The SWU Tourney: Exploratory Thread

[Rugs]

So, after quite a while in discussion, we're deciding to reveal something to you guys.

We've been discussing the idea of a SWU duel tournament for a long time. Even before the more recent serious discussion arose, it's been an idea that comes up and is bounced around with some frequency for a number of years.

Now we're deciding to move ahead with this. But first we need to see what level of interest from all of you guys in this, since you'll be the ones that make this whole thing go.

Further details will be forthcoming, as some of this is still being worked out behind the scenes. But I believe I can say this much:

Scoring in the tournament will be handled the same way as it is in the Practice Duel section. That is to say, points will be awarded for writing well and writing fairly, not necessarily for having the strongest character.

It should go without saying that this will be an OOC event. Characters can and likely will die, but it won't have any bearing on their deadness out on the boards proper.

The current plan is for this to be a New Year's event. So we hope to have this able to be up and running in early January.

We do want people that sign up, when that comes, to be active. We'll give a window of time to allow posting, but please do plan on hanging around if you sign up. We know life happens, but to keep this moving along, if the window goes by without a post from a participant, the opponent will advance to the next round.

A proper sign-up thread will be put up later, we have people that want to participate. If you are interested and want to say you'll participate, you can note as much here and you'll be included in the list when that goes up. But this is primarily to gauge interest and see what you guys have to say.

Dutch and myself will be the heads of this, so if there are any questions, feel free to ask :3

[Dutch]

[Raytheon]

I have a couple of questions.

Scoring in the tournament will be handled the same way as it is in the Practice Duel section. That is to say, points will be awarded for writing well and writing fairly, not necessarily for having the strongest character.

While I like to take comfort in this, I take reluctance on a few things:

• 1. will those who judge also be able to participate and if so how can we trust there will be fairness it's a conflict of interest.
  
• 2. I assume GFC characters will be allowed based on this there is already unfair advantages regardless of the notion of written ability. Since those who judge may also have GFC characters.
  

[0bserver]

I voted "No", because, I think, at this point, the tournament system proposed is flawed, and I don't see how it can be fixed. Allow me to explain.

As we all know, SWU is comprised of many, many 'combat-type' characters, with skill and powerlevel ranging from that of an ordinary gunman to a badass mandalorean to overpowered force wielder to GFC. When looking at this, it is fairly obvious that some fights, if using a randomizer to assign dueling pairings, will be cakewalk for some chars and quick and brutal defeat for the others. The only mechanism offered to deal with this is:

Scoring in the tournament will be handled the same way as it is in the Practice Duel section. That is to say, points will be awarded for writing well and writing fairly, not necessarily for having the strongest character.

From how I see it, it sorta contradicts its own purpose. Allow me to demonstrate on example:

A simple dude with a blaster ends up against a Jedi Knight of some sort. Now, if we imply the 'writing fairly' thing mentioned in the quote above, the blaster dude should be sliced in half within two-three posts, unless the Jedi Knight acts like a complete moron, or purposefully gives the weaker foe a chance. Which, in most cases, would mean derailing the character, which does not correspond with 'writing fairly'. Or, we could have the weaker character activate 'Han Solo Shield', to last a bit longer, which, again, would not be 'writing fairly', only this time towards the Jedi.

In my opinion, opponents MUST be somewhat equally matched, to have things fair, and have the 'writing fairly' 'quality writing' and 'strategic thinking' play any role. Otherwise it would end up stronger characters rofl-stomping weaker ones, without even enough time for the weaker ones to try using the 'writing' to win some points before they die. Either that, or we will have Han Solo's fighting on par with force-users and powerful mercenaries, while armed with a shoddy blaster pistol. Which, I warrant, is a poor alternative.

The tournament system needs to be remade, so that fights would be fair, balanced, and not force to stretch or derail our characters.

Dixi.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

I'm really not too excited about duels to begin with, but there's a couple key points here I think need to be addressed. And by couple, I mean two. I'm going to address them in order of priority.

1. It's a problem in my opinion when we lump all the characters into one category. We judge off of fairness, and that leads to an imbalance, and we expect it to end in death, which can be idiotic. Let's say a Padawan is fighting a Master. The Master is a vastly better fighter, so either 1. The Master holds back to be fair and loses coolness points, or 2. The Padawan inexplicably holds their own and possibly loses fairness points. One of the two characters has to do something that doesn't make sense, and when it invariably results in someone winning, either we're left with the blindingly obvious conclusion based off ability, or we're expected to just believe Padawan Snuffy killed a Sith Lord by himself. This problem also gets worse when we expand and put forcies against non-forcies. So it's got the potential to get completely ridiculous pretty quickly if we divorce stats from writing quality. What comes to mind as a solution is dividing the tournament into sections, and declaring a winner among each mastery level. However, that's more work, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was rejected for that reason alone.

2. Judges. I'm a fan of a proverbial wall of separation between participants and judges, with no overlap. As of now, I get the vibe that the people most excited about participating are going to be the judges, which strikes me as a very bad idea. I would recommend finding people who aren't participating, and have them judge it. The ones not interested are also probably more impartial, or at least have more of an impartial appearance.

So there's my two points. Feel free to ignore them now.

[Apillis]

"Writing fairly" basically means, keep things within reason, whether underpowered or overpowered. If a GMA is in the tournament (I have no idea what the GFC are, I'm assuming you mean the GMAs (Green Meadows Assassins)), you're not going to see them suddenly whip out a their favored weapon and off someone within one or two posts. Bear in mind, this sort of thing is a writing exercise more than anything else by its own description (at least from what I took away from it), so it's largely going to boil down to how well its written.

However, naturally coming in with an underpowered or average leveled character is going to have its disadvantages. But that comes down to the cleverness of the writer, not the character alone to how well they perform. In short, you are your character's flaws.

Personally, I have a several powerful characters, but the ones I'm most leaning to are Magdalena (a young Sith) and Six (an Imperial Intelligence assassin), both are not overpowered in any stretch of the imagination, and both have numerous flaws both in character and martially. But again, not just those flaws I put in place with those characters but also in the decisions I make for them, has only little to do with the character per se, but has everything to do with me as the writer. I am my characters' faults, just as you are yours.

The 'writing fairness' bit (as I've always understood it since RPing here steadily approaching 4 years), has to do with things like avoiding "I summon bigger fish." actions. Basically less to do with, "Ok, my char has a 9 in ranged, this means I'm going to automatically win this fight, because none of your stats trump that.", and more to do with maintaining a level of dynamic drama without being a total goon.

[Juzt]

i really want this to work. Trust me. Because it would be very cool. However, I don't see that it can. I don't see how for instance, my Bounty Hunter can beat a Sith or a Jedi. He is likely to spend all of his time, hiding or running and firing over his shoulder. Unless he is a Mandalorian warrior in tough armour and bristling with weapons I would argue there is almost no chance of him winning. I think there is little confidence from anyone with a simple blaster wielding character that they can beat a Jedi in a convincing and non-contrived way.

If we could address that, maybe it would not be so bad. For now however, I am not sure that writing interesting posts will compensate, for a ordinary human or alien, taking on a being with superior reflexes, precognition a lightsaber that can deflect all of his attacks and Force powers. It is little squashy mortal against Super Jesus.

I want this to work I really do, I hate being negative but I am not sure how it can.

[0bserver]

I see your points, but I disagree with them, for reasons I will state now. I'll quote each and write down answers below.

"Writing fairly" basically means, keep things within reason, whether underpowered or overpowered. If a GMA is in the tournament (I have no idea what the GFC are, I'm using you mean the GMAs (Green Meadows Assassins)), you're not going to see them suddenly whip out a their favored weapon and off someone within one or two posts.

and

The 'writing fairness' bit (as I've always understood it since RPing here steadily approaching 4 years), has to do with things like avoiding "I summon bigger fish." actions.

Here's where OOC knowledge gets into conflict with keeping a charrie In-character. You see, it is exactly what I wrote in my post about 'giving another one a chance'. You, as a writer, know you would do this for sake of fairness, and nothing more. But IC reasoning for your charrie? A GMA, from what I got by reading their apps, are efficient and merciless assassins. It makes sense for them to draw their most powerful weapons and obliterate the opponent the very second the fight starts. It would be Out of character to do otherwise. And coming up with a decent explanation as to why a cold-blooded assassin, all of a sudden, decided to 'play with their prey' and not using his clear advantage is folly.

However, naturally coming in with an underpowered or average leveled character is going to have its disadvantages. But that comes down to the cleverness of the writer, not the character alone to how well they perform. In short, you are your character's flaws.

First line is downright appalling. Is this a tourney aimed only for strong chars? My characters are on the average scale, one is a pilot with a blaster pistol, the other's a merc with two blaster pistols. Am I supposed to have nothing short of power armor, corthosis blades and repeating blaster rifles to have a fighting chance? This is more the reason to assign people in different groups, depending on power-level.

The second line, about 'being clever, when facing a stronger foe', is the most generic argument in all strong vs weak charries. "Just be smart about it, and you'll surely win.". That line kinda assumes that the opponent will act like a complete moron. While certainly, field advantage, clever use of environment and weapons at hand, tactics are very important, there's only so much you can do to gain some advantage over a stronger foe. In the end, all your smartness will be for naught if the foe can just tank most of what you can think up throwing at him. There's still a limit a char can possibly do, even if using him as smartly as possible.

[Raytheon]

GFC is Grand Father Clause characters, who have 9's along with multiple specialized skills.

While we the writer can write well you'd have to step out of a character's possible intelligence (a stat btw) to compete with a stronger, faster, smarter opponent who should easily mop the floor with you if you are a obviously weaker character and non forcer.

As it sits the tournament for reasons I've stated now and before is still unfair.

[Apillis]

The problem each of you are having is your obsessed with the stats themselves, and ignoring that the stats are guidelines. Get out of the narrow view that the stats are utter absolutism, while they should be respected--at the same time it isn't a despot regime. A guy with a 5 in range, can shoot and kill a GMA with a 7 or 8 in Speed in the back. How is such a thing possible? Again, the writer is their own character's flaws.

And I don't know why you would find "appalling" my stating that going in with a character that is underpowered or average leveled will naturally have a disadvantage. Why would they? BECAUSE THEY'RE AN AVERAGE-LEVEL AND UNDERPOWERED CHARACTER! YOU DESIGNED THEM TO BE WEAK OR MEDIOCRE OR UNIMPRESSIVE! YOU ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S FLAWS, YOU MADE THEM THAT WAY YOURSELF! What, do you think that whatever disadvantages YOU wrote into the character when facing a Force-wielder or GMA should no longer matter or apply because it's a writing tournament? Please. Now it's just getting silly.

Each of you are looking at the supposed "uberness" of a character, while ignoring the fallibility of the writer. On top of which utterly failing to look at this as a writing exercise, and more so not thinking of it as a competitive interactive narrative. It's coming across from what I've been reading is you're too focused on your "toon dying in pvp" than actually thinking about how to participate in competitive writing with all the chips on the table.

[Juzt]

The point is not whether weakness should apply or not. Of course Character weakness should apply. The point I was trying to make, is that even a quite good gunman will stand no chance against a Sith or Jedi of Medium and upwards ability. It is not believable to elongate such a confrontation. Therefore Forcies should take on each other, and other kinds of fighters should take on each other, there should be groups and categories. I accept that their our weakness is my charries some I have built in on purpose because it suits their charries to have a weakness with such and such.

Also stats are not really the issue. Jedi and Sith are more powerful and capable than non force sensitives. They just don't compare.

[0bserver]

The problem you are having, Apillis, is that you're closing your eyes on a potential problem, and repeat 'writer and character flaws', without offering any reason, or practical examples. If you look at my writings, you would not see stats being mentioned once. Not once. It is all the matter of abilities and equipment. If you're still not getting what I am talking about, here's a 'Real Life' example.

Let's take Boxing for this. Or most kinds of sports, really. They are divided on grades, ranks, belts, and other stuff that determine 'Level' of a participant. You won't see a novice boxer fighting in a tourney against a World Champion. Because that would be retarded. Then why are you so adamant on claiming that 'It's okay for an average charrie end up against a Sith Lord'?

I am saying, and I stand by what I say, that it would be impossible for a much weaker char to hold on against a much more powerful one long enough to make a decent thread, without it looking stretched, ridiculous or overplayed. You're the one who utterly fails to offer any kind of argument or logic in order to defend your point, or at least prove mine wrong.

[Swamps]

I know I'm not really known around here or experienced but I'll share my thoughts anyway.

I'm really excited about this. It sounds like a cool 'competition', however it doesn't seem like it's going to be a very fair competition say if my newly-promoted Jedi Knight duels a century-old Sith Lord. My character will be dismembered rather quickly and I'll be knocked out and although I will have had fun writing my dismemberment and 'hopeless last stand' I will have had no choice but to write it that way. The inevitability of my defeat writes me into a corner and I'll have a hard time making my violent death worthy of winning writing-wise.

So I will make a suggestion. There'll be plenty of holes to pick at but hey, that's why it's a suggestion and not a plan. Some sort of tiering system that has the century-old Sith Lord facing down his Jedi equal or sees two-bit bounty hunter facing one of his equally as two-bit competitors. How this would be decided is a mystery but I do have an idea. Do not force people into tiers but let them choose. Have the owner of the two-bit bounty hunter go 'Hmm... Do I want to face up against the other inexperienced characters or give myself a challenge and try the next tier?'. Alternatively you could implement some sort of simplified round robin competition where everybody faces everybody.

[Rugs]

Feedback! Feedback is good.

This thread is mostly for you guys to offer your feedback so we can take it under consideration, but I'll say a few things.

Strong vs Weak- I get your concerns. Trust me, I do. We've handled such instances before, however. There are examples of a much stronger character facing a much weaker one already out in the wild in the Practice Duel section, some of which are here[/u], here, and here. If a matchup like that arrives, just write. That's what this is about. We've handled things like this before. What you have to remember as well is that the fighting in a duel is only part of it. If you just take the place we give you and get dumped in and just get to fighting, then yes, some difficulties may be hard to overcome. But part of making a duel good is taking what you're given and breathing some life into it, making it a smaller excerpt from a larger story. That's writing, which is what this is about, first and foremost. The judges can give you some direction to start, if you wish, as is done in the Practice Duels section, when requested.

Also, keep in mind, these duels are going to be kept intentionally short- 4 or so rounds. Enough for an introduction post and a few rounds of back and forth. If we let them all go to their conclusion this would take all year to get through. If the participants want to continue the duel for fun after the official scoring period is over, then sure, we can do that, but the part that counts will not be that long.

Tiers- It's something we can certainly, consider, yes. If it's something wanted bad enough and it's something we have enough people to sign up for to make it a feasible option, then yes, that's something we can do. If that happens, the most likely split will be Force/Non-Force. More are possible, but this all depends on what the makeup of our sign ups are.

The amount of flexibility we have to deal with some of these concerns depends on how many people we have invovled in this. If we get good turnout, we can split things up further, if necessary, but it depends on you guys. If we have a good number of people, we can make more adjustments for things, but if we don't, our hands are more tied.

Judges- We've discussed this as well; it was one of the first things we had to address. We have a policy in place for this. We'll also be putting out a call for judges when the sign-up thread goes out. I know I myself am not participating, however, though I will be judging.


ETA: Also, let's be nice, y'all :3 Discussion is good, but if you start mucking up my thread with silliness, I'll kick you out =P

[Squee]

So, I just wanted to pop in here and let everyone know that things are being discussed. In fact, Rugs and I were kind of tossing around some things a little bit ago. I wouldn’t fret, dearies, we definitely hear you.

The biggest concern, I think, is whether we’re going to have enough people. As Rugs said, flexibility depends on you guys. That was why this was put up here. Do you want to? Or just flat out no way, no dueling, no competition, ever? I think that was the purpose of this. I direct this more toward Talrath and Observer – is it just the potential issues? If they’re worked out, would you be on board?

Of potential issues that people have brought up, I wanted to say something.

Lmr – as for judging and participating, it is, to my understanding, that those who are judging and participating would have other judges look over duels they are participating in. That way no one is grading their own duel, because that would be complete silliness. As far as who can judge, I do believe that’s volunteer stuff.

Talrath – I wouldn’t be too concerned about GFCs and GMAs. Why? Because if people don’t write fairly, they get docked points. Lose too many points? They lose the duel. And from my experience with facing GFCs/GMAs and being both a GFC/GMA, fairness weighs heavily on the mind of the writer. I feel you're worried about complete domination, but that's godmoding and not allowed. Not to mention, these charries have flaws too - hit them where they're weak.

The winner of a duel, as I understand it, is not about whether your charrie lives or dies. Rugs gave some good examples of charries who got roflstomped, but the winner was the person who’s charrie was squished. That’s how this is being judged. It’s the quality of the writer and what you do with the position that you’re in.

There was a duel between me and Kellah with our GMAs Echo and November, respectively. Echo got mashed because she was close distance, and November was ranged and managed to keep Echo at bay. This is an example of equally on par charries, where my character was losing, but I won the duel. I would advance to the next section if that duel was part of a tournament.

That’s what I think Apillis was trying to say.

Also, charrie death (if happens) was just supposed to add extra excitement to the duel. Your charrie, should they be killed but you win (based off of points), will pretty much be “resurrected”. Each duel is its individual occurrence, Rugs told me.

And then, if there’s any confusion, these duels are not integrated into their RP life. It’s like… something we as writers make them do, and then you use the mind wiping device from Men in Black on our charries and they don’t remember.

[Dutch]

It's hard for me to hear a lot of these concerns for the tourney, and see them as legit considering most people stating them, have either neither done a duel from being new or from disliking them from the start. Really, if you don't like the event, there's no one holding a lightsaber to your head forcing you to join the fun.

I'm not gonna restate what others have said about what is being done to keep fairness up, but all I wanna say is trust us guys, we're staff because we love SWU and everything about it- the last thing we want is to alienate people! This whole idea started as a way for people to get introduced to new characters that they normally wouldn't experience and introduced to new writers.

Also, as a GFC/GMA user, all I gotta say is more chances are than not that Levin and Lima would not be used, just out of fairness. I'm probably gonna toss my CIVILIAN Dutch into the mix. Why? Cause it'll be way too much fun to see some smartass farmboy fighting sith and Jedi and Mandos.

Those are my few thoughts on what has been said, but really, more than anything, to those who are intimidated, and haven't dueled before, give it a try. Ask one of your friends on the site, ask someone to moderate it, and give it a chance. Duels are a ton of fun if you just let go and let yourself have that fun. And if you can't find anyone, ask me, I'm always down for a good romp >D

Love, Uncle Dutch

[Moonfire]

Sooo, considering Cain and I have a little experience running site wide dueling tournaments, I thought I'd jump in on this one.

I think this is a fantastic idea. Dueling Tournaments have no bearing on in character or plot interactions, so don't worry if you lose, it will in no way negatively impact you, 'cept maybe your pride, but if you're really concerned about that you're doing it wrong, haha!

The point really is to have fun, when I was particularly active on BHOD we had once a year the site anniversary games with a variety of contests and prizes, one of which was the Grand Tournament, which got the most attention. It was a great way to boost activity, got people into interacting and even matching them against opponents they wouldn't RP with usually.

I see alot of you are concerned about things being uneven, certain characters being OP and heavens-forbid, the GFCs! *girlie scream!~* But not to worry, your loving staff are trying to work out all the kinks before setting something like this up! The whole point is to have some community-style fun. Its less about glory and more about getting people excited about something and doing something together. Which is what you guys want, right?

On BHOD we had a level system for a while that depended on how often you posted, so in order to level the playing field for the Tournament we'd give everyone who registered a set number of points, for example purposes say that was... 10.

Now everyone has these 10 points and are to put these 10 points between skills to reflect your characters strengths and weaknesses, the number itself doesn't matter so much as what they represent, its simply a ratio. This essentially makes everyone even and the same 'level'.

Even with that sort of stat break down, it doesn't really...matter. This duel is being based almost entirely off writing ability and creativity. We're an RP forum, not a battle forum, so even say your character isn't god of dueling, and even if they die in battle that doesn't necessarily lose the match. Whoever wrote the best, most interesting posts win, while also making sense and having fun.

[0bserver]

As answering to Rugs, yes, I WANT to join this, which is why I am concerned so much about it. If I didn't plan to - trust me, I wouldn't be here wasting my time arguing and bickering (sorry if I were a bit brash earlier, Apillis).

[Swamps]

Cool. Looking awesome so far.
Besides if its not got any bearing on RP or your character's life, what does it matter?
It's just something fun!

[Kella]

The only aspect of duel grading that depends on stat number is fairness, and that just has to do with whether or not you're over-powering your char. So if you have a weaker char, but play fair and do awesome things with those limited skills (or have your char say witty things!) then you have more than a fighting chance. =D

Which is just to say, OH MY GOSH YES PLEASE ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT

~ return to the void... ~