Iron dm summer champion announced!

[Talix]

I think both of your entries were very good.

Congrats nemm, now let's move on to the final two contests!

 

[cool hand luke]

wulf, hate to do this, but my schedule sucks for the next week.

I'm flying out tomorrow at 3:00 for a wedding across the country, and I won't be available again till next monday. sorry.

two excellent entries by the way!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Wulf, I'd have to disagree - the PCs get to interact with the aquarium, the diseased paladin, the misanthropic halfling. the unsteady ground all at the same time...

Hmm, I was afraid you'd seize on that one portion of my critique... It really is secondary to the primary criticism that your backstory sets up the players to arrive (by whatever hook) as mere witnesses to the chaos that is about to ensue.

It doesn't strike me as an adventure so much as a single encounter, and one that really doesn't involve the PCs at all. They just don't have much of a personal stake in the plot that you have set up.

Your entry seems like the beginning to an adventure-- if I were a PC here, this entire scene would play as the HOOK. I'd enjoy it, sure; I'd be befuddled at the time, and, yes, probably curious after-- but as judge, I'd have to say, "Well, the stuff that comes after is where the adventure really is... So why isn't it in the entry?"

This isn't a criticism of the backstory at all... As I said, it is a wonderful setup that uses the ingredients more compellingly than I did-- I just have a difference of opinion as to what constitutes an adventure and what constitutes... uh... a whole lotta backstory to justify one encounter. You're telling a wonderful story but the PCs seem secondary to the whole setup. I just don't think the PCs are going to care-- they want to DO interesting things, not discover ex post facto what the hell just happened to them.

Just my .02 cents! It's not every day I get to throw a little nemmerlesque criticism on the nemm himself, so forgive me.

Wulf

 

[cool hand luke]

I was just wondering, how much experience do yall have, what's your background in this area? I saw someone was nominated for a couple of ennies, and, once I found out what those were, was really impressed. Have you guys published stuff like that in the past? how much gaming have you done?

I've played off and on for about 15 years. I just started dming for the first time last fall, and have never written anything that wasn't a school assignment until now.

 

[el-remmen]

You're telling a wonderful story but the PCs seem secondary to the whole setup.

I guess in my view of things, 1) the PCs don't always have to be the "stars" of the adventure, and 2) the job of making an the action of an adventure matter to individual characters is the job of the individual GM - as I said in my last post - an author of an adventure cannot tailor it to PCs he does not know about - there are lots of ways for a PC to be more personally involved in the action - I just think the scope of an adventure cannot really hope to include that without just a whole long list of ifs. . .

You are right, though - there is a whole hell of a lot of back story for what essentially is one long encounter- but I am back story king - I imagine a scene and then I figure out the story behind that scene - and the world works and moves with or without the PCs and often being meddlesome adventurers find themselves involved in things that do not concern them at all (except in so much as the possible hooks involve them).

 

[el-remmen]

I was just wondering, how much experience do yall have, what's your background in this area? I saw someone was nominated for a couple of ennies, and, once I found out what those were, was really impressed. Have you guys published stuff like that in the past? how much gaming have you done?

I've played off and on for about 15 years. I just started dming for the first time last fall, and have never written anything that wasn't a school assignment until now.

Well, I haven't really gotten anything published - except a small sample setting section for Four-Color to Fantasy.

I had been working on a guide to my campaign setting, Aquerra for a couple of years - but after writing a few hundred pages - editing and consolidating and cleaning it up and hammering out detailed section became overwhelming what with a full-time job and other interests. Though I do hope to write and publish some other stuff in the future.

I've been playing D&D for about 20 years - and DMing in one way or another for most of that - though I would say my real DMing chops did not start kicking in until around '95. Before that I ran decent campaigns, but nothing extra special.

 

[seasong]

I was just wondering, how much experience do yall have, what's your background in this area? I saw someone was nominated for a couple of ennies, and, once I found out what those were, was really impressed. Have you guys published stuff like that in the past? how much gaming have you done?

No published credits. I've toyed with the idea, but really, publishing requires a large committment of time and energy, which I'm not yet ready for.

I do plan to be published eventually, but I have to decide on the One Thing To Commit To first. If I'm going to put that kind of effort in, I want it to be something cool.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I guess in my view of things, 1) the PCs don't always have to be the "stars" of the adventure, and 2) the job of making an the action of an adventure matter to individual characters is the job of the individual GM...

I imagine a scene and then I figure out the story behind that scene - and the world works and moves with or without the PCs and often being meddlesome adventurers find themselves involved in things that do not concern them at all

We're actually in quite a bit of agreement on that point... as evidence I point you to some of my other LOSING entries (such as the Quicklings...) I am not sure which judge it was who felt it was inappropriate to have such moral quandaries and adventures that move regardless of the PC's... hey waitaminute! Wasn't that YOU!?

 

[el-remmen]

Can you link me up to that round and judgement? I would have to reread it to remember what my reasoning was - it must have been some other reason that that didn't work for me - or else I was drunk

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Can you link me up to that round and judgement? I would have to reread it to remember what my reasoning was - it must have been some other reason that that didn't work for me - or else I was drunk

What matters is that's how I choose to remember it.