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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 1000086" data-attributes="member: 67">I suppose I'd better respond to some of this.In general, I'm not disappointed with the 1/season schedule, but I could also support a 2/year schedule.  No more, no less.  One of the reasons that interest in the Iron DM Tournaments remains high is because there aren't too many games.  People want to see a challenging game, and the rarity helps keep it challenging by making even entry a competitive process.  Not only that, but one season is a bare minimum for holding on to the Championship title.  If it changes every month, who's going to bother wanting to spend the enormous amount of time necessary to win it after a while?8 participants and 1 judge.  It works smoothly, trust me.  It is especially important that only 8 participants enter, because pacing is crucial in the tournament.  If it drags on (I've seen it happen), people, even contestants, lose interest.  Seriously.As for a panal of judges, that has the potential to run more smoothly, but I doubt it would.  It's simply not practical.  Allow me to explain (although Nemm probably did it better).  Judging is a huge time commitment.  Three readings of each entry is a good minimum (which is why formatting is so appreciated).  If you think scheduling so that two contestants could have a compatable time to do a match was sometimes difficult (had to wait a whole week to start match 3!), you have no idea how difficult it would be to do that and schedule time for three judges to read through each entry 3 times and come to a consensus.  No way in hell.  Not without totally screwing up the pacing.Now, it is possible that a panal of judges could do this without consulting with each other, but they'd need to do a numeric scoring of the entries, to do this.  Guess what?  Numeric scoring actually increases the chance of a mediocre entry winning over a superior one.  Forget it.That said, the <a href="http://pub109.ezboard.com/baquerra" target="_blank">Rat Bastard DM's Club</a> runs infrequent Iron DM Tournaments, and almost always trys new formats.  Check them out, if you'd like.  As a matter of fact, check out the site, anyway.  It's a good resource.I'll be honest, with as many times as a judge has to read the entries, it is inevitable that they'll appreciate shorter entries.  However, allowing longer entries (allows for more discression on the part of the author.  A good entry will shine through, no matter the length.  So, the "don't bore me" rule is a good one.  However, if I ever run a tournament again, I may well run one with a length-limit strictly enforced.  Just an extra challenge.  Iron DM is Iron for a reason, after all.I guess I should tackle the issue of subjective judging.  Contrary to popular belief, subjectivity is actually an extremely minor aspect to judging.  When Seasong says that pleasing the judge means doing a good job, he's absolutely right.  Here's where I guess I'll explain my criteria weighting (these are estimates, I didn't use a numeric scoring procedure):Out of 12 points:Was it functional? 3Was it inspirational? 2If I want to improve things, how easily could I? 1How well did the ingredients work together? 2How well did the ingredients expand upon my expectations? 2How well did the ingredients actually fit the scenario? 2Notice, that thismeans that creativity and structure are about equal to ingredient use.  But the truth is they all blend together, which is one reason that numeric scoring is sub-optimal.I won't comment on this one, except to say that I never did it.  Further, I never even offered exposition of a losing entry, unless specifically asked to by the judge.  The truth is, I would have been bitter if I had responded to one or two judgements, and I didn't need to be.  I trusted the judges going into the tournaments, and I did so for a reason.I might not have agreed that the better entry had won, but I also had to remember that, in those situations, the judge was the only one qualified to judge and, consequently, all decisions were correct.There is no way the judge would be able to maintain enough interest among viewers and contestants (as the interest among viewers helps to maintain interest among contestants) with a necessarily long-running league format.  It's a nice idea in theory, but logistically not possible.  Trust me on that.I've already made my objections to these points, so I won't repeat myself.A themed competition has been done and probably will be done again at the Rat Bastard boards.As for a tournament in which the contestants pick their own ingredients...I absolutely couldn't compete in it, because, frankly, I don't think there's any challenge to it.  What's the point of even having ingredients, if you get to pick them yourself?I'm afraid I have to disagree vehemently with you on this point.  The longer the adventure, the harder it is to get the ingredients to play off of each other, which is a crucial aspect of the game.  Having a scope that is much too large for a single adventure can be a problem, but that is why I think Seasong's 2nd round entry is so beautiful.  He succees where all other contestants have fallen, he made a campaign actually work in a single adventure.What?  Chefs frequently (always) have multiple-course meals on Iron Chef.  The only limiting factors they have are that all must use the main ingredient as a central feature, and the 1-hour time limit.I've said this before, but I'll say it again:  A good adventure is also the seed of a good campaign.Now, I know many a published module is designed with a different philosophy, but I'm not especially enamored with the way most modules are designed.  I'm looking for more.I actually don't have a problem with it, as long as PCs directly interact with the consequences of those ingredients' presence.Seasong's exactly right on this point.  It is about pleasing the judge, which means, it is about writing the best entry.  That's what pleases the judge!"Interchangeable" ingredients, as you call it, is a bit of a misnomer.  I prefer "ambiguous."  Truth is, these ingredients are actually harder to use well.  They're traps.  But they're more evocative.  What really makes a list difficult, however, is a set of ingredients that looks too simple.  That's when you have be very careful.I am always looking for creative interpretations of the ingredients.  The fact that contestants don't know where I'll draw the line makes it a gamble to do it, and if it's done well, I'll reward the gamble.  Believe me, it makes things tougher.  Case in point, in Seasong's final entry, he thought he could get away with a stretch of "fairy tale land" that actually seems pretty minor.  But I drew the line, and he lost that gamble.In this tournament, I played my cards pretty closely, not explicitly telling the players everything about my preferences (as I didn't want everyone to start thinking my preferences mattered that much) because the meta-game involved makes the tournament that much tougher.But the truth is, I linked to past tournaments in my first post, I have a link to one of my story hours in my sig, and anyone who wanted to do the homework didn't have to do very much.They still needed to do some inferring, but it was all right there.  If contestants did not do any homework, I can't feel bad about them not figuring out where I set my priorities.I really think I've been more or less in line with past judges on the point of priorities, except that I think I rewarded creativity slightly more than judges in the past.  That's not much of a difference.Well, that was lengthy.  I'll leave it at this.</blockquote>

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