Tokoz's page

They'd be more than 80. They were born in 1926, 1927, and 1929. One of them is dead, but the other two are still alive.

Thank you Mr. Pharmacist. I was wondering if that was included in the ads as a warning or a promotion.

No reason to grit your pantaloons. They're still there.

I'm medically retired for PTSD.

One time at school my son was threatened with another kid's dad. My son responded that I could handle it. My son's friend turned to the kid casting the summon dad spell and said, "You don't want to mess with his dad. He's a crazy war vet."

There was a hushed silence followed by the kid apologizing nicely to my son.

I'm sure to give a half crazed smile now whenever I meet my kid's friends.

I just realized while looking at my avatar...

...

Those Cat Lord items were made for me!

I can't quite seem to remember... =P

I thought it was in a different spot.

Down a cold lonesome highway.
Cool wind in my hair.
Warm smell of callitas
Rising up through the air.

Thanks, though I wish it weren't true. I am impossible to be around whenever I enter anything. I vacillate wildly between bragging about my cleverness and despairing because I clearly got everything wrong.

Don't fear failure.

If you fear failure, you'll never bring yourself to try.
If you fear mediocrity, you'll always be trying.

You cannot get "everything wrong." You tried. That's 95% at least. When you do critique yourself, remember that.

Also, I'd say a good 1/3 of what I've seen is publishable. It's creative and least useful.

Rainbow Poop.

I got marathon voter and I've seen my wife's item twice, my son's item once and mine once.

I haven't been changed into a cow, but can I go home now?

::edit::
I also saw the 1.8 million gp item and the rainbow poo more than three times each.

Ouch. If there's three meanings for a word that can be spelled three ways AND you wish to make a pun using two of those words pulling off a commonly used phrase. . .

It's best to know what word the original phrase used AND what word refers to your item. That way you don't use the word that applies to neither in your item name.

Used to manage a Radio Shack.

I found the Army a lot less stressful.

Still haven't seen mine, but I'm not too worried after seeing what made it through.

I'm still on break from voting until I get certain songs out of my head.

Need to take a break from voting. This is me taking a break. =P

I find myself just randomly clicking every now and again and then going, "what did I just select?" How do you people do it? 360 votes/day to get Champion. I couldn't stand it even after the cull.

Shhh! It can sense fear.

And fatigue apparently.

I was more thinking Charlie Brown at Halloween, but that works too.

I got a rock.

The formatting is definitely better, but honestly, I haven't seen much of an improvement otherwise.

Just die you sissies. It's ok to be Tak... I mean, it's ok to have a character die.

Wife's item made it past the cull. Now I just need to find my son's and mine. =)

That one was so bad it pooped rainbows.

Unintentional pun in this one. I like puns and don't mind them in my magic item descriptions...

But I missed this one the first three times reading and now can't unthink it.

Serious item is now not so serious.

Just saw my item for the first time too. Sadly, I also see that it could have been worded much better. Next year, I'll be sure to write it up more than four hours in advance.

I have noticed several excellent consumable items this year and a couple of pretty nice card/deck related items. Some are combat oriented but not all. I have been please with the over all feel of each entry though, they are by far improved over even just last year.

You forgot the "d" in "pleased." Your post is irrelevant. =P

Grammatical totalitarianism. It's everywhere. Oops. I'm not writing in complete. sentences.

Ootimate.. OoooOOOOOoootimate...

This started as a conversation in another thread, but I thought it would be fun if entrants showed their thought processes in a very vague way. I also thought it might be good for showing others how different people think things through.

I see a lot of stuff written up saying "do think this way" and "don't think that way" when the truth is my way works for me. It's unlikely that some one else's method will work great for me. My way will NOT work exactly as is for ANYONE. My method can stand improvement, which is why I'm starting this. My son and wife's methods are different than my own, and I mostly taught both of them. (if you're wondering there's almost 75 years of gaming between us.) I don't want the method's of the winners. I've stewed through plenty of that and taken what I can. I want to know all of it. =) Somewhere out there is a first year entrant that has an idea I can use to improve. Somewhere out there is an experienced entrant that can help me too, but they are mostly old farts like me and set in their ways.

My "from the hip" design will probably cost me. But this is the process I went through for my item. I go through a similar process for most item/spell/creature creations. =P

It's important to note that the error I vaguely mention is not alone in the submissions. While I consider it a very "newbie" type error on my part (I should have known better) and one I shouldn't have made. It's one that any very experienced person could make and one I've seen less often than I'd like to help calm my flustered ego, but often enough that I don't feel totally alone.

1. I thought of what I wanted to be able to do. In this case it was not a combat item but was definitely something that any adventurer would use. So I had the "generally anyone can use" and "not armor, weapon, etc" for the wondrous item.

All of this was actually a long process. The idea was first conceived just before the 2013 contest, but I wasn't up to entering that year. (no explanation provided) About two weeks before the contest this year, I pulled it out along with a bunch of stuff I'd thought of since then and decided the concept was sound. So I went on.

2. Filed through my brain to see if I knew of an item that did that. Nope.

3. Filed through my brain to see if I knew of a spell that did that. Nope.

4. Told my son and wife what I wanted to do. They didn't know of an item or a spell that did that.

5. Figured out who, other than an adventurer, would use it. This made the description easier.

6. Dumbed down the item even more so that those people could use it.

7. Thought about if there was anything similarly themed or simple and handy that could enhance the item without overloading it. (A lot of items would benefit from doing this and NOT adding anything else after that.) I went with a simple addition.

8. Spent some time thinking about potential campaign problems from it. In this case, the item is simple enough that there was only a small caveat I had to add about the minor addition I made. Since it was non-combat and not strictly adventuring oriented, I didn't really worry too much about campaign balance (that might have killed me, because it contains a mechanics error of sorts. I can "justify" the error, but I'd have to justify it and that isn't what the judges want.)

9. The day of the deadline I wrote it down and showed it to my son and wife. My son made minor fixes to my mechanics. (The mistake came after this. I can't fault him.) My wife got rid of phrases like "appears to be a normal..." (not really, but there was a phrase in there that needed to go and I've SEEN it many times this year.) She fixed grammatical and punctuation errors. I posted it and emailed a copy off to my son. He never commented on it, but when I was reading his response to something else, I noticed my error.

As a side note, I copied the format suggestion from the contest rules and pasted that into a word processor. I saved frequently and copied and pasted the item from the file to the website.

I also read all of Sean's suggestions over that one year period of time. And read some of the peanut gallery's comments as well. I like peanuts.

There's one I've seen three times now that is really simple. It only does one thing and can't be used in combat, but it is so freaking cool I'd vote for it over my wife's entry, my son's entry, and even my own entry.

I can break down most of the meh to "OH MY GOSH. NOT AT MY TABLE!" items as lack of sales skills. Because really, when push comes to shove, what you're trying to do here is sell an idea. If people would just remember the first two rules of sales (or being in the military. They match up nicely.) a lot of items would go from meh to "I wouldn't mind giving my players that."

1. CYA. Cover your rear. Don't give to players something you don't want to have to GM with. Don't make up items that you wouldn't want a monster using against you. AND Don't leave the person reading about your item thinking of huge loopholes like the congo line of kobolds you could use to circumvent the globe in a single round. (From 3.5s Greater Great Cleave).

2. STFU. Shut the heck up. When you're done with your item. End it. Balancing things with banes happens sometimes, but chances are if you need a bane added to a magic item, you over-did anyway. Pick what you want to be able to do with the item and then add what it needs to do to complete that task AND THEN Shut the Heck Up.

The biggest trend I'm seeing so far is people that do not proofread or preview their submissions, but I doubt that's the purpose of this thread. =P

I've seen a fair number of "Wow, that's a cool idea. I could SO use that as a plot hook" and an abysmal amount of "Not in my world!" even a couple "there's no way you could buy that for..." Although that is also not what the thread is about.

But what the heck is up with the Runes and Sigils this year???

Well, at least I haven't seen one like mine yet. Just wish I caught the glaring technical error BEFORE I submitted. =P

Brain numb. Must take break.

I have made a couple of changes to the kickstarter already. First off, I decreased the goal. The project is already funded, so kickstarter can fail and you will still see the world guide. (it's about half-way through production.)

I also changed the launch date. It won't launch until Febrauary so that it can coincide with our advertising.

I do have extrensive experience in the publishing industry. Rossi Publishing was actually founded in 1992. While it hasn't been active lately, I have retained most of my contacts in the industry.

I'm happy to announce that playtesting of some of the systems used in our upcoming Terah World Guide and Pebble in the Pond Adventure Path steampunk products are now open for public testing. We're starting the year with Rune Working feats. This set of feats is designed to augment any class and is already available here

And there's more tests to come:

February: Psionic feat system. Like the Rune Working Feats, its designed to augment existing classes, not create a class of its own. These feats add flavor and flair to any level of character.

March: Illusionist class. Not just a specialist wizard, the illusionist is the snake oil salesman of fantasy steampunk. Those who miss the old first edition illusionist and those who were glad to see the class go will both appreciate the balance and finesse the new class can add to any campaign.

April: Earth Singer Prestige Class. If an illusionist were to take this prestige class, you'd have Professor Harold Hill.

May: The Spark*. The pinnacle of our changes to form a steampunk world, the spark is a mad scientist with an uncanny ability to twist the laws of physics to suit her needs.

We at Rossi Publishing Games are happy to share with this community the key processes that we will be publishing soon** and invite the gaming community at large to help us fine-tune things and have a great time with it as well.

Our lead developer Anthony Rossi, known here as Jarrod the Outcast, will be heading up the playtests. Be sure to pick his brain and challenge his thinking.

* "Spark" is (c) Phil and Kaja Foglio of Gaslamp Productions. Used with permission. Be sure to visit their website and enjoy the same comic that helped inspire our world.

** Expect the product to be available by PaizoCon 2012.