The Official Rules Questions Thread

[George Austin]

Post your questions or suggestions about the Game Challenge here. Eventually, this first post will get edited into something like an FAQ or the official "rules" of the Challenge.

Q. Are teams allowed to participate?
A. Of course! Multiple participants may work on and submit and single entry.

Q. When can I start?
A. You could start when the Secret Ingredient gets unveiled on Wednesday, July 23rd at noon, but I'm sure people have been mulling over ideas and writing already.

Q. When is it over?
A. Games should be turned in at 11:59PM on Saturday, August 2nd. I don't know when it'll be "over" over.

Q. How should I submit my game?
A. Make a post in the "I'm Done!" thread with

• The title of your game
• The names of anyone that should get co-authorship credit (if applicable)
• A list of the ingredients you used
• The manuscript of your game attached to your post
• A link to any non-standard (pencil, paper, dice) stuff your game needs, like Ron's spinners

Submit your manuscript in plain text (.txt) format, please.

Q. What other constraints are there?
A. Well, there are the ingredients listed at the top of the left-hand column on the front page. Everyone's supposed to use the Secret Ingredient ("Write your game for an audience that's never played a role playing game before.") and pick three others, but there's not much I can do if you don't :P

Q. What happens after I turn in my manuscript?
A. Every participant should critique two other games. Ideally, everyone would play at least one other game. I may have recruited a willing non-RPGer judge (in keeping with the Secret Theme Ingredient) for this review period as well.

The only rewards are the satisfaction of completing a game and potentially helpful feedback.

I'm open to suggestions for how long this peer review period should last.

[Adam Dray]

What is the official required ingredient? I am having trouble finding stuff on this site, and I'm not a newcomer to the Internet...

[Mike Olson]

Ditto.

[George Austin]

I just put it in a blog post (they're right under the "A Brief Introduction" text-box - I've attached a screen grab) and I haven't put it up anywhere else, yet.
So sorry about the disorganized mess that is this site. I'm working on it!

EDIT: And I can't get a damn border around my image with CSS...
EDIT 2: Post deleted, screen capture attached.

[Mike Olson]

Ah, so my guess was right!

Meh. I'm not overly fond of that secret ingredient. Then again, even Rolemaster was theoretically designed for people who'd never gamed before.

There will be other ingredients, though, right?

[George Austin]

Right!

[Mike Olson]

Ah, so that entire list is fair game? Gotcha. For some reason I thought it was going to be pared down from that to, say, five things.

[George Austin]

I should probably say that "all ingredients should be submitted by such-and-such-a-time," and lock down that list, shouldn't I?

[Mike Olson]

Yeah, I think so. The current openness of it probably has a lot to do with why I didn't think it was official or anything.

[George Austin]

I'm flying by the seat of my pants here! What should I do to make things better?

[Mike Olson]

There's confusion about how many ingredients there will be. Just the one secret ingredient? Or will there also be a list of ingredients from which we need to pick two or three?

If the former, then has the contest already begun?

[George Austin]

It's the latter and the Challenge has already begun.

[Ron Stanley]

I don't think George has posted the secret ingredient yet.

Is the deadline Eastern Standard Time?