I still tell people about the awesomeness of the Blink Dog Nation. I even link to this thread occasionally.
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How is a robot or golem different than a trap in the context of this discussion? It's a non-sentient hunk of material designed to hurt the players that cannot be interacted with socially. Is there really much of a difference story-wise if the pole-ax is in the hands of an animated suit of armor or triggered by a pressure plate? Or is the difference that the golem creates a more interesting tactical challenge? Players vs traps also doesn't have to be thought of as players vs environment. Some character created those traps, and they are an extension of his personality...his way of solving problems. Especially in a case where the players will get to face the person who actually made the traps, there are some things that can be learned about the trapbuilder. If the players are invading a wizard's stronghold, how is it ultimately different whether the wizard throws a fireball at the party or uses a fire trapped door? The end result is the same: the party has (hopefully, from the wizard's standpoint) been burned to a crisp. The only real difference is the personality of the wizard. Same goes for crossbow trap/hand-held crossbow in a thief's lair, for example. Just for the record, I agree that traps are boring. I'm just playing Devil's advocate here.
I have nothing to say that hasn't already been said, but I'll say it again anyway: congrats, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!
1. Migrus
Woah, great stuff here. I totally skipped over the poem at the beginning and went to the back cover blurb. I was sold on "the PCs get the chance to slay not one, but three kings", and it just kept getting better. Dream distilled duplicates, betrayal & corruption, dwarven valkyries, and a half-dragon kraken?! I would gleefully spend hours of my life on this adventure. It's pretty clear to me that Christine deserves the RPG Superstar title. All the contestants have been good (and in some cases great), but where others eventually plateaued, Christine pretty consistently stayed ahead of the curve and kept on getting better with every round.
Did you hear about the pirates who went to Alpha Centauri?
Spoiler: They spent four and half years at c.
So your life is a Harryhausen stop-motion animation version of Joey Lauren Adams?
The point about fire damage seems pretty valid to me, but I still think this may be the coolest thing submitted in the entire contest so far. I don't want to DM this; I want to be a player in this. It's that cool.
I love Etrigan's guest appearances pretty much anywhere, but he just doesn't seem to be able to carry his own comic for very long without it becoming terrible. The exception is Matt Wagner's "The Demon" 4-issue series from back in the late 80's some time. My all-time favorite version of Etrigan.
I'd really like to see it too, and I don't have the fever excuse. Actually I'd really like to be in it.
It was hysterical the first couple times, but it's getting a bit old to me now. I'll continue to put up with it due to my huge crush on the girl who plays Lidda, though.
Why do elves have pointy ears? Spoiler:
There has to be some point to elves... How many elves does it take to start a campfire? Spoiler:
Three. Two to strike dramatic poses while the wind ruffles their hair, and one to ask the dwarf for some flint and steel. What did one snowman say to the other snowman? Spoiler: Does it smell like carrots in here to you?
Though I like the concept of the complexity golem, the monster itself doesn't do much for me. It's ultimately a bit too bland given how out there the concept is. I was expecting a lot more from it, I guess. As others have said, the dungeon core should be tougher. Again, I really like the concept though. I probably wouldn't use it as-is, but I can very easily see myself making its abilities less magical and more fantasy tech and sticking it in my DragonMech campaign. I do love the dream distilled template. That one's a definite keeper.I like having several special abilities to choose from so that not every dream distilled creature has the same abilities.
I love, love, love the thunderstruck. I'm a sucker for new undead templates that are both flavorful and simple. Yeah, the shock ability is a no-brainer, but it's so obvious I would have thought you a little crazy if you hadn't included it. The other two I'm not sure about. As far as I looked at the mechanics and writing they seem fine to me, it's the concepts I'm not sure about. Cloud golem...not bad, just a bit uninspired. The squallherds are very interesting visually, but I just can't imagine ever using them in one of my campaigns.
Oh yeah, I remember that issue. Wish they'd compile those early issues of Alpha Flight. Good stuff. Oh, and I love these monsters. Thank you for the ooze.
... I'm not sure how to easily check for new posts in all the interesting threads without searching through each forum and subforum to find what I'm looking for. Any help there?Click those little orange-and-white icons at the upper right corner to get the feed for your favorite threads and boards, compatible with your favorite RSS-enabled browser or aggregator! Yeah, I saw those but I have no idea how they work. I barely know what RSS is much less how to use it. The messageboard FAQ is useless on this topic. I'm too lazy to try to dope things out beyond that. :) I'm used to phpBB and similar boards with a handy "Check for new posts" button. Granted most of the boards I frequent have a lot less traffic, and that probably wouldn't work well here.
I'm someone who came entirely for the contest. And I love the community. Very friendly and relaxed around here. I've ventured out into the other forums occasionally, but I find this software a bit weird and I'm not sure how to easily check for new posts in all the interesting threads without searching through each forum and subforum to find what I'm looking for. Any help there?
Yeah, the format really killed me on some of the entries. I really want to know what the monster looks like before anything else. Without illustrations the descriptions really need to come first.
Yay oozes! The Ooze Imperium would totally crush the Blink Dog Nation. Though I'm a fan of oozes, I don't think I'd use any of these as-is. Way too many special abilities to keep track of. However, I am definitely stealing some of the ideas.
You could Google it and see. :)
Huzzah! Well said.
My dream entry in round 4 will have low-to-mid CR monsters that are highly portable but still ooze flavor (in fact, I want to see at least one ooze in this round). The portability is very important for me in this round...I want monsters I can drop into almost any campaign setting without making changes. Tying monsters to a particular previously submitted setting feels like a cheap gimmick to me unless done exceptionally well. I think the ecologically/societally linked monsters will go over better with me than the three different versions of the same critter or the ancient rock-paper-scissors enmity. But depends on how it's done. The dream entry, though, will have three monsters that complement each other tactically as well as thematically.
Of course, according to the FAQ they don't need examples of “thematically linked” monsters because they are the Top 8 for RPG Superstar. They can figure it out. :P
Ooh, I HATED that guy. He might even be #1 on my list of all time best villains.
A bit disappointed, yes. There aren't really any that I like so much they floor me, but at the same time this is the first round where there have been no entries that I absolutely hate. Interestingly, there's only one contestant who has been one of my top choices in every round. And I'm not saying who. :)
I liked the Migrus Locker. I don't really care for this villain. Though the killing heroes and villains hook makes it incredibly easy to use her in a variety of ways, I just don't quite buy the motivation. Christine, I probably would never have known you weren't a native English speaker if it hadn't been pointed out. Most native English speakers don't write as well as you do.
Keep in mind that sizes ("Medium," for example), are always capitalized. And while we're on the subject of capitalization, you don't need to capitalize Lizardfolk. There's no official RPG style guide that I'm aware of that explicitly spells out what formats to use for what. Just follow the examples of how they do things in the SRD, and things will be good.
And who is more villainous than a high school math teacher? But really, I have no problem with the name. Humans in my settings tend to have real-world names (or fantasy variations of real world names). As someone previously mentioned, it has the sounds of a throw-away name, which is perfect for this sort of character. It lets her go about her business unnoticed by the PCs. I'm noticing that Neil is not a fan of black & white moralities, and I approve.
Ha ha! But good question. Unlike many people here, I have no strong feeling about psionics one way or the other. They have their place and when used well can really add to a game. As others have said, this is great example of psionics used well. My problem is that I hate aboleths. I think they're dumb and overused. I've never understood why people think they're so cool. I wish they weren't in the SRD so I didn't have to hear about them so much. I have no logical reason for hating them. I just do. But I think I could get over it if I had an answer to cappa's question.
Yes, that's exactly how I feel. I really like the flavor, and she's a great monster, but I don't feel that she's a villain. She's limited to a particular geographic region, and she doesn't have any motivations beyond blood to make herself warm. You've already said that only blood can warm her, so even though the whole "having to stay in the snow" thing is kind of neat, allowing her to go into heated buildings or even to tropical jungles doesn't really lift her curse in any way. It ends up being more limiting than cool, I think. And I mean limiting to the DM, not limiting in a game-balance kind of way. Her desire for warmth could be broadened a bit to make her more villainous. She was cursed for wanting peace with the newcomers, and the newcomers presumably were responsible in some way for the disappearance of the Aurochs People. She has long since realized the error of her ways, and believes the curse will be lifted if the newcomers are driven from the Peaks and her people avenged. Since she knows she is not powerful enough (yet!) to drive them away by force, she spies on the community leaders and tries to manipulate them through blackmail, intimidation, and her domination ability with the goal of causing so much internal strife and chaos that they leave or kill each other (more or less "over the top" depending on taste). She also has a campaign to cause fear in the common folk, knowing that fear may drive them away and turn them against their leaders (that's where the fun door-to-door "let me in" thing comes into play). It's a long term scheme that she's barely getting started on, but she's undead...she has all the time in the world.
And that, ultimately, is what makes a good villain. A writer has a lot less control over that than the DM or the players themselves, though.
That was my first question too. I like the concept, and I thought the "cannibal horses" plot hook was pretty cool.
I'd rather be behind her than in front of her...
In the Dragonmech setting you can outfit your mech with ooze launchers. But really I think yaks would make better ammo.
Bah! Marvel was way better in the 80's. I'll admit that DC has been better hands-down since about 1990.
I made sorcerous, body-swapping yaks, Sorcerous yaks? There's an idea I could get behind! As long as they all had blink for one of their spells. Blink yaks. Awesome.
Right...and my first instinct if I had any questions about an assignment would be to ask the editor/publisher/developer. Or in this case...judge. :)
I was thrilled to see the blinks made the cut. Congrats! (Actually, I was thrilled to see every country I voted for plus most of the ones I kinda wanted to vote for but couldn't made the cut). Looking forward to seeing what you do next round. I recommend maybe an evil talking potion bottle. :P
Love the rewrite. Nice work.
I was going to say exactly the same thing. It would have to be a well-done villain, of course, and have a stat block. But if done right it would instantly be my number one pick.
What you call "gonzo", I call "creative and interesting". I too would like to see the villains at the same CR, or at least a slightly narrower range like 8-10. Though I'm curious to see how contestants would use the other contestants' material, I don't think material from previous rounds should be allowed. That seems a bit gimmicky to me for some reason. I don't think contestants should be allowed to reference their own submissions, either. It's true that a villain without context is lame, but context can be provided in ways other than saying "He's from such-and-such a country." It seems like a bit of cheat word-count-wise to be able to provide that much context with just a few words.
After seeing that I would change all 5 of my votes to Yithnai if I could.
I've learned that there's a lot of talent out there. :) Indeed. I've learned that I'm lucky to have broken into the industry and been published already, because almost everyone in this contest has written stuff at least as good as mine if not better. And despite having already had stuff published, I've learned a heck of a lot about the craft from the comments of the judges and others. Thanks so much for that. I really wish I could go back and rewrite some of my stuff now. :) (Well, actually I already wished I could rewrite it...now I have much better idea of how I would rewrite it). People's comments on the entries provide some valuable insight into what sorts of things RPG consumers like and don't like, which is helpful.
If I had only one vote, it would probably go to Yithnai. Or possibly Iskandria. Both are well-written, interesting, and give me plenty of adventure ideas.
I agree and I disagree. I am a big fan of the blink dog nation, but I do agree that the submission didn't begin to do everything an ideal write-up would. However, I don't really think the author thought, "Yeah, blink dogs are cool enough. I don't need to put any more thought into it," and I don't think either of us can really guess at what his motivations were for deciding to submit this particular idea...there are plenty of other possible reasons than shock value. Seriously, substitute blink dogs with dwarves or elves and what an unbelievably generic submission this is. And that is not OK. It is certainly NOT Superstar. Yes, substitute elves or dwarves for the blink dogs, and it is a pretty generic submission. It would resemble most of the other submissions you got. Is the idea of blink dogs neat? Sure. Of course it is. But this wasnt a test of an idea, it was a test of design. Once you get the idea, you need a theme, and then you need good design to tightly fit that theme. Once the author hit that idea, the design switch went off, in my humble opinion. To some extent it is a test of ideas, because as you say good design starts with a good idea. I think the idea is ultimately the most important part...I buy RPG adventures and supplements that contain ideas I wouldn't have thought of myself. I'm going to end up changing the details anyway to fit my campaign, so I don't particularly care how well-thought out and detailed the design is. You can dress up your Tolkieny Forgotten Realms elves in whatever fancy English-major writing and adventure hooks you want, but in the end it's still boring as heck. And the tone of some of your posts in this thread make your opinion seem anything but humble. I'm just sayin'.
Now that I do agree with. Though I disagree with Clark on the particulars, I do think this submission could have been a lot better with a little more work...previous posters have already pointed out some things that would have been good to add, so I won't go into that. You're getting my vote this round on the basis of the fabulous work you did last round, and a really great idea this round. I want to be clear that in order to keep my vote next round, you will have to deliver more on the design aspects. It's only going to get tougher from here, and I assure you that if I'd had only one vote, I wouldn't have voted for the blink dog nation.
Chris Moritka? THE Chris Mortika?
Hey, who wants to see what one of the 32 was doing while he SHOULD have been working on his country?
"It's in iambic pentameter." Ha.
I'm still on the fence about this one. The descriptive writing is stellar, and the ideas are fairly good, but for some reason it still leaves me cold. I think perhaps the Slavic flavor turns me off. Even though there are some interesting ideas in there (I'd love to see the "rust-tainted" template), it somehow seems like more of the same old stuff to me. But I do appreciate good descriptions. Hmm.
I've got 4 of my 5 figured out, but I have a 6 way tie for the last spot. Guess it comes down to which of them designed the best wondrous item. :) Just out of curiosity, are most people voting solely on the basis of the countries, or are they voting for the superstars who they feel have done well in both rounds? I guess I have basically voted mostly on the strength of the country alone, using the wondrous items to break ties. But I wonder if I shouldn't be voting for the best overall designers so far, since this isn't the "Country Superstar" contest. Eh, whatever. I just want to get this figured out so I can spend the rest of the round arguing about blink dog tactics.
Yes, I was going to point that out too, but I do see Grimcleaver's point. Even the most nomadic of prehistoric Native Americans had a) some kind of structure they lived in, and b) tools. Blink dogs have no opposable thumbs, and therefore it would be difficult for them to craft much of anything. Still, I do think it qualifies as a country (by my definition, at least). My definition being: a specific geographic location, people (used loosely in a fantasy setting), and system of government.
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