Marathon Voter Season 7
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Ya, if you could unquote that or delete it I'd appreciate it. [i deleted my post actually as a result until I re-word it.] I didn't think it would be a harm in posting it, but see the points about decisions not being final yet.
Edit: Thanks Wicht, but to respond, I'm not writing for generic. I'm in Paizo's pathfinder so wouldn't that small specific be tolerated?
Edit: and Cappa, good catch and thank you.
The core rulebook is as setting neutral as it can be. And it was the core rulebook that was given as a guide.
Don't confuse the Pathfinder rules with the Pathfinder Adventure Path.
Some of these are outright no-nos. Others are just 'we saw a lot of these'. If you're the best of the 'lot of these', you still have a shot. As I said, look at me last year.
Right. But there is a spectrum for almost all of these. I would guess that even for the outright no-nos (bad English for example since the prize is a writing contract as the judges have pointed out) a 4-star entry (out of five) should pass.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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9. Writer who is obviously not that skilled with English. And it was too bad, too. (see what I mean?) Some real good items were marred horribly by some poor writing which most likely was due to the author not being as well versed in English as is necessary. I discussed this in another thread. It is really a drag to have to grade down for this. But this is RPG Superstar and the winner gets a freelance gig for Paizo. So you just have to be able to write in English. Is it fair? I think so, though it may not feel that way to the guy who gets dinged for this. Is it a drag? Yes, even for us judges. There were a couple entries I literally couldn't figure out, or reading them made my brain hurt.
With my luck, that was me. :-)
Seriously, Clark, what worries me is that some of our native English speakers are worse than the ESL posters.
I hope I don't thread-jack (too badly) by posting this, but there is a real reason that item backstory bothers me: Mages don't go around sharing recipes and blueprints all the time. I'm actually glad the SRD stripped names off of spells and items, because it reduces the surprise from when an ancient lich knows Tensor's Floating Disk but Tensor is still alive and claims to have invented the spell last week.
I am sure that lots of magical knowledge gets traded, reverse engineered, and stolen. But parallel development goes on too. Heck, every wizard gets to learn two spells automatically every level, regardless of contact with the outside world.
Right. But there is a spectrum for almost all of these. I would guess that even for the outright no-nos (bad English for example since the prize is a writing contract as the judges have pointed out) a 4-star entry (out of five) should pass.
This is Superstar. The judges might correct me on this, but I think they're looking for five stars out of five.
I admittedly fell into the trap of #4. I did it for a couple of reasons, though: one was that I wanted to show the potential uses of the item. The other was admittedly more to help justify some of the decisions I made in the creation guidelines (particularly regarding cleric domains and spells, by utilising one of the Pathfinder deities listed in the cleric section of PRPG).
Admittedly, I added a tiny bit to the flavor beyond that by setting up what I thought was a cool mental image involving the item, but was probably way more than was needed for this submission (on the other hand, part of it was that I had a lot of words left before the 200 word limit).
Right. But there is a spectrum for almost all of these. I would guess that even for the outright no-nos (bad English for example since the prize is a writing contract as the judges have pointed out) a 4-star entry (out of five) should pass.This is Superstar. The judges might correct me on this, but I think they're looking for five stars out of five.
Right. But they aren't always going to get 5 of 5 stars in every criteria.
Looking at last year's winners, it seems most entries had some constructive criticism from the judges:
Goblin Strand of Ears: I guess I dont totally understand what this means: "Adding newly crafted ears..." How do you do that?
Phial of Ebon Flame: but perhaps undercosted
Gloves of Legerdemain: no constructive criticism in the first few comments.
Nausea Pill: I hated the name though.
Paper-Folding Instructions of Master Mo: It's a tough call for me: the name made me want to reject it out of hand (just kinda... cheesy). The first paragraph didn't improve my impression
So 4 of the first 5 I just re-looked at had some constructive criticism from the judges. Some issues are probably more severe than others but again my point is few items are going to be 5-stars in every way.
We should be striving for 5 stars in every way, but if you look at your submission and think it hits one of the issues mentioned by the judges, it doesn't mean it is an auto-reject unless the problem is severe enough. (That said, the judges might not tolerate more than a very minor problem in some criteria.)
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Dedicated Voter Season 6
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2. Regarding a "spell in a can", would Boots of Levitation be regarded as such? I think my item was more interesting than this, but I may be in this category too.
I would say absolutely. And I'd say there's no chance that an item like boots of levitation would make it into the top 32 - it's one of the more boring items in the book. Now if it did something else on top of that, it's got a chance.
Some questions:
1. I didn't submit a coin, but what makes them so bad? I couldn't really find a good answer to that when I read through last year's posts.2. Regarding a "spell in a can", would Boots of Levitation be regarded as such? I think my item was more interesting than this, but I may be in this category too.
1. Its not that coins themselves are bad, its just that the coin items we get always seem to be horrible. Generally, they are tied to either random results (which is bad design, usually), or they have some type of compulsion or money-related non-heroic design focus. They never seem to be good items. But hey, maybe someone will knock me out with a coin item one day (and actually there was at least one good one this year).
2. Yes, there are many classic wondrous items that are essentially spells-in-a-can. Most of those are hold overs from earlier versions of the game and have a long game history or they are its that come from specific fantasy staples. There are certainly some boring wondrous items that are part of the game. So being more interesting than boots of levitation is probably not the best standard to judge your item. Now, that said, a well-designed simple item can have a lot of design mojo. Wolfgang and I were just commenting on that on a specific item last night (or was it the night before, it all runs together).
Doh, I think I might have fallen into that pitfall.
Please edit your initial response so that I dont know what you put in your item entry. I think your post includes too much detail and would allow us to identify your item. We're not done judging yet.
Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8
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Doh, I think I might have fallen into that pitfall.Please edit your initial response so that I dont know what you put in your item entry. I think your post includes too much detail and would allow us to identify your item. We're not done judging yet.
If an admin could strip that, it would be great, I missed that one apparently. Too long ago posted to nuke it.
I did flag it, so hopefully they see it soon.
Here is another:
8. Not a wondrous item. We got a good set of items that werent wondrous items--many were simply lesser artifacts. Here's a hint: if there is only one of them, its probably an artifact. But the artifact problem isnt the only problem. We got a few that were either new substances or new spell systems disquised as wondrous items. Too bad, too, because they were cool ideas. See, there I go again with that...
When I made it past the first 7 I had a tiny smidge of hope - dashed again :)
Thanks for the list Clark!
I must say I am quite surprised at least one type hasn't been mentioned yet...
"Sick and twisted items.
You might consider some professional help. This is not a Japanese horror movie."
What I mean is that in the first go-round, the judges probably aren't doing detailed notes on every aspect of each item, as they're probably just trying to cull the herd as much as possible. As such, their notes on many items are probably limited to such things as "Spell-in-a-can. Reject." or "Improper format. Reject.", as they just wouldn't have time to do a full and detailed review of items that they know they won't be putting forward for further consideration. I would think that the only items that would get full and detailed review in the judging process are those that are being seriously considered for inclusion in the Top 32, and that this probably won't have happened yet. Just my opinion, of course.
This is a completely correct statement. Most rejections dont get a ton of discussion. But items can be rejected for lots of reasons and we do discuss the interesting ones. In fact, we spend a good deal of time discussing ones that we wind up rejecting.
I can tell you how our reviews go.
One of the three of us is the first to read the item. That judge (usually Wolfgang because he is a judging machine) will make a brief note, in general, and will then give his position, which may be a strong reject or strong keep, or maybe just a leaning to reject or leaning to keep, or it may be "I dont know on this one, what do you guys think"?
The comments above the recommendation are normally short at first and focus on our gestalt impressions--liked it, didnt like it, liked the name, liked the idea or concept. We usually start big picture like that. Then we move on to the more specific issues with item itself.
It always takes at least two of the three judges to agree for an item to be moved into the reject bin or the keeper bin. Sometimes that just takes two judges looking at the item. And sometimes it wont even have a second full comment. For instance, lets say Wolfgang read it first and commented that he "liked the idea but the execution sucked and the cost is whack and the spell names are capitalized and it lacks important mechanics to ajudicate the use of the item" and votes to reject it. If I read it and agree and dont have anything to add, I might just hit the reject button without adding any extra comments. Wolfie and I usually see eye to eye on what is clearly an item that shouldnt advance.
Sometimes, either because there is disagreement between the judges or because there is an interesting issue to discuss with an item, we can do 10 or more posts about an item.
I have to admit, we also spend some time with the items we think are really bad as it helps us hone ways to explain what makes one thing good versus another.
We dont do a full critical written review of each item, that is for sure.
Clark
And there goes mine. I was pretty sure I fell into another pitfall before, but this is it. No problem, I somewhat expected it when I made it, and went out on a limb.I have found a new type of item called:
16. The adventure-specific item.
Goodness sake, dont count yourself out yet! I am just making a list of things we saw, not all of which are bad. This category of items, in particular, I cant imagine you know yours falls into this.
Hang in there! This discussion is not to make you lose heart!
I'd thrive on being wished a disease if my item deserved it. It would certainly help me step my game up. I don't think it would be that bad however.
Careful what you wish for :)
Honestly, (and Wolf and I were just discussing this in a post last night) we got a couple items where you can just tell that the author thinks he or she is god's gift to game design and the item is really not that good at all.
I have no idea how your item fared. I imagine it will be like last year and we will get talked into posting our reviews for those who are interested. But I dont make any promises as that took alot of additional time to an already busy competition schedule.
Interesting comment – I suppose that’s where term “different strokes for different folks” would be app. With all the myriad of magical items that litter the pages of countless d20 supplements out there, the items with a back story or a “lore” entry are the ones I find most appealing. They add flavor, turning the mundane and numerous into something special and worth dropping into a campaign – something that could possibly inspire an entirely new story or adventure. In a way, they do their bit in making a make believe world seem somehow a little more “real”.
This is an example of total failure to understand what this competition is about.
This is not about what you like or dont like in other d20 supplements. This is about creating a wondrous item at a superstar level. Does the DMG have three lines of backstory for its wondrous items? No. Does the Pathfinder Beta have that kind of stuff? No.
This isnt about you knowing better as a desiner. And, frankly, that is why this is such a good litmus test for us as judges. This is RPG Superstar with the goal of earning a freelance design gig with Paizo. It is NOT hey look at me I am Joe Cool D&D Guy and I can do it my way and be better!
This has nothing to do with "different strokes," it has to do with understanding what the assignment is and delivering and not just spanking it and showing off.
If you need backstory to make your item interesting, then you probably didnt design a superstar item. If you did design a superstar item, then it will speak for itself.
A backstory on a magic item is useful if the magic item is specifically tied in to a specific campaign or world. If the item is meant to be ported from campaign to campaign, then the backstory is more harmful to its usability or concept.
And I might add, if I was an editor (which I'm not - at least not professionally) if a person cannot accept the limitations of the assignment that in and of itself is a mark against them. A profesional writer is one who can take an assignment and make it their own within the parameters given. It seems to me a lot of people don't want to be professional game designers, they want to be artists, unconstrained. Which is fine. Excepts artists often don't get paid.
Absolutely 100% dead bang true!
Right. But there is a spectrum for almost all of these. I would guess that even for the outright no-nos (bad English for example since the prize is a writing contract as the judges have pointed out) a 4-star entry (out of five) should pass.This is Superstar. The judges might correct me on this, but I think they're looking for five stars out of five.
A great item with some technical flaws or bumps and warts can make the top 32. It is hard to have a totally problem-free submission. So a 5-star item with a couple problems can certainly advance.
Remember, we are selecting the first 32 contestants. They will then have to grow and evolve during the contest. We arent expecting perfection out of the chute. I think you saw that last year, too.
If we focused only on technical perfection we would have alot of sterile items in the top 32. We very much keep in mind that we are picking the 32 people who are going to go on to be in the next rounds of the competition. So spark and mojo and idea and execution and everything all go into the mix. For instance, capitalized spell names in an otherwise great item arent going to get that item kicked (from me anyway).
But I (and I think Wolf too) draw a distinction between editorial corrections (spell capitalization, etc) and failure to follow directions (wrong format, etc). The latter is more likely to get a good submission kicked despite its greatness.
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Star Voter Season 6
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And there goes mine. I was pretty sure I fell into another pitfall before, but this is it. No problem, I somewhat expected it when I made it, and went out on a limb.I have found a new type of item called:
16. The adventure-specific item.
Goodness sake, dont count yourself out yet! I am just making a list of things we saw, not all of which are bad. This category of items, in particular, I cant imagine you know yours falls into this.
Hang in there! This discussion is not to make you lose heart!
Oh, don't worry, it didn't make me lose heart. And let's be honest, just entering is a ton of fun, and reading these types of things is part of learning (which when it's DnD related, is always fun). I hope that it's possible they'll be a RPG Superstar 2080 and I'm still with it enough to not enter "Magical Augury coin that randomly casts Augury if you get heads on a coin, and haz tentacles!" (Bad grammar, bad coin item, augury based, random, horrific).
Honestly though, I do think mine falls into the "adventure-specific" items, and won't go into more detail than that (since the judging is still going on, and I actually have some confidence in this item). Though it is nice to hear it didn't knock me right out off the bat.
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I'm not sure if I sent things off correctly...
Question, is this the correct format?
For my own and everyone's info.
I'll get it right in 2010 if i messed up.
NAME OF ITEM
Aura xxxx; CL NthSlot xxxx (or -); Price xxxx gp; Weight xx lb. (or -)
DESCRIPTION
lorem ipsum stuff
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements xxx, yyy, zzz; Cost xxxx gp
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You know, I don't really think that this contest is about submitting the absolute best, most perfect wondrous item ever in existence. It's about what you can communicate to the judges about yourself - your creativity, professionalism (you know, ability to design within the given guidelines) and familiarity with the game. Many top 32 items from last year fall into one or more of the "stereotypes" Clark and Wolfgang have brought up in this thread. And as Clark has said repeatedly, a lot of great IDEAS didn't make the cut. So don't worry if your item fits one of these categories - as long as you were able to communicate the right things about yourself, you have a fighting chance...huzzah!
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7
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Still a contender.Here are a few more types of items we saw alot of this year for some reason. Not saying they are bad or good, just an unusual amount:
14. Beast shape items. This spell seemed to be everywhere this year. There were tons of items with beast shape in the creation information (unfortunately, often capitalized which is a no no).
15. Soul trapping items. What is it with you guys and trapping souls? That was a popular theme this year.
Clark
Woo, narrowly dodged the beast shape, I was origianlly going to put a Treant form to my [redacted by Vic Wertz], but it was too expensive, so I dropped it.
English not being my maternal language worries me the most. I do hope I write well enough not to make judges go "wtf" over my item, but one can never know.
*sigh*
And then, there's the other pitfalls...
People
EVERYONE needs to know better than to reference their items in any way in this (or any other) thread--either by name or by elements that can help identify it.
I cant believe we are having that problem. Please fix it immediately.
This will be cause for disqualification in my view if not fixed.
"It's all fun and games until someone gets an eye poked out!"
Then it's ping pong!
Chief Technical Officer
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Interesting comment – I suppose that’s where term “different strokes for different folks” would be app. With all the myriad of magical items that litter the pages of countless d20 supplements out there, the items with a back story or a “lore” entry are the ones I find most appealing. They add flavor, turning the mundane and numerous into something special and worth dropping into a campaign – something that could possibly inspire an entirely new story or adventure. In a way, they do their bit in making a make believe world seem somehow a little more “real”.This is an example of total failure to understand what this competition is about.
This is not about what you like or dont like in other d20 supplements. This is about creating a wondrous item at a superstar level. Does the DMG have three lines of backstory for its wondrous items? No. Does the Pathfinder Beta have that kind of stuff? No.
At best, including something like that suggests to me that the author didn't realize that it doesn't belong; at worst, it suggests that the author thinks the rules everyone else follows don't necessarily apply to him. Neither of those things is indicative of somebody who's ready for RPG Superstar.
While I'm still not really expecting my item to make it into the top 32 (not that I think it has any serious flaws, but I don't know that it really has that "spark" that would make it superstar quality), I at least was taking heart in the fact it didn't fall into any of the common pitfalls listed here. It was definitely a wondrous item; no unnecessary backstory; right format; spell names italicized, not capitalized; not a "spell in a can"...
Then, yesterday, though, it hit me that there was a rather more elegant way to implement part of the mechanics of what it did. Not that the way I'd implemented it didn't work, more or less, but it was a bit more awkward than it should have been. (I don't want to get any more specific because, obviously, I don't want to risk mentioning anything that might identify the item.)
So... I guess slightly kludgy mechanics probably aren't an automatic deal-killer, but... oh, well. Like I said, I wasn't really expecting my item to make it into the top 32 anyway (which isn't to say it won't be a very pleasant surprise if it does).
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Kobold Press
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The key word there is "slightly". A slightly kludgy mechanic might slip by if the flavor is great and the core premise is really strong.
Likewise, an item with tight mechanical design and slightly weaker premise or flavor might fly.
We don't expect the Top 32 to be completely *perfect*. Just close. :)
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I have no idea how your item fared. I imagine it will be like last year and we will get talked into posting our reviews for those who are interested. But I dont make any promises as that took alot of additional time to an already busy competition schedule.
I want to thank you Clark, and Wolf and Sean, for your time on this. The feedback is really good, and I feel can only improve this competition from year to year. I know it is very time-intensive, both the initial judging and then the near-endless "What about MY item?", and then breaking down and giving critiques of those who've asked. Again, I want to thank you three fine gents for all of the hard work you are putting into this competition.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8
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I want to thank you Clark, and Wolf and Sean, for your time on this. The feedback is really good, and I feel can only improve this competition from year to year. I know it is very time-intensive, both the initial judging and then the near-endless "What about MY item?", and then breaking down and giving critiques of those who've asked. Again, I want to thank you three fine gents for all of the hard work you are putting into this competition.
[cough] Suck up! Suck up! [/cough]
In all seriousness, I echo that emotion. This is a pretty cool way to find new talent and I'm pretty stoked to see what comes out of it. Kudos!
Now, that said, a well-designed simple item can have a lot of design mojo.
Thanks for the reply. I can only hope that my submission made it now. I think I was above that example, but we'll see.
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*grins*
So far, so good; not only do I think my item is very much wondrous, but also unique in concept, but something characters would want, yet not really abuse or be able to abuse. When I think about it, it is just a damn useful item.
Now we shall see if my confidence plays out or, instead, is dashed upon the rocks of enjoyable exercise in creation, as opposed to one step closer to stardom. My hope is on the former, obviously, and not the later.
Personally, I like RPG Superstar for the same reason I like open calls, as they're a nicely structured venue where you can impress your way into a gig, but even if you're not selected, it was a useful experiment. My item from last year, which I liked, but /DID NOT SUBMIT AGAIN/, was cool, I thought, but obviously had some glitch to it, be it in theme or execution.
But, I also made it something tied into the setting a bit, as it was a play on the animated rope, but used varisian scarves instead. I threw a little growth in there, to count for the size change here and there, but I can see why it got knocked on, LAST YEAR, I think.
Yeah, sorry for the caps, but I get paranoid, at times, and really like to make it obvious when I'm talking about something that, at first blush, might look like I'm talking about now, instead of then.
Anyhow, continued good luck to the other 31 selectees. ;)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Paging through the rejected entries, I notice a lot of:
17. Class features in a can. That is, items that give the more interesting features of a particular class to anybody who can afford the item. Blurring the lines between classes isn't generally a good thing. While I suspect the designer probably sees the item as a way to bring more options to each player, it comes at the cost of making each player less unique.
Oh—and they often wreck something that's supposed to be a balancing feature. That is, where a class may be deliberately designed to do A but not B, suddenly they can do both with no penalty.
There are also a couple of "racial features in a can," though they seem to be a lot less common.
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OK, I'll start the list.
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.
Ah, crap. Guilty as charged. Along those lines though, what would you say would be a better way to write flavour for a wondrous item?
EDIT: Reread the thread. Fair points from the judges. I can see the distinction between "ages old backstory of the doomed item creator" and "sentence long tagline of what the item's use is". Though knowing my luck, I probably forgot to give it a title or something else dumb...
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Steven T. Helt
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** spoiler omitted **I did. But only a mild case, such that you might not compete in Iron DM and recover in time to go home. I had to settle for narcolepsy, and it still wasn't enough. That's what I get for using diseased livestock in that ritual.
Lesson learned. Always use healthy livestock in bartering rituals.
-Ben.
I cannot be stopped by sleep!
But I can be reduced to thirdplace. : }
Well, I managed to trip right out of the gate on the format. I pored over the Wondrous Items rules for weeks and focused mainly on the creation section (especially pricing) and then used a format more like the SRD.
If my item were otherwise stellar (not that it is) would that offer even a chance of salvation or am I doomed?
I guess I must wait and see.