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Archive through September 30, 2005
Prodigy:
(ooc) Player Discussion:
Contest #1 (complete):
Archive through September 30, 2005
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töff (Töff)
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Q. What are the judges looking for?
A.Coolness is an overall quality, and that's how the three top characters will be ranked to win prizes. Even if #2 has the coolest weapon or origin, #1 might beat him just for being cooler overall. So that's the first thing we are looking for: COOLNESS. It doesn't mean low temperature or calm. It doesn't mean everybody likes him (who liked the Hunchback of Notre Dame? nobody! but he was cool!). It means the most captivating and interesting character profile, taken as a whole--somebody who really grabs your attention and about whom you want to know more. Somebody whose comic book you'd subscribe to, just because he is so cool. Somebody you'd hate to see made into a movie because Hollywood is not cool enough to do this character right.
Probably, given that "overall" approach to judging, each character should have good HOMOGENEITY. He should not looked "patched together" as if you just took the coolest sidekick idea, the coolest vehicle, the coolest top three superpowers, and smashed them all into one write-up. Everything should fit together.
If your character doesn't display at least some kind of ORIGINALITY then you are going to handicap yourself. This might be the greatest challenge, because so many character concepts have already been used, not just in sueprhero comics but in movies, books, fairytales, etc. etc. Batman is cool, right? But making a clone of Batman under a different name is not going to win you this contest. This is not an impossible hurdle to overcome! Just use some imagination. We are all creative people here.
Your character must be compatible with the GAME RULES but that's not difficult because in a superhero game just about anything goes. But still, if you enter somebody with miserably few weaknesses (no freeform balance), you ain't gonna win.
This might sound petty, but you ought at least to write properly in your entry. AOLspeak or 133t or these "u r kewl" styles of writing can be very distracting (some games *ban* that kinda un-grammar). Please run a spellcheck and use correct capitalization and punctuation. Proofread! Revise! Then proofread again! A shoddily-presented entry, even if it is full of cool ideas, will fall lower in the ranks without at least an attempt at standard TYPOGRAPHY. We can forgive your poor American grammarschool educations if yeu c'ant spele, if you misuse since/because or if/whether, and if your past participles sound more like preterites. But you really push your luck if you make us wade through improper English. It will hurt your overall "score." Be forewarned!
I mention this last but it is by no means the least. What good is a hero without DRAMA? You have only 1,500 words, so use them well! That "Origin/History" field might well be your goldmine ... but great potential lies elsewhere too, such as the Personality field. There is enough room within the profile format, at 1,500 words, to create heroism and tragedy and glory and irony. A static character, standing immobile with his cape and his heat-vision ability and his thumb in his butt, is not "cool" at all. Bring your character to life.
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Q. What are the official "profile fields" for this contest?
A.Listed below: they are essentially the current Player Application. HOWEVER ... Note that the Writing Sample field is OPTIONAL in this contest. If you want to use some of your 1,500 words there, go for it. If not, you can leave out that field and concentrate on packing more punch into the others. You can also add fields if you like. The content in any added fields (not the field names) DOES count toward your 1,500-word limit. Possible new fields would be Gear, Nemesis, Sidekick, Affiliation (Superteam), or even such whackdoodle concepts as Legacy or Downfall/Swansong.
* Public Name
* Secret Identity
* Race
* Birthplace
* Age
* Occupation
* Gender
* Moral Standing (Hero, Villain, Oddball)
* Appearance
* Super Powers
* Super Weaknesses
* Abilities (Non-super talents of character)
* Inadequacies (Non-super shortcomings of character)
* Personality
* Origin / History
* Writing Sample (optional)
* Special Fields (optional)
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Q. Can my character be a villain, or be dead?
A.He can be a dead villain. Any gender, species, race ... hey you can enter twins or two-headed characters or a character with no head. He can be good, bad, or anything in between. He can be dead, alive, or anything in between. He just has to be a PRODIGY character! That probably means Megatropolis (founded "as we know it" no earlier than the 18th century, I suppose) but he could have been born/raised at Sri Lanka or Betelgeuse. He might live in orbit and run remote robots in the streets, or he might be four brainlobes in jars at opposite corners of the City Of Supers. Your imagination is not constrained as long as you make a Prodigy character. Sometimes (but not always) the most "out there" ideas are the coolest.
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Q. What if somebody already posted a character that uses my cool idea(s), before I could post my own? I really thought him up myself, honest! but I was still revising proofreading revising!
A. Post him anyway. Just because somebody got that idea on the page first, doesn't mean your own presentation is invalid. The judges, though not omniscient, are at least semiscient. We factor all the factors, not just the posting time.
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Thanks and good luck!
