James Hunnicutt's page

James Hunnicutt wrote:

Mr. Kisko, I think I speak for everyone on these boards when I say that I'd love to know what kind of encounter you were contemplating. Would you please share?

I had nothing particular in mind since I was voted out long before this round. I did watch my kid play 'Marco Polo' with her friend today so here is a 30 minute write up of Stone Giant marco polo (spoilered so I don't clutter up the thread):

Prince Lucor - EL 6

I totally dug your Marco Polo encounter. I've always been a big fan of the "game within a game" encounters, like your encounter, gambling, athletic competitions, etc.

Ya gotta leave the names on there - that's part of the fun!

This is one part of the contest that should have been run earlier with more people writing for it.

Good point, but maybe the idea was that as contestants get fewer in number, the entries get lengthier.

Mr. Kisko, I think I speak for everyone on these boards when I say that I'd love to know what kind of encounter you were contemplating. Would you please share?

I'm really glad you incorporated so much from your Iskandria entry. Your encounter and your country compliment each other very well. So many people wanted to see what a monkey goblin is - now we know! Well done.

Whee!

Gorgor! Kill kill!

Kablooie!

Whee!

Just awesome. Nice map.

But all in all I do not think this is one of the four best submissions this round, so I reluctantly do not recommend Russ Taylor for advancement into the final round of RPG Superstar.

But, as with Joe's submission, I will not be sad if the voters advance Russ to the next round. I think he has been the most consistent contestant...

QFT

I hate to point it out, but the idea of a temple slipping into the netherworld isn't that unique. I think Monte Cook did it in A Paladin in Hell.

That said, I liked it overall. I liked the touch of encouraging the DM to ham up the terror of the commoners.

All 6 are awesome, and I don't want to say who my fave is bc the next 2 rounds could totally change my thinking.

Jorrik the Fat wrote:

The bit that makes me groan is the 'read-aloud' section. I know these are popular in scenarios, but, boy, I hate them. They always grate and sound awkward, no matter how professional the scenario may be in other respects. You always want to paraphrase them, anyway, rather than actually read them aloud, so why bother putting them in?

The primary reason? To give the DM a phrase to key in on and not have to spend long minutes reading the text and composing a description. I almost always paraphrase. (Many are too long.) It answers many questions for players, questions that would otherwise bog the game down.

I like the read-aloud boxes. I use them to remind the players that "hey, I didn't write this, this is a published adventure, so quit yer whinin' because thousands of other gamers have conquered this exact same adventure". One of the values of running a published adventure, IMHO, is that it creates a sense of objectivity, even if a false sense of objectivity, i.e., because I paid money for it and a company produced it, this adventure presumptively is appropriate for so many characters of such-and-such a level and well-balanced in terms of threats and treasures. When the players think I'm just making it up as a I go along (which I nearly always am anyway) I think they're constantly suspicious that I'm making it too hard or too easy.

Congratulations Russ on making Round 5.

QFT!

Congratulations! Glad you made it to the next round.

I suggest prohibiting artwork and text from the maps, and requiring the maps be simple and black-and-white. I'd like black lines on a grid and numbers/letters keying text to the relevant areas and that's it. I think it would be unfair if Contestant A spices up his/her map with graphics, little diagrams, things like "Thar Be Dragons" in fancy fonts, drawings of monsters and furniture, ornate dragon-stylized compasses, etc., while Contestant B focuses on having a clean, straightforward map. I'd hate to see the debate degrade into a discussion over the minutiae of the maps, instead of the merits of the encounter.

Paizo makes me happy. All of Paizo and the judges rule. Thank you for your hard work.

As an aside, some of the boards relating to this contest featured a lot of sour grapes and rotten attitude after the first round, and I am thrilled that seems to have gone away. I'm enjoying the good vibes on these boards.

My only near-publication, was a tip I sent to Johann Four about using Dollar store toy animals mounted on poker chips for miniatures.

Nice! I love bargain innovations.

I once bought a bag of plastic spiders from All A Dollar, had my Call of Cthulhu players fall into a pit of em. Good times.

And to whoever started talking about Pool of Radiance, I am right there with you. I loved that game. Fond memories of Phlan...

Awesome. I like the way you roll. Creamy Lovecraftiness.

Suggestion: maybe more explanation of how the little guys ride their mounts. Maybe they get the benefits of some of the mounted combat feats.

So you're into designing RPGs and films. What about straight-up fiction? Your prose is powerful and fun to read.

I visited sporadically before the contest. Now, I check regularly.

Ditto. I've found the contest fascinating, and the people who post here too.

Awesome. These 3 critters are superior to many of what I've read in published works. Your writing is great, clear, and professional.

Vampiric touch melee attacks and stealing cures!? I'm staying out of the woods.

Yeah, but if a PC has an immunity, you want it to occasionally shine.

Couldn't agree more. I just feel like plenty of critters have fear attacks, so the paladin gets to shine with that ability pretty often. This house rule we're discussing is diluting the mind flayer's key attack, so I'd rather not dilute it further by making it a fear effect.

I like the pain and confuse blasts, but tend to think fear is less fun for the DM: fear is easy to remove, and those stinkin' paladins are immune.

All of the above.

I have to add, this contest has gotten me much more involved in these message boards then ever before. I dig the dialogue, and am especially appreciative of the judges and Lisa Stevens participating.

I've houseruled they get to re-Save every round, if only so the player can do SOMETHING. Kind of like Hold Person.

Good house rule. I think I'll steal it, but maybe tweak: if on a subsequent round a PC makes his save he is no longer stunned, but he remains fatigued for the remainder of the duration of the effect. I love fatiguing characters.

I'd say go ahead and put it up, there are only 8 entries which will make for quick reading. Also paizo seems to be pushing the community aspect of the contest so it seems natural for all folks to participate.

Totally.

Give us something cool to read while I wait a couple weeks for the contestants' entries.

Is anybody interested in reading/participating?

You betcha.

I'd already read the profiles of several of the superstar contenders, but half of the Top 8 (Yerger, Outzen, Taylor, and McClean) don't have bios on their profiles. So for whatever it's worth, I'd be interested if they elaborated on themselves a bit, whether in this thread or in their profiles. Thanks.

Lower CRs (1-8) are far more useful and my votes will tend to favour something I can use.

QFT

I'm curious to see if the rules dictate the 3 must be allies. They could be 3 ancient enemies. Terran, Protoss...

It seems that I kind of disagree with most of the people posting in this thread as I'm not generally disappointed at all.

Right there with you. It's obvious you and I are in the minority, but I enjoyed reading the entries, and I think the top 8 (as it's looking on the "who ya votin' for" thread) are pretty darn good.

A lot of people have complained about the 500-word limit, but when DMing you don't need, or really want, more than that to get the villain's concept and start elaborating on one's own. Running a good villain usually comes down to a lot of "winging it." And I'd wager few published works have villain descriptions over 500 words anyway.

Seskadrin

The sahuagin paladin of tyranny has gotten some love on this thread, but not enough. He is by far the best "villain" when you consider the elements of what constitutes the ideal villain: a smart leader, ambitious with long-term goals, manipulative, a brutal combatant combining melee prowess with magic powers (his own and his cohort's), and devoted to an evil idealogy. Seskadrin is the Darth Vader of the ocean.

Plus, the author did a great job describing Seskadrin, statting him out, fitting him into his country, and providing a couple cool plot hooks, which tells me Russell Taylor can write a fantastic adventure.

Ignore half my last post. I misread it as flesh-tripping, not flesh-stripping.

The SRD was the tripping point here.

Great pun.

"Tripping" is a term with pretty modern connotations, which have been pretty taboo in this competition. E.g., the judges slammed the guy who came up with the wizard's PDA.

Zopotishto's population is 3800, mostly slaves, so it's hard to imagine it has a very extensive sewer system, if any.

Finally, if you're going to place a villain in the Land of the Stained Peaks, take advantage of the rust-taint. Maybe all those nasty spores and fungi mutated because of all the filthy toxins and rust.

Bravo! Great country, and this villain intersects perfectly with it.

As far as evil deities go, Asmodeus seems a weak choice. That's a figure with a real historical basis, and has been written about ad nauseum by TSR and WotC. Plus, nothing about Asmodeus is particularly aquatic. A cunning, manipulative and LE version of crazy Cthulhu would've been cooler and more fitting.

Still, I'm voting for this one for sure. I love it.

Compelling... but am I really supposed to feel sympathy for orcs? I would have preferred a more neutral race, like lizardfolk, comprising the slave population.

I actually prefer the central aspect of the presentation: the description up high, the alignment, government type, and other game data down below. I'm surprised by how many entries start off with geology or lists of town names and populations. I want to read the story behind the country first, the mechanics and details second.

I like the idea of a nation of blink dogs, but I would have liked more crunch in lieu of some of the descriptions of specific settlements, which weren't terribly compelling. Maybe some guidelines for how blink dogs could advance by class level, which would stray from the SRD, but make the idea of a nation of blink dogs more fun. Since the magic of the plains is important, I think some blink dog spellcasters would be cool. Maybe when their hero figured out blinking, he also unlocked spellcasting for some blink dogs too. Or martial arts: blink dog monks on the rampage against those nasty goblins.

The obviously stolen names do bug me though. They aren't that obscure to any RPGer, and seem a bit cheap.

QFT.

Great country, but even the name of it and the patron god are taken from Lovecraft (the Great Race of Yith). Still, I'll probably vote for it.

I really like this item. But as DM, I probably won't add it to my campaign because I don't feel like doing the rogue that big a favor. But the next time I play a rogue, I'm sure I'll change my tune.

Varianor: Thank you for the comments, which I found very valuable.

Can't wait to see the countries... I want to see some wild crazy governmental regimes.

I love the Dehydrated Gelatinous Cube. I presume the reference to the Monster Manual was out of bounds?

I really liked the Toy Golem posted by varianor. I also submitted a toy with defensive capabilities, the "Stuffed Animal Toy of Security." I wonder how many toys were submitted.

Stuffed Animal Toy of Security

This small stuffed animal toy has been infused with the safety and security a child feels while with his or her parents. Anyone holding this item may cast sanctuary on him or herself once per day as an immediate action (save DC 20). The effect lasts up to 5 rounds or until the user stops holding the toy in at least one hand, or until the user tries to attack someone. When used by a person under the age of adulthood, opponents are not entitled to a Will save to resist the sanctuary effect. This item can be made of leather or any cloth, filled with beans, cotton, or straw, and crafted to resemble any sort of animal.

Moderate abjuration; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, sanctuary; Price 10,000 gp.

After reading the judges' comments following the posting of the top 32, I see a lot of flaws in my item, not the least of which is that it lacks a gripping name, it's essentially a spell-in-a-can, and it's probably overpriced. I spent a long time wrestling with how to price stuff. I know sanctuary is a level 1 spell, but I really wanted a high DC, so I essentially invented a "greater sanctuary" which was a 4th level spell that has a way higher DC and shorter duration... but maybe that's bad design mojo.

Looking at the winning entries, I can piece together why I didn't make the cut.

QFT! I've learned a lot reviewing the judges' commentaries on the 32 superstars.

This one gets my vote as "best item" so far. I've read about 20...

Very nice.

Mark

I've read them all now, and the Beacon of Hope is my personal favorite. I plan to use this item in my campaign ASAP.

I like this item. Energy substitution is always useful, and keeps this item relevant at higher levels.

And nothing about this item is plagiarism, which is a charge people should be very hesistant in using. Sure, this item is similar to the quiver of energy (MIC 172), but similarity does not equate plagiarism. I prefer this item over the quiver of energy, which I view as overpriced.

10k for my item, which on reflection, was probably too high.

Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie – I would wager that we’re pretty much ALL interested in that sort of dialogue, especially after being part of this competition. Win or lose, the whole challenge has really sparked some interest in under-the-hood design-theory, from a fluff perspective as well as the nuts and bolts of the game.

Right, guys?

Right!

Since submitting, I've been wondering a lot about pricing items correctly. I have to assume the judges are looking at that along with everything else, but obviously we didn't have space, nor an invitation, to justify our proposed prices. I started by using the SRD method for item creation, but the price seemed sky-high for the final product, so I discounted. (My item granted the effect of a 1st level spell, but I wanted a high DC, so treated the spell as heightened, which obviously jacked up spell level and caster level.) But I've been reading through the non-SRD Magic Item Compendium this past weekend... did WotC just toss the pricing guidelines out the window? Just take a look at the eternal wand: what a bargain!

Ah crap. This is why I just need to stop looking at these boards until the winners are announced. I didn't use the BBCode to italicize the name of the spell used to create the item. It was italicized on my word processor, just not my entry.

QFT

Ok to be fair, today in the mail I received a form letter from WotC too.

I was very disappointed when I learned Dragon and Dungeon were being cancelled, and I sent a polite letter of complaint to WotC's CEO, and cc'ed the CEOs of Hasbro and Paizo on the letter too. Ya know what, Paizo's CEO (Lisa Stevens) was good enough to send me a response. I really appreciate that kind of customer support and respect. Guess who I haven't heard from...

Email ain't gonna cut it, folks. Get a stamp, and use snailmail. Here's the letter I sent today:

Mr. Loren Greenwood, CEO
Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
PO Box 707
Renton, WA 98057

Re: Discontinuation of Dungeon and Dragon magazines by Wizards of the Coast

Dear Mr. Greenwood:

I write to express my profound disappointment in reading that Wizards of the Coast has elected to discontinue the magazines Dragon and Dungeon, which have been staples of the roleplaying game world for decades. I have always been a huge fan of both magazines, which have only improved over the years, especially after Paizo assumed responsibility for their publication.

In my humble opinion, the decision to replace these two fine magazines with some sort of new, website-based content is in error. Every gamer I know prefers to hold in his or her hands a book or magazine with full-color art, as opposed to a computer printout of something from the Internet. When we sit at the gaming table, we do not sit with laptops linked to a wifi connection: we have books and magazines because, of course, Dungeons & Dragons is a pencil-and-paper game. I am a loyal Dragon subscriber (and frequent Dungeon purchaser), and I always have at least one or two issues with me at game-night, right next to my dice and character sheet.

Further, introducing something new online and maintaining both magazines are not mutually exclusive options. The print magazines could continue to thrive, and at the same time those who visit www.wizards.com could try out whatever it is that you have planned for your website. Moreover, it is an unnecessary gamble to cancel both magazines – which have a considerable amount of history and name recognition in the gaming world – before introducing whatever their online replacement is supposed to be.

Dragon and Dungeon are fantastic publications. I strongly encourage you to reconsider the decision to end them.

cc: Lisa Stevens, Paizo Publishing, 2700 Richards Rd., Suite 201, Bellevue, WA 98005-4200

Alfred J. Verrecchia, Hasbro Inc., 1027 Newport Ave., Pawtucket, RI 02862