Systems and Memes
Since it has come up in a couple different IRC conversations, and a couple different LJs, I felt that I would codify my feelings as far as Eternity battle systems are concerned, and my worries regarding moving towards a system that ties more closely to the writing.
It should come as no surprise that I consider the gameplay of an Eternity tournament to be the equal partner of the writing, not subservient. To me, the gameplay is what makes Eternity survive and endure where all simple multi-author fanfics wither and die. It is the skeleton to the writing's flesh; sure, the flesh might be what is attractive to our eye, but the skeleton is what holds everything up. Without the skeleton - without the gameplay - I feel Eternity would collapse.
One important reason as to why gameplay is so important is that it means that not simply the best writers will win. We cannot all be the best writers; even among the small group of us at RI, there are those whose writing ability shines brighter than all others. I'm not the best writer; if I'm being honest, I can admit that I can have my moments, but there will never be consistency in the quality of my writing. In Heart & Soul, the tournament I won, I can admit that I wrote very, very well in Round Four, and I can admit that I wrote very, very well in the finals. But the finals didn't immediately follow Round Four; there was a Round Five, and a Round Six, and in those rounds, my writing wasn't that great. If it had been a competition purely decided by writing prowess, I would have been eliminated before the finals came to pass. But because there was a system that was independent of writing, I was able to play the system in the rounds where my writing wasn't my best, and I was able to work my way into the finals... where, in the end, only writing prowess could win the day.
If gameplay is tied to writing, several things can go wrong. If you try to base it on skill, on who truly has the best writing, then you run into the issue I mentioned before, that the best writers will constantly win. This will cause dissatisfaction among those who aren't the best writers, and the community will grow even smaller than it already is.
If you try to base it on meeting specific story goals, there are two things that can go wrong, both of which I have experienced firsthand. In Heart & Soul's Round Two, I wanted to spend my Minigame Votes to support the side my character had chosen, the Dreamers. However, to do so, I would have had to write Violet participating in one of several story events, none of which would have been in character for how she was feeling at that time. So I was unable to do what I wanted gameplay-wise because of story.
Later on, in Written in the Stars, earning Prize Abilities was tied to participation - both in gameplay and in story - in the various missions set forth in each round. There, the opposite of my problem in H&S occured: people were trying to participate in as many missions as they could in order to earn more gameplay power, regardless of how out-of-character their chosen character's participation in the minigame might be.
There are other possibilities I can think of, such as awarding sheer writing throughput, but that isn't even worth considering; there are many terrible writers who can write a lot, and many good writers aren't very fast writers. There's always the possibility of ideas I haven't thought of, and I hope darkken can deliver a system that meets his goal of blending gameplay and writing while not leaving behind the writers that aren't the best.
Anyway, speaking of writing, here's the meme promised in the title of this post. I only wrote a grand total of two segments in Spellbound, and the last time I really wrote before that was in Written in the Stars a year prior, so these might be challenging to answer... but I'm certain people will manage.
1. What do you like about my writing?
2. What do you think I should try and improve upon?
3. What new things would you suggest I try, stylistically/thematically?
4. What fandom(s) would you like to see me write for, and why?
It should come as no surprise that I consider the gameplay of an Eternity tournament to be the equal partner of the writing, not subservient. To me, the gameplay is what makes Eternity survive and endure where all simple multi-author fanfics wither and die. It is the skeleton to the writing's flesh; sure, the flesh might be what is attractive to our eye, but the skeleton is what holds everything up. Without the skeleton - without the gameplay - I feel Eternity would collapse.
One important reason as to why gameplay is so important is that it means that not simply the best writers will win. We cannot all be the best writers; even among the small group of us at RI, there are those whose writing ability shines brighter than all others. I'm not the best writer; if I'm being honest, I can admit that I can have my moments, but there will never be consistency in the quality of my writing. In Heart & Soul, the tournament I won, I can admit that I wrote very, very well in Round Four, and I can admit that I wrote very, very well in the finals. But the finals didn't immediately follow Round Four; there was a Round Five, and a Round Six, and in those rounds, my writing wasn't that great. If it had been a competition purely decided by writing prowess, I would have been eliminated before the finals came to pass. But because there was a system that was independent of writing, I was able to play the system in the rounds where my writing wasn't my best, and I was able to work my way into the finals... where, in the end, only writing prowess could win the day.
If gameplay is tied to writing, several things can go wrong. If you try to base it on skill, on who truly has the best writing, then you run into the issue I mentioned before, that the best writers will constantly win. This will cause dissatisfaction among those who aren't the best writers, and the community will grow even smaller than it already is.
If you try to base it on meeting specific story goals, there are two things that can go wrong, both of which I have experienced firsthand. In Heart & Soul's Round Two, I wanted to spend my Minigame Votes to support the side my character had chosen, the Dreamers. However, to do so, I would have had to write Violet participating in one of several story events, none of which would have been in character for how she was feeling at that time. So I was unable to do what I wanted gameplay-wise because of story.
Later on, in Written in the Stars, earning Prize Abilities was tied to participation - both in gameplay and in story - in the various missions set forth in each round. There, the opposite of my problem in H&S occured: people were trying to participate in as many missions as they could in order to earn more gameplay power, regardless of how out-of-character their chosen character's participation in the minigame might be.
There are other possibilities I can think of, such as awarding sheer writing throughput, but that isn't even worth considering; there are many terrible writers who can write a lot, and many good writers aren't very fast writers. There's always the possibility of ideas I haven't thought of, and I hope darkken can deliver a system that meets his goal of blending gameplay and writing while not leaving behind the writers that aren't the best.
Anyway, speaking of writing, here's the meme promised in the title of this post. I only wrote a grand total of two segments in Spellbound, and the last time I really wrote before that was in Written in the Stars a year prior, so these might be challenging to answer... but I'm certain people will manage.
1. What do you like about my writing?
2. What do you think I should try and improve upon?
3. What new things would you suggest I try, stylistically/thematically?
4. What fandom(s) would you like to see me write for, and why?