it would have thirty years ago, a small farming colony just getting started. In truth, it is thirty years gone to ruin, fed upon by alien slime. In Meat, well, the reality there is pretty harsh, I suppose, but I’m not sure that I spot a more specific use of the ingredient. In fact, as I see it, one of the drawbacks to calling out your own uses of the ingredients by explicitly naming them in (brackets), is that when you fail to do so, it looks like the ingredient is missing, when it’s not really. When I first wrote Iron DM entries, I did that too, and I was essentially told to cut it out by a judge (I don’t remember who). IIRC, the advice was “Trust the Judge to be able to find your ingredients. If they can’t, then you probably haven’t done a good job with them”. Of course, we judges are also fallible, but I admit, I feel like the “calling it out” takes me out of the narrative. It’s also a crutch – I may find that I quickly search for the spot where you call it out and miss your more expansive use of the ingredient elsewhere. Or, like this one, find trouble finding it [I]because[/I] you didn’t call it out, when I would otherwise read the whole thing through with an eye out for just that single ingredient. All that said, I’m giving it to Burns again. I’m a little surprised at this point, because I want to make it clear – I really like Meat. It’s a matter of fine degree. [I][SIZE=5]Gelatinous Pyramid[/SIZE][/I] Burns has multiple distinct gelatinous pyramids. I want to make it clear here that generally [I]more[/I] doesn’t equate to [I]better[/I]. That said, I can’t find too much fault with these. Sure, it’s convenient that they look like gnomes but are really pyramids, they are somehow gelatinous, but at the same time flammable. I guess that might be the weakest part of this ingredient - [I]why gelatinous; why pyramids[/I]? They don’t really shapeshift into gnomes, they just make you think that they look like them. And they are only in the shape of pyramids because the text says so. They could probably be any shape at all and otherwise be the same. They also ultimately serve as multiple ingredients, as we shall see. In Meat, we have a Fatberg in the “Larder”. It appears to be a pyramid simply because the (let’s call it) “material” drops down a chute and piles up that way. It’s appropriately disgusting for the horrific tone of the adventure, and it’s where we find our Xenomorph, so it’s important for the plot. That’s one goes to Meat. [I][SIZE=5]Dead to the World[/SIZE][/I] In Burns, we have Katrina. She was thought to be dead even before the Massacre and has been drunk for 30 years. She’s effectively been “Dead to the World” for years, sure. In Meat, the Asteroid staff is expecting to get paid out and go home eventually, but the company has (without telling anyone, naturally) decided that it’s too expensive, and they’ve abandoned them. The PCs are the last ship in and out, and they’re ostensibly there for one last cargo pickup. They’re certainly dead, and the world has forgotten them, yet still it feels not quite as strong as it ought to be to me. Here I’m giving a very, very weak bump to Burns. [I][SIZE=5]Ancient Satellite[/SIZE][/I] Burns has an upside-down pyramid in orbit. The PCs can dock with it, in which case they’ll find out that it’s not the technological satellite that it appears to be, but rather part of the alien collective. It’s not entirely clear what role it plays, but PCs can find clues here. Also, they can blow it up. Unfortunately, it seems possible that they could blow it up as the very first thing that they would do when they arrive on the scene. (I know players who would do this). This would derail most of the rest of the scenario. But as an ingredient, it’s fine, if not spectacular. It’s only “Ancient” because we are told that it is. Meat’s Satellite, we’re told is Ancient, and it has the feel of being so – it’s a mining asteroid that is running dry. It’s a space rock, which are ancient by their nature, but also it seems that it’s been mined for a long time. It’s simple, but it works. I give the edge here to Meat. [I][SIZE=5]Knowledge Hoarder[/SIZE][/I] In Burns, we have the underground pyramid. Twin to the satellite, and I suppose, some kind of parent or god-figure to the smaller, gnomish creatures. It extracts memories (skills), and the PCs can, I think, gain some of the colonist’s abilities, or perhaps lose some of their own. I think it’s pretty clever. In Meat, our Knowledge Hoarder is Miss Primrose, the Company Synth, who knows more than anyone else about what’s going on and keeps it to herself. While this is typical for Alien, it seems that her twist is that the NPCs are really fond of her. If I were running it, I’d try to make that true for the PCs as well. I’ll call this a tie. [I][SIZE=5]Rampaging Gnomes[/SIZE][/I] Burns’ Gnomes go on a Rampage if the PCs set fire to either of the bigger pyramids, which seems likely to happen either at the very beginning, or (hopefully more likely) after most of the mysteries have been solved. They burn and thrash and chase. Works for me. In Meat, the Non-Organic Mineworkers (NOMs, pronounced Gnomes) are reprogrammed by the Company Computers to protect the Xenomorph asset over their human companions. They destroy parts of the facility and attack anyone trying to defend themselves against the Alien. It’s not strong, but it does the trick. This one’s also a tie. [B][SIZE=6]In Conclusion[/SIZE][/B] [spoiler="Judgement"] Adding it all up, it appears that my vote is for [USER=7054007]@AustinHolm[/USER] to move forward to Round Three. I'm not sure that I could have guessed it going in - I liked both entries enough to have not had a favorite between them when I started writing this judgement (a few days ago now). I look forward to seeing what my fellow judges have to say![/spoiler] [/QUOTE]
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