Winter IrondDM (Winner)!

[Nifft]

Wow, I thought I was dead! Good match, Wicht! I see some surface similarities -- both of us have towns threatened by the Xill, both of us have the Llama guarding the town, and both of us have the victim of the Iron Bands being implanted by the Xill -- hey, we even have the guy in the Iron Bands being someone important's son!

Anyway -- good match

Now, to defend myself : Okay, not Commune but Divination. As to why there's no better answer forthcoming, and why the forces of Elemental Evil aren't being very helpful, it's because Tchakrix is part Fire Elemental, too, and has used what little influence he has to hide his tracks. Those Who Command the Flames are waiting to see who wins -- the old species or the new -- before helping one side or the other.

Secondly, I assumed that Tchakrix has about 30 Xill working for him, and that for a Commune to work it would have to be phrased pretty precisely -- "Did Tchakrix kidnap Archi?" is a clear No.

(Though, to be honest, I don't have a ton of experience with high level Divinations...)

Finally, yes, Perlfive is a "computer" joke -- I tried to make the Llama as palpably comic relief as I could, then imagined the Xill scratching their heads, wondering how the hell THAT thing had them beat.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

-- Nifft

 

[Nifft]

exposition
[...]
An no, Quickbeam, I will not hold it against, you - I'll save that for Nifft

Could someone tell me what's wanted in exposition?

And ... erp!

-- Nifft

 

[Wicht]

I can't help feeling that this one was entirely a matter of personal preference. i thought my Llama was going to win me the round hands down

Not to argue with the judge but how do you use a llama as a serious plot element ? My first thought on reading it (well my second thought - my first was, "what is a bright llama? I don't remeber seeing that in the Tome of Horrors") was Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Maybe they just ruined Llamas for me as a serious plot element ever.

So Llama equaled silly to me. Light tone. A bright llama could either be an intelligent llama, as in, "boy is he bright. Wish I could learn as fast as that Llama." The other was a llama that shone like the sun. A llama that shone suggested something divine. The riddle suggested the sphinx to me and so my mind leapt to the llama standing in for a sphinx at the wim of some silly deity. My mind next leapt to the tale of Oedipus and thus was born the city in trouble because of a slight to the god in question. The sword and shield was not really tacked on so much as intended to be illustrative of the favor the god bestowed on his son. Then I needed something to do with it and perhaps could have carried it further as a plot point. As I feel is normally the case, my weakness is in trying to be too brief when judges habitually favor detail.

As to the Iron bands of Billaro, what else would they do but keep someone captive? The only other real way to use them is to give them to an NPC as an attack option but in my mind that would be even more tacked on. They either have to be in use or be about to be used. There are few other options (and I notice my opponent chose to use them exactly as I did though with a more central figure). If they are in use then someone has to be affected by the use. I am interested in why a judge would give an ingredient and then complain that it was used in the story.

Some ingredients IMO are hard to be central to an over-riding plot and must therefore be used as plot support. I used the Xill, the riddle and the Llama as main points of the plot and the other three as support. If the ingredient is used in an intelligent way then I guess I would disagree with the "tacked-on" description. But thats just personal opinion.

Anyhow. Perhaps part of my problem is that I deliver my humor too straight faced. I have no idea why the honorable judge would imagine that I was trying to deliver a serious beginning. Actually in the mind of the writer the beginning and introduction were supposed to be lighthearted and produce a good laugh from the players (until the Llama started stomping heads into the ground anyway). The second part of the adventure was more serious and in fact had a rather gruesome ending arranged (shades of alien in the Xill eggs). IMO the introduction of some rather gruesome images can sometimes be better delivered if the players are not expecting it. The humor therefore, if played right lends itself to making the situation later that much more serious. Again, though, this may just be a difference in personal style.


Finally, congragulations Nifft. I thought I had you there but fear not I shall return!

 

[mythago]

Saturday is not so swell for me. The rest of the week, I'm good to go.

 

[Quickbeam]

Nifft:
Exposition, is essentially a detailed description of how and why your story came together the way it did. Incognito is looking for the thought process behind your use of the theme ingredients within the adventure, and the evolution of the entry as it was ultimately posted.

Wicht:
I made a few of the same points you did above. Tough break...I was looking forward to a rematch. Perhaps we'll have one in the RBDM tourney or at some other point down the road.

 

[howandwhy99]

Saturday is not so swell for me. The rest of the week, I'm good to go.

Ditto, for me. This is my gaming Saturday.
If possible, later in the workday is better for me, too. I imagine it's hard not to get ancy with 8 hours of work left after those ingredients post.

Also, I thought you guys got pretty tough ingredients for first round. Here's how I read them:

Person: Xill
Place: Smoke Filled room
Thing: Bright Llama, Iron Bands of Billaro (possible persons, if awakened or intelligent)
Story Element: Mercy Killing, Challenging riddle

Tough not just because of their diversity, but because most lists in the past games have had at least 2 persons or groups. For me these are the most dynamic parts in a game. While you can interact with NPC's, objects rarely seem to lead to moral quandries without a lot of preplanning.

Congratulations to both of you. Both entries were very well done and a good judgement, too.

 

[Greybar]

It's damn hard to take llamas seriously

Absolutely. Note to self: incognito seems open to a fully comedic entry, so if given lemons make lemonade!

I was drawn to the Xill/Effreet alliance, perhaps because I could begin to imagine using that in my own game.

Congrats to Nifft and condolences to Wicht. It was a tough ingredient list.

John

 

[mythago]

Small clarification: these must be D&D scenarios, not just d20 scenarios, yes?

 

[Nifft]

Exposition

Smoke Filled room
Mercy Killing
Iron Bands of Billaro
Xill
Challenging riddle
Bright Llama

The first thing I did was to look up Xill. Lawful Evil Outsider simply screamed "SLAVER" to my inner ear. Then I looked at Smoke-Filled Room. This suggested two things: one, an illicit behind-the-scenes deal; two, creatures of elemental Fire. So I combined the two ideas into a contract between the Xill and the Efreet. To make the deal more viable, I gave the chief Xill the half-elemental (fire) template -- but didn't mention how exactly he got that template. The team-up of XIll and Efreet is powerful -- Efreet provide magic, Xill provide muscle. A very deadly combo.

Now I turned to the Bright Llama. For some reason, I pictured a wandering do-gooder -- but the thing was still very silly.

Next, I turned to the Iron Bands and the Mercy Killing. Since the Xill entry contained an item of alien horror -- the egg implantation -- the idea of confinement and Mercy Killing came together naturally. So, someone was going to end up in the Iron Bands with a Xill egg in him, begging for death.

Since the Efreet were the only other characters in the drama, they were the natural choice for victimhood. The idea of an efreeti implanted with a Xill egg got me thinking about the FireXill and how he got that template -- perhaps his egg was implanted in an efreeti!

There was the basic plot. Now I needed to throw in a Riddle and make the Llama less useless. So, a mystery was in order -- have the Xill grab not just some expendable efreeti, but the son of the Prince. A note in the SRD gave me inspiration: Some djinn (1% of the total population) are "noble" and can grant three wishes to any being (nongenies only). I decided to extend this rule to efreet.

The mechanic of "grants wishes (nongenies only)" is interesting, since it involves a power exchange and either great trust or coersion. The PCs aren't nearly powerful enough to coerce a Noble Efreeti, so it's got to be a trust thing.

Now for the riddle -- I have a bit of an advantage, since I used to write quite a bit of poetry. I wanted the riddle to be one of a very small number of clues, since the party has access to divination magic and two months to solve this case. Of course, the clues could prove to be too obscure, so I made the llama bright enough to help the party along -- should they stumble, he'll be there to nudge them back on track.

That's about it, except for deciding that the Prince would be more or less generous based on whether the party saves his son or not.

-- Nifft

 

[Majicthise]

Congrats to Nifft! I really enjoyed your entry.

Wicht. . . I agree with you about the subjective nature of these things. . . I think there should be more deities with silly character flaws (the standard deity bit of wanting to kill everyone or cover the world with ice or what-not are such serious mental problems. . .why can't a god just be annoyingly fond of llamas?).

Thanks for two cool entries.