Ceramic DM - Spring 2005 (Late Bloomer) - We have a winner.

[BSF]

OK, Berandor vs Speaker it will be then. I am doing some quick time calculations here. Berandor is coming up on his Monday morning. Speaker is coming on his midnight. Berandor goes on vacation on Friday. If I post in the morning, it will be Berandor's afternoon and Speaker's morning. That will give both of them less downtime immediately after the pictures are posted. I think I will do that.

Expect pictures in the morning. Berandor can brainstorm over supper and Speaker can brainstorm over breakfast.

PS - Berandor, sorry about the suboptimal time. I wish we could have caught it on the weekend. But then again, I was at work all weekend. Maybe it just works out?

 

[BSF]

Query

Out of curiosity, how did everyone feel about the first round being 3 competitors instead of 2?

Yes, I know the judgements were behind. I'm sorry about that.

 

[Maldur]

I liked the three stories per set, had a nice feel to it.

Good luck on round two peoples

 

[Maldur]

Macbeth

However, a group of slaves trained in dancing as fighting is a great idea for some D&D monks.

Google capouera, it is a southamerican dance/martial art

 

[Berandor]

It's all right. Pics today mean 72 hours of qriting time, so I'm fine. I was dreading thursday morning

Three stories was nice, but I advanced, so... I think having two people to write against ups motivation, but might spell doom easily. We haven't had a bad first-round entry, at all, this time, not even a particularly mediocre one.

But the judgements were late

 

[yangnome]

Out of curiosity, how did everyone feel about the first round being 3 competitors instead of 2?

Yes, I know the judgements were behind. I'm sorry about that.

I think I would have prefered two in each round. I understand that you were trying to create a set up that would offer even brackets for the competition in order to avoid a round with a bye. I think though that pairing contestants whether you have eight, ten, twelve, etc. is perhaps a better option. I think feedback would be a bit more focused and it wouldn't be as large an effort for judges(at least in one round, overall it would be a larger effort as you'd need to judge more matches) .

When you reach teh round that has the bye, the judges can select the best story from the losers of that bracket (the round that was just decided, not out of the whole contest) to move on and fill that slot, thereby giving them a second chance. While this may seem unfair due to different pic groups, or the chance that someone lost a round could still conceivably win the tournament, I think it would add an interesting element. This would allow a talented writer who may have written a stronger story than winners in some of the other matches to get a chance to progress. I don't think we've seen it yet in this contest, but previous CDMs have witnessed early pairings of strong writers. This of course, wouldn't save all such cases, but it would allow the chance for one person to get a second chance, which I feel is in the spirit of the competition. To make it even more fun, perhaps the selection from teh loser bracket could be decided by all judges and competitors (all of those in teh tournament, not just those left in the bracket).

Anyhow, this is just a thought. It isn't meant as a criticism, or as sour grapes (My suggestion wouldnt have effected me anyway as both the peopel I competed against wrote stronger stories than I did).

 

[yangnome]

While I am throwing out random musings and selections where they do not belong…

Have you given thought to having more than one judging team? Provided you can drum up the people for participation, it would be interesting to see this put in place. Two teams could ease the burden for all judges as well, which would provide for a better chance of timely feedback. For instance, had each of you only had two matches to judge instead of four, feedback would have likely been a lot quicker, even with the work situation.

I understand that different judges would provide potentially different results, but as long as the same judges review the same stories, it shouldn’t be too big an issue. Sure, personal preference of judges might come into play, but this will be a factor no matter how many judges there are. It wouldn’t affect the competition round for round though. Once at the end, five judges (or three) could be selected to judge the final two stories.

This could even be done with a pool of five judges where three are randomly selected to judge each match. Either solution would help ease the demand on the judges. It might also help avoid a situation where a judge might be judging a friend’s story (or a friend who doesn’t/can’t compete because they are close to one judge.) Additionally, if the real world should interfere with a judge’s life (or even multiple judges), one of the other judges could step in and the tournament could progress.

While I’m making suggestions that assume we have infinite manpower… It might be a good idea to have the contest organizer not judge the competitions. That in itself is a big amount of work. Organizing rounds, selecting the pictures, posting the results, etc. takes a lot of time. Using this as a separate position, or as an emergency fill in judge might be a good option. As an added benefit, this change would also free up an involved person to provide outside critique while waiting on judging results. It’d be interesting to hear how or why the pictures were selected as they were and what stories they might have drummed up inside the image selector’s head. This would all help tide the time between the time the stories are posted and the time the decisions are posted.

Anyway, I guess that is all for now. Once again, none of these selections are meant as a criticism of the way things are being run now. I think you all are doing an outstanding job. I just thought I’d share my random musings.

 

[reveal]

Rangerwickett posted earlier today that he is off-board until Tuesday. Speaker still hasn't spoken up on when he is good.

Berandor & reveal, whould the two of you be up for pictures? Like maybe immediately? If so, I will rearrange the pairings for Rangerwickett vs Speaker.

Whenever you want to post the pictures, I'll be ready.

 

[reveal]

Out of curiosity, how did everyone feel about the first round being 3 competitors instead of 2?

Yes, I know the judgements were behind. I'm sorry about that.

It worked for me. It just made the competition that much tougher.

 

[reveal]

Thanks everyone! MaruaderX, you had a wonderful story and I knew it was going to be close. Arwink, I wish you had gotten yours in in time.

Why go to all those lengths? Who took the pictures? Why beat Eric in the fight, when losing would have given her an out?

The way I looked at it, she knew that Fat Jack would never let her go. If she lost, Jack would just kill Eric. If she won, she could get Jack alone and kill him. Basically, she just used Eric. This is something I didn't want to just come out and say, but figured the reader could infer that.