Personally, I wasn't really wowed by any of the Round 4 entries, but I want everyone to know I think the R4 challenge is partly to blame. Competitors had to do three different things in the round and tie them all together, and all three are things are basically new--they didn't build upon a previous round's info (like the monster stat block built upon the monster concept, or the 2009 villain lair built upon the villain). It wasn't an easy task, especially in such a short amount of time. I'm thinking next year, if we use this sort of challenge again, we'll tighten it up so it's more focused, and/or give the competitors the opportunity to build more on a previous round's information.
In other words, I think most competitors did the best they could with a difficult challenge. It's like throwing a bunch of kids into the deep end of the pool and watching them flail about--there are better ways for them to show how well they can swim!
So, good luck to the competitors in the voting, and I ask the voters to take into account that I (and at least one other judge) believe the R4 challenge is especially difficult.
OK,
I'll take that under consideration. But shouldn't a hard challenge reveal the best?
I'll return after I've reviewed the entries.
Ironically, this is the one round I've looked at and thought, "Hey, I could do that!" Inventing wondrous items and monsters and making stat blocks (Too. Much. MATH!) is completely beyond my range of abilities, but drawing maps and designing encounters is just fun to me. It must be a right brain/left brain thing.
Wow...it seems the Ardorwesp is this round's Churjiir. Four of the encounters used them.
I think that says a little something about the ardorwesp's implementor. ;)
-Ben.
I thought this year with this round there was a pretty clear top 3 and bottom 5. That was the way the submissions played out to me. But when you compare to, say, the two prior years, the contestants had more words to work with. But even the top three, while very good, weren't world beaters like prior years.
In 09 the top 8 had 2000 words to work with and you had some classic submissions. I dont see anything like Paperstreet or the Sanctum of the Colossus or even the apple orchard here, except perhaps the False Tomb.
In 08 they did 3 monsters, the lair/location was the top 6. But there you had such amazing classics as Christine's Chase on Charred Ground, Rob's Monkey Goblins, Boomer's Tribunal, Jason's Rothang's Rest (which I must admit in reading back over all the entries I should have scored that one higher). Even Russ and Joe's were better.
Sean, we should look at this afterwards and see what we need to tweak in the rules for the rounds.
Maybe more time, maybe more words. Not sure. But I agree with you that the task played a part in what we got.
I think most people will find it very hard to vote on these entries. Like the judges said, neither of the encounters is really mind-blowing. I don't mean to criticize the contestants, I guess three days to come up with a really epic encounter is just too little.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Clark, I think Ceylon Tom put his finger on the problem. This year has had the additional burden of surprise rounds. From the list of guest judges, we had a pretty good idea that this round would include a map, and so probably an encounter or location, but the additional requirements were a loop. (I'd prepared a couple of rough drafts, in case I advanced, and neither of them would have been suitable for the actual rules of the round. If I'd been in the top 8, I would have had to start from scratch, or else try to shoehorn in an element or two that would not have quite fit.)
Maybe more time, maybe more words. Not sure. But I agree with you that the task played a part in what we got.
You gave everyone tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers, while forbidding the use of jalapenos and so it's no surprise that most people made marinara.
-Ben.
Personally, I think the Golarion requirement was a mistake.
*either* an encounter designed around a round 4 creature *or* a location with one encounter specified would probably have been sufficient and would have resulted in some good submissions.
Also, I'm not sure what the big secret is.
Why not reveal all of the rounds at the same time? Clearly they shouldn't be the same every year so that people spend a year optimizing a full set of submissions, but waiting until round 3 to reveal that round 4 is "design a location in this world and describe one encounter there using one of these monsters - oh, and you've got three days to do it" ... well, I think we see what we get.
Especially since the time the contenders had to work on it didn't include a weekend - and I'm sure all of them have actual jobs.
Yes, this year didn't have multiple mindblowing entries. The best of the bunch is: Matthew McGee's "False Tomb of the Crawling Pharaoh" in my opinion.
I think this round had too many parameters: a map, a location and an encounter using a monster from round 3. And let's not forget the 3 days in which to realize all of the above.
In the end I can only respect the top 8 for their efforts, they've shown a lot of creative talent.
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Personally, I think the Golarion requirement was a mistake.
I didn't mind the Golarion requirement, I think it's smart to find out who's comfortable playing in the Golarion sandbox (and whether anyone has issues with the "Don't break our world" rule) before the final round. I absolutely agree that there was far too much to this round. though
Especially since the time the contenders had to work on it didn't include a weekend - and I'm sure all of them have actual jobs.
This, I think a round with this kind of scope would be fine with a longer round-time and/or if the round weren't kept secret, but asking contestants to create such a specific, unusual thing in three weekdays is bound to result in everyone tripping up somewhere in the execution
Personally, I think the Golarion requirement was a mistake.
I didn't mind the Golarion requirement, I think it's smart to find out who's comfortable playing in the Golarion sandbox (and whether anyone has issues with the "Don't break our world" rule) before the final round. I absolutely agree that there was far too much to this round though.
Very good point.
My thinking was that requiring Golarion-specific content involved more research than creativity (look at all the commentary about Alexander's Cloister), and given the time constraints, it's almost like it was a National Geographic GeoQuiz masquerading as a round 4 requirement :)
I'm sure the time constraint and the secret reveal are part of the problem.
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 sure the time constraint and the secret reveal are part of the problem.
While I agree this round had a little too much asked of the contestants, I don't think the reveal or the time are really part of the problem at all. Let's face it, this is a job interview and you rarely know what someone is going to ask you aside from the standard tropes and you never have much time to respond. This accurately simulates that "Can they pull it off" factor. However, if you had asked them to write up a basic encounter alone, that's not challenging enough. This round of all of them needs a bit more expected.
I think part of the problem is that the contestants are having a hard time striking a balance between map and encounter. Some of the maps are brilliant, but the encounters leave a lot to desire. Some encounters are great with less than stellar maps.
I think I'd drop the overall design a site and just go for design a good solid encounter and map trial. You can learn everything you need to know from that task.
My 2cp is the requirements aren't the killer, it's the timeframe to implement them.
Give an additional week for them to tweak and perfect the thing and I feel all would have been better. With a week and a half they could flesh it out more, get a feel for the setting, even run through a couple of test runs to see how it flowed.
I just felt the majority of entry's felt rushed.
Now this doesn't fix the issues had with maps, which is an experience/knowledge thing. I don't think anyone reading the comments from this year's judges will make those mistakes next year.
Ya know, It's not too late to amend the parameters. Allowing the contestants a second chance to do a really good job with new rules of engagement -- I think will be well received by all.
As much as I appreciate that, we can't go backwards.
That would be way too unfair to the contestants who did really well. There is no advantage in that for them because they could only suffer from having to do it again. It would be so unfair, I would protest even if I was an intended beneficiary.
Again, I know this was suggested as a kindness.. and it is appreciated. Its just not feasible. We all have to press on and move forward.
Ouch :)
Hey, that's not how I meant it :) What I was saying is two of the submissions that I said should NOT advance (you and Joe) from last year were better than the three winners this year.
The round is fair because everyone had to work under the same constraints. But I appreciate Sean raising the discussion about what we could tweak to improve submissions. I dont believe the contestants are worse, I think the task we gave them had parameters that led to less than awesome submissions and here we are discussing how to change that, and I think it is great that Paizo is cool enough and mature enough to discuss what they/we could do different in the contest to make it the best it can be.
The round is fair because everyone had to work under the same constraints. But I appreciate Sean raising the discussion about what we could tweak to improve submissions. I dont believe the contestants are worse, I think the task we gave them had parameters that led to less than awesome submissions and here we are discussing how to change that, and I think it is great that Paizo is cool enough and mature enough to discuss what they/we could do different in the contest to make it the best it can be.
Let me ask you something, from a Judging and gaming perspective, what would be the harm in letting the next round rules be posted earlier? For instance...say that after round two opens for voting round three's rules are open so that the contestants have about 9-10 days to work on each submission.
The only thing I can think of is this slightly disrupting the flow of voting for discussion of the next round.
Any thoughts? or is this just a bad idea?
Bigman, it's not really relevant for this year's competition because the next round is the last round, and everyone already knows that round's challenge: create an adventure proposal. We're not throwing any surprises into that round, and it's basically the same as last year's final round.
The "each round's challenge" bit is new this year, and I'm not sure if it added a lot to the competition--we've had twists in previous rounds revealed when the rules were posted, but the gist of the round's challenge were known from the start.
Bigman, it's not really relevant for this year's competition because the next round is the last round, and everyone already knows that round's challenge: create an adventure proposal. We're not throwing any surprises into that round, and it's basically the same as last year's final round.
The "each round's challenge" bit is new this year, and I'm not sure if it added a lot to the competition--we've had twists in previous rounds revealed when the rules were posted, but the gist of the round's challenge were known from the start.
Oh Indeed I know it isn't relevant this year, but I mean in the future. I meant more of allowing for the challenge/new bits to be let loose a little early. Maybe in the middle of the voting process.
From my perspective you guys are adding here and there in each Challenge so the over all competition doesn't get stale or patterned too much. This is kind of what seems to be bogging down the entries this year....so that is why I suggest showing the rules a little early each round.
Or you could keep it the same, but make the changes round to round not as...restricting. This is just me spit balling, maybe it will spark something in one of you guys to try something.
To me at least it seems some of this stuff isn't being agreed on by everyone behind the curtains....as you each have your own style of judging, and some criteria seem much more important to you than others.
I feel like the time issue is bothering me for some reason...oh well.
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You gave everyone tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers, while forbidding the use of jalapenos and so it's no surprise that most people made marinara.
I think this encapsulates what I think as well - a three day deadline, during a working week, coupled with a need to incorporate the previous round's statted critters (lets be honest, they could have been better) combined with - imo - ambiguous wording on what was desired is a bit of a bother to me.
I find it odd that it was hinted that if you mapped out a full location and then focused on one encounter it would be good, and yet those that did were slammed for it.
There was also an emphasis in the judging on art viability from a financial perspective - NOT on creativity or ability to produce a nice location. Learning to make maps that conform to internal accounting and cost-benefit procedures is secondary to being able to make a good map to start with, I would have thought - AND - if this financial aspect was important, that should have been said.
*mind boggles that one contestant was told he had too many perspectives - that is an editors comment, not an actual comment on HOW good those perspectives were*
I also second that it should have been a Golarion location, but those round 3 monsters should have been left well out of it.
There was also an emphasis in the judging on art viability from a financial perspective - NOT on creativity or ability to produce a nice location. Learning to make maps that conform to internal accounting and cost-benefit procedures is secondary to being able to make a good map to start with, I would have thought - AND - if this financial aspect was important, that should have been said.
A significant part of this contest's purpose is to help find new designer talent for Paizo to use. Paizo is limited in the amount of art/maps it can include in a product. Therefore, a designer who can design within the art budget constraints of a 32-page adventure (for example, by writing an adventure that uses a total of 2.5 pages of maps rather than 10 pages of maps) is more valuable than a designer who cannot.
Just as a designer who can abide by Paizo's world framework (no cell phones, PCs are expected to be the core races, moderate-to-high fantasy, written for adults) is more valuable than a designer who cannot (high-technology, PCs are telepathic dragons, high-fantasy, written for 9-year-olds).
So yes, it's great to have a designer who makes creative locations that are interesting. But we have to be able to put it in a book, otherwise it's no good to us.
Or, to look at it from a developer's perspective, if a designer can't take the financial considerations of how many maps a module should have or how expensive they may be, that means I have to change their turnover to make it fit Paizo's needs--just as I would have to rewrite (or discard) a text turnover with cell-phone-using telepathic dragon PCs in elementary school.
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A significant part of this contest's purpose is to help find new designer talent for Paizo to use. Paizo is limited in the amount of art/maps it can include in a product. Therefore, a designer who can design within the art budget constraints of a 32-page adventure (for example, by writing an adventure that uses a total of 2.5 pages of maps rather than 10 pages of maps) is more valuable than a designer who cannot.
granted; however none of these maps are more luxurious than any adventure path, or many of the gamemastery module maps I have seen - and there is nothing wrong with additional perspectives being provided, *IF* an art order is to be made at all. If anything, based on the quality of many game-mastery modules, it would seem that such detail/additional help would be useful for artistic depiction.
You didn't ask for a map that would make do for a pathfinder society module, (though lets be honest, PFS #7 sort of even shows that huge maps are in those mods too) you asked for a map that implied a GAMEMASTERY module - and revising those, none of these maps seem to be overboard, and yet they were told they were. that was my observation - Hence my comment.
You guys are the judges and in the industry, I was just explaining why I think there may have been some confusion - and why I think the participants gave you something you didn't want. - Which is kind of the theme of this thread...
You guys are the judges and in the industry, I was just explaining why I think there may have been some confusion - and why I think the participants gave you something you didn't want. - Which is kind of the theme of this thread...
You are forgetting the all important trait of a superstar--
mind-reading telepathy. ;)
-Ben.
All I was saying is overly-complex maps are hard for the cartographer to do, and there's a limit to the amount of detail they're willing to do for the assignment (they're paid a flat rate for the size, it's not based on detail, so tons of detail is extra work for no extra pay), and when you create a map for publication you should take that into account--whether it's going in an AP, a Module, a Chronicle, or Companion.
A big difference from last year is only 1200 words allowed compared to 2000 words in 2009.
True, though I think that helped the competitors because of the short deadline and the secret-until-the-round-starts assignment. Writing 2000 words in 3 days is a lot more work than just 1200.
A big difference from last year is only 1200 words allowed compared to 2000 words in 2009.
That's *huge.* Working within word count is one of the biggest adjustments you have to make as you start freelancing, and you can do *a lot* with 800 words in an encounter like this.
-Ben.
All I was saying is overly-complex maps are hard for the cartographer to do, and there's a limit to the amount of detail they're willing to do for the assignment (they're paid a flat rate for the size, it's not based on detail, so tons of detail is extra work for no extra pay), and when you create a map for publication you should take that into account--whether it's going in an AP, a Module, a Chronicle, or Companion.
Cartographers are the unobtrusive quiet girl in your class who shows up to the dance all *hawt* and makes you go "daaammmmn." They're one of the essential bits that differentiate your product from "meh," to "gimmegimmegimme." A solid cartographer is a resource lovingly tended and maintained.
-Ben.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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A big difference from last year is only 1200 words allowed compared to 2000 words in 2009.That's *huge.* Working within word count is one of the biggest adjustments you have to make as you start freelancing, and you can do *a lot* with 800 words in an encounter like this.
-Ben.
True. I <redacted> with the word count.
I know I struggled last year to describe an entire lair in 2000 words. If I'd just had another 500, I think I could have done a better job and plugged some of the holes voters pointed out in the design.
That said, this year's round gave a generous 1200 words to lay out just a bit of overall description for an entire location and a single encounter in that location. Most encounters typically only require 750 words for everything...including the read-aloud text, explanatory text, stat-block, and everything else.
So, in that respect, I don't think the word count or turnaround expectations were particularly egregious or taxing this year. The challenge was entirely appropriate, in my opinion. It's all a matter of what the contestants do with what they're given. The best rise to the top. And, by this point of the competition, that's what you want to happen.
It also seems like every year there's one round that "disappoints" everyone in terms of how the contestants respond. In 2008, it was the "design a country" round. Some folks nailed it. Others really missed. In 2009, it was the "design a villain concept" round. Only a handful did well. The rest were heavily criticized. And then the follow-up round at least let everyone recast their villains--or do an entirely new one, if they wanted. Now, this year, it seems the "design a monster encounter inside a mapped location" has served as the more disappointing round. But everything's worked out okay in the previous years. I expect this time will be no different.
Four people will advance. It'll be those who have demonstrated both the strongest entries in this round, as well as the best portfolio of work over the entire competition. And those folks will rightly have the opportunity to pitch an adventure proposal and see how the public reacts to it. I'm confident one of the four who advance will have something cool in store for everyone. And then, we'll get to see how they go about applying the lessons they've learned over the course of RPG Superstar in how they craft the winning adventure module under the guidance of their developer. And it'll be awesome. Because Paizo will ensure it's awesome. It's true. :-)
But that's just my two-cents,
--Neil
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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My two c-bills on the 'surprise' and time constraints.
That's life. Everyone who entered is trying to be the next 'Superstar' not next 'guy with 6 months to hash out a module'. Time constraints, surprises, and gotchas are part of writing for someone else.
So is picking up someone's outline and fleshing it out. To quote Dr. Jacobs:
So when Boss Mona came back to the Editorial Pit with his publisher hat on and asked me, “James, are you really going to be able to write this adventure on time?” I was forced to admit that I wasn’t. And luckily for me, instead of getting out the punishment kit, he took off his publisher hat and put on his designer hat and said, “Can I write it then?” I said yes, both relieved to be out of the line of fire and excited that he was finally going to write an adventure for Pathfinder. If I’d known that all it would take was a nearnervous-breakdown to get him to write an adventure, I suspect we would have seen an Erik Mona adventure in Pathfinder a lot sooner than volume #19!
Anyway, his adventure ended up being more than I’d hoped for. Even though he had only a few weeks to write it, and had to make his ideas mesh well with the art we’d already ordered for the adventure (based on the vague outline of an adventure I’d thrown together), I think he’s created something that’s even better than “The Whispering Cairn.”
[Emphasis Mine]
So if the Professionals have to deal with this, then those of us aspiring to be professionals (or just well recognized hacks) should as well.
Disclaimer:
cell-phone-using telepathic dragon PCs in elementary school.
I totally got my idea for next year's RPG Superstar.
Thanks Sean!
It is true in freelance writing, which I have done, that if an editor tells you they want 2000 words in three days you either produce or risk not getting another job.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Dedicated Voter Season 6
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It is true in freelance writing, which I have done, that if an editor tells you they want 2000 words in three days you either produce or risk not getting another job.
And as a freelancer, you never know when you might get that hypothetical request to write 12,000 words in 19 days. Hypothetical, of course. :)
And as a freelancer, you never know when you might get that hypothetical request to write 12,000 words in 19 days. Hypothetical, of course. :)
Writing for the APG are we, Mr. Taylor? :-)
And as a freelancer, you never know when you might get that hypothetical request to write 12,000 words in 19 days. Hypothetical, of course. :)
Only 12,000? :)
And as a freelancer, you never know when you might get that hypothetical request to write 12,000 words in 19 days. Hypothetical, of course. :)
Correct... I mean that's less than 100 words a day... cakewalk lol.
Now my freelance exp was not in RPG writing, though I would like to give my hand at it. (RPG Superstar 2011 here I come) I wrote strategy and fluff articles for a TCG game called VS. System.
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Contributor
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Boxhead
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I have to agree with the sentiment that there was too much going on this round. It likely didn't need the "use a monster from the previous round" angle. Especially when combined with the Golorian location angle, this made people lean heavily on the "most" Golorian monster- the Ardorwesp.
On a side note, I see a lot of people complaining that the Golorian background seems "tacked on" to a number of entries. I think I can help with that. Many of the contestants were not overly familiar with Golorian before the contest. Golorian is designed as a "catch-all" campaign world, where there is a place for any adventure you may want to play. What this means is that many of the contestants likely prepared an encounter with locale and then perused the campaign setting book (which everyone got as a PDF) to find a place to drop it in. Given that some people were trying to absorb a 300 page setting book in under a month, while producing entries, makes this necessary. This is especially true in a round where you had 3 days to write 1200 words, draw a map and cram in all the requirements.
(high-technology, PCs are telepathic dragons, high-fantasy, written for 9-year-olds).
Not a fan of McCaffery, are you?
(high-technology, PCs are telepathic dragons, high-fantasy, written for 9-year-olds).Not a fan of McCaffery, are you?
I don't have a problem with McCaffrey's books at all (I used to own all of the Dragonriders series when I was much younger). It's just not appropriate for Paizo's setting. :p
I don't have a problem with McCaffrey's books at all (I used to own all of the Dragonriders series when I was much younger). It's just not appropriate for Paizo's setting. :p(high-technology, PCs are telepathic dragons, high-fantasy, written for 9-year-olds).Not a fan of McCaffery, are you?
I know. It just struck me how appropriate a description of the Dragonriders series that was.