Monica Marlowe RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka mamaursula |
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My name doesn't include my 2015 tag. :(
EDIT: Whoops, there it is now!Also, funny thing:
My first year entering, I make a life/death flip/floppy kind of item and make Top 32.
Next two years, I fall short with a blasting item and a Diplomacy item.
Then I make another life/death flip/floppy kind of item, and crack the Top 32 again.I guess that must just be my "thing", eh?
It does now. Let me tell you how weird it is to have my tag and my real name showing. I feel naked and re-robed all at the same time.
Monica Marlowe RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka mamaursula |
Owen K. C. Stephens Modules Overlord |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Serious question: I've always used my avatar Cleanthes for everything on the boards, and never my actual name and profile. Should I start using my real name and put together a new avatar for use during Superstar?
As a piece of practical advice, unrelated to this contest, I always recommend people looking to become regular freelancers pick an ID they plan to be published under, and use it for *everything*. Every word you post, every story you tell, every joke you pan, every argument you get into, is now part of your resume to have people work with you. I recommend making it as easy as possible for people to connect you to your work.
Charlie Bell RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6 |
Dana Huber RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka dien |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A brief self-introduction after my somewhat-dazed one of earlier:
Hello! As the handy name-change tells you, I am Dana Huber, a California girl and aspiring fantasy/SF writer, artist, gamer, and all-around geek.
My 'day job' (ironically more of a night job right now) is as a full-time live-in caregiver to my grandmother, a job that has facilitated a crippling addiction to PBP (Play by Post) games, as I'm in, uh.... eleven? here on the forums, give or take some. I play actively in my local PFS at my FLGS, and am inching towards my third GM star.
I am a UCSD graduate with a degree in Creative Writing, and an alumnus of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop (class of 2008).
Like TealDeer/Jensen, I also recently applied for the Paizo developer position (along with probably half the boards), and, while I was not selected, Wes Schneider also gave me encouraging advice in response. (We're twins, TD!) Some friends nudged me to try at RPGSS this year, and boy, am I glad they did.
I'm excited to be in such rarefied company and to work with/against you all. Best of luck to all my competitors, and thank you to the judges, and the past Top 32ers for providing great examples and inspiration!
gmpathfinder RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 |
Jensen Toperzer Star Voter Season 8 aka TealDeer |
We ARE twins, dien :D My MFA degree is also in Creative Writing.
I feel you on the grandmother thing :( I don't want to quite get into it, and I haven't been a full-time caregiver for anyone, but I've seen too much of that in the past two years, both in my own family & among my friends.
But hey, there's RPGs :) HUGE congrats on making it into Clarion, that's something I really want to do someday (but can't atm, because Student Loans).
Dana Huber RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka dien |
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We ARE twins, dien :D My MFA degree is also in Creative Writing.
I feel you on the grandmother thing :( I don't want to quite get into it, and I haven't been a full-time caregiver for anyone, but I've seen too much of that in the past two years, both in my own family & among my friends.
But hey, there's RPGs :) HUGE congrats on making it into Clarion, that's something I really want to do someday (but can't atm, because Student Loans).
*fistbump twinbump?*
Yeahhhh it's. A job. I've been doing it six years now, which is, well, quite long enough, heh. But so it goes.
And thank you re: Clarion! It was in many ways a dream come true, but I've found it hard to capitalize on it in the years since, due to having my time and focus consumed with the caregiving. RPGSS is apparently a second shot/kick in the butt, or something. :)
There are scholarships available for Clarion (I wouldn't have been able to go without one), but I understand the financial issue. I hope you apply and get in someday!
Monica Marlowe RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka mamaursula |
5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hello, by now you've seen my real name, you may know me by my handle "mamaursula." I'm no stranger to RPG SS, however this is the first time I have ever entered the contest. In years past I have been here to support my husband, Andrew Marlowe, as well as many of the alumni of RPG SS throughout the years.
I entered this year because Andrew assured me he wasn't going to and while he lied about that, he didn't make the Top 32 this year, so this is especially strange to be here on my own.
By day, I am a Registered Nurse and freelance writer and knitter (who knew you could make money knitting?) I also have a degree in biology. I have been involved in role playing games for over 20 years but I have never aspired to be a game designer, yet I have an overwhelming desire to see more women involved in the industry and I am delighted to see so many women with me this year.
Good luck to all of you, I'm excited to see what this contest will hold for us!
Jacob W. Michaels RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor |
Tripp Elliott RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan |
Tripp Elliott RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan |
gmpathfinder wrote:Hmm I wonder why my avatar never switched to my real name. The forum name is super embarrassing at this point.There seemed to be some glitch last year. Lots of people's names never got transformed properly.
And mine is still wrong despite efforts to fix it, but I choose to think it makes me special!
Ben Parkin RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Rethgaal |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi, I'm Ben, and I'm apparently in this year's top 32. No idea how that happened, but yay!
Congrats to everybody else as well, I hope I'm not the only one who was shocked to see their name in the list. And also good luck!
I'll be poking around in this thread and some others, but if anybody wants to chat for whatever reason, feel free to shoot me a message.
Oh, and I may post this somewhere else as well, but: I want it known that I had no idea that Magrim was the name of a deity in PF; I got the name out of a generator for a dwarf I was rolling up around the same time as I made the item for this contest. One of the judges mentioned it in the discussion of my entry, figured I'd clarify :P
Jacob Kellogg RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka Jiggy |
Ben Parkin RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Rethgaal |
So what the heck does "150 dpi" mean and how do I make it happen?
150 dots-per-inch. It's a measure of print quality (X dots of ink, per inch of paper; higher X = more detail).
Generally, if you scan a document, it's something you can set. I'm in the middle of trying to figure my scanner out right now, actually.
Jacob Kellogg RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka Jiggy |
Jacob Kellogg wrote:So what the heck does "150 dpi" mean and how do I make it happen?150 dots-per-inch. It's a measure of print quality (X dots of ink, per inch of paper; higher X = more detail).
Generally, if you scan a document, it's something you can set. I'm in the middle of trying to figure my scanner out right now, actually.
Crap. I have no scanner. Looks like I'll have to find a free digital drawing tool or use my Chromebook's webcam to snap a picture of a drawing. :/
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And I already posted this in another thread, but maybe this is really the right place for it? So the personal intro:
I'm a college prof, specializing in ancient philosophy; I teach Classics and Philosophy, and since a Google search makes it pretty easy to uncover this, I'll just go ahead and tell you that I teach at Santa Clara University. So I'm a published author, but not of stuff that most normal humans will want to read ;-)
I've been married for 18 years this May, and I have two kids, an almost-10 year old boy and an almost-8 year old girl, whom I've been raising as hard-core gamers to the best of my ability. My son recently started running me through Serpent's Skull as my DM, and you do NOT want to face my daughter at Munchkin; she's been playing since she was 3, and shows no mercy, especially to Dad.
My gaming days go all the way back to the D&D Blue Box in the 80's, but I stopped playing anywhere but on computers until just a few years ago, when I ended up (long story) running a Shackled City campaign for 9 of my students, most of whom had never played. (And 5 of them women! Particularly proud to have had a hand getting a few more women into gaming.) We played most every week for more than 2 years, until they all graduated, and I still DM a Kingmaker campaign for those who are still in the area. One of them has also become a magnificent DM himself, and I get to play now as a player in an online Rise of the Runelords campaign he runs for us. (We're just about to invade Jorgenfist!)
RPG's have also become a bit of a side business for me, since I sell a lot of prepainted plastic minis and other RPG stuff on Ebay. Most of the profits, though, just go to feed my gaming habit, including lots of terrain and minis; my long-suffering wife has been very patient with the accumulating pile of stuff this has involved. (If anyone has a real-life bag of holding, I'm willing to make an offer!)
Todd Stewart Contributor |
Jensen Toperzer Star Voter Season 8 aka TealDeer |
And I already posted this in another thread, but maybe this is really the right place for it? So the personal intro:
I'm a college prof, specializing in ancient philosophy; I teach Classics and Philosophy, and since a Google search makes it pretty easy to uncover this, I'll just go ahead and tell you that I teach at Santa Clara University. So I'm a published author, but not of stuff that most normal humans will want to read ;-)
WHAT
NO
/GRABBY HANDS
I just had a long rant about Latin grammar at my mom, gimmie dat deliciousness. Also while in undergrad I briefly flirted with doing a PHD where my thesis was how Chaucer invented postmodernism by accident but I didn't, because money. Though I hear you can get a free PHD in Germany now...
My gaming days go all the way back to the D&D Blue Box in the 80's
HELL YEAH BLUE BOX BROS /blue box brofist
Sometimes I feel like a cheater as I was born in the 80s but, idk, I feel like "finding your mom's old gear in the attic at age 10" has it's own charm, y'know?
*e* Jacob / Jiggy: You can also take a terrible cell phone picture and use GIMP / Photoshop to clean it up. Also, Kinkos.
If I had more free time, I'd offer free quick-and-dirty cleanups to folk w/out scanners, but I got my own butt to cover atm :( Maybe if I get my entry in by Thursday...
Jeff Hazuka Dedicated Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Jayson MF Kip |
Jensen Toperzer Star Voter Season 8 aka TealDeer |
Jeff Hazuka Dedicated Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Jayson MF Kip |
Ben Parkin RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Rethgaal |
Jensen Toperzer wrote:Jeff Hazuka wrote:I figure we get fries, tater tots, and chicken nuggets, ergo we are winning.I guess alternates sit at the kids' table?
I am okay with this. I like to think of myself as "Top 36 Material."
A win, indeed!
And congrats to you (and everyone else)!
Wanna share? :(
Chris Shaeffer RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Hodge Podge |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
*Kicks in the door and makes dramatic pose with radiant backlighting and cape all aflutter*
*Door swings back and slams him in the face*
...
Hey everybody! My name is Chris Shaeffer, and I am an academic advisor for Biology and Physical Sciences at a certain university in/near Seattle, Washington. I like Tibetan food and long walks up tall mountains.
I've been around before, but I continue to be amazed and humbled by fresh new talent and bitter old rivals each and every year. I am also totally psyched to see some familiar forum avatars have unfamiliar names suddenly attached to them!
So with that, allow me to welcome you all to your certain doom!
... I mean... to the guild hall! >_>
EDIT: Scott LaBarge. We do not share a name like the Jacobs, so we are now mortal enemies. ;)
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
I am also totally psyched to see some familiar forum avatars have unfamiliar names suddenly attached to them!
EDIT: Scott LaBarge. We do not share a name like the Jacobs, so we are now mortal enemies. ;)
They say pick your friends carefully and your enemies more carefully, so I'll consider myself off to a good start. But I'd prefer we be *im*mortal enemies, if that's an option.
I actually thought about picking a different picture for my avatar now, but I've been using that one for years for my alias Cleanthes, and it just felt weird to imagine another image next to my name. Hope you don't mind sharing, in a mortal enemies sort of way!
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
Scott LaBarge wrote:And I already posted this in another thread, but maybe this is really the right place for it? So the personal intro:
I'm a college prof, specializing in ancient philosophy; I teach Classics and Philosophy, and since a Google search makes it pretty easy to uncover this, I'll just go ahead and tell you that I teach at Santa Clara University. So I'm a published author, but not of stuff that most normal humans will want to read ;-)
WHAT
NO
/GRABBY HANDS
I just had a long rant about Latin grammar at my mom, gimmie dat deliciousness. Also while in undergrad I briefly flirted with doing a PHD where my thesis was how Chaucer invented postmodernism by accident but I didn't, because money. Though I hear you can get a free PHD in Germany now...
Quote:My gaming days go all the way back to the D&D Blue Box in the 80'sHELL YEAH BLUE BOX BROS /blue box brofist
Sometimes I feel like a cheater as I was born in the 80s but, idk, I feel like "finding your mom's old gear in the attic at age 10" has it's own charm, y'know?
*e* Jacob / Jiggy: You can also take a terrible cell phone picture and use GIMP / Photoshop to clean it up. Also, Kinkos.
If I had more free time, I'd offer free quick-and-dirty cleanups to folk w/out scanners, but I got my own butt to cover atm :( Maybe if I get my entry in by Thursday...
I'm always excited when people think it's cool to be a classicist :-) I know I do, but I'm sort of, you know, biased.
And yeah, the Blue Box was magical. I mean literally, it was one of the most magical experiences of my life: A neighbor kid I knew came over one day and started talking about this game he had heard of called Dungeons and Dragons -- some weird creatures called kobolds got mentioned -- and it sounded incredibly cool. So I went and asked my mom about it, figuring, hey, why not? And she gave me this funny look, walked over to the cabinet where she kept her personal stuff, and pulled out the Blue Box, just like that. If you knew my mom, this would seem more miraculous; to this day I have absolutely no idea how she got wind of the game at all, which wasn't yet in the public eye very much, and she's not at all the sort of person who would care about this stuff herself. But she knew it was something I was going to like, and boy was she ever right! Still one of my favorite memories of her.
Jensen Toperzer Star Voter Season 8 aka TealDeer |
Ha! It's so funny, my Blue Box was also from my mom. But my mom is the chair of a theater department at a wacky liberal arts college, so having her hand me a Blue Box was almost expected, you know? It's like being a wizard's kid, you're going to get that owl-borne letter SOMETIME.
But seriously -- the Blue Box is just. Gods! It's so splendid. It's so friendly to new players, it's so magical in its execution. I do think the new 5th Edition beginner box attempts to capture that spirit, but nothing is quite so magical as the real deal, as opening the dragon-emblazoned box and finding your forebearers character sheets tucked into the blue booklet. And the maps! And the dungeon! and the 12 point Futura font! Gah!
R Pickard RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka DeathQuaker |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, I'm done singing and have words now.
First word: CONGRATULATIONS to all of you on this amazing ride. I am humbled and honored (and still a little disbelieving) to be here with you.
Now... introductions seem to be the thing to do:
Hi, I'm Rep and I'm a gamer. I love games, music, comics, and chocolate. Professionally, I am an administrative assistant at a university (in other words, I have no money but secretly all the power); I also am a freelance copy editor. Past professions have included small town reporter, magazine grunt, and bookstore heavy box packer and carrier. Oh, and sometimes people pay me to assemble and paint miniatures too, but that's a bit more under the table (shh!). I have an MA in English Literature and I am a certified conflict mediator. Unprofessionally I sing soprano in a local LGBTQS chorus and play games and am active in my religious community (Quaker in case that wasn't clear).
Please forgive me if I don't post much--I've got a map to work on!
Good luck everybody!
Charlie Brooks RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6 |
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I'm Charlie, and I am both surprised and overwhelmed to have lucked my way into the Top 32 this year. I've gamed since the early 1990s, starting off with the D&D black box that included Zanzer Tem's Dungeon. I landed in the Pathfinder toybox when I picked up Classic Monsters Revisited, and have happily incorporated Pathfinder elements into my house campaign ever since.
I do a lot of writing, ranging from three published novels (of which my fantasy tale Greystone Valley was very briefly a best-seller) to gun-for-hire type of work like writing bar trivia. I have a wife and two young kids who keep me active, and I twist balloon animals in my free time.
One of my goals in 2015 has been to learn how to draw, so it looks like this whole map thingamajig will be good practice.
R Pickard RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka DeathQuaker |
Ben Parkin wrote:Crap. I have no scanner. Looks like I'll have to find a free digital drawing tool or use my Chromebook's webcam to snap a picture of a drawing. :/Jacob Kellogg wrote:So what the heck does "150 dpi" mean and how do I make it happen?150 dots-per-inch. It's a measure of print quality (X dots of ink, per inch of paper; higher X = more detail).
Generally, if you scan a document, it's something you can set. I'm in the middle of trying to figure my scanner out right now, actually.
I agree with trying Kinko's (or asking an obliging friend). If you do scan, you should be able to set it when you scan, or alternately, when you get into your image editing program, you can set the resolution in the "image size" option which is usually somewhere in the edit menu. While it is not the user friendliest, GIMP is free and there are probably other image editors out there as well.
Jason Keeley RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 |
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Hello and congrats to all the others who made it this far! Including my fellow first-timers! Yay!
By way of introduction, my name is Jason Keeley, and I edit puzzles for Penny Publications. You may have seen our magazines at fine newsstands and drug stores everywhere. And before you ask, yes that is an actual job. I spend my days thinking up lists for word seeks, writing clues for crosswords, and other puzzle-related tasks, the minutiae of which would probably be duller than you might think.
I play games of all stripes and I love it. I am closing in on finishing GMing my fourth Adventure Path (Skull & Shackles). Fifth, if you include Dungeon's Savage Tide campaign, which we didn't actually make it all the way through due to life interfering. But at least I put my own ending on the adventures that happened so far.
Plugs: I have 2 writing credits in recent "Wayfinders" (#10 and #12), and a grimoire I wrote for Fat Goblin Games recently went up for sale. I also do the majority of the editing for the e-zine "Worlds Without Master." It's mostly swords-and-sorcery fiction, but each issue also contains a small, usually self-contained, RPG.
Well, I guess I better get back to sketching out some maps! This is very exciting!
Jensen Toperzer Star Voter Season 8 aka TealDeer |
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Before I go to bed to prep for tomorrow's grind of "oh god I gotta read the Inner Sea guide" and "oh god I gotta make a map..."
For my fellow superstars! The damn song that's been in my head since I entered this bloody contest ;)
If you are what you say you are, a superstar
Then have no fear, the crowd is here
And the lights are on and they want a show
Oh, oh, oh, yeah
Yeah, uh, a fresh cool young Lu
Trying to catch this microphone, check 2, 1, 2
Want to believe my own hype but it's too untrue
The world brought me to my knees
What have you brung you?
Did you improve on the design? Did you do something new?
Well, your name ain't on the guest list, who brung you?
Monica Marlowe RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka mamaursula |
I guess alternates sit at the kids' table?
I am okay with this. I like to think of myself as "Top 36 Material."
I believe it was last year that the Alternates devised their own "Annex" or something equally self-deprecating, they were a lot of fun. I think you should stay here though :-)
R D Ramsey Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Clouds Without Water |
Settling into the Alternate's Courtyard. Comfy chairs out here.
I'm Rodney, a life-long gamer and long time RPGSSer. I've entered a bunch of years and followed along every year. There's a stack of RPG rule books that's literally taller than me sitting against the wall in my apartment, I can't help my collecting addiction. I've played most genres, but my favorites are high fantasy and space opera.
Los Angeles has been my home for almost 15 years, and professionally I'm a freelance computer programmer. On the side I do some writing and some filmmaking.
Mostly I'm just happy to be here! And wondering how the heck I'm gonna make a map.
R D Ramsey Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Clouds Without Water |
Jeff Hazuka wrote:I believe it was last year that the Alternates devised their own "Annex" or something equally self-deprecating, they were a lot of fun. I think you should stay here though :-)I guess alternates sit at the kids' table?
I am okay with this. I like to think of myself as "Top 36 Material."
We're gonna come in for the buffet, don't worry!
Steven Helt RPG Superstar 2013 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Steven T. Helt |
Monica Marlowe RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka mamaursula |
Matt Morris RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka ChesterCopperpot |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Congrats everyone!
Hopefully, I'll more thoroughly introduce myself soon, but short version is I'm a high school English teacher from the Philadelphia area who has made an amazing group of friends playing Pathfinder in the last few years. When I'm not playing PFS or grading papers, I'm hanging out with my family and teaching games to my kids, who are five and seven.
(And yes, there's at least one other Matthew Morris on the Paizo boards.)
Jacob W. Michaels RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor |
Scott LaBarge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Congrats everyone!
Hopefully, I'll more thoroughly introduce myself soon, but short version is I'm a high school English teacher from the Philadelphia area who has made an amazing group of friends playing Pathfinder in the last few years. When I'm not playing PFS or grading papers, I'm hanging out with my family and teaching games to my kids, who are five and seven.
Oh god, you had to go and mention grading!
<gets out grading pen and goes to work.>
Matt Morris RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka ChesterCopperpot |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Alexander Bennett RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka artofcheatery |
Taylor Hubler RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka CalebTGordan |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't have to step over the earthbreakers. I can smash them with my own earthbreaker!
I did not expect to see my name on the top 32 list, having spent the last several years not making it even close to it. So I took a nap at 1:30, woke up at 2:15, and started to play Civilization V. I didn't see any emails from Paizo, and didn't see the blog post when I checked, so I was confused when I got a message of congratulations from a friend of mine. I stumbled into the RPG Superstar page, slowly scrolled down, and freaked out. Everyone around me thought something terrible had happened because I was yelling, "OH! OH! WHAT?!"
It took an hour to calm down.
I am a nearly 30 year old college student at CSU Monterey Bay. I wanted to get an English degree, focusing on editing, but I was told that they don't have English degrees at CSUMB. I am instead earning my degree in human communication with a concentration in creative writing. I spend my nights working full time as a garage attendant, sitting in a booth for 8 hours while writing, drawing, and doing homework. I love it, as it forces me to set aside all the distractions of home and actually focus on honing my craft.
My first introduction to table top RPGs was one of the last box sets put out by TSR. That box set made me popular at school and turned a bully into friend (no joke.) The year later my parents divorced and D&D became an escape and cooping mechanism, but being too poor I always wrote my own adventures, using Return to White Plume Mountain as a template of how to write them and what RPG maps looked like.
Fast forward to my introduction to Pathfinder and Curse of the Crimson Throne. I loved the system and the AP, had some extra money, and learned about PaizoCon. I decided to go to PaizoCon 2011 and it was there I decided what I wanted to do as a career. I wanted to write for games. I wanted to work for Paizo. I asked everyone there how to do it and they all said, "Get a college degree."
Not wanting to go into horrible debt I have been on the 10 year college plan but it has been worth it. During that time I have slowly learned how to make connections, how to pitch work, how to design and write for games, and what it is like to put together RPG products. Last year d20PFSRD.com and Flying Pincushion gave me my first chances to make money as a freelancer, and I look forward to more work from other publishers.
I have been married for six years to a beautiful and wonderful woman who loves table top games as much as I do. No children yet, but we look forward to having them in the future. We love nerdy TV, nerf gun fights, ren fairs, and playing games together. We attended PaizoCon 2012 together, missed the next two years, and plan on making it to 2015.
Once I have my degree in a year or two we plan on moving to Seattle, WA. I don't just dream of working at Paizo, I believe I will. I owe everyone there so much for the encouragement to reach for the stars and do something I love as a career.
Thank you to everyone who made it possible for me to be here. Congratulations to everyone who made it with me. I look forward to impressing and wowing everyone, and hope to be blown away by the submissions of the other 32.
Good luck, see you in the map round.
Victoria Jaczko RPG Superstar 2014 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7 aka Belladonna Blue |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm in the middle of crazy moving stuff, but that won't stop me from voting in the upcoming rounds and being crazy excited for you guys.
Gleeful to see the newcomers, and gave a fist-pump at some familiar names that popped up. Congratulations to all of you!
Best of luck in the map round... can't say I envy you. I am grateful I did not have to do one in Round 2. I'm not sure my crayon sketches would have worked on their own merits alone. ;)
Olivier Rayé-Lalonde RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi everyone!
I'm Olivier, a francophone from Montreal, Québec, Canada. I am thrilled to be on the top 32 even though English is not my main language!
I am a professional Level Designer who is currently Looking For Job in my area. Highlight products I've worked on are Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel, The Brave, Rango Wii, Mysims Racing and Mysims Sky Heroes, Wipeout 3 and Wipeout 4 (the parkour platformers, not the racing game). Last year I worked on an Amazon Fire Phone launch game, Saber's Edge.
So I've done some AAA titles and some more casual games. I like both environments, they offer different kinds of challenges.
Through life I've had friends who did the NANOWRIMO, and I've never had the guts to try such a big endeavour. Seeing the Paizo RPG SUPERSTAR contest tickled my designer mindset because of the small size of the first round--and I am happy to say that it worked out all right!
I have an advantage over people who are pure writers, as I have a work-appropriate grasp of map and level documentation. I look forward to working on round 2 this week!
Cheers,
-Olivier
Garrett Guillotte Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 |
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For DPI, the thing that matters the most, like 99.9% of the concern, is that one edge of the image is 1275 pixels long and the other is 1650 pixels long.
To see the DPI/PPI* of an image:
As long as the image is 1275 pixels by 1650 pixels, it's the right size. That's 8.5 inches by 11 inches at 150 pixels per inch.
If the image size is 1275px x 1650px but the DPI isn't 150, you can change that without modifying image quality. Make a copy first, just in case:
I'd be happy to confirm anyone's image size and resolution if there's lingering doubts.
Olivier Rayé-Lalonde RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 |
Thanks Garret, this answers one of my questions on my thread.
John Bennett RPG Superstar 2011 Top 8 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 aka John Benbo |
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Congrats, everyone! I hope that no matter how far you end up advancing, you find this contest a positive experience. As a long time gamer, first time designer, it changed my life for the better and was the start of a lot of great opportunities in freelance game design. Hopefully, you'll get bit by the design bug like I did!