Next year's Round 3 - create a new Evil Judge templateYou don't have anything to tease us with, we haven't turned anything in yet this week. I know we'll be seeing you again on Friday, you don't fool us Mikko Kallio! Shoo now and get off of my lawn! ;-)I seem to remember a crushing teaser about the letters in the Final Four's names last year. It wasn't a lot, but certainly didn't give me confidence. Some of these judges are lawful evil (OK, maybe neutral), don't forget. :p
The CR would be too high for the contest. We have to have some limits.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Rusty Ironpants
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My fellow competitors seem beat down, we've gotten really quiet.
I have been trying to think of awesome encounters just in case I advance, and playing Darkest Dugeon (excellent game) to distract myself from waiting for the announcement.
We can do this, you are awesome designers and you can do this! Good Luck!
Thanks Monica, you're right. Yay us! Yay everyone!
Seriously, good luck everyone. :)
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You can never have too many monkeys in an encounter.
Infinite Monkey Staff of the Vanara King
Sleepy mousey
The cute is strong with this one.
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Good job, Top 8! You guys did awesome, and I throw the torch to you to bear it high, or something something something. :D
Mamaursula and DQ, continue to rock it for the ladies! I salute you, and am honored to have been in your company!!
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Gabriel, Monica, Brian, Kalervo, Ben, Scott, and Christopher--Congrats!
Is it me or are the rules for the encounter round not up yet? 'Cause if round is already open, we need the rules! Minutes are going by!
(Ninja'ed by Mamaursula. It's not just me!)
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Congratulations, everyone! And now for the second-by-second page refreshing for the rules :)
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Rusty Ironpants
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Congratulations to the Top 8, you guys did a great job.
I just want to say thank you to everyone involved with the contest, both at Paizo and the fans. It was a great experience and a wild ride to be a part of it.
I learned a lot, especially in the monster round and I will be continuing to pursue RPG design, most likely as a second career in addition to my day job.
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*huge sigh of relief*
Congrats to the others in top 8. Monster round finally conquered!
Salute to the whole top 16, you made this a really nerve-wracking round with your devious monsters.
Now the R4 rules!
I keep refreshing the page, and the rules aren't there. They're NOT THERE!
I learned a lot, especially in the monster round and I will be continuing to pursue RPG design, most likely as a second career in addition to my day job.
*CHEERS*
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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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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Gabriel, Monica, Brian, Kalervo, Ben, Scott, and Christopher--Congrats!
Is it me or are the rules for the encounter round not up yet? 'Cause if round is already open, we need the rules! Minutes are going by!
(Ninja'ed by Mamaursula. It's not just me!)
Congratulations to everyone indeed!
And the Judges get one more in on us before the beginning of the Round. Neutral Evil is still Evil.
...and well done everyone. A great showing all around.
Congratulations! Great job everybody!
We can submit our entries, but have no rules for them yet.
Blog post has some details: click here for more!
Edit: Or I could quote it...
With just two rounds left, we're doing out best to keep these designers on their toes. Again, the Design an Encounter round has been elevated to the highest level of difficulty. We require the contestants to design a new map for a location within Nar-Voth (in the subterranean realms of Golarion, Paizo's campaign world). Then they must design an encounter for that map, use another contestant's monster from a previous round, make the encounter balanced for a specific level range, and hit a wordcount between 1,300 and 1,400 words.
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Modules Overlord
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The rules are coming, and we apologize for the delay. We normally get this all done a day in advance, but Paizo wasn't open yesterday, and I personally miscalculated the time it would take to go from written rules to publicly accessible rules.
Entirely my fault, it won't last long, and you've all proven you can handle any challenge we throw at you. As it happens, not getting crucial info from your publishers is (sadly) not an unknown factor in freelancing, as my long years as a freelancer gives me amble opportunity to attest.
We didn't PLAN for an extra stress-inducer, but I'm confident you can all handle it.
Rules are up! Just a lot of moving parts around here to make Superstar go :)
Personally, I want to see Blood Monkey Castle...
Thanks, Chris!
Congratulations everybody! That was a tough round to get through, and I am particularly excited to see how you all handle the next one.
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Congrats to the Elite Eight!
Love the higher CR range on the encounter. (That's part of what got me last year.) Feel bad for you guys losing 100 words, though. Especially since we're back to having traps.
Also in the rules, the example of the divided word count adds up to 1,500 in the length section...
Congrats to all parties on a really tough round! I've been on tenterhooks all week.
And now there are 7 people who will wish in a couple weeks that they didn't make it through the monster round. We just don't know who they are yet o.O
And now that I've read the Round 4 rules, the good news: I guessed right on what the round would look like. The bad news: I only have 3 frickin' days to finish writing the encounter! Eek!
Welp, disappointed but not surprised to not be advancing this round. Congratulations to everyone who did! There's some really good stuff in there and I think everyone who's left is capable of writing a ridiculously good module. The competition was pretty fierce this round. I'm honored to have made it this far and looking forward to seeing what the top 8 come up with.
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And of course, my Reaper Bones arrive on the SAME DAY as I'm supposed to be writing my encounter. THE IRONY!! THE AGONY!!!
Hehe, dodged that bullet. >_>
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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Congratulations, Top 8! Make excellent encounters! This one is also one of my favorite rounds, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
I didn't think dropping the word limit by 100 words was going to make a big difference, but man, it really, really does o.O
Time to get out the pruning shears....
Yeah, I hear that. As I was telling one of the esteemed former (and future!) contestants who is giving me feedback, I tend to start out very purple and then progress through increasingly lighter shades of lavender. And I have, finally, managed to get down under 1,400 words, but I don't think I'm done yet. If I can trim a bit more fat I can add a couple other details I'd like to include. But we're getting pretty close to bone....
And I have to say, I'm surprised not to already be seeing the "Just submitted my encounter 15 minutes after the beginning of the round!" posts; we seemed to have some speed demons in previous rounds. I'll probably submit by tomorrow night, but only because Friday morning is crazy busy and I don't know that I'll be able to find time for fiddling then.
How's it going folks? You've got a tough round going on. :)
How's it going folks? You've got a tough round going on. :)
Been 90% done the past 2 days, just putting finishing touches and final edits based on pit crew feedback yesterday and today. Going to submit tonight!
If you have the chance, I strongly recommend that you playtest your encounter. There's still time to make some tweaks afterward.
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If you have the chance, I strongly recommend that you playtest your encounter. There's still time to make some tweaks afterward.
If I had time and a group to do so with, I would. But everyone works, sadly :/
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If you have the chance, I strongly recommend that you playtest your encounter. There's still time to make some tweaks afterward.If I had time and a group to do so with, I would. But everyone works, sadly :/
This. Remember unlike previous years we have not been given full rules until the advanced contestants are revealed (and in this round the rules were further delayed a little), and the deadlines have been designed specifically so we don't have the weekend to work with. (As an aside, my freelance editing clients usually, though of course not always, do give me the weekend, even if it's only those 2 days.)
While I think a lot of us probably guessed many of this encounter's details beforehand and started work early, still hard to be sure you're on the right track (and worry about wasting time barking up the wrong tree), or make arrangements with friends to help, especially when friends also work, have families, etc.
Certainly under other circumstances, finding time to playtest when possible would be ideal.
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Yeah, I hear that. As I was telling one of the esteemed former (and future!) contestants who is giving me feedback, I tend to start out very purple and then progress through increasingly lighter shades of lavender. And I have, finally, managed to get down under 1,400 words, but I don't think I'm done yet. If I can trim a bit more fat I can add a couple other details I'd like to include. But we're getting pretty close to bone....
You're not usually as close to the bone as you think, which is why it's super-useful to have someone else read it for you.
One of the most invaluable writing tools I got in college was a facsimile of the original manuscript of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land with Ezra Pound's editing notes.
If you're not familiar with the backstory, The Waste Land is pretty much universally acknowledged as one of the most important works of literature of the 20th century, and one of the key works that defines modernism in literature. While writing it, T.S. Eliot turned to his friend and fellow poet Ezra Pound for help editing and shaping it.
The result is that the finished version is barely half the length of the original. Pound and Eliot were brutal. They straight-up massacred words, lines, and entire sections.
The finished product is unquestionably brilliant. The original version had... flashes of brilliance.
You should never be the only person who edits your work, but it is your responsibility to be your own first editor, and to make sure that every word you leave in is doing something important. But whether that work is essential is often hard to see when you're the one who wrote it, which is where a second pair of eyes becomes really valuable.
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And...done. Phew
Now for the agonizing finger-crossing. Good luck, everyone!
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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Looking forward to reading all the 8 entries!
As one of the monster round judges, it'll be interesting to see which monster from R3 gets the "most used" award this year. ;-)
Eek!
For better or worse, it's in. Phew!
And those poor students aren't going to be getting their papers back tomorrow after all, I fear. Bad Professor. (But hopefully good RPG designer!)