2016 Superstars—Take The Pledge!

[The black raven]

Tripp Elliott wrote:

Submitted my item (at some point in the last 168 hours).

I fear this year things will turn out quite differently with the top 32. My impression is voters tend to vote for gonzo over good, and then having adult supervision (in the form of judges) allows them to take the top 32 from the top 80 or so at the top of the filtered stack.

Blindly taking the top 32 this year will subject us to maybe 20 items that wouldn't have made the top 32 in previous years.

Anyways, vote early, vote often, vote carefully (especially after the cull)

This post expresses quite clearly a shared feeling that I feel is too pessimistic. That voters would not be serious enough to take into consideration what this contest is about when voting.

I do not know why people are worried about this.

I know that I did my utmost last RPGSS to vote for the item I thought best in every pairing I saw. And that overpowered was a good reason for me to downvote items.

I know too that the comments people posted both in the venting thread and the awesome items thread clearly favored elegant and creative, well-formatted, items that fired the imagination.

If these are not what we are looking for here, then I do not know what is.

I get it that judges would be prone to select some not-so-popular items because they want to check what the designer behind the item can do.

If the voting does not permit this, then the guidelines for voting should be changed or clarified, so that we better know what we should be looking for.

[Anthony Adam]

We can all vote only as we interpret each pairing.

My personal deciding factors in highest priority to lowest prioroty for Season 9 will be

a) Is the core idea unique, inspiring or clever?
b) Does it appeal to me as a player and as a GM?
c) Is the item well presented?
- use of template is part of this but so are paragraph breaks vs wall of textness, clarity, ease of scanning down the powers/abilities for use at the gaming table
d) Can I think of a way to abuse the entry in game?
e) Are the correct game terms used?
- is the writing to Paizo style, things in italics/Capitalisations that should be, saves vs checks for the right things, sentence structure for common things, e.g. "deal 1d6 points of damage" and not "for 1d6 damage" as an example.
f) Are the price, cost, caster level, construction feats correct?
g) Do the auras and spells match?

So my voting, I hope will be looking at the idea behind the design with technical competence being very low on the deciding factors.

I may be Template Fu as an alter ego, but I have learnt to look for the designer, the Fu side of my posts can be learnt - creativity, originality, these cant be learnt - they are the spark and gift I am looking to vote for.

I will also be generally checking if there is anything rules wise / construction wise that is not on the PRD or other round rules broken? But as these will get reported and DQ's quite qwuickly in the first days of voting, it's not a major thing for me.

[Talonhawke]

Sadly I did not make the cut-off to submit, great news though My 3rd niece was born.

[Kobold Catgirl]

And now every year on her birthday you'll send her a letter reminding her of how she distracted you from your glorious career as a game designer and ruined your life, right?

But seriously, congrats! ;D

[Talonhawke]

Nah I'll just use this year to fine tune my item. Then find out next year they don't want items they want something else for round one ;).

[Wren Brown]

Talonhawke wrote:

Nah I'll just use this year to fine tune my item. Then find out next year they don't want items they want something else for round one ;).

Don't spend a year working on one item. Make a different item every month, then you will have 12 times the experience making items by next year.

[Ambrosia Slaad]

I wish I knew how my item was doing this year, even if it was only to learn everyone hated it. The wait is terrible. {shakes fist at He Who Must Be Blamed}