RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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First of all, great job all top 32 with your arcehtypes. Even though some were off the mark (and my comments on them weren't shy about what I though the problems where), this is a really tough round, and especially so since the twist made it hard to fit some of your ideas into, and the rest kept bumping up against others with the same theme because of parellel design with the RK requirement.
Which brings me to my main point: I really didn't enjoy this round as much as most other Superstar rounds because the twist was really limiting. The fact that the archetypes were tied to the River Kingdoms caused a lot of river freedom, water, and river based archetypes, and after a while it got tired and played out. For the judges and/or whomever comes up with the rules and twists for RPG Superstar, I beg that in the future the twists aren't quite so restrictive. R3 monster rules are much better - while the submitted monsters will fit in the River Kingdoms, they'll also work lots of other places. I'd have enjoyed this round a lot more if it were restricted to say, River Kingdoms, Numeria, Kyonin, Mendev and Galt, to give a bit more creative space for the contestants to play in without bumping into the same themes as often as they did.
I think this is a good point Joel. To a small extent, perhaps those of us who tied ourselves whole heartedly to the River Kingdoms theme penalized ourselves a little, because a lot of us ended up in the same design space (me particularly, doh!). If your RK theme was looser, you probably stood out more.
That being said, with so many fantastic entries combining both great ideas and RK themes so well, this is only a minor quibble. Kudos to them for making it work and leaping over the obvious design traps.
I hope I scrape into the top 16, ahead of all those other rangers, boat people, Hanspur orientated fellows and river wardens. By the looks of the exit poll, I've only an outside chance at best :-)
And thanks for the vote Joel!
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Most of the time, when I give an assignment to a freelancer, the assignment is, "create an X, with Y theme, usable in Z location." If you are unable to operate under those conditions, you're not a very useful freelancer. The challenges we create for this competition are designed to find people who will be good freelancers.
Sometimes that means we have three archetypes with a "water warrior" theme. Sometimes that means the main monster book has 3 0-HD humanoid monster races in it. The challenge is to make them all interesting.
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I'd also say there were a lot more possibilities than just the water theme.
I know I did four archetypes and not one was a water theme (I'll probably post at least one, just because I've never done archetypes before and I'm really curious what people think about it). One was far more Numeria based, though I don't know if I'd have had the guts to submit that considering how polarizing that area can be (plus, I think it was a little more Numeria than RK AND it was slamming into that word count restriction REALLY hard).
I know the Mivon Suitor didn't end up being the most popular of the options, but I thought it adhered very strongly to the RK theme without having any water connection. Heck, looking at the alchemist archetypes along, I think there's a tremendous variation between the Huckster, Outsea Delver and the two Uringen folks, despite all feeling pretty strongly RK to me.
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Yeah, I'm going to have to say I'm with Sean and Jacob on this one. Some of the archetypes may have joined together in a blur due to similar themes and abilities, but that's not a necessary outcome of the assignment. I'll echo Jacob's invocation of the alchemists -- they all fit the River Kingdoms, and there were FIVE of them, and they had basically zero overlap.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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Most of the time, when I give an assignment to a freelancer, the assignment is, "create an X, with Y theme, usable in Z location." If you are unable to operate under those conditions, you're not a very useful freelancer. The challenges we create for this competition are designed to find people who will be good freelancers.
Sometimes that means we have three archetypes with a "water warrior" theme. Sometimes that means the main monster book has 3 0-HD humanoid monster races in it. The challenge is to make them all interesting.
I get that, but at the same time, do you ever give 32 freelancers the exact same assignment?
For a hypothetical book on a region that hasn't been covered yet, would you even ask for 32 archetypes? I think it would be great if future pathfinder region books had a section with a half dozen archetypes in them, but 32 would be a bit much for a single region, that's all I'm saying.
If you did a book of archetypes similar to Paths of Prestige, that would be cool too, but I'm guessing the geographic spread would cover the entire Inner Sea Region.
An alternative would be to simply have more specific twists in later rounds, so there's no more than 16 playing in the same sandbox once it gets specific.
I get that, but at the same time, do you ever give 32 freelancers the exact same assignment?
No, but it's also not fair to say "you four do an alchemist archetype, you four do a wizard archetype, you four do a cleric archetype," and so on. That's not a fair challenge to the people who get stuck with cleric (hard to do an archetype for).
Also: Keep in mind that American Idol does stuff like, "This round, everyone is doing songs from Grease/Queen/Bowie/Elton John.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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I get that, but at the same time, do you ever give 32 freelancers the exact same assignment?No, but it's also not fair to say "you four do an alchemist archetype, you four do a wizard archetype, you four do a cleric archetype," and so on. That's not a fair challenge to the people who get stuck with cleric (hard to do an archetype for).
Also: Keep in mind that American Idol does stuff like, "This round, everyone is doing songs from Grease/Queen/Bowie/Elton John.
Yes, but they do that once they are down to 12 or fewer contestants. And since I don't think they've ever had two contestants do the same song, they probably make sure of it somehow (I don't watch AI much, so can't say for sure they never have had contestants pick the same song though).
I'm pretty sure they work with the contestants so they don't do that, yes.
But note that we had several alchemists in this competition and none of them had the same theme. There are many character concepts even within one country, and part of the challenge of this sort of round is deciding to go for the obvious choice (and perhaps compete for it) or take a road less traveled.
I think (purely conjectural) the duplicating stems from short turn around time. Though there was more time than in the past, there are always some Top 32 shocked to be there. They find themselves scrambling. Not having time to explore areas, the submission usually comes down to the first idea. With a name like "River Kingdoms" I think there is a little mental railroading that would not happen with 'Taldor,' 'Numeria' or 'Absalom.' That said, I think the scrambled entries were much harder to find this year than in the past. The few top were easy, the couple bottom were easy, but the pack in the middle was really close.
[disclaimer] I am in the top 16 and might be biased. [/disclaimer]
I think (purely conjectural) the duplicating stems from short turn around time. Though there was more time than in the past, there are always some Top 32 shocked to be there. They find themselves scrambling. Not having time to explore areas, the submission usually comes down to the first idea.
For what it's worth, I was totally shocked to make top 32 and hadn't done any preparation. I think the short turnaround and the setting restrictions certainly make the task harder, but they don't make it impossible. And if the point of the constraints is to up the challenge level, then I think all is in order. *shrug*
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7
aka primemover003
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That's exactly how I felt in 2011. Though there was no twist I did scramble to whip together a weak archetype. The mechanic was new for Pathfinder, though it wasn't that much different than 3.5 substitution levels or 2e kits. Thankfully my Wondrous Item pushed me through last time.
This year I'm thankful for that experience. I'm also thankful I had the Guide to the River Kingdoms, had a few volumes of Kingmaker, and ran my own campaign in the Embeth forest a few years ago.
--Babe the Blue Vrocks
Star Voter Season 6
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Most of the time, when I give an assignment to a freelancer, the assignment is, "create an X, with Y theme, usable in Z location." If you are unable to operate under those conditions, you're not a very useful freelancer. The challenges we create for this competition are designed to find people who will be good freelancers.
Sometimes that means we have three archetypes with a "water warrior" theme. Sometimes that means the main monster book has 3 0-HD humanoid monster races in it. The challenge is to make them all interesting.
This little bit of info would've been great to see in a blog post; I'm sure Joel's sentiments echoed throughout the community's thoughts for anyone who was watching RPG Superstar in this round.
It seemed like such an odd set of archetypes for no apparent reason. This answers it perfectly.
Also, unlike American Idol, the goal here isn't to entertain a billion viewers first. This competition can afford to have overlap, because unlike a TV show that makes more money from people watching it than from the artist being successful afterwards, Paizo's goal is to have the end product be better.
And that means multiple people making the same choice is a really good thing, because it's a lot easier to contrast "water flavored ranger" and "water flavored cavalier" than it is to contrast "teleporting fighter" and "time travelling rogue"
Also, unlike American Idol, the goal here isn't to entertain a billion viewers first. This competition can afford to have overlap, because unlike a TV show that makes more money from people watching it than from the artist being successful afterwards, Paizo's goal is to have the end product be better.
This is a very insightful and accurate observation. Well done.
My personal view is that constraints are a big spur to creativity. If I'm given a set of criteria and told to make something cool that fits them, I find that a much more invigorating challenge than being given a blank canvas.
To be interesting, you can't go for the obvious. If you design a ranger archetype because it's the class that fits the setting best, well, it better be a really interesting take on a ranger because that's what everyone was thinking already. I think that is part of the test this round. Can you deliver something that no one else would have thought of?
This is a hobby/industry filled with creative people. It's why we give our precious time to it. So, while a well written archetype that fits a classic theme is good to have (Lonesome Rider), it's the interesting and unusual ideas that are worth their weight in gold (Huckster). Avoiding the trap of falling into stereotypes is a key part of this contest and setting restrictions in this way tests that.
Also, as a quick chip in, restriction flattens the comparison field. It gives the voters a platform on which to base their votes. It helps guide us, the observers, to assess the entries more consistently and allows us to draw comparisons between the entries in subtle ways that we might otherwise have missed.
Further to that, it shows us observers the pitfalls and mistakes under given tasks that we could fall into. They help us to learn, in trying, in watching and in voting and comparing.
The constraints aren't just there for setting competition parameters, they are there for all of us, the contestants and the observers to follow and learn from.
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[disclaimer] I am in the top 16 and might be biased. [/disclaimer] I think the short turnaround and the setting restrictions certainly make the task harder, but they don't make it impossible. And if the point of the constraints is to up the challenge level, then I think all is in order. *shrug*
I agree, and the higher the challenge the better the end result. :)