The Ratings War VI: Aces High - Round 1 (Closed - Judging)
- Thread starter Lord Krunk
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Could I get this in comprehensible English, please? I don't mean to offend, it's just that I simply don't get what you're saying.Khedive Rex said:
Sir, I would second this motion and put forward my own petition to see that the Ratings Wars, further known as RW from now on forward, come to an acceptable and suitable ending worthy of the name Ratings Wars. In addition, I formally request that The Good Lord Sir Why-Is-Her-Royal-Majesty-Bifurcated Ultrajoe (esquire)not only take charge of this most esteemed contest, but rather take control immediately. In this I say, to Ultrajoe, and to the Ratings Wars, Gods bless them all.Khedive Rex said:
Fuck, what was that noise!?
Although, to hear it you would need sensory organs. And lets, face it, what happened kind of did away with any notions of having un-dismembered body parts. I mean, did you see that gigantic, space-faring ship drop out of the clear sky and crush the city of Chicane? No? Well let me tell you, it was pretty fucking sweet. The way that giant and totally fucking rad hunk of metal and strobe lights crushed into the plane, conveniently obliterating all of the plot a new and unfamiliar god might have had to work out? That was fucking sweet. The waves of fire, the gigantic explosions, the noise of the stability of a dimension rending apart? We have recordings, you can have a look at them later, but take it from me that the end of a world is always good from the front seat.
You didn't see that though, contender, because you were warping through time and space thanks to the precise and totally not radioactive process of 'Teleportation'. It's a pretty neat concept, you probably haven't heard of it. We have it here, on the good ship Versecore, and you had better get used to it and all of it's delightful, benign* tumors!
We'll explain everything in just a moment, but right now it's time for our Omidimensional broadcast to go LIVE!
++++++==BROADCAST IN 3. 2. 1... ROCK IT!!!!!==++++++
Across every universe with a causality compatibility within 0.32 cuils of Versecast standard, a signal undulated into the fabric of reality. In the others they had to pirate it. On every world in these planes with some form of communication system, be it radio, blaarghcast, television or glacial vibration poetry, this signal (via the ceaseless efforts of near-infinite, bearded translators) blurted out the following message, in some fashion.
?Greetings, Sentience! Although most of your realities are not old enough to remember the last, the latest and greatest Dimensional Deathmatch is here! Coming to you from the realm formerly known as Chicane, we have a range of amazing and deadly combatants set to dazzle you with battles of skill, steel, science and whatever arcane abilities their reality supports!?
On those worlds where the audience had something akin to eyes, they beheld (if they were still capable of watching) a logo, tailor-made for their mentality, flashing gaudily. Many were already descending rapidly into hysteria as the religious, cultural, scientific and social implications of the impossible broadcast sank in. Although not right away, many resorted to total planetary suicide at the realisation that Reality TV was the one, true omniversal constant.
?Brought to you by Versecast Corporation, your peoples will soon bear witness to the greatest spectacle known to sentience; Mortal contest! The struggle for survival! The right to exist!?
On worlds whose inhabitants could not understand one or more of these concepts, societies sat baffled or were rent apart by the philosophical implications. On at least a technically unlimited number of them, their heads (or the equivalent) literally exploded.
?We go now live to Versecast Owner, Omnidimensional Chairman and your Host... Erzanx Infinus!?
On a stage made of tamed darkmatter, inlaid with novelty-sized stars, a figure coalesced out of the dying song of a god. It's one hell of a special effect, if you can afford it. Erzanx Infinus, functional owner of 93% of everything, opened his four arms wide and bowed before the assembed audiences of everywhere. The orange biped made a mockery of those civilisations in love with wide-screen, being as he was fourteen feet tall but only two wide across the chest. Fixing his optical receivers onto the camera-lens, he gave everyone a warm and friendly smile.
Fans have called the omnichairman 'confident' and 'charismatic', but those words were to Erzanx what an atom was to it's parent universe, both of which he owned. The fact was that if the existence of his omni-dimensional broadcast didn't shatter a world's religion, then the cults that sprang up in his name afterwards surely would. His presence commanded respect, directed attention and altered all who received it in subtle, but not necessarily temporally consistent ways. For example; on those worlds still capable of paying attention, ripples in causality spread back through the cultural timeline so that 78 percent of them were capable of recognising his attire as a, The, perfectly tailored three-piece suit.
On the others, it was just generally appreciated as being the classiest thing ever worn by anyone.
?Hello, Sentience? he said, noticeably altering birth and/or divorce rates on worlds which featured psychic or empathic conception. ?Hello and welcome to Dimensional Deathmatch, one entity's attempt, my attempt, to capture the spirit of contest and reaction that drives all of creation. For it is struggle, my friends, that brings out the unique and amazing within each of us. For the being who has everything, literally, the unique is all that holds any value. You, all of you, will share in that wealth with me. Stay tuned.?
With a wink of his sparkling, all-coloured eyes, Erzanx faded away from the mind-bending stage leaving only a soothing swirl of omni-spectrum emissions tailor made for every viewing population. 'Stick around' it hinted 'what else are were you going to do with this period of time? Do you want to be the only person in your species who misses out?'
Between unintended space-time destabilisation, genocidal culture shock, philosophical or religious wars, involuntary intelligence retro-development, total conceptual incompatibility, species-ingrained apathy or, in one solitary example, there being something more interesting on, only 12 percent of recipient audiences understood and survived exposure to Versecast's most popular, and indeed, only, production. This was deemed acceptable, although Erzanx did later consider switching skin tone from orange to sky blue to appeal to a wider audience.
++++++==BROADCAST OUT!!!! YEAH!!!!==++++++
Hello Contender. You have been re-selected due to previous contest capability to take part in season 10786802483651329845092115174712541 of Dimensional Deathmatch
Firstlife Contestant Roster Stands As Follows:
USER: Viking Incognito CHARACTER: Shift
USER: JoJo CHARACTER: Hui Li
USER: Fragrance of Mtn Dew CHARACTER: Izumi, Frost Demon of Makoto
USER: Lost In The Void CHARACTER: Barry Underwood
USER: Khedive Rex CHARACTER: Baramiah
USER: ElementSoul CHARACTER: Xenon Netdrak
USER: Zombie Fish CHARACTER: James Elroy
USER: 000Ronald CHARACTER: Soneyo of Bellcamp/Roland
USER: RBMidknight CHARACTER: Lauren Ward
USER: CounterAttack CHARACTER: Daman Ra
Soulsaved Contestant Roster Stands As Follows:
USER: Hafrael CHARACTER: Lord Miles Sawyer
USER: Segadroid CHARACTER: Alexander 'Alex' Umbra
USER: Nukey CHARACTER: Issac Daft
USER: Staika CHARACTER: Troy Pittman
USER: Tips of Fingers CHARACTER: Faustus
USER: Wesdabigman CHARACTER: Reject
USER: ThreeWords CHARACTER: William Darke, The Evening Star
USER: Armitage Shanks CHARACTER: Dimitry Shanks
USER: Baldrek CHARACTER: Karl Granville Mandelbaum
USER: Doc Gnosis CHARACTER: Kim Avery, The Solver
All Contestants Are Participating Next Round. The Dead Can Rest When I Am Done With Them.
Firstlife Contestant Roster Stands As Follows:
USER: Viking Incognito CHARACTER: Shift
USER: JoJo CHARACTER: Hui Li
USER: Fragrance of Mtn Dew CHARACTER: Izumi, Frost Demon of Makoto
USER: Lost In The Void CHARACTER: Barry Underwood
USER: Khedive Rex CHARACTER: Baramiah
USER: ElementSoul CHARACTER: Xenon Netdrak
USER: Zombie Fish CHARACTER: James Elroy
USER: 000Ronald CHARACTER: Soneyo of Bellcamp/Roland
USER: RBMidknight CHARACTER: Lauren Ward
USER: CounterAttack CHARACTER: Daman Ra
Soulsaved Contestant Roster Stands As Follows:
USER: Hafrael CHARACTER: Lord Miles Sawyer
USER: Segadroid CHARACTER: Alexander 'Alex' Umbra
USER: Nukey CHARACTER: Issac Daft
USER: Staika CHARACTER: Troy Pittman
USER: Tips of Fingers CHARACTER: Faustus
USER: Wesdabigman CHARACTER: Reject
USER: ThreeWords CHARACTER: William Darke, The Evening Star
USER: Armitage Shanks CHARACTER: Dimitry Shanks
USER: Baldrek CHARACTER: Karl Granville Mandelbaum
USER: Doc Gnosis CHARACTER: Kim Avery, The Solver
All Contestants Are Participating Next Round. The Dead Can Rest When I Am Done With Them.
Please notify me of errors made in the roster. PM if it's something small like a misspelled name, post here if I've listed the wrong person as dead or something else catastrophic. I had Shanks down as winning until I did a double take and saw that CounterAttack had taken the victory, well done there. Other mistakes may have survived.
Some Stuff
- I will attempt to re-ignite this contest with as many of it's original players as possible.
- I'm sorry for changing the plot, but I don't know where Krunk was going with it and I am not trying to piece together an IP like that, mangling his vision in the process. Better to hit it from orbit, no?
- In the case where players cannot be contacted to retake their positions, I will open the gates to replacements for their places on the ladder.
- We will restart play in two weeks from this post, as close to the minute as I can make it.
- The game is now a Double Elimination Bracket contest, one round into play, I will explain this later or you can look it up now if you think you can remember how google works.
- Judges can be replaced if they do not respond to the PM I will send out to all involved over the next day. I can be third judge if necessary.
- We will likely shift to a new thread so I can alter the title for announcements and update a master rankings post. It also allows me to post the first ever codified Ratings War ruleset, designed to allow for rules flexibility while laying down a code of conduct for players and GMs alike. I have a lot of free time right now.
- Stay Tuned.
You do realize that just producing a new round in a new thread, without trying to merge a new plot to the existing one for this round would be a lot less complicated? Wouldn't it be a far better to just start a new round, instead asking any new players who want to join to follow a massive plot merge and change?Ultrajoe said:
I'd also like to point out that this would drastically effect the characters that have been currently written. This could very well completely destroy a player's plans for their character, let alone potentially screwing up a player's character completely who was tailor written for the original plot that was outlined in Krunk's OP.
Well said, but I don't know where that plot was going nor do I want to mangle somebody else's idea in an attempt to preserve continuity. You can see for yourself the differences in myself and krunk's writing style, and certainly the sort of mood I'm in compared to his fantastic vision. As for problems merging, that's no problem at all. My plot literally fell out of the sky and squashed his plot, Oz style.elementsoul said:
As for characters, I don't see how their intended universe should matter, they can respond to this change, ignore it for all functional purposes or even choose not to participate (you can write a new one, if it's that huge of a problem). I don't want to start Ratings War VII, not when this one can be raised back to glory. This plot will be re-posted in the OP of any new RW:VI thread, with a short sentence explaining that it landed on the old one. Players old and new will be placed in a new bracket, with the choice to continue (and hey, it's an interesting thing for a character to respond to!), to bow out, or to enter with a replacement character.
Your character is... (looks at player filing system...) Xenon Netdrak the necromancer. Thin chap, pale, neat tatoos/corruption marks, good at children's parties. Xenon is soon to be offered wealth beyond measure, a literal three wishes as the prize for fighting under the banner of Erzanx Infinus, rather than some stuffy, peasant monoverse society! If that doesn't tickle the fancies of a Necromancer, I don't know what would.
The important point is this; A new round will begin, in a new thread, with this plot taking over from the old one in the smoothest fashion I can fashion. Losers from round one will form a new bracket, and the defeated from the 'living' bracket will join them as the game continues. A desperate struggle in the underworld to stay alive in the second chance rounds. They can, it will be noted, still win the whole thing, albeit against a massive handicap.
Stay Tuned.
While I support the idea of a new name, new plot, and new thread I find it hard to support this continuation of the existing round. What bothers me the most is the expectation that the old plot being destroyed is canon.Ultrajoe said:
After many months of being dead I'd accepted that this thread and therefore the character I'd written had gotten as far as it ever would. My character had won a round of the Wars, and that was going to be all she accomplished. If I was ambitious at later point in time I thought maybe I would go back and continue the story on my own time, privately. I was okay with the thread being dead despite not being able to get to the story bits I'd had planned. I'd accepted that. However, now I find that the whole world has been hijacked and the expectation seems to be that everything that was no longer is. I'm reminded anew that the Round did not finish, and now will not finish as it was originally designed.
Because we were able to do a single round, there are established events, conversations, winners, losers, and plot setups. We all had to do Entries in addition to character sheets, and several people used the original plot in these Entries. My character, as an example, was offered a job and threatened moderately to participate in this event. To have that world smashed to bits means that suddenly my character has no reason to continue and no way to get home (and possibly no home to go to?). And while I would appreciate the opportunity to make a new character, how does that affect the brackets? If the former winners aren't comfortable with their characters being in this new universe - or if they don't fit in the new plot - and the users want to make new characters are they stripped of the winners' title or given the opportunity to write a way for the new characters to replace the old?
This new story is not a plot so much as it is a premise. Plot is not essential to a Ratings War, see some of the earlier ones for examples. This is a contest in storytelling, and the GM is not a contestant. The backdrop is just that, backdrop. However, from yours and other responses I can see that this will be an issue.RBMidknight said:
The fact is this; I will not be continuing Krunk's plot. It's his, and I don't know what he meant for it or particularly like it in the first place. If you want continuity of this contest, then there needs to be a transition, and that means that in some way we need to move away from the plot as it has been. Despite the in-universe mess and explosions, dropping a bridge (and attached spacehsip, geddit!?) is the simplest way to go about that.
That means that we: Adapt to this new direction/I try and hobble along the plot as is has been/We start a new ratings war. If we keep going, standings will remain attached to each player, not their character. This is a contest of storytellers, and the rankings of the writers are what matters, not their creations.
PMs are going out and will ask what players want in regards to this, if people would rather let this game stay dead and start anew, then we can do that. I am not adverse to this.
For the record Xenon would do the exact opposite. He agreed to join them because he sympathized with their situation. Erzanx Infinus on the other hand would likely be viewed as an out of control demon and Xenon would do everything in his effort to kill him and rid him from this world. Not to mention the creed of the Necromancers is based around not giving into greed so a prize at the end of the tunnel for killing others would appall him.Ultrajoe said:
Now for the topic on hand. I say that you should just start Round VII anew. Your "premise" itself looks like a good idea and a solid base for people to start characters from, however crushing and destroying what's happened so far in Round VI makes your idea look bad.
If I had to describe the difference I would say starting Round VII would be a gentlemen's coup. Meanwhile continuing on with Round VI in any manner where Krunk isn't at the lead would be more akin to Wildings storming a castle and taking over it.
TL;DR I vote for option C.
Logically thinking, I don't see this as an impediment to my characters change; at some point I wanted to play with certain things that I wish I had the chance to continue. My only hope that there won't be a 1000 word limit whichever choice is made.
... Then again I am drunk as I've writing this, and I'm probably not all there and my be on Chiron's tail. But at this point, I'm ambivalent.
SOBER EDIT: I wouldn't mind either options, but if you want to start with a new RW altogether, then I'll be happy to create another character. Kim had something I wanted to explore, but I could resurrect an old character for the battle.
... Then again I am drunk as I've writing this, and I'm probably not all there and my be on Chiron's tail. But at this point, I'm ambivalent.
SOBER EDIT: I wouldn't mind either options, but if you want to start with a new RW altogether, then I'll be happy to create another character. Kim had something I wanted to explore, but I could resurrect an old character for the battle.
I shall vote for Option C as well.
My character's prime motivation for entering the Chicane tournament was to defeat the Joker that ran rampant through the world. With the Joker now no longer important, Daman Ra has no further reason to be present in Chicane - or its replacement - and would take the option of going home if there was one. There would, of course, be some dejection at not unlocking the secrets promised to him by the Suit of Diamonds, but odds are high that he would just transcribe his experience to a scroll and stick it in his library to be forgotten.
If there was no option to leave, Daman would protest.
My character's prime motivation for entering the Chicane tournament was to defeat the Joker that ran rampant through the world. With the Joker now no longer important, Daman Ra has no further reason to be present in Chicane - or its replacement - and would take the option of going home if there was one. There would, of course, be some dejection at not unlocking the secrets promised to him by the Suit of Diamonds, but odds are high that he would just transcribe his experience to a scroll and stick it in his library to be forgotten.
If there was no option to leave, Daman would protest.
What kinda half-rate dark wizard society is this!?elementsoul said:
More seriously; I've only gotten four replies, including those here in this thread, so we'll let those PMs simmer for a bit and once I get, say, 10+ or it's been two/three days, we'll go with what people want. For ease of transition and the character incompatibilities presented here, likely this will mean RWVII: Dimensional Deathmatch, begins.
But just think of the Fabulous Prizes*!CounterAttack said:
- Stay Tuned
LABYRINTH!!! I feared you were taken by the spiders! Or the dingos. Actually, I hear your rocks are dangerous too, aren't they secretly fish or something? I have trouble imaginging why a rock or a fish would want to kill people but ... Australia ...Labyrinth said:
I must go there...
Seriously though, its been far too long. I'm something of an infrequent on the escapist these days unfortunately, means I get far less banter with awesome people. How on earth have you been? Its funny you should ask about the trip to Oz, its been tumbling around my head again recently. I don't really see myself being able to in the next six months. But if I was at a place where I had the time and resources, it'd be remarkably tempting. And I might be at such a place in six months. At the least I can say next time I take a vacation, it'll probably be to Australia. Are you still running Sydney Escapisms? Those were July affairs as I recall right?
I don't see any huge issue with continuing my character in your universe. I could use the transition to add a slight ironic feel to Baramiah, it's an easy enough character shift to go through. But, honestly, when I imagine the new feel of this tournament, I can't help but ponder a slew of other characters who are both fresher in my imagination and, perhaps, more appropriate to the environment. And with that in mind, although I'm more than down for any of the options, My vote would go to C. We'll have to make a new thread anyway so you can handle title changes. If we're making a new thread, we might as well make an entirely new thread.Ultrajoe said:
And I must say, I'm not devoted to keeping my earlier win. It'd be easy enough to start fresh from the beginning by way of wins and losses. If we have new characters and new players (which I predict we'll need, the thread having been abandoned this long) its arguably the easier option really.
It seems you don't know my character all that well either. In Daman's mind, he was offered a contract - though not in a literal sense, of course - and he accepted. With the destruction of Chicane, and presumably the suit of Diamonds, who approached him, the contract is terminated. Daman now has no further reason to be on this plane.Ultrajoe said: