Sunday, April 8, 2012

Sportsmanship at the Elvensword Tournament

One of the fears I had when preparing for this tournament was how sportsmanship might be handled.  It has been an incredibly explosive issue over the decades, and some tournaments have sprung up that are focusesd very specifically on NOT giving prizes for winning but instead raffling all prizes or even just being about "having good games" and really making it more like a games day.

This tournament is aimed at a more competitive brand of plyaer, whose well rounded against all forces. Because of its structure (see registration website under the tournaments section) sportsmanship has to be accounted for in a different way.

So this year, you will see an approach to giving prizes for Sportsmanship that is different perhaps than you have seen in most tourneys.  Players AND judges will be part of the scoring instead of just the players.  The scoring will not be a punitive grading approach so much as a "giving your opponent more chances to win the prize" approach.

The website will eventually talk about it as the tourney gets closer.  However, the discussions I've had on how this can be done in a competitive tournament are pretty cool.  I think that if it shapes up like it sounds like it will, this will be fun for everyone instead of being a source of controversy like it so often becomes.

In any event, I'd really like to hear your ideas about how this could be accomplished.  So many good ideas are out there.  The final decision hasn't been made on it and any last minute input is welcome.

2 comments:

  1. Well, not being punitive sounds good. If players are somehow stopped from killing another players chances at winning, then that would be good. Some kind of cooperative thing. You mentioned judges being plentiful. So maybe have them give some input on the sportsmanship. With enough judges, they can probably do more to observe and report, so to speak.

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  2. We will be having several drawings for prizes and we are trying to incorporate the Sportsmanship into that. So that's what we're looking to do possibly. Just need a solid method.

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