Currently sick as a dog, stumbling back and forth from bed to computer as new ideas or bits of wordplay come to me.
I think some of the delirium is making its way into my critter.
*Picks up his chair from the 2009 lounge and moves it over*
But, but you already have a chair!
How come he gets two chairs?
I want two chairs!
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7
aka Draconas
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Currently sick as a dog, stumbling back and forth from bed to computer as new ideas or bits of wordplay come to me.
I think some of the delirium is making its way into my critter.
Sickness-based hallucinations make the best monsters. Hope you get to feeling better though, Nicolas.
But, but you already have a chair!
How come he gets two chairs?
I want two chairs!
Two chairs wouldn't be that comfortable though. You're either propping your legs up at the same height or falling in between them. Give me a Laz-E-Boy over two chairs any day.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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It was fun last night to tell some of my gaming friends about the contest. But trying to explain it to my colleagues at ACT this morning was hilarious.
- Dungeons and Dragons? Didn't that become a computer game in the late '80's?
- Do you have to sing? How does that work on the internet? Do you have to video-tape your songs?
- What's a "magic item"?
- Is there, like, a Simon Cowell kind of guy?
- No, wait. Isn't that the game with dice?
But they seem to accept that this is an exciting thing. I suppose I'd feel the same way if one of them came in, excited to be on the tryouts for the state's Hurling Team or something.
And, yeah, Hydro; get better.
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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Wow. I would LOVE a real beer. Too bad I'm too amped up about the next round and too worried that drinking might cause me to miss something and the deadline is WHEN and I have a doctor's appointment on Friday and the kid needs a bath and BOOM.
I think my head just exploded. Next round's on me!
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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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Everyone is busy working on their critter and I don't even have a basic concept yet....
Dude, I feel your pain. My problem is that I had a ton of ideas and then systematically eliminated each one for various reasons. Which leaves me with bupkiss. Oh well, deadlines make for magic, right? Right?
Everyone is busy working on their critter and I don't even have a basic concept yet....
Some of us are also reading all the cool new items. :)
So, at this point I'm wondering: "Would Guinness help with the monster creation process, or should I just skip straight to the absinthe?"
Haha! Awesome. Simon Cowell is not a monster concept... is it?
He's a unique monster, so he wouldn't qualify. :)
Man, the concept came pretty quick this time around. And then the riffing, and the details, and it grew from just over a hundred words to "oh crap, I need to cut a sentence." And then the realization that the creature type I'd assigned was completely inappropriate to the abilities and ecology, but nothing else was appropriate to the attitude and pseudo-lore. And then the mad-scientist-ing. Haha!
Letting it stew overnight. Did someone mention beer?
* Brings a tray of drinks around and prances back behind the bar *
I'll take a glass of milk. For some reason I seem to have developed an ulcer in the past 24 hours.
So yeah, wow, guys. My immediate reaction on seeing the round two rules? 'Pff. 300 words, no crunch needed. Easy.' Oh, hahahahaha I do laugh at myself one day later. Had three different ideas bubble up, all seemed doable and, IMO, kinda nifty. Created rough drafts for all three; about 1100 words total. (Yes, trimming will be needed no matter which one I go with.) Then sent them out to my panel of critiquing friends, conveniently also three in number, to see what the consensus was on which one being the most interesting. You can, of course, guess what happened next. Everyone picked a different monster as their fave. Argh.
So yeah, this is why democracies fail.
Anyway, glad to be here and share the stress. :-)
*Lifts a mug of heather ale to toast the successes of Round 1, then unrolls a rug, takes a spot on the floor and stretches out*
Ahh, delicious! Now down to business, wait, where did the first 4/9ths of this design period go? Time sure does fly by in this competition. I'm still reeling from and reading the results of round 1. I fully intend to comment on everyone's item, as I think its worthwhile to build some good camaraderie at this point (bolster the good vibes).
Though I have not been idle. Some ideas on the table, some clever thoughts so far, but mostly I have been looking over the bestiary on and off for ideas, not to steal mind you, but just ideas that have not been explored much, if at all.
I hope you start feeling better Nicolas, I would hate to have to fight off a bug and still make the deadline.
*Gets up, stretches again, and goes back to it*
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Everyone is busy working on their critter and I don't even have a basic concept yet....Some of us are also reading all the cool new items. :)
I made a point of reading them all... you guys came up with some great stuff. Some of these items are definitely seeing play in my games!
Now back to making flavor text for my Blogres (it's a kind of ogre that hangs out and posts on the internet all day long). I'm sure this Blogre concept is going to make it!
I work from home so no at work stories...
BTW one of the reasons the R1 rules had a 300-word limit this year instead of the previous 200-word limit is because I wanted the word counts to be consistent from round to round--no sense needlessly confusing people with similar-but-different word counts from round to round.
That will change, of course, in later rounds, particularly when it comes to the last round.
"Pitch a module in 50 words!"
There is an orc. It is guarding a pie.
Damn... I would have gone with, "S%~* happens. It's awesome." I think you win.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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I'm thinking of a bald hobgoblin that exudes magnatism and gets all the hot girls for no discernable reason. ;-)
Nah, really, I've decided on <redacted>
You know, if I could figure out how to decribe a monster that redacts people, I would
Feeling much better, thanks for the goodwill!
I fully intend to comment on everyone's item, as I think its worthwhile to build some good camaraderie at this point (bolster the good vibes).
I got through a little over half of them before I pried myself away to work on my monster (it's hard for me to just go down the list and read them because I keep getting pulled into discussions about the ones I've already read).
Keep in mind that we still have the weekend before Round 2 goes live, which is plenty of time to kick back and take a closer look at the item crop.
I've been going back and forth between working on next round and commenting on everyone's items. Some really impressive stuff there!
You're a good man. I'm going to do that once I have my item done. I offered a few congratulations to folks that I saw posting a lot prior to the contests beginning, but I want read through every item and offer a comment.
Till then I've just taken Spicer's advice and focused on the next step. In a way, I've tried not to focus on the messageboards too much, in order to keep my head clear.
Till then I've just taken Spicer's advice and focused on the next step. In a way, I've tried not to focus on the messageboards too much, in order to keep my head clear.
::pulls up an alumni-chair::
Very wise. ;-)
Personally, I believe a competitor must tell themselves to focus on the next assignment. You really don't have time for anything else. After you hit that "submit" button you're going to be surprised at how long it takes for the judges (and new guest judges) to issue their commentary, the new submission to get publicly posted, and the week of voting to play itself out. During that time, believe me, you'll have plenty of opportunity to go back and comment on everyone's stuff from the previous round.
In fact, saving your comments until then is a good way to give yourself something to do so you don't go crazy with worry and stress over the exit poll results and the comments people are dropping on your newest creation. Think of it as your own personal therapy between rounds, because, if you engage in too much of it right now, it's just taking you away from your assignment.
Also, by getting involved in discussions during a given round, you still run the risk of saying something that's taken negatively by everyone...or running afoul of the rules by breaking them somehow. It's just better to put aside that temptation/distraction until you're really free to engage in it, both rules-wise and because you're no longer under the pressure of a deadline.
But that's just my two-cents,
--Neil
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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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Till then I've just taken Spicer's advice and focused on the next step. In a way, I've tried not to focus on the messageboards too much, in order to keep my head clear.
This is good advice I wish I had taken yesterday. I read everything and it's great. There wasn't a single thing that didn't spark ideas. Unfortunately all those ideas were for cool sessions that don't help me make a monster. Stupid brain.
We have chairs?!
Dude. You're using a bull as an avatar. You get a stall. Or maybe the pasture out back. ;-P
Meanwhile, we silver dragons can shapechange, you know.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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And we blues just get humans to make chairs for us. :P
And I agree, I promised myself I'd not play megamek until I was done with draft 1 and happy with it. Same thing goes for tonight and draft 2.
Then this weekend I'll finally DL my frakking PDFs and read 'em, since I still don't have a gaming group. *cough cough*
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I wrote up my first draft last night, both the description and a stat block in case I were to, hypothetically, need one, and I'll come back to it tomorrow morning. In the meantime, to clear my cache, I've been looking at the challenges for previous rounds.
And, oof. I don't think I'd have done a very good job of designing a country.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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We have chairs?!Dude. You're using a bull as an avatar. You get a stall. Or maybe the pasture out back. ;-P
Meanwhile, we silver dragons can shapechange, you know.
I'm a werebull.
I was going through the items and preparing to comment but I found the former ESL teacher in me saying more than the would-be game designer so I decided not to piss in anyone's beer by pointing them out in your threads.
:: hands Sean his milk with an evil grin ::
For all the great stuff in the Top 32, I have yet to read one that didn't have at least one syntax, spelling, or punctuation error. (I'm not done reading them all.) I'm sure most people would never notice those missing commas but, if I could give one piece of advice to all the Top 32, double your proofreading efforts before you have a long drawn out argument in your thread about something like an irregular plural.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7
aka Draconas
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We have chairs?!Dude. You're using a bull as an avatar. You get a stall. Or maybe the pasture out back. ;-P
Meanwhile, we silver dragons can shapechange, you know.
I'm a werebull.
I was going through the items and preparing to comment but I found the former ESL teacher in me saying more than the would-be game designer so I decided not to piss in anyone's beer by pointing them out in your threads.
:: hands Sean his milk with an evil grin ::
For all the great stuff in the Top 32, I have yet to read one that didn't have at least one syntax, spelling, or punctuation error. (I'm not done reading them all.) I'm sure most people would never notice those missing commas but, if I could give one piece of advice to all the Top 32, double your proofreading efforts before you have a long drawn out argument in your thread about something like an irregular plural.
I'm sure you've had a field day in mine. I've never been anything close to a professional writer and I'm sure it shows.
/Hatches fiendish plot to distract one of the competitors.
//Starts "Trevor, please critique the grammar of my submission" thread.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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Actually, Trevor, if you see a English-mechanics issue in mine, feel free to draw my attention to it. (I count that I have two commas that aren't strictly necessary, but break the sentence for easy reading, like the ones in this sentence.)
dwoemer vs. dweomer?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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/Hatches fiendish plot to distract one of the competitors.
//Starts "Trevor, please critique the grammar of my submission" thread.
Ha. I just wish I were one of the competitors Mr. Wells. I'm here as a waitress only.
:: posts 'Please tip your servers.' notice ::
This week wasn't the first time I've been glad I didn't make it to the Top 4 last year. There is no way I would have had the time, energy, or expertise to give the lengthy and insightful feedback that the guest judges gave. You guys are very lucky.
Ha. I just wish I were one of the competitors Mr. Wells.
Whoops. Tag-reading comprehension failure on my part. Sorry.
/Goes back to hatching fiendish plots.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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For all the great stuff in the Top 32, I have yet to read one that didn't have at least one syntax, spelling, or punctuation error.
If mine ONLY had one error then I would be surprised. I try to do 2 editorial passes with 2 different friends who are usually pretty solid and one knows game mechanics quite well to boot. But this time I made a few changes after the editorial passes.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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I wrote up my first draft last night, both the description and a stat block in case I were to, hypothetically, need one, and I'll come back to it tomorrow morning. In the meantime, to clear my cache, I've been looking at the challenges for previous rounds.
And, oof. I don't think I'd have done a very good job of designing a country.
Fluff's always my weak point. *coughfatherAvoncough* So this part always worries me.
Hmm, an interesting 'stat the monster' varient could be to 'stat your monster at x challenge rating' While I don't think it will be that easy, it could be scary to pitch a monster you see at CR 20 in your head and have it be 'stat your monster as a CR 1 encounter'. :-)
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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'm guessing it's not stat YOUR monster, it's stat someone else's monster. That way you not only have to show you've got stat chops, you have to show you can bring someone else's description alive.