"What makes you so special?" "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn." ~ Captain America: The First Avenger

I'm almost done decompressing from RPG SS! For two months I've had to be acutely aware of what I say about the contest for fear of being disqualified because I said something too publicly. Almost all of my commentary on the contest was limited to my pit crew, who are a wonderful group of men and women who have been in the same position I was in. Today I want to talk about them and how they helped me to win and who to look for in your pit crew.

On Tuesday, after I spoke with Owen, was tackled by my daughter, hugged my husband and was ignored by my son (he was building on Minecraft, he has priorities), I called my mom to tell her I won. My mom isn't a gamer, she's a practical person, but she is the person who played board games and card games with me as a child and I love her. Sheesh, who wouldn't call their mom to tell her they won a great big writing contract? She and I talked for a few minutes and as I was getting ready to hang up she asked me "So, why did you win? What made yours so special?" I didn't have an answer for her. I really don't know why I personally received the most votes in the last round. I told her it might be because my story was tighter or resonated with more people or it was a great big cosmic joke and they miscounted. I really didn't know, but I invited her to go read my stuff, since I had not done that before. 

I've spent three days trying to figure out why I won and why some of my friends were predicting I was going to win from the beginning. I think the biggest reason I won was because I wasn't trying to win, I was trying to produce the best work I had inside of me. I found things that resonated in me and I followed those through to a point where I felt like there was little room to improve on them, then I sent it out to my pit crew and really listened to what they felt needed to be improved and tried to incorporate their suggestions. It is an arrogant or naive person who feels like you can do something like this on your own the first (one hundred) time(s). Before this contest the only monster stat blocks and encounters I ever really read with a critical eye were Andrew's entries for previous RPG SS contests (and the other individuals who's pit crews I was on, I really did read your stuff guys). I have never GM'd a Pathfinder game before. I have served in a Storyteller capacity for White Wolf LARP games, but mechanically there is no overlap. 

Knowing that you know nothing makes things challenging in good and bad ways. My pit crew never said "Do it this way" because that doesn't help me learn, it gives me the "answer." My crew would say things like "I don't like the way that flows", "This doesn't make sense, do you even English?", and "Is that all you got? Not exciting enough." And then I would go back and look at the parts that didn't resonate as strongly with them as it did with me and tried to find a way to push the envelop to hook them into my vision. I also did not share my work early on with them and not with all of them at the same time. I had my core first look, who saw my work with all it's warts and bumps, then my final "first reaction" crew, who got to see my final draft to see if I hit all the high notes. If my beta pit crew liked it or at least didn't hate it, I turned that bad boy in so I would stop tinkering with it. I had to accept that not everyone was going to love what I did, only I had to love it and if others agreed, then all the better.

Without people who's opinions and experience I trusted, I would not have received the most votes. Sometimes the smallest, offhanded comments made the biggest difference in how I adjusted my designing lens. In an early draft of "Down the Blighted Path" I had an encounter with duergar slavers that one of my pit crew felt was clunky. I cut it out completely in later edits because I needed the words elsewhere, but I chose to cut that section because it disrupted the flow of the pitch. That encounter will be in the final product, at least in my mind, because it's the right place for it to happen and I need 15-20 encounters, but it had no place in the pitch. The encounter was a "random" enough encounter and it didn't progress the story of the pitch. 

Another piece of advice that I followed early on and then tossed to the side was the inclusion of the second orphne in the pitch. The original drafts felt weirdly choppy. I had things I wanted to have happen but I didn't want to endanger the boss until the end, because players do crazy things when given the opportunity. It was suggested that I had a lot of undead already and bringing in an undead making machine would be overkill and initially that was correct. As the pitch progressed though I felt like there was less and less tying things together. Several comments, feedback and the key advice from my friend about not being afraid to succeed sparked the light bulb and I added in the second fey. I felt at that point I had made the pitch that would win, that the story from beginning to end had a flow, a direct path even if the PCs didn't follow it precisely. The advice was good, but eventually it became unnecessary in light of other developments.

Many people better than me have said this before, but it bears repeating - Surround yourself with people who are already doing what you want to do. Preferably they will already be successful at it as well, but beggars can't be choosers when you start out. I was very lucky to be able to assume Andrew's pit crew, whom I served as pit crew for, with a couple of additions of my own when I started this venture. Almost all of my pit crew have a Superstar tag. They were all people that I felt comfortable taking criticism from and could argue intelligently with. That's not to say that every pit crew must be previous competitors. Every pit crew should have a rules mechanic and a grammar editor though. They function as your developer and your editor, which you will have once you get to publishing. You should also have a few people who like different things than you do, especially someone who doesn't like a lot of the same things you do, because this person is going to challenge you more than anyone else. If your pit crew is full of "yes" people, you aren't going to succeed. Not only did I have to satisfy my own sense of accomplishment, I never wanted to turn over something that someone I trusted lacked faith in. The creative process is about satisfying yourself, but you'll never it in any field if you are the only one who likes your work.

I feel like I should share something else about how I worked on DtBP here, while it is in no way based on "The Wizard of Oz" I looked at it as though it were a Pathfinder version of TWoO. I needed to put my adventure pitch into context of a story line that I was acutely familiar with and could follow in parallel to keep to vision. I needed a model "encounter" to help keep me on target. While the final adventure may not be "Down the Blighted Path" the name is my little homage to the Yellow Brick Road that helped me bring this adventure pitch home. I include this because everyone creates differently. I also had a soundtrack for my work, music puts me in a place to access my creativity and if you like music, you really should consider this. Don't just use your favorite songs, find music that fits your theme, to put you in the right place.

And lastly, do not forget to read. Read all about where you're creating, read about things that happened there or in places like there. I came across throw away comments about mobats, doombats, and stirge hounds as flying mounts in The Endless Gulf and I knew that if I didn't put that in my pitch there was no point in even trying. I am looking forward to realizing that scene, among others, because it will be so awesome. In fact, it is so awesome I'm astonished I came up with it. I'm a little jealous, I kind of want to play this adventure too.

As Shel Silverstein once said "If there is a book you want to read but isn't written yet,write it." So, there isn't a book yet about Lady Delbera's ghost and Zohir Totek the orphne necromancer, but there will be one day because I'm going to write it. I'm not going to write it because I'm special, I'm just a kid from Cincinnati. I'm going to write it because a lot of people think it should exist. Maybe we're all special and we just need to find that special spark.I still  don't know why I won, but I know that if I can do it anyone can if they dig deep, work hard and put aside all the things that stand in their way, even if one of those things is self-doubt. 

"Today I'm Gonna Try and Change the World" ~ Johnny Reid

Just about 18 hours ago I found out that I am Paizo's 2015 Superstar. It's been a crazy 18 hours of phone calls, emails, my social network pages blowing up, and internal dialogue that oscillates between self-doubt and pride. Over the last two months, I cannot believe it has only been since January 20th that I've been on this ride, I lived and breathed Pathfinder and game design. Never in my life have I learned so much in such a short amount of time, and I have a degree and nursing diploma. I am still in shock. I am wondering how the heck did I even get to this place? I'm going to write about it and maybe we'll find out together.

For my entire life I have been a woman and I readily identify as such, but when I was younger I often wished that I had been a man because my interests were more in keeping with traditionally male things - math, science, fantasy and sci-fi literature, comic books, gaming. I eventually accepted that I liked being a woman and I liked things that people don't associate with women, so I needed to help people understand that very few things are intrinsically "male" and "female". It didn't hurt that I have a daughter and a son and I want them to grow up in a world where they can be whomever they like and love whomever they wish without having to worry about being judged for being themselves. This desire came to a head last year during Paizo's 2014 RPG Superstar contest, when a thread discussion about the number of women in game design was low, that there wasn't a lot of female contestants, and in general, how were we going to get more women into the hobby? The answer was easy, we needed more women to care enough to enter and see other women already in positions where they wanted to see themselves. We needed role models that other women could identify with and feel like they were welcome in the same places. Sounds easy on paper, but getting from here to there is not so easy.

Around that time, I lost my office job and quickly found another one that let me work from home. So, I committed myself to equality activism since I was online and home all the time. I focused mainly on gender and sexual orientation issues, although I feel strongly about all forms of inequity, so if I use gender terms, rest assured I also mean racial, religious and all other personal markers that make us uniquely us. I don't work for women to be treated better than men or men to be treated worse, I work for all people to be treated as well as all other people. I found a great song by Johnny Reid "Today I'm Gonna Try and Change the World" and other like minded people who embraced equality for all individuals. There are a lot of us in the gaming community who feel that way, although there are those who do not, I believe we outnumber them and one day we'll win this equality war of attrition. 

I found that there are quite a large number of women in the gaming community. A stunning amount of them, but they aren't in the places that tend to get their names on the cover of books. I continued to ponder though, how would we get more women in visible gaming positions? Obviously the fastest way is to find someone who publishes and write for them. I knew publishers who were already asking me to write stuff for them. Which was great, if I wanted to do game design, which I didn't. I kept working on raising awareness, raising up my sister game designers, supporting my male game designer friends, because they need some love too and just hanging out making contacts and playing game design yenta (It's really a thing I do, if you have a special skill, I know someone who needs you, hit me up privately.)

December rolled around and I was excited, RPG Superstar is when I go back to the Paizo boards and hang with my hopeful friends and see some awesome competitors write some stuff! Then Owen Stephens announced there would be a switch up this year, instead of wondrous items, it would be arms, armor, rings, rods and staffs. Wait, what? I never entered because I didn't want to win and I never came up with a wondrous item idea. But a magic weapon? I could write one of those, there's this weapon that clerics really need and suddenly I was at the gaming table, surrounded by books and my husband, because I had no clue what I was doing. I know most of the cleric spells to level 6, some of the sorcerer/wizard spells (because they overlap with cleric spells) and that there was such a thing as magic weapons. I never even read the entire Core Rule Book before, much less any other gaming book from cover to cover since Laws of the Night Revised (yup, you heard me right, 1999 and even then I skimmed the thaum stuff). 

I made my very first real magic weapon, Spectre Blight, on December 14th, 2014. I shared it around with the people that I usually helped with their entries and got some great feedback. There were jokes - Oh, what if you and Andrew are both in it? Will he be mad when you win? - and my personal favorite to poo-poo "You're going to get in with this and win." I never dreamed that I really would get in, but if I did, that would be great, because I really wanted this weapon in a book so I could use it as a cleric, because clerics never get awesome stuff. I entered and Andrew did not, I said the magic words "Wouldn't it be fun if we actually were in it together?" so he entered too although that was not his original intention.

Fast forward through fun and laughing during the voting process to January 20th. Andrew was at work and I was alone in looking for our names on the Top 32 announcement and there I was on the list. I was certain I must have missed his name on the list. Not a single member of my pit crew was on the list. How was that even possible? It took me a whole day to get over that, it would have taken longer except that I suddenly had less than 4 days to draw a map of a place that did not yet exist and I didn't know much about drawing a map or Golarion for that matter. I am a visual person though, so maps are a love of mine, I love looking at architectural blueprints, that's why my building map was awesome and my hanging gardens map was not so much.

That's how the whole two months of the contest went, my name would appear on the Top whatever list, I was certain it was a mistake and then I had to jump into action because holy cow, I had a lot to learn. Each voting period I studied ahead to learn what a monster stat block looked like, what goes into an encounter, and how to write an adventure pitch. I was lucky (as far as that goes) that I was unemployed throughout the first 6 or so weeks of the contest. I had to look for a job, but I didn't have to go to a job. Learning game design became my job. I spent alone time reading books, adventure modules, wiki entries, Paizo forums, previous contest entries and most closely the judges comments. If you ever find yourself in this position, read what the judges said, there great big nuggets of solid gold game designing wisdom in there. 

I did lament how dumb it was to enter the contest not knowing any of this stuff first, but then my children found out I was in the contest and things changed in my mind. They knew Andrew had done this before and we used his work to teach them about the writing process. Kate became very excited that I was involved. She would check in to see where I was in the contest. When I hit the Top 8, Andrew shared my profile and entries with her. She was sold. She became my biggest cheerleader and in my mind, reason to win. I couldn't believe it, I was becoming that public female role model for at least one future female! She was my daughter, but wasn't that who I was doing this for in the first place? I still wasn't sure I wanted to win, but I knew I had to win, because I had to prove to her and myself that nothing was worth doing if you weren't going to do it to your very best ability. 

There were other reasons I wanted to win - I fell in love with the things I was creating, I needed them to continue beyond the contest and the only way that was going to happen was if I won, that meant I had to be the best. I felt like I had something to prove, that women could be game designers. And I wanted to be able to say to Owen Stephens "Boom, I did this! And while I know that's exactly what you wanted in the first place, I won't hold it against you that you tricked me into proving it to myself." (And now I've just said it. Thank you Owen.) 

At no time did anyone tell me I could not do this because I was a woman. If they did, they didn't say it anywhere I was ever aware of it. But more importantly, no one seemed to be holding my hand, throwing me soft ball reviews, or voting for me just because I was a woman. I felt like I was being viewed with the same critical eye that all of my fellow Top 32 were being viewed through. If I screwed up, someone called me on it. If I did well, it was recognized. I was an equal among my peers. I have never truly felt like that before. My reproductive organs had nothing to do with whether I could design headless monsters, so why should it be considered in any way by the judges? It was incredibly liberating to be allowed to be myself.

I'm going to wax spiritually here a second, but don't stop reading. There is a saying 'be careful what you wish for, you may get it.' I put a desire out into the universe for there to be women in my community for other women to look up to and strive to be like. Women that I wanted to look up to and strive to be like. But the universe, whether God or karma or whatever is really out there, took my desire and chose me to be the instrument of it's realization in this small way. I don't think that I am going to change the world overnight or completely, but I am going to use this amazing set of circumstances to change the world one day at a time. I realized that the only way to get women into public places was to be a woman in a public place doing things worthy of looking up to. 

Last night, at 4:50pm I got a phone call from Owen's wife, LJ, who is my personal friend and being the incredibly naive person I am, I simply thought she was going to hold my hand like a good friend and watch the ball drop. But they tricked me! (Be careful of those Stephenses, they are tricksy folks!) Owen told me personally on the phone that I won at 5pm. While he was telling me that I won, my husband told my children that I won. So there was I was, on the phone with one of my life mentors* while my daughter hugged me tightly telling me how proud of me she was, surrounded by the people who I loved the most, realizing that I had fully achieved a life's dream that I wasn't even aware of having until that crystal moment in time. 

There's so much more to be said about this and I'm sure I will say it in time. Today though I want to tell everyone that you can change the world. Open yourself up to the possibility and take hold of it when it appears. Ride the wave until it hits the shore, stand up, throw your arms in the air and scream with triumph. Because you can change the world one day at a time.


*Owen and I have been friends for several years and being in the contest was one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I was unable to tap into one of the most influential people in my life for feedback. I want to be clear that at no time did he or any of my other publisher or published friends who were judges or among the voting population ever consult on any of my entries. Paizo was made aware of our friendship prior to the contest. 

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was originally going to post this on a Paizo RPG Superstar thread, but it got longer and more personal than I felt belonged there. Plus, I know not everyone wants to read about my quirkiness.

A quick history of RPG SS for those who do not follow it - Paizo has a once a year contest to help them find previously undiscovered game design talent. Some incredibly talented men and women have entered over the years and gone on to become household names in the gaming community. There are usually 5 rounds of game design "tests" to see how each contestant does with a Survivor-esque voting that reduces the initial Top 32 contestants to 16, 8, 4 and then a single winner, who is offered the opportunity to write a game adventure. The other Top 4 are also offered smaller writing opportunities and often many of the competitors names appear in third party publications. Entries are judged by industry experts and voted on by Paizo community participants (customers). It's like getting a crash Master's course in game design. Now, on with the blog.



"I cannot stress how much this contest helps folks design confidence, and seems to give them the designer's writing bug, which IMO is a great thing!  Owen's and the Paizo teams hard work has allot to do with that, so, keep it up folks!" - GM_Beernorg, Paizo forum

If you are at all competitive it becomes very easy to rise to the bait of writing with everything you've got once you see your name in the Top 32 list. I never had aspirations to be a game designer and over the years I stated I would never enter RPG Superstar. Then they changed Round 1 and the rest is RPG SS history. Not only did this year's contest show the gaming community what I was capable of, it showed me what I was capable of. The last three months have been transformative for me, to look at myself not as "just a player" but as someone who has something to contribute to the community and that everyone has something to contribute (I already knew the second part). 

Self-confidence is something that I only look like I have in abundance. Self-doubt and constantly worrying about not being good enough, smart enough, clever enough, strong enough or enough of anything has plagued me my entire life. I'm sure it plagues most people and our own insecurities are what keep us from telling others that we are in a constant state of fear of failure. It is this realization that drives me to write this blog, so that others won't feel like they are alone.

I cannot overstate how grueling it is to be a competitor in RPGSS. No matter how much you've done as a designer, you will eventually hit a point where you're doing something new and you're "behind" on the curve. You have to choose quickly and wisely which parts you have to focus on and which parts you're willing to hear the judges and voters shred. I always felt vindicated when the criticisms were about the exact things that I felt that they should be. It was hard to not perseverate on the little things, mostly because I am mildly obsessive (or a lot, I try to be honest in my blog.) It was easier in the early rounds to keep myself busy during the voting periods, because I had to learn about making monsters, what the parts of an encounter were, what Nar-Voth was, etc. This last voting period has been utterly nerve-wracking, wondering if people would like what I had to offer. So, I would go back and re-read the feedback I'd gotten on previous rounds and on social media.

The feedback is incredible. If you do follow RPG SS I have a request for you for next year - leave feedback on everything you read. Even if it is just "I really liked what you did here" or "The person above said better what I was going to say, but I wanted you to know I felt that way too." Positive feedback is just as important as critical feedback. Not only do I need to know what you thought I should change, I need to know what you thought I did right the first time out. It also let's me know that you read it and that it spoke to you. RPGSS isn't set up to reaffirm me as a human being, but it doesn't hurt to do that for someone who is in a stressful situation. That doesn't just apply to RPG SS either!

I heard from people I hadn't talked to in years or even ever. I discovered the mostly silent portion of the community that I touched with my ideas. It was invigorating and deeply reaffirming to know that I resonated on the same level with so many people. Individuals reached out to me publicly and privately to tell me wonderful things about myself that I didn't even realize that they could see about me. Several people said things that made me cry. The encouragement I received was devastatingly uplifting and humbling.

I learned how to listen to my inner voice, the voices of my alpha readers and how to take feedback to incorporate what made sense and what didn't. It was easy to accept that I didn't know it all, because whoa did I not know anything going into this and maybe that helped me more than anything else. Any advice was good advice. I did get some great advice.

I had two very crucial conversations prior to turning in my final entry. The first was between me and one of my most trusted pit crew members (my alpha team). He told me that he felt my decision to revisit my previous work was a mistake because of a prior situation that did not go well for a former competitor. I listened to his concerns and he was so right to tell me what he did. I needed to know that the odds were stacked against me and that by choosing the path I did that there could be harsh backlash But it was the only idea I had, it was the story that resonated in me and I couldn't shake it. He told me not to hang on to things if they didn't work and "Just dig down until you find the core idea of WHY you like them so much."

On the last day I planned to write, one of my oldest friends called me and he gave me the last piece of advice that I really needed to hear - "Do not be afraid to succeed." He was so right. I was the one thing that was holding me back. It was liberating. It drove me to change several things at the last minute which I feel moved me personally from feeling "This is kind of cool" to "OMG, I cannot believe I wrote that, but it's freaking amazing!" 

Today is the day that Paizo reveals the winner of the 2015 RPG Superstar contest and I have 6.5 hours before I find out if that person is me or not (not that I'm counting the time or anything), but I now know that whether or not I am named Superstar 2015 I have a lot of things in my mind and heart that I can use to create imaginative stories that other people would like to experience. I would have never known this without a contest I didn't even really want to enter. So, if you ever get a chance to try something that you're not sure you'd like but you think you might, try it, you might discover something incredible about yourself that you didn't know before and it could change your world. Find your core. Don't be afraid to succeed. Don't be afraid to be amazing.