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Message: <blockquote data-quote="carpedavid" data-source="post: 2303016" data-attributes="member: 6971">Round 1, Match 3: Stormborn vs. WinnepegDragonOk, folks. If you haven't read <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2294817&postcount=92" target="_blank">Stormborn</a> and <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2296065&postcount=104" target="_blank">WinnepegDragon</a>'s entries, now is the time, 'cause I'm going to jump right in. Both entries start out with a promising setup, but then run into problems of execution.Stormborn's entry is very linear in construction, with the PCs required to go from point A to point B and back again. There's nothing wrong with this type of adventure construction, per se, but it does increase the chances of railroading the PCs, and this is exactly what happens.First, we have the king's cousin, Bhenazra, who uses the sword, Blind Loyalty, to manipulate the sage, Vhabehr. There's nothing wrong with that - in fact, it promises a certain level of political intrigue, which is good. Bhenazra succeeds in deflecting attention away from himself, and even suggests using outsiders to accompany the prince in order to set up his assassination attempt. So far, so good - Stormborn does a good job of making the argument sound credible.But then Stormborn takes the idea too far. He suggests that the king's court is filled with warriors and wizards who are far more powerful than the PCs. If I were a player, I could buy the explanation for using outsiders, but I'd balk when I saw the difference in power between myself and the people who should be sent to accompany the prince.Combine this with the fact that the Vhabehr tells the PCs that: 1. he's sending them to the same place where their uber-powerful king died and, 2. he suspects that one or more of the uber-powerful people in the court were responsible for his death, and all of a sudden, this sounds like a suicide mission. Let's assume, though, that the PCs are the stare-death-in-the-face types, and agree to go on the mission.The sage prepares them by giving them a couple of healing potions and some mundane equipment, but that's it. Sure, the elven craftsmen will give the PCs a discount, but they're still going to have to spend a lot of their own money to be well enough equipped to defend the heir to the throne. Again, if I were a player, I'd be balking by now.Again, though, let's make the assumption that the PCs see this as an investment in their future, and go for it. If they're half as perceptive as my group, they've already picked up on the fact that they've been set up, and are just waiting for an ambush - an ambush at a pre-arranged location like the conveniently marked camping spot, for example.Moreover, if the sage really suspects someone is plotting to kill the prince, wouldn't he be likely to scry him at random intervals and potentially teleport in when he sees trouble? The whole scenario is far too scripted for my tastes.WinnepegDragon's entry, by contrast, is much more open, and doesn't suffer from a glaring disparity in the power level between the PCs and NPCs. His main magic user is only 8th level, which is a reasonable challenge for the party, and isn't so much more powerful that the PCs are rendered useless. The party is plopped into a situation - the hunt for a missing prince - but they're only one of many groups of adventurers. On one hand, this works well, since it explains why the king doesn't equip them with special equipment right out of the gate. On the other hand, it makes the king's decision to confide the secret of his half-drow son (a secret he's willing to kill the infant to conceal) to a random band of mercenaries utterly unbelievable.Yet, there's another, deeper problem. Everyone in the kingdom knows the child is missing. So far as I could tell from reading his entry, everyone believes that the child is still alive. Yet the king is going to kill the child and announce that it died in childbirth. I suppose he could claim that the child was killed by drow, and therefore was dead when he was recovered, but that's not suggested anywhere. Heck, if it was, I'd be praising it, since it would be a great setup for a war between the elven and drow kingdoms.But it's not, so I can't. The other problem I have is that bands of adventurers are already swarming the kingdom looking for the child. Unless they're all completely incompetent, you'd think that at least one of them would have found some of the clues that are laying around for the PCs to find. I know that it's a common adventure design error to assume that the rest of the world walks around in a daze until you happen to interact with them, but this is Iron DM, not Final Fantasy I-XII.In fact, many of the "triggered" events have a video game RPG feel to them. "Can't talk to the king until I find another clue? Ok." Wander, wander, wander... "Oh, hey, a feather!" In the hands of a DM who is good at creating the illusion of choice, this might be a fine adventure, but I have to point out the flaws as it's written.Neither adventure is clearly superior, from a design standpoint, so let's look at the ingredient use. First, we have the cold iron crossbow. Both contestants use is as a means to kill fey of some sort, which works for me, since that's pretty much what cold iron is good for. Stormborn makes his young elven prince part fey, which seems more logical than the half-fey owlbear that WinnepegDragon creates. Indeed, the crossbow plays a much bigger part in the adventure, since it's intended to be a clue that someone is after the prince. In WinnepegDragon's entry, the crossbow is given to the PCs to kill Backu, so that they can retrieve the child. I do like the fact that it's tied into another ingredient, but WD then tosses in a magic bolt of "fey slaying," which renders the cold-iron property of the crossbow meaningless. I think Stormborn takes a slight lead with this ingredient use.Since I just mentioned the owlbear, let's look at that. Though I think the half-fey nature of Backu is rather arbitrary, its role as a guardian of the child-prince is better than Stormborn's, which feel just one step away from a random encounter. I know that the "hill of bones" in his adventure is supposed to be the owlbear's home, but the cave has been magically sealed since the king died, so it's no longer part of the owlbear's ecology. WinnepegDragon pulls back even with this ingredient.This leads me to the Hill of Bones. In both cases, the ingredient serves as a set piece, and little more. Stormborn's use is slightly stronger, I think, because it's the "point B" in his point A to point B setup. WinnepegDragon uses the hill simply as a backdrop. It's a creative backdrop, but it's not really interactive. If he'd included some obstacles to overcome, perhaps some wandering undead, or even a crotchety, old gravedigger, it would have been the superior use. As it is, though, it's merely a painted backdrop.This leaves us with three ingredients, and Stormborn is slightly ahead. His use of the elven child prince is much more interactive than WinnepegDragon's. Stormborn's prince accompanies the PCs, talks with the PCs, and potentially fights alongside the PCs. WinnepegDragon's on the other hand, is little more than a MacGuffin. Retrieving it, and perhaps convincing the king not to kill it, is the goal of the quest, but that's about it. Stormborn pulls farther ahead here.But then we have Blind Loyalty. Here, neither contestant integrates the ingredient in a way that the PCs will end up having much interaction with. If Stormborn's Blind Loyalty weren't the MacGuffin in his adventure, it would be completely hidden in the backstory, which is a huge no-no. WD's is only slightly more interactive - since his blind loyalty is primarily the set-up for the disappearance of the prince, it's only the interaction the PCs have with Niersharan and Othalu that bring it to the foreground. Neither contestant gains any ground with this one.That leaves the ingredient Sage. Here, both create a magic-using NPC. On one hand, we've got a wizard who is far more powerful than the PCs, and who should be able to do their job for them in his sleep. On the other hand, we've got a blind druid who is acting as the protector of the child. I've already expressed my reservations about Vhabehr, but I think his fits the definition of "sage" better than Othalu. Even though he's being manipulated by Bhenazra, he's wise enough to suspect a traitor in his midst. On the other hand, WinnepegDragon states that Othalu couldn't determine what kind of child grew inside the queen's womb. That doesn't seem very sagacious to me.While I have trouble with both adventures, they each show some amount of promise, and I hope that I've pointed out some areas where they can be improved. Only one contestant can advance though. Therefore, <spoiler: highlight to read>[spoiler]Stormborn advances for slightly stronger ingredient use[/spoiler]</spoiler>.</blockquote>

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