RPG Superstar 2015
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mamaursula
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I also think I may have seen what could be considered a feminine swarm item.
I also ran into a string of items last night that felt a little forced feminine to me. I've also seen some interesting girly items, but I always get a little irked when it seems fairly aparent that the person who wrote the description doesn't have a clear understanding of how a non-magical/wondrous version of the item functions. Or the phrasing around a "feminine" item sounds like it could have been pulled from an issue of Glamour, Cosmo, or Vogue, rather than from personal experience.
I won't say more than that, for fear of being over specific. And it's entirely possible that a girl could have still submitted the item these items. ...But guys, if you're trying to write a feminine item that should appeal to females (because it's not a bad area of the game to explore), it might behoove you to ask one to read over your entry.
I have had this same conversation at my house. I wasn't joking when made this statement about personal hygiene products
Some of the items that are more traditionally "girl" products are somewhat offensive to me as a female player. I don't play Pathfinder to get my style on, I play Pathfinder to kill some bad guys and dungeon dive. If I want to dress to kill, I go to my local Vampire LARP and role play with the rock stars of the gaming world, because that's how I game.
While I understand that I am not a typical gamer or a typical woman, somewhere those two atypical aspects have taken up residence in me and I really do not want my RPG rule book to read like Vogue, because I don't read Vogue.
Anyone else notice that the items with random drawbacks tend to be tinker-gnome items?Random as in "roll dX, see what happens", "arbitrarily added on, making them possibly cursed items", or "5% chance of X"?
If the first, that sounds right. The latter two have a much wider theme.
I have seen a number of "5% chance item does not work as intended and screws you" items, and they have all been gnome themed.
EDIT: Sometimes this is preceeded by "If used more than X times per day."
Lucky! :D
Constructs a paper fold up cube with 7 on all faces...
Well....
I said you couldn't alter the dice, but I said nothing about MAKING one :P
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9
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Lucky! :D
Constructs a paper fold up cube with 7 on all faces...
Well....
I said you couldn't alter the dice, but I said nothing about MAKING one :P
With 7 sides it wouldn't be a d6 which was specified to roll on the chart. Poor understanding of fundamentals of design on your part Anthony!
I said fold up cube :p - show me a 7 sided cube and I will concede :D
Gah! Ninja'd
7-sided cube? Sounds like one of the entries ...
Brains. There should be more entries next year that deal with brains. Brains in jars, electrodes that stick into your brain, elixirs made from monster brain juice...
Brains. There should be more entries next year that deal with brains. Brains in jars, electrodes that stick into your brain, elixirs made from monster brain juice...
What, there wasn't enough of those for you this year?
Nope.
Oh, another one for the list: Phoenix-themed items. Had a few of those.
Only a few? Lucky...
I'm thinking three or four, but it seemed like a lot more with as often as they turned up.
Dang, now I won't have internet connection to roll again...
1d7 Dang, now I won't have internet connection to roll again...
It's not a problem, you didn't roll a d6 so the magic doesn't get triggered ;)
Two completely different items with exactly the same price (x0.y00).
Earlier I got two needles to compare...
Two completely different items with exactly the same price (x0.y00).
Earlier I got two needles to compare...
Last night I got two items that were not only themed they same, but they also both did almost exactly the same thing... Seriously. Almost idential major ability with almost identical fringe benefits. ...One was over double the price of the other. They were both pretty good, so it was a serious "O.o;" moment.
Yeah, something like that happened to me a few weeks ago.
/snip
I won't say more than that, for fear of being over specific. And it's entirely possible that a girl could have still submitted the item these items. ...But guys, if you're trying to write a feminine item that should appeal to females (because it's not a bad area of the game to explore), it might behoove you to ask one to read over your entry./snip
While I understand that I am not a typical gamer or a typical woman, somewhere those two atypical aspects have taken up residence in me and I really do not want my RPG rule book to read like Vogue, because I don't read Vogue.
See, I read into the appearance of these items not as women making items or as men trying to create items designed to appeal to women, but rather as designers who weren't confident in their ideas trying shallowly to capitalize on the surface premise of this post and get free kudo points from SKR by appearing to be women.
I'm under the impression that there are two items with the exact same name. I've copied one and am trying to find the other to make sure.
EDIT: Well, that was fast! Found the second one. They are not exactly the same, but almost: [Same slot] of [the same thing]. I almost voted for one thinking it was the other.
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Interesting posts about the feminine theme. Looking back over past winners, reading the items without looking at the entrants name and there is only one conclusion you can make...
A well written superstar worthy item is so well done that you simply cannot tell the sex of the writer from the entry.
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RPG Superstar 2015
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mamaursula
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See, I read into the appearance of these items not as women making items or as men trying to create items designed to appeal to women, but rather as designers who weren't confident in their ideas trying shallowly to capitalize on the surface premise of this post and get free kudo points from SKR by appearing to be women.
Which is always a possibility, but sadly not a very good method to win the hearts of gamer chicks. Very few people are going to want Tan in a Can that also gives you stoneskin, regardless of gender. And just as you point out, a Superstar item is going to be well received, regardless of both the reader's and the creator's respective gender.
I would love to discuss with SKR, the designers as Paizo and just about any other humanoid who wants to discuss how this particular gaming community could be more inviting and enticing to female gamers. I think (and I certainly yield to him if I am incorrect) that Sean meant that he'd like to see more women feel welcome at the contest table, rather than "we should cater to gurlz". There is a significant difference in those two things.
My experiences here have been overwhelmingly positive and at no time have I felt excluded because of my gender. I have been a little disappointed by some of the overt and failed attempts to seduce me during RPG SS. Unless someone takes the time to say "Hey, this isn't really what I'm interested in and here's why", derogatory items may continue to show up. They still might, but I have had my say and that's really all I can do. I hope those individuals who wrote those items take a few minutes to consider what they might have done differently.
After the voting closes, anyone who wants to seriously talk about their item with me is always welcome to contact me privately. I am by no means an expert or anything, but I'm willing to help out someone who is braver than I am to submit their work to be so publicly critiqued.
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I think (and I certainly yield to him if I am incorrect) that Sean meant that he'd like to see more women feel welcome at the contest table, rather than "we should cater to gurlz".
You are correct!
Could you let us know which item slot was involved?
It was the "feet" slot.
Last night I got two items that were not only themed they same, but they also both did almost exactly the same thing... Seriously. Almost idential major ability with almost identical fringe benefits. ...One was over double the price of the other. They were both pretty good, so it was a serious "O.o;" moment.
Just out of curiosity, did you vote for the less expensive or more expensive item?
Just out of curiosity, did you vote for the less expensive or more expensive item?
In the case of these two items, it went to the cheaper one. I have seen some similar items (though not together) where I probably would have gone the other way.
This was more of a case of the cheaper one being priced better and making better use of spells.
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See, I read into the appearance of these items not as women making items or as men trying to create items designed to appeal to women, but rather as designers who weren't confident in their ideas trying shallowly to capitalize on the surface premise of this post and get free kudo points from SKR by appearing to be women.
That would be a poor strategy. Even assuming the judges were willing to give some sort of bonus to an item that wasn't otherwise a winner because they erroneously believed its creator to be female (which I assure you is not the case), that advantage would evaporate immediately in the non-anonymous second round when it became apparent that said creator was not, in fact, female.
I think (and I certainly yield to him if I am incorrect) that Sean meant that he'd like to see more women feel welcome at the contest table, rather than "we should cater to gurlz".You are correct!
That would be a poor strategy. Even assuming the judges were willing to give some sort of bonus to an item that wasn't otherwise a winner because they erroneously believed its creator to be female (which I assure you is not the case), that advantage would evaporate immediately in the non-anonymous second round when it became apparent that said creator was not, in fact, female.
At no point did I mean to suggest that the judges were giving free kudo points to women! However, what I am saying is that I wouldn't put it beyond certain elements to blatantly misread Sean's intentions as favoritism, regardless of how obvious we find the message.
We've seen enough spell-in-a-cans, joke items, and huge backstory items to know that there are contestants who aren't exactly great at parsing what SKR is trying to tell them.
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I sincerely doubt anybody deliberately created a "girly" item in response to SKR's post. That would require the submitter to be aware enough of the contest to see a particular forum post, cynical enough to decide his best bet is to attempt to create a false pretense in an anonymous contest, and incompetent enough to make his effort poor, blatantly "girly," and painfully missing the point. I may not have seen the particular items some people have complained about, but generally speaking, I don't like leveling charges like that, which assume poor intentions based solely on poor execution.
There are lots of simple, more innocent ways of arriving at sparkle-laden uber-girly entries. A contestant might actually be trying to promote "girly" items based on the well-known, stereotypical "lack of appeal to female gamers" - they might not be good at it, but that doesn't mean they were deliberately banking on brownie points from the judges. Or they might be identifying "girly" themes and items as lacking from existing material, a hole to be filled - I'd fault their skill at niche selection, but that doesn't mean their process is poor. Or they might be drawing inspiration from existing TV shows, anime, and so on.
By all means, vote down lousy "girly" items. But, to me, suspecting people's motives this way seems a bit hostile.
*sigh* Stop being a Debbie Downer, Standback. You're ruining our perfectly entertaining conspiracy theories. Next you'll be telling us that the algorithm being used in the voting process hasn't gained sentience and really isn't using this system to test and probe the human psyche in preparation for the rise of the machines.
Oooooh. Now I want to come up with contest conspiracy theories too...
Seriously though, I think it's hard for voters to keep in mind that these are individual entries, each coming from a single person. When viewed en masse in this manner, it's easy to lump similar things together. Then you get the mindset that all of these similar things are somehow purposely brought together rather than being dozens or hundreds of things that came into being individually before being thrown into the giant voting stewpot.
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*sigh* Stop being a Debbie Downer, Standback. You're ruining our perfectly entertaining conspiracy theories. Next you'll be telling us that the algorithm being used in the voting process hasn't gained sentience and really isn't using this system to test and probe the human psyche in preparation for the rise of the machines.
I don't know about testing us, but I'm worried it has gained sentience and that every time my voting preferences (and lack of ability to actually remember eighty votes back) create a 'item A is better than item B which is better than item C which is better than item A' paradox, I'm teaching it to hate humanity a little bit more.
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RPG Superstar 2015
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mamaursula
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Oooooh. Now I want to come up with contest conspiracy theories too...
I stand corrected, now we are plumbing the bottom of the barrel :-)
This contest has confirmed for me the adage "There is no original thought." There are so many similar things in the contest, derived by a collective of individuals. During the Middle Ages they didn't look for "original" stories, but rather stories that told a familiar story in a new and original way. I don't think that trend has changed in 5 centuries, we just don't comment on it typically.
RPG Superstar is our community's way of looking for the most creative storyteller who makes the same old story exciting and new again. This thread is our collective notes on the subject. I hope those who didn't take SKR's sticky posts to heart this year realize their error because it has been echoed here as well.
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This contest has confirmed for me the adage "There is no original thought." There are so many similar things in the contest, derived by a collective of individuals. During the Middle Ages they didn't look for "original" stories, but rather stories that told a familiar story in a new and original way. I don't think that trend has changed in 5 centuries, we just don't comment on it typically.RPG Superstar is our community's way of looking for the most creative storyteller who makes the same old story exciting and new again. This thread is our collective notes on the subject. I hope those who didn't take SKR's sticky posts to heart this year realize their error because it has been echoed here as well.
One of the reasons I've never been big on postmodernism and deconstructionism is because of that adage. Shakespeare is one of the most enduring authors in history and everything he did was a retelling of another story, but done in a style so as to make it new again.
While I echo your sentiment, there will likely be a whole slew of new entrants who will do the exact same thing that was done this year. Live and learn.
During the Middle Ages they didn't look for "original" stories, but rather stories that told a familiar story in a new and original way. I don't think that trend has changed in 5 centuries, we just don't comment on it typically.
Watch any sitcom that has ever been aired on Fox for an example of this phenomenon!
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"Arrested Development" would like to have a word with you.
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"Arrested Development" would like to have a word with you.
Why is that? Because it's never done anything that could be considered thematic or archetypal? ;-)
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Yep, definitely still manacles. Why? If you have swords and fireballs, then you can just kill them and then take their stuff.
How many prisoners did Agnar and Co. take in not that long ago, Shadowborn? :)
Not so many that we needed magical manacles. Rope and mundane manacles worked just fine. Besides, we hanged a bunch of them later anyway...and took their stuff.
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Not so many that we needed magical manacles. Rope and mundane manacles worked just fine. Besides, we hanged a bunch of them later anyway...and took their stuff.
Next year hit: hanging ropes!