Congratulations to Zero and Cobra on what I consider major upsets. I'm not going to pretend I liked Zero's RP in that thread, but I do acknowledge the handler as a very good writer (I've said multiple times, I have read his other work and liked it much better), and wish him luck throughout the rest of the tourney. I still had Cobra losing to Dan Ryan, but totally understand why Dan lost. Congrats to Cobra on probably the biggest upset of all time in an FWC tourney. Brunk left you a major opening, and you took advantage. I don't think just any ol' RP would have beaten him there, so good job on sealing the deal.
After the results and podcast, here are really my two biggest issues moving forward:
1)
Judges should not remain anonymous. I get that Chad can't force people onto podcasts and whatnot, and that's fine (if your woman catches you on one of those things, kiss that poontang GOODBYE), but
judges should at least be expected to post at some length about what they look for. I disagree with what Brunk said on the podcast, that it's as simple as "I just liked the other guy". Everyone here has been involved in a creative hobby for some years now - if you can't manage to provide just a little insight into what you expect from a writer, you really should not be a judging IMO. That's not a knock, because I know for a fact that everybody is capable of doing this, it's just a matter of wanting to. There was a strong precedent set early on that judges were going to be vocal about general criteria so that people wouldn't be in the dark. Now all of a sudden, when decisions are made in favor of characters who did the opposite of what most of the "vocal" judges said they wanted, we're told "Oh, well, not all the judges spoke. There are other, more secretive judges, and
who knows what they like!" So come out and tell us! All the other judges plus a crapload of non-judges have been discussing this stuff for a month, you can't do it too?
2)
All judges should explain their votes. Going back to #1, again, it would help to know in just a few sentences why you voted the way you did for each match. This is not a lot to ask - most of the judges are already doing this, and others are doing it for fun. Nobody's asking for an essay, just feedback. It all goes back to controversial decisions that seem to fly in the face of what people thought the judges wanted to see, and then learning that non-vocal judges were the ones who voted and probably will not explain anything. For a match like Zero/Blaine, a trash-talking handler is going to look at that and say "OK, if top-notch trash talk loses to inner monologue narrative, does that mean certain judges prefer to see more character development than hype?" It's a fair question. No explanation is going to convince me that the guy I thought won deserved to lose, but it would help everybody out if we had a clue as to why it happened.
People have told me in IM, "Dude, you really expected anything different?" Look, there are a lot of smart people involved in this, there is no reason why, controversial decisions aside, we can't have judges be transparent about this stuff. Most have! I think there's maybe a few who are not saying anything, and that shouldn't be allowed to continue. If you volunteer to judge something like this, where over a hundred people are taking the time to write these time-consuming roleplays, you should be expected to give some feedback that tells us, y'know, you actually read everything and put thought into it.
Some might say, "Meh, it's just a game, let's all hold hands and sing and whatever happens happens", but if that's the standard, then anybody who puts any effort into their writing is a total rube. Don't be the kid who lays down in the outfield, and when people tell you to get up, say, "Who cares? It's not the World Series!" Nobody likes that kid. That kid gets pine combs shoved up his ass.
What I'm trying to say is, don't make me come back here with pine combs.
