Tag Archives: contest

Christmas Task: Enter RPG Superstar!

Merry Christmas all, I’m back from vacation and, now that the whiskey’s worn off, am looking for things to do to entertain myself.  If you are in the same position, then one thing you could do is to enter Paizo’s yearly RPG Superstar contest by creating an interesting new wondrous magic item and submitting it!  I already submitted, and the deadline’s Dec 31, so you still have plenty of time.  If you make the cut, there are subsequent rounds of submissions and eventually you get a module published.  (Even late-round losers get solicited by other companies).  So if you’re a budding RPG writer, give it a shot.

Game Chef 2010 – Do It Now!

Hey, I just saw that the 2010 Game Chef competition is underway!  You still have a couple days to throw together a complete RPG and submit it.  It stretches from Sept. 11 to Sept. 19 and the rules are here.  Best RPG put together in short order wins!  Not as short order as the “24 Hour RPG” contest, but short.  Even if you don’t enter, a lot of time the entries become freely available and are cool!

RPG Superstar 2010 Moves Into Round Three

Every year, Paizo Publishing holds a RPG design competition, open to all who care to enter, called RPG Superstar.  They have a set of prominent RPG designers judge the entries and winnow the crowd down to a smaller and smaller set of contestants.  It’s like fantasy Survivor!

Anyway, one of the best parts is that the stuff the contestants create is there for the using on the Web site.  Round One got us a mess of wondrous items, and rounds Two and Three will get us some cool monsters.  In the end, the winner gets a gig writing an adventure for Paizo!

It’s a great way to generate interest, promote innovation in your customer base, and in general demonstrate that they are the anti-…  Well, I was going to say WotC, but really about half the RPG companies out there seem to actively disdain their fans.

Anyway, it’s too late to enter this year, but those of you that harbor dreams of fame can plan ahead.  And raid the excellent content – not just from this year but from RPG Superstar 2009 and RPG Superstar 2008 as well!  Innovative!  Fan-friendly!  Consistent!  Have we entered a second golden age of gaming, or what?

New Year’s Greetings!

Like everyone else, I’ve been out of pocket for the holidays.  But I’m back, and more gaming goodness is coming your way soon!

First, our gaming group will be running a short Savage Worlds campaign.  One of our members (Bruce, our session scribe and Valash Not-Gurelle from our Curse of the Crimson Throne game) is having to travel on business most of the next couple months.  As a result, weeks when he’s not in town you will not get a Crimson Throne session summary, but instead a “Empire of Ashes” summary, powered by Savage Worlds and run by Chuck.  Exciting!

Second, I’m excited about the new RPG Superstar 2009 contest being held by Paizo, and I’ll be reporting on this year’s as I did on last year’s!  And I’ve entered Round One with a wondrous item – let’s see how that goes.

Third, I’ve been reading a lot lately, and my curse from being a RPG geek for so long is that I always try to apply what I read to gaming, from the gaming-ready plots of World War Z to the world-building advice of Guns, Germs, and Steel…   So I’m going to start installments of Books and Gaming (needs a better title).  May as well fill the gap – AD&D 1e had a while bibliography of suggested reading.  This has given way to “filmographies” for more recent games, or even “watch the TV show I’m based on” – or now with D&D 4e, whose inspiration is simply “touching myself while gold farming in World of Warcraft.”

Happy 2009 to all!

RPG Superstar Selected!

Congratulations to Christine Scheider of Neu-Isenburg, Hessen, Germany for emerging victorious in Paizo Publishing’s RPG Superstar contest!  It’s well deserved, her entries were all bad ass!  Check ’em:

As the winner, she’ll get a GameMastery Module published by Paizo.  I’m eager to see it!  In fact, they’re already listing it as a product – S1: Clash of the Kingslayers.

RPG Superstar Final Round is Here!

Paizo Publishing’s excellent RPG Superstar contest is in its final round, and the four finalist’s complete adventure proposals are up! Read them, evaluate them, and vote!

However it turns out, compliments to all the participants and especially the final four, Christine Schnieder, Clinton Boomer, Jason Nelson, and Rob McCreary!

RPG Superstar Encounter Round

Finally!  The wait between RPG Superstar rounds is getting hard to take!  The final six present a full encounter for your judgement.

As in the last round, Christine from Germany and Boomer from Illinois are my hands down favorites.  Her Chase on Charred Ground is an exciting ride down an active volcano on orc bone sleds!  Boomer’s Impartial Tribunal comes in second for me – some flaws, but fun.  Many of the rest are usable, if IMO not competitive with the others.  Check ’em out!

RPG Superstar Monster Round

Ah, finally, the monsters are up and ready to vote on in the RPG Superstar contest!   And there’s some great ones.

My picks for the two totally awesome entries are Christine’s “Mind the Machine” set and Boomer’s “The Hunger That Moves.”

Christine’s envisioning of the Dungeon Core and Complexity Golem – they’re phenomenally inventive *and* very usable!  And Boomer’s bizarre ecosystem of freakish creatures would be great to base an adventure around.   Check them out!

RPG Superstar!

For those who haven’t seen it, Paizo Publishing (former home of Dragon and Dungeon magazines and current producer of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths) is running a contest called “RPG Superstar.”  It’s a multiround contest being conducted in full view of the community.  It’s great stuff so far, and the “three related monsters” round is coming up.

My personal favorite in the top 8 is Clinton Boomer, also known as Hennet from the hilarious D&D PSAs on YouTube.  Go Boomer!

I submitted a wondrous item for the contest, but it was too prosaic I reckon.  Here it is, though, for your use.  It’s obviously balanced with the Necklace of Fireballs and are modeled after Zuni (and other Native American) fetish necklaces.

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