Tournament Rules & Signup Thread

[James Gryphon]

After months of alluding to this event, I feel the time's finally come to reveal it to the community and begin accepting registrations.

The theme for this dueling tournament is "Established works". While players are welcome to make original characters for these duels, extra consideration will be given to those who superbly play Redwall-series canon characters, and also characters from existing fan fictions or RPs. (Established characters who you made up and have played before will receive more consideration than a totally new character, but not as much as if you played somebody else's characters well. )

Also, unlike previous tournaments, you the players, along with your opponents, will get to choose the characters and the settings in each of your duels. You're not locked in to play one role for an entire RP. I felt that this would be the best way to give you the creative freedom that you need to produce the great things I know you're capable of.

OOC character and plot development is a critical part of this tournament. The emphasis here is not on "winning" each fight, but on quality role-play, and quality role-play is inherently a cooperative process. I can't tell you how many RPs (or, in a community I used to frequent, "webstories") I've seen collapse due to the writers trying to make their characters "better" and get a leg up on everyone else. Stories run that way inevitably required their own game moderators, and as much of the game was spent trying to sneak overpowered things past the moderator and other players as it was actually writing good stories. The power level of the characters and which character wins/loses the duel should not determine which player wins a match; it's about the writing skill and characterization.

We've had several ideas on what the best format for this tournament would be, and after some deliberation, I've decided on something like this: Players will participate in a round robin of duels, that is, each player facing every other player once. Depending on how many of you there are, you may be split up into two "divisions", to prevent there from being too many duels for y'all to write. When each player's sets of duels are over, there'll be one group melee thread per division consisting of all of the players in that division. After that's over, the top two players (either the top two in the case of a single division, or the top player from each division) will face off in a final duel.

Guaranteed awards given will be for 1st Place, 2nd Place, and, perhaps most specially, Congeniality, which is awarded to the player voted by staff and your peers the other players to be the most helpful/best "team player" to other players. 3rd and possibly 4th place awards may also be given in the event of a particularly large tournament. There'll be a panel of staff members that will judge each player's play in each duel, to determine rankings. Each participating staff member will have the opportunity to tell you about their criteria for judging posts, and you'll have the chance to get their advice for your work and ask questions about their ratings. While the exact details of how we give out our points is at each staff member's discretion, the minimum and maximum points possible will range from 0 to 100.

Proofreading and editing has a role in good story-telling, which is what we really want to encourage here. I feel the work that matters is the final product, and not necessarily nailing the steps you took to get there. So, while there'll be a time limit for each duel and a final "submission date" (which, by the way, will be clearly posted up in a stickied thread), until then, you and your dueling partner can make whatever changes you feel are necessary to improve your story, whether that's simply fixing typos or changing story elements. You're also free to seek others' advice in doing this, including other players and staff members. My only rule is that you keep all of your OOC conversations out in public, on the OOC discussion board that is provided, not in PMs, as it will be important to other people when judging your body of work.

I hope that adequately explains most of this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in this thread. Sign up by posting your name in bold.



Current Registrants
Gonff the Mousethief
Delthion
Sagetip
Fatch of Southsward
Peony Groddil
LT Sandpaw
Ashleg
Captain Tamm/Leo

[Hickory]

Dueling partners?

My plate's pretty clean right now, I might do it.

[James Gryphon]

Dueling partners?

Any person you're matched up with/against in a single duel.

[Hickory]

Guess Sand would be the only one I could do.

[Delthion]

I'll join!

[Gonff the Mousethief]

Last time I did one of these I got a N/A for being so bad. Let's fix that, shall we? Gonff the Mousethief if you will.

[Delthion]

I've never dueled before, or competed in a tournament...

So do I post my name in bold if I want to join? Delthion.

[James Gryphon]

Guess Sand would be the only one I could do.

No, you'll get to duel with several different players (possibly everyone if there's not too many of y'all in the tournament ), and talk to them for each duel.



Bold text does clarify your intentions, and I did say in the first post that you should, so yes. That said, I won't hold it against you if anyone forgets to use it, so long as they clearly say they want to join.

[Hickory]

Guess Sand would be the only one I could do.

No, you'll get to duel with several different players (possibly everyone if there's not too many of y'all in the tournament ), and talk to them for each duel.



Bold text does clarify your intentions, and I did say in the first post that you should, so yes. That said, I won't hold it against you if anyone forgets to use it, so long as they clearly say they want to join.

I meant as a partner.

Sagetip

[James Gryphon]

Well, by "partner" I meant whoever you're scheduled to play "against"/with. So if I schedule you to face off against, say, Peony (if she signed up) for your first duel, she would be your dueling partner for that duel.

[Hickory]

OK WELL WHATEVER

[Ashleg]

This seems fun but stressful so I don't know.

[Fatch of Southsward]

Action? Drama? Adventure? Glory? Rewards? Prizes? Judging? Duels? Role playing? Quality over power? An emphasis on telling good stories over mindless under-detailed fighting???

Umm... Let me make this simple: Fatch of Southsward

Forget thermodynamics  and no free time! I'm makin' some time! 

[Captain Tammo]

If anyone wants me to RP as their fanfic character, I'd be happy to give it a shot

I am interested but this is not me committing just yet.

[Groddil]

If anyone wants me to RP as their fanfic character, I'd be happy to give it a shot

I am interested but this is not me committing just yet.

We Happy Few lends its cast of characters to you, Cap.