SCENARIO COMPETITION

SCENARIO COMPETITION 2017

THIS WORLD OF DARKNESS

UPDATE! The scenario competition is now closed for new submissions. 55 writers and game designers submitted 63 synopses. From these, our distinguished Readers selected 15 finalists for the longlist: 8 in the Existing Rules category and 7 in the Bespoke Rules category. The longlisted designers now have until April 23rd to finish and test their finalised game. Out of these submissions our distinguished Jury will select the shortlist to be run several times in Berlin, so we can all participate in selecting the Audience Award.

In addition, we are looking to run all the shortlisted games at the convention and a selection of the longlist.

Are you a Storyteller? Would you like to help us run the competition scenarios in Berlin? Get in touch here.

Welcome to the World of Darkness Berlin Scenario Competition 2017!

This is a competition to design a one-shot role-playing game (tabletop, freeform or larp) that is playable in a convention environment within a time slot of no more than four hours. This time shall include any preparation that might be required, such as rolling or selecting characters, as well as the debrief or similar post-game element, should you choose to include one.

For the purposes of this competition, role-playing is considered to require a minimum of two players (plus a storyteller as the system requires). We will not set a maximum number of participants, but the full text of your scenario must fit on ten pages, plus five pages reserved exclusively for character descriptions (for more information about this, see further down).

The Theme for 2017: White Wolf has chosen the theme for the competition, which is This World of Darkness. We are invited to explore what the World of Darkness can be in 2017, and all submitted scenarios are in some manner to reflect on contemporary reality or contemporary issues. Contemporary darkness can be explored either directly, or metaphorically.

But what about the meta plot? Didn't the world end? Well it did and it didn't. World of Darkness has always been told in the voice of an unreliable narrator, and not all info can be trusted. A good place to start is looking at the meta plot in the Onyx Path line and go beyond that. Look at how the WoD would be if you "unfreeze" the timeline from just before Gehenna. That does not mean that global conspiracy fantasies should be the focus point. It could just as well be about how day-to day unlife has changed with the advent of global surveillance, Youtube and the refugee crisis, as an example.

We want you to explore on your own, and feel free to engage with your own ideas about what a contemporary WoD setting could look like.

HOW IT ALL WORKS

How It All Works

The competition will happen in two steps. The invitation to send in a two-page synopsis is open for everyone. From among the pitched synopses, a selection will be invited to submit a complete scenario for consideration on the competition’s longlist. Out of the completed longlist submissions, a shortlist of finalist scenarios will be chosen for World of Darkness Berlin.

The shortlisted scenarios will be published in an official White Wolf anthology. In the likely event of a great number of excellent completed submissions, we retain the option to publish scenarios from the longlist as well.

The competition has two official categories, and the winners in each category will be selected by the Jury (members to be confirmed). In addition, an audience award will be selected by the participants who play the games at World of Darkness Berlin.

The Categories

You can choose to write in two different categories:

Existing Rules
In this category you write your scenario to fit one of the five core World of Darkness systems. Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion and Changeling: The Dreaming. In other words, you will be designing story and game-play, not the system itself.

You can choose freely amongst these core systems, editions and historical periods. For instance, the Dark Ages are available for you to write in. Perhaps your story is about a group of young vampire neonates in Berlin stumbling upon a dangerous secret; perhaps about the last days of a powerful technocrat in a horizon realm thinking back on his life in a series of flashbacks. As long as you adhere to the system of your choice and everything your game needs to be playable fits within the page limit, it is all up to you. (You can of course require players to provide basic equipment such as dice or name tags).

Bespoke Rules

In this category, you are still designing a game set in the World of Darkness, but will design or select the game mechanics that fit your particular scenario best. Whether you work in a named tradition like freeform, Jeepform, or story games, or are a master of figuring out troupe house rules, this category will allow you to experiment more freely with rules, storytelling mechanics and narratives.

The wider range of mechanics allows you to explore aspects of the mythos that may not be easily playable in traditional systems. Perhaps you will design a freeform scenario for two players portraying the Humanity and Beast of a single character in a Moscow opium den in the 1930s; perhaps a larp for seven players exploring an epic tale of the fall of Carthage. As long as everything your game needs to be playable fits within the page limit, including explanations of any rules you use, it is all up to you. (You can of course require players to provide basic equipment such as dice or such easily obtainable items, like envelopes, a water bottle, or a cake, that might be required for your mechanics).

THE PITCH:

WRITING A SYNOPSIS

The submission process will happen in two steps. First we would want you to pitch your scenario to us. You do this by writing a short synopsis, which should not be more than two pages long.

The purpose of the synopsis is to explain what your scenario will be about, how you are tackling the This World of Darkness theme, and to demonstrate that you can communicate coherently to players who may not be from your local role-playing culture.

The language of all submissions will be English. You will not be graded on details of grammar, but we will need to understand what you are intending to communicate (so please use a spell-checker and run your text by a friend if you’re in doubt).

The synopsis should communicate what the players are going to play and what the game is about. What kind of an experience are you designing? Is it perhaps action packed, or slow paced horror? Do you want your players to know how it feels to be a monster? Do you want to play with what humanity is? Or something else entirely? If it is not immediately obvious how your scenario represents the theme of the competition, you should make sure spell that out as well.

We also want to know who your players are going to play. If it is traditional characters, a short paragraph is enough, but if you are doing something different or experimental we would like to know a little more about what you are envisioning and how it will work. Similarly, in the Bespoke Rules category, pay special attention to describing the gameplay interactions. We know you might not have finished testing mechanics, but being specific and honest at this stage is better than vague or promising too much.

Most importantly – tell us why your scenario is interesting and special!

The Synopsis should include the following elements:

What category are you submitting for: Existing Rules or Bespoke Rules
Short pitch – a few lines summarizing your game proposal
Theme of your scenario and how it engages with “This World of Darkness”
How you use characters
What is the player experience
For the Existing Rules category: Which system and version?
For the Bespoke Rules category: What types of game mechanics are used?
Will the game require a storyteller?

When do you need my synopsis?

We will need your synopses January 6th at 23.00 CET at the latest. Send us the pitch in pdf format to wodberlin.competition@gmail.com with your name and the name of the scenario in the subject line. Do not write your name in the pdf itself – they will be anonymised for selection – but make sure the scenario name is on top of the first page.

If you are chosen to submit a full scenario for WoD Berlin, you will be told on January 20.

Why do I need to pitch at all? Can’t I just submit a full game?

We would love to read, reflect on, and run each and every scenario you want to write! But our time and resources are limited, so we need to limit the amount of scenarios that we will help run at World of Darkness Berlin, and read and evaluate as part of the contest. We also know from other competitions that writing a pitch really focuses you to think about design choices early in the process.

THE SUBMISSION:

WRITING A GAME SCRIPT

If you are selected to contribute to the longlist, you will be invited to submit a full scenario. All longlist games can potentially be run at World of Darkness Berlin. They can also receive the offer to be published in a White Wolf book. (The small print is at the bottom of this page).

Length: The text length of the scenario should be no more than 24.000 characters (including spaces), which works out to 10 pages. In addition, you are allowed no more than five pages (12.000) for character descriptions. You are allowed to re-allocate pages from the main text body to character descriptions if you need the additional space, but you are not allowed to use the five pages intended exclusively for characters for any other purpose. Standard character sheets in the Existing Rules category do not count towards the maximum. Neither do illustrations, maps, diagrams, or similar non-text material you may choose to use. (We are aware there is a grey area here, but if you are longlisted you will have support in making those kinds of judgements before submission).

Format: Your scenario must be written in a way that allows any storyteller to run it based on the text you submit (or for the players to run it themselves, if you are not using an ST). This means that all instructions to the people running your game must be included within the page limit. It also means the material should be organised in a logical and legible manner. You will not be graded on the details of your layout, but please make an effort to make the material legible and accessible. If you use illustrations, please respect copyright. (You don’t need to worry about image rights for publication; at this stage, everything is non-commercial use. If your work is chosen for publication, the layout will be redone and the images might change).

Duration: Your scenario should be playable in four hours or less – four hours from your participants showing up until they leave the game area or table. Please note the games have no minimum duration requirement: some games work best at even shorter lengths!

Character creation: Your scenario might have prewritten or pre-generated characters, which then need to fit within the page limit for your submission. You can also let the participants create characters, which must be possible within the four hour time frame.

Delivery: If selected to submit to the longlist, you will have until April 23th at 23.00 CET to write and make sure your scenario in our hands. If you do not deliver on time your scenario will not be evaluated for the competition or run at WoD Berlin. You are welcome to participate in the writing competition even if you are not attending World of Darkness Berlin.

What We Are Looking For:

Diversity

We would like to explore all the corners of World of Darkness with you. If there are ten great scenarios about the power struggles of vampires in London, we will most probably not choose all of them. Be creative! We also know that neither WoD fandom or the game design community are limited by gender, ethnicity, sexuality or creed, and invite this diversity to be reflected in your work.

Focus

Four hours total is not very much, and we want you to explore some specific idea in your game. This will require you to be focused in your writing and design.

Horror

The games of White Wolf have always explored the dark sides of humanity – and boy, can the real world feel dark these days. Engaging with “This World of Darkness” means you cannot just regurgitate horror tropes, but must invest in what your stories, theme, creatures, imagery or system really mean.

Quality

The synopses are a way of judging how polished your idea for a scenario is, so work on your ideas before handing yours in. Quality also means abandoning ideas that didn’t pass muster. Playtest your work before final submission!

A FEW MORE THINGS

The Shortlist in Berlin

Before WoD Berlin the judges of the competition will shortlist a number of scenarios in each category. These scenarios are finalists in the competition and will be run multiple times at the convention, allowing as many participants as possible to try them out. If you are coming to Berlin and would like to run your own scenario, or volunteer to run somebody else’s, get in touch!

The Longlist in Berlin

The longlist consists of all scenarios that are invited to compete based on the synopsis, completed and submitted before the deadline. We would like as many as possible of the longlist scenarios to be played at the convention; if you are longlisted and coming to Berlin, you are more than welcome to run your game. We will also explore possibilities to secure more Storytellers for further runs or to run longlisted games whose authors are not present.

Deadlines

You need to send us your pitch by January 6th before 23.00 CET.

You need to send us your finished scenario by April 23rd before 23.00 CET.

Get Going!

It is now time to write down the pitch for that great scenario you have dreamt of writing. Win a prize, be published by White Wolf, play with your peers in Berlin!

The Small Print

Who owns my synopsis?

You do. Submitting a synopsis does not make your ideas the property of either Participation | Design | Agency (who are the organisers of the convention) or White Wolf Publishing (who own the IP). However, a bunch of people will look at them, and if you’re worried about protecting your ideas, a great strategy is to go on and design your scenario whether or not you get longlisted – and make it available online for others to play. A world with more one-shots is a pretty awesome world!

We can’t tell you today exactly who will perform the first selection for the longlist (it depends on the number of submitted synopses) but the full list of names will be published later. Once the completed scenarios are submitted, the esteemed judges (whose names are yet to be confirmed) will get on the case to choose the finalists.

Who owns my submitted scenario?

You do, for now. By submitting a completed scenario you are granting permission for it to be run at World of Darkness Berlin without compensation. You are also giving us the opportunity to give you the offer to be included in an anthology. For publication you would be compensated with a very small amount of money (and a gigaton of bragging rights). Please be aware the monetary compensation will be similar to what you would expect from any other smallish indie games anthology, and regulated in a specific contract. If you are not already in games writing you will find the sum astonishingly low.

We can’t tell you the exact publication terms at this stage because it depends on a lot of factors, such as the number of awesome games we end up wanting to include. You will of course be free to turn down participation in the book even if your work were to be chosen.