Setting Design Challenge

[Eero Tuovinen]

Speaking for myself (remember, it's 70% certain that I won't find the time to participate as a contestant), I'd prefer an expectation of not lifting previous work wholesale. I know I've made lots and lots of settings in my time, and just translating some of that wouldn't do me any good as a designer, even if they're better than anything I'd mix together on the run. So even if the choice were mine, I'd prefer it if you didn't tempt me. No need to be stickly about it, if you have some vague ideas in your head that you want to use, but it's a bit too constraining for anybody's genius if he decides in a moment of weakness to dumb pages of prewritten prose into the competition. Hard to do any significant further work when you start with pre-existing strata tying your imagination.

For voting, I suggest completely public. Does good to our conflict-avoiding pansy generation to have to stand for their opinions for a change. Anonymous voting is for when you fear a mob-hit on dissenters, not for an artistic competition.

[StefanS]

May opinion about pre-written stuff: It's completely OK to mix in ideas you have used earlier, but I don't want to see how someone submits a completely old setting.

I'd prefer open, non-anonymous voting, with at least a short explanation when voting. This way at least a bit of feedback is ensured, and it's possible to interpret this feedback based on the commentators background. I suppose this contest is not such a serious matter that anyone has to hide his opinion in regard of this, so this should be OK for everyone.

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello Eero,

I prefer to start with the overall picture instead of fiddling with stats and specific maneuvers. I like stories and the backgrounds that support them. The setting I have in mind begins with its creation, instead of using bogus logic for post-justification. BTW, that little bit of prose about the world of Ter came off the top of my head in about 30 minutes. I just had a gut feeling that someone would cry foul about previous works. The notebooks stay on the shelf.

Casting one vote is unpredictable and too subjective. I suggest defining requirements and categories to critique the works. That will also provide direction for creating the setting. It's ok to travel along a tangent; however, it is important that the judging mechanism has objectives for qualification. Here are some areas of judging I think are important:

The submitted work must meet the following requirements before it can be judged:
* Must submit 10,000 to 11,000 words in a common file type. All parts contribute to the word count.
* The chosen game system must be one that is still published, readily available, supported by the author and accepts or allows third party submissions.
* Introduction: a 500-word overview of the setting.
* Outline: shows the major chapters and topics.
* Exposition: minimum 6000 words of prose elaborating on the outline
* Rules Integration: minimum 500 words showing how the setting makes use of the chosen game system.
* Story: provide at least one 500-word, fictional work from an in-game viewpoint that sets the style.
* Game Play: give a 500-word, example of play that best represents the style.
* Glossary: define proper names, unique terms and redefined words.

The setting is judged in three categories:
* Originality: the setting is unique or at least has a majority of unique elements developed during this contest.
* Presentation: make good and clever use of layout, prose, art, continuity and delivery methods to expain it clearly and enhance the feel of the setting.
* Compatibility: uses the majority of rules of an existing game system as-is. Enhancements support the unique elements of the setting without undermining or contradicting the basic game system.

Ideally, each participant would judge all of the other submissions, but that may not happen due to time constraints. The contest will require at least three judges who do not participate in the contest. They must review each submission and judge it. Participants may not judge their own work and must judge at least two other settings.

Each setting is submitted and checked for requirement qualification before the deadline. Incomplete submissions are returned with a simple explanation. All participants and judges review the submissions and assign points to each category along with commentary. Each category can have from 1 to 5 points where 1 is the worst judgment and 5 is the best. The total of 3 to 15 becomes one of the scores for that submission. When each setting has been judged the same number of times, the scores are tallied and the submissions are ranked. In case of ties, the judges each cast one vote to break the tie. After the contest is closed, the judges' and participants critiques are published.

Troy

[StefanS]

Troy,

I love to see your enthusiasm about this contest idea, but let's stay down on the earth.
Three judges seem to me like overkill, considering that we've just got six people who announced that they might participate (if I count Frank, too). If we find volunteers for this job, than this would be great. However, as long as it seems that this contest will run on a pretty small scale, we should stay humble in regard of administration effort and simply count on the participants themselves for voting, as long as no volunteers show up.

In regard of your contribution requirements, I'd like as first to point out that Frank used 10,000 words as maximum without telling anything about a minimum, not as an expected guideline around which your setting has to hover.
I'd like to keep the contributions that small, so that a.) you have to focus on the essential points without bloating around here and there and b.) reading all contributions keeps a low entry barrier - to read a 2,000 or a 6,000 word setting is a less demanding and daunting task than a 10,000 or 11,000 word setting.

Also, I don't know if such a rigid structure would serve us well. I'd prefer to let the participants decide which parts they wish to leave out and how much room they want to give to each part.
I, for example, have a dislike for in-game stories and similar fluff, and including such a thing would be a chore and a hyperfluid distraction for me.
You should also keep in mind that not every system needs a lot of words about rule-tweaking. For instance, I wouldn't know how to come up with 500 explanatory words if I were going to use The Pool, no matter how strange my setting would be.

However, several distinct categories to vote seems like a good idea. That would allow more differentiation without loading up too much administration effort.

- Stefan

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hey Stefan,

You're right. Let's keep it relaxed and friendly. No contest. Just a challenge: make the best setting you can!

Submit a setting design of at least 2,000 words and no more than 5,000. It must incorporate the game system you want to use. Be creative and have fun. Keep these three criteria in mind when writing:

Originality -- get exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you. Brainstorm and never throw out an idea, no matter how ridiculous and fantastic it may be.
Presentation -- be clear and concise with style and substance. Get your point across to the audience any way you can.
Integration -- show how the game system works with your setting.

Post your draft so others can see. Use a link if you want to include a formatted document.

Troy

[Frank T]

I suggest the game chef rules are a good place to start with. Given the fact that we don't have a time limit, we should definitely include a bar on word count. Are 5,000 enough? In German, I would aim for 10,000, but then again, German needs more words to transport the same amount of content.

Regarding judging directives, I would propose the following:
- How well do you think the game system got integrated? How well do you think it fits?
- How well do you think the game will work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?
- How complete, accessible and well presented do you find the material?
- How interesting, original, stylish and "juicy" do you find the setting?

Regarding judging procedure, it would of course be cool to have a jury with some celebrity indie-rpg-design rock-stars for the contest, but I don't expect us to get one, so let's go for voting for each others' settings. Something along the lines of: Everybody gets four settings he should read and appoint a score between 1 and 10. The four best ones then get judged by everybody.

- Frank

[StefanS]

In regard of length, I did a quick research on the Wushu-Saberpunk-Wiki and the Risusiverse-Wiki (two wikis which offer short settings in English language for Wushu and Risus). Most are pretty sketchy, but Arcadomai for Risus seems to have the right length for the average setting that I would expect as the result of this challenge, hovering around 8,000 words. So 10,000 words seem like a good upper limit to me.

Regarding voting, the 4 categories from Frank seem perfectly fitting for me, and it would be fully OK for me to get four settings assigned for evaluating purposes.

- Stefan

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello,

Yaaaaay! 10,000 words! Actually, the rules of the contest have become unimportant to me. I haven't been this creative in a long time! I started writing and I just can't stop.

Troy

[Ben Lehman]

Out of curiosity, why have a word requirement at all?  I can easily imagine settings I can adequately express in a very small number of words (Polaris being one of these -- the entire book is under 30,000 and most of that is rules, examples, and reference material.)  I can also imagine settings that would require a large number of words to complete.  Why limit it?

yrs--
--Ben

[Frank T]

If you can do it in 1,000 words, that's perfectly fine. If you do it in 100,000 words, though, that's a little tough on the people who have to score you, isn't it?

- Frank

[Eero Tuovinen]

Well, talking practice, I think it's a problem with the contestant if he writes such long-winded prose that he bores the judge with it. No judge of artistry has a duty of discounting boredom - if your setting could be done in 1,000 words but you still use 100,000, then you deserve the lower score you presumably get when the judge can't be bothered to get engaged.

In other words - being succint is always a benefit, but if you can keep the interest with your long-winded submission, more power to you.

[Frank T]

Eero, I was talking about time expenditure. 100,000 words is, I don't know, presumably 200 pages. I for my part am not willing to read that much on behalf of judging a single challenge entry.

- Frank

[Eero Tuovinen]

Indeed. I assume that you wouldn't be willing to give a high score to something you won't even be reading very thoroughly, right? I know I'd be quite ruthless about skimming a 200-page setting as a first priority to see if it's worth it to actually read it all. Then again, not everybody is necessarily comfortable as a judge if they have to decide for themselves when they've given a suitable amount of attention to a work. It's certainly easier if all works are so short that you can read them through once and assure yourself that you've done your duty.

But, on the larger issue of getting the competition off the ground: I suggest that getting bogged in this kind of exhange about details is counterproductive. Better to just set down the basic idea, assign an organizer and let him worry about the details. In other words, revel in your power of setting the details however you think best. Or harass me about setting it up so you can participate, and watch me decide all these details in a manner pleasing to me. Whatever, doesn't affect the participation rate.

[Frank T]

If there is a fair and open mode of scoring all entries, I see no reason why the initiator of the Challenge should not himself participate. I do have a setting in mind I would like to contribute, if I find the time. I'll see if I can make something up this weekend and post it here and at Story Games. I'll also ask at 1km1kt for hosting.

- Frank

[StefanS]

I agree with Frank on the length matter. I wouldn't be excited about reading a single 200-pages setting, let alone 4 of them.
Of course I don't want to unnecessarily constrict anyones creativity, but even less do I want to force participants to do a evaluation job that will probably outgrow them. This could probably scare away even more interested people than a length maximum.

So, if you think that your setting will need a lot of detail to work: Keep your submission on a small scale. Put your focus on a single country or a single region or what-do-I-know, describe this on the high detail level you find necessary, and only touch on the carryover of the setting with short summaries. After the contest, you can still expand and flesh out the remaining parts, but for the challenge itself, you should keep the workload for your fellow participants low.



Regarding the challenge set-up: I like to see everyone having a say in this matter. However, if things are dragging that heavily, I agree that the initiator should be allowed to lay down the law so that things get done.

- Stefan