Prepping for PFS Scenarios #19 & #20


Society Scenario Submissions

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Dark Archive

Open Call's to be announced on Monday, November 10th. I'm already sharpening (virtually) my keyboard in anticipation while reviewing Josh's bloody "pen" over my previous entries.


...I never said there were going to be announced on Monday. I said 'next week.' :-)

Dark Archive

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
...I never said there were going to be announced on Monday. I said 'next week.' :-)

Oops! No wonder you rejected my scenarios LOL

Write For Us
Check back the week of November 10, 2008 to learn about the next round of open call submissions for Pathfinder Society.

My bad. Sorry, folks. Return to the election coverage :)

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

I’m ready to go with my checklist garnered from #17 and #18:

DO
• Play these ones straight down the line. Gonzo is out. Simple, but entertaining is the way to go.
• Clarify everything possible – your submission will get one read-through and if there is an opportunity to be misinterpreted then that’s what’s going to happen. If you are doing anything even vaguely non-standard, explain how it works.
• Smash the first paragraph out of the park. First impressions count.
• Use Americanised (-ized) English.

DON’T
• Use passive voice.
• Put in extraneous encounters that are not tightly plot-linked. This is the TV show version, not the movie.
• Have delusions of grandeur and try to solve a canon-breaking Golarion enigma.
• Put in a mood-setting quote.
• Be a smart-arse. There is a difference between using the right word and using an obscure word to show off.
• Keep secrets – Josh wants to know everything.
• Play around with creatures to make them non-standard. Keep to the stat-blocks in MM. (Unless there’s a really good explanation).
• Take items away from characters.
• Have the plot assume PCs will be captured.

UNSURE
• Formatting – I formatted the summary into two columns because it looked nice. I don’t know if this was OK or annoying.
• Tiers – I did a summary table of Creature vs Tier at the end of the submission. Would it have been better as text in each encounter?
• Faction Missions – Is one sentence for each of these at the end enough?

Any I missed?


This is partially covered by your "clarify everything" point, I'll mention it anyway:

Don't assume your entire submission will be read.

A couple people have pointed out that if Josh had read beyond their introductory paragraphs, a lot of his questions would have been answered; similarly, Josh has pointed out that if something is important to the plot, it should be alluded to the introduction. If it needs explaining, explain it immediately.

Dark Archive

Check out the announcement on next week's open call at the Paizo's blog. Though we won't know the full details until then, the post contains the titles for the scenarios.


joela wrote:
Though we won't know the full details until then, the post contains the titles for the scenarios.

I think those are just key words. Remember, Pirate Pact originally showed up as "Pirates and Spiders", while Trouble with Secrets was "Vampires and Vaults".

Dark Archive

Jer wrote:
joela wrote:
Though we won't know the full details until then, the post contains the titles for the scenarios.
I think those are just key words. Remember, Pirate Pact originally showed up as "Pirates and Spiders", while Trouble with Secrets was "Vampires and Vaults".

Good point.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

I am in a holding pattern until Joshua posts the complete descriptions.

That said, Cheliax demon hunt fills me with excitement.


Darkjoy wrote:
I am in a holding pattern until Joshua posts the complete descriptions.

Me too. I read the teasers before going to bed last night and eventually had to throw on a podcast to stop myself from scheming.


I am somewhat concerned by the whole thing. I would love to submit something on the one hand, but am certain that I am not good enough on the other. The best I could likely hope for is my idea being liked, but everything else letting me down. I might still submit something, just to see how it goes down, but I won't hold my breath on it.

The Cheliax demon hunt sparks my interest too.


Same here, Zombieneighbours.
After #17 & #18 I am certain I couldn't write a Pathfinder Society adventure if my life depended on it. The best I could hope to do would be to make comments that were (hopefully) useful to other people with their submissions.
I have no idea why Mr. Frost said on another thread that he hoped to see everyone who submitted entries for the previous call submit in the next, unless he was being rhetorical*.

*This assumption is based on the pure suckitude of my own entry, and not a comment upon anyone else's, all of which were infinitely better by comparison.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)


Tarren Dei wrote:
I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)

And by "academic" you mean the wiki, right?

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Wiki Monster wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)
And by "academic" you mean the wiki, right?

That's a thought. ... ;-)


Wiki Monster wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)
And by "academic" you mean the wiki, right?

No. He means nothing to do with the wiki. Tarren has in fact just been offered a highly lucrative position by The Acadamae in Korvosa (sorry to Spoil this, Tarren, but it's for your own good, really)- only the 'writing' consists of taking notes for a conjurer with an interest in Kytons and Erinyes baatezu, which is why Tarren is trying other things before resorting to that.

Edit:
Despite the fact that the position is paid in gold, and, ummm, well, gold has been recently gaining relative value on Earth markets.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Charles Evans 25 wrote:
Wiki Monster wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)
And by "academic" you mean the wiki, right?

No. He means nothing to do with the wiki. Tarren has in fact just been offered a highly lucrative position by The Acadamae in Korvosa (sorry to Spoil this, Tarren, but it's for your own good, really)- only the 'writing' consists of taking notes for a conjurer with an interest in Kytons and Erinyes baatezu, which is why Tarren is trying other things before resorting to that.

Edit:
Despite the fact that the position is paid in gold, and, ummm, well, gold has been recently gaining relative value on Earth markets.

I told you not to tell anyone!! Now the Erinyes is going to have to be sent after you.

Sovereign Court

Tarren Dei wrote:
I told you not to tell anyone!! Now the Erinyes is going to have to be sent after you.

Wait, are Erinyes devils or demons? I'm just unclear these days.

Help?!

EDIT: Also, it appears I've passed 700 posts this evening. Deal with it Paizoneans! I ain't going nowhere!


Nameless wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I told you not to tell anyone!! Now the Erinyes is going to have to be sent after you.

Wait, are Erinyes devils or demons? I'm just unclear these days.

Help?!

EDIT: Also, it appears I've passed 700 posts this evening. Deal with it Paizoneans! I ain't going nowhere!

(edited, updated for Heathansson's current post count)

Well since Paizo have some respect for traditions, I think it's fairly safe to assume that (generally speaking) Erinyes=baaztezu=devil=Lawful Evil.
(The Acadamae in Korvosa has a sort of Lawful Evil bent to it, which is why their conjurers like summoning devils.)

Congratulations on your 700+ posts by the way. Now you need about 20,000 more to catch up with Heathansson, assuming he stops posting altogether in the interim. :D

*Heathansson*

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Tarren Dei wrote:
I told you not to tell anyone!! Now the Erinyes is going to have to be sent after you.

You can send the Erinyes after me... I really don't mind.

It will free you up for all of that Midget Porn anyway Tarren. ;)-


Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Same here, Zombieneighbours.

After #17 & #18 I am certain I couldn't write a Pathfinder Society adventure if my life depended on it. The best I could hope to do would be to make comments that were (hopefully) useful to other people with their submissions.
I have no idea why Mr. Frost said on another thread that he hoped to see everyone who submitted entries for the previous call submit in the next, unless he was being rhetorical*.

*This assumption is based on the pure suckitude of my own entry, and not a comment upon anyone else's, all of which were infinitely better by comparison.

I meant what I said, Charles, and its time you got over your rejection. In fact, submitting for the next open call would be the perfect way to get over it.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

I have no idea why Mr. Frost said on another thread that he hoped to see everyone who submitted entries for the previous call submit in the next, unless he was being rhetorical*.

Because, you might get better with every attempt?

Well, I did read your entry for #18 and my advice would be to write what Joshua wants written. Your take just didn't mesh all that well with what Paizo wanted.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Nameless wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I told you not to tell anyone!! Now the Erinyes is going to have to be sent after you.

Wait, are Erinyes devils or demons? I'm just unclear these days.

Help?!

EDIT: Also, it appears I've passed 700 posts this evening. Deal with it Paizoneans! I ain't going nowhere!

Congratulations on your 700th post noob.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Darkjoy wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:

I have no idea why Mr. Frost said on another thread that he hoped to see everyone who submitted entries for the previous call submit in the next, unless he was being rhetorical*.

Because, you might get better with every attempt?

Well, I did read your entry for #18 and my advice would be to write what Joshua wants written. Your take just didn't mesh all that well with what Paizo wanted.

I agree with Darkjoy. My submission got rejected too, Charles, and for good reasons ... the reasons Joshua Frost explained. Now, I have proofread innumerable articles for academic journals, published in academic journals, and taught academic writing at the university level. Maybe my submission was rejected not because I'm a bad writer but because I didn't write in the right genre. Maybe, as Joshua suggested, I needed to adopt a snappier, crisper, more direct style of writing for this. You know, the kind of writing style that 18 years of university weeds out of you.

I see this as an opportunity to stretch myself as a writer and, hopefully, come out on the other side of it with sharper more active prose.

(I think we need a Paizo's Writers Workshop Subforum). ;-)

Liberty's Edge

Looking over the submissions that have been posted and Josh's critiques I think I've learned a lot and come up with a game plan. I intend to make my submission sound more like a comic springboard or verbal pitch and less like an English homework assignment as a few of them have come off imho.

I'm also going to avoid expanding on major published concepts (with the risk of going somewhere they don't want to go) and either invent concepts that will mesh well with world as written, and/or expand on concepts that have as of yet existed merely as one sentence.

I'm also hoping I can get really inspired by the next pair, back when "Vaults and Vampires" was just that I was getting a really good idea for exploring an abandoned church/bank of Abadar (with a bit of Gringott's thrown in), but then the bigger passage came out and it disheartened me a bit.

I shall also write the entire thing in 2nd person rather than 3rd person. J/K ;)

P.S. Don't give up if your first submission didn't get received well, instead take advantage of having a professional writer critique your work for free.

P.S.S. A Writers Workshop forum would r0xx0r


Coridan wrote:


P.S. Don't give up if your first submission didn't get received well, instead take advantage of having a professional writer critique your work for free.

Cause thats not something that happens every day.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

Coridan wrote:


P.S.S. A Writers Workshop forum would r0xx0r

I suppose the Paizo crew missed having their own black hole thread around. So they created another one.

I don't know how many of you have access to the old dungeon writer's guidelines but these were very helpful to the budding author.

And Charles, my proposal was rejected too, it wasn't the first and it won't be the last. Being the proud owner of one writing credit I can only tell you to keep at it, once you've been published you'll experience this warm proud feeling.


Darkjoy wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:

I have no idea why Mr. Frost said on another thread that he hoped to see everyone who submitted entries for the previous call submit in the next, unless he was being rhetorical*.

Because, you might get better with every attempt?

Well, I did read your entry for #18 and my advice would be to write what Joshua wants written. Your take just didn't mesh all that well with what Paizo wanted.

(edited)

Correct. Pathfinder Society, if I now understand correctly wants action, action, action- a more sophisticated version of the 'Indiana Jones' motif that was so discussed in the run up to the release of 4E.
I can (sort of) deal in mystery and horror, which was what I was attempting (badly) with my #18 submission. Even if I had presented it better, it would have still likely been turned down, (quite correctly) because that is not what PFS is about. The closest Indiana Jones gets to horror is the second film (with the activities of some of the cultists) and that second film is the one I hear most often criticised by the fans as being 'the worst'.
I know I can't write the action, action, action, [IJ horn call]'dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-durrrrh'[/IJ horn call] beefcake that PFS needs.


Because not every single scenario is action-action-action. Even action-based scenarios are not all action-action-action. And the Pathfinder Society *is* Indiana Jones at its very core (though I'd say it was more Belloq than Indy, but whatever). What that has to do with 4E I'm unclear about.

If you feel you're unable to submit then don't submit. I encouraged you (and everyone) to submit again because I'm trying to grow writers for Paizo not push them away. If you continue to doubt that I'm not interested in reading your work just because of your rejection then there's nothing I can do for you.

You can spend as much time as you want sniping me around the boards and on the DMTools chat--I have thick skin and largely ignore it. But don't combine your sniping with erratic assumptions about my character or my intentions. I want to grow writers for Paizo and that means growing them from any background--if you want help growing into the type of writer Paizo needs then keep submitting. If you don't, don't submit.

Either way, get over the rejection. Not getting over it isn't helping you, me, or anyone else on these boards.


Joshua J. Frost:
Edited down the rambling from the previous post; hope it is now better.


From: Me, a freelancer who has managed to get a few things accepted by various entities and actually get published a few times.

To: Aspiring freelancers.

Don't despair. Freelance game writing is as much about rejection as it is about acceptance. Sometimes you don't hit "the mark" that the publisher was looking for. Sometimes you don't have a fully-formed idea and submit an incomplete idea. Sometimes you goof and submit a proposal that is grammatically incorrect or otherwise lacking. Sometimes, the idea you had, that you thought was awesome, is not awesome.

Every rejection you receive is a learning experience, something that will help you be a better writer in the future. It seems to me that Paizo works hard to provide feedback on rejections, so that you can better your efforts in the future and possibly have a submission accepted. There are many publishing entities out there who provide NO feedback, leaving you floundering in your rejection, unsure of where you went wrong.

Keep at it. While this sort of competition results in rejection for many of us, it inspires all of us to improve. It inspires YOU to improve. It provides you with the MEANS to improve.

If you truly love creating interesting stories and truly want to write them down, you'll embrace rejection, since it brings you one step closer to acceptance.

I know that sounds a little teary, but I truly belive it. So, submit those ideas. Garner feedback. Learn. Improve. And become a great writer.

Scarab Sages

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
I want to grow writers for Paizo and that means growing them from any background--if you want help growing into the type of writer Paizo needs then keep submitting.

Josh,

Would there be any chance that someone would be willing to record a short promo/interview regarding the Open Call to help get the word out?

Thanks for your time.


Send me an email with your proposal. josh@paizo.com

Dark Archive

Wiki Monster wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
I think I'll limit myself to the first 20 open calls. If I haven't improved by the 20th, I'll resign myself to academic writing. ;-)
And by "academic" you mean the wiki, right?

What's the link to the wiki again?

The Exchange

Charles - the question I would ask yourself is, "why not?"

I mean, "what do you have to lose?" The paizo community is filled with talented folks that can help you (and me) become better.

This is a worldwide stage so being rejected is not really that bad. Is it?

Cheers

Scarab Sages

All writers get rejected some time. And talking from experience - it's the same also with artists and web-designers.

The first few times you get rejected are the hardest, but you can learn what you have done wrong. In this case Joshua has actually given feedback on every entry, and let me tell you, not all editors/publishers do that! :)

And I suspect Joshua himself has had many a rejected proposal! ;)

To all those people who did not get accepted, PLEASE submit more! I love reading your adventure summaries in the other threads - it inspires me and others!

Just my £0.02...

Cheers! :D


joela wrote:
What's the link to the wiki again?

http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/

Dark Archive

Wiki Monster wrote:
joela wrote:
What's the link to the wiki again?
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/

thanks, wiki monster!


To those interested in 'Cheliax Demon Hunt' and with some 3.5 general knowledge but no familiarity with the Golarion Campaign Setting, no 'blood war' equivalent currently exists in Golarion's version of the outer planes. The Church of Asmodeus and devils may have a strong place in the rule of Cheliax, but as far as I understand devils do not have the same relentless drive to exterminate demons as may exist in other 3.5 settings.
(This doesn't mean that demon and devils get along with one another either though.)


Further thoughts:
Recognise that you are taking a major risk by attempting to explore (or even provide a hook into for a later adventure) a part of the world mentioned in the Campaign Setting, but not requested by name for involvement in the outline. For example at least one person in a perils of the pirate pact submission posted on the boards afterwards that he/she had been criticised heavily for having the rare text devised as a hook to lead a future PFS adventure into the crashed starship in Numeria.
Also bad is trying to 'fill in' details regarding a major part of the setting without having been asked for an adventure which does that. Amongst the feedback regarding submissions for 18 posted on these boards, one entry was criticised for attempting to link the adventure to the demise of Aroden, and another for making assumptions about the Pathfinder Society of a century earlier.
(I'm guessing the call for #18 to feature 'the pathfinder society's darkest secret' may have led to some entries going too far in these sort of directions.)

Finally, Mr. Frost has made explicitly clear he wants to see background to the adventure, setting the summary up. He wants to know where the adventure is coming from. He wants that background to be (if I understand correctly) brief, concise, and an easy read. And he desires that entries be free of passive voice, such language use being deemed inappropriate for PFS adventures.

Scarab Sages

I hope I'm right in saying that, in short, PFS adventures need to be self-contained, non-epic and utilise the PF world as much as possible, whilst not influencing the meta-plot.

(PS. I for one still get confused between devils and demons).

Cheers! :D

Liberty's Edge

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Further thoughts:

Recognise that you are taking a major risk by attempting to explore (or even provide a hook into for a later adventure) a part of the world mentioned in the Campaign Setting, but not requested by name for involvement in the outline. For example at least one person in a perils of the pirate pact submission posted on the boards afterwards that he/she had been criticised heavily for having the rare text devised as a hook to lead a future PFS adventure into the crashed starship in Numeria.
Also bad is trying to 'fill in' details regarding a major part of the setting without having been asked for an adventure which does that. Amongst the feedback regarding submissions for 18 posted on these boards, one entry was criticised for attempting to link the adventure to the demise of Aroden, and another for making assumptions about the Pathfinder Society of a century earlier.
(I'm guessing the call for #18 to feature 'the pathfinder society's darkest secret' may have led to some entries going too far in these sort of directions.)

This primarily depends on the scope of what you're exploring. Taking a minor footnote and expanding on that a bit is significantly different than going into the demise of Aroden (in fact in one of the seminars at GenCon, James and Erik I think had come up with something about the demise of Aroden for a module or AP and Lisa said "No, we just put out the campaign setting, let's not rewrite what's in it already").

But if you tied your adventure to say, Windsong Abbey, you could probably get away with it if it's a good adventure.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Coridan wrote:

This primarily depends on the scope of what you're exploring. Taking a minor footnote and expanding on that a bit is significantly different than going into the demise of Aroden (in fact in one of the seminars at GenCon, James and Erik I think had come up with something about the demise of Aroden for a module or AP and Lisa said "No, we just put out the campaign setting, let's not rewrite what's in it already").

But if you tied your adventure to say, Windsong Abbey, you could probably get away with it if it's a good adventure.

I had the party go through Sevenarches in my PFS#17 submission and Josh gave a comment to the effect that the scenarios don't have the room to detail a whole city, so any expansion on existing details should be kept to a minimum I think. My reading of the comment is that the scenarios are not for new world detail, but rather cool, self-contained adventures. That said, there was a brief writeup of Diobel in Hydra's Fang, so I don't know what's acceptable and what isn't.

Dark Archive

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Also bad is trying to 'fill in' details regarding a major part of the setting without having been asked for an adventure which does that. Amongst the feedback regarding submissions for 18 posted on these boards, one entry was criticised for attempting to link the adventure to the demise of Aroden, and another for making assumptions about the Pathfinder Society of a century earlier.

(I'm guessing the call for #18 to feature 'the pathfinder society's darkest secret' may have led to some entries going too far in these sort of directions.)

I don't want to drag this thread too far OT, but as it was mentioned here and is related to the matter of what's asked for in a spec, mine was the submission that was linked to the demise of Aroden. Comments on what I read into the spec for #18 spoilered so as to not take up too much space here...

Spoiler:

based on the spec referencing the vault having been sealed for over a hundred years & the vault hiding the PFS's darkest secret, and on Josh's response to the thread "Open Call: Pathfinder Society Scenario 18 [SPOILERS]", I felt that there were some pointers in the direction of something big and related to Aroden's death. Maybe I read too much into it, maybe I just ran with it too far.

Sure, the reference to when the vault was sealed doesn’t say exactly a hundred years ago, or even just over a hundred years, it could be 101 or a million years ago, but stating "more than a century" ago gives a reference point, an order of magnitude to work with. If you get asked when you last saw Fred you don't say it was "over an hour ago" if it was last March, so let's start by seeing if anything significant happened over-but-approximately a century ago. So I'm thinking that the vault was sealed around the time of Aroden's death.

The objective stated in the spec is to "keep the Society's darkest secret forever hidden"; unless the decemvirate are entirely composed of paladins this is probably going to be worse than an overdue library book. The spec is asking about the biggest, baddest thing in the history of a world-spanning guild of tomb-raiders ruled by a mysterious cabal. Maybe it isn't actually very big after all, but it's as serious as any secret about the Society gets, any later "big reveals" about the Society's past have to be smaller than it -- if #18 says that a century ago a Decemvir made a pact with a balor then later additions to the PFS history can't say that the entire original Decemvirate founded the PFS on the orders of Orcus. So I'm thinking we need a dark secret that casts a big enough shadow that there can be other big, bad secrets revealed in the future.

When prompted, Josh's response to the issues of off-limit topics and the magnitude of the dark secret seemed (to me) to be to be not to worry about them too much -- that they wouldn't be fundamental problems. This reinforced my initial assumption that we were being pointed in the direction of Aroden’s death.

Based on the submissions other have posted I think that this initial assumption of mine was clearly wrong -- I read far too much into the vault having been sealed for more than a century, and ran with it too far. Similarly in reading other people's comments on #17 it seems many got hooked on the mention of it being set near to Numeria and went straight for the Silver Mountain.

I don't think we know of any actual blacklist, but based on Josh's responses to #17 and #18 things to tread very carefully around probably include -- Aroden's death, the Test of the Starstone, identities of members of the Decemvirate, Numeria's Silver Mountain, Formorians, other worlds, introducing new monsters or rules. Similarly I think we can assume that (for example) if an adventure's set in the Worldwound then it's primarily to be treated as a demon-generator, or if the scenario's in Irrisen then don't touch on the imminent return of Baba Yaga and the changing-of-the-ice-queen.

Also it's worth remembering that what you think you write is different to what other people think they read -- even if you're only touching lightly on a sensitive subject you need to make it clear that you're not delving deeply into it; a couple of points Josh made about my submissions provoked immediate thoughts of "but that's not what I meant" and a realisation that certain things needed more explanation including, but which would have eaten up even more of the word count. So even if you only use a "problem" element as background material rather than seeking to reveal its secrets, you then need to spend another 20-25 words saying that the secrets won't be revealed, by which point you might as well have picked something less problematic.

So one key suggestion I'd make would be that even if you do feel there are pointers to something big in the spec then there are still things off-limits that need avoiding, and even if you think the spec is pointing in that direction then touch on them very lightly. E.g. unless the spec says to reveal the identity of a member of the Decemvirate then don't write anything that hinges on such a matter.

Personally, if I submit anything for future open calls (and I'm not sure that I will) then I'll probably (i) keep it as vanilla as possible with a sprinkling of Golarion verbs for flavour, (ii) keep the encounters down to 20-25 words each to fit more information into the summary, and (iii) focus on removing problems rather than adding *wow* -- i.e. aim for average, recognise that my submissions aren't going to be in contention but hopefully at least get to the stage where the feedback is able to give me some idea of how to get things right rather than simply not get them wrong.


Callum Finlayson wrote:
...some interesting things clarifying his personal experience...

Thank you Callum. I've been hoping that my more recent posts here, will contain thoughts helpful to people looking to write submissions for #19 & #20, and I don't think that you've gone too far off topic with explaining in such detail where you think you erred with your #18 submission.

To add to what Callum has said, I will say that if you invest anything in a submission, (and especially if you are a first-timer for this sort of thing, as I was) be prepared for the shock when it gets rejected. It sucks, badly, and it likely will continue to do so for hours- or even days- when something you have put a personal effort into gets thrown out, no matter what the reason.
Steel yourself; for there are industry professional freelancers out there applying, and posters such as Yoda, with encyclopediac knowledge of the setting- the odds that you will be the next Clinton Boomer or Christine Schneider able to go toe toe to with these big guns and win are not in your favour.
But forewarned and braced, enter bravely anyway; for the only way that you will ever find out if the game is worth the candle is by playing it.
And if after that first shock you decide that it is worth carrying on with and continue, then somewhere down the line, in seventy or eighty rejections' time, your presentation & writing skills honed by the endless (and at times likely futile-seeming struggle), you may finally get a breakthrough, and join the stars in the RPG firmament.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

With respect to all the above posters:

Before I submitted my proposal, I asked some other folks to read through them and offer comments. In every case, the blunt comments ("Your first paragraph is dull, don't bury the good stuff; that's a name that players will make fun of; this encounter seems tacked on; your plot doesn't climax, it just stops.") were much more useful than the polite "What a nice idea!" encouragements.

And Josh is providing feedback, too. That's huge.

The only time an open call doesn't generate rejections is when there's only one response. I've sent query letters and pitched ideas before, and *almost always* the response is a useless "Thank you. Your proposal does not meet our current needs. Good luck." form letter. In this case, you have the editor himself telling you *exactly* what he's looking for.

I'm going into this with the attitude that it's a Writer's Workshop. If my pitch gets selected, great. If not, great. I'm developing my chops as a writer.

Dave Sim once wrote, "Every artist has 100 lousy pages stuck in him or her. You can't get to the good ones until you work through the bad ones first." The same is true of pitches.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Josh, a question: how do you want to handle "team" proposals? I'm presuming that you'd want to deal with just one named author, who'd be the person responsible for submitting future iterations of the work?

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Charles Evans 25 wrote:
Steel yourself; for there are industry professional freelancers out there applying, and posters such as Yoda, with encyclopediac knowledge of the setting- the odds that you will be the next Clinton Boomer or Christine Schneider able to go toe toe to with these big guns and win are not in your favour.

Just to be clear, I submitted a pitch, but got the same rejection as all but two people. My hours of work on the wiki didn't give me an upper hand over anyone. And I know of quite a few freelancers who are active on the boards who also didn't pitch the right outline to Josh. Given that neither of the winners has a title credit to their name and only a few credits in Dungeon and Dragon at the most, I don't think that their participation in the open calls is in no way unfair.

I think that had you or I or anyone else written a proposal that wowed Josh in just the right way the cards could have fallen in our favor. Regardless of who actually gets to write the scenario, I find the exercise of coming up with new and inventive plots and then structuring and writing them to be a lot of fun and fodder for my own games, so there's no real loss if I don't "win." It's all how you approach it.


(edited)
Nevertheless, Yoda, you or even I are (by virtue of our experience with the setting) in theory moderately better placed in terms of knowledge of little bits and pieces of 'fluff' we could throw in to enhance submissions, than someone who picked up a player's guide to Second Darkness yesterday.
The professional freelancers who know how to present an application and have a whole arsenal of attention-grabbing tricks to deploy are even better placed. The sense of what I was trying to convey was that throwing your heart and soul into the effort is not likely to get you anything other than feedback on where you went wrong in the first paragraph, because experience more than anything else is what most likely counts.
I would agree with you whole-heartedly that the whole approach in which you go into such an Open Call affects the impact of rejection.
I am trying to give some perspective of the situation (and encouragement, to take the sting out of what will follow) to anyone who goes into future open calls, in the way in which I did with this past one. I am trying to post things which I wish that I had seen somewhere before I went in for #18. I don't know if there is even one person that these thoughts will help, but I am endeavouring now to be constructive/helpful regarding this process.


Chris Mortika wrote:
Josh, a question: how do you want to handle "team" proposals? I'm presuming that you'd want to deal with just one named author, who'd be the person responsible for submitting future iterations of the work?

I received a team proposal for each of 17 and 18 and I don't have a problem with it. Don't go crazy and submit with five other authors--every author gets paid a percentage of the total pay for a scenario.

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