The Contest
Dungeon Master submits their favorite adventuring parties. Includes stats and background history and why this party is worthy of honor.
A new adventuring party drawn randomly each month. None are discarded, as this will build a larger pool.
Winning party gets an art spread in magazine like those done for the Cauldron Adventure Path series.
Player(s) interviewed to tell of their most memorable heroic adventure and other events.
The Rewards:
Tangible:
Monthly winners receive print or digital copy of the adventuring party artwork suitable for framing.
Annual Grand Prize drawing of the year's 12 parties, selected by reader poll, to get free tickets to GenCon for players and Dungeon Master.
Intangible:
Players receiving accolades in being interview.
Dungeon Master honors players.
Winners become OGC usable as noteworthy NPC parties, similar to the "Stormblades" of Caldron, for other campaigns.
WoTC gets positive feedback from gaming groups as more are entries selected in an event unheard of in the industry.
Paizo gets more readers waiting to see the next group.
A Win-Win contest.
Problem: Paizo and any gamer who has hung out with other gamers outside his/her usual group has probably heard too much about other people's characters as it is.
Problem the second: The deluge of characters will require Paizo to hire two more editors just to make sure the characters stats and equipment are regulation.
Solution to problem the second: Hire me and I will work double shifts.
Problem the third: I will need to be paid.
G to the third
That's a cool idea! Given the huge amount of submissions (I assume), it might be a good idea if the editors narrowed it down to the best few (say, a dozen or so). You might consider sending your idea to the Wizards of the Coast website people - this could follow the Creature Competition when they finish that.
I unfortunately could see a problem with this. Some of the best games that I have personally been in are the old 1st and 2nd edition games. One which I'm in now that has been in an ongoing game for 8 years now, and some still have our orginal characters, hooray for us. The problem being I don't see Dungeon or Dragon accepting old edition characters even though a lot of fun and work has been put behind them. Great idea but I don't think it feasable. Sorry. By the way if there are artists out there willing to do character party artwork maybe that in and of itself would be interesting to publish once or twice in a brief article or something.
I would like the idea if it weren;t for the fact that i wouldn;t even have to bother losing because my players can never unite as an adventuring without killing eachother at some point, and there is no difference in their generic drizzt-cloning.