Superstar 2014: R1 Submissions are Closed, Public Voting is Open!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Hello, gamers, and welcome back to RPG Superstar 2014! I'm Sean K Reynolds, host of this year's RPG Superstar competition, designer at Paizo, and a judge for the previous four RPG Superstar competitions.

As of 2 PM Pacific time, the Open Call for Round 1 submissions is closed. If you submitted a wondrous item, congratulations and thank you! If you didn't submit a wondrous item, there's always next year!

Now it's time for the public vote. Anyone with an account on Paizo.com can participate in the Round 1 public vote. Just go to the voting page, sign in to your Paizo.com account, and you'll be shown two wondrous items. Take a minute to read both items, then vote on which of the two items you think is better. If you honestly can't decide which item is better, there is a “both items are equal” option, but that actually doesn't help sort items (it's a neutral result in the voting), so use that only as a last resort.

If you see an item that you think breaks the rules of the contest (such as being a copyright violation, such as an item from a novel or movie), contact contest@paizo.com.

Once you've voted, the website will present you with another pair of items to evaluate. You can vote as many times as you like.

You may see your own item—and you're allowed to vote for it. You may see some items come up more than once. As there are hundreds of items submitted to the contest, you might vote many times and still not see all of the items. You might want to save a copy of items you'd like to use in your game, or items you want to talk about later.

Your participation in the voting process is use and critical for the success of RPG Superstar. For the 2013 competition, over 500,000 votes were cast by hundreds of voters. Just like we did last year, we'll be awarding people who vote 100, 500, 1000, or 5000 times with custom message board titles (Star Voter, Dedicated Voter, Marathon Voter, Champion Voter) as our thanks for participating in the voting process.

Over time, these numerous votes sort all the wondrous item submissions into a hierarchy. At the top of that hierarchy are the items which got upvoted more often than any item they were paired with, and at the bottom are the items which got downvoted more often than any item they were paired with. (The Paizo tech team may cull the lowest-voted items partway through the voting period so voters can focus on the evaluating the highest-voted items.)

At the end of the public voting period (January 14, 2014), our panel of judges will look over the highest-voted items and select the Top 32. We announce the Top 32 on January 21, and the authors of those items proceed to Round 2: Create a Bestiary Entry!

Good luck, competitors! And thanks in advance, voters!

Vote now!

Sean K Reynolds
Host, Designer, Former RPG Superstar Judge

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Tags: RPG Superstar
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Designer, RPG Superstar Judge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

FYI, we received many submissions that use the updated magic item format presented in Ultimate Equipment (which has since appeared in other books). Although the RPG Superstar Round 1 rules say to use the Core Rulebook format, we decided to not disqualify items which used the UE format.

After all, it is a valid magic format we use in our products, and we feel we shouldn't punish (disqualify) people who use the magic item format presented in our most recent products.

So, when voting, if you see a wondrous item using the new format from Ultimate Equipment, please accept that as a valid format and don't let it influence your voting.

(Items that omit important parts of either format, such as leaving out the entire construction requirements, are still disqualified.)

Grand Lodge Marathon Voter Season 7

Wooo! Best of luck to everyone!

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8

Good luck all

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

Very first set of Items I was shown was two items from last year - Cloudwrangler gloves and Norn thread (an alternate item). I'm assuming this is a glitch, and the items from last year were used for testing or something, but someone might want to check and see if a checkbox needs to cleared or something.

Also - wohooooo!!

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9

I also am seeing last years items. As well as the fact that I am now receiving an error message.

Not complaining just sharing information.

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

And I have now had the exact same items paired three times in a row. Another glitch. Ah well, persevere.

Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9

I am seeing the same thing as Feros. Unfortunately, I didn't vote last year so I can't say if these items are from 2013 superstar.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor

I also saw an item from last year. And my two attempts to vote have also both ended with an error message: "Sorry, there was a problem handling your request. The system administrator has been notified."

But, otherwise, I agree with my fellow Jacob: Hurrah!

Shadow Lodge Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Feros wrote:
And I have now had the exact same items paired three times in a row. Another glitch. Ah well, persevere.

I am seeing this as well. I didn't vote last year, so I can't tell whether that is an issue.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka Darkjoy

I can confirm that I've had some hick-ups as well.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8

I now keep getting the same two items again and again. :)

Star Voter Season 7

Starfinder Superscriber
pH unbalanced wrote:
Feros wrote:
And I have now had the exact same items paired three times in a row. Another glitch. Ah well, persevere.
I am seeing this as well. I didn't vote last year, so I can't tell whether that is an issue.

Same here. I'll have to check later to see if I can access this.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Same here.

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

It wasn't like this last year. There were occasional glitches, but this is new. Now up to 8 times on the same items...

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8

I get an error message when I click vote now at the moment... I am guessing that they are taking care of some unforseen issues.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka Darkjoy

same here

Shadow Lodge Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9

Same here as well.


Having an issue where two items appear, I vote for one and then rather than going to the next item set - those same two items appear again. Voted for the same one again, rinse, repeat. Only displaying those same two items - I've stopped voting for now since I don't want to stack one person's item unnecessarily due to a glitch.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Monkster

Yeah, me too - just getting either the same two items over and over, or a system error message. (Not that the 1st two items aren't kinda cool, just would like to see a few others...)

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yep something went wack-a-ding-hoy when they fired it up. Hopefully we'll get a report soon.

Grand Lodge Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

I'm going to hold off on voting for now. I've seen the same set 4 times, twice in the exact same situation, and twice with the items on the alternate side. At this point, I feel like I'm over voting the one up and the other down.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I hope the Paizo tech team went easy on the drinks last night. Nothing worse than having to pull agitated monkey goblins out of a server with a massive hangover.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Houston, we have a problem.

Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7

I too get an error message after clicking the vote button- and in the very first set I think at least one item is indeed one I saw last year... (have only tried to vote once)

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Hey everybody! Let's head over to the "Blame Cosmo for all your Problems Here" thread! :)

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7

Looks Like I am seeing last years items as well. Pretty sure the web team has the day off. So this might not get fixed until tomorrow.
null is better
I do not now why that amuses me.


HA! And you actually thought you would be able to vote!

Wheeeeee!

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka Darkjoy

Voting is now offline it seems, rebooting in .......

Grand Lodge Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

Yep, confirmation that mine were items from last year.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies , Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8

I'm seeing "server error" and no items.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Feros wrote:
Hey everybody! Let's head over to the "Blame Cosmo for all your Problems Here" thread! :)

I'll bring the pitchforks, you lot grab torches, feather and tar...

Dark Archive Star Voter Season 7

I have been able to vote on about 6 sets and now when it does come it no longer is giving me items to vote just empty spaces lol

Marathon Voter Season 7

Yeah, things look positively borked right now... I'll wait for Paizo to respond to this hickup before doing anything with the voting page. Damn, there goes my excitement!

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, voting has been suspended.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm seeing two null items and can't decide if 'null is better', 'null is better', or 'both items are equally good/bad'.

Decisions, decisions.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Standback

Man, I thought those items looked familiar...

Marathon Voter Season 7

Jerett Schaufele wrote:

I'm seeing two null items and can't decide if 'null is better', 'null is better', or 'both items are equally good/bad'.

Decisions, decisions.

The Department of Redundancy Department approves of this.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Null is always better.

Grand Lodge Marathon Voter Season 7

D'oh! Ah well, 'till tomorrow, then.

Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

Yeah I got two items up first, fairly normal that - then they both appeared again next but they had switched sides! That threw me. Now I can't vote. ;)

Star Voter Season 7

Starfinder Superscriber

Also (just to be THAT GUY) don't forget it's a holiday today, so they may be a little slow in fixing things.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8

Oceanshieldwolf wrote:
Yeah I got two items up first, fairly normal that - then they both appeared again next but they had switched sides! That threw me.

That in and of itself is not necessarily an error, just statistically improbable (assuming the voting works the same as last year, I had something similar happen a copuple of times last year where I got the same pair of items with the sides switched, but it wasn't back to back).

Dedicated Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

Sure. Me too last year. Not being able to vote is a new function...

Grand Lodge Marathon Voter Season 7

DJEternalDarkness wrote:
Also (just to be THAT GUY) don't forget it's a holiday today, so they may be a little slow in fixing things.

Sean posted something about not being able to fix it until tomorrow because of the holiday today, but it looks like that post was taken down. Dunno if that means there's hope for it being up again sometime today, though.

Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Every time I try to vote I get the same two items, then get "Sorry, there was a problem handling your request. The system administrator has been notified.

Please contact webmaster@paizo.com if you continue to have difficulties."

Digital Products Assistant

1 person marked this as a favorite.

We are currently trying to track down the error and will let everyone know once voting has been kicked back into gear.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

We should all club together to buy the support guys a crate of beer for coming in on jan 1st!

Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Or at least a pizza.


So, the voting is suspended for now?

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