A bold proposal -- Tournament, anyone?

[Nascent]

I'm an 'old man' in forum RP -- I've been "in the game" for about seventeen years across various forums with various approaches. I've seen a lot, done a lot... but never quite encountered a forum with the openness, talent, and passion that I've seen in SotE. I'll say it plainly: this place is unique, it's members impressive, and I'm absolutely loving being part of the community. And I mean that from the depths of my heart.

In my years as an RPer I've been in my share of RP tournaments, usually on forums that had a strong focus on fighting and "Sparring", a way of saying structured (usually) judged (occasionally) character-verses-character battles as a frequent dish on the plate, sometimes the entire meal. I lost most of the time but it was always an engaging challenge, and frequently stretched me creatively and where my writing skills were concerned. But it's been a long time now... and I'm wondering if anyone here would be interested in such a thing.

Of course, we'd do it in SotE style instead of the (often conflict-raising and creativity draining) traditional approach. What I propose is a kind of judged "RP talent show" -- the contestants show us their stuff in a series of creative challenges meant to showcase their writing skills, creativity, and ability to write effectively with others, working in teams of two to impress a pair of volunteer judges (ideally staff or well-respected forum members) and climb the tournament ladder up to the top for the grand prize.

Yes, I did say prize. 8)

The winning teammates would each net a $20 gift certificate to the online retailer of their choice (of course this limits it pretty much just to sites that offer gift cards, but that's pretty much everyone these days). I would, of course, be covering the prize -- It's the least they'd deserve for humoring a crusty ol' veteran like me and showing us all just how awesome their skills are, I'd say.

So, just wanted to toss the idea out here and see if people are interested, and if so, any ideas they might have. In any event, long live SotE! ;D

[zozee9]

OMG that sounds so fun! So would the tournament be fighting? Or would it be like a talent show? Or maybe both? I ask this mainly because I don't have any fighting characters necessarily... though some of them find their way around that. Of course, I could always write a new one. Also, how would this be integrated? Like, as an alternate plot-line altogether or would it be some event in some city that our characters find their way to? In other words, are the characters randomly in this or does it get blended in with already formed plots?

And I have to agree with you about SotE. While I have not threaded anywhere else (with the exception of one place I barely stayed at), the main reason I think I keep coming back here is because of how tight the community is. I love it! <3

[Ivory]

You're not allowed to be crusty and old, because I'm not that far behind you.  :/

Sounds like a really fantastic idea, though...  I'll be curious to watch what you come up with for dets!  *is young and hip, so she can say these things!*

[Nascent]

Up for less than half an hour and already some great feedback -- this is one of the things I love about SotE. ;D

My concept for the tournament is fairly flexible; while anyone who participates would likely need to write some fight scenes, not every round would be focused on combat. Rather than be an in-story in-world event the tournament itself would be a series of "thread prompts"; teams would be given a theme or idea to base their writing on (or perhaps several to choose from) and would start a new thread somewhere on SotE using it. To spare our judges hours of reading posts the actual tournament entries would have a post limit, likely ten to twenty depending on the prompts, but once the thread is up it could be used for further RP later if people are so inclined.

For example -- and I'm just making this up off the top of my head -- let's say the prompts for round one were to write a thread based on three words from a list, and three of those words were 'underground', 'relic', and 'spatula' (I know, the last one's a bit silly, but it's what came to mind.) The team who chose those words could then create a short RP thread based on dungeon diving in search of a magical spatula. It could involve fighting monsters along the way, or just focus on the interactions between the two players' chosen characters as they explore. This way anyone, with characters based anywhere in SotE's world, would be able to participate and draw on the full creative resources available in the many lands of Le'raana, and often compete using their preferred elements and writing strengths. Again, just a speculative example, but you get the idea.

This, of course, is why our judges would be so critical. Once a thread for a tournament round is complete the team would post a link to it in the main tournament thread for review. I don't have a specific judging system in mind yet, but I have some ideas -- a point system basically, with up to three award-able in categories like 'creativity', 'writing quality', 'teamwork', and 'use of theme'. Again, that was just off the top of my head as an example.

I hope I haven't created more confusion than answers with all of that explanation. ^_^;;

You're not allowed to be crusty and old, because I'm not that far behind you.  :/

Oh really?  :D Always a pleasure to meet someone who's as experienced with RP as I am. We should definitely swap stories sometime -- who knows, we might have crossed paths somewhere back in the day and not even realized it! XD

[Paradox]

You're not allowed to be crusty and old, because I'm not that far behind you.  :/

Oh really?  :D Always a pleasure to meet someone who's as experienced with RP as I am. We should definitely swap stories sometime -- who knows, we might have crossed paths somewhere back in the day and not even realized it! XD

*raises fin* I'm older than Ivory. In fact, you and I are the same age, Nas. I'm most certainly old, but not crusty. I'm a shark!

Anyway,I think this is an interesting idea  although I'll be sitting this one out as well. I'm not cool like Ivory. I'm just incredibly lazy and fat from all those fish I just ate .  I do like magic spatulas as a writing prompt though. I think I'll write something like that for fun... Whoops! I digress!

I am curious to know how the teams will be decided? Without naming names, I don't think it's fair to pair two people together whom have had the benefit of writing together for years or months vs. two people who may have only started to write together a couple weeks ago. I mean not to insult anyone's abilities here, but there is definitely an advantage when you know your partner well.  I'd recommend switching teams up for each competition (if you had not considered doing this already) , thus making everyone write together at some point. This way you can see how the individual adapts to new writing partners and their styles.

Also, I'd recommend having more than two judges(I'd say three or five depending on how many people sit out) You , of course, would be one of the judges, yes?

OR You could try having the whole community (well, those whom are willing to participate) vote through Personal Messaging. You could have a voting window perhaps of 2 weeks (so those with busier schedules could have more time to vote)?  Maybe use a point system to grade the categories of each of the contest submissions and send their votes into you (since you are the one hosting the contest) . I would even go so far as to say that you should require a small written portion for voting submissions. Just have people briefly describe why they made the choices that they did so the voting process does require a bit of thought! You would then calculate the scores for the contestants and the two people who accumulate the most points, win. 

Now, all of that said...these were just things I'd thought off the top of my head and I figured I'd share them.I did have some other thoughts on this , but it's early, I'm hungry and I need to rush off to work soon!

[Ivory]

*raises fin* I'm older than Ivory. In fact, you and I are the same age, Nas. I'm most certainly old, but not crusty. I'm a shark!

I wasn't talking about age!  I was talking about RP experience!  *throws gummies!*  Anyway, we're also the same age...goofball!

[zozee9]

Ooo I like sharkie's idea! And I'm the youngin here. :3 Anyway, it's also possible to have your main judges but also have a "people's choice" award. In case people don't want to do in depth judging of all the things. It could be more of "I enjoyed reading this one the most". And they could write more if they wanted to. Idk. Personally, I'm fine with judging things buuuut I may not be the best judger... Idk. Lol.  ;D