SEASON INTERMISSION ORGANIZATION THREAD

[Solaris]

What. What!?

In an infinite black, amid tv endless screens, always glowing, always burning with static, a set of five fingers drummed on a desk. Impatient fingers. This off season was costing him money. Lots of money.

So, right then and there, in the back of his mind, The Broadcaster began to form a plan. The sort of plan only a man in television could come up with.

And thus...

SEASON INTERMISSION

was born.

~~~~

Q: Um... what is this?

A: Season Intermission is a series of Grand Battles started between December and August. The reasons why are listed further below.

Q: What's a grand battle?

A: Explanation by Akumu & Lord Paradise, Akumu's is short and sweet, Lord Paradise's is less so.

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The gist [of a Grand Battle] is that eight people come up with interesting characters and then write about them interacting and they die off one at a time based on who is the worst or most inactive writer.

The focus of a Grand Battle is writing and collaboration. “Writing” means you won’t be operating under any specific set of rules other than what the story demands. Whenever you think it’s your turn to write, you can make a post ranging anywhere from, say, thirty-two to nine thousand words (probably somewhere logarithmically in the middle there) that tells the next part of the story.

“Collaboration” means that, while you’re ultimately responsible for your own character, you’ll be writing for everyone else’s character, too. Even though this is nominally a competition, your success is largely measured by your ability to cooperate

When I feel like the story’s heading towards some sort of climax, I’ll privately take opinions on whose writing has been the worst or has improved the least or who’s contributed the least to the story. That writer then has to write one final “deathpost” killing off their character and wrapping up the story for that round, and then I’ll shuffle off the characters to a different setting and the new round will begin. The battle ends when one character remains.

A couple things to take note of:

The general etiquette in a Grand Battle is to announce your intention to write a post with a post simply saying, “RESERVE,” immediately before you start writing, or maybe slightly after. This prevents everyone from writing over each other. You’re expected to honor other people’s reserves—if a reserve is up for a problematically long time and the writer is showing no signs of progress on the post, talk to me, and I might give you the go-ahead to post.

The IRC channel #grandbattle on irc.esper.net (the same server as #pesterchum or #mspafa or what have you) is usually pretty active and full of nerds who spend all day critiquing profiles or planning out future events in battles. It’s generally the best way to keep in contact with your fellow writers, but private messages on the fora also work.

In my experience with these sorts of things, there are two sorts of rounds that cause problems and slow up the battle. Sometimes you’ll get a round that drags on too long and is punctuated by infrequent posts basically to the effect of “the characters talked about stuff while walking towards a vague destination or just sitting around waiting for something to happen.” Keep in mind that if you write a post that ends with everything exactly the same as it started, you’re not really doing your job as a collaborator, even if you’re writing really well. Even if you’re stuck in a rut where you’re not in a position to write a plot-heavy post, make sure to include some sort of inciting incident at the end—have the characters meet up with someone else, arrive at their destination, pull out a gun and start indiscriminately shooting each other, whatever it takes to give some sort of narrative momentum.

On the other side of the coin, you get posts where everyone has lots of ideas, but the ideas that don’t really connect, and the story becomes too complicated for the writers to wrap up coherently. Sometimes the problem is overambition. You want to let everyone introduce all the concepts they think are best, but about halfway through a round, it’s best to stop introducing new things and start boiling what you have down into one or two central conflicts. You might have to leave a fun idea or two by the wayside, but it’s worth it for a better opportunity to set up for a climax and eventually move on to the next round.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: Because there was interest to do so! You see, Grand Battles come in two flavors, canon and non-canon. Canon battles are part of a set of eight battles, which is called a season. There are three seasons, and the fourth will begin after the first eight battles end. Non-canon battles are stand-alones and because of their isolation from other battles, they usually do not last long. The solution we came up with was to make eight battles, separate from the first, but vaguely linked to each other, in order to give an incentive to keep them all going forward.

This doesn't mean that you have to read any battle other than one you might be in, but most of them are cool, so you should if you want!

For more comprehensive information on this sort of thing you can either look in this thread or ask around this IRC room(#grandbattle at irc.esper.net), or send me a personal message here on the forums.

Q: What do I have to do to sign up for a battle?

A: Unfortunately, all eight of them have started! This doesn't mean that you can't participate in battles though! People come and go, so if you want to jump right in, you can probably ask around (in IRC(once again, that is #grandbattle at irc.esper.net))and see if any battles are in need of replacements. Sometimes this means you are going to write for someone elses character, other times you might get to write for one that you made!

Another option, although one that isn't quite used, is entering a Minigrand, which is a battle with half the people, ideally completed in a few months. I will warn you that the interest hasn't been there for a while, mostly because of this!

Q: Alright, so how long do these things usually last?

A: There are not really any SOLID NUMBERS behind how much time battles take, the entire battle itself is a long term investment of at least a year if you are IN IT TO WIN IT, with the least possible investment being a few months of the first round.

As for the pace of the battle and how often you would be expected to post, that really just depends on what other people are doing and how fast they are capable of going. Not everyone writes at the same speed and what takes me one solid night to write could take someone else a week. However, if you can manage an odd hundred words at a time in various intervals throughout a few months, you should be good to go. And if you can’t, I’m sure that something can be managed, be it a slow down or if you end up Really Not Having The Time, an understandable elimination that no one would fault you for!

This isn’t something as immediate-reaction-intensive as a mafia game and as regulated in terms of when-to-input as a Citystates or Diplomacy game, if you can manage to contribute as much as everyone else, then you can, if you can’t, then you can’t, and that won’t always be in your control!


Once again, if you have any more questions/concerns, toss me a PM or hit me up on IRC!

All in all, if any of these seems interesting, you should give it a shot! The worst that can happen is that you end up not having the time or that you don't enjoy it as much as you think you would, and while that would be a shame, we'd understand.

[TimeothyHour]

CURRENT HOSTING LIST:
1. TimeothyHour
2. Solaris
3. Ixcalibur
4. Elpie
5. Sanzh
6. Mr. Guy
7. Woffs AND Engineclock
8. Agent 1022

Dates and times and things:

-Due to NaNoWriMo, we are planning to start the first battle towards the end of November. It will be hosted by me.

[TimeothyHour]

OFFICIAL DATES AND HOSTINGS

G1- TIMEOTHYHOUR- DECEMBER
G2- SOLARIS- JANUARY
G3- IXCALIBER- FEBRUARY
G4- WOJJAN AND ENGINECLOCK- MARCH
G5- SANZH- APRIL
G6- AGENT 1022- MAY
G7- GODBOT- JUNE
G8- LORD PARADISE HIMSELF- JULY
http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php...0-Fight-A-Thon

[Solaris]

Sup sup!
So as you may or may not know/realize/eat this is all very experimental and to be honest we do not know what level of interest this is going to get or anything!
As such, with the long wait between now and the first battle (of one month :v ), we have decided to set up a sort of "mailing list" where you can either PM me or post here to express interest in joining one of these battles and then be able to be PM'd when a battle starts.

If you want to keep your inbox free of my words or otherwise keep your interest ~unknown~, then you can just click on the top of the thread, where it says "Thread Tools" and then subscribe to this thread with the "Subscribe to this thread..." button]

So there we go! Let's hope that things go swell!


"S! Mailing List"

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• Ixcalibur
• Pick Yer Poison
• Agent1022
• Yako
• TimeothyHour
• BlastYoBoots
• Sanzh
• ~ATH
• Wojjan
• crepuscularDissembler
• Antarctic Wolf
• Niall
• Adenreagen
• gloomyMoron
• Digital Hellhound
• strikeEagle

[Ixcalibur]

Sol your mailing list is looking a bit lonely, but I want to be kept up to date so I will be on it.

In other news the first post now actually has a description of what Grand Battles are and this post is mainly to draw your attention to that fact.

[Pick Yer Poison]

I am so in for the first battle! Put me on that mailing list.

[Agent1022]

B-but I check here every single day!

*flings self onto bandwagon mailing list*

[Yako]

Hello! This is a post signifying my desire to be added to the mailing list.

[TimeothyHour]

oh man I would love to be a part of the S! mailing group I would love to know when that first battle starts????

[BlastYoBoots]

Solaris will probably flail at me in excitement when the battles start anyway, but sure mailing list why not

[Sanzh]

I already obsessively check this but add me anyway?

[Wojjan]

Man what a mailing list!
I'd love to get a notification, because december will be busymonth busyville for me.

[crepuscularDissembler]

I'd be interested in one of these sometime
although I don't have any fiction writing of any length lying around


......I realize that this is not very reassuring in regards to quality control.

[Solaris]

It's great practice for that kind of thing! If you don't have anything lying around you could do what I ended up more or less accidentally doing and just make your Biography for you character a story.
It isn't really that big of a deal and the writing thing isn't so much as quality control as something else to go by in case you suck at getting ideas through on profiles or to make sure that you are not like, A WIZARD at profiles but that you somehow paradoxically are not-so-good at actual writing for some reason.

OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT I JUST WOKE UP AND THE POINT IS I DON'T THINK THAT NOT HAVING FICTION ON HAND IS A BIG DEAL AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO JOIN BATTLES SEEDY
ALSO I AM HAPPY TO SEE YOU TAKE AN INTEREST YAKO
I HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL SOON IN DECEMBER

[Antarctic Wolf]

Hello, I'd like to join the mailing list too, Agent's been telling me about it for a while and it seems really epic!

[Adenreagen]

Please add me to this mailing list I'm hearing so much about, I'd love to get in on some S! action!

[Wojjan]

Aden don't you dare leave us again I was so lonely ;~;

[Adenreagen]

I'm sorry Wojj, I had to spend some time away. Not by choice, by workload. I never wanted to hurt you...

[Wojjan]

I'll forgive you if you post in everything.

[Pick Yer Poison]

Well, since the thread hasn't been announced here yet, and since I like making Times feel subpar: here's the first S! battle.

[TimeothyHour]

Well, since the thread hasn't been announced here yet, and since I like making Times feel subpar: here's the first S! battle.

Oh no! Now I feel subpar! Why would you do this to me pyps!?!?

[Solaris]

Because he loves you!

Anyway, sup guys, I will be your host for the second battle!
La Vendetta! (look at my sig it has an image, i am not going at this too fast, nope not at all)
The proposed start date will be Sunday, January 1st, and sign ups will end on Saturday, January 7th, at 11:59 PM (With reasonable wiggleroom for reserves).

However, before entering, there is something that you should know! This battle has some special conditions.
Vendetta is will be a grand battle run by a inter-dimensional crime lord and inventor of the mafia as a concept in order to find someone worthy as an heir to the multiversal mafia throne.
AS SUCH, 'concept' characters, characters that similar to a force of nature, and possibly animals are liable to be rejected outright.
This does not mean that inanimate objects that are animate, robots, dead things, idiots, or any other 'weird' characters are not going to be allowed, it just means that I won't accept The Convolution, or say... an ocean, as a contestant!
I am saying this here and now so that people can prepare accordingly and in case they can't write a character in a week (the first one of the new year in specific), they know!

If you are unsure about your character concept possibly not being follow my restriction, then feel free to send it to me!

[gloomyMoron]

I. I am going to attempt to join. I am also going to attempt to not completely flake out. I just have to stop worrying so much about how much I suck and just write. I have found that, if left to think to long, I will inevitably discourage and sabotage myself into oblivion.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'd be interested in joining - I have zero experience in Grand Battles except for a short-lived Bay 12 one, but it seems simple enough. These things have always seemed cool to me, but they also seem to fill up incredibly fast.

So, mailing list away!

[Solaris]

Vendetta starts THIS Saturday
If you have concerns about any character idea's bring them to me.
Or not, if I don't feel like your character is 'workable' I'll tell you right away so that you can explain why it is or whatever.
The rule is really loose and is really "is it a sentient animal, vegetable, or mineral" and even then that isn't the real limit here.
Anyway.

P.S. Considering the INSANITY that was pulled by S!1 I am rescinding my limit on you 8 being able to enter S!2, but keep in mind that the odds of you being selected is much lower.