[IRON DM] Winter '04 Tournament (IRON DM ANNOUNCED!)
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
I must say that I agree with nem on many of his points. I knew my entry had weak spots, and I specifically didn't like my use of the axe and slavers. If I had more time, it most definitely would of been spent on trying to find a better way to integrate those two ingrediants. Regardless, I still fealt I had a good entry, above average for this tournament. Then I read Enkhidu's, and thought that he had a REALLY good entry, well above average. One of the best I've seen. Truly, that was a masterful job of blending the ingrediants. They were tied exceptionally well to the story as well as each other.nemmerle said:
I was just saying this to noskov this morning, before the judgement was posted. My entry was good enough to win many of the matches in this tournament, but it was paired against an exceptional entry. It seems like several times already we've had good entries squaring off, while at the same time we've had poor entries squaring off. This means that a number of good entries lose, and a number of poor entries win and advance. I know that there isn't a whole lot that can be done about this, but it is unfortunate.nemmerle said:
Anyway, congrats Enkhidu! I'm now pulling for you to take this one.
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Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
cstyle said:
Sheesh! No love for the returning champ?
Wulf
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Enkhidu said:
Touché!
Aaaaaaaaand some exposition from the returning champion (who's jealous of Wolf cuz' old Ratbane ain't got a big "Newbie" in front of his title!):
Where shall we start? Ah - here's good enough.
First, thank you cstyle! Your generosity in letting me slide a few minutes on the deadline made it possible for me to move on!
Second, even after cstyle let me slide, I really sweated this one out - mainly because I thought cstyle's very daring foray into one-shot-ville had a very kick butt concept behind it. Most of the time I like gaming in rich and detailed worlds using heroic (if sometimes tragic or flawed) characters, but when I saw the cstyles premise (playing bad guys hell bent (literally!) on screwing with a rival's plan) it made me go all Goodfella's inside. And it makes my skin crawl that I didn't think of it first. On top of that, this entry was the hardest for me to write to date, and in the end I felt like I just needed more time to hammer out places I knew were weak. Walking the line on the Demon Orgy was also less than pleasant, and I probably re-wrote that particular part of the entry about a dozen or so times before it was something that covered the basics without going over the line. Anyway, back to the expo...
Y'know - 3e really bugs me sometimes. There's just so many damn rules. But, since we're designing adventures for 3e D&D here, the first thing I do when I read a list of IDM ingredients is pop open Sovelier's html version of the SRD (found at 3.5srd.com for those of you who haven't seen it yet - thank you Sovelier!). But when I began writing this one, my wife was doing some work from home and I got bumped from the PC - cuz, y'know, Iron DM doesn't put $ in teh bank. So I broke out my old, beaten, battered, MM written by EGG, popped it open to Demon, and saw a very naughty looking succubi looking back at me. Now you know where Kharmina and B'rana come from.
By the way, did anyone get the word play in demon wenches' names? Or was it just so cheesy people ignored it and hoped it would go away?
Anyhoo, the Al' Qa-fricken-dim themed scenario quickly spewed on the page in haphazard scratch marks after that - mainly because whenever I picture a succubus all I can think of is Jane Seymour in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. But, as the adventure began to shape up, I found that I couldn't figure out how in the heck to include the Bulette shell. I figured that the Frost-Brand Axe had to be an integral part of the ritual, but had absolutely no idea how to add the shell. So, I wrote pretty much the whole thing without that piece and then shoe horned the shell in after the fact. I'm really surprised it turned out as well as it did.
Sack and Govan's plan was a last ditch attempt to make sure they played an integral part in the final scene - in fact, I'd say that those two - and everything attached to them - are the weakest part of the entry. If those two were PCs, I'd have some serious railroading allegations to deal with, but luckily they are just NPCs and I long ago learned to ignore myself when I whine. In the end, however, I couldn't figure out anything better.
As for the end scene, I was hoping to evoke an atmosphere that would best be described as the climax of a movie befitting the two Johns - Waters and C Holmes. I guess I nailed it (no pun inten... OK, yeah it was intended). And I suppose I could've gone into detail about how long the ritual would take, but I was pressed for time on the rewrite and decided to leave it up to the DM - sometimes (at least in my opnion) the best answer for "how long does the ritual take" is "however long I damn well want it to in order for this to be fun, bunky."
And now that that is over, see you in round three!
Where shall we start? Ah - here's good enough.
First, thank you cstyle! Your generosity in letting me slide a few minutes on the deadline made it possible for me to move on!
Second, even after cstyle let me slide, I really sweated this one out - mainly because I thought cstyle's very daring foray into one-shot-ville had a very kick butt concept behind it. Most of the time I like gaming in rich and detailed worlds using heroic (if sometimes tragic or flawed) characters, but when I saw the cstyles premise (playing bad guys hell bent (literally!) on screwing with a rival's plan) it made me go all Goodfella's inside. And it makes my skin crawl that I didn't think of it first. On top of that, this entry was the hardest for me to write to date, and in the end I felt like I just needed more time to hammer out places I knew were weak. Walking the line on the Demon Orgy was also less than pleasant, and I probably re-wrote that particular part of the entry about a dozen or so times before it was something that covered the basics without going over the line. Anyway, back to the expo...
Y'know - 3e really bugs me sometimes. There's just so many damn rules. But, since we're designing adventures for 3e D&D here, the first thing I do when I read a list of IDM ingredients is pop open Sovelier's html version of the SRD (found at 3.5srd.com for those of you who haven't seen it yet - thank you Sovelier!). But when I began writing this one, my wife was doing some work from home and I got bumped from the PC - cuz, y'know, Iron DM doesn't put $ in teh bank. So I broke out my old, beaten, battered, MM written by EGG, popped it open to Demon, and saw a very naughty looking succubi looking back at me. Now you know where Kharmina and B'rana come from.
By the way, did anyone get the word play in demon wenches' names? Or was it just so cheesy people ignored it and hoped it would go away?
Anyhoo, the Al' Qa-fricken-dim themed scenario quickly spewed on the page in haphazard scratch marks after that - mainly because whenever I picture a succubus all I can think of is Jane Seymour in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. But, as the adventure began to shape up, I found that I couldn't figure out how in the heck to include the Bulette shell. I figured that the Frost-Brand Axe had to be an integral part of the ritual, but had absolutely no idea how to add the shell. So, I wrote pretty much the whole thing without that piece and then shoe horned the shell in after the fact. I'm really surprised it turned out as well as it did.
Sack and Govan's plan was a last ditch attempt to make sure they played an integral part in the final scene - in fact, I'd say that those two - and everything attached to them - are the weakest part of the entry. If those two were PCs, I'd have some serious railroading allegations to deal with, but luckily they are just NPCs and I long ago learned to ignore myself when I whine. In the end, however, I couldn't figure out anything better.
As for the end scene, I was hoping to evoke an atmosphere that would best be described as the climax of a movie befitting the two Johns - Waters and C Holmes. I guess I nailed it (no pun inten... OK, yeah it was intended). And I suppose I could've gone into detail about how long the ritual would take, but I was pressed for time on the rewrite and decided to leave it up to the DM - sometimes (at least in my opnion) the best answer for "how long does the ritual take" is "however long I damn well want it to in order for this to be fun, bunky."
And now that that is over, see you in round three!
