I agree; original and fun little trap/environment. I'm assuming all the statues are life-sized? Might be a dead giveaway; perhaps another property of the pool would be to shrink immersed items as well? Might make it even more interesting to try and get things out.
I really liked this; well-written and fun to read. A very interesting idea; "feeding" off of people's malevolences. It's been done before, but you've added some excellent twists in all the right places. The plot hooks were very enticing as well. Very well done!
The background still needs quite a bit of cleaning up and clarifying. As was pointed out earlier, thunderstones are common items in D&D.
Your description of what thunderstones do is uncomfortably close to the description given by the D&D player's handbook. I'd suggest you try to put some sort of a spin on them to make them different or fresh in some way.
Ooh; this is good. What a hellhole! At first I thought "falling corpses? Nah!", but this is truly a desolate place. I thought it was fine as it is.
Splendid job! A detailed, yet enthralling account of a horrific creature that has numerous applications in a campaign setting; I couldn't find a single thing I didn't like about this.
Very nicely done! As the others have mentioned, a useful device for getting your PCs where you want 'em.
Not too shabby for a drug-induced epiphany (not that I'm endorsing the use or abuse of narcotics toward such ends). A herd of sheep with a collective awareness and intelligence would prove interesting. I could see a number of humorous applications for this during travel. The party somehow gets on the bad side of one of the elder sheep (perhaps they try taking pot-shots at it or kicking it off the mountain trail). From then on, all sheep in the region seem to have some sort of vendetta against them. When they go to bed down, nearby bleating keeps them up all night. When they wake in the morning, groggy, their equipment has been chewed up... lots of interesting and comical possibilities here.
20. Go visit a 3rd world country.
No; I'm not talking about taking a cruise and visiting the ports, or staying at the touristy places. Take a couple months to immerse yourself in the day-to-day life, learn the language and customs. You'll know you've done it well if, upon return to your native land, you'll experience culture shock while trying to re-integrate yourself.
Articles (Rules and Advice) (Citadel Help)
Know what would be useful on this matter (particularly to myself)? Some sort of general guide for rating submissions. Anyone know if such an item exists here? I think that is a major hurdle to people stepping forward to vote on posts.
I agree with the points made on the article; however, I often find myself clueless as to what the criteria is for rating submissions. I've generally been going with the metrics of primarily "is it original", followed by "is it well-written", "is it explained well", and "is it useful to a campaign?" In other words, if I were to use this item, monster, dungeon, background, or mechanic in my own campaign, would my players perk up their ears, or would they roll their eyes?
In the past, I've gleaned a couple useful things which have actually made it into my campaign; as a result, I try "give back" by occasionally visiting this site and provide the occasional submission or vote. I'm extremely time-poor, so the frequency with which I can do this is pretty sparse.
When I do, however , it seems that I am a bit off-base in terms of my criteria; I notice that my own attempts at rating and critiquing often fall significantly above or below that of the "regulars". Hence, I am often a bit gun-shy about commenting. If this falls true for me, then I'd guess there are others in the same boat who might feel similarly.
So how about some guidelines for voting/commenting? Not just the tired stuff about respectfulness and politeness. Those are paramount, yes. But I'm talking about how to properly critique a submission.
Should poor grammar and readability be ignored/forgiven if the idea is original?
Does originality trump playability/usability? In other words, it may be something new, but if it is next to impossible to work into a campaign world, does it still warrant kudos?
So, what, here at Strolen, defines "original"?
Quite often, ideas that have been done before in game supplements, movies or books find their way onto here as "original". In fact, one can even make the argument that nothing is ever truly original; the seed or components for every "original" idea can always be traced back to another concept or idea. So, how should the "been there, done that" reaction affect voting?
How important is the explanation? Does the amount an idea is "fleshed out" have impact on responses/votings? How much?
I can keep going with the questions, but I think you get the idea of what I'm looking for. I'd love to hear on this from some of the "regulars", or at least get pointed to an existing article or guideline for this. It'd be a great help for me, and probably others as well. Thx.
Go to Comment