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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1387406" data-attributes="member: 11">Final Round– First Match-Up: Enkhidu vs. CarpeDavidFirst of all, I have to say that I hate when there is too much time between my having to run these rounds, because I need a certain mindset to the judging, and it is easy to lose enthusiasm if you don’t just keep going – so it is with great inertia that I pick myself up and do this once more.Secondly, this is another damn close match and even as I write this and having read both entries twice I am not even leaning towards one person or the other winning. . .So, let’s look at these two entries; first as individuals and then against one another.Enkhidu’s Entry:  City on The Edge is thematically what I expected from these entries, something apocalyptic. Firstly, it was smart of Enkhidu to include a non-flat world option, because aside from Aquerra, I don’t know of any flat world campaign settings.  However every time I read the notes for the non-flat world options I could not help but feel cheated, as if by not having a flat world (that is, if I put myself into the shoes of the average DM, and not just in my own shoes) I was missing some of the more awe-inspiring and dramatic elements the adventure had to offer.  We’ll examine if that ‘feeling’ holds true as we come upon those ‘red sections’.And boom! One of those ‘red sections’ comes up right away, Enkhidu’s alternative to an actual ‘edge of the world’ is a place created with powerful magic to appear as if it were the edge of the world.  This idea is half-good, but if he had gone a little bit further with it, he might have not only not needed to create separate options, but created an additional hook for the adventure.   By placing this purported edge of the world in a very distant place, it could be a place sages argue about – is it truly the edge of the world?   A place many explorers could have gone to and never returned from, or that others saw from a distance, but unnerved turned back before they were sucked into the great gulf ship, crew and all.  The desire to uncover this mystery, especially for a high level group that may have run out of other challenges might have been used as a hook.  It would have also made for a stronger use of the ingredient because the edge of the world itself would have been a mystery to be explored, instead of just seeming like just another place to go, however dangerous. Aside: Here is some layout advice for future would-be IRON DMs, list your hooks before your NPCs.   While background information usually comes first (though not always) it is good to get the reader thinking how the PCs might interact with this whole thing as soon as possible.  It gets the mind working as you go on to read the rest.    This is not really much of a detriment to my judgment of Enkhidu’s entry, but then again pleasing the judge in some superficial things is never a bad idea.Anyway, Enkhidu’s hooks are a bit weak – but I think the higher the level of an adventure the harder it is to come up with good and plausible hooks because there are a myriad of options and campaign twists that could invalidate all of them, and still provide ample “hookiness” in an of themselves to get the PCs involved.  Though the second of the two hooks is the one that strikes me as the more plausible – especially if the party is high enough level to be sought out by some consortium of sages or a good and noble alliance of kings and chieftains, who have discovered the information about the end of the world.  However, for the adventure to work the Sisterhood of the Moon has to be involved as well, with their despairing leader.The whole set up with the elven ship and the female adventuring company made me think about adventure writing economics, and how it would have been much more elegant to have combined the Sisterhood with the crew of the elven ship.  It just seems cumbersome, not only to have so many NPCs to tote around across the world, but to have only the leader, Jarlena, be the one working to end the world.  If the PCs are as high level as Enkhidu implies, would it not be better for the challenge of the adventure to have her whole group dedicated to the end of the world?  Heck, make them all elves, make them crew the ship, and make them all want the world to end, if not because of some dead family members, then because of the despair of elven immortality, now that is an interesting motivation for a villain!  And then bing bang boom! You’ve combined two ingredients nicely, except Enkhidu didn’t do that – so instead we have what we have.  Which leaves the elven ship kind of as the odd ingredient out –as the only connection to the others is some briefly mentioned connection to the Sisterhood of the Moon, and while the elven ship is neat, what with growing and providing food (important for a long journey such as that the party must undertake), it still feels shoe-horned, and reminiscent of the grown elven spell-jamming ships of second edition. Leaving that behind for now, I loved Enkhidu’s use of the firenewts as the remnants of formerly advanced civilization, however, his firenewts don’t really fit their description in the 1E Fiend Folio or 3E Monsters of Faerun, a savage and conquer-thirsty race that I do not see doing much negotiating/cooperating with the PCs or anyone else for that matter.  And there is little or no explanation as to why there are there, what happened to the civilization or if this was the extent of their empire, or what remains of a great area of land and if so, how did they get there?  Visually, I can see it all, but terms of what fire newts are, I am having a harder time.  I could see them as the descendants of those exiled there from somewhere else, probably put there as since they are fire-related creatures they’d fear the sea, and thus unlikely to escape to try to conquer once again – but I am just throwing ideas out there to fill the gaps I see, and the more I read this entry the more gaps (i.e. flaws) I see.The biggest flaw I see is the tarrasque itself, and thus by association the ‘tarrasque eggs’ ingredient, because it does not seem like a creature suited for keeping fiends out of the world, and it also seems like creature (nearly by definition of what a tarrasque is) that would be hard-pressed to be kept on an island, and I have to wonder why it never just walks out across that “lane of water” and out into the world to destroy all in its path whether it be beneath the sea or any land it happens upon, like a D&D Godzilla, as its nature would have it do?  And while I find the unexpected reversal of what one would think a party of adventurers should have to do (i.e. getting the egg in place where it can hatch a friggin’ tarrasque as opposed to trying to destory them) the reason behind doing this doesn’t work for me.  Is the tarrasque meant to fight all the fiends that come out of the portal?  Or if it is the very presence of the beast that keeps them at bay, then why does it need to be such a terrible beast at all?  Why not some kind of magical watching monolith sentinel or something?   I think the adventure might have been better served if the tarrasque’s existence and being allowed to wander the world eveery few hundred years at its whim destroying things and facing off against great heroes was some kind of price to be paid to keep the world from being over run by fiends.  Talk about a moral quandary!  That is a rock and a hard place I never want one of my PCs to be in!  But Enkhidu did not do that.However, I do have to say that I do like the use of the eggs as a kind of Inca-flavored Easter Island Herculean task before the PCs – though again the implied need of the cooperation of the fire newts doesn’t work for me (though I can see clever PCs using shapechange or polymorph to take the guise of fire newts 'of a distant land', killing the leaders to cow the rest of them and then convince them that their ancestors want them to help bring the great eggs to the island of the beast.  What also doesn’t work for me, but that perhaps (again) clever and diplomatic PCs might use to come to a non-violent resolution with Jarlena, is that a world over-run by fiends does not seem like much of a desired end of the world for a group that want to end it in order to end suffering.  I guess those who give into despair are not the most logical people – so I take it back, that can work –though I think the ‘domination pendants’ are not a very good means for her to get her group to work for her – would not one of them discover it?  Would not some or all make their saves?  I think persuasion, or even better having all of them (to one degree or another) agree with her desire to end the world would be a better way to handle it.Oh, and I almost forgot the Blood Moon.  Enkhidu uses it as a sign of the coming end of the world, which is about what one could expect – but not only while it not used in any kind of really clever way, it really does act as a kind of clock for the adventure timeline – hurrying the PCs along to get the egg to the island before it hatches and causes mayhem.When it comes to conclusions and consequences, I liked the possible addition of the PCs having to kind of raise the Tarrasque a bit to make sure it grows enough to be able to fend off the fiends – seems like there is lots of room for comedy with that.  But again, the main question I come away with from this entry is how a creature with an intelligence of three and that can’t fly is supposed to be an effective guardian against the emerging extra-planar creatures?In the end this entry not nearly as cohesive as Enkhidu’s past ones, and while specific elements are flavorful and fun (the fallen empire for example), the ingredients themselves do not hold together all that well when you keep in mind the questions and flaws I pointed out.  But the question is not how it fares against Enkhidu’s generally strong showings, but how it matches up to what CarpeDavid had to offer.CarpeDavid’s Entry:  I was taken in by CD’s scenario right away.  I liked the idea of war or some other calamity keeping elves from performing a task that happens so infrequently that only their long-loved race could really have the mindset to keep track of it precisely and take care of it before it comes marching across the bottom of the ocean to crush their lands Tokyo-style and then move on from there, laying waste to civilization.  I also like the arms-race aspect of the adventure with the dwarves seeking to perhaps harness this monstrosity for their war-effort.  Beautiful stuff.And then to make it even better the scenario allows for a DM to put the PCs on either side of the conflict and still have similar goals.  You can tell CarpeDavid put a lot of though into how he was going to get the PCs involved and why they would have to or want to get involved.  Kudos to him!Of course, if the dwarven option is taken the elven ship ingredient would not come into play unless they arrive to find the ship anchored outside of the “Edge of the World” and decide to board it or attack it from a distance with spells and war engines, but I am getting ahead of myself.Aside: See the aside for Enkhidu’s entry.But about those NPCs, I didn’t like them and honestly they seemed too petty and not elvish enough for me (i.e they seemed too human).  I’m not even sure why CD bothered to include entries for the King and the Prince (especially the latter) as they don’t really come into play in the adventure.  At first I though the haughty prince was going to be sent along, but that is not the case – However, his description did not work with what elves really should be like – their haughtiness and distant air should be the result of alien cultural outlook, not petty human ambition, pride or avarice.  This same complaint goes for the elven captain willing to sacrifice his crew for his admiralty, and the vicious and cowardly first mate – it just doesn’t seem right to me, with elves like these it makes me wonder how they ever succeeded in stopping the birth of the tarrasques in the past.This ‘crew’ helps put a bad taste in mouth in terms of the elven ship ingredient,  if only because it is the only aspect of the ship that comes into play and otherwise the ship serves no purpose except to the PCs there.  It is only an elven ship because elves are the guardians against this beast.  It would have been neater to see something else to bind it with the rest of the ingredients, or make it more special in its own right at the very least.As in Enkhidu’s entry, the Blood Moon is a time keeping device, and a means to urge the PCs along and keep them abreast of their limited time.  Again, that is fine, but it really isn’t an ingredient the PCs interact with or that serves any other secondary function.  I am not saying using the ingredient in that way was bad, or that figuring out other ways to use it would be easy, but these kinds of ingredients cry out to be interpreted in ways that astonish and turn expectations on their heads.  CarpeDavid used the ingredient as adequately as Enkhidu, but adequate is about all it is.CD got around the ‘edge of the world’ problem by making it the name of an area that reminds people of what the edge of the world might look like.  It is dangerous and preternatural and it really works as an ingredient, as it has that fear of the unknown element working for it.  Of course, if the PCs are working for the elves that have gone there every 200 years, I guess it would not be so unknown (don’t know why CD bothered with those DCs for the knowledge checks), but still it would be no less dangerous.  Carpe does a great job of describing this area and what is found there and I really got a feel for the place, like the PCs are anchored off the island they stole King Kong from.But Carpe drops the ball on the fire newt ingredient.  He just kind of mentions them and leaves them.  Sure, it is the Isle of Fire, I get it – but make them serve some purpose – make them worship the tarrasque and/or give sacrifices – give the tarrasque an elemental fire creature template and really make it into their god.  Do something!  Between this and the elven ship, it is really enough to make an adventure I enjoyed more actually start to dip below Enkhidu’s entry in quality.And then there is despair, I like the idea of the god’s despair being palpable and actually effecting the mood of those who set foot on the island, and while at first I was curious as to why this god would feel despair, I guess if I were a divine being foiled by mortals every 200 years in my plot to destroy the world I might give into despair, too.  This works, because it links the feeling of despair to the reason the eggs are made in the first place – though why is the making of tarrasque eggs the only thing the god can do in this reality (aside from making people who step on the island feel despair)?The eggs themselves were also problematic because multiple eggs means multiple tarrasques, but based on the description of what a tarrasque is, there can only be one at a time.  CarpeDavid does not attempt to resolve this problem (admittedly born of the ingredient) in his adventure.  At least, ostensibly in Enkhidu’s scenario, one of the multiple eggs needs to be brought somewhere for it to hatch and the size and weight of the eggs makes moving more than one of them very difficult.  Also, I felt the suggestion that if the elven captain is with the party that he will suggest that the party bring an egg back with them to help in the war counter-productive to the adventure's theme.  I thought it was the elves that understood the danger of these things (it being their solemn vow to come every 200 years and stop it) and the dwarves who were interested in trying to exploit it?  This goes back to those flawed elven NPCs – maybe I have read Lord of the Rings too many times – but I really can’t stand elves been played as simply long-lived humans with a +2 Dex.The battle with the opposing party was also a disappointment.  I was hoping CarpeDavid would describe some element of the environment the eggs are in to make it more interesting than a straight up fight, or even some tactic that could be used to make the egg shells’ properties come into play as people run around among them, fighting – but no dice.  I really feel like Carpe started this adventure with lots of enthusiasm, but then ran out of steam and kind of slapped the end on there.  There isn’t even any suggestions for how either group might move the huge eggs if they should decide to take one.I lied when I said I was not leaning in favor of one person when I started this judgment.  I thought Carpe David was going to take it, because the flavor of his adventure was better and some of his individual ingredients shone, but in the end there were too many questions to be answered and it was too slipshod a job to patch on a climax, and I began to swing back and forth.  Let’s do a quick quick quick overview of ingredients:The Edge of the World: Both contestants used this ingredient with the same amount of skill, though I would give CarpeDavid the very very slight edge for flavor of the locale.Elven Ship: Enkhidu’s has more flavor this time, but at doesn’t link up to the adventure the way CarpeDavid’s does in terms of who is hiring the PCs to undertake this quest, so despite not liking the crew, the edge goes to Carpe David once again.Blood Moon: Both contestants used this at about the same level, but at least the light of the moon has an actual effect in Enkhidu’s entry.  He get the slight advantage on this one. Tarrasque Eggs : As holy relics and a problem to be solved (in terms of getting one over to the Island of the Beast) Enkhidu’s use is much stronger.Fire Newts: There is no contest.  Enkhidu’s are vastly superior, even with the problems I saw in how these specific creatures were used.  It was not something that could not be overcome, while CD didn’t bother to grant the many real purpose whatsoever.  Lame.Despair: Again, the slight advantage goes to CarpeDavid, with his despairing god, as compared to Enkhidu’s grieving wizard who wants to end the world to end her own pain.So that means, [spoiler]Enkhidu wins this round by a nose. CarpeDavid was trotting along well, but I think he threw a shoe at the end there and by the time he hobbled across the finish line Enkhidu already had the wreath around his horse’s neck, even if he was riding a broken down nag. But that does not mean it is over for Carpe David. [/spoiler]  He will face Zenld in the next match-up and if he wins then Enkhidu would have to beat Zenld as well to take the title of IRON DM.  If he loses, well then he is eliminated altogether and the two remaining finalists face off for the title of IRON DM.Special Note: Neither of the finalists used the special tie-breaker ingredient in this match, this they BOTH must use it in their next match.</blockquote>

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