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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1370796" data-attributes="member: 11">Round One – Sixth Match-Up: Tleilaxu vs. ZenldSo I’ve managed to piss someone off with my last two judgments, let’s see if we can make it a hat trick, shall we?First of all, Zenld posted his entry something like five hours late (!), but Tleilaxu (from now on referred to as 'Laxu') was gracious enough to let it slide.  I wonder if he’ll regret it?  We’re about to find out…Laxu’s entry seems rushed and incomplete to me, though on closer examination I guess it is not so incomplete, but does seem rough around the edges and as many poor entries do, it fills me with questions, and not the good kind that lead to further adventures or that are moral dilemmas for PCs to deal with, but questions about the adventure itself.On the other hand, Zenld’s entry seems over-developed in some places.  I found it disconcerting that he spent so much time at the beginning detailing NPCs some of which make no real appearance to the centrality of the adventure, and while they serve to enliven the town the adventure takes place in (which is always good), it seemed too peripheral for me, and not only peripheral, but as if Zenld were pandering, knowing my love of developed NPCs and giving me a heavy dose to try to stack the deck in his favor.  Sorry, didn’t quite work – It was a bit of an overdose for me as while I was reading about the smith and the trader and the daughter, etc… I found myself anxious to get to what was going on.  Maybe it was just a problem of formatting, maybe a summary of the ‘action’ of the adventure would have been better followed by the more detailed stuff… but all in all it is a fairly minor complaint, but something to look out for in future IRON DM competitions.Just as a contrast of an area where Zen’s entry was under-developed: the Star of Emulus – Zenld never lets us know if the lizardfolk icon is the artifact, is a key to finding the artifact, if it is magical or cursed or has powers, etc… which might be very important if the PCs decide to hunt down the doppelgangers themselves (which is very likely, knowing how little PCs like to be double-crossed) or if they have it in their possession if they somehow manage to steal it themselves.But let’s take it from the top:Hooks: Both contestants get a low rating in this department.  Zen’s requires that the party simply take pity on a strange old man, and while it is possible that the party do it for him out of the kindness of their hearts, knowing PCs they would be suspicious of a double-cross from the get-go.  Adventurers are paranoid from birth it seems, in my experience.  I expected Zenld to use the scroll of mass suggestion on the party then to help get them decide to go seek out the lizardfolk for him, but that did not happen – though the ingredient summary hints that perhaps he meant to.  Laxu on the other hand has a extremely weak hook requiring the party to be somewhere at the right time and the grand melee and subsequent arrest is too thick a hook for such delicate fish as PCs.  The idea that the town guards, doppelgangers or anyone else would ask the PCs to help gain the local powerful wizard’s help seems a strained one.  I mean, I guess if the relationship between the PCs and the wizard is previously set up by the DM campaign-wise I could see that working, but I can also see the PCs paranoid minds at work.  The options for what happens if the PCs escape is even weirder.  The one labeled the “worst” possibility is actually my favorite as it could have campaign affecting consequences and actually seems fun.  While the others, ”to head for the lizardmen village or to visit the wizard Acheon”, make me shake my head in wonder. Why are those their only choices?  Why would they even think or care to go there?  Perhaps if the afore-mentioned relationship with the wizard existed they might go to him for aid, but if such a relationship exists they might just as easily not go to him because they don’t want to draw the law to him (always a bad move in business relationships – watch a mob movie sometime <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />).The Conspiracy: I can’t even say that I really understand what the doppelgangers in Laxu’s entry are even conspiring to do, aside from cause some chaos.  Ultimately, they don’t seem to have a goal and that severely weakens the ingredient as it is pretty much assumed that a conspiracies existed to accomplish or maintain something.  I just didn’t see it.  On the other hand, while Zenld’s conspiracy had a distinct goal in mind (the retrieval of the icon – was that the artifact or not – the question still nags me.  It is not good when something nags the IRON DM Judge – bad things could happen) it did not seem as much conspiratorial to me as just “a scheme”.  There was no conspiring between people on different sides or involved in the government or politics of the town or of the lizardfolk tribe.  Really, this is the central ingredient, the one you really have to build an entry around when you get an over-powering ingredient like this, and both contestants saw that and attempted that, but without giving it the attention it deserves detail-wise.  I will give the edge to Zenld on this though, as at least it sought to actually do something concrete as opposed to some unnamed abstraction.The Best Part:  The best part of Laxu’s entry is the weird dog hybrids used to sniff out the doppelgangers  While I figured someone might do that when I reviewed the ingredients and I always hope people will surprise and me and do something different than what ingredient suggest but that still works, it was still better than Zenld’s superfluous ghost dog.  If Zen had made his dog the means by which the lizardfolk detected the doppelgangers (and left out the too convenient ring of true-seeing) it would have been expected, but still better.  As the dog’s little story lent it more character, and that amount of detail given to it would have been serving to link ingredients.The best part of Zenld’s entry was just the misdirection in order to put the blame on the PCs, as mentioned before this is something that gave the doppelgangers reason and direction, something that Laxu’s sorely lacked.The Weakest Part: I have already said Laxu’s, the (repeated) hooks which are either too weak to bring the party along or that are too railroady, though the conspiracy itself is almost as bad.   For Zenld, the use of Mass Suggestion is an afterthought that means nothing.  At least Laxu linked it with ‘panic’ opening scene.  Speaking of which, Zen's use of ‘panic’ wasn’t so hot either.In the end, I give this match to [spoiler]Zenld, even though he was five hours late his entry certainly doesn’t show five extra hours of work’s worth of quality, so I can’t disqualify him there, but it is still better.  Better detailed, better thought out and has a lot more potential for further adventures and even using the Patrinus  Sodality as a recurring antagonist for the group.  Tlielaxu’s enty seemed hurried and as if he were straining for ideas – so in this case his sportsmanship robbed him of a second chance at going further and putting something better together, but there is something to be said for that because if he was a cheeseball he might have quickly read Zen’s entry and then said he wanted the ‘bye’ when he saw its relative strength.[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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