2007 Judge Selection

[Xath]

How do you personally evaluate flavor text?

Is it well written? Is it applicable to the surrounding text? Does it compliment or detract from what the book is trying to say?

How do you plan to evalute writing when applied to game mechanics?

I look for clear, concise, and understandable mechanics. If I can read a section and understand the rules the first time through, it's very well written.

When evaluating writing, how will you approach products with a very high percentage of mechanics compared to products with a very small percentage of game mechanics?

Best Writing isn't so much about the game mechanics. It's about the style and quality of writing used throughout the product. Good writing is something that holds my interest, is understandable, and is well edited.

When evaluating writing, how will word count factor in? How will you compare a 20 page PDF to a 400+ hardcover book?

When evaluating the "Best" of something, I look at quality over quantity.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

How do you personally evaluate flavor text?

Does it capture my imagination and really pull me in? More importantly, does it fit in well with the overall feel and point of the book.

How do you plan to evalute writing when applied to game mechanics?

It needs to be clear and in plain English. Examples are always good as long as they don't take so long to explain the point that you get lost in them.

When evaluating writing, how will you approach products with a very high percentage of mechanics compared to products with a very small percentage of game mechanics?

For both, really, the less typos and errors the better. Some can be gotten away with as long as it doesn't distract. But, to me at least, well written mechanics can flow into and with flavour text in a way that you get both clearly and understand the mechanics.

When evaluating writing, how will word count factor in? How will you compare a 20 page PDF to a 400+ hardcover book?

Just because something is longer doesn't mean its better. If a 20 page PDF is more evocative and gets its point across clearly and the 400+ hardcover just rambles on, well...the PDF did it job. Of course, the converse is just as likely, so to me its not as much about page count as it is the actual writing within.

 

[vermicious knid]

Hey Contestants,

Could you talk about a rockin' moment that happened at your table this year?

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

I was running the game. The players needed to retrieve some items from a necromancer...and they decided to just knock on his front door and ask for them. Repeatedly. Then they started shouting to get his attention.

By the time they made it to his lab he had spent a good 5 minutes summoning undead and setting up barricades. At the end of an epic combat all of the bad guys were dead and one party member was left standing...1 HP from dropping.

 

[vermicious knid]

This feels like a Spotlight thread from Circvs.

Do you prefer Old World of Darkness or New World of Darkness?

Do you consider yourself a gamist, narrativist, or simulationist? (Fusangite already answered this one.)

Will you be at Gen Con?

What about gaming appeals to you?

I haven't played since the new version of WOD came out...so old by default.

Gamist. My old wargaming and MTG habits die hard.

Yes.

 

[vermicious knid]

What about gaming appeals to you?

I enjoy the social aspect, the competitive aspects, the fantastic themes, and the opportunity to flex creative muscles. Everything, in other words.

 

[Doug Ruff]

Could you talk about a rockin' moment that happened at your table this year?

Sure thing. This may take a while:

This is from the homebrew campaign I’ve been playing in for over 10 years. I need to tell you a few things about it, to explain why this moment rocked so much. Firstly, we reset the game a couple of years ago after we lost one of our players. More on that later. We put all of our characters away, tweaked the rules and started in a new area of the map with a new story.

Also, we regular run more than one character at a time, and each player has a “stable” of up to half a dozen characters in their folder at any one time. All of the play is based around a single city and the outlying settlements, so parties form and disperse from session to session and many of the characters know each other through former association or by reputation.

So, for the last few sessions we’ve been investigating some attacks on one of the nearby villages, and it looks like we’ve just hit across the advance guard of a sizeable dark elf army (the first time this race has been introduced to the campaign). In the session before this one, we took a party deep into some underground passages, and we ended the session resting in an area we had just cleared out.

This session, we’re taking another party, with different characters, to investigate another dark elf sighting. This also leads to an underground network of caves, and we start getting our butts kicked by some nasty hit-and-run attacks and magic we’ve never seen before.

We press on, and after some more of the same the GM asks us to make some perception checks. He tells us that there’s a small force just ahead of us, we don’t know what, but they don’t appear to know we’re there. Can you see where this is leading?

At this point, we pretty much realise (as players) that the other force might be
our party from the last session, we’re underground, lost and we’ve been attacked virtually every inch of the way.

So, naturally, we charge. Straight into the other party.

What happens next is what rocked for me. Recently we’d been a bit protective of our characters; not wanting to take too much risk, getting a bit upset (as players) if anyone’s character had screwed anyone else’s character over (with large numbers of characters per player, each with their own agenda, this happens fairly often and is usually accepted as long as no-one kills anyone else).

So we’re in a situation where we may be facing not one, but two total party kills, because the characters in each party don’t know the other party very well and the dark elves have been hiring mercenaries.

Except this time, we go for it. We’re actively conspiring with each other and with the GM to come up with reasons why the characters might not realise what’s going on. We’re attacking each other’s characters, we’re attacking our own characters, we’re having a blast.

Then the GM tells me that one of my characters, a priest in the second group who has been hanging back (no combat skills) that he recognises some of the guys in the other group and we’re fighting the wrong guys.

What happened next was a different sort of rocking, but it wasn’t as good as what happened when we remembered that we’re playing a game, that it’s OK if things go wrong. It’s even OK if someone dies. The rest of us will move on.



I've never written it down like this before. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to do so.

Regards,

Doug

 

[vermicious knid]

Good day to all the judges
Yes only posting this question on here

My question is more subjective than objective

Your overall most memorable gaming purchase you made?
Which one were you totally happy to plunk down money for.
In my case the absolute most memorable is the old adventure for the Living Steel system titled
KVSR Rocks

What is yours?

TK

Recently? I'd say Tome of Battle or Grim Tales. Historically I'd say my first Champions rulebook.

 

[vermicious knid]

Question for the Judges:

I've noticed that products nominated for "Best Writing" often contain a great deal of flavor text and 2-page short stories.

How do you personally evaluate flavor text?

How do you plan to evalute writing when applied to game mechanics?

When evaluating writing, how will you approach products with a very high percentage of mechanics compared to products with a very small percentage of game mechanics?

When evaluating writing, how will word count factor in? How will you compare a 20 page PDF to a 400+ hardcover book?

1. Creativity of content and fun generated by reading it.

2. Clarity, clarity, clarity. Extra points for managing to make the rules fun to read.

3. The products would obviously have different design goals. I'd evaluate them based on how well they do what they set out to do.

4. No difference. Well written is well written.

 

[The Red Priest]

What is your opinion on materials produced for OOP games?

How would you evaluate material for systems in which you have zero experience? What if any of those systems are highly complex? That is, the rulebooks are very dense and there may be many supplements. This can be the case for games with a long history, as in 15+ years.

If you do not like a particular system, how will you evaluate supplements/adventures/whatever submitted for that system? Do you think there can be a good adventure for a bad system?

What barriers are you anticipating in play testing submissions? Are you thinking ahead to come up with contingencies?

 

[freebfrost]

A few questions for the potential judges:

• What do you consider your strong point(s) as a judge? Weak point(s)?
  
• What one characteristic as a judge do you bring to the table that differentiates you from the other potential judges?
  
• What cultural interests do you have outside of gaming (i.e reading, comics, parenting, scuba diving, anything), that make you a better judge and why?
  
• How important a factor is artwork (cover, illustrations, cartography) in your overall impression of judging products?

Thanks for all your input so far!