*sigh* I've been using formatting as my tie-breaker. I finally got two decent items -- one slightly more SIAC/SAK, the other with a mechanic I'm not sure I like -- and of course both (for what feels like the first time yet) have perfect templating.
Sometimes you just can't win for losing. : }
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I'm either a vastly gentler soul than most, or I've been really, really lucky with my pairings, because honestly, I've seen very few items that fall into the 'Ack, ptui, BEGONE' category.
Boring items? Yeah.
Ideas with an interesting concept and failed execution? Yeah.
Items that make me want to personally install a spell-and-grammar check on the creator's systems? Yeah.
Sometimes even fitting into all of the above categories? Yeah.
But honestly, even most of the 'bad' items are passable. Not superstar items, but after having spent the past couple of years reading every item in the critique and also-ran threads, I wasn't expecting a surfeit of absolutely amazing items that would make me weep as I had to make a Sophie's choice between them. The occasional awesome item is a nice thing to come across, though.
Anyhow, here's my voting process: the item that has the more intriguing name usually gets read first, regardless of any other considerations. Two 'meh' names result in the shorter entry being read first. I'm being careful to read all the way through and not judge based on a first sentence; I've found my opinion changing on a few items as I let the full text digest. Failure to message board format (lack of italics, etc.) properly doesn't really have much of a bearing; failure to use the actual format does, though. (Or at least makes me condescendingly cluck my tongue and double check the other item to make sure it's not noticeably worse.) Oddly enough, items that don't have the item name in the entry itself don't bug me as much as I thought they would. (Though when noticed, tongue-clucking is still involved.)
Statistically, here's where I'm at:
Just finished my 200th vote pairing, thus, 400 items.
Out of that, deducting repeat viewings, I've seen 326 individual items.
I've been separating every item to a 'good' or 'bad' folder. (See above on my somewhat different notion on 'bad', however.) Once there, I'll highlight items that interest me (either cream of the crop awesome items, or items that I might have judged prematurely- either items not as good as I thought they were, or 'bad' items that might really deserve a second chance should they come up for review again.)
Currently there's 254 items in the 'bad' folder, with about thirty of them highlit for review. (Either by my own choice or by the way things have turned out; there's one item that has been repeated four times and I've chosen it over the other selection every time, for instance, which makes me wonder if it's just lucky or subconsciously I like it more than I realize.)
There's 72 items in the 'good' folder. Out of those, 16 are currently highlighted as being potentially superstar-worthy.
It will be very interesting to see which of my superstar worthy picks actually are superstar worthy; it's probably a fair bet that I have weird tastes. (Every year there's always half a dozen or so items I see in the critique threads that I honestly think should have been in the top 32.) Still, I'm willing to guess at least three or four of my 'awesome!' picks so far are likely to line up with the community. (That and I'm still fairly early in the voting process, so i'm sure there's a lot more to see.)
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You are very lucky or very kind, or both. There's no way I've seen 16 items I'd call Superstar. I'm trying to give big ideas credit when execution sufferd, I've given up on clear writing and good templating. The significant majority of the time I'm voting for the frequently repeating item that sucks the least. I hope by two hundred pairings I'm onto a better crop of items.
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I mostly ignore the technical details, like the cost and crafting requirements and focus more on the effect of the item. I pick the effect that I understand the best, is the most imaginative, and most original. The quality of writing if a big part of it too, but mostly I look at what the item does. Price, formatting, and other details are tie breakers.
You are very lucky or very kind, or both. There's no way I've seen 16 items I'd call Superstar.
after three days of voting (roughly 5 hours a day) I am up to 8 (9 if I count my own, but I am probably biased in that regard)
I've got two, three if I count my own item as well.
I've got this feeling that I am asked to judge which is the worst submission.
...I vote down items that will stop the game for 15 minutes while the GM figures out how to run the effects of the magic item, or those that require significant bookkeeping otherwise.
I also don't select items that are an obvious attempt to circumvent a particular rule that seems to be a pet peeve of the builder, nor those which rebuild a character.
Regarding the first sentence, that's one of the things that took me down the second time I submitted. I can't say enough that people need to be careful about that. Is it creative? Possibly. But if you put too much work in the DM's pocket, no one is going to thank you for it.
As for the second sentence, I don't know how far your pet peeve goes, but one of the judges stated that wondrous items are supposed to break the rules if even just a little bit. The +2's or such are boring. How can you change the rules with your item while applying a spell to it. It's out of the box thinking.
This was simply meant for consideration and not to rain on your opinion. If I came off as a jerk, then I'm very sorry.
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I've got two, three if I count my own item as well.
I've got this feeling that I am asked to judge which is the worst submission.
Ditto.Except I think I've seen exactly one Superstar item (not counting my own, since I haven't seen it), and no more that 3-4 decent enought items. I am literally choosing an item I can't stand because the other item is just that bad.
It has to change soon. I mightt cry.
I've got two, three if I count my own item as well.
I've got this feeling that I am asked to judge which is the worst submission.
Ditto.Except I think I've seen exactly one Superstar item (not counting my own, since I haven't seen it), and no more that 3-4 decent enought items. I am literally choosing an item I can't stand because the other item is just that bad.
It has to change soon. I mightt cry.
Just saw another really good one, Paizo hooks you that way. They show you 25 bad pairs and then one good one to keep you going for a few hours more.
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I'm finding I'm voting for a lot of bland items, because they are being paired against items that would be an absolute pain in the Asmodeus to run in an actual game.
This was simply meant for consideration and not to rain on your opinion. If I came off as a jerk, then I'm very sorry.
Nah, no need to apologize; you didn't come off as a jerk at all. When I vote something down because it circumvents a rule, it's because it's egregious and would, say, totally unbalance the entire treasure/gp system. I can't give specifics, but the ones I've voted down are extreme cases and we'd probably agree on them, CoF.
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I'd agree with you Treppa. Anything requiring huge time investment form the DM gets a nig down vote from me. Stagnating play is a real no-noin my book. I may well have seen some oft he same items as you, several I voted down were blatantly unbalanced and hugely undervalued. That said on at least 2 occasions I voted for a poorl;y proced and slightly unbalanced itme because the idea was so good.
Sadly the more i see the less excited I am about my own item - submitted too early and had the great ideas after that. Oh well
How I vote:
1. Formatting.
If the item if well formatted I'll read it first.
2. Naming.
I cannot stress enough how many generic names for items I have seen while voting. Heck, most of the names have been X of the X, or just really uninspired. I usually don't vote for such items unless they somehow really get my attention fast.
3. Originality
There were some items that are really well written and designed, but lack originality. I am more likely to overlook a bit of poor writing if the idea is original.
4. Writing and flavor
I only need two or three sentences explaining the look and feel of the item. I have run into items that are 70% flavor and 30% rules. There's just no need for so much flavor text.
The thing I pay the least attention to is the pricing. It very easy to miscalculate and I only object if its very wildly out of whack.
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In general I will vote for a poorly formatted camping item over one that requires the user to eat a baby or something similar.
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The thing I pay the least attention to is the pricing. It very easy to miscalculate and I only object if its very wildly out of whack.
So many items in the artifact price range! I have even seen a few artifacts that are affordable to 4th level PCs...
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I'm just letting my cat decide. Like most of us, she hates backstory and poor grammar. She's a real sucker for inventiveness and originality, but don't even bother with anything canine related.
The thing I pay the least attention to is the pricing. It very easy to miscalculate and I only object if its very wildly out of whack.So many items in the artifact price range! I have even seen a few artifacts that are affordable to 4th level PCs...
Yeah, some pretty crazy pricing can be found. As I said before, I've seen items whose price aren't even numbers. Don't know how those didn't get auto-rejected.
I'm just letting my cat decide. Like most of us, she hates backstory and poor grammar. She's a real sucker for inventiveness and originality, but don't even bother with anything canine related.
Heh. Just read this, then switched back to the tab I'm voting in only to find a cat-related item (about which I'll obviously say no more). Strange timing...
I'm just letting my cat decide. Like most of us, she hates backstory and poor grammar. She's a real sucker for inventiveness and originality, but don't even bother with anything canine related.Heh. Just read this, then switched back to the tab I'm voting in only to find a cat-related item (about which I'll obviously say no more). Strange timing...
Cats run the internet. I thought this was a widely accepted fact?
*shudder* That would be the worst.
/me is a dog person.
I have now seen 100's of pairings, which is probably 100's of items but they are kind of blurring into a sameness haze. This I find is useful, the Superstar items really stand out I find now. I have seen interesting threads about item types crop up again this year, the most interesting of which is the old hash about spell in a can items.
Let me clarify how I am voting on these.
Firstly, there is a place for a spell in a can item, it is a book of items. It is not a superstar contest. Spell in a can are those bread and butter items designers use for functional needs as they arise, they are not the "ohhh" or "aaah" of their work.
Secondly, you are trying to get into the Top 32 of a Superstar competition. A competition to find the shining, imaginative, clever designers of the future.
Ask yourself this, would you turn up for a job interview with your bread and butter work examples, or would you turn up with examples that won you a promotion, or closed the deal on an important order. Don't get me wrong, there is as I have said, a place in the game for spell in a can items, it just isn't really as an entry for this competition.
I want to see clever twists and things that make me go "ohhh, shiny", not "meh, another +x to abc". So for the above, replace spell in a can with "stat bonus", "speed bonus", "skill bonus", "save bonus", "attribute bonus".
If an item only does one of the above, just like spell in a can, it is up against the firing squad wall for me.
I want to see your "Sunday best", not your "Monday to Friday" average. If your item is a spell in a can, that is imaginative, clever, bends the rules in interesting ways without breaking game balance, then it has a reasonable chance I will vote for it when it shows up.
I am looking for the interesting, thought provoking items that make me look at the game rules they play with. These types of item are constantly winning the vote from me, even if the grammar, spelling, formatting are weak - that is something that can be fixed, but imagination, that's the gift I am seeking to see.
This is my criteria. I hope it makes sense.
I find myself becoming a bit more jaded and brutal the more that I vote. At the moment I feel like I am wielding a giant scythe wrought from the finger-bones of the mediocre and maladroit. I swing in broad swaths too and fro in a vast field of the weak and infirm, cutting them down with a mirthless giggle and glazed-over eyes. Once in a great while, a single pristine flower will rise forth and glimmer in the dark field and I say, "What? What is this?! Is..is this a clever and insightful item that I don't want to gouge my eyes out with a corndog after reading it? An item I actually want to use as a DM and a player?! Thank you, oh Lord, thank you for this grand blessing, this boon of boons!!". And a single tear of joy runs down my soul-crushed face.
At his point I wish we could just see all the items at once, make 32 check marks and call it a day. Ah well, c'est la vie.
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I've voted for probably about 6-8 hours since voting opened, maybe a few more.. I'm noticing now that many of the terrible entries are no longer showing up, and that I get more and more "good" items. (I saw my item once, on the first day of voting.) Though I am still seeing items I haven't voted on yet, many of them I have. I do have a few favorites so far, and I'm fairly sure they will be selected to the top 32. Mine isn't one of them. Mine is rather bland now that I see all the competition. I only learned of the contest the day it opened, and after racking my brain for ideas, finely settled on something I thought might have a glimmer of hope... I don't think it will pass muster. I do not like this voting over and over again, at least not for a month. That seems entirely too long, but then again, not everyone can sit around voting for hours on end (like me) so I guess it helps there. At this point though, formatting is one tie-breaker, price is another (too many items over 200k gp!!). After that, I judge on a "Cheesey Scale" or the "Makes GMing difficult" stand by. It starts to get much more subjective at this point.
My voting criteria seems to be going:
Is this effect interesting
Does this effect make sense
Is it flavorful without too much flavor(evocotive without backstory or telling me uses)
Would I want this on a character
Would I want this on a character too much
Can I easily fix mistakes to make it something I would want in a game.
Basically, I care more about being inspired by the item than its exact effects. Anything inspiring can be tweeked to be brought into line on the power scale, and minor errors can always be fixed.
I'm amused that I voted for the one that had by far the worste grammar I have seen. To be fair to the person, it read like English was not his primary language.
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I will say there is one thing that will get an automatic no vote from me;if it is a cursed item disguised as a wonderous item. If you crave using it, it has effects that come back on the user, etc etc, it is cursed.
The point is to have a wonderous item and cursed items are a different catagory (though cursed items are cool, especially rings) as far as this voter is concerned you have violated the rules.
And it means a couple turkey's have gotten my vote.
The point is to have a wonderous item and cursed items are a different catagory...
Between those two, only cursed items are an actual category...as there's no such thing as a wonderous item category. ;-)
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I was quite surprised at the number of items with explicit drawbacks. While perhaps more of a strict categorization than the CRB uses, if it has a drawback, it's a cursed item to me. Rather than creating a balanced ability, they're tacking on a drawback as a way to try and balance it out. I don't see myself ever having a character purchase such an item, and my vote for it when divvying up loot is that it would go straight to the "turn into gold" pile.
The necklace of fireballs are bad enough. I think more people use that for its "curse" than its intended use!
I was quite surprised at the number of items with explicit drawbacks. While perhaps more of a strict categorization than the CRB uses, if it has a drawback, it's a cursed item to me. Rather than creating a balanced ability, they're tacking on a drawback as a way to try and balance it out. I don't see myself ever having a character purchase such an item, and my vote for it when divvying up loot is that it would go straight to the "turn into gold" pile.
The necklace of fireballs are bad enough. I think more people use that for its "curse" than its intended use!
For me something that a user willingly accepts as a tradeoff (and that can be undone by the user) is not a curse. But that's just me.
That's true. As I alluded to, I wasn't using cursed in the exact manner that the CRB uses. For me, a better categorization would be something like "wondrsed" item, as it's partially a wondrous item and partially a cursed item. Plus, it's a fun word to say.
Actually, having just looked for what Pathfinder considers to be a cursed item, I suppose I was unintentionally using it correctly:
Cursed items are magic items with some sort of potentially negative impact. Occasionally they mix bad with good, forcing characters to make difficult choices. Cursed items are almost never made intentionally. Instead they are the result of rushed work, inexperienced crafters, or a lack of proper components. While many of these items still have functions, they either do not work as intended or come with serious drawbacks.
With this in mind, perhaps the necklace of fireballs aren't cursed items due the positives outweighing the negatives. Or maybe it's just prior edition inertia.
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I assume that the items were assigned an ELO-rating which rises or falls with each vote depending on the score of the compared item. Also I think item pairs are constructed based on the relative elo ratings or else a mediocre item could end up top because, by chance, it was always paired to very bad items.
This made me read the items much more thouroghly at the beginning (when ratings are close to one another and every pick might matter) and only cursory right now as I assume that most items are already out of the race by now and it doesn't matter much which of those two I give my vote.
But every now and then I spot an item that I think of "quite good" and these I compare throughly to their counterparts (which often are also quite good).
Most important for me is the visual image that the title and the description evokes and the effect that the item has (novel, befitting, useful).
Only for those items I also bother to consider template, pricing and overall presentation.
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I'm to a point that both entries are almost always items I've seen before. So about 8 times out of 10 I'm voting against the one I like least almost automatically. Rarely do I have to consider anything carefully.
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I assume that the items were assigned an ELO-rating which rises or falls with each vote depending on the score of the compared item. Also I think item pairs are constructed based on the relative elo ratings or else a mediocre item could end up top because, by chance, it was always paired to very bad items.
No, I don't think that's how the system works at all.
Items don't have a score of any kind; the voting data is simply the collection of comparisons each item's been in. The system will ultimately be looking at "paths" through the entries:
- If A > B > C, then we know A > C.
- If we know A > B, and also C > B, then we know B's lower-ranked, but we don't know the order between A and C.
- If A > B > C, and also A > D > C, than we know A's best and C's worst, but we don't know what if B > D or B < D.
- This is all made more complicated because the results collect votes from different people - so one voter may vote A > B > C, while another voter may vote C > A. The mathematical algorithm does a lot of work to come up with reasonable results even with conflicting data like this.
When all the data's in, the math magically builds up the strongest "paths" through the data, and finds the items that've come out the best. Since every item is compared to many, many other items, each one can be placed in the final ranking with great confidence. The odds of a mid-range item not getting paired to anything better are vanishingly small.
This is all made more complicated because the results collect votes from different people - so one voter may vote A > B > C, while another voter may vote C > A. The mathematical algorithm does a lot of work to come up with reasonable results even with conflicting data like this.
That's why someone needs to submit a Mathe-magician archetype. The algorithm is mathe-magical!
I'm to a point that both entries are almost always items I've seen before. So about 8 times out of 10 I'm voting against the one I like least almost automatically. Rarely do I have to consider anything carefully.
I fall into this trap a bit as well. I am consciously trying not to, as it worries me that I am not giving a fair shake to some items. Another re-read doesn't hurt and I KNOW I'm not as experienced as SKR, any of the judges, or probably a lot of the posters on these boards.
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I'm to a point that both entries are almost always items I've seen before. So about 8 times out of 10 I'm voting against the one I like least almost automatically. Rarely do I have to consider anything carefully.
I can tell I have invested way too much time voting. About 19 out of 20 of items I have already seen....
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...The odds of a mid-range item not getting paired to anything better are vanishingly small.
Could be, we don't know. But the ELO system is used for a reason, it provides a good ranking in far less tries than the compare-method.
If we say that about 2000 items have made it, then there are 199900 possible pairings.
If pairings would be fully random then the item at "rank" 31 would have a chance of 30/199900 of being paired against an item that it needs to be paired against (multiple times!) to really see if it is better.
I would say, that is a problem, because I guess that there won't be hundreds of million of votes that would be needed to assure that the top items are voted against each other very very often.
I've just seen an item whose crafting price is higher than its buying price. I have now seen everything.
I've just seen an item whose crafting price is higher than its buying price. I have now seen everything.
It works for the IPhone. Maybe the item has a subscription plan to recoup the cost of manufacture? :P
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I've just seen an item whose crafting price is higher than its buying price. I have now seen everything.It works for the IPhone. Maybe the item has a subscription plan to recoup the cost of manufacture? :P
I feel it would be remiss to not post the obligatory Order of the Stick link here:
The primary criteria to me is how interesting the item is and how well the text keeps me captivated. If I can't get through a paragraph or two without being bored, you're doing it wrong.
When examining a pair of items, if one is 100 words long with a great, novel and simple idea but has formatting errors and grammar flaws, while the other one is flawlessly formatted, written and priced but is 300 words long and loses me by the second paragraph, I will vote for that simple, flawed item every time. I don't think pushing your word count limit is bad if you need it, but I do think using up word count needlessly is a poor design choice.
Item cost is the last thing I consider when looking at these items - I could care less how the item is priced, but if two really good items are otherwise about equal on all other fronts, then I'll compare their pricing as an absolute last-resort tiebreaker.
I have yet to use the Neither button because both items presented were just too good to decide - inevitably, that button is used either when both items are "meh", or when both are eye-rippingly bad.
I have also voted down just about every item referencing Tian Xia, Minkai, or any other part of the Dragon Empires - partly out of raw spite, and partly out of a disregard for laziness. Oriental items need to be phenomenally good to get my vote, and thus far what I see is designers namedropping location-based flavor onto an otherwise-unremarkable design. If you can make the same thing Taldan or Korvosan without substantially changing the mechanics, it's not a novel idea. This might not be a fair assessment on my part, but I'm also not required to be fair - I'm required to vote for the item I think is better if at all possible, and that item is almost never Oriental-flavored, in my estimation.
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If we say that about 2000 items have made it, then there are 199900 possible pairings.
Not to be "that guy," but the stats teacher in me would like to claim that 2000-choose-2 would be 2000*1999/2 = 1,999,000 pairings. Which only helps to support your point. But it also pushes me to hope that the number of entries is far, far fewer than 2000. Even with a relatively lower number like 1300 entries, we're almost at 850k pairings!
With a high level of entries, one person will not be able to hit each pairing**. Sadly, I think each person just makes up a part of the crowdsource-voter-hivemind. I've seen some people with lists who are focused on which of the the two items in a given pairing should join their superstar list. But since I won't see every entry, for me it all has to come down to just the pairing itself; which one is more Superstar?
** This is NOT a dare. Arkos Inc. will not be found liable for anyone who tries this at home.
I don't feel the need to see every pairing, but I would like to see every item (if at all possible). Of course I have no way of knowing if I have done so.
I must confess I find myself more and more tempted to vote in new items just for novelty'a sake... good thing I'm aware of this phenomenon and keep fighting that initial urge. :)
I just came across a lukewarm item twice in a row. Each time it was paired against something terrible (one was an item that literally does NOTHING in game terms and the other does nothing other than potentially kill its user). I chose the lukewarm item and it is now climbing the ranks.
Just read an item that I thought was bad and was going to vote against it by default, only to have the other entry turn out so rife with run-on sentences and misspellings that I ended up voting for the first one after all. :p
I just came across a lukewarm item twice in a row. Each time it was paired against something terrible (one was an item that literally does NOTHING in game terms and the other does nothing other than potentially kill its user). I chose the lukewarm item and it is now climbing the ranks.
it is not climbing the ranks so much as being put ahead of items that are objectively worse than it. remember that items do not get a plus for a vote and a minus for a non-vote, each vote simply ranks that item against the other item. there is no "vote tally".
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Crap- cat jumped on my keyboard and voted for me. Not sure what she picked.