Whispers in the Wind vs. Stalin For Time
Congratulations for making it to the third round of the Tournament of Champions. Both teams receive four Fate Points for making it this far! The battle closes after 11:59 PM EST on May 8th. Good luck to both teams!
Arenas were arranged at random, and your prompt is as follows:
Your battlefield is the summit of a jagged, pine- and snow-covered mountain. The icy winds are almost as harsh and unforgiving as the steep cliffs.
Whispers in the Wind vs. Stalin for Time Judgment.
Overall: This had potential guys. I'm not going to lie. There was really only one quasi finish to the thread, and I'm rather disappointed this had no formal conclusion. While I can't fault you for the lack of conclusion I will say this, if possible, finish your fights guys. Alright, now some explanations of how this judging will work. Red will be Petoux for team Whispers in the Wind, Blue for Mikeavelli. Red represents Saxon for team Stalin for Time, and Blue will represent Arsene.
Onto the judging!
STORY
Storytelling ~ 3 , 4/10. I got a better feel for hopper once things had started up. Surprisingly, this wasn't from Hopper's little speech while walking up the mountain. I actually had a feeling Hopper had lived a life full of adventure and excitement. Sara, seemed to reflect on her childhood, but I got no feeling for how her experiences defined her. I know this isn't supposed to be a recap fight, but some showing of past experiences, even if its an irrational fear could have been helpful.
Setting ~ 5 , 3/10. Setting in this case was seldom used. Sara gets a few points for using the high ground. (I hear it gives a +5 to dexterity anyways...) While I understand the blizzard makes it hard for people to make much use of setting, even a small bit of setting could have been useful.
Sara, being in nothing but a dress should have been chilled, possibly even freezing to death. I saw nothing to indicate why she was still functioning in such an environment once the blizzard hit. Huddling near a tree to get a brief break from the snow, perhaps using some kind of magic to warm her, would have been fine. The fact that with such winds trees could have fallen over or even had branches snap off from time. You are not solely guilty of this though.
Hopper meanwhile suffered in this category. While I admit Hopper was an intriguing character your inattention to setting beyond "its frickin' cold in here" was a bit blah. For you, the scenery was just a back drop. Again, its one thing to set the scene, another to USE it.
Pacing ~ 5 , 7/15. There are several ways to help with pacing. The first and foremost is to write a flowing story. While writing is a very hard thing for some people to do, you have to consider how well it will be received as well. If your words cause a momentary jumble not only does it hurt the coherency of what you've written, it also breaks the pace. Now we have to start anew and hope we can continue the story with the same hype.
Petoux took a hit on pacing, because she insisted on placing poetry into it. I actually stopped during one post to look at the poem and figure out if it was a haiku or just non-standard poetry. That killed the flow and pace. If you're going to include poetry, please do so in a manner that takes the battle into account. I saw no inkling that Sara was a bard, so the random bits of poetry seemed merely as post filler. Something that breaks your pacing and flow.
CHARACTER
Dialogue ~ 4 , 7/10. Sara's dialogue, what little there was, seemed forced. The character Sara Sixblades did not function well for me. I had way too many questions about her. While its not my place to question your grasp of Sara, I will put forth this. While Sara Sixblades is your character and your Intellectual Property, if you are going to present her in such a tournament, why do you leave me with nothing to go off of than memories of mother?
Why did she have memories of mom? Why would she be so whimsical at all? She's past the age of maturity, unlike a human she's been around long enough to have calmed down emotionally. Why this sudden fascination with events that happened well over a century ago?
Hopper on the other hand helped out within this. His dialogue showed much of what he thought of the situation. Now, dialogue is not just what is said, but also what is thought. While Hopper doesn't talk much, he does think a damn lot. Atop this he adds in a bit of body language and you have someone who I could genuinely believe was a living breathing person. That is the goal gentlemen, we're working towards suspension of disbelief.
Action ~ 6 , 9/15. Sara's actions were straightforward, however I had no chance to glimpse into the character. I had no idea whether Sara was indeed someone who would fire a bow blindly into a storm, hoping to not hit her team mate, or whether she was someone more reserved. Your actions are decent enough to merit an okay score in this category. I need a better glimpse into Sara if I'm to award higher points.
Hopper's actions were by and large theatrical. I could tell Hopper is the type of guy that in his youth would just as soon punt a bear cub to fight the mother as yell at someone over how he's got the better sword. Not that Hopper would do something so ridiculous, merely that he prefers to LIVE rather than OBSERVE. Add atop this the use of the ram's blow ring to send him above the avalanche, and you have the makings of cleverly done character.
Persona ~ 4 , 7/10. This is where all I've talked about Sara culminates. The thing about this rubric is that when one section suffers, all others related to it suffer as well. Sara Sixblades comes off as flat, I'm sorry to say. I would like to see you imagine having a conversation with Sara. If you can picture that, imagine her personality and charm, Imagine the way she moves and acts during this conversation. If you can do this, convey THAT through writing. A better way to view this tournament is merely this, sit back and watch your character fight. Imagine how they would react to this situation and merely report what happened.
Hopper shines on this front. I have a clear image of Hopper, and I know better than to piss him off.
WRITING STYLE
Technique ~ 3 , 5/10. While I sing praises of Hopper's character, I loathe and detest the technique. One of the problems that will probably show up in my ranting about clarity has to be tense changing. Later you got much better about it, but you were current and past tensing back and forth. I wanted to kick my computer and yell at it to make you choose. The use of a dialect of the English language along with your colorful wordings helped offset this.
Petoux, Your style has a lot of blandness to it. Perhaps you were attempting something new, or perhaps you are more of a roll player than role player. However, your writing had little going for it. With the poems coming across as more of an annoyance than something interesting.
Mechanics ~ 3 , 5/10. Petoux you need to sit down and work on your grammar a bit more. However you and hopper were guilty on a couple of occasions in breaking basic rules. When you use a comma, good grammar dictates you hit the space bar post use. You and hopper flubbed that. Atop this Mikeavelli made the mistake of capitalizing words mid sentence. Both of these could have been fixed on a cursory glance through.
Clarity ~ 3/10. That's right folks, the clarity score suffered a grievous blow today. There was more than a few times I had to skip portions of posts to move on, rather than waste more time pondering what was said.
Quote:
Sara moved swiftly. Silently beneath the increasing daylight, the mountain mysteriously veiled in an oddly colorful light. From where she waiting in its prow, she'd turned and looked back briefly to see if anything was behind her she could use for a better spot. Nothing.
Huh?
The first sentance is a bit abrupt, but plausible. The second, doesn't have a subject at all. What moves silently under the increasing daylight? What is veiling the mountain in odd light? Answers to these questions and more help mechanics and clarity.
Also, one last note on tense changing mid post...
Tense changing makes Hulk ANGRY! You won't like me when I'm angry!
MISCELLANEOUS
Wild Card ~ 3/5.
TOTAL ~ 39 , 53/100.
Whispers in the Wind nets an average of 46!
STORY
Storytelling ~ 4 , 3/5. For this round while I had no idea of what happened in previous rounds, you do make an effort to fit this fight into a continuity with other events in Brom's life. I could believe that Brom was going through the motions and merely continuing on as he usually does.
Arsene, Aleksey is a bit of an enigma to me. I mean, you mention training, you mention many different things. What you don't mention, is anything about Aleksey and how he thinks. You do great in describing his background, but fall just short of actually giving me some much needed insights into his character. I know he's a Russian soldier, but you could have elaborated on that.
Setting ~ 5 , 5/10. Brom gets a couple of bonus points for his intro, atop the slowly revealing information that is critical to survival in a cold environment. The mentioning that he was warmer in the snow than out, the little tidbits about adjusting his armor to try and stay warm, these were small things that helped tie into it.
Aleksey gains a few points for the ice trick at the beginning, even if he couldn't make use of it. He actually tried taking shelter under a tree at first as well. However once the fighting broke out, it became a backdrop and largely forgotten.
Pacing ~ 4/10. Pacing was hurt here a couple of times by the action contained in the posts. Battle posts should be short, but there's short and there's too short. At times it felt like Aleksey was skirting to the edge and then when it's followed up by a much longer post, it hurts the overall pacing. Short quick posts work only if an opponent matches like for like. Aleksey could have just as easily shaken up the writing order to allow Hopper a response before posting.
CHARACTER
Dialogue ~ 6 , 3/10. I didn't much a sense for Aleksey as a character. You wrote a lot, and you related to past events in Aleksey's life, however there was nothing to connect these events TO Aleksey. It was a general background that could have fit ANY Russian soldier, not just Aleksey. Add in the fact that Aleksey's dialogue was more reactionary than proactive and you have a recipe that doesn't tell much about the character.
Brom scores a little higher on Dialogue for the Salvarian Proverb, adding in a bit of body language and some characterful, yet blunt comments. The mountain talking worked well for you here, and helped elevate Brom to above just a dumb brute.
Action ~ 7 , 5/15. Brom came off as very knowledgeable for being high atop a mountain. This helped in making his actions justified and acceptable. The mountain Talking, the checking for Hypothermia, the spotting the blizzard coming in, they all helped develop Brom as a Salvarian born Berserker. What hurt was the getting hit and then racing after the archer.
It seemed rather forced to me. I understand why he did it, but someone who's beginning to get their rage on, usually isn't thinking so logically. It would have made more sense to shatter poor Hopper THEN find another source to vent his rage, than to chase up a mountain cliff to reach an elf who should almost be frozen to death in the cold.
Aleksey suffers on this part mainly because I got NO sense of character. Because of this, you can expect your other character scores to suffer as well.
Persona ~ 7 , 4/10. Who is Aleksey? The same problems that cropped up with Petoux show up in Aleksey. Again, its not my place to question your grasp of character, but it is my job to make sure you realize yours. You need to sell your character as much as you sell the story. A story with bland characters is still a bland story, even if it had epic written all over it.
Brom scores well for a character that's believable and well thought out. Once again, a member of the fight achieved the goal, suspension of disbelief.
WRITING STYLE
Technique ~ 6 , 3/10. Broms posts were elegant and poetic. There was a few times where what you were going for was hurt by mechanical issues. Unfortunately I can't give you credit for something mechanics kill, and so one way to fix this to higher is to fix your mistakes. Don't worry I got a few to point out and one is showing up in the mechanics portion Sax.
Where as Brom's posts came across as poetic, Arsene's came across as bland. I got no sense of anything within them. The posts were either entirely reactionary or even a bit forced. I don't claim to know you Arsene, but I do know you write better than this. Again mechanical issues choked up your posts, and hurt you here as well. Your opening post however, did give me something in keeping with your score, hence the 3.
Mechanics ~ 5 , 4/10. Mechanical issues abounded in the thread, and to my surprise there was some glaring ones in Saxon's posts as well;
Quote:
It is almost if the storm was devouring the landscape, relentless and brutal until everything is buried. Though rare, these are the type of blizzards that had shaped much of Salvar's savage tundra during Brom's childhood. They weren't fond memories.
Dropped words, awkward phrasing. Better to have scrapped and rewritten this one Saxon. I have SEEN you pull off better.
Arsene's weren't perfect either;
Quote:
The wind strung the soldier in every crevice of expose skin; but his woolen parade uniform and hat were suitable enough to keep him alive.
Exposed, not expose.
Blatant errors that can be caught with a spell checker, grammar checker, or even by reading aloud. Gentlemen, I would suggest proof reading each others posts to catch such glaring problems.
Clarity ~ 6 , 5/10. Despite the errors which cut your clarity back, you managed to keep it clear what was going on. At the very least I give you credit on that.
MISCELLANEOUS
Wild Card ~ 3/5. For a somewhat entertaining read. I felt had you not been screwed over finals wise you could have had a riveting battle.
TOTAL ~ 53 , 39/100.
Stalin for Time nets an average of 46!
There is a Tie!
Both teams receive 500 Experience. For the purposes of a tie breaker a second judge will be able to vote for the winner.
200 Gold shall be awarded to each team.
Apologies for the confusion this may bring, its been pointed out my math was bad. After going over it several times I have come up with the fact it was in fact bad math on my part.
Any questions regarding what was said can be addressed to me via PM or AIM SethDahlios.