Go ahead and list your vote here. I will count them up and see if we can predict the winner.
I was waiting for the poll to go up :0 I voted for Jerall.
Sam Zeitlin (Arlington, VA) — Grasping at Shadows
Both the strongest submission and strongest (overall) previous submissions.
Sam Zeitlin?s Grasping at Shadows ...though I vote for changing the name to The Black Mirror :-)
Grasping at Shadows got my vote. I loved the mood that was set and the idea behind it was also just cool and well motivated.
(I have to say though - I do also like The Black Mirror as a title for it)
This was tough for me. If unrestrained by the adventuring level, I would have gone for the others in a heart beat as I found theirs more interesting to my imagination. However, Jerall scaled his adventure accordingly and presented competency with his Golarion knowledge without upsetting existing canon and with enough developer guidance, it would be the easiest to launch.
I can think of at least one adventure path and a particular J.J. penned mega adventure from the 3.5 days that this would work well for a drop-in and/or prelude.
Which is why I voted for him.
Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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First off, unlike the last two years, there was not an adventure that was clearly head and shoulders above its competition and unfortunately for me, it was mostly a case of negative elimination rather for me going 'that is awesome.'
Two of the adventures were too close to already published material and I think, honestly the authors should have at least have read some adventure synopises of recent PFS scenarios and past modules. Another had little to do with Golorian.
That said, my vote went to---
Jerall Toi -- Isgeri Blood and Orphans' Tears.
I don't actually at all care whether a proposal is similar to something in PFS -- I don't play PFS and have no specific interest in doing so, and I don't expect Superstar entrants to be some sort of expert on it.
But aside from that, I agree with everything Kerney said, and I voted the same way:
Jerall Toi -- Isgeri Blood
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Grasping at Shadows got my vote. It seemed the most well rounded of all the entries.
Isgeri Blood and Orphan's Tears turned me off by having you help followers of Asmodeus plus a few key points were not explained well enough. Return to Nihility felt far too much like a high level concept crammed into a 4th level adventure. Whilst Among the Gears of Madness didn't have enough focus for me and felt a bit like a large number of encounters with no real theme.
Having said that all of them had their cool ideas and showed some real creativity.
Voted Sam Zeitlin and Grasping at Shadows. among other things, I am a horror fan, and of the two proposals that fall into that category this one has a better rounded investigation, interesting encounters, and a better grasp on sympathetic enemies.
Good luck to all. I thought all the competitors throughout have shown what they can do and risen to the occasion. If nothing else we have all gotten a chance to see how to write purposals and what the design teams are looking for.
Voted, with pride, for my fellow Virginian. Good luck Sam!
Grasping at Shadows is my clear favorite. A variety of encounter types and creature types and a good story.
Sam is in the lead by a good margin right now.
My vote goes to Cody, but I am biased. I actually don't like any of the proposals very much, then again I don't like low level adventures.
Jerall Toi: Isgeri Blood and Orphan's Tears. a great adventure for evil pc's...finally.
One vote for Among the Gears of Madness, please.
My Vote is for Cody.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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aka JoelF847
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I voted for Sam Zeitlin — Grasping at Shadows. I thought it was the strongest overall submission, even with some of its flaws. They should be able to get worked out during writing and development though. Honorable mention to Among the Gears of Madness though.
Overall, I didn't think any of the 4 submissions were as strong as some of the previous year's winners or final 4. That is in no way a knock on anyone from this year, since we've seen some really great stuff over the years now, and this year had lots of great talent.
My vote is for Jerall
My vote went to "Shadows," but "Orphan's Blood" came in a pretty close second.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Gears = evil Scooby-Doo
Shadows = evil Coraline
Orphans = evil Oliver Twist
Return = evil... okay, not such an easy comparison
Of them all I think I like the IDEA of the falling shadow-city the best, but I think it falls too far outside the power level for a legit 4th level 32-page adventure, and parts are too railroady.
Orphans is a neat premise, but I think the villains fall flat for me and don't deliver.
Gears... I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling it. A little too much different stuff going on.
Which leaves me with the Shadows as my vote for the Superstar mod for this year! Congrats to all for making the finals and best of luck!
Personally I think they are all mediocre at best. When I read them I can almost feel the anxiety of the authors as I read their words on the page. Again nothing mind blowing/heart stopping/intriguing or that we haven’t seen before. There is nothing here that makes me salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs. No vote I obstain. I would have to agree with Joel Flank that this years finalist are not as strong as previous years contestants.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Personally I think they are all mediocre at best. When I read them I can almost feel the anxiety of the authors as I read their words on the page. Again nothing mind blowing/heart stopping/intriguing or that we haven’t seen before. There is nothing here that makes me salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs. No vote I obstain. I would have to agree with Joel Flank that this years finalist are not as strong as previous years contestants.
I haven't been able to follow this year's contest as thoroughly as I have the last two years (or the first, obviously!), so I didn't have as much of a feeling for "body of work" for the four finalists as I did in prior years. Taken on their own merits, though, I would agree that none of these four adventure proposals quite lit my fire; they each had something to recommend them, but my vote was cast by a process of elimination.
Perhaps the Paizo decision to strictly define the adventure proposals as being for 4th level did its job too well; while limiting the "wahoo" factor they may have also capped a bit of the excitement potential and variability of prior years. It's a hard balance both from the contestant end and the Paizo end.
Jerall has my vote.
Among the Gears of Madness, by Sean McGowan
Sam is maintaining that lead.
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First off, unlike the last two years, there was not an adventure that was clearly head and shoulders above its competition and unfortunately for me, it was mostly a case of negative elimination rather for me going 'that is awesome.'
Yeah I had the same problem. Now I could be very wrong with this but I get the impression the lvl restriction this year really threw them off (ie they originally planned modules for other lvl's but had to try and refit them into the required lvl range and I feel the modules suffered for it.)
With hindsight I would have abstained (Dislike the notion of voting for something because it is the one you dislike the least) but my vote went for Isgeri Blood and orphans tears.
I honestly wasn't that blown away by any of the entries this round, which was really disappointing. That being said, the only one that intrigued me was Sean's entry. I like steampunk, my players like steampunk, and I liked many of the elements presented in the adventure. It may need a ton of work to make it perfect, but it perked my interest.
As for the others, great writing, great work, but I just felt so-so. Child endangerment? The Plane of Shadows? Shory city? I've seen it all before. Not that your spin isn't different, but I'm not going to buy it right away.
+1 for Sean. Best of luck!
I have concluded my reviews of this year's Round 5 presentations, but as with previous rounds when it comes to declaring votes, I have only a strictly politic silence to declare.
That said, I would encourage others to vote; and if anyone is having trouble making their mind up where to put their vote on the basis of the Round 5 presentations, to take into consideration just who their favourite writer has been over the entire body of the contest?
Grasping at Shadows, with Orphan Tears a distant second, and I wouldn't purchase either of the other two adventures pitched - I was disappointed, I expected for all the finalist adventure pitches to "pass" and some be better than others, but half just plain "fail." Maybe Superstar needs to lie fallow a year or something, because each year has been a little less impressive than the previous (though perhaps being more and more bound by "Golarion canon" in terms of what's appropriate where, what's been in PFS before, etc. is somewhat to blame).
Director of Brand Strategy
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Maybe Superstar needs to lie fallow a year or something, because each year has been a little less impressive than the previous (though perhaps being more and more bound by "Golarion canon" in terms of what's appropriate where, what's been in PFS before, etc. is somewhat to blame).
Unfortunately, we have to keep producing material, and that means that we need a constant flow of freelancers as others move on to other things in their careers, fall out of favor with us or vice versa, or as we add more products to the schedule. So missing out on the opportunity to find new talents isn't an option we'd like to pursue. As for the increasing number of Golarion canon elements and previously published adventures, those are things our writers have to contend with all the time, whether they came to us through RPG Superstar or have been writing for Paizo since the days of Dragon and Dungeon.
I was actually really impressed with the pitches this year. They may have been less gonzo than some previous years' submissions, but I really don't see that as a bad thing - quite the opposite; I felt that there was really great work done on fleshing out a cool concept, playing out a good story, trying something different.
Notice also that the most common (and cutting) criticism used to be "this is way too much material for a single module." We didn't have that this year - proposals are getting better, more professional, more ready for publication.
Kudos to all four contestants. For me, at least, every single one of you presented a proposal I found more exciting and interesting than the typical D&D and Pathfinder modules I've seen. Not all of you hit it out of the ballpark this time - but each of you have in the past, at least in some of the rounds, and all of you are ready to play.
My vote, incidentally, goes to Sam and his Grasping at Shadows. Sam's been hitting it out of the ballpark the whole contest, adventure proposal most definitely included.
Best of luck to you all :D
The choice between "Isgeri Blood and Orphan's Tears" and "Grasping At Shadows" was tough. I do feel that Jerall Toi's concept could work if given more time to flesh out and rethink a few of the problem areas it presents, such as the Asmodean hook and why a party of good-aligned PCs would work for devil worshippers. The sad part is that I actually really like the idea of these evil clergymen not being the big bad - or at least, the big bad being a specific person in their organization rather than the church as a whole, if it comes to that.
Touring the Plane of Shadow and preventing the sacrifice of a child to extraplanar powers is pretty tropy, but Sean McGowan's work seems more polished and ready for publication. And in a way, it makes sense for the contest; leaving aside Christine Schneider's winning submission in year 1, the last few winners have given us modules of exotic places we've never seen before - the First World, Jalmeray, and now the Shadow World. I also like the idea of being able to pit a relatively low-level party against bizarre, extraplanar threats.
Given that, while I'd love to see Jerall's idea refined and fully developed, my vote went to Sean for "Grasping At Shadows".
'Grasping At Shadows' got my vote this year. It's got some planar material, it has a hook that snagged my attention, and it feels like it can work within the constraints of being lower level and the page limits of the adventure. Some developmental tweaking and it will be a really nice one to play through. :D
And it uses a lurker in light, in an unconventional way imo, which makes me quite happy.
Grasping at shadows
my vote went to Sean for "Grasping At Shadows".Sam Zeitlin wrote "Grasping At Shadows," not Sean. Sean wrote "Among the Gears of Madness." If you wanted the Plane of Shadows, make sure you voted for the right author!
Double-checked - I voted for the right one, but got the names mixed up when I wrote my post. (I think I have Sean on the brain because I liked his contributions in earlier rounds quite a bit - I just didn't think "Gears" quite measured up.) Sorry for the mix-up, author guys!
I was actually really impressed with the pitches this year. They may have been less gonzo than some previous years' submissions, but I really don't see that as a bad thing - quite the opposite; I felt that there was really great work done on fleshing out a cool concept, playing out a good story, trying something different.
Notice also that the most common (and cutting) criticism used to be "this is way too much material for a single module." We didn't have that this year - proposals are getting better, more professional, more ready for publication.
...
+1 I think some submissions lost my vote in the past because I could never work something so gonzo into my group. all these I think have place at my table. And +1 they do seem much tighter submissions.
I voted for Sam Zeitlin's Grasping At Shadows.
I had fully expected it to be a tough decision for me, but it wasn't; I think that the other entries missed the target in various ways.
I suspect a large part of it was the "4th level" curveball - that seems to have made it very difficult for the contestants.
Way back in January I took the 32 and played my own RPGSS Fantasy.
Only one person that I predicted making it to top 4 made it to top four, so I should vote for Sean. (congratulations Sean :)
Of course two people I thought would stop at 32 made it to top 4 so perhaps I should be voting for Jerall or Sam. Sam edging Jerall for having won more of my votes in previous rounds. (Congratulations Jerrall and Sam :).
One of my top 16 picks made it to top 4 and he also collected the most of my votes through the months, so perhaps I should vote for Cody. (Congratulations Cody :)
but I made all those predictions before reading the final entries. Based on the entries for round four...
Sean: cliché joker location, hard to predict, players could advance too much before BBEG or not enough. great hooks, good story.
Jerall: not much in the way of encounters, lots of RP, good story.
Sam: seems cobbled together; disorganized flow, another horror story.
Cody: good story lots of options well thought out. Flying castle without flying (lower level parties).
So a tight race between Dankesean and Scipion, but my vote went to Cody.
Double-checked - I voted for the right one, but got the names mixed up when I wrote my post. (I think I have Sean on the brain because I liked his contributions in earlier rounds quite a bit - I just didn't think "Gears" quite measured up.) Sorry for the mix-up, author guys!
Let me express, on Sam's behalf, that he is quite sure there will be no lasting damage from the extremely mild aneurysm he suffered on reading your original post.
Well, he's probably not paying any attention to the exit polls anyway. Right, guys?
:P
I voted for Sam.
Sam