RANDOM ADVENTURE IDEAS-- Help us pick a winner!

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'd say that, next time around, everyone get three random titles (at three different times) and have to write for all of them. Everyone would have a better chance at a good title, since it seems like several of the voters were swayed by title alone, and didn't seem to get the idea of the contest.

Yes, but let's not forget I am a fan of capriciousness. Sometimes you just get a bad draw and have to make the best of it. I consider that an opportunity to "rise to the challenge."

I mean, it's not like anybody got, "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?" as their random draw.

Beyond that, I believe it comes down to personal preference of individual ingredients-- of course more people like Whores than Frogs.

Do you guys really think the competition will be more "fun" if it is more "fair?"

By which I mean to say, we can all easily see ways that we might make the contest more fair, but I do not necessarily acknowledge that it will make it more fun.

But, I certainly can't ignore that sentiment if it's overwhelming amongst the competitors.

 

[Asmor]

"WHAT'S THAT SMELL?"

Dibs!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Dibs!

Too late!

 

[Asmor]

D'oh!

 

[blargney the second]

Anyways, my suggestion for the next one is to give people, say, 5 random dungeon titles, and they need to choose one.

Or, alternatively, make it into a single- or double-elimination competition... Pair people off, give each pair the same title, and have them email you their description... Then post both descriptions simultaneously for voting.

I think either of those are great ideas, particularly the second one. I like competitive competitions.

Thanks for running this, Wulf - it was fun!
-blarg

ps - I'll take "Mythic Heroes in PDF" for $500, Trebek. (kevin at redhotswing dot com)

 

[Wystan]

I would like to do the following:
Pair people off, give each pair the same title, and have them email you their description... Then post both descriptions simultaneously for voting.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Pair people off, give each pair the same title, and have them email you their description... Then post both descriptions simultaneously for voting.

Errrg, there's too much overhead with that-- and it doesn't allow the entries to come in publicly.

Pairing people off also means we have a series of "brackets" which commits winners to continuing on to the next bracket, and eliminates the "horse race" aspect of the open field.

The simplicity of the "I'll play!" post followed by "Ok! Here's your entry!" means that people can join very easily. (And honestly, we only had 10 entries or so last time, let's not make it harder to play.)

Based on your feedback so far I think we're really tilting at two different things here.

1) The desire to not get saddled with an unwieldy entry
2) The desire for head-to-head competition vs. the open field.

With regards to #2, I like the open field. It is faster to adjudicate and gives the voters a chance to see everything at the same time, and doesn't require me to commit to judging this thing like a tournament.

So honing in on what we can accomplish wrt #1, maybe the first thing to do is to review our list of ingredients and perhaps weed a few out and change a few around?

That, coupled with the competitor's choice of adding a word to his ingredients once he gets them?

Give every competitor two titles to choose from?

Though I feel very strongly that "rising to the challenge" is an important part of proving your mettle.

 

[blargney the second]

Wow.. I just had a quick thumb through Mythic Heroes. Well played, Trebek.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Maybe it'd be as simple (or not) as adding more keywords to the random dungeon name generator?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Yes, but let's not forget I am a fan of capriciousness. Sometimes you just get a bad draw and have to make the best of it. I consider that an opportunity to "rise to the challenge."

As an aside, do you prefer random roll to point buy?