I was reading gundam's opening post in his match with Kandy and it inspired something of a new idea. What if we have a tourney where the focus isn't really on how powerful the characters involved are, but rather the storytelling talents of the people controlling them? I don't mean right now of course because there's more than enough tourney activity going on as it is, I just wanted to get the discussion going that way everyone can contribute ideas so that when we ARE ready we'll all already have a good idea of what's expected.
Basically I was thinking that the participants would write up bio's for a completely new characters and then have them square off with each other. In each match the participants will write out just how they see the fight going between the two characters, using the bio's as a rough guide to each characters abilities. The actual debating will be each person trying to convince the judges that THEIR story is a more accurate portrayal of the characters.
Since each match is actually about the overall story rather than the results of the fights themselves, which character would actually win doesn't matter so you could have your own character lose the fight in the story you submit, but still win the match if the judges agree with your story more.
I haven't put a lot of thought into the specifics yet but it seems like it could be really fun depending on who all got involved.
Oh I wasn't thinking about it being ANYTIME in the near future because this will be a whole new thing for everyone, I was thinking like three or four months away minimum. That would give everyone a chance to throw in their two cents on what is or isn't allowed as far as character abilities, etc.. I was just wanting to bring it up now while gundam's write up was still fresh in everyone's mind...
I'd...well, I'd be a bit bored, to be honest. Research would involve looking up character traits and quotes to try to invalidate words or phrases that your opponent uses. It just seems like something that might have a weekly radio show on NPR, but wouldn't really take off on KMC. I just don't think I could get into finding about characters that much if I'm looking for, say, monologues instead of battle feats.
We'd also just draft our favorite characters...no reason NOT to, since we'd know them the best and it would be more about that than power levels. Or just draft people with severely limited appearances, so no one could tell us they're "out of character" because they only have a few instances in character, which we could copy/paste into our stories to make them as accurate as possible. Eventually you'd just get ver batim comic quotes throughout the whole thing, and narrative that describes exact plans that were really used in comics, thus ensuring 100% accuracy.
It would also be ridiculously subjective, much moreso than normal standards...would it be about a story's eloquence, or how accurately they portray a character? Could an accurate but crap story win? Or vice-versa? And how does one even define such criteria?
The only positive is that it would eliminate insane prep, because few (if any) in comics are anywhere near as smart as we are about meshing and tech building.
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Sorry to play spoiler...but I've been wrong before, and am never one to squelch an idea. But that's my take.
...might lend itself to individual matches better than tourney-style. A la BattleZone or something, maybe?
Pick 3 characters at a given power level, 1 well-known and legitimately powerful and 2 obscure. Learn them well. Wait about a year, year and a half (it won't take much longer) for a tourney at that level. Enter, win a match or two, get pwned in the semis by someone building Amazo (they crop up randomly).
That's the beauty of it. It's not about who has the most powerful character it's who tells the story the best in the eyes of the judges. I know that can be a tough call to make, but that's the kind of thing REAL comic book writers have to try to figure out, and if nothing else it may show people just how tough the writers have it sometimes(since the writer's blamed for pretty much everything on the forum).
And we COULD use original characters rather than published characters so everyone would be on pretty much even footing because the only things you have to research is the bio your opponent submits. That's just an idea though and if everyone would rather use established characters that's fine too(though that'll carry the added weight of having to do research).
Anyway I can completely understand if you and most of the other tourney regulars don't want to participate because this is a different type of event. I'm actually pitching the idea to those members who just aren't cut out for the "typical" KMC tourney either because they don't have thousands of scans on their computer or their knowledge focuses on only one or two characters or any number of other reasons that might keep them from signing up.
I'm just pitching a general concept here to get an idea of what everyone thinks about it, so if you get any other good ideas or anything send them our way...
So, you have two participants with two representative characters, right?
And we judge based on who writes a more accurate 'story' between them?
For examples, Person A could have a Silver Surfer-level character and Person B could be using someone like Captain America. Person B could still win assuming the tell the better 'story'?
There's be no real debate, though, would there? Or would there be "Silver Surfer wouldn't do that! He'd do XXXX! Captain America'd never say that! He'd say something more like XXXX!" ???
Probably something like that, but hopefully people will focus more on what the other person's having their person DO rather than what they have them say(otherwise it would get ridiculous really quickly).
If you want some of the debate I mentioned just before, you'd have to use established characters. How would we know whether a writer used the personality correctly if we have never read the characters before?
Further, I think it'd get more attention payed to it with currently established characters, rather than being a glorified fan-fic, likely full of shitastic mary sues.
Well I figured the bio's SHOULD be enough to give you a good idea of the character. For instance, if you read a good Superman bio it's easy to surmise that he's not the type to kill unless it's a monster and he won't even go all out right out of the gate(in fact he'll consciously hold back at first). Specific details would be tough to pin down, but I wasn't talking about writing a whole comic book, just the characters encounters with each other.
Probably true. I can picture quite a few people who'd be happy to make some general alterations to their favorite characters...
Go read a generic Batman bio and tell me that you couldn't write that twelve different ways without ever actually mimicing the feel of 'comic-book' Batman.
All twelve of those ways, then, would be poor writing, no?
True enough. So we'll go woth the established works, but I'd still loke to hear any ideas people have that would make it possible to use our own characters. Hey maybe we could open it up to teams and create an actual comic to go along with the bio.
KMC Community Forums
Mar 11th, 2008 09:38 PM
As an author of a few fanfics myself, I thought Gundam's story had some potential. and frankly, I could use the writing practice. 
). This is a genius idea. 
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