Nicolas Quimby RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 aka Hydro |
Lief Clennon RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 aka tejón |
Azmahel |
PsionicFox wrote:I can hardly envisage Clark (or anyone else on the panel) saying: "Now then this item is really cool — what? Formatting error XXX? DISQUALIFIED!"Depends on the "formatting" error (and please dont post yours and ask me to give my impression :) ).
If by formatting error you mean forgetting to include any slot info, that's pretty much an auto-reject. Or not putting requirements for creation or cost. Yeah, that will kill you. Or putting a "design notes" section that puts your item over word count. That entry just got a fork stuck in it--its done.
If by formatting error you mean putting "throat" instead of "neck," well that one might get you into trouble. If we already have a ding against your item, that might push your item over the edge. That mistake all by itself, though, you should be OK. That is a rules mistake that we expect a freelancer to get right.
If by formatting error you mean not bolding or italicizing things, that's not that big a deal.
Mine pretty clearly falls into the second group of mistakes and that's too bad, because this way a can wait even less to know whether this dumb mistake killed my item or not. Anyway i learned not to make a mistake like this again.
FireHawk Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 8 |
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Sebastian Bella Sara Charter Superscriber |
Callous Jack wrote:No one else could afford to?Sebastian wrote:Why has no one thought of this before?I avoided these formatting issues entirely by writing my entry on unmarked 100 dollar bills.
Oh come on. It's not that hard to photocopy a 100 dollar bill a couple dozen times and send those copies to Paizo and...uh...
I mean to say that you're right, no one could afford it. That was definitely real currency I sent and not counterfeit bills.
Callous Jack |
Oh come on. It's not that hard to photocopy a 100 dollar bill a couple dozen times and send those copies to Paizo and...uh...
I mean to say that you're right, no one could afford it. That was definitely real currency I sent and not counterfeit bills.
You at least photocopied real money and not Monopoly money, right?
Sebastian Bella Sara Charter Superscriber |
Sebastian wrote:Oh come on. It's not that hard to photocopy a 100 dollar bill a couple dozen times and send those copies to Paizo and...uh...
I mean to say that you're right, no one could afford it. That was definitely real currency I sent and not counterfeit bills.
You at least photocopied real money and not Monopoly money, right?
Pfft. Like the judges would even notice. They're so dumb that...
What's that? There are multiple rounds of the contest that are not done anonymously?
Um...I'd never try to pass off photocopied money to the judges.* They're way too smart (and kind, and generous, and forgiving, and, most importantly, sexy!) to fall for that type of ploy.
*Unless I didn't make it through the first round. In which case, I hope they all get 5-10 years for trying to purchase dice with Bella Bucks, the official currency of the Bella Sara game.
M. T. Yarnell |
Sebastian wrote:Why has no one thought of this before?I avoided these formatting issues entirely by writing my entry on unmarked 100 dollar bills.
Probably because putting your entry on the bills marks them; at least until the mint puts wondrous items onto money as an anti-counterfeiting scheme.
Wait a second....
OK, patent pending!
Jason Rice |
Item title not in body. It was excused last year... although with the format present on the submission page, it doesn't seem like it would go over quite as well now. Here's hoping.
My heart just jumped into my throat. If I remember correctly, my word count was 1 word under the limit. Since I wasn't sure if their method of counting was the same as mine, I tweaked it slightly. Since the item name was in the title, I think the submitted version had the item name deleted from the body (to give myself some "wiggle room").
PANIC!
I can't remember if it was deleted from the body, and I have no way of checking.
Clark Peterson Legendary Games, Necromancer Games |
Vic Wertz Chief Technical Officer |
Plus side: Vic's crew were adding the item names to the descriptions that were missing them.
That was only when they somehow didn't get inserted into the thread title (which is a computer thing, not a submission thing).
However, if we'd had an entry being considered that was up against word count, and somebody noticed that something like that was missing, we'd have probably put it in. But it didn't come up.
Jason Rice |
Have they said what method they are using for counting words? When I was in highschool and took a typing class (on an actual typewriter), they counted every 5 spaces as a word. However, Microsoft Office 2007 counts every group of letters between spaces as a word, or to put it another way, "antidisestablishmentarianism" counts the same as "a".
Sean K Reynolds Contributor |
That's what we use to determine word count in a product, too, so that's the method we use for RPG Superstar. While for short bursts of words, that can give a really inaccurate impression of the length of the text, the law of averages says that the longer the text chunk, the closer to a middle word-length you'll be.
So yes, it's entirely possible that submission A and B both count as 300 words, but A takes up more space on a page because on average its words are longer. But the length on a page is also determined by where the word breaks are on each line, and we have tools such as text tracking that can stretch or squish a chunk of words to make it fit if it's a little bit off from the target area.
As far as nit-picking and disqualifications go, it's really a matter of "can you follow directions?" If someone hands you a first-time writing assignment and says "no more than 300 words," you should stick to that--just as if you're a first-time contractor for a company and they tell you, "don't go over $300 budget on this project," if you come in at $301, you've failed to follow directions.
Jason Rice |
That's what we use to determine word count in a product, too, so that's the method we use for RPG Superstar.
Does "That's" refer to the 5 space = 1 word format, or the Microsoft Office 2007 program?
When I get home tonight, I'll proabably be wearing out the right arrow on my keyboard. "Click click click click click, ONE. Click click click click click, TWO."
Nicolas Quimby RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 aka Hydro |
Sean K Reynolds Contributor |