YMIAT's First Contest - Can You Scare Us?

[VV_GM]

With Halloween fast approaching the YMIAT staff wants to be scared! Do you have what it takes to terrify us? Can you design a horrifying monster or villain? If so, enter our "Can You Scare Us?" Halloween contest and you'll have the chance to win $15 or $25 in gift certificates from RGPNow.com!

Contest Rules & Details:

• You must be a member of YMIAT to participate. Membership is free! Register here!
• All works submitted must be original and must not violate another person's/company's copyright.
• All entries must be in the PDF file format.
• All entries must consist of a one page outline for a horror game adventure, and a one to two page monster and/or villain designed with the system of your choice. Entries that are longer than three pages will be disqualified.
• All entries must be emailed to contest@youmeetinatavern.com as a file attachment. The sender's email address will be used for contacting the winners.
• All entries must be received no later than October 25th, 2008 by 11:59pm Central Standard Time (USA & Canada). Late entries will not be eligible for prizes.
• The act of submitting an entry grants the YMIAT staff permission to redistribute your entry under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States license.
• The YMIAT staff will judge all entries in private and announce the winners on October 30th, 2008 at 12:00pm Central Standard Time (USA & Canada). Entries will be judged based on how scary the proposed scenario is and the overall quality of the submission.
• The First Prize winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to RGPNow.com. The Second Prize winner will receive a $15 gift certificate to RGPNow.com.
• All contest entries will be made freely available to the public on October 26th, 2008.

We look forward to reading all of your submissions, and good luck to all who enter the contest!

PS YMIAT is not associated with RPGNow.com in any way. The YMIAT Admin just happens to like shopping there.

[VV_GM]

4 days left for the contest!! How is everyone doing with their contest entries?

[Rick_TWA]

I'm working on mine.  I plan on pretty much just submitting my outline/villian(s) from my halloween one-shot (of All Flesh Must Be Eaten) and it really is that simple.  If you're working on a Halloween game (Here's an article I wrote for GnomeStew.com with ideas/tips mostly from right here at YouMeetInATavern) It'll take almost no time to toss out an outline and a villian for the contest (and if you're like me, taking the time to write an outline will actually HELP you write your adventure).  Imagine telling your players "Not only is this adventure awesome, it's award winning!"

[VV_GM]

For those who need an easy way to create a PDF with any program I suggest using PDFCreator. It installs a logical printer on your Windows system which prints to a PDF.

Also, there is a PDF plugin for Office 2007, and OpenOffice saves to PDF out of the box. These are solutions you can use with Windows, and Linux users already have a ton of options to create PDFs with. Hope this helps those of you planning to enter the contest!

[VV_GM]

Today's the day! You have a little less than 14 hours from this post to get your submissions in. Late submissions will still be collected, but they won't be eligible for the prizes. You could win $25 or $15 to spend at RPGNow.com, so make sure to get those submissions in today!

I'm looking forward to reading everyone's submissions!

[VV_GM]

I was hoping for more entries, but we only received two total. But hey, every contestant is now guaranteed to receive a prize!

Attached are Ronn Alford's "The Shadows Within" and Isaac Calon's "A Lord's Dying Wish" for your reading pleasure. Check them out and join me in giving our contestants a big thank you! Ronn and Isaac - you guys rock! We'll announce the winners on October 30th. Good luck to you both!

[VV_GM]

And here are entries from the YMIAT staff who are ineligible to win the prizes. We are the contest judges after all. "Cacophony" was written by long time moderator Rick_TWA, and "Destined for Greatness" was written by yours truly. We hope you enjoy them and have great game sessions based upon them. 

[RPG Ike]

Bummer that there weren't more entries, fellas. I ran into links to the contest from a bunch of different places, and many people commented on how they intended to enter. Good intentions, and all that. :p

Well, good luck to Ron, I guess. I'll be sure to watch YMIAT for future contests, and the next time one creeps up I'll be sure to crow about it at U20.

Thanks again for the exercise in creativity!

[RPG Ike]

Also, infant zombies are pretty creepy, guys. Nice.

[VV_GM]

RPG Ike - If you are going to keep an eye on us for contests you'll be happy to know that I am planning on one very 3 months. Please tell everyone you know about them as I really want YMIAT to be a pillar in the online GMing community. Because as a young boy I was rejected when I asked if I could be the pillar in a local construction project. They chose marble instead.

That cut me. Cut deep.



Good to know that people were finding the news on other sites and that they were excited about it. Telas, one of our moderators, suggested that we lengthen the amount of time for our contests. So the next contest will be announced in January and will have a one month submission period. Any suggestions for prizes?

[RPG Ike]

Prizes, you say?

Like anyone, there are a lot of things I'd love to have but am not quite willing to spend money on. I've always wanted a set of those nice metallic dice you can find from various sellers, for example.

Maybe you could put together a "DM's Toolbox." Say, a set of dice, a DM's screen, a dice corral or bowl, pencils, index cards, or anything else that DMs might find useful or delicious.

Board games, or other games related to RPGs, could make great prizes. The munchkin board games are pretty fun, for example, and they come in several types.

You could do a Cthulhu themed contest around Halloween, and the prizes could be a lovecraft novel and related stuff.

Thinking up prizes is fun.

[Rick_TWA]

Also, infant zombies are pretty creepy, guys. Nice.

I'm really glad you liked them.  I'll be running a more detailed version of Cacophony this Sunday, so I'll be sure to play those up.

[zartes]

Good to hear you'll be running more contests! I wanted to join in... but I'm no good at scary stuff.

[Rick_TWA]

Good to hear you'll be running more contests! I wanted to join in... but I'm no good at scary stuff.

Well, that's another excellent point.  What kind of contests WOULD you like to see?  What are some examples of contests that would really get you excited to participate?

And, on a small side-trek, I wouldn't give up on horror, since stretching your GM comfort zone is a great excercise.  A few years ago, I would have said the same thing but through some practice and the great advice right here, I'm getting better at it over time.

[zartes]

Well, a humorous content contest around April would be groovy. I'm good at doing slightly silly stuff

[VV_GM]

The plan is to have a contest in January, April, July, and October every year. We can nudge those around by a month or so. I'm all for a humor-centric contest.

I really like the idea of a GMing Kit prize. Dice tray, dice cup, universal GM's screen that you can customize, dice, fancy pencils and pencil box, notebook, index cards, and a secret surprise! Sounds like a great idea to me. Thanks Ike!

Everyone's submissions were good reads, including those not eligible for prizes (excluding my own entry from this statement as that would be silly). I look forward to announcing the winner tomorrow and and awarding the prizes!

[RPG Ike]

Theme contests are good, and they inform both what you're asking for in an entry, and what you could give out as prizes.

How about a race theme? Give us your best dwarven clan history in no less than one page and no more than three (with your favoured dwarven hero, related critter, or accompanying rules). The prize could be dwarven dice, or an engraved stein full of dice.

It could also be fun to do a monster-design contest--create the most deadly monster imaginable at any level for any ruleset. Or, maybe create the weakest critter any party might ever encounter. A new-release monster book, or a Cthulhu plush, or a zillion other monster-themed products could make for good prizes.

I'm sure most of the visitors to YMIAT are builder-style DMs with questionable art skills, but you could do an "art" contest to portray your favourite roleplaying moment ever. And, again, the prize could be a big wall scroll or something.

I should also comment before I forget that I thought the structure for the entries for this contest was really good. You asked for some solid effort in your entries, but not so much that it was overwhelming or discouraging. Good stuff. Based on this structure I'd be sure to enter again in the future without worrying that I'm wasting my time because *everyone* is going to enter. Plus, it was fun!

[VV_GM]

And the winner is...

Isaac Calon's "A Lord's Dying Wish"!

The judges felt that Isaac's concept, and his monster were well suited to horror and provided great material to be expanded upon. Plus as one moderator noted the disturbingly grotesque disfigurements coupled with a serene voice made for a great combo.

Still it was a close call as Ronn Alford's "The Shadows Within" (our second place winner) had a well laid out adventure and we all thought the scene with the ravens was an excellent first encounter for horror. It really set the stage for the tone for the tone of the entire piece.

Congratulations Isaac and Ronn! I'll be contacting you both via email to arrange for the delivery of your prizes.

PS My apologies for being late with this announcement.

[Alberonn]

Thanks for the opportunity to participate.  The other adventure was very cool; Like Ike said it was great having a manageable goal to shoot for and a lot of fun to put it together.  Thanks again, Ronn

[VV_GM]

And thank you for your submission! I'm glad that you both liked and stepped up to the challenge we laid out. I'm hoping that you'll both participate in the next contest, and continue to post on the forums.