So I've been judging the RPG Superstar contest over at Paizo, and working with Erik Mona and Clark Peterson has been a pleasure. Those two are smart and savvy publishers, with a keen nose for what works and what stinks in a Wondrous Item or a fantasy country or an adventure. I've been trying to keep up.

It's clear from the first two rounds that there's at least three or four things that contest entries need to do — and do well — to succeed. They're the foundation of good writing in general, but with an RPG twist. Here's my take on

1) Don't Be Dull: As a written form, a contest entry has very little margin for error. Judges are just looking for an excuse to weed out entries in a cattle call (because the number of entries is overwhelming). Voters are looking for an excuse to move on and read something more interesting. You need to grab their interest right away, and don't let them blink until they've read the whole thing!

In practical terms, this means leading with the good stuff. Put your strongest idea right up front, in the headline or the first paragraph. Develop that killer idea with supporting material, and don't wander off to unrelated topics. You need a firecracker to get people's attention, in other words, plus more pretty lights that lead neatly to the end. Don't start off a country with stats, taxes, and the local bureaucracy. Instead, appeal to gamer instincts right way.

Note that this doesn't mean zany gonzo stuff always wins. Zany gets people's attention, but the ninja-dwarves-on-fire premise that makes everyone say 'Never seen THAT before!' will quickly turn into 'And there's a good reason why: this is dumb'. Walk the fine line between sexy sizzle and just plain weird. Take some risks.

2) Know Your Craft: Some truly imaginative and inventive entries have gotten slammed for poor naming, poor use of language, and simply the inability to go smoothly from point to point.

There's no way around it; if you want to be a great RPG designer, you need to be at least an above-average writer, because no editor I know is just itching to rewrite your good idea from the ground up. Ideas are the easy, fun part; what really counts is execution, both in prose and mechanics. Of those two elements, concrete and active prose has more immediate impact, so it's more valuable in a contest setting.

Bad game mechanics will sink you completely, but finding them requires a little more thought and time for voters to uncover. The design-a-country round was mostly about strength of prose and high-level worldbuilding. Those entries that did that well will sail through to the next round — which includes a much larger mechanical element.

3) Know Your Audience: Some of the countries have simply failed to address the needs of the reader; that is, they fail to provide tools for running a game there. The audience for the Wondrous Items round of the contest was really players and DMs who might use these items as treasure or items to create. That was then.

The country audience is DMs looking for someplace to set a campaign or an adventure. What makes a country appeal to that audience? It's different things for different people, but just a catalog of geography and population stats isn't going to be enough. A strong theme, solid reasons for adventure, new ways to present fantasy staples: there are many ways to make a setting click. I think the majority of the contestants found at least one way to make their country stand out. The great entries reinvented something, or combined multiple strengths in prose, design decisions, and utility to keep the audience engaged.

4) Inspire Your Reader: The goal of all writing is to connect with a reader and get a reaction, such as narrative pleasure from fiction, knowledge from nonfiction, or the sense of wonder that a great game sourcebook can give you. If you aren't aiming to make people go "Wow!", you are in the wrong business. Fantasy RPGs are not about the mundane, not even about the utilitarian — their core is magic, especially traditional creatures and tropes. Forget this at your peril.

So that's my summary for the public so far. I will kick off a discussion of the country of Siwal, the City of Gardens, for my patrons as a private post, 'cause hey, they're supporting the Arabian Nights project. And I love 'em for that.