Rejection

Just cleaning/organizing the office today...something I've been meaning to do for about, oh, ten years or so. And I ran across these old rejection letters from Paizo (Dungeon Magazine):

There's no date on these rejection slips, but the cover letter of the submissions have my old address and the documents aren't even on my old laptop (which I got in 2007? Maybe). These must have been something I put together circa 2004 or 2005. Probably the former, as I quit playing 3E sometime around 2005, if I remember correctly.

Looking over the docs, it's tough to pinpoint a reason they were rejected (other than, I suppose, my writing being even worse than it is at present). Too trite? I don't know: one's a high-level "side trek" adventure consisting of a single, vicious encounter (CR 19); the other's a 1st level NPC that could be either an ally or an opponent, depending on a party's reaction.

Wow...what an abomination 3E was: the stat block for the monster was three pages (given Paizo's requested format for submissions), including "show the work" sections to ensure the stat block was put together correctly. Ugh. Gross. Plus another page explaining tactics for fighting, 3E style. The whole side trek is ten pages long including background, description, dungeon (the map is a single page), development and scaling for different party levels.

Jeez. Compare that to the adventure scenario I wrote to include with Five Ancient Kingdoms: twelve pages in A5 format, including multiple maps and encounters. Yeah, my writing is more succinct, but really it's just a lot less of a slog to write/design adventure scenarios for pre-2K D&D.

In my opinion, of course.

I'm going to try to put together an adventure or two for fun and/or purchase. It's been a little tough to find time to write with my kids at home (they need the computer for their "remote learning" lessons, and when they're not studying they want me to play with them; *sigh*), but my cleaning/organizing has unearthed at least a handful of "treasures" in the form of maps/adventures. Hopefully it won't be too hard to adapt and stuff them in a publishable format. Hopefully.

I'll keep y'all posted.

[by the way, in case folks hadn't heard, Gary Con XII is going to be a virtual thing this weekend; check it out if you're jonesing for a game!]