A Past Life (Solo)

[The International]

A Past Live (Solo) Review

I like that word. Review. Feels a little less stressful, don’t you think? I think I’m going to use that word a little bit more than Judgment (oooooh!). This is a decent introduction for Gavel over all. On with the notes.

Plot Construction 19 /30

Story 6 /10 – As all your stories are, this one is well balanced. There’s an intro, which was good, rising action, which was smooth, and a climax, which you did well with due to the fact that it wasn’t Gavel’s little fight with the two thugs but the conversation with his brother. You took a big risk putting both a twist (Gavel’s brother being the antagonist) and a cliffhanger (Duffy waking up) in the story, which I commend you on doing, but I think they could have been done better. Both of which could have been given a bit of setup from the start. Giving Gavel’s brother a passing mention on the first post would have been perfect because we still wouldn’t have seen him coming, but establishing he existed would have made the twist more calculated instead of looking a bit improvised.

Strategy 7 /10 – Curtongue is nice. You did well to use it on weak NPCs, but then you ended up having it used on Gavel, which gave us a unique perspective on the ability. Since the narrative was speaking on his behalf we got to feel what it was like to be a victim of the Curtongue. This score is what it is just because there isn’t much content to score it on. These battles could have been a little longer. There could have been more going on between Gavel and his brother in the way of a fight, even if it was indirectly through the Curtongue.

Setting 6 /10 – More! I’ve said it to you before. Your language when describing a setting is so full of flavor. It’s like that last bag of Rosemary Potato Chips (That’s right. I said Rosemary Potato Chips!) I saw at the store today. It was one of those personal size bags, it tasted great, and I wanted more, but I had gotten the last bag and they weren’t going to get any more for a month. It was disappointing, but at least I got a little! I digress… My point. We need more. Your brevity is good, but you’ve got plenty of wiggle room before you start to sound long winded.

Characterisation 19 /30

Continuity 6 /10 – Judging a thread in the Outlands can be tricky. As for the character part of continuity I knew what was going on. You introduced Gavel as if you were Level 0 and introducing yourself to Althanas, I knew a bit of his past, his present, and his plans for the future. All good. Some questions that weren’t answered in the beginning were covered when Duffy woke. However, I have to take into account the rules of this category the most damaging of which is the fact that 10s here reflect and build upon existing Althanas lore, which it only did in a very small way. We now know that there was once a kingdom to the far east with a culture very much like Scara Brae’s. Had it been say… Raiaera before the Wars of The Tap or something like that, this would have scored much higher. Not that I’m discouraging you from expanding upon your own kingdom, but the more you connect it to the Althanas we know the better. Next time you go back to Gavel, have him mention the Great Divide, which is the sea to the east of the Althanas mainland, or an explorer mention to him an event that was going on here at the time like the Demon Wars or something. That should help this score.

Interaction 6 /10 – There really isn’t much for me to say here. The interaction that Gavel had with the rest of his world was good, but not super spectacular. That was only because there wasn’t too much going on. One thing I will give you a big thumbs up for is Molly. She was very smoothly and naturally interacting with the world around her. I think her actions and dialogue gave me more of an insight to that time and place than anything else in the thread.

Character 7 /10 – Like I said in continuity, you introduced Gavel as if you were a level 0 introducing yourself to Althanas. That’s a good thing. When other members, who haven’t been following your stories check this thread out they’ll be thinking ‘who is this?’, but you did a good job of telling them. However, Ruby’s past incarnation in The Flowers They Wither, was a few notches above this one. It seemed like you had a much better grasp of Ruby’s incarnation than you did with Gavel.

Writing Style 21 /30

Creativity 6 /10 – It was pretty straight forward. Like I said before, if you give yourself a little more space, I could see you jumping like five or ten points average. Start with an extra three or four sentences per post, and see where you can polish things up a bit.

Mechanics 8 /10 – You had one or two missing letters at the end of some singular nouns that should have been plural nouns. Other than that the rest was small and easy to miss.

Clarity 7 /10 – There weren’t many story complications, so you didn’t have the chance to mess anything up. I think what’s keeping this score from being higher is just the fact that things were left unmentioned, and that problem will be solved if you just give a little more per post

Wildcard: 8 /10
I liked it. I know the total is going to be a noticeable bump down from the other threads of yours that I scored, but I put down the commentary first, and scored according to the commentary. You took some risk here, and that’s commendable. I firmly believe if you give yourself some more room (three to four more sentences a post) this score will jump up significantly.

Total 67 /100

Duffy Bracken gains 2164 exp and 200 gp

Spoil Granted pending RoG review. I have to refer to the boys in the back for this one. I'll let you know the final decision on it as soon as possible.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and Gp added.