As I’ve mentioned in the past, my hope is that future Exarch’s will not need to worry as much about major infrastructure or administrative changes to the club, as the role more or less is a manager of RP activity and its ultimate hype-person. That said, in my dual-role as Exarch and M:GM, I would like to share an update on how Roleplaying activity has evolved to take the place of an older activity type. This is less of a knock-down the house and rebuild it and more of a new coat of paint with stronger support beams.

Goodbye Run-Ons

Run-On competitions have been a time-honored tradition in the Brotherhood's history. They have been used in everything from Clan-wide messy epic stories to small-team stories told by a team of writers. They have been used in everything from smaller competitions to Vendetta’s and Rites of Supremacy and the new Seasons.

Times have changed, however, and activities evolve to keep up with the demand of our members. Conversations with our newest recruits and even our “newer” members (who have been around for 3-4 years) don’t really understand the concept of a Run-On. It’s just an RP, except it’s graded? Why not just call it a graded RP then?

This confusion led to a discussion between myself (Exarch) and the Grand Masters, as well as a long discussion and thread with the Voice and Master at Arms. In the end, we have all come to an agreement that the term/competition type “Run-On” will be retired from our clubs activity streams.

Instead, they will be replaced by “(RP) Roleplaying Competitions”.

For all intents and purposes...not much actually changes. Run-Ons as they have been run i the past will still be run the same way you’re used to. We’re just simplifying the naming convention used to make it more accessible for newer members that are joining our club often specifically because of the popularity of RP. It also simplifies and streamlines the competition process for the Exarch, MAA, and Voice, and rewards members quickly for their efforts.

It also helps eliminate the complicated workarounds to make “Co-Op” Fiction work, if one so chooses to utilize this change in workflow. Instead of having to submit two different documents (one for presentation, one to show the distribution of work/word counts), members can simply submit the RP link to the competition and move on to their next competition.

So going forward, if you want to run a writing-based competition that involves more than one writer, you’ll likely be looking at using the RP Competition framework.

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If you care about how we reached this point and want a deep-dive into the evolution of Roleplaying in the DB, read below. If not, feel free to skip to the next section for a continued explanation of RP Competitions.

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How We Got Here

When Roleplaying (RP) was first greenlit as a recognized activity, it was not given its own Cluster. It instead piggybacked off the existing Fiction Competition infrastructure that is one of the core pillars of activity in our club. When I use the term infrastructure, I refer to a combination of: website coding, documented policies, and attributing credit as an activity the same as submitting to a Fiction Competition or ACC Match, which in turn awards: credits, XP, Trophy points, and Clusters of Ice.

So while initially it awarded Clusters of Ice, it was not tied to any other form of progression. Additionally, each RP was manually calculated first by a .json parser script, then by a Google Cloud workflow that spit out member|word counts, and then manually entered by the Voice after a manual email was sent.

How we originally calculated word counts in RP for proof of concept. Don't go .json waterfalls...

As RP gained popularity and traction, James was able to automate and streamline this process to the point that dbb0t on Discord could handle all of this, making it so that the Exarch/staff merely needed to push a button on Discord to finalize an RP and send it for instant-processing on the site. Without bothering the Voice/staff. Paired with the now 2-year-old (time flies) RP Trophies, RP now awards activity on par with entering a Fiction Competition or completing an ACC match.

This was all fine and good, but at the same time as RP was taking off, the Council made the decision to sunset our Discourse web-forums. Web forums were originally the centerpiece of writing for the DB, but over time were relegated to being used once or twice a year for the sake of a “Run-On” competition. With the closure of Discourse...Run-Ons made the pivot to use the RP coding on Discord instead. While this was a natural evolution that made it much easier for members to take part in this type of competition, it also created some challenges.

RPs were not created to be graded, and a lot of their popularity came from being able to easily write with others without stress, directly from the place you spend most of your time already logged into and talking daily inside of. But now, RP was being used for a grading process that integrated into Competition containers. This presented a few conflicts such as Roleplaying Activity only needing 100 words to qualify for credit, vs the typical 500 words + 2 post requirement for Run-Ons.

Additionally, by using the RP coding for Run-Ons, there was an added layer of manual administration between having to manually-add participants to the competition, and for the MAA to change the competition type back and forth between manual and fiction. This was clunky, confusing, and unnecessary. So after some yelling discussion and discovery between Howie and I, and James’ ingenuity, we’ve now refined the process to a more efficient and streamlined process. So with that all said...

Hello RP Competitions

RP Competitions are defined as “any DM-less RP activity that is submitted to a competition or competition container for grading and placement”. The RP will be required to set up manually on Discord by one member of the desired team. Once finalized, it will be processed as a DM-less RP, meaning it will only contribute toward Envoy Marks and the RP Player Trophy progression.

Once your RP is completed, any member of the team simply needs to take the exported HTML url link and paste it into the submission text box of the Competition. No other text is needed beyond the HTML url link. This will auto-populate the participants of the team.

Additionally, it’s important to note that RP Competitions do not award additional CI’s through the competition. CIs and Envoy Marks will be auto-awarded when the RP is completed. This part of the process awards placement value, crescents, and can contribute to a parent/container competitions’ point scoring.

Lastly — similar to Run-Ons or Co-Op Fiction — RP Competitions must have specific requirements for eligibility, such as word count minimum, team size, and a defined grading metric.

How to Create an RP Competition

RP Competitions fall under the Fiction Competition archetype, which can be found on the “Manage Competitions” administration page and then by clicking “Create Competition”.

Once selected, members can fill in the details of their RP Competition as if they were setting up a Run-On. You’ll just see a drop-down selection under Competition type called Roleplaying.

Fill in the details of your competition. At the bottom, make sure to select Roleplaying from the Fiction type.

As for the Competition Description, this is where it’s going to come down less to coding and more about the individual competition organizer. Members are not restricted to using these subtypes, but they are the suggested best practices recommended by the Exarch Office. All that really matters is that there is a clearly defined list of requirements to submit and qualify for placement, and a clearly defined grading metric, and

Suggested Types of RP Competitions

Small-Team (2-6) Similar to Small-Team Run-On in the past.

1. Requires at least three (2) members, with a maximum of six (6).
2. Members can edit as much as they’d like for syntax improvements and continuity.
3. 250 Words Minimum for each writer.
4. Processed as DM-less RP activity, with the HTML export submitted to the competition text box.
5. <Grading Metric>

Big Team (6+) Similar to a Clan Run-On in the past.

1. Covers any RP Competition with more than 6 members.
2. Members can edit as much as they’d like for syntax improvements and continuity.
3. 250 Words Minimum for each writer.
4. Processed as DM-less RP activity, with the HTML export submitted to the competition text box.
   
5. <Grading Metric>

Co-Op (1-2) Similar to Co-op Fiction.

1. Can be completed solo or with one other member.
2. Each writer is expected to have a similar contribution of word count.
3. Members can edit as much as they’d like for syntax improvements and continuity.
4. 500 Word Minimum for each writer.
5. Processed as DM-less RP activity, with the HTML export submitted to the competition text box.
6. <Grading Metric>

You can still run Co-Op fiction using the tried tired method, but my hope is that we'll move towards this as we transition.

Grading

The Exarch Staff has created the RP Competition Rubric. It is not required, but something we have been using when running RP competitions. Likewise, the “feedback” element of it is not required, but something we’ve had good feedback on.

In the end, you can use any grading criteria you want, as long as it’s defined in the competition details.

Final Process Overview

From a top-down perspective, here is a visual outline of the new process.

1. RP Competition is created on the site and approved by MAA
2. The RP is set up on Discord by participants.
3. Once the RP is finalized, the Exarch Staff will review and approve the RP. Until the RP is approved by staff, the submit HTML link url will not work.
4. Once approved, the RP HTML url link can be used to submit to the competition. Envoy Marks and CIs are awarded.
5. The competition is graded on the site and submitted to MAA for approval.

Summary

Too Long; Won’t Read

• The term “Run-On” will be retired. It is replaced with the term “RP Competition”.
• RP Competitions are defined as “any DM-less RP activity that is submitted to a competition or competition container for grading and placement”.
• RP Competitions only award Crescents. They do not award additional CIs or Envoy Marks
• RP Competitions can come in many different forms. Organizers can call them whatever they want, as long as they have a clearly defined criteria, with the suggested subtypes being: Co-Op Story, Small-Team, and Big Team based on the number of members participating.

As Howie and I often agree when making changes:

(Hopefully the gifs help break up the wall of text.)

-W