Status Report: RPG Superstar 2012

Good luck to all ye future PFS adventure writers.

And remember, it's not whether you win or lose it's how you place the blame.

;-D

The date on this blog post is "Monday, December 5, 2011".

The date on this blog post is "Monday, December 5, 2011".

Whoops! This has been corrected.

By the way, it's more than 12 items in the Keep folder now. ;-)

I wrote it yesterday afternoon. :p

By the way, it's more than 12 items in the Keep folder now. ;-)

The judges could create an inside pool to guess the amount of items in the final keep pile.

Remember everyone, post all your submissions on the last day to deluge the judges!

Argh, the suspense is killing me. Why can't it be Jan 6 already. I keep thinking about what I could have done to make my submission better or cleaner or anything and it is going to drive me insane. Just 3 more weeks.

Wow. I haven't done anything more than jot down some notes about a few items rattling around in my head. I'm looking forward to the weekend to start working on a rough draft. Count me in for the last-minute deluge once again.

Argh, the suspense is killing me. Why can't it be Jan 6 already. I keep thinking about what I could have done to make my submission better or cleaner or anything and it is going to drive me insane. Just 3 more weeks.

We'll have another 3 weeks to wait after that before the Top 32 are announced so you get to hold on to that nervous energy and worry a bit longer like the rest of us! ;)

Hah! Since I submitted my item a couple of days ago, I've got a legitimate shot at being one of the "more than 12 items". Excellent! :)

But please Paizo! Give more information on round 2! It'll keep me busy for the next 5+ weeks while I do, ahem, work. ;)

I could be one of those lucky 12, but I can find more and more fault with what I submitted - One of the great benefits of RPG Superstar, with every item submitted (over the years) you gain experience in what it is lacking. This sadly occurs after the fact (submission).

But in truth, I want to be found wrong with the above statement, I want to be one of the 12.

If they've got 12 now then they will end up with 80 in 5 weeks time, and the judging will be stricter. What is cool and a keeper now won;t be cool or kept in 2 weeks time.

If they've got 12 now then they will end up with 80 in 5 weeks time, and the judging will be stricter. What is cool and a keeper now won;t be cool or kept in 2 weeks time.

Not necessarily true. We try to put reasonably good items in the keep pile throughout the round, and only filter them out at the end. So if an item on Dec 12 is just a B, and another comes in on Jan 4 that's just a B, they'll both make it into the temporary keeps. And then we winnow them down to 32, where the "weak keeps" have to fight it out.

And then we winnow them down to 32, where the "weak keeps" have to fight it out.

Or the judges do. ;-)

Take a look at last year's Top 32. It shows the time the item was submitted since it creates a post. Some items were submitted early on and then you'll see my item submitted almost last. So no one should feel rushed into submitting thinking that the Top 32 will fill up. You got time! :)

Argh, the suspense is killing me. Why can't it be Jan 6 already. I keep thinking about what I could have done to make my submission better or cleaner or anything and it is going to drive me insane. Just 3 more weeks.

Well it's good practice actually. If you can't keep quiet for 3 weeks about your <redacted> how do you expect to keep an NDA?

Don't give up hope. My item last year was borderline (and initially received at least one Reject), but it squeezed in. The same cannot be said of my Round 22 submission, but getting publicly eviscerated taught me quite a bit.

I'm surprised it's so many so soon. Maybe people really were planning very much ahead. As for me I'm taking my time. By January 1st I don't want to be agonizing over how to make an item rpg superstar worthy but over which of my rpgsuperstar worthy items do I wish to submit.

I could be one of those lucky 12, but I can find more and more fault with what I submitted - One of the great benefits of RPG Superstar, with every item submitted (over the years) you gain experience in what it is lacking. This sadly occurs after the fact (submission).

I guess it's safe to announce at this point that I submitted my item sometime within this time frame. And yeah, now I'm regretting that I couldn't pull the reins in a little bit. There's nothing explicitly WRONG with my item, but I keep thinking of ways I could have made it tighter and more exact, or with more flair and better wording. And d'oh! There's that one little, barely noticeable style error I made.

Despite that, whenever I read it over again, I get the inkling that it might be just barely good enough. I can only hope, and plan for the next round!

Here's hoping for a two-peat. I think my item for this year's competition is better than the one I submitted last year, but the competition seems to get tougher every year, too. The wait is gonna be excruciating!

Here's hoping for a two-peat.

I'm very curious to see if there are any two-peaters this year. I'm sure we'll see more and more of them. Heck, I'm really hoping to see a three-peater (ahem). Just sayin'.

Good luck everyone!

James Olchak wrote:

Here's hoping for a two-peat.

I'm very curious to see if there are any two-peaters this year. I'm sure we'll see more and more of them. Heck, I'm really hoping to see a three-peater (ahem). Just sayin'.

Good luck everyone!

I'd lay good money that there will be repeaters almost every year from now on. It's just a natural side effect of people learning from experience and more and more positive advice threads (and offseason training) as the competition ages.

And while it's not AS much of a foregone conclusion (because there's only four of you to root for at this point...) I'm hoping for a threepeater to show up as well. I mean, once you've made it in twice, you've demonstrated that you KNOW how to craft a superstar item, so going three for three shouldn't be too challenging, right? ;-) No pressure on you, Joel, James or Eric.

Tom Phillips wrote:

James Olchak wrote:

Here's hoping for a two-peat.

I'm very curious to see if there are any two-peaters this year. I'm sure we'll see more and more of them. Heck, I'm really hoping to see a three-peater (ahem). Just sayin'.

Good luck everyone!

I'd lay good money that there will be repeaters almost every year from now on. It's just a natural side effect of people learning from experience and more and more positive advice threads (and offseason training) as the competition ages.

And while it's not AS much of a foregone conclusion (because there's only four of you to root for at this point...) I'm hoping for a threepeater to show up as well. I mean, once you've made it in twice, you've demonstrated that you KNOW how to craft a superstar item, so going three for three shouldn't be too challenging, right? ;-) No pressure on you, Joel, James or Eric.

Lucky elephant gets to guest judge the first round while I get mocked, mocked by the first round submission tool... :). Anyway, it was a really stellar group of individuals I was competing with last year so I hope for a a lot two-peaters from the class of 2011.

Whoohoo! Submitted!

Just submitted, so incredibly nervous!!

Darkjoy wrote:

I could be one of those lucky 12, but I can find more and more fault with what I submitted - One of the great benefits of RPG Superstar, with every item submitted (over the years) you gain experience in what it is lacking. This sadly occurs after the fact (submission).

I guess it's safe to announce at this point that I submitted my item sometime within this time frame. And yeah, now I'm regretting that I couldn't pull the reins in a little bit. There's nothing explicitly WRONG with my item, but I keep thinking of ways I could have made it tighter and more exact, or with more flair and better wording. And d'oh! There's that one little, barely noticeable style error I made.

Despite that, whenever I read it over again, I get the inkling that it might be just barely good enough. I can only hope, and plan for the next round!

I'm not a writer. This is in general. To maximize your performance now, you need to focus on what you're doing now. To maximize your performance later, you need to make notes for later. These are synergistic, since writing things down helps get them out of your head.

If you're having trouble letting go of what you've already submitted, then I'd suggest placing yourself in the headspace of a judge critiquing your item, and writing out what he'd say. Then forget it and move on to the next task.

Theoretically, you could pull out your self-critiques next year to review to remember what you want to do better. I suspect that you'll find that you've moved beyond them to where they're useless, but that could feel good too.