Well, my "Favour for the Fostenklauster" investigative adventure is 12,898 words in its current format which includes a couple of handouts etc. - though if cleaned up for use by others with more generic lead ins (it was written for my group of players but is not overly specific) not sure what it would amount to in count.  Of my original homebrews it's the most generic.

However, as an investigative adventure with some fights, it actually ended up clocking in at more like 13-15 hours which I think puts it over the time desired.  It can be simplified but the ways of making things optional are not really "part 2's" but rather "cutting complications" (e.g., cut the Goblin Waggh! if wanting play to be shorter, similarly Rowdy Red Axes can be cut etc.).

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=165&efcid=3&efidt=590430 is the play record of it.

I use the WFRP font from Glitzman's gallery in my own work (e.g., I don't say on 3 successes etc., I use three hammers).

Assuming this doesn't take too much time away from my regular game (e.g., culling out things not allowed, such as using the Zealot NPC cards from Witch's Song, or NPC cards from Gathering Storm), I would be willing to format it and clean it up as making interactions more generic will take a bit of work.  The prizes don't really interest me but I'm fine to share it.

However, putting it into columns is really about the only formatting etc. I'm willing to spend time on.

I use, when not using NPC cards from FFG, a homemade table similar to the ones FFG puts out in softcovers for NPC stats.

Oh god I so badly want to contribute but I am so massively lazy!  I have many different scenarios written up but in a fashion in which only I can understand and I've never bothered to take the next step and actually present it!  Does anyone one to collaborate with me?  We share ideas and some things we've done and work on it together?  Maybe two of us can get a scenario made because I know I won't be able to do it by myself.  

I will collaborate with you.  I love helping format and co-write.  Pick one or two and let's get them cleaned up.   Email me at hafner dot jay at gmail dot com.

jh

Emirikol said:

Mwhahahaha!!!  Now I'll win for sure with Jay Hafner on my side!  I'll be "UNSTOPPABLE!" (said like the announcer in unreal tournament 3)

Mwhahhahahah!!!!!!

[editwe  The following is only suggestions, additional suggestions and preferences by other GMs are welcome.]

Ok, since we're on the topic:  The guy that's co-sponsoring with me used to help me write  and teach convention scenario writing for the Living Greyhawk campaign back in the good old days (before the dark time, before THE EMPIRE ;)

I do not claim to be an expert (and certainly not a great scenario author), but I do have a lot of experience with writing, editing, and especially RUNNING convention scenarios.  I've run tons of RPGs at conventions over the years, so here are some of my personal suggestions.

The scenarios that were preferred by most GMs shared common themes:

1. About 10 "encounters" is max for a 3.5-4 hour one-round scenario.
2. 2-column formatting (it's easier to find information this way), with some room in the margins
3. All clues are OBVIOUS at least to the GM and even more so if placed in REASONABLE amounts of Read-Aloud text
4. WORD COUNT LIMITED
5. They trust the GM to do the work. They don't over-explain every little detail.
6. They have a clear Adventure Synopsis of how things are "expected" to run.  This lets the GM know that it's ok to get off-track and the players do whatever they want, however when its time for the GM to get things back on track, he knows what would normally come next.
7. Concise Scenario Background (NOT A NOVEL).  One to 1.5 columns is oftentimes plenty.
8. Instead of "Make a Folklore Check",[edit: help your GM by also listing some names of a couple peasants] (not fully statted mind you, just named).
9. Intelligent and limited use of random ambushes by bandits, getting hired by the guy who later wants to kill you, and other cliche's.
10. Pre-generated characters have a BRIEF "attitude towards each of the other pre-generated characters." 
11. Not one single pre-generated characters is "the shy type who keeps to himself."  These characters SUCK to play.
12. Did I mention, limiting your text to get to the point, but still give enough flavor to be useful?
13. Maps are either black and white, or lower on detail if color, so when they are printed out, they are CLEAR and easy to read at the table.
14. Legible font.  Caslon antique is nice for titles..and that's about it.  Look at some professional scenarios by companies OTHER than FFG and look at how they separate/organize things such as read-aloud text, GMs text, and how they use different fonts for story text compared to technical text.

Pulling your ideas together:

 Most authors do best just brainstorming a 10 step railroad scenario and then adding in all the details and options after the fact.  This doesn't mean that your scenario is a railroad, it's just the easiest way to whip together a scenario.

So for an example off the top of my head: Pretend you wanted to put together a scenario where some goblins raided a village and the villagers want revenge, but there's some kind of mysterious force driving the usually "distant" goblins, here's the process of your quick, railroad OUTLINE:
1. Group is at an inn and get's hired (or is already hired), or they are suddenly thrown into the action in town (goblins attack or something)
2. Group gets to talk to some locals about info
3. They travel to the woods and get ambushed on the way. Something peculiar about the goblins that ambushed them.
4. They get to the woods and can make a choice: Go to the lake, where some old man recommended or go to the old cave.
5. If they go to the old cave and there is some spooky stuff in there
6. Second encounter in the old cave. They find out they need to drop some crystal off at the lake to turn off some curse. The crystal is somehow problematic.
7. IF they go to the lake, they fight something
8. The old fort on the lake can be explored (mostly empty except for the curse thingy, for which they find out they'd need to go to the cave (if they didn't already do so)
9. They fight or talk to the goblins who are cursed.
10. They solve the curse or fight the BBEG, the goblins stop attacking the town, they get accolades from the town

See how that just comes together?  Yes, it looks railroady as hell, and that's where your ability to "branch" more things out is helpful.  Too many red herrings however make a scenario difficult for players to pull together in a 4 hour timeslot.  If you put them in there, just remind the GM that he shouldn't let the players dawdle too long on them before prodding them back to the main story.  Without making things TOO OBVIOUS, it is important to help your GM throw out obvious clues when necessary to keep things moving.  Convention play scenarios are easier to write in that regards and just remember to TRUST YOUR GM to fill in the details, make it harder/easier, and create new ideas from your concepts.

As you can see, there's 99% creative going into this stuff, but the 1% of nuances of layout really matters.

The WORK
Fleshing out your details is easier than you think.  Stepping back and looking at it and saying "I can cut this" and "oh, this part is crappy and needs to be replaced or improved" is the hard part.  Sometimes we get really great ideas in our heads and it amounts to like 2 encounters and then you realize that you don't have enough for a scenario..or worse, you want to write the epic story of the beginning of Sigmar's birth all the way up to Magnus the Pious and you realize your scenario is boring as hell and simply needs about 50,000 words taken off the top.  Walk away from your scenario for a day or two afterwards and then come back and see if you think that it's a logical thing.  Most authors will come up with a PROBLEM, and then whomever is behind the problem, and then put mysteries, NPCs and combats before then. That works best for your initial brainstorm and if you condense it into a 10 encounter format, you solve a LOT of your problems about making it logical. 

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
As these scenarios should have a pre-generated character with  CONCISE attitudes towards the other PCs, character development stories work well too: For example: The Scout is trying to find his missing momma in Altdorf and there are some clues to put together. When they find here, they find out that she's actually an evil witch (oh, no!). Just be careful that the story isn't about just ONE of the characters because if one of the characters dies, you've got a problem.  You also need to consider this sort of thing:  what if a character dies?  Well, have a back-up that the player can get a hold of. 

TRY TO USE EXISTING RULES WHEN POSSIBLE
Try to work within the existing framework of rules whenever possible.  Running a game at a convention isn't the same as running a home campaign. GMs are oftentimes running several games during a campaign, and if you institute grand new rules, it makes it harder to prep and run.  For example:  POISON doesn't need a 72 page write up on how to use every variant.  Just use the Schlaff example layout from EFaE sceanrio instead (for example).

ALWAYS REWRITE YOUR ADVENTURE SYNOPSIS WHEN YOU ARE DONE TO FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE A COMPLETE SCENARIO
I cannot tell you how many scenarios I've edited where the author didn't have an Adventure Synopsis that matched what he or she wrote.  Remember, this is the one thing that tells your GM every dirty little secret so he can run the scenario.  This is supposed to be set up so that if this was all the GM had to run the scenario, there would be one sentence for each encounter, with all the gruesome details, so that he could pull it off with simple creativity.

WARHAMMER NEEDS WARHAMMERISMS
It's all fine and dandy to write a plain scenario, but if you throw in what we call Warhammerisms, your players will appreciate you more. Warhammmerisms are usually glaringly obvous Warhammer cliche's.  Things like zealous priest of Sigmar, paranoid, accusatory witch hunters,   thieving halflings, troll Slayers, puke-n-filthy streeets, Beastmen, Chaos Warriors, and talk about Chaos and whatnot.  It is best to have these kinds of things to give the feel of the world and save the subtlties for deeper story development.

 I'd be HAPPY to help any one of you who has the adventure synopsis at least written to give you feedback and editing ideas prior to the final submission (I just can't write it for you).

Let me know.

Jay H

Is there a submission cutoff date that you're considering?

I was hoping to get one or two more people interested before the official announcement, but here it is:  

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION IN THE CONTEST:  October 15th. [EDIT:  moved to November 1st]

Let's get this party started!

[edit: the cardstock is UNCUT career sheets for the miner, trollslayer, agent, and hunter, not a "character sheet."]  I hope to have pix soon for you folks.

Jay H

Here are some photos of the prizes:

Day Late Shilling Short for _every_ qualified entrant (first come first serve)

Uncut career sheets for Journey to Blackfire pass for _every_ qualified entrant (first come first serve)

Journey to Blackfire Pass for the top 2

(not shown) 2 dice packs or ffg gift certificate for $30 to the winner

I'm personally paying for the shipping for these things to the authors (I hope it's cheap to Australia and Germany ;)

If you have more than one participant from germany or austria, you could send one package and than let us send the part of the package on to the rest of the participants. Sending from US to Germany is not that cheap, shipping costs in germany are.

Emirikol said:

Hi Jay

Whilst most of your guidelines are comprehensible I'm really not sure what you're getting at here.

I'll hazard a guess that you are suggesting that people should avoid driving their plot through the passing of skill checks, as they can fail or players may neglect to use their skills at critical points, but it's not clear. I'm not sure why, for example, having a named peasant would compensate for a folklore check (why - does he just appear and tell the party the relevent folklore at the relevent point?).

If I'm right then I think that's something of a shame. Skill checks are a part of the game and I think players who like to use them should receive the occasional bonus. They shouldn't be critical to the plot, but they should provide opportunity for things like helpful (but not critical) ideas, clues, shortcuts, additional background context and so on…

So if you're saying "don't let the game grind to a halt because of a failed test" then yes - fine - I fully approve. But if you are saying "don't have stuff like folklore checks" then I think that's unecessary really, and failing to showcase an important aspect of the game.

If I'm not right then what do you mean?

Hi Dave.  Ha, that's not totally clear is it?Thanks for asking.  I clarified that with a top edit and it looked like my tapping mouse managed to erase half of my thought on that line ;)

Anyways, what I meant was, yes, you should have folklore checks detailed, but rather than just a blanket statement like:

"If a successful Folklore check is made, the following could be found out…"

how about

"If a successful Folklore check is made, the peasants Hans the Baker, Dufelschmitz the beggar, and Mamma Hilda know the following…" or something like that.  My point was that have some names of generic peasants (they don't need to be statted up). 

Yes, by all means, include LOTS of skill checks :)  I'm in complete agreement with your post.

Also, that post is more of just some experiences and suggestions rather than guidelines at this point.  I'd also like to hear from other GMs what they would like to see in a scenario as well.

jh

zwobot said:

That sounds great.  I was thinking the same for Australia and Brazil (Pedro?)

jh

Nobody is required to use these, but they might give your scenario a more seem-less feel:

Sample scenario statblocks (let me know what you think of these)

Caslon Antique font (for titles)

Other suggestions are welcome.

jh

 I would love to support this contest since I am a huge fan of fan-created scenarios. However I have never written a scenario for a convention and wouldn't know what is special for this. I also don't really have time for it atm and with a deadline so close I'd probably not be able to submit anything.

If you need help in judging or if someone need help with proofreading and ideas I'd love to assist with this.

I would like to submit a scenario, please.  Thanks!