The FoG Games

This is something that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. Another forum I was a member of a while back (a general forum about anything and everything) had a particular event every couple of months that caused the community to buzz with activity. Essentially it was a poll based tournament, each one had a particular theme for participants (i.e. Humanoid (fiction and/or real), Sci-Fi, fictional creatures/animals, etc.) which were entered by members of the forum to determine who would win in combat.

Once all of the slots were filled, a tournament bracket was compiled and broken into a series of rounds and matches. Each match was given it’s own poll thread to discuss who would win between the two combatants and why over the course of a few days; the end of which would result in a vote to determine the winner. Once the first series of matches were over, the winners would advance to the next round and repeat the process until there was only one survivor.

Now here is the twist I had in mind; because the other forum was general discussion for the most part, these matches were strongly influenced by popularity. I figured we could make this a lot more interesting by adding the role-play element to it. People who enter a participant have the opportunity to RP battle with them against another member (or allow another member to battle in their place if they desire.) These RPs will only last a couple of days and would help express the member’s point of view why they feel their participant is superior via strategy, strength, negotiation, etc. Meanwhile there will be an OOC thread based on this match where members who aren’t participating could voice their opinions on the matching. After the battle period, the match will be paused and the polls will open for a few days to determine the winner; once decided, the participant that won can finish the battle however they desire.

This is a summarized version of what I had in mind just to express my idea. I would be overjoyed to take the reigns of these tournaments and write up detailed rules to the combats, OOC discussions, voting, etc. as well as be much clearer as to the step-by-step process of how the tournaments will play out if this generates enough interest. These games were very successful on the other forums and I think it would be a great addition to FoG, especially with the RP aspect tied in.

Chuck Norris will always win. Boring.

Hmm, I'm going to have to read this over better when I'm back from class. This did, however, remind me of something fun that I thought up for another board that we could also use here.

So, basically, it is the members who would be participating in these battles, but as characters? In other words, we would have a certain number of slots open for people to join in as specific characters for that theme? I'm not really sure if everyone would have the time to keep up on RPs, even really short ones, if there are a lot of people participating and RPing together to duke it out. Everyone participating would need their own RP, since, in the end, they get to end the battle how they choose. So, that then means that every member would need their own RP thread that every other member participating would have to join in...? That would never work. Lol. I mean, I don't know if that's how you'd do it, but I don't really see any other way.

I'm not entirely sure what to think of this at the moment. It sounds kind of cool to me, but I'm just not sure if it'd work out very well and if everyone would be game for it. I guess I'd need to hear more of what everyone else thinks.

This sounds FUN! I think I have an idea how to do it. I'm not sure if this is the same as what Loki said, but here goes.

What you might do is have each fight be several of one combatant pitted against several of the other. Say, 50 vs. 50. Anyone could step in at any time and RP actions of a single one of a particular side--and no switching sides. You pick based on who you think is the best.

What's going to happen is, people will be creative and think of cool ways that the two combat types would fight. Tons of actions and counter-actions. At the end of the period, say two or three days, there would be a vote to determine the winner.

We could even do several at once, each in its own thread. All the first round matches first. Then lock the first round, and make new threads for all the second round matches, etc, etc. It would be AWESOME!! xD

It's certainly feasible to do what Kalon's suggested, Fate.

I actually did this on a forum I'm an admin of a while back. What happened was people who wanted to participate signed up. Someone then drew up a tournament roster, and everyone was pitted against someone else (or, since there was an odd number of people, one person was pitted against a judge-controlled NPC). Each 'fight' had its own little thread (we had a separate subforum specifically for the tournament which was closed after it was over), and each fight was presided over by a judge, who determined what attacks hit / how much damage they did, etc. Players roleplayed out their attacks and taunts and everything, and In the end, when the character reached a certain amount of health (we had a leveling system on this forum, so there was HP and all that jazz, but I'm sure something could be worked out here), they lost, and the other player was declared the victor.

Then, rinse and repeat once everyone's won a battle. This went on until a champion was declared. It was actually quite fun.

You have me...

interessssssssted.

*cracks neck*

Been a while since I entered an RP duel. Those were fun if both combatants were mature, which thankfully they were. Ah, the fatalities Benedin would do... he had a whole CHAIN of duels on a thread, once. He did everything from mutilation to blood explosion to using cannibalistic black fungi spores that rotted your flesh from the inside out. Ah, yes... knowing HOW to kill was always the most fun part.

I have a little monster in me >: D

XD Lol I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not into it, I must admit. Even if I was though, I highly doubt I'd have enough time to devote to putting something of that magnitude together.

Why not let it be member-organized?

If you guys want to put it together, I'm cool with that. I mean, who I am to object to a role-playing-related tournament game?

Adrius Frostglare wrote: Ah, the fatalities Benedin would do... he had a whole CHAIN of duels on a thread, once. He did everything from mutilation to blood explosion to using cannibalistic black fungi spores that rotted your flesh from the inside out. Ah, yes... knowing HOW to kill was always the most fun part.

* Warning - Tangent ahead *

YOU were Benedin? YOU? Wha ...!? Dude. I read that whole post. Fricking sick duels! You/Benedin got me so hooked on duel battles for a while! Why did you never mention this? How did I not make the connection?!

You didn't know I was Benedin?? >_> But... but... I thought I posted- no, wait, I posted on Benedin's avatar during that duel series.

Yeah... that was me. Just check the "Even Nice Guys Have Enemies" thread at AWR in the WoW Open RP section.

Dude - I so wanted to Necro that post and challenge you ... but none of my characters were mean or brave enough lol

Out of curiosity, which kill did you like best?

Ooooo. That's a tough choice. There were so (possibly Mary-Sue) awesome deaths.

Think it might be the hunter. The mushrooms ... and how he kept getting back up. The whole hiding cat and mouse game you two played. It really built suspension! The next probably the crazy-Druid followed by the girl friend Paladin fight. Even though the characters didn't die it actually showed Benedin in a different light to what we had seen. I did also love the Warlock-OP Naruto style fight. Jumping up in the air and massive explosions! Yes please!

(Wow - total geek moment >.> )

That would be fine if one person wasn't able to control their character in the dual for one reason or another; they could always have somebody sub for them. Worst case scenario, it could just be based solely on the OOC discussion who the victor is if there is no combatants able to fight. We could lengthen the duration of matches to compensate the busy schedules of people.


The way I was thinking it is that you did have an entire forum category devoted to these games. The main forum is devoted for the threads of each match with a sticky thread displaying the bracket. Within that forum is a sub-forum that hosts the corresponding thread for the OOC discussion as well as one devoted to an archive. I know it sounds like it will take up a lot of space with all of the combat and ooc threads, but once the tournament is over we can clear the slate. The final bracket with the corresponding combat posts can be archived in its own archive thread for those who want to read back. Once that is done, the matches page will be wiped clean since the matches will be archived and the OOC discussion can just be cleared without archiving since the sole purpose of that section is to house the polls and allow people to decide between the two; the results of which will be easily seen on the bracket.

You could always assign a mod devoted solely to this forum so as not to cause the work load to overwhelm the rest of the staff. Once the ball gets rolling, that mod's job will become quite routine with a majority of the work needing to be done at the end of each tournament.

Loki wrote:That would be fine if one person wasn't able to control their character in the dual for one reason or another; they could always have somebody sub for them. Worst case scenario, it could just be based solely on the OOC discussion who the victor is if there is no combatants able to fight. We could lengthen the duration of matches to compensate the busy schedules of people.


The way I was thinking it is that you did have an entire forum category devoted to these games. The main forum is devoted for the threads of each match with a sticky thread displaying the bracket. Within that forum is a sub-forum that hosts the corresponding thread for the OOC discussion as well as one devoted to an archive. I know it sounds like it will take up a lot of space with all of the combat and ooc threads, but once the tournament is over we can clear the slate. The final bracket with the corresponding combat posts can be archived in its own archive thread for those who want to read back. Once that is done, the matches page will be wiped clean since the matches will be archived and the OOC discussion can just be cleared without archiving since the sole purpose of that section is to house the polls and allow people to decide between the two; the results of which will be easily seen on the bracket.

You could always assign a mod devoted solely to this forum so as not to cause the work load to overwhelm the rest of the staff. Once the ball gets rolling, that mod's job will become quite routine with a majority of the work needing to be done at the end of each tournament.

So, in summary: have a forum for the duels, have a forum for the votes.

And Ref: Near-Mary-Sue-But-Not-Really-Mary-Sue is what makes awesome characters awesome.

And if a pack of ninjas can rain down metal death in a rain of knives from the sky, SO CAN BENNY!

And that one with Ev was great... I think I may have overdone it with the warlock's death though, but having an OD on a weaponized drug that can make your blood pressure reach the point where your blood vessels explode, leaving you a crimson, skeletal husk was... great

I loved the blackspore concoction, though. I promise you that I trimmed it down so that it had a lot of defects (first, difficult to make. It took months to just make a batch and it requires a lot of care. Second, it dies in contact with the air unless there's some nice flesh, so really ten seconds out of the bottle could ruin the whole thing) to make up for it. You would have had to read the OOC notes I told my friends later on the chat.

I think Benedin any other way than "Near-Mary-Sue-But-Not-Really-Mary-Sue" would have been boring. It was no "run-of-the-mill" duel. It was spectacular! It was different. It made me want to do the same . . . but I was tied down by the sensible or healing characters.

That whole thread was Magical . . . with a capital M

[Edit: Damnit - FOG / AWR / I need some really good duels! Frosty you should revive Benedin >.> hehe]

Ah, see now I'm not into the idea either of creating more forums. Our message board is already getting full enough with forums as it is (which onenitedrive reminds me of). I was thinking that this could just go into the Forum Games subforum, since it is a forum game, after all. I really, really don't think it's necessary to create a few different, separate forums for this.

*Shrug* I suppose we can scale it down to make it more sub-forum friendly then.

Reffy wrote:I think Benedin any other way than "Near-Mary-Sue-But-Not-Really-Mary-Sue" would have been boring. It was no "run-of-the-mill" duel. It was spectacular! It was different. It made me want to do the same . . . but I was tied down by the sensible or healing characters.

That whole thread was Magical . . . with a capital M

[Edit: Damnit - FOG / AWR / I need some really good duels! Frosty you should revive Benedin >.> hehe]

Awww, c'mon Ref... I'm trying to be humble...

Ahem, on the subject at hand... I'll just... y'know... nod along.

My idea was you wouldn't be fighting other human players. You would be fighting against the other combatant type--and you'd stick with the type you picked.

Elves vs. Dwarves, for example. Say there's 50 of each. I pick an elf (^^) and start beating up a dwarf or two, spending a great amount of detail on realistic abilities, and doing as many different things as possible. Say someone else posts as a dwarf and does the same thing. The stuff the dwarf did might give me ideas on how to counter that, as he countered my moves, and so on. But I'd fight against a different dwarf, and not the one that was already played. That way we can do what we like--and even kill some here and there--without people feeling bad. You sort-of step in, control one, step out.

At the end--either when all 50 are dead, or when the judges feel all the abilities have been ironed out--there will be a vote on who is the best.

There can be different kinds of elves (like, using a bow and knives vs. using a sword and animal pet), and different kinds of dwarves, humans, orcs, aliens, on and on and on and on. Winners advance, fight each other in a second round... eventually there'll be an all time super-warrior (elf!!).

Hey... kinda like a fantasy-style Deadliest Warrior tournament! xD