Thoughts / reflections / comments by the RPGSuperstar 2011 Top 32

[Ask A RPGSupersuccubus]

I post this thread in response to a suggestion by one of the 2011 top 8 on another thread:

John Bennett wrote:

Once voting closes tonight, I was thinking of starting a thread where we, the top 32, can post any thoughts/reflections/comments we had on the contest and maybe some advice to future participants. I encourage any of the top 32 to chime in if you want.

Hoping that you have found this post Helpful (TM?)...

;)

[Ethan Day-Jones]

I guess I'll start things off...

1) Don't be afraid to try and get in to the competition because you don't have a big stack of rulebooks sitting around at home. I don't actually own the Core Rulebook, the APG, or any of the Bestiaries (Although thats probably going to change soon! Bestiary 2 is just too pretty...) and I made the Top 8. D20pfsrd and PathfinderWiki are both excellent sites for SRD and Golarion related open gaming source material.

2) Get someone to proofread everything before you type it up, both for content and for simple errors. If it doesn't make sense to your friend while you are sitting in the room with them, it won't make sense to the voters when they get to see it. Having a friend or two who really know the rules inside out is also a big asset.

3) The Preview button is your friend. I probably hit it at least 10 times for each of my submissions as I went through and tweaked things. People tend to make snap judgments on sight, even when they are trying not to, so fixing that formatting error in the first paragraph is worth a few votes.

I know these aren't exactly earth-shattering revelations, but they do apply to every round of the competition. Whats the rest of the Top 32 got?

[Benjamin Bruck]

Ethan Day-Jones wrote:

I guess I'll start things off...

1) Don't be afraid to try and get in to the competition because you don't have a big stack of rulebooks sitting around at home. I don't actually own the Core Rulebook, the APG, or any of the Bestiaries (Although thats probably going to change soon! Bestiary 2 is just too pretty...) and I made the Top 8. D20pfsrd and PathfinderWiki are both excellent sites for SRD and Golarion related open gaming source material.

I'm not 2011, but I wanted to chime in and say this part is absolutely true. I didn't have the core rulebook when I entered either (although I do now), and I got by just fine using the resources you mentioned along with paizo's own Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document

[Eric Hindley]

Ok, here goes. This is round one of Eric's designer's notes (so to speak).

This is the reasoning for the Shadow Falconer’s Glove:

It began with a conversation at work. A pointless conversation (if you don’t get these- paid- try bartering for smoke breaks. I don’t smoke, but it was a great time to shoot the proverbial BS with colleagues).

Basically, we started with the shoot-out scene of The Crow (if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour and find a way). He had way too many guns, or maybe too much ammo. Maybe the crow was swooping out of the sky to steal the ammo of gangsters on the street? Quite the awesome (or maybe hilarious) image.

One of my players took this to heart and wanted to build a familiar that could replicate the act. Turns out this was dangerous for the familiar. The Batrachian Helm stood out from last year as a new way to use existing mechanics to do something awesome. I knew I wanted to use something from the APG to catch the judges’ eyes, but didn’t want to rely on that.

A swooping bird that snatched items seemed like a great fit. It could use the new steal mechanic, disarm and all that. Now the question arose of how to build it? I started to look at existing items to see how they used CMB. The only item that stood out was the ring of the ram. So I started building from there. Costs and bonuses always seem subjective to me, but I felt that using it less often in a pinch, but more often overall should up the cost. It does no damage, but disarm and steal are better combat maneuvers than bull rush, plus it has more than one maneuver available. I dropped the bonus (and the ability to increase it) because of this.

The requisite spell came last. I looked at the lists to see what seemed to fit, and shadow conjuration seemed to fit.
BTW, if you think like I do, never include your reasoning with anything, ever. Seriously. I imagine quite a few people out there will read this, stop dead and begin thinking “I actually believed this guy was sane enough to build a cool item? What was I thinking?! He has no idea what game design is!”

and...archetypes:

When it came to the archetypes, I have a confession to make. I tried to meta-game the contest. I knew that my item had gained a lot of hype and seemed to be very well liked, so I figured I could play it safer in round 2. I also seemed to have gotten feedback on my mechanics every round I’ve been in (including 2010 round 2, which was a pure description round), so I thought I’d go with something crunchy, with as many rules as I could cram in. I also figured a lot of people would stumble in round 2- they always seem to (heck, I was a stumbler last year). I spent a long time deciding what actually constituted an archetype. To me the class had to be specialized enough it couldn’t be easily reproduced by the base class, but also generic enough that it could be used time and again, by both players and NPCs. To me, if an idea is so specific you’d only ever want to see it done once, it’s probably not a good archetype.

People talked about 2 main things being overpowered: knife mastery at level 1 and quicker than the eye.

Knife mastery I wanted right from the get-go, in order to get people using daggers from level 1. If I delayed it until level 3 or 5, I could easily see people swinging a greatsword or longsword until they got that ability, which I badly wanted to avoid. I figured it was balanced by forcing the choice to be the dagger, but apparently I was wrong. Regarding level dipping, a rogue taking 2 levels of straight fighter gains +1 bab, 2d10 hd vs 2d6, and 2 feats (likely weapon focus and finesse). They can also use the shortsword or rapier. With knife fighter they gain +1 to hit and damage with a dagger (giving them a +1 to hit vs. short sword, and the same average damage), +1 initiative and +1 sleight of hand when concealing a weapon, but only 1 feat. In both cases they give up +1d6 sneak attack, 12 skill points and whatever other rogue abilities they get at the level they multiclass.

As for quicker than the eye, I based it on the divination school power, minus its capstone. It really wouldn’t make much difference to me if it followed the bravery track. Initiative is only as powerful as the actions you can take.

I definitely intended to support all forms of dagger combat- 1 handed melee, 2 handed melee and thrown. I figured that using the fighter chassis meant that players could focus on any aspect they liked. This is also why there aren’t any forced feats or bonus feats. Quick Draw and Weapon Finesse seem obvious, as do weapon focus and specialization. But I leave it up players if they want two weapon fighting, point blank shot, dodge, power attack, etc.

[John Bennett]

I've spoilered this because it is long, Neil long.
Part 1: The contest

Spoiler:

I want to start out by saying that this is the first year I even knew about the contest, so obviously the first year I entered something, and now the last year I will (wow, what a real whirlwind romance!). Over the course of the last few months, I've spent a lot of time pouring over entries from the previous three years, a lot of time. 2008 was just off the wall amazing some of the stuff they came up with, especially the villains and the encounter round.

I bring it up because starting with round 2 it seemed that the contest wasn't living up to the expectations of some of the spectators. There were a lot positive comments, but there were those comments that I felt tried comparing this to previous years which had a lot of good stuff. I think there were a lot more design limitations for this year for sure than previous years. Case in point- villains were back this year but we only had 600 words for our entire villain-including the stat block unlike in 2009 where they had 500 words for the description and unlimited words for the stat block. And those were some awesome villains. There was also the new twist this year with the level requirement for the final proposal which I think was difficult for all of the top 4. We tend to fall back on our strengths and that's why we see a lot of level 7-10 range modules. I think these limitations resulted in a less "gonzo" contest than pass years with its feet more firmly planted in real life freelancing. I think some people may have been disappointed in this.

But that being said- Paizo has been round long enough now to know what they really want to get out of this contest. Pathfinder RPG is very firmly established along with Golarion. This year, the rounds seemed to be more in line with what Paizo would really want from a freelancer, especially newbs like us. "Hey we're doing a new source book and we need an archetype" or "Hey, we got some extra left over character art, how about you write up a quick villain NPC for one of our campaign books." Trust me, 450 word archetype and a 600 word villain are hard, but realistic. As much as I loved the 2009 villains, I doubt Sean or Mark would be calling one of this year's contestants and saying, "Uhm, yeah, I need a either a half fiend wizard/cleric/theurge otyugh or a monk vampire rakshassa (which I frigging loved by the way). If James Jacobs called me up and asked me to stat out Treerazer's half-dragon advanced ectoplasmic assassin/anti-paladin dhamphir succubus girlfriend, I'd probably hang up. As much fun as that would be. But, I doubt I'd get a request like that. Just flip through last year's NPC Guide to see what Paizo is really looking for.
Additionally with the tight limitations, it really forced you to think about every word and if it was really necessary and how you could make things more clearer. And because of these limitations, I think we, as competitors, learned a lot more about design and about freelancing. So, I hope next year that Paizo continues along the same lines as this year. It may not create some of the over the top, but awesomely creative, stuff we've seen in past years, but if you are a competitor, you will learn a lot. Seriously, a lot. It really is amazing just what a few rounds will teach you.

Part 2: A word about canon

Spoiler:

Canon is important. If you are a contestant, you try to walk that fine line between pushing canon and breaking it. Look at Apep's Head. I knew the sci-fi elements were in Numeria but I was like, "Oh, it'll be cool to spread that stuff out." Nope. And of course I screwed up the name. But, in that, I learned a lot. You are writing for Paizo's Golarion, the one they sell in the stores, not your homebrewed version. So take it easy. It didn't only bite me, even Sam, who won, got critized for adding a new town in already crowded Ustalav. Sean and Cody also took big hits the final round on canon. Part of Paizo's goal, as they stated, is to see if the freelancer can absorb new information and utilize correctly, not throw it out the window. This is just a past observation, but one thing I've noticed is that the judges like to see you take a place that hasn't been showcased before and do something with it. You're more likely to be able to stretch canon that way without breaking it.

Part 3: Your wondrous item submission

Spoiler:

I bolded "wondrous" because that's your first lesson if you plan on submitting next year. Proofread. Can't say it enough. No one is going to chide you for misspellings in messageboard posts, but on your wondrous item submission, make sure that thing is perfect (or almost, I had two errors, {chagrin}). I can't believe some of the items posted for feedback with grammar errors (and I'm not talking writing style or passive voice but grammar) that were so egregious and from native English speakers. You want to come off professional, so if grammar isn't your strong point, give it to someone who is. I've got a buddy that helps me out a lot. And even if you are good, still give it to someone to review. When you know what you've written, it can be so hard to see glaring errors. Now the template. Follow that template, down to the tiniest detail. Print your wondrous item out and compare it to any wondrous item in the rulebook. Does it look the same? A lot of template errors were due to not bolding the right word or lower case vs. upper case. They provide you with the template in the rules so make darn sure you follow it. Read through all of Sean's auto-reject threads. That, and read all of the previous wondrous items. It's a lot of reading but it tells you what not to do and what makes a superstar item. Finally, make it awesome. That you're own your own for.

Oh, and have fun with it!

[Neil Spicer]

John Bennett wrote:

I've spoilered this because it is long, Neil long.

You say that like it's a "bad" thing. >_<

[John Bennett]

Neil Spicer wrote:

John Bennett wrote:

I've spoilered this because it is long, Neil long.

You say that like it's a "bad" thing. >_<

We love you for it, Neil! You did an awesome job judging this year, not just the actual contest but also taking the time to critique the items that didn't make it in. Between your job, your family, and your busy freelancing career, I don't know how you find time to do it all. But, I did have to warn everyone, cuz if it's "Neil long" it means you're going to need a make sure you got the time to read it :).

[Scott Fernandez]

Work on your writing skills. Description, passive voice, grammar, and spelling. Learning to pack as much punch into the few words you get is imperative in this contest!

I agree with John that the rules this year really did tighten up what we as contestants could really do and the voting public seemed to be disappointed with having a governor on the throttle. But the guidelines were tests for us and teaching tools for us. If you can handle these restrictions and still win the crowd you have the stuff to freelance for Paizo. The archetype contest was hard as well considering we were the test subjects for a new mechanic! Study the game, read your rulebooks, and participate! You can't win if you don't play.

Next year I think a competitor could do very well if they successfully tackle the hardest parts of the game to design for, low levels (1-4) and high levels (10+). The sweet spot is all too easy and comfortable as it's the most forgiving and open area to swing for. Can you equip a low level NPC villain to provide a good challenge for a low level party with only a few hundred gps? Can you build a level appropriate encounter and scale it up?

Oh and as someone who primarily GM's (99% of the time) get out and play a PC now and again. Try Pathfinder Society out as it could be a runner up prize again next year. The view is much different on the other side of the screen and having a players perspective is as valuable as knowing the bigger picture.

--RPG Vrockstar 2012???

[Curaigh]

Eric Hindley wrote:

Ok, here goes. This is round one of Eric's designer's notes (so to speak).

** spoiler omitted **...

Thanks Eric, I was hoping to see some of the top 32's inspiration and process. That you have done it twice is particularly important.

Thanks John too, but I will have to read it when I have more time.

Spoiler:

thanks for the warning :)

[Joel Flank]

I'll start by echoing the advice to submit something, even if you don't think you have what it takes, you'll be surprised. I know I was, both times. I'm sure I'll be just as surprised if I make it again - there's just too many good, talented nascent game designers out there to expect you'll make the cut, but if you don't submit something you won't (oh, and the same goes with lotto tickets - I've yet to win one of those, however.)

Also, while the most obvious way to practice and hone your craft is to write regularly, you should also read. This not only goes for game related products, but reading and writing anything and everything will make you a better writer. It improves your vocabulary and shows you lots of examples of what works (or what doesn't). If you get in the habit of mentally noting things that work well when you read, that will help train you to pick up those traits when you write.

Beyond that general advice, for me, I always try to find areas of the rules or game that could use further development. With my magic item, I wanted to make something that a) helped the druid be a bit better healer if they're in parties that don't have clerics, and b) expanded on the goodberry spell, by addressing one of it's big limitations - that you need berries to enchant. For my archetype, I knew right away that I wanted to make one for one of the core classes that didn't get any archetype love in the APG. For my villain, once I saw the portraits, I realised that they were mostly core PC races, and to try to stand out from the pack, I gravitated towards an option that let me do something a bit different (especially since my ideas for a flumph mastermind who wanted to summon horrors from beyond rather than warn against them was eliminated.)

My final piece of advise is to aim big, and trust your instincts. Sure, sometimes taking a risk might not pay off, but if you play it safe, you'll only wind up with something that's non-memorable. If you take a chance and do a good job with it, that's what's going to help you stand out from the pack and catch people's imaginations.

[Vic Wertz]

Scott Fernandez wrote:

...the voting public seemed to be disappointed with having a governor on the throttle.

I believe we actually had a record number of votes cast in nearly every round this year.

[John Bennett]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Scott Fernandez wrote:

...the voting public seemed to be disappointed with having a governor on the throttle.

I believe we actually had a record number of votes cast in nearly every round this year.

I believe you did. In fact, just the amount of posts alone was more than any of the previous contests.

I do echo Scott's sentiments. It was threads like this one that gave me a little pause. I didn't really let it get to me, but it made me think that people were really expecting more from us.

I only bring it up because even if spectators were unhappy with the results of some of the rounds, I think, as a competitor, I really learned a lot. Paizo, just keep doing what your doing.

[Nick Bolhuis]

For those of you out there (me included) looking to throw your hat in next year, I'd be prepared for an even more rules intensive competition next year. If this year showed us anything its that the guys structuring the contest are full of clever ideas to squeeze the best from the contestants. Trying to plan more than a round and a half ahead, and selling yourself on a great idea, could ruin you.

Play and DM lots, it's the only way to find what the game needs, because that's what will make you win, "bringing what the game needs". Familiarize yourself with corner cases of the rules, exploit and address loop-holes where you find them.

And try to see the game as a larger web or rules, which all react when a player tugs on them. Even when you are on the player side of the table. When you're gaming, and house rules come into play, think about how these changes affect even the more distant parts of the game.

Even if it runs counter to you gaming ethic; munchkin. At least once, play a character or design an NPC which takes advantage of the rules. Learn how the abuse the rules so you'll be able to foresee how others will do the same. It doesn't matter if you intend rules to be used only in a specific way, once they are printed the will be abused by someone. Any new rules you present must be highly resistant, if not immune, to game-breaking abuse. So get to know what it takes to break the game, and figure out a fair and fun way to get around it.

But most of all, just try it. Even if you don't make it, or make a huge blunder part way through, this is an opportunity to see the bare bones of the game. This is where dozens, if not hundreds, if great ideas on game theory and application come together to define and evolve the game we all love. It great to learn from, great to help decide, but mostly it great to be a part of. I was a side-liner last year, and have gained so much more from the competition having participated. So if your thinking you've got good ideas, lets see them!

Congratulations Sam on a job well done!

And good luck for next year everyone who's thinking of entering.

[Joel Flank]

Nick Bolhuis wrote:

Trying to plan more than a round and a half ahead, and selling yourself on a great idea, could ruin you.

I want to repeat this. I'd even say that planning even the next round's entry could cause more trouble than it's worth. Once you lock onto an idea that you think is great, it's quite difficult to ditch it and come up with something new in the face of a hidden twist in that round's rules. Brainstorming a few options is great, but don't invest too hevily in an idea until you see if it will work with the rules of the round. At least for me, starting with a blank slate and a restriction can spark an idea, but if you have your idea already, and have to adjust it to force it to fit within the restrictions, then you could wind up with a square peg in a round hole.

[Neil Spicer]

Personally, I think there's value in planning ahead...just not in too many concrete terms...

Spoiler:

In other words, it's fine to brainstorm and stockpile ideas. Just don't get too "locked into" any of them, because you never know what the next round's assignment will bring. However, if the next round calls for a villain, start dreaming up as many different villain ideas as you can...some high-level, some low-level, and some somewhere in between. That way, you can roll with the punches.

Same thing goes for monster ideas and maybe archetypes now, and so on. I'd even go so far as to say you could cook up some encounter details by thinking through some neat locations. Not the full encounter setup and backstory. Just a neat place where an encounter could occur. And, later, once that kind of challenge materializes, you don't have to alter or change a whole lot of stuff to still use that location.

Now, that said, I actually wouldn't recommend cooking up every little aspect of an adventure proposal ahead of time. But, if you can break down its constituent parts (i.e., good potential villains...good potential locations...etc.), you'll already have plenty of seeds when and if you reach that round of the competition. Then, you can settle on a plot, some minions, and so on.

When I competed in 2009, I had no prepared ideas for my wondrous item (despite having all year long from 2008 to dwell on it). I did, however, have some villain ideas I'd never had a chance to use in a prior adventure proposal. So, I mined one of them when the "design a villain" round came along. There's no way I could have prepared for the "design an encounter" round, though...because Paizo tossed us the first curveball where we had to use someone else's villain. So, although I had some ideas for possible locations where a cool encounter might take place, none of them fit the villain I eventually selected for my lair. And, likewise, when I made it all the way to the end, I had absolutely no freakin' idea what adventure I wanted to pitch. But somewhere between the anxiety of the Round 4 voting and finding out I made it through, something crystallized in my brain and that's how Fellnight Queen came to be.

So, my advice (and that's all it is) is to brainstorm when and where you can. Just don't tie yourself down to any single idea. Be flexible. Be resilient. Freelancers actually do need that skill in the real-world of writing professionally. But, it's also useful to have a stockpile of ideas and half-finished "toys" that you store up in your imagination. You never know when you can pull one of those things back off the shelf and dress it up as the perfect fit for something you're asked to develop. That's what I did with Gulga Cench and he arguably came off as one of the most popular RPG Superstar villains yet.

So, there are pros and cons to forming ideas early as well as rolling with the punches. I think Superstar designers need to acknowledge that. But they also need to recognize when one is more appropriate than the other. Train yourself to identify your best ideas...whether it's something you've had simmering in your mind for a long time...or something you just came up with completely off the cuff. Just make sure you always assess them in relation to the challenge at hand.

My two-cents,
--Neil

[Joel Flank]

Neil Spicer wrote:

lots of stuff

That's what I was trying to say, but not in so many words (most of the ones you used actually) :)

[John Bennett]

I forgot to add- Time. Make sure you got the time to do this contest if you enter. It sucks up a lot of your free time. A 600 word villain doesn't sound like much, but Meneena took me countless hours to do, and that was after I had come up with her as an idea and what class she was going to be. I was lucky that with the sucky winter New England had, that I had a bunch of snow days from work. That really saved me. So, if you want to enter, don't plan on taking the kids to Disney World for their February vacation.

[Charles Evans 25]

John Bennett wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Scott Fernandez wrote:

...the voting public seemed to be disappointed with having a governor on the throttle.

I believe we actually had a record number of votes cast in nearly every round this year.

I believe you did. In fact, just the amount of posts alone was more than any of the previous contests.

You mean total number of item entries submitted to the judges in Round 1 by 'amount of posts'? :)

[Marie Small]

Much of what I came away with has already been said, and probably better, by the previous posters. With that in mind...

1) I fought my inner (negative) voice...A LOT! Jump in with both feet and roll with it. I promise you won't regret it.

2) Know the rules. I came in really rules-light in my knowledge of the game, and it showed in rounds 2 and 3 especially. My design, from the feedback I received, became tighter, but not fast enough to move on beyond Top 16.

3) Be open to any and all criticism. Even the most negative criticism can yield information you can use to polish your presentation. At the very least, you know what a portion of your audience DOESN'T enjoy in their game.

4) Read and re-read the previous seasons' submissions, the advice/critiques, and the auto-reject threads. I hadn't designed anything we were asked to design before this contest. I spent the last half of November reading so I had an idea of what had worked before, what hadn't, and why. Then I designed my wondrous item, and "BAM" I found out I'd made Top 32, promptly needing to take a break at work so I could have a panic attack and jump up and down.

And, finally...

5) Understand the risks you're taking in your design and accept the consequences of those risks. Few folks enjoyed Nyrazha, and a great deal of that is because my vision for her did not mesh with the audience's expectations. You are not designing just for yourself; you are designing for Paizo and Paizo's customers. If you step too far out of that box, and we are encouraged to make calculated risks in our design because it's Superstar, understand it could come back to bite you. You'll learn something every step of the way.

I hope some who came to this late will jump in next year. I hope some who didn't quite make it learned something they can ramp up their design with next year. I hope everyone watching, voting, and wishing competes next year. I am, if I'm still eligible. :)

Congratulations to all who competed this year, regardless of whether there's a tag by your name or not. Thank you to the judges and all those who took the time to comment on the entries. You are the folks who help potential designers grow.

[Jerall Toi]

I'm coming into this conversation a little late and most of what I would have said has already been said. Instead, I'm going to try something a bit different:

As part of the looking back process, I'm going to try and apply the lessons learned to the designs I didn't submit for the competition. Every round, I had more than one potential candidate for submission (including round 1) and, through tweaking and redesigning these items, I hope to be able to better codify what I've actually picked up during the contest. Right now, I'm not sure if this project will provide any tangible results, useable by others, but I do hope it does. Internet willing, perhaps I'll be able to later provide some sage advice for next year's competitors.

I've already begun the process on my own blog and will be cross-posting the results to the homebrew forums as and when things develop. Be warned though, I might get stuck on archetypes. It took several days before I could walk without a limp after reading the commentry on the tengu, but that's where I learned a lot, possibly the most, about the industry. I still don't think I've learned everything there is to learn from that particular discussion thread.

To end off, I'd like to thank Paizo for hosting this amazing competition; the judges for taking the time to tackle my submissions as they did; the Paizo community for their comments, votes and for making the exit polls as stressful as possible; and my gaming group for tolerating such an absurd amount of game downtime.