Would you participate in this?

[Mouseferatu]

I’ve been seriously considering running another contest, with prizes to include signed books and possibly some additional swag. But here’s the thing...

Some of my contests have drawn a fair amount of interest, but others have petered out almost unnoticed. And this one would require a decent bit of work on my part, and might also exclude some of my audience.

So here’s the question. If I were to run a contest that involved taking a character from my novels and statting them up in the role-playing game system of your choice, would there be any interest? Would any of you enter? Or would I be wasting my time and yours?

(For the moment, don’t worry about the specifics of the contest or how to enter. Just decide if the basic idea would interest you, assuming the prizes were something you wanted.)

Note, also, that I have a short story available for free--called "The Ogre's Pride"--that stars one of the characters from The Conqueror's Shadow. So even if you don't own/haven't read any of my novels, you could still participate by downloading and reading the short story.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've done stuff like that before. It presents me with an interesting challenge.

The trick, of course, is that you already have a concept in mind- it IS your character, after all- and we would need to know enough about the character in order to stat him or her (or it) out. Would there be a posting telling us about a particular character or characters, or would we have to read your work and pick a character to stat?

 

[Mouseferatu]

The idea is to pick a character of your choice from one of the novels. (That's why I mentioned the short story--so people who don't have one of the novels can still participate if they want to.)

And I won't be judging based on what's "right" or closest to my own ideas. I just want to see what people come up with, and it would be mostly random selection of winners from all entrants, with a bit of extra weight given to people who go into detail explaining why they made the choices they made.

 

[Kzach]

Sorry, but I wouldn't enter.

Statting up a character for this purpose requires a significant amount of effort. I'd explain that I'm too lazy to do this but...

 

[Mouseferatu]

If I were to tweak the contest to "stat your favorite character from (almost) any fantasy novel," as opposed to requiring it be one of mine, would more people be interested?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't know about "more interested", but I don't doubt it would be a lot easier to enter.

For instance, while I haven't read any of your work, I've got a buttload of books I've already read, so there are already a host of characters to work with at my mental fingertips.

But I have a feeling that such a change would change your stream of contest entries from a trickle into a biblical deluge.

 

[Crothian]

While I've read many of Ari's books I'm not sure I have a good enough grasp on the characters to stat them out well. That being said I'd be tempted to stat them out in a less complex system then say D&D to make it easier on me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

But I have a feeling that such a change would change your stream of contest entries from a trickle into a biblical deluge.

I'd be lying if I said that wasn't the point, since the ultimate purpose of said contest would be to get more of the people who might know me from gaming to start reading my fiction.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think the best way to achieve your goal would be to write up thumbnails of your better/favorite/more popular characters complete with a little italicized note pointing out their story of origin- "Bob, from Bob's Most Awesomest Drow-slaying Adventure, Poledancing Ostritch Press, 2004, blah blah blah blah blah..."- and post them in whatever forum you intend to launch the contest.

That way:

1) the entrants need not be initially familiar with your work to enter

2) the prospective entrants will be instantly familiarized with your works, with titles & character CVs as street signs- almost like book jacket blurbs

3 the contest will be constrained to a more finite- thus manageable- pool of entries

4) no worries about other authors who might idiotically assert some kind of IP violation

 

[Haltherrion]

I wouldn't enter; I haven't read your books and it would seem like a cheesy way to rope in more readers so on general principles, it wouldn't get me to read the books either.

But if I was a reader, I might find it interesting. Might be better in a different, fan based forum though, than a general forum. It seems overly self-promoting here...