Personally burned	Objectives	Examples	How bad judging occurs	Judging guidelines
How to use the guidelines	-	-	-	-
Dragon	-	-	-	Dragon 48

Personally burned
Three weeks before this article was
written, at the end of the final round of a
tournament at Origins, the DM announced that the winner was a player who had
not said a word during the tournament.
The DM explained that this person was
the best role player. Unbeknownst to the
rest of us, the winner had been writing
the DM notes to explain his actions;
those actions were — NONE! Was the
DM’s decision a quality judgment?

Objectives
This article strives: 1. to give examples
of good and bad judging in fantasy role
playing tournaments, 2. to explain why
bad judging can occur, 3. to offer some
guidelines for judging, and 4. to explain
how to use these guidelines.

Examples
At Origins ’80, Katy Partridge’s thief
died (-1 hit points) while only 30 minutes
into Castle Morncrest. We got her body
back to life by binding her wounds and
by using a Cure Light Wounds spell.
Katy went on to do an excellent roleplaying job and to play with exceptional
intelligence. The DM, George Johnson,
justly awarded her the first place for our
group. Katy was later awarded second
place in the overall standings of all the
groups.

In many other tournaments, dying in a
tournament round is like a knockdown in
boxing — the player loses the round. In
elimination round events, the player is
usually out of the tournament once the
character is killed.

Sharon Midgett related the tragic tournament story of how she told the lost
caller what to do, the incompetent Mage
what spells to throw, and the confused
Cleric what to do to heal others. At the
same time, Sharon fought bravely, found
several traps the party could avoid, and
suggested the best weapons for the
group to use against exotic monsters.
Yet when the time came to select the
winner, she was passed over for a silent,
“dumb-blonde type” woman.

Penny Petticord, at the Spring ’80 W.
Va. U-Con II, happily chose as the best
player in her tournament an elf who had
solved more puzzles than all the other
members of the group put together, yet
who sacrificed himself in the final round
against the foe called “Death,” so that
the rest of his party might survive.

Tim (Ollie) Cahoon at GenCon XII selected as the best player a Mage who
always had the knack for coming up with
the right spell at the right time. Unfortunately, this same Mage didn’t even know
what a Magic Missile was and had been
coached all through the tournament by
the minor Mage. Ollie was honest
enough, though, that when he heard the
truth in a debriefing with the players later
that evening, he changed his mind and
invited the secondary Mage to the final
round also.

Enough! We’ve all seen the best player
passed over, but we’ve never questioned
“god’s” judgment. Thus, the unfair act
has stood. Only through an extraordinary DM are the ablest players sometimes recognized.

How bad judging occurs
Why does such bad judging occur?
The reasons are many. Often the DM has
no standards by which he can determine
the best player. At other times the standards are too vague: “Choose the best
player.” Occasionally the standards are
too arbitrary: “The one with the most hit
points at the end.” Well, if nobody in the
party takes damage, then a certain Fighter who starts out with the most hit points
will win.

Fantasy role-playing was meant to be
fun, and playing in a tournament can be
the height of that fun. Enjoyment is possible without winning, but watching the
most qualified person be continually
passed over and the “boob” get first
prize is a real damper. However, if the
group does not know the rules by which
they are being judged, they cannot play
the “judging” game. How often does this
situation of rule-ignorance occur? Unfortunately, even in the third AD&D Masters Tournament one of the rules for winning was kept secret from the players. Still, this is but one rule, and not all
the rules, as sometimes happens.

Judging Guidelines
What would help a DM, then, to determine the winner?

First, the question must be answered:
What is meant by the winner — the best
team or the best player?

If several rounds are to be played and
the best teams move on to the next
round, then the best teams are determined by a lot of advance work among
all the DM’s. The DM’s have to agree
beforehand on how many points the
team receives for doing each of the
following:

1. Achieve the final objective or come
closest to it.
2. Accomplish as many of the minor
objectives as possible.
3. Role play their characters.
4. Take the least damage.
5. Have the fewest team members die.
6. Use up as little as possible their nonrechargeable magical weapons.
7. Make the best map.
8. Accomplish the objective(s) in as
short a time as possible.
9. Disrupt the enemies’ way of life as
much as possible.
10. Think before fight.
11. Fight before desert.
12. Make personal sacrifices so that
the team may go on.
13. Sidetracked as little as possible.
14. Cooperate mutually before argue.
15. Take initiative before indecisiveness.
16. Find artifacts and magical items
and identify them as to their proper use.
17. Collect treasure.
18. Act wise before stupid or rash.
19. Rescue any prisoners of a similar
alignment.
20. Solve puzzles.
21. Quash rumors and establish facts.
22. Gather intelligence and interrogate.
23. Use native and special inherent
abilities.
24. Prudently select equipment, spells,
and weapons to take with them on the
mission.

25. Use magical and clerical spells, as
opposed to hoarding the spells when
their use would have helped.
26. Be honest, as opposed to cheating
on such things as die rolls, current hit
points, spells used up, position of character relative to environment, using only
knowledge available to that character,
and following the rules set down at the
beginning.
27. Bypass traps.
28. Kill monsters.
29. Enlist aid: convert possible monsters.
30. Were undetected by monsters.
31. Avert fighting via reasoning.
32. Check rooms.
33. Avoid disaster.
34. Are not captured.
35. Act before being passive.
36. Do not argue with the DM.

The best player is determined by use
of most of the above list (properly modified), plus the following:
1. Works in harmony with the group.
2. Provides good suggestions.
3. Organizes.
4. Follows and leads.
5. Lets others in the party contribute.
6. Accomplishes individual goals.
7. Uses good combat strategy.
8. Is polite to the other players and to
the DM.

How to use the guidelines
Not all the above guidelines need be
used, but if a copy could be made available to all the DM’s and the players of the
judging guidelines and special “house”
rules that are being used, play would be
immensely enhanced.

Complicated numerical formulas are
not desirable due to the short time span
in which a tournament is over and players have to rush to another tournament.
If prerolled characters are used, the
characters should be numbered, and the
players required to sit in a semicircle in
numerical order in the seat determined
by the number of their character. The
DM should pass a piece of paper around
for a seating chart, and have everyone
print their name beside the number of
their character. This sheet can be prepared beforehand and have on it, at a
single glance, such useful items as each
character’s occupation, hit points, and
spells.

Prerolled characters in tournament
play are highly desirable, because they
can be pretty well filled out beforehand
by the DM, thus saving a lot of planning
and preparation time by the players.
Having the players put up one of their
own characters as a “hostage” in exchange for the prerolled character makes
the players pay a little more attention to
the game. A typical penalty for bad play
would be no experience gained or death
to their own character (followed by automatic resurrection with a corresponding drop in constitution.) A good reward
might be anything from a tenth of a level
in experience points to moving up a
whole level.

The DM should have the players make
occasional “saving throws;” observe the
throws, but ignore the results. This tactic
will keep the players more awake. Also,
occasionally asking the players where
their characters are (the use of miniatures helps) keeps them alert.

Each player should speak for him or
herself when performing a function, i.e.,
the Fighter should not tell the Thief the
correct procedure to use to check for
traps. How can a Fighter know the details of another’s life study? Such out-ofrole suggestions should be penalized
each time, and the player should be
made aware of the penalty on the first
offense. For each good suggestion that
properly falls within the realm of each
player’s environment and expertise, the
player should get a plus. For each patently foolish suggestion or stupid action,
the player should get a minus. For each
intelligent action, the player should get a
plus. These points can be recorded silently on the seating chart from behind
the judge’s screen.

if there are 12 people in a party and
only one of them kills a monster, then he
should get 12 “plusses” minus one, or 11
points. If 7 people in the party swing on
the monster (whether or not they actually hit it) and the monster eventually dies,
then they each get 12 minus 7, or 5
points. If 11 help kill the monster, then
each of those 11 would receive 1 tournament point. In this latter case, if the
12th person said she was standing on
rear guard to prevent a surprise rear attack while the other fought the monster,
then she would receive a point for an
intelligent action.

When a person dies, their point total
freezes at that point. Such a person
might still win the tournament.

As a doublecheck, the judge may have
each person during the tournament make
— perhaps on a preprinted sheet with
proper headings — lists of each: 1. smart
thing they think they did or said, 2. monster they helped kill, and 3. objective they
helped accomplish. The total number of
all the items on the lists should tally well
with the judge’s own point total for each
player.

Next, have each person write his name
and seating number at the top of his
sheet. Under his name should be written
the words “second place” and “third
place,” and each person should vote for
two other people for these two places.
The DM should tally up the votes for second and third place, counting all second-place votes as two and all thirdplace votes as one. For anyone who does
not follow instructions in voting for second place, subtract two votes from his
total, and for any irregularities in third
place, subtract one vote. One of the
highest vote totalers should be the person who has the most points on the DM’s
score pad, or bias is indicated somewhere.

The players’ lists, their ballots, and the
DM’s score pad are for the DM’s eyes
only! Any or all of these methods may be
used to determine the winner in the
overwhelming majority of FRP tournaments.

The above techniques are advisory
guides only, for occasionally a player
will disqualify himself from being the
winner. Any of the following acts should
eliminate a player from winning a tournament:

1. Cheats on the dice rolls.
2. Peeks in the book.
3. Tries to do everything and will not
share the responsibility (acts as caller,
rolls the reaction die, searches all the
chests, bodies, and walls, binds all the
wounds, decides all the spells to be
thrown, does all the mapping, takes all
the treasure, attempts to do all the listening and opening of all the doors, etc).
4. Continues to argue with the DM after the DM has listened to appeals and
the DM has made a FINAL ruling.
5. is physically or verbally abusive to
anyone in the game.
6. Lies to the DM.
7. Peeks at notes or written information given by the DM to any of the other
players.
8. Peeks behind the DM’s screen at the
9. Reveals information to someone
with whom the DM said he could not
share it.
10. Offends or insults the DM by either
language or actions that the DM has previously ruled are unfit, whether in role
playing or in reality.
11. Acts in a manner so outrageously
stupid that the entire party is endangered; for example, while in a party of
lawful first-level characters, he rushes
from his party and attacks a large, sleeping dragon that could have been avoided.
12. Extreme violations of alignment,
such as a Paladin’s torturing his prisoners or lying to his followers in order to
send them to a certain death.

The players should be warned ahead
of time about the actions that would disqualify them from winning!!

All of the above lists and suggestions
are guidelines only. Hopefully, enough
DMs will follow guidelines such as these
that there will be a concrete basis for
choosing the winners of most tournaments on something other than a guy’s
good muscle tone or a gal’s pretty hair.