The writers of the competition

[der_kluge]

themes

At this point, I've read through the first two "Blocks" of encounters, and a smattering of the high-level ones.

I have to say, I've learned a few things. There were a couple of things that I read that I thought "That's not right! They need to check the rules on that!", but then, when I looked them up, I saw that they were right, and I was wrong.

Specifically, that "charm monster" worked on humans, and that Rangers could be evil. Dumb me.

One of them did include a Druid with leather armor and bracers of armor (and the AC bonuses stacked) so I know that was wrong.

Couple of interesting themes emerging -
Sorcerers are fun to play with. Probably more Sorcerers in here than anything else, with Druids following a close second. I thought that was interesting. Not very many fighters, clerics, or wizards in any of them. A couple of Bards, too.

That, and there are a lot of "loner" type NPCs, "born of nobility". Heck, mine was one of those, too. I thought that was interesting. Spoiled rich kids.

 

[der_kluge]

Morrus, I sent in a revision, and made sure the filename was the same as that in the link. My filename had multiple words, and I was sure to match the case and the name that you had in the link. So, I'm hoping that I was the one that got it right??

 

[Morrus]

Morrus, I sent in a revision, and made sure the filename was the same as that in the link. My filename had multiple words, and I was sure to match the case and the name that you had in the link. So, I'm hoping that I was the one that got it right??

Can't remember. I'm not looking at them, just uploading them en-masse to the server. Only one came up with a 'do you want to overwrite this file', so all the others obviously had different filenames to the version on the server and won't have replaced the originals.

That's all I'm doing, by the way. Just uploading revised versions straight to the server. If the guidelines aren't followed, then the replacement won't work and the old entry will still be there.

 

[Corporate Dog]

Morrus,

Not to bug you with guideline minutae, but for the following rule:

1) Your entry should be in .doc or .rtf format, and consist of three pages. The first page should contain the encounter, the second page should describe (and, if necessary, map) the location and the third page should include your NPC, complete with background, roleplaying notes and combat tactics (if relevant).
Your entry may optionally contain one fourth page for illustrations or maps; this is not compulsory.

... is this just meant to illustrate what each page should CONTAIN, or is it also meant to illustrate the order that pages NEED to be in. For instance, if I have the encounter on page one, a description of the location on page two, my map on page three, and my NPC on page four, am I in violation of the rules?

In my case, I needed extra space for the description of the location, so I added the extra text to the map page. It wouldn't make too much sense to put "To be continued on page 4" at the bottom of my second page, so I just put the map page before the NPC page.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

 

[DMaple]

With 69 entries to judge I personally I'm going to be pretty harsh, if you go over what's required then you won't be getting my vote.

You have to narrow down the field somehow.

 

[Corporate Dog]

With 69 entries to judge I personally I'm going to be pretty harsh, if you go over what's required then you won't be getting my vote.

You have to narrow down the field somehow.

Of course, while I was writing my encounter, I e-mailed Morrus to inquire about the "extra text on the map page" issue. He responded that it would be okay.

My last post was an inquiry about the order of the pages more than anything else.

So I might suggest sticking to a little less stringent interpretation of the rules, and narrow down the field by quality instead.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

 

[DMaple]

You have to judge fairly in a competition, if you let some person include more ideas or flavour text because they used a smaller font, or part of an extra page, then you are not being fair to a person that may have cut a good idea for the sake of following the terms of the competition.

 

[byxbee]

I agree with DMaple, the rules were fair and extremely clear. I read at least one scenario that was WAY WAY WAY outside the guidelines. That one won't be getting my vote.

 

[Corporate Dog]

You have to judge fairly in a competition, if you let some person include more ideas or flavour text because they used a smaller font, or part of an extra page, then you are not being fair to a person that may have cut a good idea for the sake of following the terms of the competition.

I don't particularly want to interject any unpleasantness into a contest that was created in the spirit of fun, so I'll back off after this last point...

I intend to vote for the entries which are the most creative, which contain the best writing, and which I would happily drop into my own campaign. If an entry was made which followed the spirit of the rules, but perhaps not the strictest letter of the rules, I'll still consider it. I know I'd be upset if a clearly inferior entry beat mine just because I didn't cross my t's or dot my i's.* By the same token, I wouldn't be happy with a win, where a clearly superior entry lost out to mine because it failed to do the same.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

*This isn't to say that there are any entries out there which are inferior to mine. On the contrary, I think it's a pretty impressive field of competitors.

 

[DMaple]

*This isn't to say that there are any entries out there which are inferior to mine. On the contrary, I think it's a pretty impressive field of competitors.

I've read two that were "clearly inferior" to the rest and I have only looked at the first group so far. On the other hand I've picked out a couple of gems that I particularly liked for originality and ease of use. Many of the others I could see myself using as well.

So either you've written a real stinker or your way too polite.