Rune
Once A Fool
At least a few. And plenty of recruitment threads, rules summations, and judgements. Those, at least, I could edit after the fact.
Scheduling Thread for the IRON DM 2020 Tournament!
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I've done updates to my PBP games on a phone... but not many, and I hated it. (So I bought a laptop. To run my PBP games. I didn't really need it for anything else, I do most of my computer-related-work at work, on the computer there. I'm pretty dedicated to my PBP games!)
Rune
Once A Fool
Since both of my fellow judges have stressed the importance of steering away from including extensive background information, I’ll add something to the topic.
Even if you find that you absolutely must include some background exposition in order for the adventure to make sense, there is almost always a better way to present it.
Dole it out in the form of clues that the PCs can come across. Layer it into rumors that they will hear. Put the evil wizard’s gossipy familiar directly in their path. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes (or, rather, it’s not my job to come up with that for you). What matters is that you convert all of that nearly useless DM-exposition into potentially useful adventure-fodder so that the players can interact with it.
TLDR: you will not have room to include a short-story in the middle of your adventure.
Even if you find that you absolutely must include some background exposition in order for the adventure to make sense, there is almost always a better way to present it.
Dole it out in the form of clues that the PCs can come across. Layer it into rumors that they will hear. Put the evil wizard’s gossipy familiar directly in their path. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes (or, rather, it’s not my job to come up with that for you). What matters is that you convert all of that nearly useless DM-exposition into potentially useful adventure-fodder so that the players can interact with it.
TLDR: you will not have room to include a short-story in the middle of your adventure.
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
As the afore-mentioned "hard-to-reach defending champion" and regular competitor for over a decade, a couple tips to latch onto the advice train:
11) Adventure quality trumps almost anything else. Amazing adventures packing middling ingredients will usually club middling adventures with perfectly-used ingredients into the substrate. I've lost several rounds trying to be too clever with the garnish without cooking the meat.
12) Don't info dump... anywhere really. I'm writing this in part to remind myself since I almost lost last year after taking a huge dump right at the beginning of my final entry.
13) Think of deadlines more like strong recommendations than termination points. I've lost several times against entries hours to days late. I've seen someone win with a three-paragraph sketch of the adventure they wanted to write several days past the deadline through the sheer awesomeness hinted. That said, deadlines nip a bit harder since they began truncating entries.
14) Statistically, you're going to lose. These things are subjective, tastes vary widely, and no matter how cool your slick reference to Odysseus or Khan is, you might land a judge who thinks the Odyssey is only a minivan and Enterprise is just the company that rents it. As long as your writing, GMing, or both are getting better, and/or you enjoy the creative process, that's what matters. Becoming more gracious in victory or defeat leads my list of learning experiences from participating in Iron DM (and something I'm still working on improving).
11) Adventure quality trumps almost anything else. Amazing adventures packing middling ingredients will usually club middling adventures with perfectly-used ingredients into the substrate. I've lost several rounds trying to be too clever with the garnish without cooking the meat.
12) Don't info dump... anywhere really. I'm writing this in part to remind myself since I almost lost last year after taking a huge dump right at the beginning of my final entry.
13) Think of deadlines more like strong recommendations than termination points. I've lost several times against entries hours to days late. I've seen someone win with a three-paragraph sketch of the adventure they wanted to write several days past the deadline through the sheer awesomeness hinted. That said, deadlines nip a bit harder since they began truncating entries.
14) Statistically, you're going to lose. These things are subjective, tastes vary widely, and no matter how cool your slick reference to Odysseus or Khan is, you might land a judge who thinks the Odyssey is only a minivan and Enterprise is just the company that rents it. As long as your writing, GMing, or both are getting better, and/or you enjoy the creative process, that's what matters. Becoming more gracious in victory or defeat leads my list of learning experiences from participating in Iron DM (and something I'm still working on improving).
Rune
Once A Fool
Speaking as the guy who lost that match, I will point out that (in my opinion), your ability to flip the switch and present a hyper-efficient and adventure-packed second half is a testimony to your skill and why you earned that championship. It’s worth studying.
But I’m not trying to undercut the point. When a contestant overloads an entry with exposition, it becomes a self-imposed obstacle that they then must get around. And even the most experienced among us fall into doing it from time to time.
Rune
Once A Fool
No. You appear to be looking at those penalties as a game-able grace period. They are, in fact, quite harsh. But they at least allow for the contestant to submit an entry (and still have a chance to win – just a harder chance).
Frankly, the old way always seemed to punish the wrong contestant, anyway. Automatic disqualification made more sense when the matches were 1 hour, but even at 24 hours, allowances had to be made for how unreliable the boards were back then. Things really began to get out of hand during the 48-hour matches, which started while I was taking a few years off from the internet.
Inevitably, the judge(s) would put the onus onto the on-time competitor to magnanimously allow the other entry to be judged – which they always did because, frankly, winning a match through disqualification is unsatisfying and saying “no” would seem petty.
I’m personally ashamed for ever putting that burden on any contestant (and I’ve done it multiple times), but with no other recourse established in the rules, it was that or an abrupt and unsatisfying end to the match.
After that, one of three things would happen:
1: The late contestant would decide their entry wasn’t worth finishing and concede, which was essentially the same result as a disappointing disqualification victory.
2: The late entry would lose and the contestant would wonder if they ever really had a chance to begin with. Justifiably, since the rules were pretty vague in order to allow judges leeway in how they wanted to penalize such entries.
3: The late entry would win and the other contestant would wonder if the late entry had even been penalized in a meaningful way. In a way, they usually weren’t. Let me explain:
Points-scoring judges (that is, non-me judges) would mark off points in their “follow the rules” category, but it was always such a small percentage of total points that it often felt inconsequential.
Non-points-scoring judges (non-non-me judges) needed to enforce a penalty that still legitimately allowed for victory and, therefore, only used the punctuality as a tie-breaker. This was not good enough.
Inevitably, the judge(s) would put the onus onto the on-time competitor to magnanimously allow the other entry to be judged – which they always did because, frankly, winning a match through disqualification is unsatisfying and saying “no” would seem petty.
I’m personally ashamed for ever putting that burden on any contestant (and I’ve done it multiple times), but with no other recourse established in the rules, it was that or an abrupt and unsatisfying end to the match.
After that, one of three things would happen:
1: The late contestant would decide their entry wasn’t worth finishing and concede, which was essentially the same result as a disappointing disqualification victory.
2: The late entry would lose and the contestant would wonder if they ever really had a chance to begin with. Justifiably, since the rules were pretty vague in order to allow judges leeway in how they wanted to penalize such entries.
3: The late entry would win and the other contestant would wonder if the late entry had even been penalized in a meaningful way. In a way, they usually weren’t. Let me explain:
Points-scoring judges (that is, non-me judges) would mark off points in their “follow the rules” category, but it was always such a small percentage of total points that it often felt inconsequential.
Non-points-scoring judges (non-non-me judges) needed to enforce a penalty that still legitimately allowed for victory and, therefore, only used the punctuality as a tie-breaker. This was not good enough.
The solution we’ve come up with addresses all of those problems. It’s effects are felt immediately and in every match wherein they are triggered. Late entries have a transparently fair opportunity to win. And, importantly, late entries require considerably more effort from their authors to give them that opportunity.
Rune
Once A Fool
That one’s really just a cut-off point in case someone ghosts us. No serious competitor is going to willingly cut their precious word-count by 50%, just for some extra time. That would be crazy!
Rune
Once A Fool
Let’s see if some of last year’s contestants might be interested, first.
@MortalPlague
@ajanders
@Psykick
@Wisdom Seeker
Want to give it another go?
