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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1378977" data-attributes="member: 11">Semi-Final Round - Third Match-Up: Wulf Ratbane vs. CarpeDavidOh jeez, you all had to make it hard for me again.  I hate the close ones.But let's jump right into it, shall we?The major problem with Wulf's entry is that it seems like a big set up for what is essentially just one encounter - and that encounter doesn't exactly sizzle, though as usual Wulf makes up for this with great and ingenius inidividual use of the provided ingredients.On the other side of the coin, CarpeDavid's entry has more for the PCs to interact with in their investigations and explorations, but his use of the ingredients is overall slightly weaker than Wulf's.In these situations making a decision is really hard, and typically it is the decisions in these kinds of judgments that end up pissing someone off, but you can't go through life making everyone happy, and when you're IRON DM Judge, you often do eactly the opposite, so you might as well revel in it.Wulf Ratbane's scenario has a folktale type feel, something like a cautionary tale a bard might tell in the meadhall on a stormy night, and I like that about it - but in terms of the set-up I see problems all over the place - first of all with timing, the adventure says things like "If the PCs are clever they may be able to catch Geldulf and his men here while they are bathing, - How does the GM determine this aside from just deciding the party gets there when the brigands are bathing?  How does that translate into PC cleverness?  I mean, we can make some assumptions about the timing of things (like the brigands only bathe during the day), but still, the possible timeframes are pretty big and in the end it is up to DM fiat - which typically I have no problem with, when there are a bunch of scenes leading up to the main encounter, or several possible choices by the PCs that lead to a "staged" moment - but that is not the case in this scenario.  If the DM decides the party arrives before Geldulf and his raiders return then I guess they could be "clever" in hiding out in order to follow them to the quarry - but they'd have to know to follow them somewhere first, and that once they are followed there they'd bathe - and it is not clear if the townsfolk would know about the bathing or not.  The little development of the relationship between Geldulf and the townsfolk leads me to believe they wouldn't because of his tyrannical ways and unwillingness to let people leave or do their own thing. And also there is no indication that anything untoward or mystical is going on - at this point in the story this is just another pack of raiders to be dealt with - so it is not like they'd even have reason to be curious about "what is going on at the quarry".In "The Long Frost" the party shows up, finds out about the brigands and then goes to quarry to deal with them.  Seems awfully linear to me, and linear means boring.  I never would have thought that such a scenario with its wonderful trappings and feel could still come off as boring - but somehow Wulf succeeded.  But that is not to say that the individual elements of Wulf's entry are not wonderful as usual.  I love the cursed hair of Geldulf's dead wife, and I love the exultation in pain as fits perfectly well with Loviatar who wants nothing more than for people to suffer and it seems this down on its luck town has plenty of that (though I would have made the damage done to the person weilding the "wig" be subdual - as that is recovered from faster and if Geldulf knocks himself out and is taken prisoner the potential for more pain and suffering would be even greater, espeically if the wig is taken from him and he desperately wants it back even as a PC (or someone else) is cursed by it.Actually, looking at Wulf's entry again, I guess there is more than one encounter to be had in this adventure, but while they are linked to the adventure by way of the background, the will-o'-wisp and the wights (a kind of weak use of the "broken ones" ingredient, by the way) don't really seem to matter much or present much a danger to anyone unless they actually visit the now stripped and flooded quarry - while the cursed brigands are more of a danger and concern to the PCs, those abroad, and other villages (and even to the village they serve as well - how long will Loviatar be satisfied with the amount of pain being caused in her name and starts demanding sacrifices, or how long until some other group comes to put everyone in the village, brigand or not, to the torch and sword?)Also, I am doubtful of how much of a pilgrimage it is for the brigands to visit the quarry - a pilgrimage implies some kind of long difficult journey for sacred reasons - but if the quarry was the town's former source of income - it could not be that far or that disciplined a journey.At least Wulf's entry has some good follow-up options for the scenario.  I particularly like the pilgramage of kindness and mercy to break the curse of the wig.So how does, CarpeDavid do?First of all, what is it with the contestants of the is particular tourney and all the damn intro/background info?  The journal entry at the beginning was a little much, especially since I cannot imagine either a hag or a nymph keeping a journal or writing much of anything.  But the set-up is still great.  Anais is an interesting character, as her change in demeanor and visage is directly analogous to the destruction of the environment - it seems that CD as well, whether by intention or inadvertantly made his adventure into a bit of a cautionary tale, as the greed and hubris of men brings destruction among them.But my problem with Anais is that she seems a bit too complacent for a hag, I mean, I get the impression that she would be happy to leave everyone and just live her assumed life with her magic wig (weak ingredient use by the way, about as weak as Wulf's was strong, while it serves a purpose in the adventure, it seems kind of thrown in for convenience) if her wig had not been taken.  I'm sorry, but that is just lame.  Sea hags are evil, capricious and scheming creatures and I find a hard time accepting a hag that was not doing some pretty serious evil all along.  Hell, CarpeDavid would have been better served to just have Anais turned into a metaphorical hag instead of a literal one and driven to evil because how she assumes she will be treated if people can see her for what she looks like, but still having an essentially good heart.  Or even better, have her think she is still doing good, but has become increasingly evil in her quest to be restored, thus inadvertantly digging deeper and deeper into her hole to Hell, and while that is implied some, it would have been nice for it to be made more apparent and explained.  Perhaps her transformation was not complete - or it is complete and she is deluded, which is always nice - Redeeming someone who already thinks they are good and justified is a lot harder than someone who realizes the consequences of what they have done and is not for all intents and purposes someone who just wants to be left alone.   However, there is enough of a nugget of good NPC stuff there for me to still consider her a good character to build the adventure around.But there is more.  CarpeDavid has more than one thing going on in his scenario and the political and criminal activity among the "ruling" family of the town is done well, too.  It is this stuff that really pushes the entry ahead of Wulf's because I can envision a lot more PC interaction in town and there seems to be more to figure out and more a quandry about the right course of action.Yet, he has some weak ingredient use - like the nynph's exultation of nature - while technically an accurate description of a nymph's purpose and joy in life - it really doesn't play a part in the actual adventure.  And much like Wulf, the use of pilgrimage was weak - didn't seem like much a pilgrimage to me, especially after the adventure already tells us that the town is a safe passage for the brigand's smuggling. If they smuggle through there, then they aren't really going out of their way to get there are they?  At least there is an actual temple to be visited, but the temple itself leads to another question:  What is the time-frame for the background events of the adventure, leading up to the current events that the PCs are dealing with?  I got the impression at first that the quarry was still active, but later it is described as abandoned, looking back at the journal entry introduction (that had made my eyes glaze over) I saw reference to "long, long ago" - so then it made sense that the quarry could be abandoned, but still the construction of a temple in there and the time and resources it would take wears away at my suspension of disbelief.Both entries use will-o-the-wisps in a similar way (in the sense of using them to try to lure folks into the quarry), but CarpeDavid's use of the quarry as the inadvertant catalyst of the whole adventure (i.e turning the nymph into a hang) lends more strength to his use of the former, as the will-o-wisps are her servants and thus the irony of Anais using the quarry as a means of killing the people "responsible" for her current state.  Yes, his use of quarry was much better than Wulf's.  Not to mention he actually gave suggestions of how the quarry is a hazard (rockslides, pits, etc. . .), which is always a good idea.It was curious that neither contestant used the monsters called "Broken Ones" (I have never seen a 3E version - but one must exist somewhere), but CarpeDavid's replacement (the flesh golems) are slightly superior to Wulf's lame-o girly wights.  I mean, mutilated dead-girl wights are great, don't get me wrong and I like the touch of the broken limbs, but I like the actual broken apart and put back together elements of the flesh golems made from the missing people of the town was more like the capital "B" Broken Ones of 2E - though the ability to create all those golems might be a little out of the power of a haf that is supposed to be a challenge for a 10th level party On the whole, CarpeDavid presents a more interesting and complete environment for his adventure that the PCs can interact with, explore, investigate and return to.  As usual, Wulf presents a flavorful scenario, with intriguing elements, but it does not leap out at me as particularly special, and the overall integration of ingredients was not as good as it could have been.  Though is wig ingredient is on par with CD's flooded quarry - the both of them deserve no special praise for the rest (though Wulf's exhulatation comes close).It looks like [spoiler]Wulf is still suffering from his second round curse, because I have to give this one to CarpeDavid.  All else being equal, Carpe's adventure just seems like it'd be more fun and more involved and has the most potential for not only follow-up but for options in the adventure's outcome.  It looks like we have another upset.  My apologies to Wulf, but [/spoiler] when they are close I gotta call 'em like I see 'em. Congratulations! The winner moves on the to the double-elimination final round and is guaranteed to get at least 3rd place.</blockquote>

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