Thesis-
Speaking generally, the last thing in most RPG books is a character sheet. Character sheets are the thing that players most use to interface between the design of the game and actual play. Character sheets have ranged from beautiful and elegant to ugly and neigh-useless. The design of these play-tools should be pushed further, not just asthetically but also their relationship to the games they belong to.
The challenge- Design a character sheet. NOT A GAME. Just a character sheet. You have 2 weeks to do this. Everyone may submit a design, but they may only submit 1.
At the end of the two week entrance period the sheets will be randomly distributed to the designers (you will not get your own). Using only the character sheet as a guide, the designers will have an additional 2 weeks to design a game that uses that character sheet.
The designers will then reveiw the games and vote on a winner . Some sort of cool prize awaits, and certainly the accolades of your peers. Character sheets may be sent to my email. Please send PDFs if able, other formats are fine, they are just more work for me.
Start of contest Aug 14. Character sheets accepted untill midnight Aug 28 (GMT). Design assignments will be given out on the 29-30 (don't worry, they will all be released at the same time, i just want to give myself a window to get the work done). Completed designs must be submitted by Sept 13.
If you only want to design one half of the contest: go ahead. If you ONLY want to make a game, just send me an email saying so, that way you get a sheet when they are all submitted.
If this ends up being grossly unbalanced (i get 10 sheets and 3 people who want to design games) people who designed sheets and games will get preferential treatment.
i'm very interested to see how chaotic and abstract these sheets get, and then how the games wrangle them together.
To work, you monsters.
PART 2
This is how we do it:
Games will be rated on the following criteria
We will all be responsible for judging a few games (much like in gamechef, rating the above categories 1-10) and then when there is a top 6 we will vote again on a winner (also much like in gamechef).
Here is the complete list of designer assignments (and the completed games)
And here is the list of completed games (game designers names are presented first, sheet designers names are presented in parenthesis):
1. Brent Wolke - (Mark Nau) = Darby's Heroes
2. Paul Czege - (Selen Tan) = Specimen for the Resurrection
3. David Wendt - (Mike Wormley) = Artifact Retrieval Corps
4. Fred Lenza – (Matthijs Holter) = Fatalism
5. Frank Manna – (Darcy Burgess) = You Got ta be Startin' Sumthin'
6. Joe Prince – (Mark Valliantos) = This Place
7. Jason Dettman – (DJ Changon )= The King's Court
8. Jason Sims – (Dirk Remmecke) = Mazes of Merphae
9. Shreyas Sampat – (Joe McDonald )= not/guilty
10. Meguey Baker – (Eva Schiffer)= Miss Schiffer’s School for Young Ladies of Quality
11. Jason Morningstar – (Ashok Desai) = Red Strings
12. Troy holaday – (Aaron Caskey) = The Court
13. Jack Aidley – (Jonathan Walton) = Angels of Tangut
14. Mendel Schmiedekamp – (Claire Bickell) = Title Goes Here
15. Eric Boyd – (Thom Foster) = Utopolis
16. Alexander Cherry – (Jeff Moore) = Motes in the Eye of the Emperor
17. Zack Welhouse – (Christian Griffen) = Empire
18. Tristan Brightman – (Mike RM) = Self-less
19. Bryan Hansel – (Joshua Bishop Roby) = Foe Destroyer
20. Graham Walmsley – (Mike Sugarbaker) = Something Rising
21. Russell Collins – (Nathan Paoletta) = Children of the Sun, Children of the Moon
22. Fred Hicks – (Adam Dray) = Chimera (supplimental materials)
23. Judson Lester – (Jason Sims) = Bulls Eye (supplimental material)
24. Mark Nau – (Mendle Schmiedekamp) = 11th Hour
25. Roger Carbol – (Zack Welhouse) = The Closed Door
26. Dave Cleaver – (Jack Aidley) = The Facility
27. Nathan Paoletta – (Martin O’leary) = Vesna Thaw
28. Christian Griffen – (Jonathan Walton) = Celestial Soap
28. Adam Dray – (Mike Ramsey) = Architects of Aztlan
30. Thom Foster – (Kirk Mitchell) = Etherium Clock Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
31. Tomas HV Mørkrid – (Meguey Baker) = Fate Clock
32. Joshua Bishop Roby – (Rob Donoghue) = Sailing for Atlantis
33. Mark Vallianatos – (Stefan Koch) = The Best Thing
34. Eva Schiffer – (Shreyas Sampat) = Tragedy
35. DJ Chagnon – (Graham Walmsley) = Prosopa
36. Ashok Desai – (Mike Sands) = Dreamcatcher
37. Andrew Kenrick – (Joe Prince) = Growing Pains
38. William Burke - (Jason Dettman) = Gaurdian Angles
39. Lucian Smith - (Paul Czege) = Dangerous Ideas
This is how we will judge the work. Those daring 39 game-makers will be responsible for 2 judgments each. Look at the next two games on the list, those are the games you must read and review. If there aren’t two games on the list after your name (like you’re at the end of the list, Scooby) then loop around the beginning of the list. Got that. So game designer #15 will review games 16 and 17, capice.
Rate games in three categories, from 1 to 10. 10 being the best score achievable by a human. The three categories are: Playability of the game, integration of the character sheet into the game, general cool factor. It would be super cool if you also wrote a few lines about why you voted the way you did. Then ADD UP THE NUMBERS, please don’t make me do this very simple, elementary school level math. So if a game gets a 30 then it has received a perfect score.
Also, lets grade the original character sheets. I have decided to utilize a sort of high school yearbook superlative thingy to vote on them (I don’t know if yearbooks work differently in places that aren’t the USA, but I think this will be pretty self explanatory).
Enter your selection for:
.1 Most intimidating sheet
.2 Crunchiest sheet
.3 Most exciting
.4 Most likely to succeed (that is, the sheet that you felt would most easily integrate into a game, even if it didn’t seem like that game would be interesting to you)
.5 Best design in a sheet (yeah that’s an aesthetic rating)
Super extra bonus!!! Anyone who participated in any portion of Rev/enge may vote on the sheets!!! Voting on games is expressly limited to those 39 superheroes that completed a game!!ONE