OOC talk for Monster Academy.

[Warning]

Sounds fine by me. But yes, the office could work. We can just make it so she was referred there. (as first step in this academy)

[JennyDK]

Good idea. I look forward to get our scene started!

Have a lovely day/night

[JennyDK]

Good morning everyone!

I hope you are all doing nice and well

I am pleased to be more back to a normal every day again. This means more fun and creative time here.

[JennyDK]

Before I will announce any sort of fully decided event next time, I will air my primare idea.

It is setting up a school arena tournament. Of course, I am trying to think of ways to make it an alluring thing to want to participate in. One of those being a prize of some sort. Here are the thoughts I have had about this particular approach:

• Scroll/recipe/location of a familiar of the winner's pick
• A gift certificate for a 5 star restaurant
• Cash prize
• Notes from a top tier graduate
• Tickets for a sports game or other social event
• Their portrait and plaque as the first of the wall of tournament winners

Let me know what you think of these!

As for how to make it fair and equal, I am not yet sure how to do this, but my main idea is this:

Make it a point based system with 3 judges who gives points of 0-10 each. Of course, the judges are to be impartial and unbiased.

[Icarian Dreams]

7 hours ago, JennyDK said:

Before I will announce any sort of fully decided event next time, I will air my primare idea.

It is setting up a school arena tournament. Of course, I am trying to think of ways to make it an alluring thing to want to participate in. One of those being a prize of some sort. Here are the thoughts I have had about this particular approach:

• Scroll/recipe/location of a familiar of the winner's pick
• A gift certificate for a 5 star restaurant
• Cash prize
• Notes from a top tier graduate
• Tickets for a sports game or other social event
• Their portrait and plaque as the first of the wall of tournament winners

Let me know what you think of these!

As for how to make it fair and equal, I am not yet sure how to do this, but my main idea is this:

Make it a point based system with 3 judges who gives points of 0-10 each. Of course, the judges are to be impartial and unbiased.

That's a great idea! - the arena sure could use some more attention, and so would the more combative abilities of plenty of our students (although it's still rather early for another event, I have to feel)!

Regarding rewards, I like the sports tickets/restaurant reservation ones most, as they allow for more roleplay opportunities after the tournament, although I think they would work better if the combatants could team up into pairs. Otherwise, I find familiar scrolls interesting, since they are a reward both for the player, and for the character, although I'm not a strong fan of making them a rarity, especially if we already have students with familiars (looking at you LuBelle triplets).

I will propose a counter-offer in a similar vein though: How about instead, as a reward, the champion would get to choose a power/skill/ability to develop or improve, allowing to bypass the four-powers-per-student, and finally giving the characters a way to develop (which I believe we discussed, was something you would be open for). The school could then provide a tutor for the said ability, which comes with its own roleplay potential afterwards, and would be a palpable reward/motivation for both in and out-of-character.

Regarding making it fair and equal and the grading system - I think we could split the scoring into three categories to, say, Effectiveness, Control, and Style/Creativity? I'm open for alternatives, but that's the base idea. Reward a maximum of 4 points for Effectiveness, and 3 for both Control and Style respectively, so that defeating the opponent is still most valuable, but allowing for the characters without direct offensive powers to win by other means. Each judge scores for both sides, and, based on that, they declare who they think won the fight. The person that convinced the majority of the judges wins the round.

[JennyDK]

Thanks for the support ^^

I never said it had to be here and now, I just want to be prepared for it, as it would be quite different from the last one and thus needs to be handled more thoroughly. The idea was to make the scroll more/recipe an incentive for others to get familiars, more than familiars being a rarity. The only reason they are rare right now, is because not many have had the idea of getting one. With that being said, it was merely my brainstorming that came up with that particular prize - it could easily be a 3rd or 2nd place prize.

As for teams: I think the more fair way could be to have 2 categories: 1-on-1 duels and then team duels. That way, it should be more fair, at least number wise.

That is a pretty good suggestion I think and it does provide more options. I believe there are enough ideas to support having a prize for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place - naturally, if others have even more ideas for prizes, do let me know as it makes it easier to make a tier list for them and make them fit each category of possible rewards.

I can see what you are trying to say regarding awarding points. It sounds like a decent suggestion, I think, but I would rather run a test run to see how it might work out in practice. If anyone is wanting to try and set up a mock battle of some sort, it could give an opportunity to field test things. It would be rather awkward and dumb to fumble around in things when we get to the real deal.

Let me give an example of how I would make the score system, with inspiration from what you said:
Each following category is given a score of 0-5

• Control
• Creativity
• Power
• Speed

Each contest should end up with a score between 0-20. An additional 3-4 points could be awarded if you manage to knock the other out. So in case of no knockout, these points are not awarded.

[Icarian Dreams]

3 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

I never said it had to be here and now, I just want to be prepared for it, as it would be quite different from the last one and thus needs to be handled more thoroughly. The idea was to make the scroll more/recipe an incentive for others to get familiars, more than familiars being a rarity. The only reason they are rare right now, is because not many have had the idea of getting one. With that being said, it was merely my brainstorming that came up with that particular prize - it could easily be a 3rd or 2nd place prize.

Hah, alright, just making sure Hard to disagree that its better to prepare earlier :^ I see your point about familiars, although I think there's nothing wrong with people not wanting to participate in the mechanic if they don't want to - especially since the familiars are more like an additional character rather than your typical "wizard-helper" kind-of smaller creatures, from what I understand. It does sound like an interesting 2nd or 3rd place prize, I have to agree.

13 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

As for teams: I think the more fair way could be to have 2 categories: 1-on-1 duels and then team duels. That way, it should be more fair, at least number wise.

That is a pretty good suggestion I think and it does provide more options. I believe there are enough ideas to support having a prize for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place - naturally, if others have even more ideas for prizes, do let me know as it makes it easier to make a tier list for them and make them fit each category of possible rewards.

Making two tournaments - for duels and team fights is a good idea. The only problem I see with that is what I already mentioned - I'm not sure if we'll have enough participants for it to make sense. Having the participants overlap in both tournaments partially solves this, but not entirely. Rewarding 2nd-3rd places also suffers from the same problem. If we end up with 5-6 students, that would mean that half of them would end up on the podium - taking any stakes out of the competition.

16 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

I can see what you are trying to say regarding awarding points. It sounds like a decent suggestion, I think, but I would rather run a test run to see how it might work out in practice. If anyone is wanting to try and set up a mock battle of some sort, it could give an opportunity to field test things. It would be rather awkward and dumb to fumble around in things when we get to the real deal.

Let me give an example of how I would make the score system, with inspiration from what you said:
Each following category is given a score of 0-5

• Control
• Creativity
• Power
• Speed

Each contest should end up with a score between 0-20. An additional 3-4 points could be awarded if you manage to knock the other out. So in case of no knockout, these points are not awarded.

Glad that made sense Your spin on it is quite decent as well, especially with the addition of a knockout rule. I'm thinking it could be valued even higher, but then that may be unnecessary, considering that when you're knocked out, you won't exactly be scoring many points either, I have to imagine. I'm only not sure what you mean by the "Speed" category. What would that entice?

If you'd have me I think I could help out with the mock battle - I'm quite interesting myself whether it would work out as I hope it to.

Also, have you thought about how to structure the tournament in general? Do we just draw a tournament ladder with people who apply? We may also need to set some limit on posts so that the duels don't draw out for too long and so everyone gets a chance to fight - or we could create a temporary separate topic for each battle so that they can happen simultaneously - at least OOC.

[JennyDK]

It was merely one of several prize options, so it doesn't have to be part of it at all, if there is consensus and interest for any of the other stuff or options suggested by others. Familiars can also be small critters - it doesn't have to be fully fledged characters. One of mine is basically somewhere in the middle.

We can always adjust things according to how many participants that there will be. The point is to have fun, not to necessarily have a huge and grand tournament. If we talk a minor thing, there is no need for 2nd and 3rd prize. It makes not sense with, for instance, 5 who wants to participate.

Speed would mean to complete the duel in a rapid way and/or in general being speedy. In extension of this, I would suggest each duelist getting 6-8 posts each to get through a match.

I plan to just use the arena topic actually - I am not a fan of splitting things up and with general quick matches, I don't think there will be a problem. Of course, I still want to test it out with a mock battle or two.

[Icarian Dreams]

19 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

It was merely one of several prize options, so it doesn't have to be part of it at all, if there is consensus and interest for any of the other stuff or options suggested by others. Familiars can also be small critters - it doesn't have to be fully fledged characters. One of mine is basically somewhere in the middle.

Of course - I was more addressing your point about "incentivizing familiar use" rather than criticizing the familiar-as-reward idea. Similar to my ability-acquiring idea, it could also work well if the familiar was in a way stronger than a usual one would be - not sure how exactly, since I haven't really read much into the mechanics of familiars (as it shows ). Also, thanks for the clarification, if that's the case, some of my characters could end up getting one, I'd just need to find a good narrative reason.

19 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

We can always adjust things according to how many participants that there will be. The point is to have fun, not to necessarily have a huge and grand tournament. If we talk a minor thing, there is no need for 2nd and 3rd prize. It makes not sense with, for instance, 5 who wants to participate.

True - if it turns out smaller than expected, we could even imply other fights taking place in the background, and just focus on the ones that involve player characters.

19 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

Speed would mean to complete the duel in a rapid way and/or in general being speedy. In extension of this, I would suggest each duelist getting 6-8 posts each to get through a match.

I plan to just use the arena topic actually - I am not a fan of splitting things up and with general quick matches, I don't think there will be a problem. Of course, I still want to test it out with a mock battle or two.

I still have a bit of trouble seeing how it would work out - considering that not every fight will have a definite end (with a knock-out), and there will likely be a time-out indicating the end of a duel - but I'm sure these sort of thing we can sort out after the mock battle(s).

I'll trust in your judgement of keeping everything in one thread - I still think it would be easier to keep track of duels and outcomes if they were kept separate, but then I understand your reluctance to add even more threads to an already quite large roleplay. If the battles do end up getting resolved quickly, I can see this working, I mostly worry about scenarios where people can get only about a post a day, due to timezone differences, for example (from my experience, this happens quite often, especially if neither side wants to stay up at unreasonable hours). A single fight could then lock the thread up for even over a week, which may slow things down noticeably.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Icarian Dreams

[JennyDK]

I apprectiate the comments and input - it does help shape things better a bit better in my opinion. Hopefully it can turn out at last half way decent.

Good to hear that the familar topic seems to have reached a consensus (at least from how I read it). I guess time will tell if there is an interest in it being a potential prize.

Yes, I think so as well. Something like this could be a lot of fun, so I hope to get it as right as possible when it rolls out and gets started. I think you might be overthinking it though. In my mind, it seems pretty simple, but only one way to find out.

I understand the concern and I could see some of them ending up drawn out a bit, but there could still be a different location for interactions for the others to use in between, unless they wish to be in the arena to observe. I certainly will try to aim after the simplest solution that seems possible.

[Icarian Dreams]

I'm not overthinking - you're underthinking, duh!

In all seriousness, you're very much welcome. I think we've reached relative consensus on most matters here. I would also like to hear how the others feel about the idea - so that it's not just us two shouting ideas at each other

As to having different locations - I think we'd agree that it would be good to keep the system uniform to the one we've used for the dance before - that is, have around three areas designated for event matters, keeping all official event-related stuff there, since it worked quite well the last time; Arena for the duels, perhaps the Athletic Fields as "training grounds" of sorts, for pre- and after-battle scenes and training, and maybe the Assembly or Dining Hall for all other socializing and announcements?

[JennyDK]

Those are great suggestions for places to utilize and leave the arena relatively free for duels to take place. After all, there will have to be 3 judges present as well. I suggest 3 staff members and all of them being a different member - so we don't end up with someone like me getting 2/3 of the voting done - that would be pretty biased and unfair.

I would very much like to hear what think of this so far and to hear their suggestions.

[Icarian Dreams]

I was about to suggest the same - would make sense to have three relatively unrelated players steer the judges. I also considered having at least one of the judges from outside the school (mainly because I see @Multiversal's Kushiel fit the role oh-so-well :^), and it would make sense to have an impartial third party involved as well, but that's honestly all up to you to mix and match.

On another note - I was thinking of creating a PE Teacher character - someone with shielding/protection magic, so that the duels could be conducted without having students risk actual serious injuries - aaaaand because I realized that I have only one teacher character so far and I want some more :^ Would that work with you?

[JennyDK]

Kushiel? I have looked over the "Other characters" topic, but I cannot see who you are referering to there. Though, I would argue that it makes sense to use characters who know the students.

You are quite free to make a character to fit the P.E. teacher spot and such powers are fitting for the duels, but I am not sure they are of much use outside of it. Of course, any powers you choose to have, is up to you.

[Icarian Dreams]

42 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

Kushiel? I have looked over the "Other characters" topic, but I cannot see who you are referering to there. Though, I would argue that it makes sense to use characters who know the students.

Azazel's sister, second (visible) character from the top. I was just saying what's on my mind. Having a character who doesn't know the students may actually help keep the judgement unbiased - besides, who's better at judging people than an Angel But I really don't mind whichever way you go with the cast.

42 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

You are quite free to make a character to fit the P.E. teacher spot and such powers are fitting for the duels, but I am not sure they are of much use outside of it. Of course, any powers you choose to have, is up to you.

Well, I imagine keeping students from being to harm themselves (or each other) can come in useful in school scenarios I'll send you a Text when I have something more than a general idea then!

Edited April 4, 2021 by Icarian Dreams

[JennyDK]

Oh right, that one. I did look at her, but apparently I missed the name. Would be nice to see her in play again and being a bit active as well. I think I will let @Thatannoyinggod help me decide what is going to be best.

And yes, that is true - I don't think I have seen many defensive or even healing powers yet. It actually gives me ideas for more future characters.

[Warning]

I'm open for a scene next (now that my character is properly introduced) so who wishes to have some fun? (Also I am not sure the schedule matters all that much or does it?). I want to see much more with my character now that I started being right into it. Fun!

Edited April 7, 2021 by Seraphina

[JennyDK]

The schedule was merely fluff for the scene. WE did try for classroom scenes in form of an intro class, but it was way too messy and such.

[JennyDK]

Good day everyone. I hope you are all doing nice and well!

It's wonderful to see so many scenes unfolding here lately.

I would love to have a few more scenes if anyone are seeking any of my characters not currently busy!

[Warning]

I don't know what characters are not busy and I don't really want to ping anyone so I just mark myself as free. (I have only one character anyway so it's not like anyone has to choose between many.) Just need someone who wants to do something with me. :3

Edited April 7, 2021 by Seraphina

[Godot]

57 minutes ago, Seraphina said:

I don't know what characters are not busy and I don't really want to ping anyone so I just mark myself as free. (I have only one character anyway so it's not like anyone has to choose between many.) Just need someone who wants to do something with me. :3

I have a human character among the 1st year students who I love to play as a lot, and he could definitely be a type of person who shows Tamamo around. He is currently in use but even so, it looks like the character who he's busy with has a busy creator as well because they're not around and haven't been for about a day or so now, so I personally wouldn't mind if I began another scene with him! I have more characters, obviously, but I don't think they would be fitting as much to meet with Tamamo, since they're among the higher years and I usually try to go for logic when I pair up characters. Let me know what you think, and if you'd like to meet him then also let me know where would be the most logical place for the characters to meet! Hope you're having fun in the club so far, by the way! ^^

[Warning]

Yeah, it sounds interesting. I don't know who your character is but if they just meet to start something casual then it shouldn't be too bad. Although, I've seen how you write like 3 heavy paragraphs in your post and I might have trouble keeping up with that even if I try my best to give as much detail as I can. Well just saying but we can try.

[Godot]

Oh, don't worry one bit! I do not always write that much. It depends on who I'm playing as and what the scene is about, honestly. The Hallway thread in the Dorms section is currently unoccupied by anyone. My character just came from there, but it would never hurt me going back to there again. What do you say they bump into each other (not literally, but that's very well possible) as Tamamo is looking for her dorm room (unless she already found hers and simply is taking a look around the academy)? Bumping into people is kind of common for my character, whom by the way is known as Hiroshigae Saeki.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Godot

[Warning]

She already found it but she has to get out of there so she can do so on the exit (anytime she leaves it probably the next day) so that sounds good enough for an idea that would work. Not sure if you want to begin or I do but I'll join up if you start something there.

[Godot]

Ah, I see. I'm fine with it being next day, canonically. I guess I will take the liberty to begin and mention you on the post as well.