The Unofficial Top 32 Guildhall and Armory

[Mikko Kallio]

I'll be at PaizoCon, see you there! The get-together sounds like a great idea.

[Dana Huber]

Wish I could join you all! Pour one out for me!

[Chris Shaeffer]

FINE. I'll go this year. :p

[Monica Marlowe]

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

FINE. I'll go this year. :p

What is that, a 45 minute drive for you?

[Monica Marlowe]

I just found out that my father will be having an angiogram on Tuesday at 1pm EST and possibly surgery. So, Tuesday just got a lot more exciting for me and not in a good way.

[Scott LaBarge]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

I just found out that my father will be having an angiogram on Tuesday at 1pm EST and possibly surgery. So, Tuesday just got a lot more exciting for me and not in a good way.

Sorry to hear that, sincerely. I hope everything goes well. I'm sure the monster round seems relatively insignificant by comparison.

[Chris Shaeffer]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

FINE. I'll go this year. :p

What is that, a 45 minute drive for you?

A 30 minute drive or 1 hour by public transportation. :3

--

Good luck to your father. Heart stuff can be scary, but at least it's something you're all aware of instead of it sneaking up on you. My dad head a heart attack (100% arterial blockage) a few years back and recovered just fine. Fingers crossed!

[R Pickard]

Sorry to hear that, Monica. I pray all goes well.

[Monica Marlowe]

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

FINE. I'll go this year. :p

What is that, a 45 minute drive for you?

A 30 minute drive or 1 hour by public transportation. :3

--

Good luck to your father. Heart stuff can be scary, but at least it's something you're all aware of instead of it sneaking up on you. My dad head a heart attack (100% arterial blockage) a few years back and recovered just fine. Fingers crossed!

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that about your dad! I worked as a cardiac nurse several years ago and in the grand scheme of cardiac things this is small potatoes, but he's my dad so all clinical training and rationale is right out the window. I know he'll be okay, but I have to be at home to get the kids off the bus. Not like I'll be of great use at the hospital in the waiting room either :-)

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Hope things go smoothly for your dad, Monica.

As for Paizocon, I really don't know. Money's been a real problem lately. If things have improved significantly by then I'll certainly give it serious consideration.

[Mikko Kallio]

Monica, I hope all goes well.

[Christopher Wasko]

Lots of love headed your way, Monica. Best of luck to your dad and your family

[Mikko Kallio]

Reviewing monsters is hard work, I tell you. I'm taking a break now, so I'll share a few very vague statistics about my judging process.

I've reviewed 12 entries so far, and I've got 4 categories: do's, weakly do's, weakly don'ts, and don'ts. Without revealing which category is which, there are 2, 2, 4, and 4 entries in the four categories.

I hope you all are already working on your round 4 entries. Even though you don't know the specifics, you should at the very least be reading encounters from the previous years. Maybe make a mindmap or something, write down your best ideas and when the round 4 rules are revealed, you can pick the ideas that seem suitable for the encounter.

Make your encounter better than anything anyone has ever submitted to RPGSS.

[Monica Marlowe]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

Reviewing monsters is hard work, I tell you. I'm taking a break now, so I'll share a few very vague statistics about my judging process.

I've reviewed 12 entries so far, and I've got 4 categories: do's, weakly do's, weakly don'ts, and don'ts. Without revealing which category is which, there are 2, 2, 4, and 4 entries in the four categories.

I hope you all are already working on your round 4 entries. Even though you don't know the specifics, you should at the very least be reading encounters from the previous years. Maybe make a mindmap or something, write down your best ideas and when the round 4 rules are revealed, you can pick the ideas that seem suitable for the encounter.

Make your encounter better than anything anyone has ever submitted to RPGSS.

First Mikko torments me and now the Paizo website. Apparently 3am Sunday night is considered 3am Monday morning by the website and the reveal is listed as "Tomorrow." I definitely need to stop telling time by the number of sleeps.

[Dana Huber]

Best wishes, Monica. *fingers crossed*

[Anthony Adam]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Kalervo Oikarinen wrote:

Jeff Heikkinen wrote:

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

I really don't know how well this round is going to go for me. I'm worried! :|

But hey, let's remember: the worst case scenario for this round is that we lose now and enter again next year older and wiser. Right? :)

Actually, I kind of feel like the worst-case scenario is making the top 8 but not the top 4, because then you can't enter again.

I think I'd prefer top 8 to trying to tempt fate and achieve consecutive four-peat. :)

At this point I would be thrilled with a Top 8 tag and never having the temptation of entering the contest again. I only entered because of temporary mental illness and I fear I would give into the temptation again if I didn't have something binding to prevent me from doing so.

Actually, if you don't make Top 8, what you will have... is me nagging you to enter again! You all nagged at me this year, so turn about is fair play I guess :P

[Anthony Adam]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

I just found out that my father will be having an angiogram on Tuesday at 1pm EST and possibly surgery. So, Tuesday just got a lot more exciting for me and not in a good way.

Hugs from the UK.

[Jensen Toperzer]

Monica: Oh jeez D: I hope everything goes well for your dad.

Re: conventions, one of the nice things about doing any sort of freelance RPG work whatsoever that you're paid for is that you can write conventions off your taxes ;) It's how I afforded two PAXes and a MAGfest last year.

Speaking of, I'll be Enforcing at PAX East this year unless I land a really good job between now and March 8, so if you're going, feel free to say hi! I'm always up for tabletop games of any stripe :) Uh, I still need a hotel room though ._.

I'm also trying to make GenCon this year, but that's a difficult thing. The volunteer process is like 500x more complicated than PAX.

[Monica Marlowe]

Jensen Toperzer wrote:

Monica: Oh jeez D: I hope everything goes well for your dad.

Re: conventions, one of the nice things about doing any sort of freelance RPG work whatsoever that you're paid for is that you can write conventions off your taxes ;) It's how I afforded two PAXes and a MAGfest last year.

Speaking of, I'll be Enforcing at PAX East this year unless I land a really good job between now and March 8, so if you're going, feel free to say hi! I'm always up for tabletop games of any stripe :) Uh, I still need a hotel room though ._.

I'm also trying to make GenCon this year, but that's a difficult thing. The volunteer process is like 500x more complicated than PAX.

We will definitely be at GenCon, it's hard to not justify it with only an hour and a half drive to get there. So if anyone else will be there, we can do a Guildhall and Armory Midwest as well.

[Monica Marlowe]

Thank you everyone who has reached out to me, it means a LOT to me. The RPG SS forums are like a family to me for 5 months every year. You all have been awesome. I'll let you know when I know something tomorrow. I am hoping for "not a big thing."

[Anthony Pennington]

This whole weekend of waiting has been seriously driving me to drink. I have been stressing my monster more then my kid during his little league games. (I wonder if that makes me a bad parent ;).)I keep thinking of ways I should have modified it. And then bashing my head into my computer desk while muttering "stupid, stupid, stupid".

Okay well not really but I can't wait for tomorrow at 2:00!

[Kalervo Oikarinen]

Monica, I hope everything goes well tomorrow.

Anthony, I know the feeling. My mind goes from I did pretty well to Jon Snow, as in "You know nuthin'!"

[Wren Brown]

Anthony, this may be your one and only RPGSS monster entry! You can always have more kids! :P

Monica, I hope your Dad is okay.

[Charlie Bell]

Sorry to hear about your dad, Monica. Hope everything turns out all right.

I'm going to throw this out there. Competing in RPGSS makes it dang hard to GM your regular games.

[Scott LaBarge]

Charlie Bell wrote:

I'm going to throw this out there. Competing in RPGSS makes it dang hard to GM your regular games.

I hear that! Though I have to admit it's just only one of several drains on my time these days. Still, my players are getting restless :-p

[Chris Shaeffer]

I'm lucky the last campaign I was running just ended. Phew!

[Dana Huber]

I am GMing two PBPs and I have just been AWFUL at them since RPGSS started. Thankfully my players have been understanding, but I still feel bad.

[Jensen Toperzer]

man I should join a PBP sometime :\a

[Anthony Pennington]

Pbp are the only way to play campaigns with kids. I can convince my wife to takes the kiddos for a couple of hours every now and again to play local society games but you never can expect to get that on a regular basis.

[Scott LaBarge]

So Owen, I don't know if you can tell us this or not, but what is the total number of votes submitted in the map round, i.e. the number of actual voters? I don't want/need to know how many votes specific maps got, I'm just curious about how large the electorate actually is.

[Kalervo Oikarinen]

Hmm, where are the teasers about monster types, alignments etc? We need something to obsess over while we wait for the reveal. :)

[Adam Daigle]

The most common creature type was aberration (closely followed by fey). The most common alignment was neutral. The most common size was Medium. And only six used subtypes.

How's that?

[Dana Huber]

Jensen Toperzer wrote:

man I should join a PBP sometime :\a

You should! Much as I love tabletop, PBP with a good GM & crew can potentially be much more immersive and offers ways to do things you can't conveniently do at a table-- such as narrate your character's inner thoughts, or write up that fabulous speech to justify your +10 diplomacy when you might not be able to think of the words when you're put on the spot at the table. I have a character who speaks only in rhyming verse who I far prefer to play in PBP, since I can't come up with rhyming dialogue on the fly at a tabletop.

For a GM, you can also do things that aren't so feasible at the table. Several of my games have involved the party splitting and people pursuing solo things of interest to them-- at the table, that means the GM and one or two players talk and everyone else twiddles their thumbs; online it means I can keep all those storylines going at the same time, etc (a little more work for me as a GM, but still doable).

The biggest hurdle when getting into a good PBP is that the rate-of-posting is a big adjustment from tabletop play. If you can't handle the thought of a single combat taking days or even weeks to resolve, then it will probably just be a frustrating medium for you. It has its pros and cons, but overall I really like it.

/pimp

[Kalervo Oikarinen]

I've never done PBP and only a bit of PBeM long ago. For me, the latter just didn't have the same pull as playing face to face.

Playing on a virtual tabletop, like roll20, might be interesting to try out. I've only used a virtual tabletop to replace physical maps and miniatures. If I ever have trouble finding face to face games, I'd probably opt for these instead of PBP.

I can see PBP/PBeM has its strengths but as long as there are real time alternatives available, I probably wouldn't opt to join one.

[Monica Marlowe]

Jensen Toperzer wrote:

man I should join a PBP sometime :\a

Maybe we should do a Top 32 PbP to get through the waiting.

[Monica Marlowe]

Adam Daigle wrote:

The most common creature type was aberration (closely followed by fey). The most common alignment was neutral. The most common size was Medium. And only six used subtypes.

How's that?

No real surprises there given our rule set.

[Mikko Kallio]

Ok, whew. All done. I think there were good ideas in each of the entries, and some were outright brilliant.

I won't give you a teaser, but I'll warn you that my comments will be quite verbose.

And...

Some of my comments will be brutally honest, so remember to cast barkskin before the reveal. They're really nothing I wouldn't be able to say to a fellow freelancer if they asked me to review an assignment they're about to send to a publisher. Remember that RPGSS is not just a test of your skill but also your ability to endure pressure and take feedback.

[Monica Marlowe]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

Ok, whew. All done. I think there were good ideas in each of the entries, and some were outright brilliant.

I won't give you a teaser, but I'll warn you that my comments will be quite verbose.

And...

Some of my comments will be brutally honest, so remember to cast barkskin before the reveal. They're really nothing I wouldn't be able to say to a fellow freelancer if they asked me to review an assignment they're about to send to a publisher. Remember that RPGSS is not just a test of your skill but also your ability to endure pressure and take feedback.

I was coming over to share an article completely unrelated to the contest, but then Mikko posted this and it suddenly feels very related.

Gaming with emotional bleed

And Theory of Nordic LARP

[Jensen Toperzer]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Jensen Toperzer wrote:

man I should join a PBP sometime :\a

Maybe we should do a Top 32 PbP to get through the waiting.

I would be happy to play in such a game :)

barring that, well, come on now, surely someone has a game they want to rope me into?

[R Pickard]

On PBPs --- fortunately/unfortunately the GMs of three of my PBPs disappeared in December/January essentially dooming the games to death (two GMs, three games), and the other two PBPs the others have been patient and understanding so far with my intermittent participation.

A "Top 32" PBP could be fun except I don't really want to join any more games while I'm still potentially a contender. Also, if all 32 of us joined it would be really unmanageable unless it was just freeform RP. (I'm in a PBP game where there's something like 10 or so players and it's really hard to keep track of what's going on). Maybe later though...

I've always wanted to run a PBP if I had time... but this is definitely not the time to get that kind of thing started. What I'd like to run is a Pathfinder conversion I made of Goodman Games' "Legends are Made, Not Born," a module that starts at 0-level. I ran a brief tabletop game of this and it worked out well; I had everyone start in an NPC class and when they attained a certain level of heroic achievement, they gestalted their NPC level with a level 1 PC class, where from there they just level normally in their PC class(es) of choice. Hopefully would get to try it someday.

Jensen, if you want to see what's available now, you can always check the recruitment board.

[Wren Brown]

Adam Daigle wrote:

The most common creature type was aberration (closely followed by fey). The most common alignment was neutral. The most common size was Medium. And only six used subtypes.

How's that?

<mr burns>Excellent.</mr burns>

[Monica Marlowe]

Good news - my dad is out of his procedure, he is fine and will be coming home later this afternoon.

Thank you everyone, you've been awesome. It's nice to have support when you need it for any reason.

[Chris Shaeffer]

That's great news! I hope he takes his time and recovers speedily. If that's possible. :)

[Christopher Wasko]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Good news - my dad is out of his procedure, he is fine and will be coming home later this afternoon.

Thank you everyone, you've been awesome. It's nice to have support when you need it for any reason.

Glad to hear it! Good luck in 2.5 hours!

[Scott LaBarge]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Good news - my dad is out of his procedure, he is fine and will be coming home later this afternoon.

Thank you everyone, you've been awesome. It's nice to have support when you need it for any reason.

Hurray for healthy dads!

[Feros]

Monica Marlowe wrote:

Good news - my dad is out of his procedure, he is fine and will be coming home later this afternoon.

Thank you everyone, you've been awesome. It's nice to have support when you need it for any reason.

Fantastic news Monica! Glad to hear it! :D

[Adam Daigle]

I wanted to pop in here and let y'all know that I really really liked this year's batch of monsters. There were plenty of fun ideas and neat special abilities. Great work, everyone!

[Chris Shaeffer]

Twitch. Squirm. Groan. Hold breath. Gasp. Spin in chair. Roll on floor. Eat cookies. Close door and yell. Open door. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Inspect tongue in window reflection. Put head on table. Sing 'Needing, Getting' under breath. Twitch. Squirm.

[Monica Marlowe]

Chris Shaeffer wrote:

Twitch. Squirm. Groan. Hold breath. Gasp. Spin in chair. Roll on floor. Eat cookies. Close door and yell. Open door. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Inspect tongue in window reflection. Put head on table. Sing 'Needing, Getting' under breath. Twitch. Squirm.

It's always reassuring to see I'm not the person who needs to be sedated the most around the Guildhall and Armory.

[Christopher Wasko]

Preparing for another week of radio silence. Best of luck, everybody!