Contest Frequency

[pstmdrn]

How often do you guys run contests and Game Chef types of things? Every since the Cyberpunk one I have been itching for more!

[SheikhJahbooty]

You kind of have to suggest we all try something and hope someone picks up on the idea enough to offer a prize for the best one.

Kumakami might run a contest soon, for a game that can fit on one of those tiny booklets that come in a deck of playing cards, so we can use that print on demand service to print up our games, but I think the prize he was going to offer was to foot the bill to print a few copies of the game you would write.

I've been so jealous of Rachel (Last Res0rt) that I wanted to suggest we all make webcomic RPGs, but like for webcomics that we don't write ourselves, so you would have to pick a webcomic, Miracle of Science , for example, and get in touch with the author or authors, and ask them permission to do a free RPG based on it, permission to use the art, etc. But I don't have anything to offer as a prize, and it seems like a lot of work to do just as a friendly competition.

[pstmdrn]

They both sound great! If I ever get a prize I'll make a contest for it too!

So many good webcomics... maybe I'd try Red Meat or ErfWorld.

[pstmdrn]

What a great idea for a game, club design and sales.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

On one hand, it would be an interesting lesson in working with others, getting licenses, and interpreting intellectual properties. However, I'm not sure if its such a contest is really doable for those reasons. Furthermore, how can one fairly rate someone when its not necessarily all their work?

I did at one point try to write a game based on the web comic . The system for my last contest entry - Of G-Men and Supermen - is actually a modified version of the one I was planning for that game. Since the comic was about people's personal worlds being shuffled up due to an error in the heavenly records, using cards seemed rather symbolic. I emailed the authors, and while they seemed to like it, they said give them a week, and I never got that second reply.

Its really hard to ask someone to let you into something they have worked so hard on. I've got plenty of orphaned and just started projects I could send the way of the "" thread. However, they are my ideas, and come hell or high water, I will eventually work through them myself rather than accept I don't have the time or self-discipline. No one else can see them through the way I can, just the way I don't see your dreams when I fall asleep.

I certainly enjoyed Miracle of Science, and Red Meat, as well as dozens of other comics. "" is just this side of not being the official D&B comic. (Seven types of zombie, is pretty close to my nine, and counting charlie its eight...) It would be very interesting to see a d20 project based on "Order of the Stick" or "DM of the Rings"

[Rob Lang]

[madunkieg]

I've been tempted to suggest a "game refinement" contest. Take your entry from another game design contest (or an orphan game) and get it as close to finished as possible. I can't really run any contests right now, however, because I've got something else up.

In a few weeks I'll be organizing a game design circle for the local university roleplaying club, provided they don't whitewash it over the semantics of it not being a specific game. If it comes together, I'll be directing more people to these forums and hopefully they'll participate in whatever contests do get run.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Good luck with your university club.

One of the more interesting contests I happened across was . Everyone makes a character sheet, the sheets are traded off, and then a new author must make a game based on that sheet. Apparently at least of the contest has been held.

I'd also like to see a contest where everyone has been given the same base system with an outline of setting ideas, and then see where everyone takes as their creativity diverges. For example,the game game set on Mars with 2d8-9 as the basic roll, there must be an oxygen attribute, and everyone has heard rumors of a man named Keeton hiding in the hills. The fun part is seeing how each author tries to stand out from the pack. Who draws inspiration from Edgar Burroughs vs KS Robinson, are characters the first settlers or miners in a used future, does the land remain the red frontier or is it a terraformed new Earth...

Unfortunately, that threatens to make the games too similar, and such a narrowly defined contest/setting might not pick up many takers. Even if we had three game skeletons to chose from, its probably not the most viable idea for a contest.

[SheikhJahbooty]

Remember Rob's Teddy Bear Blood Sport contest?

I think you'd have to do it like that, with like 5 things in each category.

5 times / places
5 dice rolling methods
5 instances of Keeton
5 unusual stats

So you make up 20 thingies and can witness people's creativity in which of the 500+ combinations to choose, and how to make that particular combination their own.

[pstmdrn]

I like that idea, but maybe a bit of randomness thrown in, like rolling for each element.