...then my votes would certainly go to the following:
Alex Shideler — Crystal Chalice of Dawnflower Dew
&
Benjamin Bruck — Steadfast Gut-stone
with these folks as very close Runners-Up:
Eric Hindley — Hourglass of the Insightful Conjurer
Matthew McGee — Batrachian Helm
Seth White — Vessel of the Deep
and Honorable Mentions to:
Erik Randall — Gloves of the Shortened Path
James Martin — Runcible Spoon
Lief Clennon — Seven Thousand Blossoms
Nicolas Quimby — Goblin Skull Bomb
Sean McGowan — Cacophonous Monkey
Thank you!
Au contraire, mon frere: Thank YOU!
I'm going to say my big top four are:
1: Batrachian Helm
2: Goblin Skull Bomb
3: Needles of the Ebon Strand
4: Steadfast Gut-Stone
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The Helm won out over the skull mostly because it made me think fond memories of gaming yore and made me want to make similar masks for Cynadean-type lost kingdom types.
The Goblin Skull Bomb is just... it's just great. There's not much to say other than that it's what I want to see from goblin magic.
The Needles could have placed higher if they'd knit a different kind of shadow monster instead of the greater shadow. Shadow and Shadow Demon were the right choices, just the middle part wants a bit of variety. In general, this item is awesome.
Steadfast Gut-Stone might not have topped the heap, but it got in on real cleverness. It's an idea and an approach I've never seen before. And there's something about the name that feels... pleasantly humble and stalwart.
===
By the way, I went with a top four because that's the farthest I could separate them and really define which I liked in what order without waffling. Below that, there are a fair bit of cool items I can't really pick amongst, and a fair bit that (no offense,) didn't really do it for me.
hmmm. this year it would be a hard decision to make.
the Last two years had clear and absolute favorites for me, this year the level indeed has equaled. There are some items i don't like, but none i looove.
So my top-list will take some time.
Rather than "rank" items, I'm simply going to list in contest order the ones that struck my fancy particularly.
Runciple Spoon
Snapleaf
Nightingales Tongue
Locket of the Umbral Kiss
Seven Thousand Blossoms
Goblin Skull Bomb
Needs of the Ebon Strand
Waters of Transfiguration
Gem of Immediate Defense
Vessel of the Deep
The Blossoms gets a nod for "amazing visual effect", the Skull Bomb gets a nod for just messing with everyone, and the Tongue gets a nod for providing an unusually useful item for casters.
I showed the top 32 list to my players last night, and asked each of them to pick their 2 favorites. (5 players+me)
Batrachian Helm: 6 votes(all 6 of us thought that this was by far the coolest item on the list hands down).
Troll Fingers: 4 votes(these are disgusting, but thats part of their appeal)
Goblin Skull Bomb: 1 vote(our resident munchkin has visions of low-level humanoid genocide with these ever-replicating items)
Steadfast Gut-Stone: 1 vote(my wife's pc recently died from sneak attack damage from a rival rogue and was reincarnated as a dwarf - she really hates dwarves. she said if she'd had one of these, that might not have happened).
It's too bad there's not a *single* woman among the 32 Superstars of Round 1 (tho' of course you never can tell with the Chris's of the world ; ) )-
Give that a woman *won* the very first RPG Superstar, I know it's not a bias on the part of the judges (also- how could it be- submissions are anonymous at Round 1)- but is a more reflection of the skewed demographics of gaming.
Don't get me wrong, I think we've got an absolutely terrific group of contestants this year, a totally stellar group, but I couldn't *not* notice that they do all seem to be of the XY chromosome persuasion...
Observe! I just hijacked my own thread...
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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I tried to walk away from the items for a day until I beat down the urge to start drinking. But as I come back to them, I just don't feel many have blown up my skirt yet. Which is okay..no one wants to see that.
I do like the gut stone. It sticks out as Superstar - on par with the leash from year one and Neil's leaves from last year.
I haven't read them all - I am ready to fall in love with a few more.
Five votes, eh? Alphabetically, and pretending my own doesn't exist:
I hate to say it, but if I dropped one to vote for myself it'd have to be the skull bomb. It's more likely to see use as a GM device than as an actual toy for the players.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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Good golly, there are so many great items this year, it's hard to get my favorites down to a small list. Here are my choices in alphabetical order:
--
--
--
--
- Batrachian Helm
- Goblin Skull Bomb
- Hourglass of the Insightful Conjurer
- Seven Thousand Blossoms
- Vessel of the Deep
Honorable mentions to: Needles of the Ebon Strand, Starborn Seeds, and Tankard of the Cheerful Duelist.
Honestly, though, there were only a couple of items that I had problems with, but not enough to dismiss their authors in the monster round.
Good golly, there are so many great items this year, it's hard to get my favorites down to a small list.
Honestly, though, there were only a couple of items that I had problems with, but not enough to dismiss their authors in the monster round.
+1 to this.
I too only had problems with a very few items- whereas last year, Round 1 left me with an overwhelming sense of 'meh.' (I'm not trying to be snarky to last year's contestants, not at all, but I think it's very true what's already been said many times this year: that the community as a whole is evolving rapidly, in large part *thanks* to the previous two contests...)
But yeah, quite a bumper crop of really creative items this year...