Important Tip for Beginners

[Gossamer]

When submitting;
Never ever, write your text directly on the site. I just lost about 2 hours work on what was supposed to have been my first submission.
Noooooot feeling like a happy camper atm. >.<

[Chaosmark]

Ick. I'm reasonably certain we've got that posted somewhere. But yes, that's definitely something that we try to warn people about. Either write it up in another editor (I just use Notepad++, I know others use MS Word), or save the submission regularly. There is an "In Work - Private" submission type, so you can work in the site-editor and save without making it publicly visible. I use that fairly often.

[Gossamer]

So you select that private setting and then press submit? I was a bit unsure of that part. But yeah, definately going to do it in a word processing application from now on.

[Shadoweagle]

Yah, we have all been there! I've lost hours of work to that kind of horror before, and when you rewrite it, it never seems quite as good.

[Dossta]

I feel your pain.  If it helps, you could try to think of it as a "first draft" that got eaten by Niyotts . . . or something.

[Dozus]

Ugh, hate it.

I write between home and work, so I keep a flash drive with a folder just for Citadel submissions. I suppose it could happen that I'd lose the drive, but that's happened far less frequently than a bad connection or browser shutdown that makes me lose my work.

[Gossamer]

Yah, we have all been there! I've lost hours of work to that kind of horror before, and when you rewrite it, it never seems quite as good.

>.< Ugh, yeah. I've made some attempts to rewrite it now and it's just horrible! From a 10 down to a -300. I don't even want to rewrite it.
I was going to do a piece on what to do when your players treat your Npcs like, well...Npcs. But now I just...ugh. I want to do something else but it feels like everything has been done allready, not feeling very creative atm. I can't think of an original cult/religion idea, so no chance of that. I might post an old dice generator that I've used a lot in the past, once I clean it up.

[Shadoweagle]

Don't be discouraged, sir!

one of the best ways to get creative juices oozing is to catch someone in the full chatroom and bounce ideas off of them. A second perspective is a great tool! If you manage to catch murometz, he is especially useful with his 20 question style!

[Dossta]

I can't think of an original cult/religion idea, so no chance of that.

This quest is pretty open, actually -- you don't have to write about a religion or cult if you don't want to.  A single deity, a whole pantheon, a mystical artifact connected with a religion, or even a religious order or NPC would all work.  If you need inspiration, take a look at some of the Small Gods or Placeholder Gods.  And if you haven't yet seen Mathom, Othamm, or The God of Small Things yet then you should take a look -- they are practically memes around here.

[Wulfhere]

Anohter important tip:  Before using a name, Google it.  It can be very discouraging to discover that your character/place/item/etc. accidentally shares the name of a well-known fantasy character/place/item/etc.  As an example of how names can go wrong, some poor guy submitted a villain named "Elric" in Paizo's "RPG Superstar" competition a few years back.  He had never read or heard of the famous Michael Moorcock character.

[Strolen]

Yeah, that sucks. Part of the initiation rights of the site though. Citadel hazing at its finest!

And we all understand the pain of rewriting a sub you already wrote. Few things as creatively draining as that! Turn off your inner filter and just write! Let it flow, don't critique and just do it. Once it is down, then take a better look at it. Good luck getting over you current creative hurdle. I have them ALL THE TIME!!

[Gossamer]

Good news everyone! (Think Futurama).

Despite everything I previously said, I went and rewrote my original sub on a whim, and now I'm ready to submit it.
But, I'm not sure where to put it. Like I said before, it's basicly my tips on how to make players avoid treating your Npcs like lifeless extras. Where does that fit in? In At Table, or Rules and Advice maybe? Can I or a mod move it afterwards if it ends up being in the wrong place?
 
Anything else I should know about? I've read that "your first post thing" by Strolen, checked out the help sections etc, don't know if there is anything else.

[Dozus]

I might go with Articles - Character/Game Mastering.

If you change your mind later, or someone says, "Don't listen to that fool Suzod! It belongs here!", then you can just go back and edit the category.

[Gossamer]

I might go with Articles - Character/Game Mastering.

If you change your mind later, or someone says, "Don't listen to that fool Suzod! It belongs here!", then you can just go back and edit the category.

Allright, thanks. I'll go with your recommendation.
And this is the end product: http://strolen.com/viewing/But_theyre_only_minions.

[Gossamer]

I decided to rewrite my sub after several misunderstandings. Hopefully I'll get my point across this time. The link is the same as above.

[Kassy]

When submitting;
Never ever, write your text directly on the site. I just lost about 2 hours work on what was supposed to have been my first submission.
Noooooot feeling like a happy camper atm. >.<

This unfortunately happens quite a lot.

I don't have access to my own PC, and as such am forced to use the local library's. Whereupon I have to save my work online, and log in again for another hour until my 3 are up.

It didn't used to be like this, I think that the formatting just needs sorting out again, I think.

Really hope something happens soon, it puts me off from writing when I have to continuously re-edit everything just to fix broken stuff

K