I don't know if anybody here would be interested in it or not, but Paizo's yearly "RPG Superstar" contest
is now live.
Round One of the contest is an open call for submissions; your submission becomes the property of Paizo, so don't send them any proper names and such. Your entry must be a wondrous item, and it'll get judged by a panel of industry judges. The 32 best as determined by that panel and open voting will move forward, with that group designing a bestiary entry. From this point, if it goes like past versions of the contest, it'll be open voting determining what moves on with judges offering commentary on the entries. The 16 best bestiary entries move on and design an encounter, and then the top 4 from that each get awarded a contract and will each write an adventure pitch. The winner will get to write a Pathfinder module, while the three runners up will all get to write a Pathfinder Society adventure.
Some advice based on years' past:
* Avoid anachronistic items. Magical "tape" recorders are neat; they're not "superstar" material, at least based on past comments
* Avoid complex items that do more than one thing. Having a sharp focus is more likely to catch the eye of the judges.
* Follow the rules. For example, one rule is your entry must be no more than 300 words. They mean it; if you submit the best idea ever and it's 301 words in length, it'll get tossed.
* Don't wait until the last moment to submit. In years' past, there has been a glut of entries at the last moment, once even causing the server to crash due to the load. Those who submitted late because of those technical issues were out of luck.
And some advice from me (take it with a grain of salt, since I've never broken into the final 32):
* While not waiting until the last minute is good advice, waiting a little bit is a good thing. Write up your entry, then put it aside. Come back to it a day or so later and re-read it, and - crazy as it sounds - actually
read it. Self-editing is hard because you know what you meant. Putting it aside for a few days and coming back helps your mind forget some of the things you were thinking while working on it.
* Be bold. Simply making the round of 32 will often be enough to get you freelance writing work with smaller 3rd party publishers. So you want to stand out by having an awesome idea that can be brought to life in 300 words.
* Use a short name. You have only 300 words. Being able to come up with a name that's one or two words long saves you word count, especially if you end up having to say something like, "The possessor of
bugby's magical hand of dangly magical bits can blah blah bhah ..." You're killing your word count with that long item name. Keep it short.
* Check your math. Twice. Here's a dirty little secret of game design: most designers completely ignore the magic item pricing guidelines for wondrous items. The better way to price your magic item is to find another item that's comparable and steal it's price, or adjust from there. Once you have the price, though, your cost needs to be half (most of the time). If you do go with the guidelines, do the math more than once for that; whatever method you used to get the price, do the math on your cost more than once.
* Spelling and grammar count. You're submitting your magic item to one of the largest RPG publishers on the market today. There are going to be hundreds of entries, maybe thousands. If you can't get spelling and grammar right, they can find another spiffy item that can. This is your chance to make an impression - as I said, if you can break into the 32, you have a chance for smaller publishers to contact you. Make it count.
So, if anybody here is going to enter, good luck and have fun! As the contest unravels between now and March 1st (when the winner is declared) we can use this thread to talk about it, share thoughts on posted entries, etc.
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