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Page name: RP Contest Ideas [Logged in view] [RSS]

2009-11-16 18:38:51

Last author: NOOOPE
Owner: NOOOPE

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RP Contests Ideas

Yeah, so yeah!

1.

Each contestant fills out a character sheet. The mod will then design a quick interview for said character. The contestant will answer, in character. Once this is done, the contestant is evaluated based on:

- The originality of the character. Judges will first have to agree on a list of cliches one can be penalized for. This will not be shown to the contestants, since they could then design a character to avoid cliche traits.

- The general creativity/quality of the character's bio. Contestants are awarded for inventive, fun to read bios. Though, it is important to keep in mind that there should be some logic to the bio. If someone's character has an extreme personality, there really aught to be something in their history to explain why they developed this way. Creative but random is an issue. There needs to be some realism.

- The accurate reflection of the character's responses to their bio. See, sometimes someone writes a great bio, but they rp themsleves or change their character's personality to make a situation easier. In this contest, this could appear in someone writing what they think we want to hear and ignoring their character bio. Basically, we're just seeing if the contestants can consistently rp their character's personality without their own logic/opinions/wants getting in the way.

- The creativity of the responses. Basically, even if the contestant is rping accurately from their bio, their character might be boring. This is for giving props to the more entertaining/intriguing characters.

- Writing skills. Bad spelling? Bad grammar? Illogical thought process? Really dramatic and lame? Thesaurus much? Sounds like a 10 year old? Yuckers. I hope not.

And that's all I got.

2.

Make up a scenario for an rp and have people create characters like they're going to join and then judge the characters. There are two possible ways this could then proceed. The simple route, is people send character bios and you simply judge the bios. The longer route is to gather contestants and actually rp the scenario until everyone has posted at least... 10, 12, whatever times.

With the first method, the bios will be judged thusly (or... however we decide):

1. If the character fits the scenario. To be tricksy, the scenario the mods' design aught to have a little back story. Contestants will be evaluated on whether they integrated the back story, elaborated on it, ignored it, invented things unrelated or contrary to it, etc. Also, judge if their character makes sense in the setting. Did someone make a robot and the scenario is clearly fantasy? Furthermore, as the GM, would it be difficult to find a place in the plot for them? If the scenario is about two waring nations, and someone makes a baker, it's hard to find how they'll get involved in the action. I mean, I could go on an on with this. Hopefully the gist has been made.

2. The originality of the character... again. Same thing with cliches.

3. The general creativity/quality of the character's bio. Again, same.

And since it's all about the bio, the judging ends there.

Second way, you can have the above steps for the bio PLUS

4. Did they follow the rp rules? Since the scenario and the 10 posts are mimicking an rp, there would be rules, like no power playing and whatnot. If these rules are broken, well then damn.

5. The accurate reflection of the character's portrayal to their bio. Basically same thing as up there. Are they actually rping the character they described in the bio or are they doing their own thing now. The shortness of the rp would not allow time for character development, therefore, inaccurate personalities would have no excuse.

6. The character's personality. Yeah. Basically, were they interesting? Were they mysterious, funny, aggressive, anything? Would you like to read a story starring them or would it get dull fast?

7. Writing skills. DUH.

Ya know, this could even be split in two, like, two parts. Some people are eliminated at the bio stage, and the rest at the rp stage.

Have you noticed I say "basically" a lot?

3.

EVE type contest. Basically, contestants are on two teams. They are then paired off with a member of their own team and their characters are given some sort of conflict. Then they have a little rp. There will be a limit of how many days they rp or a word limit. Too lazy to read a book. Then, it's decided who did the best job at rping (even if their character lost the conflict), and they move on. In the end, the last remaining contestants of each team go head to head. They will be judged upon:

1. The originality of the character

2. Did they follow the rp rules?

3. The accurate reflection of the character's portrayal to their bio. They'd have to their character's profile, but it wont directly judged by itself, 'cept for originality.

4. The character's personality.

5. Writing skills

6. Whatever else. I'm probably not thinking up some very basic ones.

4.

Post one or two pictures from say devart or some wheres and have them be the base for a character. People then have to use this base to create a character bio. This idea's pretty lame. I am running thin. They will be judged on:

1. If their bio actually reflects the image. Say, we pick an image because it looks specifically sinister. If the person makes a nice bubbly person, wtf. Of course, everyone is free to interpret an image differently, but some interpretations may be a major stretch, while others may really capture its essence. Other people may intentional twist the predicted interpretation of the image in a clever awesome way. There's a lot of possible responses which'll make things interesting for judges.

2. The originality of the character

3. The general creativity/quality of the character's bio.

4. The end.

We can even have elftown artist post the images, though, I feel people would be more inspired by really hard core stuff. Not that there aren't great artists here... I just wouldn't describe many of 'em s hard core. *shurgs*

Aaaaaand I'm spent. I love the patron's challenge, though, and would love to help do that again.

2009-11-16 [windowframe]: I think I like the first idea the best.

2009-11-16 [NOOOPE]: Me too. 'S all short and sweet.

2009-11-16 [windowframe]: If you want, I can dig out the criteria [iippo] and I used for judging on the RP Tournament, and we can look that over. Technically we had 8 other judges to help us, but they were more of a hinderance than a help - couldn't follow the criterion we gave them, bitched and whined we disagreed with their decisions, etc. So I suggest we only have two people run this one. Do you want to set it up and run it asap, or wait until after Christmas?

2009-11-16 [NOOOPE]: Yeah, my judging things were off the top of my head, so I'd love to formalize them.

I can probably get this started as soon as we straighten out the details. I've been mighty bored lately, so it'd be nice to fill the time.

And we'll be working with idea one, I'm assuming?

2009-11-16 [windowframe]: Unless you're really in love with one of the other ideas, then yeah. If you think of a name for the contest, I'll pester True to make the banner for it.

2009-11-16 [NOOOPE]: I think if we fiddled with two, and simplified it, it could have potential. But for now, I'd like to fly with one.

As for the name.... eeeee... lemme think. I'm only coming up with lame things. I'll get back to that.

Do you think that, maybe, on the potential contest page... gaaah, too lazy to find the actual name. You know what I'm talking about, where we store official contest ideas... but uh, yeah, on that page, if we could make an rp section?

I've just been welding so if I'm not making sense, I blame the fumes.

2009-11-17 [windowframe]: I added it.

2009-11-24 [Hedda]: Maybe you should post this on Text Adventures to get more RPers to comment?

2009-11-24 [NOOOPE]: Maybe. I was hoping these contests could stay in the official realm and interested crew could work on them. I mean, whatever works, I suppose.

And silverfire, maybe after christmas would be best. I failed to account for... my finals... uuugh

2009-11-24 [windowframe]: We could do a news post asking RPers to comment on the official competition ideas page though, with ideas for RP contests.

2009-11-25 [NOOOPE]: That could be cool. Do you wanna post the formats for past rp contests too?

2009-11-25 [windowframe]: Future tourny rulage, CT R1 JC, CT R2 JC <<- our discussion of what rules were wrong in the RP tourny and how we should change them, and then how to judge bios & RPing.

2009-11-25 [NOOOPE]: sweeeeeeeeeet

2009-11-25 [windowframe]: We ended up playing a lot if it by ear in the end anyway, in most instances it's very obvious if a character is going to pass or not, or whether one player is better than another - we used the criteria only in border-line cases, or where we had two really good players and had to get really technical to decide between them.

2010-01-21 [NOOOPE]: I still wanna do this. We agreed the first contest idea was the best, yes? And we needed a name.

We could have OC Challange, Character Challange, Character Shakedown, Ultimate Personalities, Character Interrogation, aaaand I'm spent.

I am bored, so I have made a prototype wiki -> Unnamed Thinger Thing

2010-01-21 [windowframe]: Yarr. I think Character Challenge sounds best, but I'm not sure you should have a list of judges (we explained the problems we had with those before, right? <_<). Also, you need to decide whether you want to put it in the rules that characters shouldn't be fan characters, and then disqualify if they do, or just seriously dock points for unoriginality. Same with PP & God-moding, are you going to have a rule against it and disqualify anyone who does it? Have a rule that says they'll get docked so many points it won't even be funny, or not have a rule against it, and just docks points?

2010-01-21 [NOOOPE]: Will they have an opportunity to pp or god mode? Their characters will just be asked questions. There isn't any action to take over, unless, they... attack the interviewer or something intensely stupid.

I will eliminate the judges section. I don't remember the specifics of why that was an issue. I remember you saying having many judges was an issue or summat.

And I totally say no fan characters. That would defeat the purpose of submitting an interesting original character sheet. If they only thought up a tiny portion of it, and everyone else has original settings, they would lose. So why bother?

2010-01-21 [windowframe]: People do to intensely stupid things. :P Well, it might not necessarily be intensely stupid if they have a very volatile and violent character.

The judges are an issue because they're lazy fucks and you waste a ton of time harassing them to do their jobs before eventually doing it yourself anyway. :P

Yes so you can say 'no fan characters', but, say you get a character that's obviously adapted from the X-men world, and they've just changed a few names here and there, are you going to disqualify that too, or just dock it massively for originality? Saying there's no point in allowing it because they obviously won't win is like saying shit artists shouldn't enter contests because they obviously won't win. :P

2010-01-21 [NOOOPE]: I see your point there. I say, it has to directly be a fan character for disqualification. Tons of rps on elftown have very similar plots to famous stories, and that's the GM's call. People who make characters for it are not completely in control. So, I wouldn't exclude people with settings boarding on X-men, or some thing, but I would consider direct references and whatnot taking too much thinking out of the character building process. Maybe? Feel free to convince me I'm wrong.

2010-01-21 [windowframe]: It just occurred to me we might be meaning different things by 'fan character', so just to make sure I'm on the same page as you: I'm meaning by 'fan character' a character designed to fit into a copyrighted world not created by you. Rather than one which is a blatant rip-off of a pre-existing literary/cinematic etc. figure.

As for characters designed for rip-off worlds: since we're just asking for the character, and not the whole RP they belong to, the rip-off of middle-earth world that their GM has given them in doesn't have to reflect in their bio. They don't have to mention that they're currently on a quest to throw the Two Ring into Mount Death because that's the only way to destroy it. So I guess I agree with you on allowing them - but if they keep information like that in, then they should be penalised since they had the chance to remove it.

2010-01-21 [NOOOPE]: That's exactly what I mean by fan character. I'll rewrite that part to make it more clear.

And I agree about rip off worlds. If the setting and the character both seem like rip offs, the rper should be penalized. However, if the character seems awesome despite the setting, it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

2010-01-21 [windowframe]: Works for me. :) What about characters who *do* seem blatant rip-offs? I presume you want to disqualify those as you would a tracing in an art contest? (sorry if I'm repeating stuff, being unclear, or asking the same questions all over again, my head is full of fluff and lint and goo today)

2010-01-21 [NOOOPE]: I suppose. I mean, settings being a rip off is one thing, but characters being a rip off is another. I'll make a rule about that.

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