What "Famine" is starving for...

[Steven Helt]

The Top 16 have presented their monsters, and hopefully are hard at work brainstorming encounters and drafting their eventual pitch should they make the final round. Congratulations to this year's Superstar Top 16! You've earned a special place in the eyes of voters and publishers, but the contest moves forward and you've no option to rest just yet!

As one of the encounter judges for Round Four, I wanted to offer a few of the things I'll be looking for in the next round's entries. I can be a bear of a judge, so I'm boiling down what I'm looking for to a few specific criteria.

First, double check your prose, formatting, etc. I care a lot more about mojo and unique ideas (as you'll see below), at this stage in the game there are no excuses for formatting mistakes. Your professionals preparing a professional pitch to THE GREATEST publishing company in table top gaming. So don't let me be distracting from your great ideas by a glaring formatting mistake!

Second, my role on the Four Horsemen is as much developer as anything else. I'd like to see a project I feel would come together easily. Offer synergy in the motives of your villains or other NPCs. Make the flow of the game smooth.

Third, I got into this gig primarily as a GM. I love my time behind the screen. I want encounters that come to life and excite me as host to a bunch of dudes. Whatever the rules for the encounter, including terrain, CR, monsters, really anything, give me an encounter that I can't wait to throw at players. Great encounters set a stage everyone can immerse in—the environment impacts the combat, the creature threats are at home, the traps use local materials and strategies. A believable encounter that belongs in an adventure.

Finally, we all begin as players. Players play in games and without them no adventures would be sold. So let's see encounters that players will walks away from with fond memories. And maybe a little bit of panic.

Remember, this is not just any "write us an encounter" talent search. This is RPG Superstar, and a decent encounter that seems to suggest a decent adventure will not do. Excite the GM voters, scare the player voters, and give us something really unique and synergistic. Looking over the body of work, you're all capable of delivering one of the most competitive rounds of Superstar ever, so good luck and get kraken!

[Mikko Kallio]

Looking forward to the encounter round. :) One of my favorite rounds!

[Lamontius]

Steven Helt wrote:

Your professionals preparing a professional pitch to THE GREATEST publishing company in table top gaming. So don't let me be distracting from your great ideas by a glaring formatting mistake!

it's like rayyyeeeeeaiiin

on your wedding dayyyyyy

[Steven Helt]

Ha. Well...it's too late for me to edit. Sorry!

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

I make that kind of glitch all the time. I love my editors.
That said;
There is an important distinction between casual communication (even in written form), formal communication, and communication you present as good enough to be paid for.

Since that's the prize for this contest, I hope that is what all contestants are striving for.

[Steven Helt]

Congratulations to this year's Top 8!

You can't come back to Superstar! This is your big moment to shine!

(Cue music from Jekyll and Hyde)

So I am excited to see the rules for the encounter round. Remember:

Something original!
Something that says "Darklands", not "Underdark" or "Erelei-Cinlu".
Something GMs want to run.
Something players will always remember. Making players cry a little is optional strongly encouraged.
Make the environment add to the excitement of combat.

Again, congratulations to everyone. Stoked about the chance to see these entries!

[Steven Helt]

I've completed my review of all 8 submissions, and I thought I'd tease the voters (and contestants) a bit.

I think you're all going to be very pleased. While I had a pair of clear favorites in the round, every entry had good ideas.

Every entry does a great job planting their location uniquely in the darklands.

Every entry has either very original ideas, or exciting takes on ideas we may have seen before.

A few of the entries built urgency into the encounter scneario, and the encounters fit into the location very organically for the most part.

As a GM or a player, each encounter offered something fun and challenging.

I will tell you now, all of these encounters can be scary, imaginative, and fun. A couple of them definitely rise to the top of those categories. One entry had me at the name, and never lost me.

Don't forget to congratulate our contestants and study their previous entries. For some voters, this round may come down to equally cool submissions, weighted by the body of work of previous rounds.

I'm not the type to gloss the competition more than it deserves (granted, I think it deserves a lot) or claim the contest is close to keep everyone's attention. And I am telling you all that this year's semifinal round is as even and competitive as I have seen Superstar since year one.

Y'all let me know if you agree on Tuesday!

[Scott LaBarge]

As teasing goes, this is pretty benign. "Everybody did a solid job." Hard to get too upset about that!
Seriously, thanks for the preview!

[Scott LaBarge]

And I wonder, can you give us some hints about monster selection? Without naming names, can you say whether there were monsters that were clear favorites for use, or was there a pretty wide spread?

[Steven Helt]

Not sure what happened to my response last night. But I was very tired. : )

My post should have you asking neurotic questions like "was my name good enough to be the one?" or did my encounter
create urgency?

If you really want a question that will make you squirm, every
designer should ask themselves "Did I remember to reward the PCs with treadure after the encounter?" Someone's blood pressure might go up.

There was one round three monster that saw significantly more use than others.

Here's a fun tease: the most commonly used monster did not appear in my top two recommendations, even though it was one of my favorite monsters of the round.

[Scott LaBarge]

Yep, that's a lot more squirmy :-p

[Christopher Wasko]

Steven Helt wrote:

There was one round three monster that saw significantly more use than others.

Here's a fun tease: the most commonly used monster did not appear in my top two recommendations, even though it was one of my favorite monsters of the round.

And what, pray tell, were your favorite round 3 monsters...?!

[R D Ramsey]

Aha! So we know at least 2 monsters were used! :-)

[Scott LaBarge]

Steven Helt wrote:

If you really want a question that will make you squirm, every

designer should ask themselves "Did I remember to reward the PCs with treadure after the encounter?" Someone's blood pressure might go up.

This definitely got my blood pressure up. Then I went and double-checked the rules, and found this:

2015 Superstar Rules wrote:

{Note: Do not include a Treasure listing. This is to save you words that you can use elsewhere in your submission.}


So you're using the same rules we are, right? Right?

EDIT: It would be extra cruel to BOTH cut our word limit by 100 words AND ask us for a treasure listing too. I think?

[Monica Marlowe]

Steven Helt wrote:

I've completed my review of all 8 submissions, and I thought I'd tease the voters (and contestants) a bit.

I think you're all going to be very pleased. While I had a pair of clear favorites in the round, every entry had good ideas.

Every entry does a great job planting their location uniquely in the darklands.

Every entry has either very original ideas, or exciting takes on ideas we may have seen before.

A few of the entries built urgency into the encounter scneario, and the encounters fit into the location very organically for the most part.

As a GM or a player, each encounter offered something fun and challenging.

I will tell you now, all of these encounters can be scary, imaginative, and fun. A couple of them definitely rise to the top of those categories. One entry had me at the name, and never lost me.

Don't forget to congratulate our contestants and study their previous entries. For some voters, this round may come down to equally cool submissions, weighted by the body of work of previous rounds.

I'm not the type to gloss the competition more than it deserves (granted, I think it deserves a lot) or claim the contest is close to keep everyone's attention. And I am telling you all that this year's semifinal round is as even and competitive as I have seen Superstar since year one.

Y'all let me know if you agree on Tuesday!

Thank you Steve, this is in no way reassuring :-) I'm excited to see what everyone else has done.

[Monica Marlowe]

Scott LaBarge wrote:

Steven Helt wrote:

If you really want a question that will make you squirm, every

designer should ask themselves "Did I remember to reward the PCs with treadure after the encounter?" Someone's blood pressure might go up.

This definitely got my blood pressure up. Then I went and double-checked the rules, and found this:

2015 Superstar Rules wrote:

{Note: Do not include a Treasure listing. This is to save you words that you can use elsewhere in your submission.}


So you're using the same rules we are, right? Right?

EDIT: It would be extra cruel to BOTH cut our word limit by 100 words AND ask us for a treasure listing too. I think?

I had the exact same thought Scott. O.O

[Scott LaBarge]

Nice to know I'm not the only one! :-)

[R D Ramsey]

Like any self-respecting murderhobo is gonna go through an encounter without loot!

[Steven Helt]

I won't tell you my favorite monsters from the round. If Owen or John want to tease the exact monsters used I'll save that fun for them, But they work for Paizo. If anyone's gonna push the envelope with sneak peeks at the entries before Tuesday, it won't be me.

I totally spaced the rule about treasure. I wish the contest wouldn't leave out treasure as an important element of encounter design. But obviously I can't hold that against you folks.

Now there's an encounter for which I have almost no constructive criticism. How's that!?

[Christopher Wasko]

Steven Helt wrote:

I won't tell you my favorite monsters from the round. If Owen or John want to tease the exact monsters used I'll save that fun for them, But they work for Paizo. If anyone's gonna push the envelope with sneak peeks at the entries before Tuesday, it won't be me.

I totally spaced the rule about treasure. I wish the contest wouldn't leave out treasure as an important element of encounter design. But obviously I can't hold that against you folks.

Now there's an encounter for which I have almost no constructive criticism. How's that!?

Fair enough. Will you reveal if there were any repeats other than the most common one?

[Scott LaBarge]

Steven Helt wrote:

I totally spaced the rule about treasure. I wish the contest wouldn't leave out treasure as an important element of encounter design. But obviously I can't hold that against you folks.

Believe me, I would have loved to do a treasure entry, but 1,400 words was pretty confining to begin with. Give us that 100 words back, and I'd have been willing to spend it on treasure!

[Christopher Wasko]

Scott LaBarge wrote:

Steven Helt wrote:

I totally spaced the rule about treasure. I wish the contest wouldn't leave out treasure as an important element of encounter design. But obviously I can't hold that against you folks.

Believe me, I would have loved to do a treasure entry, but 1,400 words was pretty confining to begin with. Give us that 100 words back, and I'd have been willing to spend it on treasure!

I dunno, designing treasure rewards is arguably my least favorite part of adventure writing. My brother Nick loves it, though, and he's really good at it, so when I homebrew I usually get his input. Big final rewards and fight-specific treasure I don't mind so much, but I find parsing out wealth over the span of an adventure to be a perfect blend of tedious and anxiety-inducing (since mishandled items can radically unbalance a party).

I'm currently writing a sequel adventure to The Dragon's Demand for when my home group finishes the module (we just completed Chapter 1 yesterday), and I'm struggling given the obscene amount of treasure the party receives over the course of the story. Granted, it balances the challenge of the final boss fight, but after that CRs become much stickier.

[Steven Helt]

Some of you could have saved a hundred words in a couple of different ways. You'll find out Tuesday!

I'll offer this about the creatures used: One monster from round three was used four times. Another was used twice. The remaining two entries each used a different monster.

[R D Ramsey]

Steven Helt wrote:

Some of you could have saved a hundred words in a couple of different ways. You'll find out Tuesday!

I'll offer this about the creatures used: One monster from round three was used four times. Another was used twice. The remaining two entries each used a different monster.

Wow, has that happened before? Half the entries using the same monster?

Edit- Yep, the Ardorwesp in 2010.

[Scott LaBarge]

Wow! Well, some lucky person is about to get a lot of validation for her monster. Jump to the front of the Bestiary 5 line!

[R Pickard]

Treasure is an interesting thing, as I didn't really think about it for this round since we were told not to. But it occurs to me, while I've written a lot of encounter and adventure outlines as a GM (which I fully recognize is different from writing one as a designer), most of the treasure I've often written has been bearing partly in mind the specific party I am running for. Obviously what is appropriate to the particular creatures/challenges/environment is the other part of it, but I'm used to tailoring.

I'd be challenged to think about what to include when you have to consider all kinds of different party make ups -- as you still want stuff that is going to be interesting or useful for most PCs. And yet at the same time you don't want to be obviously generic...

Maybe it's not the most important thing, but something I should incorporate into practice runs and collections for my portfolio.

Glad we did not have to do a treasure line for the round though, for the reasons the rules themselves state.