Putting out an open challenge

[Slavegirl]

You could limit the tournament judgments to the short judgments only. That would speed it up, and then if someone had a question they could ask for details later.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I'm all for appointing a single mod for a tournament, or even specific single mods for certain tournies. Mod A gets tourney 1 2 and 3, Mod B gets 4 5 and 6. Something like that, you know?

The odds of any mod being around six tournaments from now is questionable.

Short judgments for tournaments are fine, that's generally what it ends up being anyway once the time crunch happens. Frankly, one or two mods who are personally responsible for a tournament is the best way to do it. They can be reading as the round progresses. You know who to look to if things are slow. You don't have to go and find people as the tournament progresses (which is what happened with the Magus Cup).

I don't think time limits on rounds is a problem. I know Dirks said the same thing, I didn't see anyone saying it was, but I figured I'd agree with him when I can, since it's rare. 1 or 2 weeks is perfectly reasonable. Frankly, if we did some of these more interesting tournament styles it wouldn't even be a problem to have a complete thread in that time.

Ideally, if these could be set up so they aren't quite as opponent dependent, that would be helpful. The best would be if the people are just working in parallel and don't actually have to wait for the other person to post. I realize that takes the direct competition feeling out of it for a lot of people. A compromise would be something other than a battle confrontation so that each character could post a significant amount of actions and progress with each post, advancing the story. I think the problem of incomplete threads comes with the territory of, Post 1: Introduce character, setting. Post 2: Introduce character, first attack Post 3: Respond to first attack, counter etc. etc.

If you get 8 posts, which... lots of times you don't even get that, the battle has been going on... 20 seconds? a minute? Just not a lot of drama because the actions are so brief for each person. If it was a different sort of competition, people could be doing the amount of action and progress that you see in the average quest post, which can be anything from ten minutes to a day's worth of events...

[Hysteria]

Instead of using existing mods to judge the threads you could have a few non-mod members who volunteer handle it. They would need to be experienced, but from what I have seen there are quite a few who fit that bill. Then the activity of the tourney would not effect the rest of the board to the extent it would have. You would however need someone with mod+ powers administrating the whole thing, closing threads, assigning judges, and so on.

From what I have read there are some fantastic ideas for competions going around. Participating in RPing groups can be a good way to go. I was once in a cash prize tournament which was in pairs. It went pretty well, though I don't think money as a reward is generally a good idea.

My vote would be for the scavanger hunt with realism and score dictating if you get to the next round or not.

I think there are a few things that can destory something like this:

• Delay between rounds (both in judging time and also if you complete a thread early and have to wait for the next round to start).
• Who you are RPing with/against (if their style suits yours, if they are active, if you don't like reading their writing, if they make it hard to respond, if you know (and like them), if it is a novel experience).
• The Story. (how it fits with your character and how interesting/unique it is)
• The IC and OOC rewards (does it have a lasting effect IC, do you feel you've accomplished something OOC, was it worth the time and effort, is there a lasting reminder of your achivement)
• Previous Expereince in tournament (were the others you have been in fun, did they finish, did it go inactive, did you get the crap beaten out of you, do you feel you will go better next time)

I am going to also go out on a limb and say that most of you in this disscussion have RPed together in the past, maybe you would enjoy doing it again and maybe you won't. Because you are the core of the forum, that will probably be one of the biggest deciding factors.

[Logan]

Glad to see so much activity here...

It doesn't matter much though if the requirements aren't met (and yes, Slavegirl and Task are correct...the time period or lack thereof is intentionally left out...)

The requirement has until the beginning of May to be met.

The idea behind the push is not to see more activity in general, it is to see activity with a focus on quality. If you look and think about the requirements, there is a quality ideal attached to them. And a high quality ideal attached at that.

Not every thread will qualify, and most won't that I've seen of late.

As of right now, the challenge has been up one week, and we have had 0 links posted.

The challenge has been laid, and not one has answered (as of yet). All of you debating the finer points of what makes a tournament great...have yet to answer it yourselves.

You think you're so great a writer? Prove it.

Not to me...but to Althanas.

The Gauntlet has been laid.

Who will answer the call?

[Saxon]

The challenge has been laid, and not one has answered (as of yet). All of you debating the finer points of what makes a tournament great...have yet to answer it yourselves.

You think you're so great a writer? Prove it.

Not to me...but to Althanas.

The Gauntlet has been laid.

Who will answer the call?

Way to overhype it.

You could limit the tournament judgments to the short judgments only. That would speed it up, and then if someone had a question they could ask for details later.

That'd be ideal to keep the workload short, but as Visla said, judgments seem to turn into just a numbers games in later rounds anyway. I'd suggest trying to get mods to work in features as a team. These positions are all voluntary, after all, and this is a hobby, so it seems very impractical and unlikely to allow one member of the staff to bear all the weight for a major event on their own. Spreading the hurt by keeping these people assigned to a tournament's welfare could get faster responses to judgments, smoother transitions between rounds, and more coherent planning.

The goal would be to assemble a team of people to work together and be accountable for that specific tournament. They aren't cross-trained to go deal with Althanas' other problems or work in an area of the site that is conveniently lacking a moderator at that point in time, they're specialized for that particular area. It could limit burn-outs, keep people accountable and allow higher to be more direct when speaking to a group of people already expected to get these tournaments running rather then trying to plan and execute them as a staff every season.

[Thoracis]

The problem people had with that in the past was the "what if" game.

Mod A sucks! If Mod B had judged my thread I would have won!

[Silence Sei]

It's true, and I should know. Even when I'm not a mod, I'm always Mod B. XD

Oh yeah, and heres my battle with Revenant.

It doesn't meet one of the high score requirements, but it is a completed battle.

http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20281