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In my estimation, this happens every year. There's always a (not inconsiderable) group of folks who look at the Round 2 entries and view them as disappointing...or not Superstar enough. Subsequently, they decry the process as somehow having less meaning or purpose. But let's reset expectations here for a second...
First, there have been plenty of people who bombed a Round 2 entry, bounced back in Rounds 3 and 4 and rode a huge wave of momentum into the Top 4 adventure proposal round. I think several of the eventual winners of RPG Superstar have often been in a trailing position (in terms of voter perception) in that final round and then came on strong to pitch the best idea for an actual adventure.
So, I think we all need to view the RPG Superstar contest as a place where creative people who can write reasonably well go through a series of challenges which hones their talent into something better than it started out. None of them come into the contest as fully-formed, experienced freelancers. If they were, they'd have already been "discovered" and wouldn't need RPG Superstar as a stepping stone into the world of freelancing.
It's a common fact that, in writing and game design, you get better by doing it. Not by sitting at home, playing your homebrew game, and being an arm-chair quarterback who feels they can do better than anyone else who's out there. You've got to get on the field, do the work, and see how you measure up in reality rather than just your own mind. So, give these actual competitors time. They're learning the ropes. These challenges are designed to test them in certain areas. And, in the process of each challenge, they'll get better at it...not simply through trial-and-error, but also from the feedback of the judges and the voting community.
So, be patient. These guys all have different talents and abilities. Some will be better at monster design and stat-blocking. Some will be better at dreaming up wondrous items. Others will make good world-builders by imagining great things like an organization, country, or villain to drop into a campaign setting. Some will have the ability to cook up incredibly entertaining encounters which run really well at the gaming table and have a really cool map. Others will have a unique storytelling talent and be able to structure and write an exceptionally compelling adventure.
Potential Superstar game designers (i.e., hopefully, those who emerge at the end of this contest) will have demonstrated (and learned) the ability to do most of those things better than average. And then, where they go from there once they receive an actual paid writing assignment with Paizo is up to them. That's why I always say it isn't simply what you do during RPG Superstar. It's more important what you do after when you apply all these lessons and the overall experience when called upon to do it for real.
Additionally, I want to point out something else about how this contest plays in Round 2. This is just an observation from someone who's gone through it and judged it before. To me, the judges are never 100% sure what they've got in their Top 32 selections. We base those decisions on a very brief snippet...a 300-word wondrous item...to try and get a sense of what a designer may be capable of. We're looking for spark, mojo, and innovation potential. But we don't know until we put them through their paces.
Round 2 is always the largest cut of all once the competition fully gets underway. It's essentially the proving ground to determine who among these Top 32 really deserves this opportunity. Some will do a really great wondrous item submission which they may have worked and practiced on over several months since last year's competiton. They make it into the Top 32 and celebrate. Then, they get on the big stage, see the bright lights and their competition, have a short turnaround time on the next assignment, and they fail to put forward their best stuff. These competitors usually wash out. But they do so having learned a valuable lesson. And, hopefully, they try again next year and come back much improved.
It's okay. We can't actually take all 32 to Round 3, you know? It's expected. This round actually helps the contest move forward. There are going to be some folks who have missteps. The judges are sometimes going to err in thinking someone's wondrous item demonstrated a spark that might not quite be there yet for a certain competitor. Sometimes, they don't even get to put forward their best work, because life or other circumstances get in the way. You never know. It happens. And it's okay.
But the goal of the contest is to find four worthy contestants to compete for the top prize. Not the entire 32. By its very nature, we already know we'll have to leave behind the other 28. Some of those 28 may be really strong designers who, through a series of bad judgement calls and various circumstances, slip up and fall out of the competition to someone whose star is rising. That's okay. Those guys can hopefully come back and compete again. Others may not be as strong a designer as we intitially hoped. They too will likely fall out of the competition. However, even if they do, hopefully the process and opportunity they received here made them into a stronger designer than before. They too can improve themselves and come back strong, more ready to compete than ever before.
That's how I view it, at least. No, the sky isn't falling if you feel a lot of folks weren't Superstar quality with their Round 2 entries. No, it's not a given that those who do best in Round 2 should automatically be crowned the winners. There's still many more challenges ahead. They vary in the things they test you on. And these designers each need to run that gauntlet and prove themselves across all these assignments for any of us to truly know who deserves to become an RPG Superstar.
My two cents,
--Neil
