How did you experience the WotC Setting Search

[Barak]

You mean... Some people play in a setting other than Planescape? Color me surprised!

 

[Baron Opal]

I polished up my homebrew setting of Kericindal as well as two other settings that I had been kicking about for one-shot adventures. I presented them to the wife, who enjoys gaming on occasion, and she picked holes in them and asked a lot of useful questions. I refined one of them and sent it in. Unfortunatly, I was not one of the finalists. It was very useful to help organize my thoughts about the campaign, however, and I would be interested to know if the ten or hundred page manuscripts were given format direction.

Baron Opal

 

[Desdichado]

(at the time, it was the 5th longest thread in RPG.net history)

It must have been prior to A Silent Wail's seminal publication on d02 then, I take it?

 

[Committed Hero]

Didn't do anything myself but spoke with several friends who did submit things, mainly to bounce ideas.

I suggest you contact the aforementioned Rich Burlew, who IIRC was a pretty far along finalist (and will probably be humurous).

I wonder if it's possible to know whether Eberron has recouped the prize money?

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

It must have been prior to A Silent Wail's seminal publication on d02 then, I take it?

A looonnnnng time before.

The thread's often exceeded in length now... but not in temperature.


Patrick Y.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Well, you can still find my entries in ENWorld's Competition Entries section (http://www.enworld.org/downloads/index.php?cid=6).

My friend and I slaved for about a week solid over both submissions, tightening the language as much as we could, putting as much *oomph* into each section. We realized that we had to grab whomever's interest *immediately* and keep it, so some of the stuff reads like old serial movie ad copy. I was the writer, he was going to be the artist.

Like probably just about everyone I'd *love* to see the initial one pages of the top 100 settings. I suspect both probably died in the morass, but I just don't know. Even now, I'm reasonably satisfied with the two submissions when I look at them in isolation.

Lukeldar - the first one - tried to buck the trend; I'm actually a fan of the alignment system, and think most people's problems with it stem from mishandling (it's Descriptive, not Presciptive). Plus, 5 alignments would tie in very nicely with the 5 colors from M:tG. Surprisingly, enough the main inspiration was thinking of a setting where the Geomancer would actually work well.

Olerra - the second one - was, like many, my actual homebrew setting, which I still use. Rereading it, I'm surprised how much the current campaign still owes to the submission.

Overall, I enjoyed the contest - it made me think about things I'd never thought of before. I bought Eberron, even though I suspected I'd never use it, but just to send a reinforcing signal to WotC/Hasbro that "The Contest Was A Good Idea.".

 

[Psychic Warrior]

True. But writing and NOT being published doesn't make you a better writer either - particularly if you write in a vaccuum (which is the case for the vast majority of unpublished writers). NOBODY reads the material, there's no feedback or editorial insight, no incentive to refine the craft, no CONTEXT to help the developing author understand that writing is a process of crafting a dialog WITH an audience, and NOT merely an exercise in self expression. Writing alone, furtively, under the covers, is about as fruitful as the OTHER thing going on there (not unsatisfying in its own right, but not actually useful...)

A talented, unpublished writer with a) something to say and b) who works at it CAN get read and even published.



Oh, B-Crap: Write. Submit. Get Published or Rejected. Learn from the rejection, develop your craft. Heck, self-publish or author a Blog. It's a reasonably level field, all things considered. I don't have a lot of sympathy for "the man's holding me DOWN, dude" pose, if you want to get published there's nothing at all stopping you except you.

The Setting Search was a bit of a 'Hail Mary' long shot: 11000 to one, massive payday up for grabs. What are the odds that all of the 11000 are gonna good losers? And a number of deserving folk DID get a payday - WoTC certainly held up their end of the bargain.

I certainly knew, when I entered, that I was going to be going up against some varsity - they said it was open to anyone - not just rank amateurs and wannabees. Plus, $100K is enough 'bank' to attract even reasonably successful professional authors.



Not to belabor MY point, but double B-CRAP. Writing short but effective content is about the HARDEST thing to do well in terms of writing. So YES, being able to distill a WORLD down to a page and still getting across its unique advantages and differentiators, PLUS making it 'sing' enough to be picked out from amongst thousands of other entries DOES mean you're a better writer. I would love to see the 1-pagers for the first round picks - I bet some of that material is freakin' poetry.

Even if it's NOT poetry (to the untutored eyes of the envious), it was successful and effective (in other words 'better') writing by the only criteria that actually matters - they got the gig...



Conclusions drawn on base allegations and wishful thinking not even hinted at in evidence. Statement stricken from the record.

A'Mal

Here! Here! Well spoken and my sentiments exactly on the ridiculous 'conspiracy' theroy that developed over the setting search. Some people with too much time on their hands and not enough tinfoil on their heads I guess.

I watched the Setting Search unfold with a great deal of interest. i didn't submit anything myself becasue I had nothing to submit! I don't homebrew and have used Mystraa (way back before it had a name!), Forgotten Realms and Scarred Lands exclusively fpr D&D. I just don't think along the lines of world building and much prefer a framework in which to expand and explore.

The end result of the SS was positive I think. Ebberon looks to be a unique and fresh enough setting to land a solid market with the fans, I like the look of 'warforged' minis in the D&D Miniature line and overall it has sparked some discussion - always good to be talked about.

 

[mattcolville]

I heard about this from the WotC folks before it was announced. I may have been working there at the time, I don't remember exactly when they announced the search.

They had two goals;

1) Engineer a success on the scale of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. These were their two smash hits, setting wise, far outstripping all the other settings. FR and DL had spawned comics and books and games and made them a ton of money and WotC was certain they'd be able to leverage the popularity of the Realms into a TV show and movie. Though they had people dedicated to hanging out in L.A. trying to make deals happen, nothing materialized.

Of course, this seemed pretty stupid to me, but then I think all such marketing/PR driven creative endeavors are stupid. Neither the Realms nor DL were engineered to be the successes they became, and no comittee could produce something that would capture the same popularity.

2) Use the idea of the search and its reward to generate the initial hype for the new setting.

They didn't care what the setting was, they just wanted something that fulfilled their criteria.

They found something, awarded the money, and got started on the Bible for the world. People forget now, but the core book came out something like a year after it was supposed to because, after the bible was done, the different divisions at WotC, the guys in charge of the RPG, the guys in charge of Novels, all had a say in what the setting 'had to be,' and a torturous process by which the original submission was twised and mangled until it resembles the setting we have now.

So far, I don't see Realms/Dragonlance levels of success. However, to be fair, the people behind this master plan are probably all gone. They told Turbine the D&D MMO had to be Eberron and this is a pretty big dissapointment to D&D fans who almost universally think of the Realms or Greyhawk or Generic Fantasy Setting.

 

[Zendragon]

I had no illusions of winning, but it was fun to actually flesh out a lot of the ideas that had been floating around in my head for the past 20 years. The best part of the whole thing was after I submitted my setting, I gave it to a friend of mine to read. He gave me a couple of ideas and decided that we should get (most of) the old gaming group back together and playtest in the new world. Add a wife and a few new friends and a great new group was formed. Alfter the first few playtesting sessions, I just left everything alone and forgot about the setting contest. It was now fun just to create stuff for the party. So at least for me and my friends it got us playing again.

 

[mmadsen]

Being published does not make you a better writer.

And winning a medal at the Olympics doesn't make you a better athlete.