Baltimore FTDM Tournament Post-Game Report

The January 14th Baltimore Fourthcore Team Deathmatch is over and has been a resounding success!

This past Saturday, sixteen dungeoneers delved against the most fearsome of foe: a band of rival dungeoneers. Pit against each other in a nightmarish realm of eternal death and suffering, these tormented souls battled for supremacy.

The assembled masses were organized together into four teams of four; quadcore to the max! We occupied by force the upstairs gaming tables at our local FLGS Games and Stuff. The match setup was brutal, the dungeoneers determined, the victory full of glory.

The Trophies of Glory stand ready to be claimed.

Look at that tackle box full of organized minis below! That must belong to one hell of a Dungeon Master.

The opposing teams of the first table meet each other for one last display of humanity and compassion before the coming bloodshed. The red solo cups are used to track deaths. Each time a dungeoneer dies, a piece of candy is placed in the cup. We did a round-robin (sort of kind of) style with this tournament: Team 1 vs. Team 2 and Team 3 vs. Team 4 on the first match, Team 1 vs. Team 4 and Team 2 vs. Team 3 on the second match. The deaths were carried over from the first two matches, and the two teams with the lowest number of deaths duked it out in the final match, resetting number of deaths. By the end of Match 2, the cup were all about half full. The solo cups are especially nice because in close matches they create a moment of tension when the score is finally revealed. I like to grab each team's death toll in a separate hand and drop the candy back in the cups to tally them up. That way, when I get to the end, I can drop the losing team's extraneous candy in there with a clatter!

Left to Right: Team S...? (Jon Paul, Adrien) and Team Tiger Blood (Fritz, Carina)

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

Before all the players showed up, I got there early to have the whole thing setup and ready to go.

The bracket ladder is up and filled for this tournament.

The shit has hit the fan and initiative has been rolled! A lesson well-learned from the debut of this new map was on card length and complexity. For card-like effects in maps, these Kombat Kards are exactly as far as you can go. Any longer or more complex and the cards' effects would begin to become lost in the text wall.

The colored rings represent solely what team each dungeoneer is on. Conditions' durations are so fleeting in the grand  scheme of things, it's simply not worth the effort and confusion to track them with anything.

The game is in full swing, and a fight breaks out over who has the better goatee. People are starting to get all hopped up and can't sit still enough for any goddamn chairs!

Left to Right: Adrien, Fritz, Sean, Karl, Matt, back of Ryan's head

Foreground: Steven's table, quietly contemplating the next move. Are they sipping tea or something over there?

Background: Ross' table with everyone standing up IN FURY!!!

The cups are filled with candy corn. Fucking gross, right? That's very purposefully done. Candy is a cheap and convenient way of tracking deaths. However, a certain upstanding citizen, Ross, has a nervous habit of chowing down on whatever is nearby when he's stressed. For example, during this event, he ate (I kid you not) an entire tin of cinnamon Altoids. But not candy corn, because no one likes candy corn.

Left to Right: James, Andy, Jim

Looks like we're zooming over to Ross' table. As you can see, he is deep in focus. Focused on killing!

... and giving out Kombat Kards.

Left to Right: Andy, C. Steven Ross, back of Stas' head

Everyone is focused on every single roll. It's a life and death struggle, full of adrenaline and anticipation.

Oh this is a nice shot, taken while standing on a nearby table. Everyone's standing and huddled over the Mortal Kombat stages and having a great time. The pace was outrageous, every dice roll cast with baited breath. This map really worked out phenomenally well. As Shao Khan might say, it was superb. After a round, everyone got the hang of the intuitive terrain powers and really got into a groove. Respawning at any open location makes for a slick and super fast game, with a lot of back and forth struggling action. Thanks for the great pic, Georgi!

Clockwise: C. Steven Ross, Jesse, James, John, Stas', Andy, Jim, Tim

The last turn of the match! The final death toll for this map was 14 to 15 (not sure who had the lead here).

Clockwise: Steven, Sean, Karl, Matt, Carina, Jon Paul, Ryan, Adrien

The Dungeon Master gives sound Fourthcore Deathmatch advice:

1). Crush your enemies.

2). See them driven before you.

3). Hear the lamentations of the women.

The death toll on this map was around 24 (Team Mac Trucks) to 13 (Team Critzkrieg), a decisive victory!

The Pontiff's Hand.

E1M3: Tomb of the Iron Lich is underway! The dungeoneers cluster together, struggling over the chokepoint entryway to the Heresiarch Hall as Team Mac Trucks race to grab the Quad Damage Rune. Later, the Quad Damage Runes prove to be a decisive equalizer, decimating dungeoneers left and right. Unfortunately for them, it was not quite good enough to overcome the team's major setbacks in score from the first match.

The Deck of Mortals proved to be a major focus of the map,. It's recently revised set of powers creating a wild new mechanic that threw the dungeoneers' plans into absolute chaos. It was really a blast. Some of the highlights were a permanently slowed Barbarian, a Blackguard with no armor, a Cleric with an unending font of magic items, an eternally dancing Rogue ... and one of the most satisfying experiences in D&D, taking a pair of scissors to your opponent's character sheet and claiming one of his powers as your own!

The starburst? Those are snacks.

I really can't emphasize how fun the Deck of Mortals turned out. The temptation to use it at every Respawn, especially when you think you're down a few pegs in score ... it's the kind of high-risk, high-reward intensity that Fourthcore in general and Deathmatch in specific thrives on.

The updated ladder bracket going into the final match. A few people had to leave from each team, so some replacements were added in and reformed into new team names.

In the end, Team Blood Truck was narrowly defeated by the brutal and extremely punishing E3M2: Tower of Babel (to be released this coming weekend after the Austin TX Fourthcore Team Deathmatch.