Do you want a shot at becoming a professional game designer? If so, you should enter the RPG Superstar 2011 competition. Though the competition doesn't begin until December 3rd, that's just when we start accepting submissions. Be smart and start working on your Round 1 wondrous item submission now. That gives you a few extra weeks to refine your item concept.
You should also check out the series of posts I'm writing giving advice about things likely to get your item auto-rejected. They're indexed in a sticky post here on the Paizo forums. This is my third year judging, and by posting these I'm trying to help other designers—that's you!—avoid common pitfalls that'll knock you out of the competition. Fellow judge—and RPG Superstar 2009 winner—Neil Spicer has been providing helpful comments in response to these posts, too. And it wouldn't hurt to read Neil's Advice For Round 1 post from last year.
Also check out former Superstar judge Clark Peterson's extensive write-up of problems he saw in items from a previous competition, which can help you steer clear of things that'll make your chances crash and burn.
Let me point out one thing so we're absolutely clear: you have to participate in Round 1 (wondrous item) if you want to progress to later rounds in the competition! We had a few people last year miss out entirely because they thought they could jump in at a later round. Oops!
Read the competition rules. Do some research. Submit a wondrous item between December 3rd and December 31st. Paizo uses this competition to recognize talented designers we can use for freelance writing—whether or not they make it to the final round. And if you do make it to the final round, you could win a contract to write an adventure module for Paizo. This could be your big break!
Good luck, good gaming, and most of all... have fun!
I'm sure Ross will be in later to fix the links. I think they sometimes get broken when the RPG Superstar forums are shifted around. In the interim, here's Sean's Wondrous Item Auto-Reject Advice. Here's my post from 2010 on Advice For Round One. And, here's Clark's post from 2008 on Bad Item Stereotypes. That should be enough to get you started.
@ Neil: I clicked on the "Wonderous item Auto-Reject Advice" link and it brought me to a forum page with what looked like links to other pages for all the different suggestions. So, I tried clicking those, and they just brought me back to the Paizo homepage.
Dont know if they are supposed to lead anywhere, but if so, link r borked.
@ Neil: I clicked on the "Wonderous item Auto-Reject Advice" link and it brought me to a forum page with what looked like links to other pages for all the different suggestions. So, I tried clicking those, and they just brought me back to the Paizo homepage.
Dont know if they are supposed to lead anywhere, but if so, link r borked.
thank you very much for the links. I started playing pathfinder when the last rpg superstar was just starting and while i wasn't confident enough then I swore that I would try out this year. anyway thanks for the advice, I will probably end up tearing through all the old posts to attempt to sidestep the usual pitfalls, anyway I just really wanted to say thanks and well its been a great year playing pathfinder.
I will definitely be competing this year, so wish me luck and I can't wait to see what everyone submits this year
Thanks. Lots of good info on those. I kinda doubt I would make it all the way through this thing, but Im interested in trying. Got an idea for the wonderous item, but Im not sure if it would fall into the spell in a can category.
Only books with items Ive got atm are the Core and APG. Any suggestions on someplace I could check that would have a complete-ish list of magic items for PF?
Only books with items Ive got atm are the Core and APG. Any suggestions on someplace I could check that would have a complete-ish list of magic items for PF?
I would suggest the rather excellent Pathfinder SRD site.
here is a link to their wondrous items section
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items
they cover a great deal of the content from all the Pathfinder books, so while I am not certain if they have everything, it is at least a place where you can find the bulk of the wondrous items in one place
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