Round 4 rules clarification.


RPG Superstar™ 2009 General Discussion

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 aka Tarren Dei

Does "You must include one (and only one) map of your lair" exclude maps for multiple levels of one building? Does an insetted side view of the same building count as a separate map?

Contributor

It means your lair should fit on a half-page or full-page map as defined in the R4 rules.

If that's one winding cave system all on one level, that's fine.
If that's a castle with several levels, that's fine

As long as it's readable (mentioned in the rules) and fits within the size constraints (mentioned in the rules), that is. If your "lair" is an entire underground city of 200,000 people and you have to shrink the detail down so much that a large building is 1mm x 1mm, that's not a lair. :)


(edited)
Once the judges have read the Round 4 entries, and they have been posted, will contestants be allowed to comment at all before voting is over?
I'm wondering what happens when a person who posted the villain sees someone else's interpretation of the lair, and there is the issue of whether or not they can say 'I wouldn't have done that that way', or 'actually, what I had planned was xxx'.
Banning contestants from commenting on just the lairs of the villains which they created could be seen as unfairly penalising contestants who designed a villain good enough to make other people want to design a lair for that villain, whilst leaving those didn't free to comment.
And what about comments from contestants who were in Round 3, but who didn't make Round 4, but whose villains may still end up inspiring lairs?

The pass-the-lairs may be interesting in the thinking it forces, but it opens up potential minefields of problems once the entries go public.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 aka Tarren Dei

Charles,

I'm reposting your comment and my response from my round 3 entry thread.

Trevor

Tarren Dei wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Hmm; I wonder if Bracht will be allowed to wander around the Round 4 threads once posted, complaining 'hey, I didn't put that there...'

(Always assuming anyone goes for Bracht's lair.)

Bracht would not do that. He might come visit the lair, plop himself down on the couch and ask for a beer but he would not criticize anyone's envisioning of his lair in any way. To do so would reflect badly on me as a writer. If I didn't inspire someone in a way I can appreciate, that's as much my bad as theirs.

I hope that all the Top 16 (17) contestants would be respectful enough not to strongly criticize the ways in which another contestant imagines their lairs.


Tarren Dei wrote:

Charles,

I'm reposting your comment and my response from my round 3 entry thread.

Trevor

Tarren Dei wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Hmm; I wonder if Bracht will be allowed to wander around the Round 4 threads once posted, complaining 'hey, I didn't put that there...'

(Always assuming anyone goes for Bracht's lair.)

Bracht would not do that. He might come visit the liar, plop himself down on the couch and ask for a beer but he would not criticize anyone's envisioning of his lair in any way. To do so would reflect badly on me as a writer. If I didn't inspire someone in a way I can appreciate, that's as much my bad as theirs.

I hope that all the Top 16 (17) contestants would be respectful enough not to strongly criticize the ways in which another contestant imagines their lairs.

It struck me a few moments after I'd posted on your thread that there could be an issue, so I headed straight across here.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

(edited)

Once the judges have read the Round 4 entries, and they have been posted, will contestants be allowed to comment at all before voting is over?
I'm wondering what happens when a person who posted the villain sees someone else's interpretation of the lair, and there is the issue of whether or not they can say 'I wouldn't have done that that way', or 'actually, what I had planned was xxx'.
Banning contestants from commenting on just the lairs of the villains which they created could be seen as unfairly penalising contestants who designed a villain good enough to make other people want to design a lair for that villain, whilst leaving those didn't free to comment.
And what about comments from contestants who were in Round 3, but who didn't make Round 4, but whose villains may still end up inspiring lairs?

The pass-the-lairs may be interesting in the thinking it forces, but it opens up potential minefields of problems once the entries go public.

The point of the "don't post in your thread" rule is that we don't want the contestants to expand upon their entry with "oh yeah, I *MEANT* to say X"-type statements. We want voters to judge them based on the submission they made, not on the submission they would have made in hindsight.

I don't believe that having villain designers posting on other designer's lairs raises the same issue. Any potentially disparaging comments made by the villain designer will just reflect badly on the villain designer, and that's their own problem.


Vic Wertz wrote:

...I don't believe that having villain designers posting on other designer's lairs raises the same issue. Any potentially disparaging comments made by the villain designer will just reflect badly on the villain designer, and that's their own problem.

Translation:

Don't panic! We're confident everyone will behave in a professional manner, and if they don't the voting public will recognise it and respond accordingly.

Okay! :D
<thumbs up>


Not a contestant, but curious...does text on the map count towards the text count?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Count_Rugen wrote:
Not a contestant, but curious...does text on the map count towards the text count?

I don't believe it would. The text on the map is a separate entity from the text of the encounter. But if you pile so much text onto your map as a way to "sneak in text," we'll know. The map text should be what it needs to be to be a clear map, not a way to squeeze in a few extra words.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 aka Tarren Dei

"Apart from your own original content, you are limited to using or referring to the following sources"

Will contestants be allowed to create original monsters? For example, if someone did Bracht's lair, would they be allowed to give his minions some much needed specificity and love?

Contributor

Charles Evans 25 wrote:
Once the judges have read the Round 4 entries, and they have been posted, will contestants be allowed to comment at all before voting is over?

I think that would open up a minefield where you could trash another contestant's ideas because "I wouldn't have done it that way for MY villain."

Contributor

{Not a contestant, but curious...does text on the map count towards the text count?}

What James said.

{Will contestants be allowed to create original monsters? For example, if someone did Bracht's lair, would they be allowed to give his minions some much needed specificity and love?}

If you'd rather spend your valuable words creating new monsters rather than describing a cool lair, that's up to you.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 aka Tarren Dei

"(3) Your map should be either one half-page (8.5" x 5.5") or one full-page (8.5" x 11")."

Does it matter whether an 8.5x11 map is landscape or portrait? Is there a preference? Will it be displayed online as landscape if we design it that way?

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

Your map will be displayed as you submit it. Well, mostly. Like last season, it'll be resized for inline display, and clicking the image will bring up a new window with the full-size image. I may shrink the full-size image if it's some crazy number of pixels.

Contributor

Doesn't matter if it's landscape or portrait. :)

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