OK, I'll start the list.
1. Item Formatting. A good number of submissions didn’t follow the Pathfinder wondrous item format. Not sure how people screwed this one up. We considered this a big error. I mean, this is RPG Superstar. If you cant get the format right, that is a problem.
2. Spell names. I cant tell you how many people capitalized spell names. Don’t do that. Spell names aren’t capitalized. We didnt expect italicizing (though we liked it), but you really need to know that spell names are lower case. This wasn’t fatal, but it didn’t help.
3. Good idea, bad execution. My phrase of the year is turning out to be “Reject, and its too bad, too.” Seriously, I wrote that a number of times in reviewing items. There were a ton of interesting items with bad mechanical execution. These were hard to reject, but generally they got rejected.
4. Just couldn’t resist the backstory, could ya? I don’t know how many times a perfectly good item was mucked up with a two or three sentence intro about how “item X was first created by [name of NPC] who had [insert problem], and blah blah blah.” Not fatal, but it shows horrid lack of restraint as a writer. Just design a good item. Wondrous items don’t have that stuff. Artifacts do. Usually not fatal, but it’s a red flag.
5. Coin items. Seriously. Actually, Wolfgang lost his mind briefly (or was kidnapped and an impostor was doing his reviews) and actually liked one. He was rescued and/or returned to his senses, luckily.
6. The Pan’s Labyrinth chalk item. Like last year, we got a bunch of chalk items that let you make doorways.
7. “This Year’s Migrus.” Particularly early on we got a bunch of gonzo items that wanted to be this year’s Migrus. I think all were rejected. Luckily, though, we got very few items that were trying to be gonzo on purpose. I was worried that we would see more of that. Thankfully, I was wrong.
More to come.
I find the number 4 issue rather odd. I don't really consider that point a rule of thumb but rather a matter of opinion. Grant it I am merely an observer in all this but as a successful filmmaker I find this statement flies in the face of story development. Since Rping is a story driven concept it stands to reason one might want to add that element to an item. Nothing is created from nothing. To say a wonderous item should not have a creator, which is in fact a backstory, is like saying the following should not be mentioned when discussing what they created:
Light Bulb – Thomas Edison
Automobile – Henry Ford
Camera Film – Eastman Kodak
Photocopier - Xerox
An artifact is something that cannot be dupicated, not something that can only reserve the right of having a name or backstory associated with it. No offence Mr. Peterson.