Speculations regarding future rounds.


RPG Superstar™ 2010 General Discussion

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Does that mean someone's going to stat up Sebastian? ;)

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka Darkjoy

Strangely enough, I believe the future rounds will be closely tied with the publishing schedule of Paizo.

1st year - the countries were tied with golarion gazetteer
2nd year - villains => link with NPC portfolio?
this year - what is coming out in 9-18 months?

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32 aka Lord Fyre

Urizen wrote:
Does that mean someone's going to stat up Sebastian? ;)

We are not supposed to create villains with Epic Level Challenge Ratings. :)

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7 aka Draconas

Darkjoy wrote:

Strangely enough, I believe the future rounds will be closely tied with the publishing schedule of Paizo.

1st year - the countries were tied with golarion gazetteer
2nd year - villains => link with NPC portfolio?
this year - what is coming out in 9-18 months?

Going by that line of reasoning, the Create a Demon Lord round sounds more plausible.

Book of the Damned - Volume 2: Lords of Chaos comes out in August. 8 months away.

Wonder if with all the playtesting going on for the Advanced Player's Guide there will be a Create a New Base/Prestiege Class round.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32 aka Lord Fyre

Draconas wrote:
Darkjoy wrote:

Strangely enough, I believe the future rounds will be closely tied with the publishing schedule of Paizo.

1st year - the countries were tied with golarion gazetteer
2nd year - villains => link with NPC portfolio?
this year - what is coming out in 9-18 months?

Going by that line of reasoning, the Create a Demon Lord round sounds more plausible.

Book of the Damned - Volume 2: Lords of Chaos comes out in August. 8 months away.

Wonder if with all the playtesting going on for the Advanced Player's Guide there will be a Create a New Base/Prestiege Class round.

Do not give Paizo any ideas that they do not need to have! ;D

Sovereign Court

Draconas wrote:
Wonder if with all the playtesting going on for the Advanced Player's Guide there will be a Create a New Base/Prestiege Class round.

I'm guessing an entire base class might be a touch beyond the scope of the contest, but a prestige class would probably be interesting.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32 aka Lord Fyre

Calixymenthillian wrote:
Draconas wrote:
Wonder if with all the playtesting going on for the Advanced Player's Guide there will be a Create a New Base/Prestiege Class round.
I'm guessing an entire base class might be a touch beyond the scope of the contest, but a prestige class would probably be interesting.

Especially a 5 level one. That would be small enough to fit into the scope of the competition.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 aka tejón

A rough draft of a prestige class could be cool, if it comes after a factions round: pick one of the other winners and write a prestige class for it, like the villains/lairs thing.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8 , Star Voter Season 6

Curaigh wrote:
Lord Fyre wrote:
Paul Worthen wrote:
I'm guessing we're still going to see 'design a villain' as the second round this year. Last year it was the key round that separated the good entries from the bad. I think villain design is a complex concept that many people fail to grasp. I know my entry last year was deservedly smashed in the second round for being more 'monster' than 'villain'
I know what you mean. I appearently wasn't "original" enough last year. :(

*sniffle* as an alternate I DID submit a villain and it WAS recommended to pass, but y'all hung on too long! :)

I like monsters, I hope there is a monster round. But as conjecture is only going to get me so far, I am working on the round I DO know about.

Hey it's not my fault my villian sucked but was still there. :P

The last words of many a villian. "Well it seemed a good idea at the time..."


Lord Fyre wrote:
Calixymenthillian wrote:
Draconas wrote:
Wonder if with all the playtesting going on for the Advanced Player's Guide there will be a Create a New Base/Prestiege Class round.
I'm guessing an entire base class might be a touch beyond the scope of the contest, but a prestige class would probably be interesting.
Especially a 5 level one. That would be small enough to fit into the scope of the competition.

Count me in on the list of folks who would like to see more 5 level (as opposed to 10 level) PrC classes.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7 aka Draconas

Matthew Morris wrote:


The last words of many a villian. "Well it seemed a good idea at the time..."

The road to the Hells is paved in good intentions... with lots of broken glass, salt, and hot sauce mixed in there.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

The only issue with Designing a Prestige Class is that it's not something you'd have a new Freelancer undertake. With Jason now a full time Designer rather than an Editor.. it seems like that task would be handled by the full time folks.

Now I could be utterly and completely wrong too.

I just think the tasks will be oriented towards something they'd expect of a new freelancer.


Watcher wrote:

The only issue with Designing a Prestige Class is that it's not something you'd have a new Freelancer undertake. With Jason now a full time Designer rather than an Editor.. it seems like that task would be handled by the full time folks.

Now I could be utterly and completely wrong too.

I just think the tasks will be oriented towards something they'd expect of a new freelancer.

Saywhat? For example, the Qadira Companion has a prestige class in it. Jason's only credit in the book is for "Editorial Assistance", and the author of the book is very definitely a freelancer.

Dedicated Voter Season 6

Zurai wrote:
Watcher wrote:

The only issue with Designing a Prestige Class is that it's not something you'd have a new Freelancer undertake. With Jason now a full time Designer rather than an Editor.. it seems like that task would be handled by the full time folks.

Now I could be utterly and completely wrong too.

I just think the tasks will be oriented towards something they'd expect of a new freelancer.

Saywhat? For example, the Qadira Companion has a prestige class in it. Jason's only credit in the book is for "Editorial Assistance", and the author of the book is very definitely a freelancer.

Then the limitation is what they expect a freelancer to be able to turn around in the short time windows of this year's contest: 3 days, as I recall for all but the last round.


A Great Villain: Your own lack of knowledge.

Cool Minions: A history teacher.

A Great Location: The Circle K.

A Compelling Plot: Strange things are afoot there.

An Awesome Reward: No, an Excellent reward.


Turin the Mad wrote:
Then the limitation is what they expect a freelancer to be able to turn around in the short time windows of this year's contest: 3 days, as I recall for all but the last round.

More to the point: a PrC is not typically found in an adventure. (Regional sourcebooks are not adventures. Paizo staff are pretty good at creating d20 rules. They don't need a freelancer to write a PrC.) The contest hopefully will not go that far afield. Designing a special ability for a villain now, that would be fine.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka MythrilDragon

Shinmizu wrote:

A Great Villain: Your own lack of knowledge.

Cool Minions: A history teacher.

A Great Location: The Circle K.

A Compelling Plot: Strange things are afoot there.

An Awesome Reward: No, an Excellent reward.

Wyld Stallions!


Excellent, dudes!


I keep pushing for one round to force the contestants to develop a wardrobe to be used at a fashion runway show, but apparently that's not fantasy enough.

So my other idea was to force them to select a Motown song and sing it in a new and creative way, but only bards sing in PRPG so that got tossed out.

Then I wanted one round to be all of the contestants re-designing one room of *another* contestant's house with everyone voting on the best room swap, but I guess the logistics there were ... complicated.

Still, I think these are great ideas and someone should make a TV show out of them or something.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Zurai wrote:
Saywhat? For example, the Qadira Companion has a prestige class in it. Jason's only credit in the book is for "Editorial Assistance", and the author of the book is very definitely a freelancer.

I take your point but I think you're stretching it. First, the Qadira Companion is not a module. The intent of this contest is to find someone to write a module, even without any prior experience.

Brian Cortijo has prior experience as an author of a full AP chapter (two actually, and maybe many other credits, I don't know his full portfolio). So he's an established freelancer. Who was contracted to write an article, not a module.

Now I'm not going to take the "Saywhat?" too personally, but I think you're overlooking the point I was trying to make.

Each round of this contest should be a test to demonstrate a skill that a freelancer is going to need in order to write a module. That's all. I'm not trying to say that freelancers can't develop other content. Adam Daigle's article on Possession is just such an example of a freelancer developing non-module content.

I don't see developing a PrC as demonstrating the ability to write a module. You need to have an awesome villain, neat minions, engaging story. Word count is precious, so decisions on adding things like new monsters and new magic items have to be weighed carefully. And as others have pointed out, contestants would be relying on intuition as to whether it (the PrC) was balanced (without a fair chance to playtest in three days).

Finally, as in my prevous post, Paizo is welcome to post that I am competely and utterly wrong. Again, this being only my opinion.

Scarab Sages

Turin the Mad wrote:
Then the limitation is what they expect a freelancer to be able to turn around in the short time windows of this year's contest: 3 days, as I recall for all but the last round.

Yes, this year's secret ingrediant is: lack of time.

With hidden objectives and at most 72 hours to design, edit, and polish each entry, clearly they want to see:

a) who can't make a deadline to save their life,
b) who can make a deadline, and
c) who can make a deadline with style.

Creative is good, but creative and sticks to a schedule is best. This means their system will get slammed at 2:00 PM on the 19th by folks wanting to see if they made the next round and what they need to scramble to design for it. Fun times for Vic!

Paizo Employee Developer , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8

Patrick Walsh wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:
Then the limitation is what they expect a freelancer to be able to turn around in the short time windows of this year's contest: 3 days, as I recall for all but the last round.

Yes, this year's secret ingrediant is: lack of time.

With hidden objectives and at most 72 hours to design, edit, and polish each entry, clearly they want to see:

a) who can't make a deadline to save their life,
b) who can make a deadline, and
c) who can make a deadline with style.

Creative is good, but creative and sticks to a schedule is best. This means their system will get slammed at 2:00 PM on the 19th by folks wanting to see if they made the next round and what they need to scramble to design for it. Fun times for Vic!

I'm lucky enough to be someone who is regularly sitting at a computer at 2PM Pacific Time (my own timezone), but I still expect that there might be trouble with so many folks accessing the site. Oh well, such is life!

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 aka Sollir

Quote:

Joshua J. Frost wrote:

I keep pushing for one round to force the contestants to develop a wardrobe to be used at a fashion runway show, but apparently that's not fantasy enough.

Um, is it bad that out of the three items I made to turn in, one was a magical wardrobe (ala Portable Hole/Dimension Bag) of a fashion-crazed necromancer? His goal in life of course was to preserve the magic of monsters into fashionable clothing, including a Harpy Headdress, Ghoulskin Gloves, Cloak of the Basilisk, etc...

Yeah, that was one of the crazies I deemed too crazy to turn in =S

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Watcher wrote:

The only issue with Designing a Prestige Class is that it's not something you'd have a new Freelancer undertake. With Jason now a full time Designer rather than an Editor.. it seems like that task would be handled by the full time folks.

Now I could be utterly and completely wrong too.

I just think the tasks will be oriented towards something they'd expect of a new freelancer.

Actually... the first freelance thing I did for Paizo after the Superstar contest was the Campaign Setting book, including three PrCs - the Low Templar, Pathfinder Chronicler, and a divine caster PrC called the Idolater that ended up getting cut for space (but hey, I still got paid, so all's well that ends well, right?) and the next thing after that was Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs, including another PrC, the Living Monolith. Last month I turned over two more for the APG.

The Superstar contest, as I see it anyway, has two goals. The direct goal is to find someone with the ideas and skills to write a good adventure, and prize them up with an adventure to write.

The indirect goal is to find people with the ideas and skills to write good game content, and then add them to the roster of "people I'll email if there's a project, which might be an adventure or might be other stuff."

Since Superstar, I've written two AP adventures but I've written a lot more stuff that was NOT a straight module. It's the same for any of the other contestants from the last two years with the exception of Neil, who had his winning mod to write, a short bit for the River Kingdoms book, and then immediately hopped onto Kingmaker for a module. With two BIG projects right in a row like that, he hasn't had time to fill in with a lot of smaller projects. Yet. :)

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2013 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Steven T. Helt

If there's a 5 level PrC in one of the rounds, I am ready to submit on day one.

Villain, not quite. I need to earn enough money to buy a certain Players' Guide first.

Demon Lord? I am so in love with a couple of the demons from Golarion right now I'd feel unfaithful (which might make one of them happy) if I made up a new one.

I still nominate myself to write all things House Sardavic and Socothbenoth. If you played Ascension of the Drow, you'll know why. : }


Here are some contests I'd like to see, though not sure they'd make it in this:

1) Design a Deity (come up with a unique porfolio, priests and powers)
2) Design a new Prestige Class or PC Class
3) Design a new race (give some cultural info too)
4) Design a Hero! (someone we can all love!)
5) Design a Sage (You know, the Merlin/Gandalf types).
6) Design a Tavern (we all need a place to hang)

Just my thoughts,
Ken

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Jason Nelson wrote:
...with the exception of Neil, who had his winning mod to write, a short bit for the River Kingdoms book, and then immediately hopped onto Kingmaker for a module. With two BIG projects right in a row like that, he hasn't had time to fill in with a lot of smaller projects. Yet. :)

Hope springs eternal! ;-)


NSpicer wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
...with the exception of Neil, who had his winning mod to write, a short bit for the River Kingdoms book, and then immediately hopped onto Kingmaker for a module. With two BIG projects right in a row like that, he hasn't had time to fill in with a lot of smaller projects. Yet. :)
Hope springs eternal! ;-)

The moment, I mean the split second you hit send on the email, that you have free time, I have an assignment for you. :-)

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Jason Nelson wrote:
Actually... the first freelance thing I did for Paizo after the Superstar contest was...

Well okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about. :D

I thought my point was fair (that the Rounds should orient towards module writing), but as an authority you (and possibly Neil) disagree. Noted and respected. :)

I'm not in a position to refute it. Whereas you have practical experience.

Having said that, do *you* think that one of the rounds should be to design a PrC?

If not what would you propose a brand new Round topic be?

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
The moment, I mean the split second you hit send on the email, that you have free time, I have an assignment for you. :-)

::Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura voice:: "Reeeh-heeh-heeaalllyyy?"

Let's see how fast I can access my email. :-)

EDIT: Done!

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Watcher wrote:
Having said that, do *you* think that one of the rounds should be to design a PrC?...If not what would you propose a brand new Round topic be?

Personally, I don't. I think monster design and stat-blocking is a better representation of someone's design-fu than a prestige class. But who knows? Paizo might prove me wrong and decide the flavor text to explain a prestige class's origin and the mechanical aspects of putting together all its various class abilities and level progression make for a much better demonstration of both areas of expertise for a designer.

It doesn't really matter that much. They'll test you for sure either way. But I do agree with Jason. This contest isn't to find the best adventure writer (even though that's the final prize). It's to find new freelancers capable of contributing to all their product lines. And many of those have a prestige class or two in them.

But that's just my two-cents,
--Neil

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

NSpicer wrote:


It doesn't really matter that much. They'll test you for sure either way. But I do agree with Jason. This contest isn't to find the best adventure writer (even though that's the final prize). It's to find new freelancers capable of contributing to all their product lines. And many of those have a prestige class or two in them.

Fair enough. :)

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development , Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

I don’t think the situation is exactly the same for every freelancer too. You get started with what you get. Sometimes it’s adventures, sometimes it’s support articles or monsters or whatever.

One thing I do know is that the adventure guys are the jocks of the RPG freelancing world. ;)

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Uh-oh, bad news everyone. Round 4 involves a game of Bella Sara against Cosmo. Everyone but me is officially screwed!

Mha ha ha!

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Adam Daigle wrote:
One thing I do know is that the adventure guys are the jocks of the RPG freelancing world. ;)

Sadly, I'm still very much in the nerd camp.

Spoiler:

But that's actually where I want to be! :-)

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development , Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

NSpicer wrote:
Adam Daigle wrote:
One thing I do know is that the adventure guys are the jocks of the RPG freelancing world. ;)

Sadly, I'm still very much in the nerd camp.

** spoiler omitted **

Nah, we're all still nerds, but there are hierarchies, and sorry, brother, you're now a jock. ;)

Liberty's Edge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012 , Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9

varianor wrote:
A reasonable variant on "design a villain" is "design a henchman". Especially for an adventure where the villain might need a strong person to assist them in committing their evil.

"No, it's pronounced eye-gor."

Dedicated Voter Season 6

A Great Villain: The Grand Master of Flowers

Cool Mini-onions: A Big Burly Monk, some bearded dude with a scarred-face that 86'd your character's sister (back story at 1st level), A smokin' hot babe seducing one (or more) of your fellow PCs with her entourage of almost-as-smokin' hot babes and a horde of mooks.

A Great Location: An ancient fortress-monastery-palace on a island you have to sail to at the invitation of said Grand Master of Flowers. Staffed by performers, servants and the aforementioned horde of mooks.

A Compelling Plot: Rescue the innocent from slavery while attending the Tournament of Martial Arts, thereby gaining blood-splattered revenge on the Grand Master of Flowers and his bevy of mini-onions.

An Awesome Reward: Ownership of the fortress-monastery-palace, all the loot found therein and bragging rights for whipping the Grand Master of Flowers.


Why do I suddenly want a Gibson served by a Hooters girl?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Watcher wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
Actually... the first freelance thing I did for Paizo after the Superstar contest was...

Well okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about. :D

I thought my point was fair (that the Rounds should orient towards module writing), but as an authority you (and possibly Neil) disagree. Noted and respected. :)

I'm not in a position to refute it. Whereas you have practical experience.

Having said that, do *you* think that one of the rounds should be to design a PrC?

If not what would you propose a brand new Round topic be?

I don't think a PrC is a bad idea, esp. a five-level one, though it's a design project that has a lot of hidden quirks in it. It also is pretty word and concept-intensive - judges might very well say "I love A and B, but I just don't get C, D is dumb, E is okay but kinda overdone." It could end up kind of a mish-mash.

No more so than monster design, I suppose, but tricky.

Honestly, one of my favorite rounds was the country round in year 1 - I thought that was a lot of fun and brought out a lot of different ideas.

New spell could be interesting... as long as it comes with a can. ba dum bum


Joshua J. Frost wrote:
The moment, I mean the split second you hit send on the email, that you have free time, I have an assignment for you. :-)

*stares at the monitor for three hours, waiting for this message to self-destruct*

Hmm... guess it's just a boring non-impossible assignment. Yawn.

Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9

I was wondering if a round might include some randomness now that we have a dice roller. So my 1d1 ⇒ 11d20 ⇒ 13 would translate into a villain of...

EDIT: a barbarian at level 13.


How about this as an idea:
One of the later rounds contains an assignment to 'Write the words of a song sung in Golarion. It may be a drinking song, national anthem, religious hymn, bawdy verse used by entertainers, or any other thing that might be sung by someone. You may write upto ten verses, it doesn't have to rhyme, and if you produce something in 'the original language' you must provide a basic translation and dictionary to go with it.'

Legendary Games, Necromancer Games

Shinmizu wrote:

A Great Villain: Your own lack of knowledge.

Cool Minions: A history teacher.

A Great Location: The Circle K.

A Compelling Plot: Strange things are afoot there.

An Awesome Reward: No, an Excellent reward.

I love Bill and Ted's. Is that out on blu-ray? I MUST have it. I was in college when that came out. I saw it several times. At no time was I ever in my right mind, of course, but beyond that I make no admissions.

Excellent!


Clark Peterson wrote:
I love Bill and Ted's. Is that out on blu-ray?

Doesn't seem to be... couldn't find it on Amazon.com--DVD's the most recent viable format I see.

Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7

Jason Nelson wrote:


Honestly, one of my favorite rounds was the country round in year 1 - I thought that was a lot of fun and brought out a lot of different ideas.

Yeah- I gotta say- I really like all the rounds of Year One.

Oh, who am I kidding, I really liked all the rounds of Year Two- but year one had a lot of great fluff, and I gotta admit, I loves the fluff...

(Not that both years didn't have both fluff and crunch. I just found the first year very magical...)(But I just love this contest in general, and can't wait for Year Three to commence!)

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 aka Hydro

I think the country round had some of the stuff that I am most likely to use in an actual game. If not wholesale countries then certainly bits and pieces.

Though I'm also kinda tempted to use Melgana (an undead goblin head hanging out with the party? Pure gold), and I may one day run some of the better encounter (I ALMOST got to run Chase on Charred Ground at a con yesterday).

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Hydro wrote:

I think the country round had some of the stuff that I am most likely to use in an actual game. If not wholesale countries then certainly bits and pieces.

Though I'm also kinda tempted to use Melgana (an undead goblin head hanging out with the party? Pure gold), and I may one day run some of the better encounter (I ALMOST got to run Chase on Charred Ground at a con yesterday).

That would be pretty cool. I did use a powered-up version of Rob McCreary's "Monkey Goblins Attack!" in an Al-Qadim-style game I was running about 1-1/2 to 2 years ago. It wasn't too long after the contest, and one of my players recognized the scenario from the contest.

I also used a slightly down-powered set of Russ Taylor's "Darkblight" monsters in my current PFRPG campaign as a followup to "Crypt of the Everflame."

Good times!

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