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WotC Seeking Your Setting Proposals (was "Big Wizard announcement")
- Thread starter Arcane Runes Press
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Zappo, I wouldn't worry about the 'word-count wars' too much. Brevity will obviously be an advantage of sorts, but mainly at the high end. How many words needed to convey the setting is a function of the setting itself, and there are likely good ones that need a bit more explanation.
That said, you're probably near the upper edge of the target range where you are. My entry, like yours, comes in at well over 700 words, and (painful as it will be) I'm hoping to cut it down to around 600. It will look better on the page, be easier to read, and thus have a better chance of failing to scare the judges.
I have no plans to try to match the 200-300 word entries some people are churning out. That may be sufficient to describe the core of their setting, but I don't think it'll work for mine ...
That said, you're probably near the upper edge of the target range where you are. My entry, like yours, comes in at well over 700 words, and (painful as it will be) I'm hoping to cut it down to around 600. It will look better on the page, be easier to read, and thus have a better chance of failing to scare the judges.
I have no plans to try to match the 200-300 word entries some people are churning out. That may be sufficient to describe the core of their setting, but I don't think it'll work for mine ...
The same goes for my setting. It weighs in (not counting the title across the top or the header on each section) at just under 700 words. But then again, my setting is likely to be a little more complex than others as well, as there are some features of it that make it extremely dynamic, and therefore more interesting in my opinion.
The key points are that it is concise, that it is interesting, and that it can be easily read. I think that originality and uniqueness are also going to be factors in this, which mine has in plenty.
So, don't worry about the word counts. Just do the best that you can, and hope for the best.
Personally, I think that my chances are better than average, but then again there will ba lot of submissions that are better than average.
Some people have made comments about being worried about the like of Monte Cook and Skip Williams entering, but for myself I am not worried. Just remember that these guy are the ones who developed the rules not settings, so their chances become just the same as ours.
On the other hand, folks like Clark Peterson are ones to worry about, but again not too much so. I have heard folks say how they are going to flood Wotc with submissions. My opinion on this is that their first idea might be somewhat decent, but that as they write more proposals, the quality will drop or they will just be rehashing different aspects of the same setting. Overall, most of them being inferior to the rest.
Now there is also the chance that somebody else will submit an idea that is close, or nearly identical to yours as well, and for those with smaller word counts, this increases that chance, as I think it would be difficult to have much that is unique within that framework.
I have have made two submissions myself, and I will freely admit that my first proposal was somewhat crappy. Oh it had plenty of good ideas, but I did not clearly lable my sections (only an extra line between the sections), and it was not very focused. So I went and rewrote it, focusing more on certain aspects, including section headers, and being much more frugal with my word-smithing, and it still came near 700 words. I am happy with it.
Just do the best you can, and be happy with it like I am with mine. The word count doesn't matter, it is the ideas behind it all that they are wanting to see. If you even make it the panel, then that shows that you can follow the simple directions, which is another reason for this first round.
Good Luck to you all (even though I know you are not wishing the same to me ).
The key points are that it is concise, that it is interesting, and that it can be easily read. I think that originality and uniqueness are also going to be factors in this, which mine has in plenty.
So, don't worry about the word counts. Just do the best that you can, and hope for the best.
Personally, I think that my chances are better than average, but then again there will ba lot of submissions that are better than average.
Some people have made comments about being worried about the like of Monte Cook and Skip Williams entering, but for myself I am not worried. Just remember that these guy are the ones who developed the rules not settings, so their chances become just the same as ours.
On the other hand, folks like Clark Peterson are ones to worry about, but again not too much so. I have heard folks say how they are going to flood Wotc with submissions. My opinion on this is that their first idea might be somewhat decent, but that as they write more proposals, the quality will drop or they will just be rehashing different aspects of the same setting. Overall, most of them being inferior to the rest.
Now there is also the chance that somebody else will submit an idea that is close, or nearly identical to yours as well, and for those with smaller word counts, this increases that chance, as I think it would be difficult to have much that is unique within that framework.
I have have made two submissions myself, and I will freely admit that my first proposal was somewhat crappy. Oh it had plenty of good ideas, but I did not clearly lable my sections (only an extra line between the sections), and it was not very focused. So I went and rewrote it, focusing more on certain aspects, including section headers, and being much more frugal with my word-smithing, and it still came near 700 words. I am happy with it.
Just do the best you can, and be happy with it like I am with mine. The word count doesn't matter, it is the ideas behind it all that they are wanting to see. If you even make it the panel, then that shows that you can follow the simple directions, which is another reason for this first round.
Good Luck to you all (even though I know you are not wishing the same to me
).
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Darraketh
First Post
Zappo said:206?I've got more than 700, with a 12 point font, paragraph breaks, and decent margins. I mean, are you writing in 20 point font or what? Now I'm frightened!
It wasn't difficult. OK, it was initially. Eventually I came to the conclusion that most of any setting is just filler. Ho hum another secret society or bad boy god. Blah, blah, blah...
In the end, any of that could be cut from the setting and hence from the proposal as well. I had to determine what was really driving the secret societies, the gods, the heroes etc.? What was the drama, the universal overiding conflict? What was headline newsworthy about my setting?
It was always there. But once I figured out what the central theme was it became a matter of defining it as opposed to the entire setting.
Pehaps this is the wrong approach but it is what I am going with.
Darraketh said:
About half.
Actually, I think it will be less than that, though not by much.
Lets just take a guess at some numbers here. Random guessing..
Say that WoTC gets about 100 submissions (as a sampling of the overall received.)
Out of these, about 10 will hit the roundfile immediately for not following directions. (font too tiny, altering the submission form, more than a single page, etc...)
I would hazard a guess that out of the 90 remaining, which does make it to the panel, about 25 of them will be eliminated for being extremely poorly written (which my first submission would likely fall into this group). Entries with no focus, or no real theme to them. (lousy first sentence). This leaves us with 65.
Out of these 65, about ten or so will be obvious rip-offs of other fantasy (or converted sci-fi) settings, and off they go to file 13.
This now leaves us with 55. Of these, another 10 will be obvious clones of the current settings with just the serial numbers filed off and the names changed (to protect the guilty, in this case). Of to the wonderful land of recycling for these guys as well.
Now we are down to 45 submissions. Another ten will not have anything unique enough about them to make them stand out from the crowd, mostly being a standard generic setting... Say bye-bye to them.
We are down to 35 entries out of 100 now. Another 10 of these will be dropped because the panel does not like something about the setting for one reason or another. Natural selection... leaving us with 25 out of the original 100.
This is where things start to get interesting. Out of these, the panel will be looking for a setting that can be used for not only rpgs, but for books, minis, TCGs and other product lines. This will cut another 15 easily, as while some may be unique, and interesting, they will be unsuited for one or another of these lines for one reason or another (and I will bet that a lot of people forgot to take this into account as well).
This leaves us with 10 entries out of the original 100. My second entry would fall into this group. Thus my reasoning that I have a slightly better than average chance. I did take into account the possibilities for other product lines (with more focus on books, and rpgs, though there is ample room for minis and TCGs as well without any trouble.
So, I would hazard a guess, that I have a 1 in 10 chance of being selected as one of the top ten. And that, I am happy with. I would be happier if mine was one of the ones selected, but I know that those selected will be as good or better than mine, so the setting finally chosen is going to be one that really rocks!!
And no, this is not conceit, this is simple confidence in my work. I have been playing rpgs for close to a quarter century now, and when DMing, I have never failed to provide my players with unique and interesting settings. I am also well thought of by at least one other gaming company (the same one where Monte got his start - for the trivia hounds out there, do you know the answer?), and have been writing various things for a number of years now.
So once again, I dip into the well of lunacy and wish everybody good luck on their submissions......
Darraketh said:
About half.
I think what Darraketh meant was that, by definition, if "average" is the (theoretical) exact middle, then half must be above and half below it.
But I agree--I'm sure that in this case, "average" will mean a low enough standard that something must be well above average even to be considered.
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am181d
Adventurer
Rasyr said:
Your math, in addition to being arbitrary, is flawed. Assuming 1 in 10 entries are good enough to make it to the second round, and yours is one of those entries, you would only have a 1 in 10 chance if 1,000 people entered the contest. (100 out of 1,000 would then have good entries, all competing for 10 spots.)
I think we can expect more like 5,000 to 10,000 submissions (including the awful ones, like mine), which would give you a 1 in 50 or a 1 in 100 chance. Still not awful.
(And I suspect that the percentage of quality applicants will be lower than you indicated, possibly increasing your chances.)
Zappo
Explorer
1% chance of entering top 10 is about the same I figured. It's good enough for the prize I think. Entering the top 10 is already a prize in itself, because it proves that your work is worth publishing. If I managed the top 10 but not the top 3, I would know that I have a good concept that I can offer to another publisher.
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