I'm clearly in the camp of the "prize should be medals not playable material"
That's why i thinkg FFG got it right with X-Wing while Wizkids is making something i dislike with heroclix.

As a suggestion, when people register their pieces for each team for each tourney, why not say only that person can play those for that one and nobody else? a few days before the date is the deadline and if its not registered, they cannot play. also, once a person plays certain pieces, they are gone from the tourney for good. an example is a 400 pt team i play cosmic spiderman ar 319, jason blood at 44 and a maggia goon. for this event, i am the only player fielding those pieces, with a possible exception for generics. next event, no more blood or cosmic spiderman.

That is totally fair, though I obviously disagree. I'd rather not have a medal/trophy, but something practical.

*shrug* I don't think there's a right or wrong to this per se, I just think any individual venue has to find the answer that fits their culture.

Lots of book keeping but interesting idea

I was asked to chime in here, since I've taken steps to confront this issue in the larger events I've run.

Way, way, way back when we had Marquee events, I recognized that there's an element of the player base which can become frustrated during highly competitive events. That's when I began holding on to some LEs and using them as "Misfortune Prizes." For example, the first person to suffer a Critical Miss, or the first person to suffer Knockback, would get the prize for that round.

Doing this helped my players gain a better perspective, remembering that Bad Stuff Happens and it's all just part of the game. Even if a prize was no longer available, I saw much less frustration around a player's bad luck.

Over time I've built on that system to introduce my "Misfortune Scavenger Hunt." Players are given a sheet with twenty distinct Bad Things that can come up.

My boosters suck!
- Did not pull a Super Rare or Chase
- A figure was broken but not replaced
- Your build total is at least 5% under
- You pulled a civilian AE without its counterpart
- You pulled a duplicate that isn't a generic figure

The dice gods hate me! (Note: Only the final roll counts)
- You missed an attack roll by one
- You missed an attack roll by four or more
- You rolled a Critical Miss
- You pushed to attack and missed
- You missed an attack using an object

Ow! Quit that! (Note: No credit if the attack is evaded or the damage dealt is reduced to zero.)
- Your opponent rolled a Critical Hit
- Your opponent's attack roll succeeds by four or more
- Your figure is taken from its starting click to KO in one turn
- Your figure takes Knockback as a result of your opponent rolling doubles
- Your figure takes damage as a result of Knockback

Well, at least it's over...
- You lost your match
- You lost your match with zero points
- You lost your match before the Judge announced the halfway mark
- You were the first to lose a match this round
- Your opponent eliminated your entire force

Players keep track of how many times each element occurs. The "winner" is the player who hits the most categories (the current record is seventeen), with ties broken by total incidents. The prize is the same as Second Place.

Again, this does wonders for helping players maintain perspective during the game. Even if someone isn't "winning" the misfortune contest, just spinning it this way helps.

I'd also like to point out that Second Place is the furthest I go with competitive prizes. Not that there's any shortage of prizes when I run a big event, just that I place a very high priority on the collective experience.

Additional prizes are awarded based on a random drawing for "Fellowship Contenders." This approaches the standard Fellowship principles from a different angle: Players are expected to demonstrate a certain level of Fellowship, and failure to do so removes you from consideration. For events like AvX or NML this takes the place of Second Place.

This helps in a lot of ways. First, it informs players that they are expected to live up to a certain standard. Second, it informs their decisions regarding team build and play style, making them consider their opponent's enjoyment of the game as well as their ability to win. Third, it eases tension because losing a match doesn't mean you're out of the running for a prize.

tl;dr: Reward the behavior you want to encourage. Remove the sting that comes from misfortune. Both of these will do wonders to improve player morale, even in an otherwise competitive event.

-J

I SO get the fact that getting something you can USE is better than something that sits on a shelf. (I won't go into a philosophical discussion about the merits of "winning" being commensurate with the physical merits of a trophy.)

I'd like to agree on the second part, but there's one catch.

It'd be great if some venues could do product prizes and some do LE prizes, but the venue not doing the LE prizes are still being denied access to parts of the game in that case. We're right back to why exclusive prizes don't work for me.

I am ashamed to admit that I am not the holder of this record.




I think you should totally partner with Ignatz or Thrumble or whoever to make this thing happen.

And I, and others, don't. I think what ruins the whole event is, again, the binary thinking thing. "There is a prize = I must win prize."

Want me to spin back through the thread and call out every example I've seen of it? I've got some time.

And if people were able to see the "many sides of every concept," they wouldn't say things akin to "If there's a prize my mentality is such that I'm going to do whatever I can to win the prize."

Then dispel the myth. Because this thread is showing me a lot of reinforcement of the myth.

What's fun is that binary thinking has two distinct frames it can be placed in: efficient or lazy.

Some people see it as a positive because you bring things down to their two-sided core (with us or against us) and others see it as not wanting to utilize the full ability of their mind when addressing an issue... because tired.

Wow. This is a REALLY good point.

(Haven13 socks it away for later use. jackstar7 gets no royalties.)

I think I'll stop on this topic, as I'll soon be posting something for the event I am planning. However, let me just say a couple of things regarding the notion of big prizes for an event like this:

1) If somebody can maintain Fellowship-worthy conduct for three rounds, faked or not, more power to them. I can live with that kind of competition. I personally think sincerely fun people will beat out fake-fun people over the course of three rounds.

2) Prizes will be awarded by judges, not by voting. So no gaming of that system.

3) I intend to have at least two top-level prizes, on for Fellowship (or Sportsmanlike Conduct if you prefer) and one for theme team. I *absolutely* want people to actively compete for the latter. Criteria will have to be worked out and the final decision will no doubt be subjective. But within those confines, I want to reward a player for making the effort.

4) I plan on having the entrance fee be the donation of a figure worth having. That plus some seeded donations means that everyone will walk home with something, even if it's more of a Yankee Swap than a big win. I will reserve the right to penalize anyone whose donation is not in the spirit of the event (also subjective-- but if you are donating something worth less than a dollar, you better be an obvious hard-luck case).

5) I don't mind attracting people who want to win prizes. I want to alter the behavior that's required to actually win a prize.

And I am so recruiting Raven even if he cannot be there in person. Half of more of my Judge Practices I learned form him in the first place.

Conscripted into service by The Master Control Program!!

END OF LINE.

lowercase filler

I mentioned Fellowship in my post. It's a great example of a prize that is supposed to be given out to a player for reasons other than his win-loss record (though many venues actually don't award it this way, which is a shame). So there's a precedent for prizes given out for not being "competitive". What is so hard to fathom about an event where ALL prizes are given out for reasons other than win-loss record? After all, I know there are venues out there that already cut corners on Fellowship - either awarding it randomly, or giving it to the second place player, etc.

In other words, there are already events out there today that give NO incentive to the non-competitive types, relying entirely on their sense of "fun" to draw these players out from their basements. What is missed is that being shoehorned into a competitive event, having to play against "win at all cost" builds, and even sometimes against folks who are ONLY there to "collect skulls", is NOT the best format for the casual player to have fun. It's a format that is tailored to giving the competitive player his fun experience, with a prize added on top for casual players (that the venue may or may not actually award for showing good Fellowship). What's wrong with trying to tailor an event for the casual player, with prizes (which could be given to the nicest guy, the most comic-accurate build, the least powerful build, the build that best fits the theme of the tournament, the guy who has the worst luck)?



That sounds like a great event.