The writers of the competition
Corporate Dog
Explorer
die_kluge said:All right. I'll get right on that. Right after I finish my current project.
And where does this Mauve Slime Paladin come from? That's not in an encounter, is it? Must have missed that one.
It was a joke. I commented that it was a pretty good field of competitors and that there were no encounters that were particularly worse than mine. Somebody else commented that I must either be really polite or just have written a real stinker, and I responded with my weak Mauve Slime Paladin in a field.
I didn't really write about a Mauve Slime Paladin in a field.Regards,
Corporate Dog
UniversalMonster
First Post
Prevent Cheating? Easy.
The best way is to put together a panel of judges who are reliable, and who also didn't take part in the contest and let them vote by email.
The best way is to put together a panel of judges who are reliable, and who also didn't take part in the contest and let them vote by email.
Morrus said:
Prevented me from reading any of the entries. Some of us don't run a MicroSoft operating system, and it just isn't worth it to me to go through the hassle of converting.
If you had allowed PDF or HTML it would have been better. Going by past experience, it probably will only be 2-3 years before the latest version of Word will no longer be able to read the .doc format documents.
Word count would have also been appropriate, although it runs into the problem of how do you handle graphics or tables. If the only graphic is a map, you could limit the size of the single graphic. If there are multiple graphics, it becomes much more difficult.
In order to allow HTML, you would have had to use a word count limit for the text and formatting and then a size limit on the graphics.
Skarp Hedin
First Post
I think someone earlier suggested running the contest using the bulletin board Poll function.. of course, one could still cheat, but as I understood it, it would be much harder to do so, due to the hassle of creating multiple accounts in order to be able to vote. Okay, not really -harder-, but it'd sure take a lot longer. The only other method I can think of offhand would be for everyone to email their vote to Morrus directly, including a mention of their board login name - same problem exists, and the "paperwork" (verifying that all the usernames do exist, perhaps checking to see when each was created to quash those who would try making dozens of accounts, etc) that this would entail for poor Morrus would be disgusting, heh.
MasterOfHeaven
First Post
Note: I have a dial-up connection, and every time I reconnect I can vote on such polls again. It's a common problem with polls like this on many sites, because it is very easy to have an IP address change. About the modules... personally, I liked the Portal module the best, and that's the one I voted for.
drnuncheon
Explorer
Very disappointed with first heat
I read all of the entries for the first heat, and...well...I don't think there's any way to say this nicely to the entrants, but here goes:
Did you read the rules?
Many of the encounters involve fighting/killing the NPC (the one who's supposed to be usable outside the encounter?).
Most of them didn't have a location that would be any use outside of the encounter.
I didn't even bother checking the formatting.
I think there were maybe three that could had a reusable location and a reusable NPC. (Harmonies in the Snow, Bad Cats Day, and Unexpected Visitor)
As for the rest - and I sincerely hope the authors view this as constructive criticism:
Put to the Sword - you kill the NPC. Hardly reusable. I suppose it's OK if you want a completely inaccurate stat block for a lizardman fighter, but it's not much of a developed character. The location's nothing special either.
Catch as Catch Can - Nice NPC...but, um, location?
Centaur's Very Bad Day - again, good NPC, but not much unique or reusable about the location. At least a little better than the fishing one.
L'amour de Erinyes - decent NPC, but once again there's nothing reusable about the location. Maybe if people in the inn had been left alive, and the inn was described as it normally was, this could have worked.
The Portal - unique NPC, unique location...but both are pretty inextricably tied together, so it fails on the "reusable separately" standard.
I Feel Great - Same problem as the first couple - while there may technically be a location, there's nothing to make it really reusable or interesting when separated from the encounter.
Many of these would have been decent encounters for some other competition, but not one with the rules as written.
J
I read all of the entries for the first heat, and...well...I don't think there's any way to say this nicely to the entrants, but here goes:
Did you read the rules?
Many of the encounters involve fighting/killing the NPC (the one who's supposed to be usable outside the encounter?).
Most of them didn't have a location that would be any use outside of the encounter.
I didn't even bother checking the formatting.
I think there were maybe three that could had a reusable location and a reusable NPC. (Harmonies in the Snow, Bad Cats Day, and Unexpected Visitor)
As for the rest - and I sincerely hope the authors view this as constructive criticism:
Put to the Sword - you kill the NPC. Hardly reusable. I suppose it's OK if you want a completely inaccurate stat block for a lizardman fighter, but it's not much of a developed character. The location's nothing special either.
Catch as Catch Can - Nice NPC...but, um, location?
Centaur's Very Bad Day - again, good NPC, but not much unique or reusable about the location. At least a little better than the fishing one.
L'amour de Erinyes - decent NPC, but once again there's nothing reusable about the location. Maybe if people in the inn had been left alive, and the inn was described as it normally was, this could have worked.
The Portal - unique NPC, unique location...but both are pretty inextricably tied together, so it fails on the "reusable separately" standard.
I Feel Great - Same problem as the first couple - while there may technically be a location, there's nothing to make it really reusable or interesting when separated from the encounter.
Many of these would have been decent encounters for some other competition, but not one with the rules as written.
J
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