The Vin Diesel Dungeons & Dragons Scholarship

[RangerWickett]

I actually meant 5 $2000 scholarships. You don't see $10,000 scholarships in this world, at least not unless the person has really earned it. I mean, you'd need to have saved the world to get a scholarship like that.

But if you just pretend that you're saving the world, that's only worth $2000.

 

[Alzrius]

Ryan, I think this is a good idea in theory, but there are several places I disagree with how you're going about it.

The idea of this only going to high school juniors or seniors seems unfair to those of us who are older. I'm finishing my last year of college now, and likewise am only now beginning to attempt (and succeed) in breaking into the RPG industry. It seems that given that, I should be just as likely to be rewarded for my efforts as someone six years younger than me. Especially considering I'm going to be paying back student loans even when I'm finished with college (and will be attending graduate school).

The idea of how to award these prizes seems somewhat flawed to me. First, there is no college in the world where you can go for a degree in how to create role-playing games. This means that the awards would have to go to people pursuing majors that could be applied to creating role-playing games, and this opens up the very large can of worms that is subjectivity. Certainly English majors would count, as would Literature majors. But what about History majors? Mythology? Theology? Computer Science for the computer RPG gamers? Business and Marketing (ideas on how to make your game succeed in the market)? Almost anything can be applied somehow as being related to creating RPGs. What's more though, you don't need to get a RPG-related degree to turn out great products. Seak K. Reynolds got his B.A. in Chemistry. Bruce Cordell graduated with a degree in Environmental, Population, & Organismic Biology ("with a nod to Molecular and Cellular Biology"). Neither are game-related degrees, but both are incredible game designers.

Finally, while fun, it hardly seems fair to require the applicants to be able to get to GenCon. Especially if they're just in high school, this is almost totally beyond their own power to do, and I doubt their parents will be too pleased that they have to take their kid to Indianapolis to cash in on the $2,000 scholarship prize.

As I said, the idea is very deserving of merit, but it just doesn't seem to work that well when applied to real life.

 

[Voneth]

A more achiveable goal for the scholarship would be to send in an essay to compete for a $1,000 grant.

As for the target majors, one needs to make some arbitrary decisons and stick to them. Personaly, I think a SF/F writing scholarship would do more for genre-related activites, and would be easier to define for the target majors.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hey, it was just a preliminary idea, really. I expected people to propose revisions.

An essay is probably a necessity; requiring them to actually pursue a particular is not. Perhaps make the scholarship renewable if they publish something in the year after they receive it (maybe, but I'm not too keen on that), but don't force people to choose a life path so early. Let's toss out the whole major-specific thing.

And I was not making college students eligible because I didn't want people to think I just wanted the money for myself, but yes, it should be open to more folks. So maybe 1 art and 1 writing for high schoolers, 1 of each for post high-schoolers (college or graduated), and maybe 1 to go to someone who already has published something.

And the flight to GenCon and housing, etc, would be paid for by the scholarship committee. It was more of a gift than a requirement. If they can't make it, or simply don't want to, that's cool, but I figured it'd be a nice bonus.

And yes, if we actually do this, we'll contact people's agents.

 

[Terraism]

It's sounding like a very nice idea, Ranger...

 

[mythago]

So this is, essentially, a chance for RPG players to make money fast?

 

[Usurper]

I'd really advise against this. Seems really frivolous to ask for money for a cause that pales in comparison to the rest of the world's problems. Maybe if it was for starving, homeless orphans who play D&D, and you were going to throw in the first hundred bucks...

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh come on. There are scholarships for the great-great-grand children of Civil War Veterans. It's not like all Civil War Veteran ggg-children are poor and starving. There are scholarships for people of Italian and Norwegian descent (like me), and I don't think there are huge cultural barriers to us succeeding in America.

You give someone a scholarship to encourage them to keep doing a good job at whatever they're doing. It's a merit-based scholarship, as opposed to a need-based scholarship.

But I won't get around to doing this for at least a while; I'm too busy right now. If you see me on the boards at any time during the rest of this day, please slap me and tell me to get back to work.

 

[Voneth]

I'd really advise against this. Seems really frivolous to ask for money for a cause that pales in comparison to the rest of the world's problems.

As does the private school scholarships that allow lower middle-class families to send their childrent to upper middle class middle school.

Honestly, few scholarships out there offer a assistance need-basis, and they are technicaly called a grant since your academics take back seat to your income. I know, I have received both grants and scholarships.

At face value, scholarships focus more your acadademics. But they also promote the education of a person in the hopes that they will enhance either a certain idea (religion, lifestyle, culture),profession or both. In a way, scholarship committees serve themselves (as in promoting their goals) as well as the promising student. In that respect, Wickett is on track.

If Wickett is really serious about a RPG scholarship, then he needs to set down straightforward guidelines on what majors can apply, or it will get messy. I would advise Mathmatics at the top of the list then Business, followed by English, and last but not least Graphic Design. Though I just had a very cool idea!

How about a scholarship that focuses on genre writing that publishes the short stories of the winning students? The application process would be to send in a short story, the best crafted stories earn their authors a scholarship as well as a copy of the anthology. Hopefully, agents would also be on the look out for the book to be on the look out for up and coming talent. With some luck and good marketing, perhaps the printing of the books would even pay for themselves most of the time.

 

[RangerWickett]

I can understand Business, English, and Graphic design, but why put mathematics at the top of the list? Roleplaying games definitely seem more of a literary occupation, requiring good storytelling skills. Of course, the ability to lay out a product to make it have good appeal is important, as is the ability to run a company that produces these things, but unless you're thinking just about general game-theory, I don't see how mathematics really fits in.

And no, actually I wouldn't want to restrict it to people of particular majors. People change their majors all the time, and who knows how a brilliant gamer who is majoring in Latin or Psychology might find a way to bring his or her knowledge into the game world. Heck, I took a Sociology class this year because I thought it would help me understand group roleplaying dynamics. Practically any field of study could be applied directly to RPGs, except maybe the hard sciences. I know that biology, physics, and chemistry might inspire some interesting and accurate rules for RPGs, but you can write rules for RPG-science with just a layman's understanding. I don't think you really need to know the exact specifics of DNA gene recombination in order to write a monster manual.

Still, though, gamers come from all walks of life. Why restrict who can apply. I like your idea about requiring a writing sample, but only for some people. We could have a few different categories--fiction, illustration, rules mechanics, adventure-writing, and possibly graphic design. Then maybe a general 'other' category, for people who want to do stuff like write music that can be played during game sessions, or people who believe they could run a gaming business well. There'd have to be a pretty flexible way to enter the competition, but I'm sure we can think of something.