So who's getting ulcers from anticipation?

[Umbran]

Plus, folks, money isn't everything.

 

[333 Dave]

"There are two kinds of lies in this world; lies and statistics."
-Mark Twain

 

[EOL]

"There are two kinds of lies in this world; lies and statistics."
-Mark Twain

As an english major I can't help offer a minor correction, I believe he said that there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Of course you could have been editing out the middle one out of deference to Eric's Grandma.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The time they spend working on this setting - would it really make up for the time they would lose writing their next book, which I am fairly sure would make over 120k? Would they really license their name and fame to WotC for 120k? I would bet it was worth quite a bit more than that....

Man, I don't think even Steven King gets that much for a single novel, assuming you don't count movie deals. I think people have a vastly inflated sense of what novel-writers make.

 

[dema]

Certain Fear

I fear these boards will not be able to handle the 11k submissions that will be posted by all the people who are not in the top 10. LOL - We should post all our submissions on the WOTC site, and really bum them to death. No that isn't nice, I must stop, really I must.

How can we control posting world submissions in the future. I feel like we should prepare now. We can do it by state? area code? Birthday? Last name? or is there a way to limit posts to a thread or something per day/week/hour ?

 

[dren]

I don't believe an established fantasy writer has a better chance of winning this thing then a no-name DM.

The one pager is not about pure writing skills, it's about ideas. OK, you have to know how to read so you follow the instructions, and putting together a grammatically correct sentence has it's merits, but this is not your doctoral argument, it's all about the cool factor. You want to be able to grab the readers attention (cynical proffessional gamer's/editor's attention) and make them say "Wow!".

I hope 8-9 of the first pagers are no-namers. They can bring some fresh ideas into the RPG / d20 environment, and move it beyond Tolkien. Sure, he is the Grandfather of the Genre, but now I want some brash, loud, & creative thinking. I'm bored of elves, dwarves and hobbits/halflings... I want good writing for a change, and how about some decent editing...and some real media support for our hobby...

Sorry about that, stopped the rant before I really started to throw in my opinions

dren

 

[Hakkenshi]

Well, dren, if that's a rant, then I'm ranting with you

Also, I definitely think it would be a good PR and business decision for WotC to put a lot of new names (or at least not monolithic ones) on the top ten list. People would be encouraged by it, and would generally think better of them for it. I know I would, for all the fact that it could be sheer manipulation. And I honestly don't think that the top ten submissions by unknowns will be worse in any way than those by the Monte Cooks and George Martins (if he DID participate, anyway. Does anyone know?). Statistically speaking, with all the smart and creative gamers out there, the monolithic names are actually in disfavour.

 

[Kibo]

I just want you all to know....

that when I win, the money won't be half the compliment that beating out all your excellent flying ice islands will be. Truly the metal of a man is only measured by the strength and courage of his adversaries. And I just wanted to say thanks.

(in case you're an administrator, this is obviously ment in jest)

PS -- (If you're not an administrator) No, seriously.

 

[Mercule]

Which is why I had my best friend, who is the most brutal, scathing critic I know of, go over my submission. Setting went from 'eh' to 'ooh' in days

Likewise. I had four people look over my proposal. I told my best friend (who is a very blunt fellow) that his job was to ensure that I got honest feedback and that more thought was given toward helping me earn $120 k than to my personal feelings.

 

[kenjib]

Yeah, but even they are gorillas, they're gorillas who have to stand on tiptoe, and are thus easy to topple over. They only have one page to get stuff across - that's not a lot of room to throw around weight.

I disagree. Writing a short yet very dense, layered, complex poem can be more difficult than writing a novel. Pulling off an extraordinary one page can show that you have true talent. I think that in some ways being limited to one page gives you even more room to throw around weight if you've really got it. Furthermore, someone with a great deal of experience in writing up professional (and successful) proposals to game companies will have a much better chance than the average amateur entrant because he knows how to sell himself in such a way that the RPG folks take notice.

I don't believe an established fantasy writer has a better chance of winning this thing then a no-name DM.

The one pager is not about pure writing skills, it's about ideas. OK, you have to know how to read so you follow the instructions, and putting together a grammatically correct sentence has it's merits, but this is not your doctoral argument, it's all about the cool factor. You want to be able to grab the readers attention (cynical proffessional gamer's/editor's attention) and make them say "Wow!".

With 10,000+ submissions, creative idea will be a dime a dozen. Note also that Anthony Valterra explicitly said that many people will find some of the winners to be very similar to ideas they submitted. I firmly believe that the proposals that make the cut will not only be good ideas, but will exhibit immaculate writing skills and be written by someone who truly knows how to present himself in a professional and extremely polished manner. Consider this -- they have two submissions they are deciding between. Both are good ideas but one of them is written better. The person they choose might eventually be required to write 100 pages. Why would they pick the one with inferior writing? We're talking about 10,000+ entries. There are going to be plenty more great ideas than they need.