Publisher, Chief Creative Officer
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I was a judge the very first year of RPG Superstar, before public voting on the Wondrous Items open call round. Three of us read about 1000 submitted items, the good and the bad, over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was a lot of work, it was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot myself from all of the submissions.
In the years since, I've had to step back a bit from RPG Superstar as the duties of co-running Paizo as a whole have taken up more and more of my time. Yesterday, however, I found myself with a few hours of free time, so I wandered into the judges chambers and started voting on items from this year's contest.
And I've got to tell you, you guys are doing a fantastic job.
Yes, there are plenty of items that don't follow the rules, or that are simply spells in a can, or that just don't earn their designer a spot in the next round. But as a whole, the quality of submissions has increased leaps and bounds from that first year. Even the bad items are better than they used to be.
Items are more likely to be in the right format, are more interesting, and are flat-out more creative (as a whole) than in previous years. Sure, I've judged far fewer than 1000 items so far, but I can say that after only an hour or so of reading I saw several items I would be happy to publish in a Pathfinder supplement, something that definitely wasn't the case that first year (and a few years after that).
I know that waiting to find out the results of the first (or any) round can be excruciating, especially as other judges can focus on the negatives and on the items that don't deserve the superstar title, making you second-guess your efforts.
But from the perspective of someone who was there at the very beginning, I'm very impressed with a LOT of items this year, and I'm eager to follow the contest as the rounds go on.
You guys are doing an excellent job this year. Keep up the good work, and good luck in future rounds!
Thanks for the encouraging words Erik!
Nice Erik, well-said :)
Congrats everyone!
Yarr.
The encouragement is very welcome! Thanks for the support! :D
Star Voter Season 7
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It is indeed a treat to see a positive, encouraging comment about the hard work of the applicants. Those 1,000 or so designers got off the bench and made an effort to produce an interesting item. While all won't be successful, their spirit of competition is admirable. It is easy to criticize the items (especially to bestow the dread Spell-in-a -Can moniker), but much harder to affirm the creativity of the contestants. It is this type of player creativity that has kept adventure gaming fresh for nearly 50 years.
So I say, "Rock on Superstars...thanks for the ideas!"
And I've got to tell you, you guys are doing a fantastic job.
Thank you.
It is very rewarding to receive any kind of encouragement.
I, as I am sure many others do, appreciate it.
I hope we can all continue to improve and that some or all of us can eventually rise to the demanding standards required.
Huzzah!!
great idea to mine the creativity out there each year and get a sample of what folks think about designs, who might come aboard as crew and build awareness /educate on pathfinder gamestyle. thanks for it, really enjoying the voting process.
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I heartily agree with Erik. Just in the first batch of items I've voted on this year I have seen a couple really, really good items. Yes, there have been some bad ones, but not horrible so far. I have said over and over that as a result of discussion and our item threads the general quality of submissions has gone way up. It seems to be true once again this year. I've read maybe 10 pairs of items tonight and of those 10 (so 20 items) there are at least 3 or 4 I would have put in the keep pile right away in past years. That is quite a percentage.
Most of you know, I was one of those judges in that first group (Erik, Wolfgang and I) and it was a grind--and has been a grind ever year until they changed to the public screening of the first round last year. I love it, don't get me wrong. But it is a ton of work. Easily half of the submissions that first year could have been discarded out of hand. Not so this year, at least from what I am seeing. And each year there has been improvement.
Keep up the good work everyone!
...But from the perspective of someone who was there at the very beginning, I'm very impressed with a LOT of items this year, and I'm eager to follow the contest as the rounds go on.
You guys are doing an excellent job this year. Keep up the good work, and good luck in future rounds!
Here here! The evolution and positive development of the RPGSS process over the years has really been a pleasure to observe (I just watched in 2008, participated in 2009, and have been lurking around ever since...) Despite all the first-time foibles which will pop up no matter what, I definitely agree that the overall quality of the item submissions AND the community discourse about the entries and the contest process in general has really improved.
Think about it - how many man-hours of game development strategy and design theory do we have packed into all these years, all these message board threads...? It boggles the mind.
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I would really love to analyze the data from these voting sessions. Applying demographics, time between each at which number of vote the voter is currently on, etc.
Could be some really interesting social experiments data.
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Dedicated Voter Season 7
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I would really love to analyze the data from these voting sessions. Applying demographics, time between each at which number of vote the voter is currently on, etc.
Could be some really interesting social experiments data.
Marathon Voter 2 years in a row?!
I think you're a remarkable social experiment all by yourself!
:-]
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I would really love to analyze the data from these voting sessions. Applying demographics, time between each at which number of vote the voter is currently on, etc.
Could be some really interesting social experiments data.
Marathon Voter 2 years in a row?!
I think you're a remarkable social experiment all by yourself!
:-]
Here's hoping between that and the Blazing 9 practice I hit the 32 this year!
I will say that voting a lot HAS given me insight into what I should and shouldn't do. Blazing 9 practice gave me lots of great criticism and practice.
I would highly recommend trying to review every item as well in the thread the Critique My Item thread when it pops up. No matter the outcome this year I still have a goal this year of reviewing each of those items again.
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Dedicated Voter Season 7
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Ha! I have been thinking about a very cool item for next year (this year is likely a no-go) and I just came across a very similar item. I will definitely be accused of using it inspiration, but I really did come up with it independently. And it really is very different on the whole, and better, if I dare say so myself. I even voted for it this time around...
Just really funny to see something I've been talking to friends about for the last 2 days pop up on my screen...
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Dedicated Voter Season 7
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Do spells have handles somewhere I'm not aware of?Only if they consume too many components. Then they have love handles.
I immediately thought of "love handles" but didn't think it would make sense to post such a comment, but with your additional commentary it makes perfect sense.
Now I wonder if I should have voted it up...?
**NOPE**