Clinton Boomer's page

Hmmm. I want to be able to provide a cut and pastable block that includes the right formatting for bolding and stuff. I'll have to work on that. Maybe I can see if I can get Vic and Gary to post the above sample block with the tag codes in it so that it is easier for everyone.

Do you guys have any questions about the proposed format of the stat block?

Holy crap, that's perfect.

I know what a dungeon is, i know what punk means, i'm familiar with sugar, loaves and have seen a sugarloaf, i'm even aware that a sugar-loaf is a type of hat, although i've never seen one.

However; I cannot even begin to imagine what a "dungeon-punker" or "sugar-loafer" might be.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

My understanding, and let me assure you that I'M not totally sure of the exact origins on any of this, is that the two are supposed to be opposite ends of the "gaming spectrum":

Dungeon-Punkers, with a name that evokes those kids who stand outside of Hot Topic all damn day, want their games to be pure fantasy wish-fulfilment; whether Pulp or Anime or Wuxia or Fairy-Tale, sweaty or swaggering or stealthy, Conan or James Bond or Blade, the game is meant to be enjoyed, first and foremost - which allows for magical sunglasses, Zippo lighters and ninja-stars in a Europe-Lite/FF7 dungeon.

Sugar-Loafers, then, named for those stupid-looking (but real-world-effective) sugarloaf helms that were worn by 14th century English knights, are people who want to play for Realism/Accuracy, be it Historical or Contextual - within the confines of a sugar-loafer game, everything is about the weight of rations, the break-length of period-appropriate rope, and monetary loss from a coin's exchange rate across borders.

I've been called both, of course.

*grin*

I'm from Yithnai, I do horrible things just to be able to keep hauling salt, but thats what my pappy did and his pappy before him and I'll be damned if I let some Big Savage Outsider look down at me.

`Logos, worshiper of Yith, and Primitive Screwhead

Hmm. Fair enough - considering how outnumbered I am, I suppose that we'll just have to agree to disagree, then.

That said, I won't be satisfied until this entire nation is plunged into the ocean, and the then ocean scrubbed clean.

No offense, obviously!

JoelF847 wrote:

[

Wouldn't another exception be synergy bonuses which are conditional? For instance, knowledge (nature) gives a synergy bonus to survival in above ground natural environments, but not to all survival skills.

Nope. Survival would be listed since it can be used untrained, and the condition would be listed in parentheses next to it. It would like this: Survival +2 (+4 in aboveground natural environments).

BD

Wow. This guy is good.

Alright, pencil sharpening time - this is going to be HARD FUN.

We're iced-in, here in Mac-Town, with a boil order in effect because of sewer problems - so I, for one, plan to drink the night away in warm comfort next to my Christmas tree, possibly watch a few films, and chomp on delicious, over-buttered popcorn.

Anything, honestly, to just zone-out, because the waiting for THIS round will be . . . exquisite, I think. Is that the word?

Much love to all of the voters, all of the contestants, and all of the Judges - this has been a magical and wonderous learning experience.

Probably Cyrehllan that's not advancing. Too hard to pronounce. Too many long character names in the entry.

Man, I hope not. That one is, like, my mom's favorite entry!

Mustn't forget the Great Gonzo, the Neanderthal of Rock n Roll HIMSELF, Ted Nugent!

Fair enough - but the 'Nuge made a reference to killing Barack Obama, which I found in poor taste. As such, I actually HAVE made an attempt to forget him.

Deleted Scenes

So, what got dropped - and what might find its way to an edit?

I left out details on the five drow lieutenants of the Princes, the Shadows, as in "Koto Doji, Shadow of the Burning-Soul Tiger" or "Aka Shunji, Shadow of the Unhallowed Tiger", because even mentioning each of them by name rapidly added up to ONE BILLION WORDS.

I left out details on the Five Princes specific fields of sorcerous mastery: Necromancy (Pale-Soul Tiger), Illusion (Eyeless-Soul Tiger), ect., becuase it just seemed obvious.

I dropped a major sub-plot regarding a bastard son of the last King Ahulrik & one of the Dusk-Witches (funny enough, I also hate the "y's") ruling from the Western Mere as a sort of Autumn King - it seemed too "Mordred" for me, and the "Wild Hunt" angle never clicked for me, either, especially without using Nerull.

At one point, there were ghosts-a-palooza all over the Isle - the King, his "Merlin" figure, the Ashen-Fell Serpent, Lord Ayscald Flhynn - until I realized that dead people aren't particularly interesting.

Believe it or not, there used to be EVEN MORE information about the Fallen Kingdom of the Emeral Star - because I somehow figured that just about anyone who adventured there (or ran the game) would want to know all sorts of info about how the country used to work. I'm thinking maybe I was wrong on this.

The original name of Lord Flhynn was actually 'Frey', until the original player of Frey admitted to me that the name was taken from "Song of Ice and Fire" - I failed to make the adjustment in the text during the second use of his name.

There were a LOT of thing about King's Port that I cut. Originally, it was intended to act as a semi-dangerous 'home base' for foreigner PCs - sell your loot & buy your supplies on the black market, meet with contacts and get new plot hooks in the pubs, but watch out, because you dwell in the very maw of the Unhallowed Tiger, ever watching!

I cut a number of human contacts in King's Port (assassins, harbor masters, tavern owners, ex-Knights, weapons makers, spies of the other Princes, ect.), but probably should have cut out the expansive ancient history, instead.

Live and learn, obviously - and thanks to everyone for making this contest so wonderful!

Gah! I have to wait 23 more hours to find out if I moved on! And you have numbers! You know! Gah!

Yeah. Now is the time in the contest that induces nausea in the contestants, when the judges actually get to go home and eat a hot meal, when the moon is in the second house . . .

Well, looks like I'm pulling an all-nighter!

"Smokey, a brown bear trained to grapple and put out fires on command, is Druid-Man's constant companion."

Druid-Man also owns an intelligent magical shillelagh named "Shyllylygh" (Ego: 17, blah blah blah) and dates a lifestyles & recreation reporter for the local Farmer's Market paper named Jill (half-elven Expert 5th/Rogue 1st).

Darkjoy wrote:

Gonzo, a term I needed to look up, might be too strong a word.

It is truly sad that Muppet Show references aren't commonly known anymore. Anyone that watched it knows exactly what it means when something is Gonzo (i.e. WAY out there).

Fair enough - but 'gonzo' also refers to Dr. Gonzo, the no-holds-barred journalism style of Hunter S. Thompson, from which springs the name of the eponymous Muppet.

In that case, 'gonzo' is 100% pimp-licious awesome.

Also, verbose.

More recently, I've heard the terms "dungeon-punker" vs. "sugar-loafer" tossed around a lot, probably because 'grognard', meaning "grumpy, well-bearded one, who has played a home-brew system based on Iron Crown, Red-Box Basic and Flashing Blades since before you were born" is something of a term of respect at my local brick-&-mortar gaming store.

But anyone, old or young, experienced or newb, player of the original Castle Ravenloft or just got his first pack of Yu-Gi-Oh, can be accused of "dungeon-punkery" or "sugar-loafery".

Maybe improved grapple when it comes to staking? Ranged increment on stakes? Discount on stakes at the local Shoppe?

Ohhh! Stake discount!

Oh, all they've got left are 'mediums'. I'm an XL.

One option, of course, if you want to go crazy (and I'm talking CRAZY-kinda crazy) would be to adapt the (Illithid) Slayer class from Expanded Psionics:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm

There's your 'slayer-sense' right there, at first level!

Swap out "Know:Dungeoneering" for "Know:Religion" to make it undead-appropriate, (or, of course, use "Know:Arcana" or "Know:History" or even "Heal" to give yourself a more 'Dr. Van Helsing' kinda Slayer), and then go to town.

Build using Ranger (for Track) & Wilder, and you've got Buffy Summers meets Jean Grey.
Build using Psion, and you've got Giles meets Professor Xavier.
Build using Soulblade (not sure how the "+1 level of existing manifesting class" would work, but whatev) and you've got, I guess, Faith meets Psylocke.

Build using Psychic Warrior, and I suppose you have Blade.

Heehee. This is FUN!

He's right, folks! Iskandria has, in fact, got 'em!

Along with one of my votes, may I add.

Wait! What's that you say? Well, you're right - unfortunately, Iskandria does NOT have Rakshasa. Not a one.
And certainly not FIVE!

But don't look sad, little boy! Why, Cyrehllan has some, along with:

- An over-stock on "y's" - you can take some home with you for the kids! Absolutely free!
- Cold weather! You're wearing a hoodie & parka - and so is your PC!
- Opportunities for advancement - in a land this disorganized, maybe YOU can be King!
- Drow! Presumably, a whole crap-load of them, all eager to fight you!
- Not very many DM's Secrets! Add some of your own! Maybe, like, another villain!
- DragonLance stuff! Video-game stuff! Derivative stuff! You've already played it, basically!
- Did we mention the "y's"? Add some to YOUR name! Please! We have too many!
- Intense, baroque, florid, heavily-adjectived, over-adverbed prose. How much? 1000 words of it! That's a LOT!
- Your contact is a drunken poet very specifically NOT named James Joyce . . . OR Dylan Thomas!

*grin*

I am, I'd like to think, my own harshest critic.

Again, this has been wonderful - and I eagerly await the next round.

Putting the stat block math in spoiler tags sounds like a good compromise.

Does it hurt, being smart all the time?

*grin*

That's . . . a really good idea. Yeah.

I'd also like to see the commentary rules tightened up to simply prohibit contestants from posting in any of the entry threads (but certainly not general discussion threads) while voting is underway.

Fair enough.

Sounds good. I'd find the upper half of this range more interesting (10-15).

I agree, but just watch the most brilliant, tightly constructed, evocative CR:7 villain of all time come sweeping in and win it all. Hell, I can tack Half-Iron Golem, Half-Dragon, Half-Illithid, Half-Fiend & Half-Vampire onto him (or her!) at home, and suddenly it's a whole new ballgame of badness, a genuis-awesome low-power, high-concept meta-villain re-designed for ripping epic-level PCs into shredded chunks of sheet.

I'd also prefer to leave out the stat block maths. If a stat block value is completely out of whack for the villain's CR or makes his tactics unworkable, it's more important to ask why the designer didn't notice that, than exactly what technical error he made.

Probably not a bad idea, if only because I won't read them - my eyes glaze over and I start to drool when I look at lots of numbers added and subtracted and multiplied.

I love me some Iron Kingdoms, but that War Caster armor is getting worn by somebody ELSE. Looks like Boomer is playing a troll-guy who owns an axe and a loincloth.

Higher level? Magic axe, magic loincloth.

1) No Gonzo

2) Villain must be CR 10 (for example). State a fixed CR so that every villain is the 'same' powerwise but unique in execution.
3) SRD only

1) Fair enough. My only question is: how do we define 'gonzo'? Unless we mean 'epic', so that 'no gonzo' means 'nothing above CR: 20', it's a bit subjective. To some extent, I'm not sure that I can do 'not-gonzo'.

2) That's a challenge. Fortunately, I, for one, WELCOME a challenge.

3) Fair enough. The question arrises: may we make stuff up? New feats, mayhap, with the onus on the designer to have a unique, never-before-seen effect not culled from an existing source - and knowing that we take a risk, possibly losing votes, by doing so?

It isn't the oppressive evil that makes that section so good, it's how the characters cope with that evil, resist it, and are corrupted by it. It's the relationships between Sam, Frodo, and Smeagul(sp?) that make it the most interesting section. However, you don't get that same soul-shaping hammer on anvil emotional harrowing without the Mordor.

In modern literary circles, Mordor is the child abuse, rape, or other tragic event that shapes the emotional realm of the main character(s).

Well said! The interesting thing about "evil" (read as: tragedy, pain, loss, regret or what have you within the context of modern, non-fantasy, non-"good vs. evil" stories) is not, I think, "OMG DARKK-LAZORS!", but how it shapes our protagonist(s).

Okay, plus dark-lazers.

Point is, I love a good story of human frailty, corruption, redemption and heroism - whether from the perspective of LotR or "American Gangster" - and the question of 'evil' is what drives the arc of that narrative.

Okay, not in too much detail.

*SNIP!*

So. I thought it would be fun to see what kinds of characters spring to mind when you read the Countries round of Superstar.

Now, my friend, THAT is a great question! Okay, so . . . yeah, can't (well, SHOULDN'T, perhaps) write out all 32 characters that *pop* for me, so I'll keep it to my Top 5 countries:

Theocracy of Carnamach: this land screams "Call to arms!" to me - I'd love to play a foreign druid, a peace-maker, sent (or wandering) to the war-torn land to discover the truth of deific death and the warping of the land. If I were foreign enough (a LN Taoist-ish monk/druid from the far side of the world, perhaps), the cultural conflicts of Carnamach would be all the more interesting and vivid.

Cyrehllan, The Isle of Cold Tears: Oh, I'd run it.

Zavaten Gura: Land of the Stained Peaks: me, I'm a stunty-lover, so playing in a land where dwarf vies against dwarf (and the elements and the monsters and everything else) makes me want to grow out my beard, hoist my axe, grab a beer and get Soviet with it. Playing the humorless indentured servant to a gruff dwarven taskmaster would also be a lot of fun - I greatly enjoy playing quiet, competent, low-ranking support personel.

The Grand Duchy of Draeth: . . . but not HALF as much as I like playing foppish, arrogant, aristocratic demon-bound necromancers - the sort of people who know how to use thirteen different kids of forks, dance politely with the woman engaged to their blood-enemy, bind a soul to an anvil or read a forgotten language . . . but not how to start a fire, shoe a horse or draw a blade. Easily angered and revenge obsessed, I'd love the opportunity to scheme here.

Yithnai: if I'm going to stomp into Yithnai to run errands, I want to be carrying a big sword, casting big spells, and be ready to kill the next primitive screwhead who so much as LOOKS at me.

thatboomerkid wrote:

And the question will then be: "Is this good enough to move on?" rather than "Did he do this right?"

A fair point & well said - and I may have, perhaps, phrased what I meant to say incorrectly. Long night, and all.

*grin*

My point, if I can in some way clarify, was simply this: while the need is obviously paramount to "get the thing right", especially regarding format for editors, there are creative leaps that I, as a designer, would be eager to make; even if only to simplify the process of running this behemoth of pure villainy for other DMs.

If allowances can be made now, while still in the setting-up-rules phase, I would be more confident that I'm not making decisions about what will and will not be in my entry in a totally far-out danger-zone.

This is, plainly, assuming that I'll be submitting for the next round - we shall, of course, just have to wait and see. But I'm psyched, none the less.

FWIW, the concept I think I am likely to go with comes in around CR 13 or so (depending on the exact final rules and adjustments from that), and is all SRD. I do think a stated CR range is a good idea. Maybe 5-15.

Very cool - anything much outside of those parameters more than likely won't get used at my table.

And I can always start tacking-on all those big, pimpin' non-SRD templates to a littler villain, if need be.

Honestly, what I'd really like to do is include a general description, advice for the DM, a "Tactics Round-by-Round" section, a brief history, a "Knowledge: the Planes/Arcana/(wtf related knowledge)" break-down, a stat-block with all the good stuff, explanation of new feats, and a full treasure list.

And the question will then be: "Is this good enough to move on?" rather than "Did he do this right?"

So it might be better if the arena is shrunk, and the contestants are made to compete a little more directly.

By round 4 and 5, we will truly be into the realm of "Knife-Fight of the Gods".

The only REAL winner? The D&D community.

Origins however is a bit more managable considering it's over THERE which is only 4 hours away.

If I ever do go to Gen Con I'd have to make sure to take a big enough van with shackles properly mounted... *makes list* Hmmm gotta kidnap Mister Logue, Mister Mona, Mister Baur.... *mumbles* The guy with all the belts... :)

I'll be at Origins, too. It's six hours away for me & the girlfriend, and since SHE intends to be there, I'll probably tag along.

Plus, you can leave the van as-is: I come with my own restraints!

Clark Peterson wrote:

You know, a set CR spread might not be a bad idea. I will kick this around with the judges. It would certainly make things easier to compare and would prevent everyone from trying to make gonzo CR 20 villains.

Exactly! Without some kind of guideline/requirement, the entrants are shooting completely into the unknown. This close to the wire, there might be the urge to "one up" everyone and just come up with ridiculous CR 30 god figures.

A stated spread is probably a good idea, but I'd hope that the contestants would reign it in, all by themselves, to levels that commonly see play. Because a perfect locked-in mechanical design and a super-sweet backstory will hardly make a difference if nobody can ever use the damn thing.

For the record, I'm strongly of the opinion that the onus is on the competitiors to provide the goods - if the Paizo community doesn't want to read or use your villain, saying "But . . . I followed the rules!" probably won't help much.

I thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for adressing the "new feats" question so early - I tend to create special abilities for my villains, something for the entire campaign to gel around like a pearl . . . but the actual BALANCE of that power is occasionally problematic.

Nothing that an RPG SUPERSTAR! couldn't handle, but . . . hey, if that isn't part of the contest, cool. I'm down.

thatboomerkid wrote:

But I should hope that you get turned on by the idea - because I, like (presumably) all of the other contestants, am not competing for the money. I already HAVE money.

I would be very concerned about anyone trying to break into the gaming industry for the money :)

Well said, sir. Well said.

Shouldn't you be cramming for your finals! :)

Nope - I'm all old and stuff. No school for me. All of my friends, however . . .

*smug grin*

Back to reading and memorization, you slackers!

Anyway, what have I actually, no joke, gained from Superstar so far?

Plenty:

1 - Friends. If not for this contest, I wouldn't get to hang out with Ancient Sensai at GenCon this year. And the other awesome people on here are like one, big, happy family.

2 - Perspective. Not eveything that I think is pure mainlined awesome is everyone else's idea of exhilerating super-cool rock-god goodness. That's important to know.

3 - How to take criticism & learn from it. Hearing honest opinion & not being able to explain my writing has made me, I think, a better writer. That's good. In fact, that's VERY good.

4 - Fun. At the end of the day, D&D is about fun. So is this.

For that, I thank each and every one of the Paizo people.

I'd give the authors a chance to improve and expand upon their entries, I wouldn't print all of them, and everything I would print would be edited.

I'm thinking about it. We'll see.

This is an important decision, and not one to be rushed. No matter what, all of us out here in internet-land will love and respect you.

But I should hope that you get turned on by the idea - because I, like (presumably) all of the other contestants, am not competing for the money. I already HAVE money. I want to be a part of Paizo, the best thing to happen to D&D since the invention of the d20.

Win or lose, I'd love to have Paizo use my work.

As for your VERY valid concerns, well - an opportunity for improvement, expansion and editing are exactly what each and every one of these countries need, whether to be commercially viable (the "isn't this already availible online for free?" concern) or just to be worth printing up on paper.

And thank you, again, for giving all of us a place to play.

If we published any of this stuff it will be because of the popularity of the contest, not because we started the contest to generate a bunch of publishable material.

Fair enough - your objective was not, as you've made clear to the scaredy-cats, to steal all the ideas from little kids and then hold them all for yourselves, and we can't have them back, ever ever ever, NYA!

And I very much respect that.

Still - if my work can generate a single dollar for Paizo, then more power to you. And to me.

Hooray, me!

Ulcers. Drinking problem. Anxiety attacks.

(KIDDING!)

Still, apparently most of the people on these boards have developed a Messiah Complex.

"Hey-sanna, HOSANNA!"

I don't normally do the PDF thing, but if it were the only way to see my work in a published format, I'd definitely bite. Even better, would be a printed compilation. I'd totally buy one for myself and all of my gaming buddies.

Chad

Sold, American!

you can email me at

*SNIP*

Cha-ching! Consider yourself porn-spammed, sir!

This stuff is hilarious. I'm hooked, and I've emailed some other folks about these too.

Then my work here is done.

*grin*

Thank you for the kind words. If you like, check out "Dwarves vs. Elves", our single most popular video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNrLMob39qI

(oh - and, as always, NSFW!)

Enjoy!

I was bummed that I only had 5 votes to cast. I wish I had changed the rules to make is 8 :) Picking that last vote from several real contenders was very hard.

You did the right thing, Clark. It was a hard decision, but . . . you did the right thing.

I say this, of course, assuming that you voted for me.

And in general there are only a couple counries I'd prefer not to use at all - heck, edit these 32 up, add 8 more to fill in the gaps, and call them a setting. Good job all.

I actually think that Paizo would be very, very wise to do just that - considering that their intellectual property now extends to all 32 countries and whatever grows out of them, it would be something of a waste NOT to.

I would be rather charmed (and humbled) to see how great writers would build bridges between these countries, to establish a planetary eco-system that includes the best elements of each section, fitting them together like pieces of the world-puzzle. Or, hell, get us Contestants to do it - probably cheaper, honestly.

The pure exhiliration of locking the Ashen-Fell Serpent (from Cyrehllan) into the dragon/demon backstory of the Grand Duchy of Draeth; or explaining how the priests of Carnamach manipulate their economy to effect the political machinations of Voislav the Tenacious (from the Stained Peaks) is making me giddy.

Wonderful idea.

thatboomerkid wrote:

Also: I request your vote.

Heh, so noted! ...though I actually don't think you're going to be hurting for votes, Boomer. Grognards asside there are alot of us who appreciate the anime/video game influence (though I prefer Monster:Assault to Mountain Dew these days).

Still, I may just completely change my strategy later depending on how many people post in this thread. After all if this doesn't seem a large enough group to serve as a representative sample then I can't use it as a base, now can I?

Oh, crap - you're probably right. Self-selecting un-adjusted sample, user-regulated/modified content, plus the whole Heisenberg uncertainty principle . . .

I think you'd better toss a vote towards a guy who ALSO prefers Monster:Assault.

You know. Just in case.

I never thought you guys were giving me trouble... You're just pointing out the potential downside to my strategy if too many others adopt it as well.

Yeah, game theory is fun stuff!

Yeah, for SMART people. The rest of us have so sit here and go, "Wait, so . . . what happens?"

*grin*

But you are 100% correct - this contest (in the current, lae-change incarnation) is pretty much designed for people to do exactly what we're doing now. And it's fun.

Also: I request your vote.

James Hunnicutt wrote:

I like the idea of a nation of blink dogs

Wait.

This is a nation of Blink Dogs?

I think I missed that detail.

I need to change my vote.

;-)

Oh, I wish!

Seriously, though - I was really hoping for a nation of Blink Dogs, but I don't think anyone did one.

*grin*

here here. I wouldn't want to send a middle-of-the-pack entry with 2 votes less than a top vote-getter and have the author not think they don't have to really step it up next round. it's not fair to the people who deserve to be thought of as favorites, nor to the people who need to step up to continue to advance.

Thirded - I selected my Chosen Few not out of popularity, because some probably will advance and some probably won't, but out of raw obsession with the work. I suppose I can only hope that the meta-game of doesn't affect the honest-critique selection process too much, because the meta-game DOES exist now.

Boomer - I get the feeling you and I are a lot alike at the table. We'll have to figure out a way to make that happen at GenCon '08. Maybe I'll run a game for a few of us that can make it. Thnk there'd be any interest in that?

Hmmm.

I know for a FACT that there exists a certain level of interest in that - my girlfriend will presumably be busy most of the day doing booth-girl stuff for Skirmisher and possibly running part of the TerrorWorks event, so I'll be free to wander around, meet people, play games, and, as a U-List celebrity, score some cool-points.

... and heck, we could all be lying.

I'm not!

Excellent.

I'm glad that people seem to dig it - the Guide has certainly helped me as a writer. The best part is probably the short Army training film "What's a META For?", but his tips for e-writing are quick and clear enough that I could post them here:

From the Guide:

Writing in bits and bytes is all you can ever hope to do if you aspire to be a great trash writer. Nobody is going to waste good paper on this s~#*.

Use good punctuation. Those little marks help readers make sense of what makes perfect sense to you.

And on the topic of punctuation, of course:

Melville hardly needed any punctuation until they caught up with the whale. Mark Twain, in fact, used no punctuation. After his editor chastised him for this, Twain sent in a page full of periods, commas, colons, semi-colons and such with the following note:

"Here is the punctuation marks you wanted put them where you want them"

Genius.

Boomer, if you haven't (and this may be highly unlikely), check out Hubert Selby, Jr. Particularly, I'd suggest 'Last Exit to Brooklyn.'

He excels in the areas you discuss with a more literary subject matter. It's still a very tough read (due to the heavy subject matter, not heavy writing), but he's just a remarkable writer.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet - a new book for Booms! And with a glowing recommendation from Allen Ginsberg, no less.

{This book will} "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years."

I thank you.

Clark Peterson wrote:

I'm already working on the round 3 instructions.

I am mulling over some ideas should I move on to the next round, is there a judges email address I can use for one or two technical questions? Or is there a way to send a PM on these message boards? can't seem to find one.

I would also like your email address, but not for any technical questions or anything.

Just . . . you know. To send you unsolicited porn and stuff.

. . . But I think attempting to integrate it into the contest—this year or any year—would be a mistake.

The prize here is *not* winning the contest. The prize is getting your adventure published. And there's a major step that happens in between those two:

(EDIT: snipped text)

So if an author needs crutches to garner votes, they'd better have access to those same crutches when it comes time to write the adventure. (And public commentary will not be available to them.)

Perfectly said - I knew that there was something sticky here that I was having trouble defining, and there it is.

I thank everyone for their consideration of my mad scheme.

Cyrehllan: 9th equal.

Thank you, Starglim!

Though it doesn't mean anything, my tally from this thread so far (as the countries are listed on the main page, and excluding people who hadn't finished reading):

*SNIP*

And!?! Where am I? Above average? I can't do math! Not under pressure!

EDIT: I think I'm tied for ninth place. I think. Christ, I should go to bed.

*clears throat*

If I may?

I am, and I quote, "asking for feedback and requesting your vote".

That is all.

Considering how much I've been wandering in and out of this thread, glancing over people's decisions about who they did and did NOT choose, I would feel like a real scum-bag if I didn't come in here, pony up, and declare my Top 5.

And I actually AM a real scum-bag, so that would be a nasty double-whammy.

Point is: I decided to cast my five votes on the contestants that I would most obsessively like to see in the next round & in the following rounds - each one of them, to my mind, deserves a shot a cranking out a villain, some monsters, an encounter and an adventure, because I love the way they think and would love, love, love to game with them.

In the end, compelling ideas were what sold me - a good DM doesn't need a big "DM's Secrets" section, a history lesson or a lot of numbers. A good DM just needs a spark, an idea that he (or she) has never had before.

That makes everyone go "huh - I never thought of that". And game on.

In alphabetical order, the chosen are:

Christine Schneider, Theocracy of Carnamach - because a devastated land in the midst of a civil war really should have, as a ruler, "The severed head of a perishing deity". I love it, and I have to, have to vote for it.

Clinton Boomer, Cyrehllan, The Isle of Cold Tears - because my mother can't figure out how to come in here and vote for me, so I have to. I promised her.

James MacKenzie, Land of the Stained Peaks - because I've seen a lot of dwarven nations, but I've never seen one KICK MY @$$ SQUARE.

Michael Raper, The Grand Duchy of Draeth - because I like "Jhereg", I like horror, I like China Mieville and I really, REALLY like demons . . . and this country is basically ALL of the work done for me to run THAT game.

Samuel Kisko, Yithnai - because I want to party with this guy EVERY DAY. Any guy who submitts the Migrus Locker and Yithnai is cool in my book, and I can't wait to use his villain in my campaign.

On a personal note: I've never felt so sad to leave so many other wonderful entries off the list - because I could run a game in ANY of these places.

Thank you to each and every one of my fellow 32 for making my job so f*%&ing hard.

I just wanted to come in here and tell you:

Ancientsensai, you can be my wingman any time. Hope to see you at GenCon.

I'll be the one wearing a bunch of belts.