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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lightful" data-source="post: 959332" data-attributes="member: 10870">Rant/Exposition/WhineGod’s spit !I had him ! I really thought I had him !Rune’s right; Wulf, at the top of his game, is a juggernaut, nay, a force of nature. His “opium fields” adventure is the only Iron DM entry I’ve used nearly verbatim, and it threw the players for a loop, just as it should. But this time…this time, a golden opportunity was wasted. When I saw the ingredients I thought: “Wulf and elves…good for me”, when I saw he was “breaking” his NDA on the 3.5 MM and moaning about having lots of work to do I thought: “This is looking good”, when I completed my entry I was reasonably satisfied and hoped that all would be well, and then I saw Wulf’s entry and I thought I really had a legitimate shot.Elaborating on Rune’s observations I’d like to say that writing higher level adventures usually means, in my mind and experience, less detailed game mechanics. At high levels PC’s can do so many varied things that trying to keep them all in check would drive a DM nuts. You just pose problems and assume (rightly 95% of the time) that they’ll be able to work through (or around) them.The phase spiders and treants were the servants of Noxilea and Asquilla, respectively, I thought that was obvious and fail to see why, in that light, it would be unusual. Rune makes a point of saying that he feels that the phase spiders were tacked on – I think that there couldn’t be a more logical servant for a drow loyal to Lloth living in the ethereal !Prayer beads are used for counting prayers, nothing else, which is precisely what Asquilla is (albeit in vain) doing with them. Rune also comments on my use of the ancient elf ingredient. I agree that she could just as well have been a middle aged elf, or even an old one – but I think it’s fairly obvious that she has to be an elf. Personally, I found the image of an ancient elf, mindlessly counting off against the prayer beads almost as compelling as the garden Rune liked so much.When I saw the two elven ingredients it was obvious that the adventure had to be elf-centrique. Personally, I’m not terribly fond of them, or the drow for that matter, but I love the spider imagery…phase spiders ! If you’ve got Lloth, then the prayer beads point to a definite divine link, while the garden just grew on me (he he) as I was fleshing out the story. The only ingredient that I really couldn’t fit in, and had to shoehorn, was the specimen collection, which I tried to cover up with a lot of variety. My hooks aren’t heavy, but that always risks leaving the adventure un-run, while the follow-ups are no more than a natural progression. I’d agree with Rune that they were neither good nor bad (and sometimes that’s as bad as it gets !)And now for something completely different !I was certain I would be getting the Dark Crystal points ! I thought that the scene where the Bielaja are grabbed by the phase spiders strikingly similar to the one where the spider-creations (Garthim ?) of the Skekses (?) grab Pod People ! It wasn’t intentional, but still…It occurs to me, writing this, that I feel more and more as if I should have won. In fact, what I’d really like to write as a follow-up is a critique of Wulf’s work and Rune’s judgement of the same. Would that be in really bad form ?Also, Rune, if you care at all, I preffered the way you formatted your first 2 decisions, it’s much more concise and you get a better feel for your reasoning.Wulf, congratulations (although it might have/should have been me) and the best of luck in Round 2 !</blockquote>

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