Quest Judging
The Darkened Path, Part One
In the Dead of Night
I'll be blunt with you here: The prose was a bit too purple for my tastes. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just that you put a little too much effort into padding your paragraphs with fancy wording and looking for new ways to describe something without just calling it by name. Your use of descriptors was also inconsistent as heck; Chris starts as The Cook/Chef and suddenly he's the Pyromancer and then the Hedge-Mage and then...yeah. Marcus suffered similarly.
Besides that, it was all too rushed with too many missing details. You did a fair enough job on the intro, and I didn't really find anything too objectionable about the whole Are you questioning mah AUTHORITAH? scene near the beginning, but...it's like you cut out the whole middle chunk of everything to try and cram it all into ten posts. Which is perfectly understandable, but even so.
That out the way, let's get to the point-by-point stuff.
STORY
Continuity: 6
Your intro sequence started off strong enough. I got a decent feel for who Chris was, what he was doing...but then it just kept jumping around and introducing facts after they would've been useful. You would've been well-served at least having Chris know Marcus by some sort of alias, and possibly delving into why he was tagging along with the caravan to begin with. A more significant look into Marcus' backstory would've also helped. A lot. Especially earlier on, like during his conversation with Chris. Alternatively, you could've had Chris get the story from a conveniently expendable mook. Even if you didn't, it could have been handled a bit better by giving Marcus a proper Inigo Montoya moment.
Setting: 5
You could've done better with this one. Especially considering that it would've made up for shortcomings with continuity and pacing. Where in Salvar is this place? What's the situation? When did Kincaid pop up and how long has he been raining on everyone's parade? Even spartan descriptions of his tower, the forest and the village would've helped. Without those, I was left picturing a village in the middle of a cold desert with a Magically Appearing Forest around a great big granite tower with a castle turret on top and a wrought iron fence around it. Even that kind of description would've helped a lot.
Pacing: 4
Pacing was bad. I don't know how to cushion that statement, but it was bad and it didn't need to be. I was willing to overlook the ambush at the beginning; maybe the villagers had some kind of forewarning, whatever.But then you just kept skipping ahead and missing whole chunks of possible scenery. It feels like the space between the conversation and the battle could've had at least two posts in it just to ease you from point A (the village, getting some much needed backstory on Kincaid, explaining Eugeny's sway on the townsfolk and so on) to point C (the battle). This would've also given you ample room to describe the area.
In short: Slow down a bit. There's no need to rush and your final product will look better for it.
CHARACTER
Dialogue: 7
Your dialogue was one of the things you handled best. To be honest, I can't think of many ways you could've improved it, and most boil down to things only tangential to the actual speaking. Maybe less interruptions by action, or less of the characters knowing the exact words to say. It just feels unnatural. Case in point: “Which? Cooking or setting things on fire with semi-illegal magic?” could be "Which one? Cooking or setting things on fire with witchcraft?" Not a big difference, but it's easier to imagine someone actually saying it.
Another example from the same conversation: “I know that there is more to all this than it seems. I know that that mayor wasn’t the only one you came to bring to justice, but I was hoping that, for once, I could not get sucked into another mess.” could be "I know there is more to all of this than that. I'm guessing that the mayor wasn't the only one you came here for. I was just hoping, just this once, I wouldn't get sucked into another mess."
Again, it's mostly a nitpick on wording. It's a common thing with writers of all kinds. I know I stumble into the trap sometimes just from trying too hard to avoid it.
ACTION: 7
It was a bit dry and hard to follow at some points, but overall you did a good enough job once the timeskip shock value wore off. The only real rough patches were the gargoyle and Chris, and Kincaid and Chris towards the end. Both would've been helped by putting at least a passing description of the scene going on around them. It also would've helped if Chris had been built up a little bit more. Marcus, you know just by hearing Chris' take on him that he's not someone you screw around with. You expect him to wade through the undead hordes kicking ass and taking names. Chris? He's a cook and a hedge-mage. Who got drafted at the last second. What can he do?
One thing that would've helped is a little more description on the spells Chris was throwing around. What they looked like, what their effects were, if they had impact or not...stuff like that. Maybe I've been watching this Warhammer Online trailer too many times, but I keep seeing his flames as a combination of the Warhammer Fire Wizard and a DPS Mage in World of Warcraft.
Personna: 7
This was a bit of a toughy for me. Chris' personna is laid out nicely early on. But then he transitions from Chris the Cook to Chris the Pyromancer without much of an explanation in the process. We've just got Marcus' assumption that he's a mage of some kind, and Marcus doesn't even imply that Chris is a very powerful one. The same is true of Marcus, who jumps from The Mysterious Merchant to the Oh Crap! Witch Hunter to the Unfriendly Draft Officer to the Angry Orphan to the Secondhand Messiah inside of ten posts with very little transition or build-up from one to the next (most glaring at the Merchant-Witch Hunter-Officer points; Secondhand Messiah wasn't handled so badly by comparison).
Kincaid is also basically a blank slate. He's just sort of there going mwahaha i am evil u r dead. Admittedly you could get away with this if you'd just built that into the setting and given examples of his past villainies with more depth. You could've also explained how he got that demonic sword, or what he's used it for, or if he's got a reputation for using it in the first place. It kinda came out of the blue.
For that matter, so did Chris' transition to Smeagol. Sorta. Ish.
For all those flaws though, you still did a good enough job overall to rate a 7.
WRITING STYLE
Mechanics: 8
Would've been a 9 or a 10, but for a few things...like comma abuse. You also had a problem with run-on sentences and staying on topic. I'm not one to criticize too heavily there, as I do the same and think it can be done beneficially if you use the right tact and form for it. A lot of my criticisms of your mechanics are more in line with your technique, SO!
Technique: 8
Again, this would've been a 9 or a 10 but for a few glaring errors, mostly having to do with things I've addressed already (see Pacing, Setting, Action and Personna). My biggest gripe with your writing style is that the prose was too purple. You used too many varied descriptions for just a few people, often with no opening declaration as to what applied to who. The worst example was the Alpha Wolf/Coyote metaphor. For all the descriptions and metaphors you used to describe each person, you also didn't really describe them at all. I was left with a mental image of Marcus as a young Solomon Kane and Kincaid as some kind of freakish Magus wannabe.
You also seemed to have a bit of trouble pinning Marcus to a set age; first he was a few years older than Chris, but then he was in his early 30s at least (5 pre-orphan + 25 of training + ??? time spent en route), but Chris is apparently a boy. Despite being 20.
Despite this, you still did well enough to warrant an 8.
Clarity: 9
Almost ended up being a 10. For all the errors and things you could've done better, you did a good enough job showing me what you wanted to. Your writing, though a bit flowery and dry, was good at conveying what was going on. The whole of it did well enough to make up for the parts where I was left scratching my head.
Wild Card: 8
I'm giving you an 8 for failing on some of these things. Mostly because this is just the first of what will hopefully be many such RPs centered on Chris and his gradual descent into power madness. I'm interested enough to come back for more and that's gotta count for something.
TOTAL: 69/100
Rewards
EXP Rewards: Christopher Knighton gets 3000 EXP.
GP Rewards: Christopher Knighton gets 450 GP.
Other Rewards: Christopher Knighton gets a Mysterious Demonic Sword. Feel free to rename it, that's just what I'm calling it for this judgement.
Originally Posted by Streaming Notes of Doom
Submit Thread for Judgment
