I've decided to kick start the roleplaying forums before the release of Oblivion with this exclusive TESSource.net only competition open to all forum members (new and old). Please read on for more information on how to join in. This should be fun for everyone involved so even if you don't win, you'll have had a good time!
The Prize For The Winner
A collector's edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion bought for you and delivered free, hopefully on launch day (supplier and country dependent). People resident in the United States will have the game bought from and delivered by Amazon, as will residents from the UK and those countries in the EU who can receive deliveries from Amazon. If you are from a country that Amazon cannot deliver to then we will have to negotiate a way of ordering the game from a local online supplier for you. There is no cash alternative.
There will only be one winner.
Competition Start /End Date
The competition starts when you start. It is open as of now and participants may enter at any time up until the 14th of March, two days before the end of the competition.
This competition will end on the 16th of March 2006 at midnight, GMT (5 hours ahead of EST). Judgement will take place on the 17th and the winner informed by forum PM. The winner will obviously need to provide me with a delivery address to send the game to.
Details On The Competition
Malchik has written up a fictional situation within Cyrodiil, the province that Oblivion takes place in. Competitors will roleplay a single character through the fictional story with other competitors however they see fit, so long as they do not break the ground rules of either the forums or the competition. Competitors will then be individually judged based on their imaginative writing and roleplaying skills and a winner announced.
The settings and advancement in storyline will be provided by Malchik who will be playing the conventional role as the "Dungeon Master" of this competition. Players should not make the setting, that is Malchik's job. Instead players should roleplay within the setting they have been given and interact with each other between the interim of Malchik's updates. Malchik will update the setting and situation several times a day and roleplayers should try to keep up with the updates so they don't try and roleplay a situation that people have already moved on from. While you obviously aren't expected to be roleplaying 24/7 and involved with all the updates you should try and join in as much as possible and make sure you are not "out-of-synch" with the rest of the roleplayers. This means making sure you read through all the new posts in this thread before making a post of your own.
Obviously we realise people have school, jobs and other things to be doing and so people shall not be penalised for being inactive for too long. However there is a minimum amount of commitment required in this competition and players will need to have made a minimum of 6 posts in this thread to be in with a chance of winning.
Roleplaying Judgement Criteria
- Players should roleplay in the third person, that is you should not use "I" but instead your character's name when you wish to make an action.
- You will be judged largely on your ability to roleplay within the fictional world. Things the judges are looking for include how creative you are, how well you can roleplay with other characters, how your character adapts to changes in the environment and how well you develop and adapt on your character's attitudes, feelings and personality.
- The level of detail you go into will be assessed where those people who barely scratch the surface, or those people who go far too deep into describing things may lose favour with the judges!
- Your conduct and adherance to generally accepted roleplaying rules will be noted. Things like power posing and changing the setting will be heavily frowned upon. If roleplayers go too far and continue to disrupt the competition then they will be banned from the competition.
- Your grammar and spelling is extremely important and will also be judged. Use proper paragraphing and grammar in the appropriate places. Use capitals after a full-stop and use proper spacing after commas. Completely illiterate people, or people hoping to speak in l337 will be banned from this competition. If English is not your first language then please state so when you start roleplaying so we can be a little more lenient on you.
- There is to be absolutely no "uber-roleplaying". A definition of uber-roleplaying is making up bastard swords that can annihilate whole armies, or spells that can cause armaggedon. You are a normal person with normal spells and abilities. No one person is greater than or the master of any other person.
You should roleplay a character as though the character were from an Elder Scrolls game and stick to the "canon" of the Elder Scrolls series. This means no making up fictional towns and cities, new races or, for example, claiming you are the emperor. However you can go into as much detail as you like about your characters past endeavours and history, just keep it realistic.
All the roleplaying should be kept to this thread alone. If players want to converse with each other outside of this roleplaying competition then they should do so OUTSIDE of this thread. This thread should be for roleplaying only.
The Judges And Excluded People
Unfortunately winning this competition is not open to TESSource staff or moderators to avoid any favouritism claims. However, these people excluded CAN roleplay within this thread and join in, but they will not be judged and not given the chance to win the prize.
The judges will be those people that are excluded from the competition as TESSource staff and moderators with the final say of the winner left down to Malchik, Roleplaying Game Master and coordinator and Dark0ne, TESSource owner and competition runner.