mdk

I'm in a weird place.

Your faith is more important than your religion, your church, your neighbors, or your pastor. What you personally think and believe is all that matters. Follow that.

Fun christian fact -- pretty much every major person throughout scripture (Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, the apostle Paul, and more) went through a period of 'wandering in the wilderness' or however they phrase it for each particular story. They left the church/synagogues, went out on their own, and figured out their own shit. Then when they shared what they'd figured out with the religious establishment, they changed everything.

So don't spend a minute worrying if the church would scold you for thinking something new and different. The church doesn't matter. They shouldn't be controlling your thoughts and opinions anyway, and least of all your sense of humor -- jesus, can you imagine a world where lutherans were in charge of comedy?

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

@Keyguyperson

<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>

Lol, two of mine are going to be about making genocidal maniacs sympathetic as well xD The race is on

Well, really their backstories. Its up to the reader how they judge the individuals

@Henzukaya

Shoot, you know, you brought this up like WAY earlier and I didn't say anything. And now I feel terrible because you may have already done considerable work on your stories already, but uh.... We're sort of limiting it to one entry per person. SORRY! I hate springing that on you late. BUT -- if you do wind up writing more than just the one, and you'd like to include the others in the contest thread, just for people to read (and not vote on), I can totally make that work. Please send me a PM when you get a chance -- the last thing I wanna do is stop you from writing something when you've got the itch, but the second-last thing I wanna do is somehow unfairly impact the contest. We can talk things over a bit and figure out something equitable.

<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>

If only there was one. I'm going to listen to a song line by line and write it That way I might get the "Closest to original" award.

@TheUnknowable

I kind of wish we'd thought of that. Surely there's a way to phrase it as a category, that wouldn't totally undermine the inspiration theme. Oh well -- maybe next time!

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

<Snipped quote by Henzukaya> I think that quote is saying you cannot pull something out from the back-burner and submit it (i.e. you have written something a while ago that happened to work with this theme. You cannot submit that entry because it was not created for the contest, when it was really written before this contest was even started). I hope this clears this up.

@Dedonus

that's exactly the intention, thanks for clearing it up. Anyone who's submitted in the last couple of days -- I do see your PMs, I've been struggling through a mountain dew incident with my keyboard that's really slowing down my computering. I'll respond soon. Also expect an announcement shortly about the voting period -- a last-minute thing has popped up that *MAY* push back the deadline by a day or two. More on that later.

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

In that case not worth my time.

@Revans Exile

If you have better ideas we'd love to hear them. Visit feedback and let us know. Or, sign up and help build it yourself. If neither of those options appeal to you, and you still feel you need better reasons to write, then RPGC may not be for you.

<Snipped quote by Revans Exile> You know that that stuff doesn't pop out of nowhere, right?

@Dedonus

That too. This is the first run, and I'm focusing our efforts on (a) refining the process and (b) reviewing all entries in a meaningful and helpful way, because in my judgment those are the lasting foundations that will carry this contest in the long term. Incidentally if anyone is interested in helping us with artwork -- whether it's banner images like you see in this thread, or if you've got some thoughts on how else you can put your skills to work for the community -- we are taking on contributors for RPGC #2, and we could certainly use an artist or two on call. Any further discussion on the content/quality/rewards of the contest would be best carried out in the "Discussion" tab of the sub-forum. If you don't like the RPGC threads, feel free to make your own.

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

You say how awards are chosen but not what the awards are. What are the awards?

@Revans Exile

@Psyga315 is correct -- but the actual prizes are a bit unclear, and/or buried somewhere in all these RPGC threads. Here's the skinny -- we're basically doing everything we can think of to reward winners, both of the main-prize popular vote, and all the staff picks. Some of the rewards (Hall of Fame, newsletter spots, publicity) are available now -- you'll get all those. Other rewards are on the way too -- but they involve some re-coding of the website, to add things like personal trophy cases, graphics, profile features, and stuff like that. I'm not really in a position to predict when they'll be ready, or what things will actually turn out to be possible, but we're keeping records so that everybody who might be eligible for a post-facto feature later on will get that, too. TLDR -- awards are given for each of the bonus categories; main award is decided by popular vote; all winners will be recognized in the contest thread, the hall of fame, the site newsletter, and any future features we're able to add.

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

That's nice :) Can we pick a non-English song? If we do, do we need to provide a translation to proof the story really was based on a song? (applies to @Psyga315 too)

@WiseDragonGirl

It's up to you. Personally, I'm toying with some instrumental-only songs for my entry. As far as the popular vote is concerned, you don't need to explain the connection. That said, if by chance you also wanted to go for one of the bonus categories (like Idlest Delilah, in this case), we on the staff could probably use a translation, to see if we really think you were the closest to the original theme of your song. Don't think of it as a requirement though. You don't have to prove your level of inspiration to us or anybody else. You could write a greek tragedy based on the Burger King jingle, and you'd still be in the contest. Maybe not get a lot of votes, but as long as you're writing what you want, you're already winning.

get involved

Fantastic! We're starting to put together the RPGC #2 crew -- not sure how much room we have at the moment but I'll put you right up at the top of the list. If we're too full for everyone, I'll start piling up names for #3, and on and on. We'll get you in here, one way or another!

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

Yeah, you never did say how long it needs to be...

@Rare

That's deliberate. It doesn't need to be any kind of long or short; whatever's natural is fine. The voters are in charge of deciding how long is too long, or how short is too short, for them, personally.

May the song we pick be a fan-made one?

@XxLyraxX

Anything you like! This, too, is really up to the voters. If people hate the song, that might hurt your odds of winning -- but then again it's not a song-picking contest, it's a writing contest, so you've really got as much leeway as you dare to take. The ball is totally in your court.

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

so can you write a script for a play or something based off the piece

@Kurai Assassin

The answer to any "Can I write" question is a fervent "YES!" Scripts are more than welcome.

Are there any formatting restrictions we should be aware of?

@Holmishire

Just try to make it look good. "restriction" is sort of a four-letter word around here -- you can do whatever you like. It's up to the voters to reward good formatting. Far as the staff is concerned, we'll post your entry more or less as-is (I might double-space for you, if you forget, because double-spacing is easy to clean up and looks a lot better).

RPGC #1 -- Inspired By A Song

The prompt is to write a story inspired by a song? Okay, who was the one who read my mind? Who did that?

@Keyguyperson

I believe it was @Jorick, actually, a ways back. Or at least he put together the early draft of the song theme.

I was hoping for the return of these comps! When I used RPG previously, I was far too shy to enter any pieces. ~ Not this time!

@Allel

Shyness is forbidden! Write!

just making sure-is it limited to one entry per person?

@ayzrules

Unless otherwise noted, it's always one-per-person, yes. I should probably write that down somewhere. In the future we may try a contest or two with multiple submissions, but not just yet.

Oh, this sounds like fun. I'll have to see if I can come up with anything. ^^ Is there any length limit or requirement?

@Light the Dark

No limits of any kind. It's really up to the voters to decide how long of an entry they like; from experience, they do tend to vote more around the 2000-3500 word range, I think. But you don't have to stretch it or compress it at all -- write what you like, we'll take it.