Ovid's Oversight's page

The way Paizo has set the contest up, helps train you and prepare you for the ultimate prize of getting a paid gig, which can and often does lead to more paid gigs. So if you hit submit to early with out reading all the rules for clarity..learn from this. There is always next year and you will be more prepared when that contest opens up.

What everyone needs to remember, while this is supposed to be FUN (and it is) it is also a JOB INTERVIEW. The ultimate prize is not a take home item, it is the opportunity to get paid to write an Adventure Module.

Part of the contest is being able to follow directions and produce work in the same situations that freelancers often face. If Paizo is going to pay the winner to produce a quality product at their high standard, they want to ensure the winner is capable of meeting deadlines, following directions, learning from critique and adjusting to suit the developer's needs, and handling themselves as a professional.

Good Luck Ovid's Oversight, you might not be out of the running...many of us second guess everything the moment we hit submit.

I don't need to be patronized to, thank-you very much. Perhaps you are a well-meaning person without tact; but, this isn't my first rodeo, and I accepted my disqualification... Your sympathy is admirable, but ill-expressed and misplaced.

Has anyone seen an entry that violates the 300-word-count limit?
If it was a great item in every other respect would you ignore that aspect and vote for it anyway?
How far would any leniency you may have extend, double? triple? 1000 words?

I'm just curious. I haven't seen any over-long entries yet, but tonnes of other formatting violations.

I am most interested in continuity (function with stated origin/purpose), versatility (how it might be employed by non-ideal wielders), and balance (Over Powered items fail, unless they have serious draw-backs).

Similarly, items that are fish-out-of-genre (like lightsabres, or otherwise technically complex in application without a coherent guiding principle) get the dump. I have seen some really immature/munchkinish items, although one obviously was inspired by a Munchkin(TM) card, but made it more relevant than funny (and I up-voted it).

Logically, whenever you're faced with two real stinkers you should up-vote the one that is worse to guarantee that they both go down (when they are inevitably paired with a mildly ill-designed item).

Personally, I'm much more offended by spelling and grammatical errors than minor formatting issues; but, if required data isn't present (especially if it's essential to the function of the item; e.g., a multi-special-effect item has no use limit, even if it is just to say that it is unlimited-use), that tends to get a down-vote from me.

BTW:

Has anyone seen an entry that violates the 300-word-count limit?

If it was a great item in every other respect would you ignore that aspect and vote for it anyway?
How far would any leniency you may have extend, double? triple? 1000 words?

I'm just curious. I haven't seen any over-long entries yet, but tonnes of other formatting violations.

I'm a first-timer who totally blew the submission in a flurry of Haste to upload, without consideration of the posted limitations, so I presume I'm out of the race before it even started, just because I couldn't retract (or edit) my entry after it was sent, in favour of a more suitable item before the deadline closed... Of course the guidelines say that it "may" be disqualified for an infraction, I suspect that that caution is a rather diplomatic way of saying "will". I'm pretty sure that the guideline forbidding multiple entries is even more iron-clad, so I elected just to sit back and watch the rest of the competition, after I finished cursing, ironing my hands, and beating my head against the wardrobe. :-/ There'll always be next year, I suppose.

I've just started running Burnt Offerings (Anniversary Edition), and I'm having difficulties envisaging Ezakien Tobyn. He was meant to be a cleric of Desna, a CG goddess of fun, freedom and luck, and was well loved by everyone in Sandpoint.

However, he seems to have behaved like a complete dick to his adopted daughter, in a way that I would describe as very Lawful and anti-freedom, showing no compassion when she gets pregnant and forcing her to behave in a way that more fits a highly moralising religion.

The players have pretty much decided that he was nasty (they started questioning Naulia's 'death' as soon as Tobyn's remains were stolen, and on hearing the story, decided that she had burnt the church in revenge against her nasty father and was probably now behind the new events), and I have a lot of trouble disagreeing with their conclusions (they've now just captured Tsuto and his notes, so their suspicions have been confirmed).

Has anyone come up with a reason for why Tobyn behaved like he did, that is consistent with him being a cleric of Desna? It doesn't really affect the game, but I'd like to settle things in my mind.

Thanks,
Sam.

How about the corrupting influence of the Minor Runewell of Wrath? All the other dick-ish activity in town seems to be linked to the Runewell's reactivation... Perhaps Tobyn was such a nice guy to begin with that instead of slaying Nualia in a rage, the malevolent forces could only get him to be an over-protective father? ;-)

Yours has been the most engrossing campaign journal I've ever had the good(mis?)-fortune to be ensnared by (even if the dishes have piled up and my boss is calling to find out what I'm up to)! ;-) It's a great romp with unconventional characters, which is indubitably part of the mystique...

I'm in the process of preparing to run RotRLs for a group of novice role-players (among the group only my own kid has any prior experience) so, I'm hoping to inspire the kind of characterization and NPC interaction you've been treated to. :-D I've been GMing FRPGs since the mid-80's, but this will be my first Pathfinder AP... Your group has given me a lot of inspiration.

Keep up the good work and crush that summary back-log, so that I can get on with my life!

Cheers!

That makes sense; but, why is the entrance to the smuggler's cave from the tunnel-side a hidden secret-door, rather than from the outside only? My best guess is that it is a crude mechanism for opening (push hard at the base, or use an overt pulley system) essentially being a facade of stone on a central pivot that needs to be propped open to pass-through, and heavier on the bottom so it would auto-close... Still, during the day, I would presume that there would be light-leakage around the frame that would make the portal nearly obvious from inside the unlit tunnel (DC10?) Why would the portal need to be hidden on the inside? It seems more reasonable that a secret-door would have been in the basement of the Glassworks, and that it was either Disabled or removed in favour of bricking it up by Lonjiku's father. I understand the need to lead the low-level party into the Catacombs, without risking that they flub their Perception checks; so, I presume that Grampa just wanted to demonstrate his integrity by bringing in some masons; but, if that was the case, why wouldn't he also block-up the entrance/exit in the smuggler's cave (at least by disabling it from the inside---perhaps the wooden wedges deteriorated over the decades)?

Also, I have some similar queries about the entry-tunnel (aside from the gratuitous tunnelling in the complex itself) to the Catacombs: If the smugglers only just made penetration into the complex (even if it had been the Barracks) it seems reasonable that they would have kept it quite small, to minimize detection until they had reconnoitered the breach, so it seems strange that there is a long rough tunnel in addition to a cavern-room leading into the Catacombs... I would have expected a small hole (requiring a squeeze-through) into the hallway leading to B2, if not the room itself or B6. I could presume that the diggers may have built the cavern-room (B1) 'searching' for the Garrison basement and/or as a storage-area for their illicit goods, but it seems strange that there are three entries into the Catacombs complex, when they (the smuggler-sappers) would doubtless have only barely had a chance to make their first foray inside before they were justifiably repelled, and moved to brick-up their work... and that small entry-way would have been directly from B1 to where-ever the breech was initially made.

It would also seem natural that the statue in B3 be facing the hallway to the stairwell, since that was the original entryway.

TerminalOrbit wrote:

Will there be a Game Designer contract-contest for 2014? Is there any other avenue for gainful employment at Paizo inventing new Pathfinder(TM) spells, equipment, Feats, etc. or writing; and if so, where are the submission guidelines...

We do the RPG Superstar contest every year... or have so far. We haven't made any announcements about the next one... but Stay Tuned!

There's not a lot of other ways to gain employment at Paizo, other than working a lot to get your work published by other companies, seeking us out out at conventions to chat with us and attend our seminars, and then apply for job positions as they open up.

We aren't currently accepting submissions at all for any of our print lines. All of those products are outlined by us and assigned by us to freelancers.

Alright, then what in your opinion is the best way to get work as a Freelancer? I'm sure you're tired of people mobbing you at con's hoping that you'll hire them... Obsequiousness does not become me; but, I can write! ;-D

Will there be a Game Designer contract-contest for 2014? Is there any other avenue for gainful employment at Paizo inventing new Pathfinder(TM) spells, equipment, Feats, etc. or writing; and if so, where are the submission guidelines...