Adventurer's Crown Rules and Regulations

[Max Dirks]

The Adventurer's Crown is Althanas’ official questing tournament. Whereas other tournaments feature a player v. player combat setting, Adventure’s Crown features a collaborate quest setting. Players are provided a prompt and judged on their ability to advance a quest with others (or on their own, should they advance that far in the tournament). Due the special nature of this year’s Adventure’s Crown, the tournament will be limited to 16 participants. No alts will be allowed to participate, so be sure to register with your best character. Participants must post at least 5 times (or post 2500 words) per round, or they will be disqualified regardless of whether their team advances. Read on for individual rules.

Registration Rules

• You must have a registered Althanas character to participate. Nexus characters are ineligible. Characters are also level locked, meaning even if your character levels up during the tournament, it must remain at the level it was when the tournament began.
• To register simply post the word “Registered” in the Registration Thread when it is opened on January 28, 2017 at 3 PM EST.
• Registration is first come, first served.
• Participating in the tournament costs 5 AP. AP will be deducted at the start date of the tournament, so if you’re running low be sure to comment on a few workshops.
• Administrators and moderators, sans Max Dirks, are allowed to participate, but they must wait until registration has been live for one day to sign up.
• Registration will continue until all 16 slots are filled or one week has passed.

Seeding and Progression

• After registration is closed, participants will be randomly placed into teams of 4 for the first round.
• The staff will provide a loose prompt which will provide some backstory and provide players a starting point. Every team will have the same prompt.
• Thereafter, progression of the thread is entirely up to the teams.
• Posting order is entirely up to the teams. There are no penalties for double posting, or skipping players; however, participation will be considered in scores and awards. Placeholders are not allowed. Only post when you are ready. Edits are only allowed until the next post is made.
• Collaboration is encouraged. This can be achieved through any means including Google Docs, IM, or chat; however, plagiarism and copyright infringement is not allowed. If there is any evidence that someone wrote for someone else, or heavily edited their post to the point where it was no longer theirs, the staff will initiate an investigation. If plagiarism or copyright infringement is found, the entire team will be disqualified.
• Bunnying of dialogue, dialogue related actions (such as nodding or smiling), and time advancing actions (like walking together) is allowed, but bunnying of character combat actions (such as attacks, blocks, etc.) and/or internal thoughts/perspectives is not.
• Round one will last three weeks. Judgments will be posted at once, so there is no need to submit your thread early.
• After round one, the winning teams will advance to the semi-finals (see below). Remaining participants will be split into four teams of two.
• The staff will provide a second loose prompt to provide some information about how the story has progressed.
• The semi-finals will last two weeks. Judgments will be posted at once, so there is no need to submit your thread early.
• After the semi-finals, the winning teams will advance to the finals (see below). Remaining participants will write solos to determine final placement.
• The staff will provide a third loose prompt to provide some information about how the story has progressed.
• The finals will last two weeks. Judgments will be posted at once, so there is no need to submit your thread early.
• After judgments are completed, the staff will post an epilogue.

Judgments

• Threads will be judged by Max Dirks using the standard full rubric.
• The wildcard and story scores will be strongly influenced by how well your group followed the prompt.
• Participation will strongly factor into story and pacing scores, so make sure everyone pulls their own weight.
• After each round, threads will be closed for judgment for two weeks.
• Judgments in round one and the semi-finals are judged as a group, with only one total score provided.
• After round one, the two highest scoring groups (of four) will advance.
• After the semi-finals, the two highest scoring groups (of two) will advance
• The finals will be judged individually and the highest scoring player will win the tournament and related awards. Second and third place will also receive awards. Fourth place will receive no awards.

Rewards

• 1st Place: 60 AP and an INCREDIBLE AWARD
• 2nd Place: 35 AP and a special item
• 3rd Place: 25 AP
• AP can be exchanged for EXP or GP as desired.
• All participants will receive normal EXP and GP awards for each completed thread.

Those are the rules. Please post here if you have any questions, suggestions or comments.

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Update Log:
1/25/17 (12:55 EST) - Added some clarity to bunnying rules
2/5/17 (10:22 EST) - Added further clarity to bunnying rules

[Breaker]

I have a question about "bunnying of dialogue is allowed, but bunnying of actions is not." Does that mean if I write a partner's dialogue, I can't accompany it with a simple action like smiling, or wiping their nose? Might be a silly question but I'm a little confused.

[Max Dirks]

I have a question about "bunnying of dialogue is allowed, but bunnying of actions is not." Does that mean if I write a partner's dialogue, I can't accompany it with a simple action like smiling, or wiping their nose? Might be a silly question but I'm a little confused.

I've edited the rule to allow "dialogue related actions" meaning minor gestures such as nods or smiles that are typical with dialogue. While this might not be as clear as you'd like, the core idea is to keep your actions your own. There were significant problems with players either writing posts for others or heavily editing them to the point where the work was no longer the author's own in the previous Adventurer's Crown. These two rules (the collaboration and bunnying rules) are designed to eliminate that plagiarism.

[Breaker]

Ok that's actually much clearer now, thanks.

[Lye]

For those of you intimidated by the AP cost, there are several workshops to contribute feedback to.

Also, if you have not received your initial 5 AP when the program began, please post in the thread below:

Initial AP Claims

[Dissinger]

Can we get a clear line on when a player is bunnying and when they are not? Like how involved an action need be before it should be up to that character's author to write?

[Max Dirks]

I added some clarification. Again, the idea is to make it clear when someone is impermissibly writing for another. Going forward, I'll only answer whether specific actions are impermissible bunnying. When judging, if the action is in a gray area I will lean towards the player's side. Remember, I'm not trying to make it difficult to you. I'm trying to make it more obvious if someone is writing your post for you. It's also important for character continuity. If I am playing Dirks somberly and you play him off as his arrogant self in a bunnied post, you'll lose points (and I believe this actually happened once). The rule can actually help you avoid that.

[Gum]

You must have a registered Althanas character to participate. Nexus characters are ineligible. Characters are also level locked, meaning even if your character levels up during the tournament, it must remain at the level it was when the tournament began.

you say "level" rather than approved update...? so, for me, i hit level 3 a long time ago. then i posted my level 3 update a bit before the tournament began. but it didn't get approved until after the tournament began. so can i use my updated abilities? y/n??

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

you say "level" rather than approved update...? so, for me, i hit level 3 a long time ago. then i posted my level 3 update a bit before the tournament began. but it didn't get approved until after the tournament began. so can i use my updated abilities? y/n??

I'm speaking for Dirks here, so i'm sure he'll clarify, but my understanding is that the term "level locked" applies to your last approved pre-tournament profile. In this case, you would be locked to your level two profile.

There are some people (Tainted Bushido) who had levelled a number of times but due to inactivity still only had an approved profile going back a number of years. This applies to them too.

[Max Dirks]

No gum. It means approved profile. Unfortunately, no RoG moderator was able to get to your profile before the start of the tournament (and it sounds like you had ample time to post it earlier if you leveled up log ago). Thus, you're locked at level 2 for the duration of the tournament, though you can use your level 3 abilities in threads outside the tournament.