First, a question for the judges: Are we allowed to submit an item that is somewhat similar, but almost entirely revised from our previous year's submission(and only our own submissions)?
With that out of the way, how many of you read feedback and thought you should have sent X in instead? Or did you have a previous superior revision, before you glomped on loads of prose and mechanics? Well, why not give it another shot? This is also a chance to see the Round 2 that might have been!
I'm still in the process of revising, but my original submission was about half the length of my utterly boring "Lorekeeper's Lexicon", and had some more interesting mechanics to it. Then I decided it didn't do enough, and added a whole bunch of skill bonuses to make it more "useful".
What does hindsight tell you about your item/monster? What could have been?
First, a question for the judges: Are we allowed to submit an item that is somewhat similar, but almost entirely revised from our previous year's submission(and only our own submissions)?
I'm not a judge, but I can borrow a word of advice from many, many fiction editors: Even if you can submit a revised version, are you certain that you want to?
Repeat submissions usually start out with a few hits against them. Chief amongst these is the the fact that the same judges already read this item once, and rejected it. If they see it again, their reaction is most likely to be, "Hey, didn't I read this one before? And reject it?". The improvement would have to be both drastic and immediately evident to get over that.
Another point about repeat submissions is that they're difficult to judge fairly. The instinctive question is not "is this submission good in its own right?", but rather "how does this version stack up against the previous one?". That's not where a judge's focus should be - he should be comparing submissions to each other, not to earlier versions of themselves.
I know that in fiction submissions, the prime edict on this subject is: no matter how glowingly an editor speaks of your manuscript, he/she does not want to receive a revision unless he/she explicitly asked for one. Translated over here, I'd say: even if the judges do allow revisions between contests, it's probably a better idea to submit something new and fresh unless the judges showed a lot of interest in the basic idea, or part of it, and gave the general impression that a revised version would really impress them. Otherwise - why start with something they've already seen? You've got a good 11 months - plenty of time to come up with something new and fantastic! :)
Your second question is very interesting - in such a tense and constrained contest as this, there might be a lot of gold never sent in... Ladies and gentlemen, any intriguing treasures to share?
No interest in a rework of a submitted item. :)
As to question the second, hindsight tells me that I still should have submitted what I did because of what I learned about the contest. I've entered twice. Each time, the item has been IMO wondrous technically, but it was not enough. Had I submitted something different this last time, or revised what I put in, I still think the net outcome would be the same. So I'd rather learn from what I did than worry about how I (perhaps) could have made it better.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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I agree.
I thought about resubmitting an item I submitted in 2008, that I liked but was over the word count. I also thought about lifting something I'd done for my home game.
I decided against either, and came up with a fresh entry for each of the rounds of the competition.
Obviously, I fell short with my monster submission, but coming up with new ideas was a good learning experience. I also got the opportunity to learn from the comments people generously provided and learn from my failures.
If you recycle old material you rob yourself of the practice of creating a completely new item. This competition is meant to help prepare us for freelancing, and you won't get much opportunity to resubmit rejected ideas as a freelancer.
I think RPG Superstar works best if you approach each round with a clean slate and do your best to come up with the most awesome entry you can think of.
Just my 2¢.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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To answer the OP's question:
I had one item I thought was more creative than the one I ended up submitting, but I didn't like the way it was coming together. It was too focused on a race of monsters and I thought too specific to be much use for the party. More of a DM's "story" item than something players would use a lot.
I was worried the item I sent would be seen as too derivative, but I ended up just submitting it anyways because I liked it and thought it was cool.
For monsters, I really liked the one I decided on (still do). I had a couple other ideas, but they were either weak or done before (I googled the concepts I had to see if I could find anything similar).
I purposely chose not to do an aberration or undead, even though I had a couple ideas I liked. I thought there would be a glut of those types of monsters.
In retrospect, my vision of the monster didn't come through clearly enough in the description, I piled on a few too many adjectives, and I chose a weak name. I think I could have made some of the powers cooler and explained them better, and thought through more of its motivations and adventure hooks. I ended up creating more of a wandering monster than a monster that actively sought out the PCs or drew them to it.
The time crunch ended up hurting more than I expected. I had to work late Tuesday night and travel for work on Wednesday, so I didn't get a chance to start on the monster until Thursday evening. I knew I wouldn't be able to work on it at all on Friday, so I had to submit it that same night. I think if I had been able to prioritize the contest better I could have honed the concept. Even just having a night to sleep on it and revisit it would have been helpful I think.
That's not meant as an excuse; those who spent more time on their entries deserve the votes they got. Everyone has their own problems, and part of this contest is working through them to do your best work. That's the point of the short deadlines; deadlines in real life don't accept excuses, and I think it's great that this contest mirrors that.
First, a question for the judges: Are we allowed to submit an item that is somewhat similar, but almost entirely revised from our previous year's submission(and only our own submissions)?
Well, the R1 rules say this:
So you can submit anything from 100% new compared to last year, 0% new compared to last year, or anywhere in between.
Good to know. A true Superstar has more than one Wondrous item(or armor, or monster, etc) up their sleeve, or they wouldn't get very far. It's on the table, but the idea folder is slowly filling for next year.
@Seth - Honestly, I really loved the Chrysalis, weak name and all. In fact, I think the name was one of the things that hurt it most, though it's a relatively minor foible. I really liked that it wasn't a super evil nasty, but could end many lives with a thought. I thought it had some very colorful text, and can't wait to see a statblock for it. I can safely say that if you bring your A game, you are likely to go far next year.