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Designer Journal 3: Branching thanks to True Dungeon |
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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 30 January 2010 21:37 |
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This week were are working on the overall story branching schemes. This year the players will all feel like they are apart of the same team. We're also continuing our want to have everyone in the same world because every story matters to us.
Getting these details down is usually the hardest part of the story telling process. We want it to make sense that 10 parties are in one place and that several encounters are simniliar. What we don't want to do is fall into the MMO pit where people are doing the same quests and have no effect on the world.
In the previous year it was one of the things were were most proud of, but it was a lot of work on dungeon masters. We would have these branches based on players decisions, but it made more work for the DM. This year we're fixing that, thanks in large part to an idea inspired by the first couple of years of True Dungeon. Bill and I were chatting and I brought up one of the early years of True Dungeon were a single DM would escort you through the dungeon, introducing you to other DMs in the room. That conversation led to turning our DMs into parts themselves for our tournament.
So all of the players begin in the same place, and there's one master story teller for each group. The teams then decide which direction the yare going to go in, and are branched out to a DM who "is" that part. Within each of the DMs adventures there are 2 branches they could go, and the decision has a strong effect on the story.
This idea is really going to ease the DM workload and provide players an even stronger feeling of a living world. |
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Designer Journal 2: The DM Gauntlet |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 14 January 2010 23:37 |
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We've been busy writing like monkeys these last two months, and the adventure is coming along great.
But that's not why we're updating today. We're updating to let everyone know that this year, not only will we have the Iron Player Championship, but running concurrently with it, we'll have the DM's Gauntlet.
The Gauntlet is a grueling 8 hour competittion where we take 4 DMs and put them in the gauntlet as a DM in the Iron Player Championship. But these guys aren't working for us. They are competing against one another for cash and prizes.
Two independent judges and several secret players will be judging these DMs as we test their Fiat ability, ability to work with prepared material and ability to entertain three seperate groups.
Just like the show IRon Chef, the Gauntlet runners will get to call out any of the Iron DMs. If they beat that designated Iron DM in scoring, they receive a bonus prize in addition to their normal prize.
We were inspired to do this because of the many emails we have gotten for DMs who want to participate in the tournament.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 14 January 2010 23:52 |
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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 31 October 2009 16:25 |
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Blame Iron DM Dreads for such a Late update. My apologies to the winners, but real life took a front seat for a bit. However, now things are back rolling and we want to congratulate all of the players and the winners. It was an extraordinary tournament, some groups did great, and some groups did just ok, but only one group did Iron.
Our Iron Player this year, the Player that destroyed the adventure, that nearly single handedly saved the world from utter destruction to the hands of the Zerstorer, "Marcus Groenig. His team member, Mork, came in Second. The third place winner came from the Rape the Garden of Internal Delights Team" Dave Silver. These players were the first to receive Official Pathfinder Core Rulebooks from Paizo.
The top two scores came out of the winning group. Congratulations to the Wings of Glory, the winning Iron Team that consisted of Linda Palmer, Max Emmerling, Josch Pavelko, Amber Veck , Mork, Marcus Gerving and Jaron. All of those winner received a prize pack from Alea Tools and the 4 non-winning players received gift certificates from DriveThruRPG.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 20:49 |
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2010 Tournament Design Journal 1: Brainstorming |
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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 31 October 2009 17:00 |
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We're getting started really early this year and plan on having a finished alpha product by the first week of January.
Second time was truly a charm, as most of us left with a clear idea of what we wanted to do next year. Jay's a real inspiriation when it comes to off the walls concepts, its why he's the reigning Iron DM. Matt is a genius , I mean that in the literal since. So combining two of their ideas from past into once mindblowing adventure was the next natural phase. And so we are proud to announce that the next entry inito the Collatoral Apocolypse Trilogy is ... well we'll wait a week to announce the title, but it is unique, and, its something that nearly won me the 2007 Iron DM Tournament and DID win jay the 2008 Iron Player Tournament.
Oh what the hell, the next tournament will be called Collateral Apocolypse II: Ninjas vs. Pirates.
BUt no, we're not taking a tongue and cheap approach to it. We're approaching this very seriously and this will be the darkest tournament we have done so far. The preliminary ideas that have come in from a couple of the DMs are creative and viscious and will definately test parties on a lot of levels.
The adventure itself takes place a few months to a year from this years adventure with the ivory pyramid playing a big part in the story.
In itself, it is a self contained adventure, you could play this adventure and not have played in the previous two tournaments. But, this story fits nicely into the arc and rewards those who've played the last 1 or 2 tournaments.
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Last Updated on Saturday, 31 October 2009 19:23 |
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