How did you experience the WotC Setting Search

Staffan said:
So while he was published at the time of the setting search, it's not like he was a major RPG-biz star.
According to the first page of the campaign setting itself he wasn't yet published, actually. Since he was the primary author of that, I'll take that as reputable.
 

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DaveMage said:
I entered one submission, which, of course, was so unbelievably fabulous that Wizards was afraid that if mine was selected, people would whimper because everything else in their lives would be so bland compared to it. They were worried about mass suicides, etc.

Reluctantly, I agreed, and said, "go ahead with Baker's submission."
LOL!! :lol:


Mallus said:
Needlless to say, we took this as a fantastic sign and got very, very drunk that night at a great bar on South St.

Then we found out we didn't make it round 2.

Which is a fine. Did me really have a chance with a world where the Grand Canyon was carved by a god's dragging penis, Yeti demonstrate they're civilized by wearing pants, and the Devil has a fondness for canasta and gin?
LOL!! :lol:
 

Henry said:
Not to re-spark the whole debate, but remember that the search was totally blind. They had no way of knowing that the winning entry was a previously published author, but the fact that it was makes perfect sense. After all, who was more likely to have the practice at properly putting their ideas to paper? In addition, it's not like Keith or Rich, or the third guy whose name I can't remember, were the top-known names in the industry. Even in a cottage industry like RPG's, none of these guys were on the "A-list." Anyone COULD have won, but the talent generally rises to the top if all things are equal, and Keith (in addition to Rich) has proven this in spades since then.

That's quite an assumption. What are the chances that someone who isn't yet published might be better than people who already are? Being published does not make you a better writer. Many good writers have never had the opportunities. I thought that was the point of this Setting Search.

Not to belabor the point here, but being able to boil your setting down to one page doesn't make you a better writer either. It makes you a better summarizer.

And just because WOTC said it was anonymous doesn't make it so. And yes, I know, just because they said it was supposed to bring in new writers doesn't make it so either.
 


The only real thing I remember about that time was reading people post on various forums that thier homebrew was far too precious to be whored out to WOTC for a mere 100k.
 

Jürgen Hubert said:
How did you experience the Setting Search - either as an observer or as a participant? From its earliest announcments to the declaration of the winner?
...

I entered two settings, the past and future of the same world. WotC chose the "past" entry to go onto a 10-pager, The Sunset Kingdoms. After submitting my second effort and not getting any further, I put it aside for about four months. Then I took both settings back out again and combined them into Code of Unaris, a chat-based roleplaying game. It took a while to put it all together and many late nights of playtesting, but you can find it here:
http://www.goldleafgames.com

There are many free downloads if you want to take a look.

It's been a great experience and I continue to develop the backstory and play it online.
I have a livejournal here with actual play transcripts: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamechat

Gary
 
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I came up with a setting I liked, sent it in, and it went nowhere. :-)

I shrugged, made a mental note to go back to Avatar one day and flesh it out into an actual campaign and play it. Since then, I've been too busy to touch it.

And I've enjoyed what I've seen of Eberron, and was both befuddled and a little amused by some of the low-grade paranoia against WOTC that I saw demonstrated on the threads regarding the search.
 

Insight said:
And yes, I know, just because they said it was supposed to bring in new writers doesn't make it so either.

Can you please point out in an official WoTC posting where they claimed that the event search was to bring in new writers? I keep missing that part.
 

Got excited. Did the Terra-V one pager...got typical results.

And clearly underestimated the number of replies...if I had any idea that it would approach 11,000, the focus would have been not on a page, but on the first sentance. Definately required a combination of "distinctive", "evocative" and "polished" that Keith Baker seems to have given them.

The real issue though: this was basically a big PR stunt, anyone think it moved any books or generated interest in Eberon?

It did renew my interest in the old homebrew, so that is one upside.
 

TerraDave said:
The real issue though: this was basically a big PR stunt, anyone think it moved any books or generated interest in Eberon?
It certainly did for me. Regardless of what Eberron actually turned out to be, I was determined to buy it just 'coz I thought it was pretty righteous of WotC to run this whole thing.

Of course, as it turns out, I'm playing in an Eberron game currently (next sessions tomorrow night! Yahoo!) and everyone in my group has a copy of the book, as well as most of the other Eberron books out to date. Worked well.
 

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