How do I know if I'm getting better?

[Anthony Adam]

I've seen in a number of places and threads discussions about how you know if you are getting better?

For some of you, I suspect that this may be your first year, but for others like me, you are now getting to be an old hand (hack?) at this competition.

So for those of you who have a number of years under your belt, have you gone back and looked at your first entries?

I have.

If you did, did you start thinking auto reject, or even, "OMG! What was I thinking?"

I did.

I can see how much better my latter entries have been over the first few years.

This is a testament to all the advice from the judges and fellow competitors in these forums, studying the feedbacks and winning entries and experience built up over the years.

In case your wondering, My First entry would have gone into my own reject pile for a number of items, mainly swiss army knife and on reflection being boring with it.

I look at my entries now and realise that technically, I have the formats, I read the rules and my submissions dont trip over obvious things anymore.

What I need to work on and strive for every entry onwards is polish, shine and spark of ingenuity. I know (or believe if you prefer) that I have a good imagination and can come up with a superstar idea, I just need to keep working at it.

So, for all you old hands out there - if you look at your very first entry, what do you think of it these many years on? Do you still think it's cool and why? Or, like me, do you facepalm?

[Mike Welham]

This is my 4th year of submitting items to the contest, and I would agree I've gotten better. My first item was classic SiaC, my second attempt was a try to be "out there" with my item (it bombed), and my third attempt was a powergamer's dream. My other problem with the 2nd and 3rd tries was trying to cram too much into the item, which diluted any kind of effect I wanted to convey.

Edit: I will say that I got a lot of (painful) insight by taking Clark up on his offer to get feedback, which he (and subsequently Vic and Cosmo who distilled the judges' comments last year) generously provided.

I have no idea how this year's try will hold up, but I personally believe I upped my game. I hope I at least got the nod from *one* of the judges. :)

Good luck to you in the contest!

[Anthony Adam]

Good luck to you too - and to everyone else.

Our pain will soon be over - well apart from the 32 who have 450 words of more pain in their imminent future.

[Kerney]

First time here. However I won a couple Gold Medals on the master GM competitions on the D20 forums, then judged a few competitions.

Feedback is important.

Paying attention to the judges is also important.

Most importantly is knowing your own weaknesses and then overcome them--For example, I come up with some out there ideas. They are fun, but I have to then figure out how stat it out. I also hate stat blocks, so I usually steal someone else's formatting. I'm not a fast worker, so I have three vaguely outlined Archtypes ready for round two. I know which one I want to use, but I don't know for sure which one I will use.

How many angles are you looking at with your design?
It's a given that the item in round one that the players will find the item useful, but can a GM have fun using it against the players? Does it have good fluff? Does it have use to non adventurers? The more angles you can cover comfortably without reaching and sounding like you're reaching, the better.

Have some role models?
One of the best designs I ever saw was for a Design an Organization Competition. The winner was a federation of Sewer Goblins, who lived in the sewers with a prince's permission and were a semi respected part of society (they did trash collection). But they also had a cool prophecy, which could be mean that they would learn to live with humans or they would rise out of the sewers and slaughter the humans. They had an arsenal of molds and slimes they reffered to as 'little brothers' and were protective of.

I always ask myself, am I as creative as this? Inventive?

[Ask a Succubus]

Anthony Adam wrote:

How do I know if I'm getting better?

Dear Mystery Djinn,

You don't, or at least not in the context of this contest. The only way (to riff off a certain barbarian) you can be certain if you're getting better in the context of this contest is by crushing your foes beneath your sandals, by listening to the lamentations of their men/women, by seizing things which were theirs for your own...
In other words do you advance to a round of the contest which you have not attained before?
If you succeed in doing that, carving the metaphorical bloody swathe through the fools who would stand in your way, then yes, you can be certain that you're getting better and coming closer to that ultimate prize of putting down the last opposition and covering the lands in the shadow of your module. If you don't, you can't be certain that you are getting better.
Hoping that this has clarified things for you.

Yours,

Ask A Succubus.
Disclaimer:
Just to confuse and confound those legal-y types, Ask A Succubus is writing from the viewpoint of a CE aligned succubus, who enjoys the occasional bit of mayhem and destruction involving other people. Whilst Ask A Succubus considers the advice given above to be excellent, from the point of view of the reader and the context within which they exist it might be more boring but sensible to do something else.

[terraleon]

Kerney wrote:

First time here. However I won a couple Gold Medals on the master GM competitions on the D20 forums, then judged a few competitions.

Pointer?

-Ben.

[Kerney]

terraleon wrote:

Kerney wrote:

First time here. However I won a couple Gold Medals on the master GM competitions on the D20 forums, then judged a few competitions.

Pointer?

-Ben.

Here. I won #26 and judged #27 and few others. I mispoke because I got a silver in an Expert (4e) design and won both the Hero Craftsman and Artisan competitions.

I also had some entires that were Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad and some periods where I just didn't enter. Also, my favorite entry of all time scored epic fluff, but came in 4th because I did a poor job with the crunch.

[Power Word Unzip]

My submission for the first year was Auto-Reject City. It was a Random Swiss Army Spell-In-A-Can. I blame my love of d% tables.

I didn't throw in for the second year (between getting married and managing a retail store during the holidays, there just wasn't time), but my third-year submission was better. Just a touch of spell in a can with some tightly interwoven themes. I think the main problem that item had was a lack of originality - which taught me to always, always Google my item submission to see if it's been done a heck of a lot better by someone else.

I'm proud of the submission I sent in this year, though of course a flood of worries generally comes crashing down once you realize the finality of having hit that "Submit" button.

One thing to remember, though, is that whether you break into the Top 32 or not, January through March is a great time to be a gamer on these forums. This contest gives those of us who follow it not just a great opportunity to learn more about game design and hone our skills as designers as well as game masters, but also a slew of free material to use in our games!

I have PCs in my home games walking around with batrachian helms, tankards of the cheerful duelist, and twintone lutes. Evil clerics raise armies of skeletal chaitrakhans from the arctic wastes. Heroes live in fear of meteor showers - because last time, the meteors hatched a scourge of astrumals that devoured entire villages.

Even if you don't make the Top 32, stick around, provide good feedback, cast votes, and watch the fun. You'll find some awesome stuff to bring to your game table.