Writing for the Pathfinder Society Open Call


Society Scenario Submissions


Right first of all I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread but it seems like as good a place as any for a creative question about pathfinder based question.

Right I was wondering if anyone else who'd tried writing an outline would mind telling me what they focused on. I've just finished writing my outline but was wondering whether people focused on a blow by blow run down of all the individual encounters at the different tiers or if they focused more on the story and rough outlines of each encounter.

I personally have a fair bit on the story but also a list of what is encountered at each tier for each encounter. Reading it back it comes off as very dry and quite uninteresting to read even though it is a pretty specific outline.

Anyway I just wondered what other people had done with their outline in terms of style and focus and whether or not I've done it wrong. Also if anyone official wouldn't mind chiming in that would be great as well.

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

While I’ve never placed well with these open calls, I like to think I can write a nice pitch. I don’t know how different this particular instance is from other freelancing proposals, but here’s what little advice I can provide.

First and foremost, your goal in a query is to take that wonderful idea in your head and chew it into a tasty little ball that the editor reading it can absorb easily. Get them to see the thing the way you see it by presenting the most comprehensive and dominant features of your idea with a little sprinkle of your best examples. This is a place to show your mastery of the language without going overboard.

The place where people go overboard the most is by adding too much back-story. If the majority of your pitch is back-story, you’ve gone too far. Adventures are about what the players will experience, not what the GM reads and doles out throughout the adventure. Make sure to highlight the action and encounters that the PCs will face.

This isn’t just a prose sample. Don’t be afraid to drop the veil and speak directly to the editor. While it is nice to give them a taste of your skill in word use, overly flowery prose distracts the succinct nature of a pitch. Get in there and tell them what you have planned in the particular piece you are pitching.

Now, I’ll say it again. I’m not some freakin’ genius when it comes to writing pitches and have never even placed for any of these that Paizo has offered, but my examples are gleaned from talking with and associating with some damned successful designers.

Hope some of this helps.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

[moved to Pathfinder Society forum]

Dark Archive

Cheddar Bearer wrote:

Right first of all I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread but it seems like as good a place as any for a creative question about pathfinder based question.

Right I was wondering if anyone else who'd tried writing an outline would mind telling me what they focused on. I've just finished writing my outline but was wondering whether people focused on a blow by blow run down of all the individual encounters at the different tiers or if they focused more on the story and rough outlines of each encounter.

I personally have a fair bit on the story but also a list of what is encountered at each tier for each encounter. Reading it back it comes off as very dry and quite uninteresting to read even though it is a pretty specific outline.

Anyway I just wondered what other people had done with their outline in terms of style and focus and whether or not I've done it wrong. Also if anyone official wouldn't mind chiming in that would be great as well.

I highlighted above what I did for my submissions.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.

My proposal held some background, providing the villains' motivation and all the encounters the PCs would face. I think that fits the society's needs best, but I might be wrong, because I don't have a contributor tag.

Dark Archive

Darkjoy wrote:
For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.

After reading "Clash of the Kingslayers" and the comments that followed. I glad I didn't when I wrote my submissions.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.
After reading "Clash of the Kingslayers" and the comments that followed. I glad I didn't when I wrote my submissions.

Why not? The comments were favourable, were they not?

Dark Archive

Darkjoy wrote:
joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.
After reading "Clash of the Kingslayers" and the comments that followed. I glad I didn't when I wrote my submissions.
Why not? The comments were favourable, were they not?

I would have froze from "writer's perfection fright".

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.
After reading "Clash of the Kingslayers" and the comments that followed. I glad I didn't when I wrote my submissions.
Why not? The comments were favourable, were they not?
I would have froze from "writer's perfection fright".

--checks stats---

I am beyond cause fear.

Dark Archive

Darkjoy wrote:
joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
joela wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:
For a good idea how a successful pitch looks like, I would suggest taking a look at the winning proposal of the RPG Superstar contest.
After reading "Clash of the Kingslayers" and the comments that followed. I glad I didn't when I wrote my submissions.
Why not? The comments were favourable, were they not?
I would have froze from "writer's perfection fright".

--checks stats---

I am beyond cause fear.

LOL

Scarab Sages

I kind of strode in between story and encounters. I used about half the words for an introduction and used the remaining do give a brief description of the 5 encounters.

Silver Crusade

What I want to know is how the hell do you guys pace yourselves? The "4 hour" adventure requirement is definitely what I find most daunting, because I'm absolutely horrible at estimating the pacing of your average playgroup. Adventures probably tend to run longer than intended when I run them with my (RP-happy) group, and my homebrews tend to run like sandboxes for the most part.

Dark Archive

Mikaze wrote:
What I want to know is how the hell do you guys pace yourselves? The "4 hour" adventure requirement is definitely what I find most daunting, because I'm absolutely horrible at estimating the pacing of your average playgroup. Adventures probably tend to run longer than intended when I run them with my (RP-happy) group, and my homebrews tend to run like sandboxes for the most part.

I based it a lot on how the first four PFS scenarios were paced -- the first encounter and finale probably aren't the problems, I think the trouble probably comes with the middle couple of encounters.

Also, in each submission I included an encounter that could be resolved by one of 2 different means (combat or diplomacy/skills) so that different parties could (hopefully) speed through it in whichever manner they were best at; and in each case I made the penultimate encounter relatively easy to miss out if the game is running long.

Org play games tend to be (relatively) RP-light so a given scenario would probably run more quickly in organised play than in a regular home game.

Liberty's Edge Contributor

As Callum said, I used the previous scenarios as guidelines. I categorized each encounter as a skill, social or combat (or a combination thereof) and worked out combinations that would fit within the 4- to 6-Act framework.

As I posted in another thread, the hardest part for me was working with the faction missions. Although they're not necessarily the most important part of the story, they are critical and (as far as I know) unique to PFS. I found that I had to read and re-read the reqional sections of the campaign setting and the Society Guide a few times before I settled into things that would work well for the first one.

For the second scenario I did, I actually worked backwards--sort of. Once I had a firm grasp on what I wanted for the story, I decided what I wanted the faction missions to be, then created encounters that allowed for those missions while staying within the story's framework. Of course, I had to go back and refine certain missions once the encounters started to gel, but I found that methodology made the overall design work much easier.

Also, how many of you took the faction feats and other PFS-specific material into account? I tried to consider that in the scenario development and to create opportunities for people to use their faction feats, but it was hard to get that across in the outline.

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