Adventurer's Crown Rules and Regulations

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

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

Ok that's actually much clearer now, thanks.

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

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?

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.

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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.

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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??

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Originally Posted by Gum

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??

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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.

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.

well that's a shame because most of the time updates get done in a day or two but mine took a week

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Originally Posted by Gum

well that's a shame because most of the time updates get done in a day or two but mine took a week

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Sadly it was a bit busier than usual and we were down an RoG staff member due to real life workload. Just one of those things unfortunately mate. Apologies for the wait.

I'm sorry buddy. There were a lot of pre-tournament updates and we did our best to get to them. You're a good writer though. Regardless of whether you have your level 2 or level 3 abilities in the tournament, you're still going to do well.

when an update gets posted is under the control of the person whose profile it is. while, when the profile is responded to is not under that individual's control (ofc i appreciate that chances of in time approval are improved the sooner you post). why punish people based on something they can't completely control? there's no official cut off date to before which to post to guarantee a response in time. so surely if the rule is anything, it should be that updates are posted before the start of the tournament.

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Originally Posted by Gum

when an update gets posted is under the control of the person whose profile it is. while, when the profile is responded to is not under that individual's control (ofc i appreciate that chances of in time approval are improved the sooner you post). why punish people based on something they can't completely control? there's no official cut off date to before which to post to guarantee a response in time. so surely if the rule is anything, it should be that updates are posted before the start of the tournament.

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I had to wait a month for my update on occasions, so a week isn't so bad. It is not always particularly easy to turn around an update quickly owing to staff absences and due to the sometimes complex nature of how we deal with various abilities. Yours, for example, contains a rather niche ability that needed some thought put into it to approve.

You'll notice for that reason fresh profiles tend to get turned around a lot quicker, because we don't have to check the entire last level for changes. That is just one example of why it is quicker for newbies than for updates.

In my case, I was working six days a week in January due to my job. One week I worked seven. Some of those days were 7am til 8pm. I didn't even get a chance to see my kid some nights. I was the only other person apart from Hysteria working RoG because Cards also had work related issues.

Sometimes bro, things happen. I'm very sorry for your wait.

With all due respect, gum, my records show that you actually achieved level 3 on 12/30/16, meaning you had 26 days to post an update thread before the tournament announcement was made and failed to do so. The level lock rule was created specifically because in prior tournaments we continued level updates beyond the tournament start date and it left judges in very precarious situations. Some players used certain abilities before they were approved. Those abilities were later nerfed, leading to forced edits of prior posts and in one case, loss of points due to power gaming following a refusal to edit. As judge, I don't want to deal with these things. I'm sure your teammates wouldn't want to deal with it either. While I do empathize with you and Dissinger, let me remind you that this is a story tournament. You could theoretically never even use a power and still win. I understand that you're frustrated and doubt you would powergame, but the issue here is consistency. We intentionally provide no timeframe for update approvals because some are ridiculously complex. Tournament start dates were firmly set and we announced we would get to as many profiles as possible. However, we did not promise that everyone would be approved in time. I'm sorry, but I will not allow an exception, regardless of when you posted the update.

On another note here Gum. The tourney had been announced well in advance, and the rules had been announced and have been accessible for a long time. The level lock rule has been in every tourney that's run on this site since my return two or three years ago. You waited to post your profile until literally the day before the tourney started essentially. While I feel for you, note that a lot of us are in the same boat. I'm level 10 and I'm still rocking off of my level 8 profile because I couldn't get mine up in a reasonable time so I simply didn't post it.

The issue has been stated and defended. Let's let sleeping dogs lie and get back to a great quest tourney.

fellas, does it take three admins to pile in and chastise me? y'all red names making me nervous!

and chris man, please don't misunderstand me. i'm not attacking rog mods. no man, not at all. i can accept people thinking i'm an asshole for picking at tony's rules way after the fact. but i don't want people thinking that i'm attacking mod work rate. :< you guys think i'm such an asshole that i'd do that? :< you guys work really hard just to keep our community running. without you guys althanas wouldn't fucking exist. i recognise that.

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With all due respect, gum, my records show that you actually achieved level 3 on 12/30/16

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tony, dude, i just said myself in my last post that i procrastinated. you got me lol. i'm just asking a reasonable question and offering some pretty benign counterpoints. it doesn't mean i'm trying to be rude to you or anything man. i'm just defending my corner, but i can understand and respect your justification.

i have one last request/compromise suggestion! the ac has rounds, and is a pve tournament--why not just allow updates between the rounds? it wouldn't be a big deal at all, it's all just story and no pvp combat. where's the harm, bud?

When does round 1 end, I see no formal declaration anywhere?

3 PM EST February 23, 2017. In approximately 26 hours.

Since the final round is a solo, will there be any kind of penalty for thread dumping towards the end of the deadline? Or do you want posts at regular intervals?

So just to clarify, we can use A'lia, correct?

Since you continue to ignore me in chat, I figured I'd post this here.

Did Team 1's Round Two thread happen, or not? You didn't even bother listing our thread in the From The Mists thread, and didn't mention any of the events from our thread in the prompt. You tell me to 'conclude my character's role in this epoch,' but you literally deleted half of my character's role. You required all of us to use Am'aleh as 'more than a reference' last round; am I going to get penalized for mentioning him this round?

To sum it up, you de-canonized the motivation and backstory of half of the people in the finals, correct?

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Originally Posted by Gum

Since the final round is a solo, will there be any kind of penalty for thread dumping towards the end of the deadline? Or do you want posts at regular intervals?

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No penalty. Post however you prefer.

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Originally Posted by Breaker

So just to clarify, we can use A'lia, correct?

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Correct.

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Originally Posted by Ebivoulya

Since you continue to ignore me in chat, I figured I'd post this here.

Did Team 1's Round Two thread happen, or not? You didn't even bother listing our thread in the From The Mists thread, and didn't mention any of the events from our thread in the prompt. You tell me to 'conclude my character's role in this epoch,' but you literally deleted half of my character's role. You required all of us to use Am'aleh as 'more than a reference' last round; am I going to get penalized for mentioning him this round?

To sum it up, you de-canonized the motivation and backstory of half of the people in the finals, correct?

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Sorry, I haven't been in chat for more than 2 minutes continuously today. Correct. Only the winning team from round two's story was made canon. There was no way to consolidate the top two stories without creating an incredibly convoluted final prompt (which was the biggest complaint of round two). However, I think you'll find my final prompt is generic enough to include your character without a disadvantage.

I opened the threads a bit late. Sorry about that. You can have until 11 PM EST on 5/8 to finish!