r/whowouldwin • u/TheAsianIsGamin • 23d ago
Event Character Scramble Season 20 Round 1A: Lockdown
This round covers matches 1-3 in the bracket which can be found here. Please check to make sure what round you are in before you start to write.
The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion, who gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next Scramble!
The theme of Character Scramble 20 is Scramble Effect. Round prompts will be based on the many worlds, missions, and memorable moments found throughout the Mass Effect series.
Join the Character Scramble Discord!
Round 1A: Lockdown
Smoke rises in great, billowing columns, from ruined farms and a pillaged skyline. It’s the only sign of what, until just now, had been a pitched battle that no one had expected. The immediate threat has been defeated, but your team knows they can’t rest easy.
With greater peril on the horizon, your team sets out to warn their allies and gather their strength. Sounding the alarm, however, is far easier said than done. It appears your enemy has slipped into the shadows—if, your associates point out, they truly exist at all.
While the important people work on verifying your reports, they’d like to invite you for some rest and relaxation. You refuse. They insist, and their intent suddenly becomes clear. Grounding, benching, stonewalling. Whatever you’d call it, and whatever reason they have for it, they don’t want you going back out there.
Round Rules:.
Grounded: A crash landing on a desolate planet, an attack by hostile forces, or good old-fashioned bureaucracy has left your team trapped. If you want to make any progress on your mission, you’ll have to find a way out of here.
More Trouble Than You’re Worth: Unfortunately, the enemy team really doesn’t want you to leave. You’ll need a plan: Fight, evade, or otherwise neutralize them to free yourselves from their clutches.
Just Punch Udina In The Face: We know you want to. Feel free to indulge in whatever scenes or choices you wanna write. There is no Paragon/Renegade choice for this round.
Normal Rules:
Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together: Nobody can take on a mission like this alone. You’ve got a team of the brightest, toughest, and deadliest allies a Scrambler can find—use them. We’d love to see your characters make full use of their wide-ranging abilities, both on their own and as a team.
We Will Hold The Line: You know what’s at stake. Failure is not an option. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!
Special Tactics and Reconnaissance: Saving the galaxy will take more than the same old tricks. You are allowed and encouraged to mix and match powers, and to develop your characters in any way you wish, both on the battlefield and off. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes, and vice-versa.
Every Life Is a Special Story of Its Own: Feel free to give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. If you do, you should mention things like powers, personality, history, and anything else that the average reader should know before reading.
Legendary Edition: Sometimes, Spectres have to go a little outside the lines in service of their mission. You’ll have the same latitude—as long as you go with the broad strokes of the prompts and the rules, you'll be fine.
Round 1A will run from Saturday, August 16th to Saturday, September 6th, 11:59pm US Eastern Time.
The character limit for this round is 5 full length Reddit comments, or 50k characters.
While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup.
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u/Sapickee9 2d ago edited 2d ago
Intro and other things before/when Round 1B ends ideally, because giving myself too much time doesn't really work and I'd like things to be done sensibly sooner rather than later. Anyway.