Are you ready to be a Superstar?

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

It's time for RPG Superstar 2013! Every year, Paizo holds an annual open-call RPG design competition to give the best and brightest aspiring game designers a chance to show the world their talent. This year's winner will receive a contract to write a Pathfinder Module to be published by Paizo.

Previous winning modules include Christine Schneider's Clash of the Kingslayers, Neil Spicer's Realm of the Fellnight Queen, Matthew Goodall's Cult of the Ebon Destroyers, Sam Zeitlin's The Midnight Mirror, and Mike Welham's upcoming Doom Comes to Dustpawn. We can't wait to find an exciting new designer to join their ranks as this year's champion!

Even if you don't win the grand prize, RPG Superstar offers a number of different routes to getting your name on a Paizo product. Runners-up will have their work critiqued by industry leaders, and the three final-round runners-up will earn a contract to write a Pathfinder Society Scenario, a downloadable adventure sanctioned for play in Paizo's worldwide Pathfinder Society mega-campaign. Staff and audience favorite entries from RPG Superstar's earlier rounds may show up in Paizo publications as well.

Getting noticed in RPG Superstar might be the start of a long-term professional relationship with Paizo as one of our regular freelancers. Developer Rob McCreary got his start with Paizo as a finalist in the first RPG Superstar. Even though he didn't win the final challenge, his creativity and talent earned him a staff position as one of the creative leads behind our flagship Pathfinder Adventure Path line.

This year's competition begins today with an open call to design an original wondrous item. For the first time in RPG Superstar history, initial entries will be judged by Pathfinder fans worldwide. Tell us about your magical treasure in 300 words or less by December 18, 2012, and you might just have started your RPG design career! The top 32 will be picked by our guest judges and staff, as well as last year's RPG Superstar finalists, Steve Miller, Mike Welham, Tom Phillips, and James Olchak.

Even if you're not interested in competing, you can participate by voting. Stay tuned for an update on how to help us choose our first-round finalists. See paizo.com/rpgsuperstar for more details, a complete RPG Superstar calendar, and rules and instructions for submitting Round 1 entries.

So loosen up your creative muscles and start crafting a wondrous item, and get ready to be the next RPG Superstar!

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Paizo Employee Developer , Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Good luck everyone!

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka primemover003

Holy deadlines Batman, we've only got a week from today? <STUNNING SCREECH>

Ok I see you fixed it from the 12th to the 18th... still time to get my addled brain cells churning! Two weeks is a little better.

--Vrockstar

Marathon Voter Season 6

How interesting!

Assistant Software Developer , Star Voter Season 7

King of Vrock wrote:

Holy deadlines Batman, we've only got a week from today? <STUNNING SCREECH>

--Vrockstar

That was an error: the due date is the 18th. We're changing the blog to make that clear.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka RainyDayNinja

Huzzah! The game is afoot!

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka Jiggy

Cripes, only two weeks? Oy. Was it that short last year? Maybe I'm remembering the wait to find out if I made the cut.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Standback

This is really cool - a major milestone for the contest. A short submission period will favor the people who have been following the contest and already have some ideas ready... and those who just do great work really, really fast. Both segments are great to target for Superstar :D

And voting on the top 32 is a cool idea too! This is quite a twist.

I'll really miss Neil and Ryan in the Judging Chambers... but having Wolfgang back onboard will be a lot of fun.

Lots of luck to all the hopefuls (especially ME)!

Star Voter Season 6

Voting by the public in round 1!

Always throwing curveballs aren't we Paizo?

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Standback

1 person marked this as a favorite.

@Jiggy: Shush! A minute ago it was only one week!

Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Clouds Without Water

To be sure I understand the mechanics...

Everyone will submit their Wondrous Item. These will all be made public for voting, so your first test is to stand out among hundreds of other entries, and to do so well enough to actually get read (and liked) by enough voters to make the top 64 cut.

Then the judges will select the top 32 from those 64.

Hmm. This does change things a bit.

EDIT- further important details on the Round 1 voting.

Each time you come to the voting page during the Round 1 voting period, you will be shown two different wondrous item entries. You will pick which of the two you think is better. You can vote as often as you like. Each time you visit you will be shown a different pair of wondrous items and neither will one you have seen before.

So it's Facemash style. Solves the problem of even getting notice, though!

Marathon Voter Season 6

I think they could explain it a bit better in the blog, but whenever you go to the voting page during the voting period, you are presented with two items and you vote on which one you think is better. Kind of a cool system.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor , Dedicated Voter Season 6

If you're on the fence, give it a whirl. The feedback on your design is invaluable, and you don't have to "win" to win.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

Hurrah!

Though I'll miss Neil's comments as a judge. I hope he'll still share his insights with us.

And, wow, some interesting changes. Glad I've been getting my items together with the shorter turnaround time. Also glad the items are remaining anonymous for initial voting, to keep things a little more balanced. Considering there are hundreds of items, though -- and some players may be more interested in something high-powered -- I'm interested to see how this'll work. For those of us who were perhaps focusing on lower-cost consumables (since we know the judges like those), it might not be the best way to go.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7

Wow, quite a twist indeed. Out of curiosity, will the submissions still be anonymous?

Star Voter Season 8

Time to dig out some of those items from my old home campaign and spiff them up to Pathfinder stats.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka Jiggy

I should probably know this from last time, but are we allowed to have friends or family critique our items before submitting them? Assuming we trust them to keep quiet in public, of course.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

Round 1 public voting!?

I did not see that coming. Nor the two-week deadline. Damn I'm glad I have an item already lined up.

Assistant Software Developer , Star Voter Season 7

Pedro Coelho wrote:
Wow, quite a twist indeed. Out of curiosity, will the submissions still be anonymous?

Yes.

Dark Archive Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 9

Let the brainstorming and second guessing begin. Good luck everyone.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ross Byers wrote:
Pedro Coelho wrote:
Wow, quite a twist indeed. Out of curiosity, will the submissions still be anonymous?
Yes.

The big trick with that will be keeping hundreds of people from posting stuff about their item and identifying themselves.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

Also, something worth nothing early and often:

Quote:
In past years, contestants were allowed to post in their entry's thread to thank others for their support and encourage voting, but there have been times where these comments pushed the boundaries of acceptable commentary, so in this year's contest the contestants are not allowed to comment on their own entries in any way while the voting period is open. See Rule #5 on the Official Rules page.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

Matt Goodall wrote:
Ross Byers wrote:
Pedro Coelho wrote:
Wow, quite a twist indeed. Out of curiosity, will the submissions still be anonymous?
Yes.
The big trick with that will be keeping hundreds of people from posting stuff about their item and identifying themselves.

Looking through the rules, it looks like that won't be possible: Each time you come to the voting page during the Round 1 voting period, you will be shown two different wondrous item entries. You will pick which of the two you think is better. You can vote as often as you like. Each time you visit you will be shown a different pair of wondrous items and neither will one you have seen before. More details on Round 1 voting will be available closer to the voting period.

Still, that's got to be an interesting bit of scripting to make sure each item comes up basically the same amount of times.

Paizo Employee PostMonster General

1 person marked this as a favorite.

About the round 1 voting. We haven't finished the code for this, but I can tell you these things about it:

The submission deadline is shorter this year so we can have more time for the voting phase. We need as many votes as possible to get the best results.

Round 1 submissions will still be anonymous.

Items will be randomly selected for voting. Every item will be voted on before any item is selected for voting again. There will be no indication during voting how each item is currently ranked.

You will not be prevented from voting on your own item, though odds are you will not be presented with your own item.

You will be able to refresh the voting page as many times as you want—the more times people vote for one item or another, the better! (OK, technically, once you've ranked every single pair of items against each other, we'll stop offering you items to rank. But that's a LOT of item pairs.)

We will be using a Condorcet method for determining the results, most likely via Schulze beatpath strength calculation.

Designer

Cheapy wrote:
I think they could explain it a bit better in the blog, but whenever you go to the voting page during the voting period, you are presented with two items and you vote on which one you think is better. Kind of a cool system.

I'll explain it better when they're done building it and I know exactly how it works. :)

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

It's not going to stop someone from posting a 'How did people like my Cloverbane Horseshoes?' post in the Superstar General forum.
Anyone want to bet this isn't going to happen at least once? :-)
That said, I'm loving the change. Interesting times!

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I always love this time of year. A lot of third party publishers look to the RPG Superstar contestants to find talented freelancers. Number 1 isn't always their aim either, we, specifically, look for those designers that consistently design things that match our brand. Tom Phillips and Richard A. Hunt are both excellent examples and earned spots with us in exactly this fashion.

If you are interested and have the dedication and talent, feel free to reach out! We'll be watching...

-Brian “Necroblivion” Berg
co-founder and CEO of TPK Games
Website, Facebook, Twitter, G+

Find our products on D20pfsrd Shop, DTRPG, Paizo

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7

Gary Teter wrote:

About the round 1 voting. We haven't finished the code for this, but I can tell you these things about it:

...

We will be using a Condorcet method for determining the results, most likely via Schulze beatpath strength calculation.

Linkified and wikified and work safe. Sean, let us know when you figure out what it all means :-)

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka JoelF847

Awesome! One of my favorite times of year starts earlier now (at least the voting portion)!

Good luck to everyone who enters, and if you aren't entering, you should.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16 aka Mark Thomas 66

It's On!

Marathon Voter Season 6

14 people marked this as a favorite.

It would appear that to make up for the loss of Neil Spicer as a judge, Paizo found the only entity that could even possibly match Neil's output: the entire fan base.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Interesting, standing out has just ramped up several notches indeed.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka theheadkase

Can people input multiple submissions?

Paizo Employee PostMonster General

No, you get one shot and one shot only, so make it count. Anybody found submitting more than once via sockpuppet accounts or whatever will be disqualified.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Standback

Jiggy wrote:
I should probably know this from last time, but are we allowed to have friends or family critique our items before submitting them? Assuming we trust them to keep quiet in public, of course.

Should be fine. See this post, with a couple of references to greater authorities than I :)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

Pendin Fust wrote:
Can people input multiple submissions?

No. One submission only.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka primemover003

Ah the dreaded archetype round... I see you have returned.

--Stumbling Vrocks

RPG Superstar 2009, Contributor

Cheapy wrote:
It would appear that to make up for the loss of Neil Spicer as a judge, Paizo found the only entity that could even possibly match Neil's output: the entire fan base.

LOL! LOL! ROFL!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

Yeah, I had the same thought, King Vrock. I figure as soon as I submit a magic item, it's time to start giving a hard look at archetypes.

Assistant Software Developer , Star Voter Season 7

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Everyone should take a look at the contest rules, the round 1 rules, and the contest FAQ if they have not already. Those will answer most of the simple questions people may have, and I think everyone can agree that it is best to know the rules before getting involved with a contest.

"Nobody told me" is not an excuse. We are telling you, it's right there if you bother to read it.

Everyone should also take a look at Sean's Advice thread. There's a lot of good information there.


*drool*

I get to see all the submissions? My oh my!

I'm going to get...

FAT!

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka CalebTGordan

I am not looking forward to the archetype round, but if I start now I shouldn't have to worry about it.

Good advice given to me: Work on next round submissions long before you even know you made it. You won't get caught in bad deadlines that way.

Marathon Voter Season 6

I did a not so little dance for joy when I saw the archetype round.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32, 2012 Top 4 aka OamuTheMonk

Looking forward to being able to actually look at the competitors entries this year, and not being under the pressure of competing. Have fun, everybody!

Silver Crusade Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I am flooded with ideas!

Dark Archive RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Contributor

WOO! This event is the single most exciting thing in gaming, design, and publishing, and I look forward to seeing this year's awesomeness!

Shadow Lodge Star Voter Season 6

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The deadline is two days after getting back from my honeymoon in Hawaii, lucky for me my wife will understand why I'm attempting to turn a coconut into a potion bottle.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Matt Goodall wrote:

It's not going to stop someone from posting a 'How did people like my Cloverbane Horseshoes?' post in the Superstar General forum.

Anyone want to bet this isn't going to happen at least once? :-)
That said, I'm loving the change. Interesting times!

I'm sure someone will, and the answer they'll get will be "congratulations on eliminating yourself from the competition."

(And yes, if that happens, we'll check to make sure that it really is the author making the post before we DQ them.)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

You may want to say anyone doing that DQs themselves even if it's NOT their item.

I could see someone saying "can you believe someone submitted a sword of Hitler killing???" or asking some sort of clarification question about an item, etc. etc.


Wow! Way to keep it exciting and fresh.

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