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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TrizzlWizzl" data-source="post: 98732" data-attributes="member: 3510">I'm not totally sure whether or not it's considered 'couth' to reply to the posted review of one's encounter, but as a creative professional (not creating DnD products obviously), I just wanted to comment very briefly on my own work.First of all, thank you Berandor for your feedback.  Feedback is neccessary; without it most games and gaming products would more than likely suck.  Second, I must say that my groups (both of them) are probably like yours in that 'damsels in distress' are subjected to a fairly high degree of suspicion.  Maybe it didn't come across in the encounter (in which case I would deserve to lose), but the idea was that things would develop so quickly that PCs would be forced into what zoologists call a 'critical reaction' (that is to say they would be forced to fight or flee) before they have a chance to engage in any meaningful assertation of the damsel's true nature.  There's not too many adventuring parties that would be content to watch a big ogre cut down a fair maiden, no matter how nefarious the party suspects the schemes of the maiden might be.In the playtests (one of which I didn't participate in) both parties decided to kill the ogre first and ask questions later, a response the encounter is designed to trigger.  Of course the encounter assumes the PCs will be able to see through the ruse eventually (the Knowlege (local) check, provided Bluff modifiers, Will saves vs. illusion, etc.), but the opening round is where the enounter is sold.Also, someone pointed out on the boards in the first heat how he considered this competition to be kind of like a warm up for writing modules for Dungeon magazine or some other publisher, an opinion I agree with (and still do).  I actually used the WotC format as best I could and I think I did a pretty good job getting all the stat blocks, encounter format, etc., etc. into proper order.Of course, if you don't care about the technical aspects of editing d20 stuff then you probably won't vote for the encounter, as it is pretty straight forward (as evidenced by the NPC) and devoid of cutsey knick-knacks.  Personally, I'm voting for the encounters that are the 'tightest' in terms of their understanding of d20.    That's just my opinion though; everyone has their own tastes.Thank you again, Berandor, for the feedback.</blockquote>

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