[The Official RPN Character Challenge 2015]Competition Feedback!

[SkyGinge]

I also was not intending to come off as confrontational, but I will admit that I read your post inferring a certain level of salt in it and responded accordingly; sorry for putting words in your mouth, aha. That said, it's not the job of the competition to tutor people on how to spell. Similarly, though you might have felt wronged, there were four judges voting that round, not just me, and even though I failed to accurately convey my reasoning (partially because that group was so dang hard to split :S ), the fact that the majority did not put you through would say that it was a fair result, and hence there are no real grounds to declare the competition unfair. The only thing potentially unfair about it would be that there was only four judges; a fact I immediately remedied by calling in Atom and Dago soon after. If you still want more reasoning, I'm more than happy to reread and even critique some specific posts for you, but for now I think Kaerri has hit the nail on the head.


Nevertheless, sorry for being so standoffish!

 

[Lioness075]

Thanks @Kaerri & @SkyGinge. That certainly does make more sense now. And perhaps once the whole competition is over then I could get some fair critique on my posts from both of you or even all of the judges if possible. I'm always seeking criticism on my writing, as I always am seeking to better myself in it. I know I've really fleshed out my character and so I'd love to hear what I could've done better, what I might have done wrong, etc.

 

[SkyGinge]

Anybody else out there with any ideas/feedback? @RubyRose @Atom The pair of you both said you had some more stuff to say

 

[RubyRose]

Sorry SkyGinge, totally spaced. Work has been a bit brutal lately. I'll get right on that, though. Thanks for the reminder.


As far as the submission process goes, and just the competition in general, the clearer you are the better it'll be for everyone so that way there won't be in confusion or arguments, the people competing will know the rules and will follow them. And the rules of what character can join are more than reasonable.


I uh... didn't really understand the genre part of it to begin with, so I don't understand the 'making it universal' part. Sounds good I guess? I didn't have any trouble there that I know of.


Again, I think setting up a limit would be really great because that way everyone would have it a little better. Those people who would have taken a long time writing a huge long post won't take as long and things will just move smoother. It was a good problem that you noticed, and I'm glad you're going to be doing something about it.


When it comes to 'Enforcing', there was one thing I wanted to point out and have you consider. Instead of saying so many from one group will be making it to the next round, I think it should be so many from the entire group will make it because that way if you have an entire group not follow the challenge, then you can remove people who don't participate or who don't follow the rules. And the thing is, I understand why you did the groups and can phrase it as 'if everyone follows the rules then so many from each group will pass, but if someone doesn't then the likelihood of them making it to the next round is very slim indeed' or something along those lines. I just think that would open things up for you guys a bit more because our characters were already facing death, more or less, and I think people are going to just shrug and say 'meh' at threatening the characters. Although having the limitation put on the character was a very interesting choice on your part. That might work as well.


I think a few friendly challenges would be fantastic! I don't entirely know what you have in mind but at the same time, a well rounded character is best seen in good situations as well. I'd just be careful to make sure there's an obvious challenge in there, and that the challenge makes it interesting because too much happy can be really dull. It's kind of fun to write difficult situations... it's fun to write happy, too, when things are done right!


Also, yes, multiple posts to qualify really would be nice. It's so much more fun to have an active group. That last round I had with lafeae was seriously one of the best rounds by far because I knew I was actually going to get to roleplay with them and we were both able to really explore our characters.


I'm not so sure I agree with making it so people can't post in the out of challenge posts when a challenge finished. That's a whole day where our characters could be enjoying the company of other characters... I just feel there's a better way to work it out then just saying people can't post. Because then we just have the one day to post in the thread before the next challenge starts. I just feel there's a better way then to just say 'no, you can't post until the results are up.' Maybe have a more cohesive 'what happens when a character loses' explanation. You know 'the character is pulled into the tunnel one last time, etc'. I know you guys wanted to see some great 'death' posts where the characters actually died in the competition- Aldur and his thirst for blood- but a lot of times if a character was written to die in the scene then they wrote the character dying in the scene and then they could wake up in the lobby and be like 'I thought I was dead?' and then if they lose they can write their end post... whether the gods pull them away to smite them or they end up back home.


I don't know if a 50/50 public voting is such a good idea. I'm honestly afraid of this becoming a 'friend' popularity vote. Its not that I don't have faith in the lovely people of RpN, I just question biases. Still, a public vote would be fun if implemented right but I think that the judges should hold more sway so even if it's like 70/30 judges/public.


The eliminated character feedback thread is a wonderful idea... all these great suggestions really have me excited for the next Character Competition, though I still love this competition. You guys are going to get better each time you do this!


Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and suggestions. Have a great day!

 

[SkyGinge]

When it comes to 'Enforcing', there was one thing I wanted to point out and have you consider. Instead of saying so many from one group will be making it to the next round, I think it should be so many from the entire group will make it because that way if you have an entire group not follow the challenge, then you can remove people who don't participate or who don't follow the rules. And the thing is, I understand why you did the groups and can phrase it as 'if everyone follows the rules then so many from each group will pass, but if someone doesn't then the likelihood of them making it to the next round is very slim indeed' or something along those lines. I just think that would open things up for you guys a bit more because our characters were already facing death, more or less, and I think people are going to just shrug and say 'meh' at threatening the characters. Although having the limitation put on the character was a very interesting choice on your part. That might work as well.

Yeah, that seems like a fairly easy fix :')


Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Kaerri]

When it comes to 'Enforcing', there was one thing I wanted to point out and have you consider. Instead of saying so many from one group will be making it to the next round, I think it should be so many from the entire group will make it because that way if you have an entire group not follow the challenge, then you can remove people who don't participate or who don't follow the rules. And the thing is, I understand why you did the groups and can phrase it as 'if everyone follows the rules then so many from each group will pass, but if someone doesn't then the likelihood of them making it to the next round is very slim indeed' or something along those lines. I just think that would open things up for you guys a bit more because our characters were already facing death, more or less, and I think people are going to just shrug and say 'meh' at threatening the characters. Although having the limitation put on the character was a very interesting choice on your part. That might work as well.

I really like the idea of "punishing" the characters as Ginge did this last round. It adds to the RPness of it all. (^.^)


I also like the current system of eliminating people from each group rather than a set number for the entire round. It led to some thought-provoking judging, at least on my part, because sometimes there was a group where practically everyone really, really impressed me, and sometimes a group that was not so impressive. And that's actually a good thing - there have been some really good posts I would've missed out on if we'd been voting on the entirety of the round rather than in discrete groups. (Though I can't help but wonder what other good posts I did miss out on, from players who were eliminated early in - I hope you all come back next year to try again!)

 

[AlexSilverX]

~The Submission Process~

• Improve and clarify time period rules
  
  I feel like you pretty much covered all that needed to be said in this regard.
  

[*]Make the 'genre category' universal

• Same as above
  

[*]Clarify combat 'preference' as a preference that will set up the kind of challenges you face

• Not sure how you'd implement this, but I'd suggest a scale, perhaps?
  
  (On a 1 to 10, how comfortable would this character be with X? 1 being not at all, 10 being completely)
  

~Competition Threads~

• Implement a word/paragraph limit for posts
  
  I recommend you also implement a time limit on posts. I.E.: You have a minimum of X hours to reply.
  

[*]Enforce the completion of challenges

• I would go with the disqualification angle.
  

[*]Make a few more friendly challenges

• I whole-heartedly agree and hope to see some of this in the next year.
  

[*]Make it so that you can't just post once and qualify in the early rounds

• I whole-heartedly agree.
  

~Non-Judged IC Threads~

• Make Non-Judged IC threads more cohesive
  
  Logical
  

~Judging~

• Implement a way for judges to also have player characters
  I used to host a (much smaller scale) competition on the site I was before joining RPN, with 16-32 members depending on the year. In order to allow judges to partake in the competition, we had a couple of "back up" judges who would only have the judge function when the judges themselves could not vote themselves due to the potential bias they could have as a result of being part of the fight (the RP was fight-centric, as opposed to this competition) themselves. This RP ran for 3 years and this system seemed to work very well for us. However, I feel I should note that it led to some degree of discontent on the 3rd year when I won the competition myself. So much so that we did not have a fourth run of the RP seeing as our judging abilities were brought into question and many screamed "shenanigans" at this result. I invite you to consider all of this when thinking about a way to make judges join the competition.
  

[*]Implement an element of public voting

• I would recommend the public be considered as "one of the judges" if considered at all. For example, if you have 6 judges, the public would be the 7th. That way, it can mostly be used as a sort of tie-breaker. After all, some people could vote just for their friend with no real basis to their vote, others could vote for the sake of voting and some will vote to troll, so it'd be unwise to give the unfiltered public an equal amount of power to that of the judges, especially since not all people are guaranteed to vote.
  

[*]Add an eliminated character feedback thread

• I feel like this should be a voluntary thing, since some people don't take too kindly to feedback, positive or not, but I approve of this idea.
  

[*]SIDENOTE

• I am joining this next year, I am extremely saddened that I joined the site too late to partake. (x_x)
  

 

[Kaerri]

Some sort of time limit may be helpful, but I'd shy away from making it hours. Perhaps a couple of days? Because of varying schedules and such, not everyone has the ability to respond at all hours of the day. For instance, during my workweek I have maybe an hour or two per day that I can spend on the computer at all, and that's got to be divided amongst all the other things I've got going on, not just RpN. And that's assuming I don't have other Real Life activities that pop up and prevent me from getting on the computer at all! So, if there was a "reply within 5 (or even 8 or 10) hours" requirement, I'd feel discouraged from even trying, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.


Judges having player characters: I don't think any of us envision the judges as active contestants, just non-competing participants. NPCs, of a sort.

 

[cojemo]

Well, I think I'll give some input on this, but specifically only on one specific point:


Enforce the completion of challenges


It was mentioned that in-character death/disqualification would be the punishment for not completing challenges. Now I understand why this would want to be done. All of the thinking and planning for these challenges would go to waste if no one decides to participate in them. However, and I'm not just saying this because Cyrus was one of the characters that shirked off challenge completion, I think that this is restricting to some characters, like the types who wouldn't take part no matter what. For example, not Cyrus since he could've been convinced but another character I thought about entering wouldn't have in no way done any of the challenges once he figured out people died, even if it meant he died. Of course, if the rules were what is being suggested then he would've been eliminated because of that whether he was a good character or not, and this was a test of seeing who the best character was and NOT who could get the most done, as was emphasized multiple times if I recall.


It's a tricky subject, but this is just something I thought of after reading through this again. I'd say the challenges were more so about seeing how each character reacted to them than how they actually completed it. My opinion would be to leave it to simply crippling the character in some way instead of eliminating them. Sure, it may not go the way you wanted it to, but isn't that the fun of RPing? That's just my opinion on the matter though.

 

[Kaerri]

I rather liked the crippling idea; it was fun seeing how the characters had to react with the additional level of challenge.