NICK WASKO WINS 2015 RPG SUPERSTAR GAME DESIGN COMPETITION

PRESS RELEASE
Three Months, Five Rounds, and More Than a Quarter of a Million Votes Cast to Name the Newest Star in Game Design

 
REDMOND, WA (October 30, 2015): Paizo Inc., publisher of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, is thrilled to announce today that contestant Nick Wasko is the winner of Season 9 of the RPG Superstar game design competition.
 
Wasko, a 24-year-old graduate student, rose above the pack of hundreds of contestants worldwide to survive five rounds of category design challenges, critique from professionals in the game industry, and voting from the Paizo.com community. For the final round, Wasko’s adventure proposal, Beneath the Storm-Veiled Spires, weaved a story of hags, thunderbirds, shipwrecks, and drowned cities, all set in the Sodden Lands of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. This adventure proposal was voted the best of the final four, and will now be made into a Pathfinder Module, a full-color, 64-page, high-quality softcover book, compatible with the Pathfinder RPG.
 
“Many congratulations to Nick Wasko, who has won Season 9 of RPG Superstar! The path to victory for Nick has been long and difficult. Through three months, five rounds, and more than a quarter of a million votes, he has continued to employ skill and creativity to overcome writing challenges that demanded originality, clarity, and strong game design,” says Owen KC Stephens, RPG Superstar’s MC. “I hope everyone has enjoyed the competition, and I look forward to starting the whole process over again… next year!”
 
In the best-selling Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, players take on the role of brave adventurers fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil. The Pathfinder RPG is currently translated into eight languages, and the vibrant Pathfinder universe has been licensed for comic book series, graphic novels, miniatures, plush toys, and apparel, and is being developed into a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game.

About Paizo Inc.
Paizo Inc. is publisher of the award-winning Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Pathfinder Tales novels, as well as board games and gaming accessories. The Pathfinder world, in which players take on the role of brave adventurers fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil, is currently translated into eight languages, and has been licensed for comic book series, graphic novels, toys, and apparel, and is being developed into an MMORPG. Paizo.com is also a leading online hobby retail store, offering tens of thousands of products from a variety of publishers to customers all over the world.

Ryan Costello

What started as one gamer wanting to talk about his love of a game grew into a podcast network. Ryan founded what would become the Know Direction Podcast network with Jason "Jay" Dubsky, his friend and fellow 3.5 enthusiast. They and their game group moved on to Pathfinder, and the Know Direction podcast network was born. Now married and a father, Ryan continues to serve the network as the director of logistics and co-host of Upshift podcast, dedicated to the Essence20 RPG system he writes for and helped design. You can find out more about Ryan and the history of the network in this episode of Presenting: http://knowdirectionpodcast.com/2021/01/presenting-ryan-costello/