seasong said:
I think I've said this before, but... 
Different ideas will have different ideal word ranges. To use some real world examples, Athas would probably sit fairly well at 400-500, with a heavy emphasis in questions #1 and #5. Ravenloft could easily be proposed with 300 words or less, mostly in #1 and #2. DragonLance would want 600+, mostly in #2, #5 and #6. Talislanta would probably require 750-900 words, and it would be real painful to pare it down to that few.
The trick is getting the right word range, and then making that as readable as possible.
Very true! I agree with you completely on this one. But I will go one step further. I am not so sure that they are looking for Athas or Ravenloft (in the context of marketability and scope of the world in what is available for the average consumer). Athas and Ravenloft, while very interesting and intriguing, were rather one, maybe two dimensional on the story lines available. No matter whether you did the Dragon adventure, or the Merchant one, or whatever, you were constantly dealing with the desert in some fashion. In Ravenloft, the one dimension came with horror. You were constantly dealing with some form or other of some dark lord. Yes, I know a creative DM could come up with 9 billion ideas in either world. I was one of them. But I couldn't help but feel a little oppressed by the limited options that the environments of the worlds provided. Not much option for extreme long term, varied story lines.
Forgottem Realms, Greyhawk, and to some extent Dragonlance, Kalamar, and Talislanta had ALOT of options. They had almost every single type of topography, environment, climate, etc. to adventure in. The increase in types of geography also increase the kinds of cultures and monsters, and adventures exponentially. That is why I think the better world, or rather the worlds chosen for the top 10, will have a larger and more complex scope, thus needing the 800 word one pager.
One thing I almost don't agree with myself on is this... Many people don't know how to be concise with complicated concepts and end up writing circles around them. By the time they come to the point, I'm already 3 submissions beyond theirs. Also some complex ideas are so "out there", the marketability is just as bad as the limited worlds.
Does this mean that everything has to be the same? No. Unique? No. It just means that there has to be options for every consumer in the world. To do that, simple, linear, and limited concepts don't work. Athas failed because the consumer base was maybe 10% of Forgotten Realms. Sure the fans of Athas were rabid in their fanaticalism, but TSR was losing money on printing it and Wizards of the Coast viewed it as a mistake in the first place, so never brought it back. The consumer base was just too small.
If you want to support a TCG, its likely you need some very clear, and defined factions in your world. So you need to have some sort of dichotomy, political parties, countries, domains, etc. Without the multilevel diverseness, there is no conflict to support a TCG based on an actual storyline (i.e. LotR, Game of Thrones, etc.).
If you want to support miniatures, you need two things. Strong archetypal character races and the propensity for either tactical (small unit) or strategic (army) battles. This nearly goes hand in hand with the TCG idea of needing factions to fight one another.
If you want to support a Campaign world, you need vast amounts of variety across every possible scale you can come up with (geography, climate, culture, political styles, evil, good, etc.). You also need a good story line and strong history to allow for interesting iconic characters (Elminster, Raislin, Mordenkainen, etc.).
If you want to support novels, you not only need all the stuff from the Campaign world, but you need a world that supports strong, excellent story lines. This needs multi-layer level of complexities, so that the reader doesn't feel like he's reading Dick fights Jane, Jane kills Dick, Dick's dog hunts Jane, etc.
So that's my theory. To interest the most people and make this new world ultimately marketable and merchandisable, you need levels of complexity that I doubt can be conveyed in 200 words. The ideas you portray in that level of complexity, in 200 words, will be SO vague, that the teasers will mean little and the panelists will say, "Ok, this might be what we are looking for, and might be interesting, but its so ambiguous, do I really know what the guy is trying to say here?" If you take your 200 concise words, expand on the points a little, you can easily make a concise 800 page paper with more punch. Boxing Analogy here... Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Cross, Uppercut, jab jab jab. Do that 6 times and you have an 800 word paper. Jab six times, you have a 200 word paper. Which is more interesting? I prefer to watch boxing matches with alot of action and good technical boxing.
Andy Christian
