Rhaiber: Kudos for sticking with the same setting each round! The player text is wonderfully written, really brings the NPC’s to life, and is a big help for the DM. I also found the 4th wall idea really creative! Consider giving even more of an explanation for why the PC’s need to break that wall to continue in the encounter.
Jbear: Really great use of the word-limit to cover so much ground in these encounters! I loved the way that the PC’s all have something of specific interest to them to get them into the Hole-of-Horrible-Hopping portal. Consider providing more direction for your DM for how the PC’s will continue into the next scenes after the portal and onto the conclusion.
Game ADJUCATION
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Humble Athena
X
Qiksilv
X
Judges Feedback:
Humble Athena: This was a really in-depth encounter with an excellent backstory for your DM! Consider providing even more formatting to really make the different NPC’s standout from each other in addition to the other main parts of this encounter.
Qiksilv: I really enjoyed the set-up for the party getting swallowed and then meeting the memorable NPC! Excellent use of formatting to make your mechanics standout and easily readable for your DM. The mechanics would also be fun to DM and experience as a player. Consider providing even more direction for the ending parts of the encounter in the palace and the tomb.
Game ADJUCATION
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Thaco
X
Ghostwalking
Judges Feedback:
Thaco: What a great idea for the PC’s meeting in the solicitors’ office with the heir! What a fun setup for the PC’s. I also really like the increasingly louder droning sound and use of that ingredient. It’s a great way to get the PC’s into a hostile environment! I also love the twist with the household staff getting transformed! Consider making that transformation tie in more clearly with the final standoff with those vampires!
Game ADJUCATION
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Gaijin
X
Strangemund
X
Judges Feedback:
Gaijin: Always an amazing job with the formatting! I really enjoyed the way you included mechanics on the right with monster information, hazards, and the ingredient list. The encounter was really well laid out and would be fun to DM. Consider providing additional context for why the PC’s are there and reasons for them investigating this estate.
Strangemund: I absolutely love the horror of it all! It was an excellent approach to making this feel like a hostile environment for your PCs. In fact, I still find myself thinking about the figure with black eyes and the gruesome TV show even a few days later! Great use of the ingredients. Consider including even more explicit formatting for the judges about how you used each of the ingredients.
Last edited by Leviticus; Nov 19th, 2023 at 10:32 PM.
Feedback: I love when entries take creative risks. Both of these submissions did this by choosing to focus on creating and populating a richly themed world, one as an homage to a classic tale and the other as the fourth-installment of a grand mystery tour through purgatory. But for writers this talented (as you both are) and for DMs this solid on mechanics (as you both are), the risk isn't in letting your creativity shine ... the greatest risk (in terms of the competition) is in allowing it to unmoor the submission from the centrality of the ingredients. Yes, the ingredients are here and there, but they are bit actors in a bigger production. The challenge going forward will be to continue this level of brilliant creativity without becoming too detached from the particular remit of each round ... there is a real possibility that you sprint too far from the themes and find yourself defeated by a focused, highly-polished, ingredient-first submission. I think there's even a story about it involving a rabbit, of course, and a turtle. But, then again, to beat ya, they gotta catch up to ya ... run, rabbits, run.
Rhaiber: In Round 1, I had asked you to consider creating alternate paths that could be solved by different players with different backgrounds. You've done that every round since, and--I think--masterfully, as with the example of the different ways to break through a fourth wall. As we go deeper into the competition, only you and RoBi are left creating sequential narratives, which provides inherent weaknesses and strengths (weakness--judges might not remember or reread important elements from previous rounds; strength--vastly deeper story and characters like Riff can be dropped into the narrative as recognized and distinct elements without having to explain their background too much). I'm sure you have thought this out, and I'm eager to see it play out!
jbear: It's good to be spoiled with riches. Good to be a jbear. Your entry has so many distinct elements and episodes that seem like they would play out very well. True, it does take a reading or two or three to get a grasp on what is happening, but I think that is because of how dense the mechanisms and game-play possibilities are, not because anything is poorly presented or explained. There could be a danger of too much and there could be a case for trimming down an entry to give a more central focus to a core event--here, I think, that would be the race. But that might be simply a matter of choice. I see your entry like a classic three-ring circus with equally amazing performances vying for attention. And if it worked for clowns, acrobats and lion tamers, who's to say it doesn't work for little ol' Iron DM?
Feedback: Stripped away of colorful elements and world-building, these two scenarios are basically the same adventure: a dungeon crawl to defeat a BBER (big, bad evil rabbit). There's nothing wrong with that--these are both great examples of the genre. But because the premise is the same, that allows the submissions to complete on the merits of their details and scene-setting.
Qiksilv: I'm not sure why the cowardly lion has a magical bowl of soup, but I like that little touch of whimsy before the adventure goes into a crawl and fight sequence, ending with a rune-riddled rabbit radiating some terrible power. I think the bare-bones Outplay rules work well for this straight-forward encounter, with some nice touches like the madness counter added on. Your explanations and mechanisms are slick and simple--I think anyone could pick this up and run this without problems. You had the bad luck to pull an opponent who created a similar adventure, but with a few more flourishes and with the ingredients built in a bit more firmly into the foundations of the adventure. I guess what I am saying is ... more soup, please?
Humble Athena: FATE was a very solid choice for this write-up as it allowed your attributes and zones to speak volumes while not complicating the mechanics (particularly when facing off against an Outplay rules-light system). The inclusion of additional details as core story elements, such as the three-legged rabbit and the infernal fate of the cross-bred animalistic descendants, gave this entry a fully realised sense of horror.
Game ADJUDICATION Feedback This is the only easy decision in Room 1 this round.
Thaco: This is a solid contender. The prolonged, tortured servitude of the manor staff was a striking detail. It would have been interesting to see how it would have done matched up against any of the other dungeon crawls in this group, but there is no shame in getting through with a bye for this level of an entry. In the next round, I would highly advise to spend less time on the setup. A few hundred words into the story, you are still setting up the background whereas your opponents are already hunting rabbits.
Feedback: A magnificently created dungeon crawl goes up against a locked-room horror show. Both are fiendishly clever, but one stands out as a stark, disturbing original interpretation.
Gaijin This might be the best of the four dungeon-crawl submissions in Room 1 this round. The ingredients, characters, and leporine lagniappes are fully realized and spread evenly through the adventure, from the childhood bunny pet to the awesome power of the cobalt carrot. The objective is clear and the information is presented logically, when needed and in just the right amounts as needed. It would take one really weird rabbit to beat this entry. Weird rabbit alert.
Strangemund Did I say weird? How about nightmarishly freaky? Strangemund ... you okay? Packing in problematic parental figures, the bleached authority of the airwaves, and the ritualistic gathering around ready-to-eat butchering that is the nuclear family mealtime of the atomic age ... is the work of radioactive creativity. But while encountering the theme was like swigging a bottle of reds-under-ya-beds passion fruit cola, reading through the mechanics and progression of the story was easy and manageable. Not sure if I would want to DM this or if I would enjoy playing it ... but I can't forget it. There's a rabbit man out there and he is going to get us.
Judges Feedback: RoBi A decent star-filled encounter, with a twist of pirates and all the ingredients called out used in an organic way. It does flow a bit on the rails, not leaving too much for the players to decide, other than passing/failing skill checks. Still, an interesting scenario.
Auron3991 The setup here creates room for a great encounter and adventure, using the ingredients given for this round. The actual encounter though seems to be boiled down to one fight, then the effects of trying to get off the island. Either of these would have been better served fleshed out with some more mechanics to them, than trying to fit both in.
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Begon Ugo
X
Dworin
X
Judges Feedback: Begon Ugo Delta Green is one of those games that I have played some, and would love to play more. That probably gave you an unfair advantage here for me. I like the setup and challenges presented for our poor agents assigned to approach the whirlpool. The end-of-the-road tie-in with the Bonds came out a bit rushed, and probably deserved more of the word count, being the most important part of the counter to the players. Good job overall though.
Dworin This adventure is very thoughtful and plays on a lot of social constructs that could be hit or miss depending on the table you are playing at. I do think for the scope of an 'encounter' this may have tried to fit in a little too much. To really cover the scope of what you were going for here needed more word count to execute well. Overall though, I like the moral challenge for the players and the setup of a big bad that they can't just beat the first time they run into them.
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Boss Nadar
X
Judges Feedback: Boss Nadar No opponent this round, but in a lot of ways, this was the best entry in the room. Solid adventure, good formatting (that toes the line, but didn't quite cross over being too much), everything clearly explained. The main thing to keep an eye on, you did cross over the word limit by 6, according to the official counter.
Judges Feedback:
Both competitors in this match delivered dynamic entries, chock-full of zany adventure and excitement. Maybe I'm getting old, but I have to say to both of these competitors: less is more. Chaos and shenanegans are one of the joys of RPGs, but if everything is chaos, then it becomes impossible to tell what's important, for either the player of the DM. In the end, I found Rhaiber delivered the better entry, because most of their chaos was just presentation-related.
Rhaiber, I would like to say that I can really see the improvement in your writing from previous rounds. This entry is one cohesive idea, and what is expected of the players is fairly clear. However, while the content of your encounter is fine, your presentation is not. I felt your entry is massively overformatted. There's a rule of seven in good design: always aim to keep your design below seven. Seven font treatments (I count at least 15 in your entry), seven things to remember at once (the environment alone has six notable features, plus two characters, and all the things to do), and or seven list items (at least you only have four columns, and five sections). I feel you made a big mistake trying to... I guess maximize screen space. It actually makes your material harder to read and use overall than if you had just put everything in some kind of order instead of throwing everything at the reader at once.
Jbear, your entry seems to be, Alice in Wonderland: Oops, all Rabbits. It's a more zany than I personally like, but it's a fine enough premise. I want to also say that bullet points are a strong flavor, and I feel you've abused them a little in this entry. They make the whole entry a lot harder to read, and between them and some plot holes I suspect that if you hadn't used a well-known premise I might not have been able to follow your entry at all, as there were some big plot holes: like what the Hopping Glass actually is or how it can be entered, or how the party is expected to realize they need to 'exit' the race at all.
I think your biggest problem was trying to cover too much of a story in one entry, perhaps because you couldn't figure out how to get all the ingredients into just one scene, and I suspect you ended up with a lot of cut content. if you're going to cut as much as I think you might have, I would have suggested the opposite: cut the whole thing apart, then take out just the most interesting one scene and turn that one into your entry. It's more work of course, but the end result is much more cohesive than what you delivered.
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Humble Athena
x
Qiksilv
x
Judges Feedback:
This match had two good ideas, but I found one to be executed signifigantly better than the other. Congratulations Humble Athena, your rabbits-foot curse-ghost came together better than your competitiors creeping-rabbit-madness.
Humble Athena, I think your entry was pretty good overall. You have a very solid setting and introduction, and a very straightforward yet interesting feeling hostile environment. I think players would really be on edge creeping about this seemingly empty house, where monster attacks and collapsing floors could happen at any time. I especially loved the climax of the adventure, with the angry ghost on the bellows and the attacking hoard. My only real concern is formatting. I think you did just the minimum amount to get by, and just a little more would have gone a long way. All the information was where I needed it on initial read, but I doubt I could have found it again on the fly if I needed it. Great work.
Qiksilv, your entry felt a bit stretched thin. Like you had an idea and then perhaps you ran out of time to execute it. The setting of a war of leonin versus haregons is a fine idea with some neat elements, but the execution comes across as a lore dump followed by ten fights. The biggest part of the entry though is the opening and closing. The party is thrown into the encounter with no context or real stakes other than being kidnapped, abd it ends with a handwaved return to the original setting. Your entry would have been much stronged to have removed this framing. It would improve buy in and consequences signifigantly.
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Thaco
x
Judges Feedback: Thaco, I found that despite your entry doing most things right, it just didn't quite land for me. You have a solid setup for the haunted house and why it's there... but I felt you wasted a lot space detailing the house and staff when almost none of it matters. I love reskinning existing statblocks for throwaway monsters... but your choice of statblocks feels both random and more importantly: they feel like the wrong monsters. Why are the half-man half-rabbit creatures being treated as mummies and not, something like werewolves? Little things like this add up to create an entry that's... passable, but not as good as it could have been.
Ghostwalking has dropped out, but a big thanks for your participation up to this point.
Name
Win
Loss
Draw
Gaijin
X
Strangemund
X
Judges Feedback:
I was so impressed by both of these entries. After one, I thought this was going to be an easy decision in their favor. After both, I had to seriously think about it. In the end, I'm weighing in favor of Gaijin, because while both encounters were well written, creative situations with excellent ingredient use, i found Gaijin's was slightly more polished. So, to Gaijin I give the win this round. But a big thank you to both competitors for making this a hard decision in the best way.
Gaijin, I loved your entry. It's an interesting and novel situation that sounds like it would be a fun romp for the players, that would be very easy for any DM to run in an engaging way. But as much as I liked it, it's not quite perfect. For example, you went a little overboard regarding the formatting - and despite everythign I felt there were several things that needed formatting that weren't. References to specific monsters and rules would have been nice to call out. I also note that while the story within the entry is great, there is a very faint justification for why the story is happening. I think it's the wrong amouint of justification; I feel your entry would have been slightly better with either more OR less explanation for the giant rabbit. One way or another, this was very well done.
Strangemund, this is a very good horror setup. The supernatural creature and situation is solid and creepy, although a TV set of a 1950s kitchen feels like it leans a little too hard on other horror media with similar premises. While your writing was very good overall, there were a few hiccups I noticed; like a point where the rabbit 'brokenly restates the premise', despite almost all of the premise being a description of what the rabbit looks like. In the end, I think you did a good job with the entry as a whole, especially writing a non-dnd non-traditional-combat encounter.
Nov 12th, 2023, 09:29 PM
