The easy stuff is over.
In the beginning, hundreds of would-be superstars submitted their best wondrous items. We narrowed that down to our favorite 32 who showed potential.
Then we stepped it up a notch. If Round 1 was a mix of crunch and flavor, Round 2 was 100% flavor, describing an evocative villain without relying on game stats. This round gave us a first-time occurrence in the RPG Superstar contest: a tie vote! In the spirit of competition, 17 contestants advanced to the Top 16.
Again, we stepped it up a notch, asking for a fully-detailed stat block for each contestant's Round 3 villain... with the option to revise and improve your villain from Round 2. And they delivered! Monsters with class levels! Monsters with prestige classes! Monsters with templates! Monsters with all three! Low levels! High levels! Reincarnation! Some villain concepts got a reboot and became fan favorites. The voting was close, but we got our Top 8.
Round 4 was a switch. Everyone knew this round's task was to design a villain's lair. Most assumed they'd be using their own villain... and had to hit the ground running when told their lair had to be for any villain but their own. Some of the choices surprised everyone—two villains were chosen by more than one contestant, and two others were ones that fans doubted could be done within the limitation of the contest. The votes flooded in, and we had our Top 4.
Villains, minions, encounters, and traps... all of these are elements of a fun adventure site. But there's more to a great adventure than just these things. An adventure needs a story, a plot, a hook, a motivation for the players to finish the quest. Something that makes the entire experience memorable. An adventure that is really an adventure rather than just a series of linked encounters.
The Top 4 contestants are competing for the chance to write an original adventure for Paizo's Pathfinder Modules line. They're approaching the finish line, the fans are cheering, and everyone watching is on their feet in anticipation. Up until now, it's been about bragging rights and advancement to the next round, but now the prize is in sight.
The winner of this contest—the 2009 RPG Superstar—gets to write an adventure module and get it published, in print, with their name on the cover. They supply the text, and a team of veteran professionals stands ready to carry them in their victory lap around the stadium. They don't just get their foot in the door of the gaming industry, they get to kick the door open and show everyone they have the chops, the guts, the moxie, the mojo.
The final RPG Superstar challenge is to design a complete proposal for that winning adventure module, written for the Pathfinder RPG. As in previous rounds, the judges will comment on each entry and the general public will vote on their favorites.
The author of the submission that receives the greatest number of votes will be named the 2009 RPG Superstar.
The RPG Superstar will get a production deal for a Paizo Pathfinder Module. The intention is to publish the module outlined in the submission, so make sure what you present is not only popular with the general audience, but also publishable by Paizo. Paizo reserves the rights to make changes to the adventure during the editing phase, and will work with the chosen RPG Superstar to develop the best possible adventure product.
The winning module will be 32 pages in length, similar to one of Paizo's existing Pathfinder Modules (such as The Treasure of Chimera Cove, The Pact Stone Pyramid, or RPG Superstar 2008 winner Christine Schneider's Clash of the Kingslayers).
Your proposal should take the form of a general adventure outline that accomplishes the following two tasks:
1. Convince four professional judges, one of them the Editor in Chief of the company that will publish the winning adventure, that you have the stuff to provide a logical, exciting, sales-generating adventure that truly fulfills your promise as an RPG Superstar.
2. Garner the votes of the general public, who will be voting on the adventure they would most like to buy.
Accomplish this in no more than 3000 words. If you don't have to use that many words, don't. But for God's sake don't bore us.
The following topics are to be considered mandatory:
1. The Module's Name
2. The recommended starting level of the adventure, and the level most PCs will be when they complete it successfully.
3. An outline of the adventure's overall plot including information on the setup, important locations in the adventure, a few spotlight encounters (not necessarily all of them fights), important enemies, and at least one bit of intriguing, original treasure.
4. The concept for a new monster involved in some way with the adventure.
Like all Pathfinder Modules, the winning adventure will be placed in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. If you feel comfortable enough to use Paizo-owned proper nouns feel free to do so, but this is by no means a requirement. We will adapt the module to fit our world during the writing and editing process. You do not have to use any element (wondrous item, villain, rule element, or lair) of any previous round of this contest.
One hint: Your adventure must fit in a 32-page book. It may be tempting to aim for something big and epic, but your adventure must fit this page limitation. A typical 32-page adventure has about 20 encounters (including non-combat encounters). If your proposal looks like it requires much more than that to get the job done, it's almost certainly too long.
Lastly and most importantly: Make the proposal awesome.
If this round's rules seem shorter than previous rounds, it's because they are—these basic requirements are all a Superstar should need to get the job done.
Proposals are due on March 13, 2009. Public voting begins on March 17 and ends on March 23, 2009. The winner of this year's RPG Superstar will be announced on March 24, and the winning adventure will be published in the 2010 calendar year.
Good luck to the four finalists! In just a few days, one of you will be the RPG Superstar!
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