Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
Did anyone else watch this?
It looked like only around 1,200 viewers tuned in during the event.
From the beginning, there was lots of lag, and the sound was cutting in and out throughout the broadcast to the point that it was hard to follow at times.
It took a long time for the game to get going. First there was a lot of unnecessary commentary that seemed to go on forever, and then there was the pick/ban phase during which you were unable to see or hear the players. I think this could have been more interesting.
Once actual play started, the players seemed woefully unprepared. Some of them couldn’t figure out how to move their character’s tokens around the map. They also seemed unfamiliar with their character’s abilities. The player of a fighter tried to cast a spell at one point, which ended up not being a class feature he had on his sheet. And another player who was playing a sorcerer used sorcery points to either twin or quicken (it was unclear which) a spell, which led to the DM making a bad call, allowing the sorcerer to cast two non-cantrips on his turn, which ended up contributing to his team winning the round.
i think the format put a lot of pressure on the DM to make a quick call in this and other instances, but for a tournament like this to work, it should have at least the appearance of fairness. Apparently there was a panel of judges hidden somewhere, but they seem to have remained silent on this issue. And all the commentators had to say about this was that the DM’s call is final, which I generally agree with, but seemed to go against the tournament having been touted as “RAW”.
All in in all it was somewhat disappointing, but I think it might be interesting to see if some of the more glaring issues are addressed in later rounds.
It looked like only around 1,200 viewers tuned in during the event.
From the beginning, there was lots of lag, and the sound was cutting in and out throughout the broadcast to the point that it was hard to follow at times.
It took a long time for the game to get going. First there was a lot of unnecessary commentary that seemed to go on forever, and then there was the pick/ban phase during which you were unable to see or hear the players. I think this could have been more interesting.
Once actual play started, the players seemed woefully unprepared. Some of them couldn’t figure out how to move their character’s tokens around the map. They also seemed unfamiliar with their character’s abilities. The player of a fighter tried to cast a spell at one point, which ended up not being a class feature he had on his sheet. And another player who was playing a sorcerer used sorcery points to either twin or quicken (it was unclear which) a spell, which led to the DM making a bad call, allowing the sorcerer to cast two non-cantrips on his turn, which ended up contributing to his team winning the round.
i think the format put a lot of pressure on the DM to make a quick call in this and other instances, but for a tournament like this to work, it should have at least the appearance of fairness. Apparently there was a panel of judges hidden somewhere, but they seem to have remained silent on this issue. And all the commentators had to say about this was that the DM’s call is final, which I generally agree with, but seemed to go against the tournament having been touted as “RAW”.
All in in all it was somewhat disappointing, but I think it might be interesting to see if some of the more glaring issues are addressed in later rounds.
