I love the idea itself, but it should not have a reward, imho. Rping is your own reward, and, sadly, it somehow feels like we would be paid to Rp on an rp server...
Sadly, if there is no cash prize, it won't motivate the "ooRP'ers" to start RP'ing. Thing is, if we entice the ooRP'ers with cash to start RP'ing, then since they will start RP'ing more, they will get used to it. Then, they'll just Role Play because they either find it to be fun/rewarding in some sort of way.
Similar thing happened to me. When I first joined the server, I thought "RP'ing is stupid, I play this server cause lot of people here." Then, the more and more people around me Role Played, the more and more the very idea of myself RP'ing grew on me, thus bringing me to where I am today. I no longer use "lol" and smilies in any online games anymore; I almost never even use "haha" because it's too "generic."
I will throw in another 5m to the grand prize for the winner. I like the idea. It may be motivating though making the idea of the server a bit... capitalistic?
a few things i want to bring up
one: if this is to get people to RP more, why is it set up to reward the best RP?
that would make it reward people who can RP better then some people, who can RP, but will never really be "really good at RP"
two: how exactly would we be doing the voting? just a poll?
' Wrote:<span style="font-family:Century Gothic">Violence is Golden</span>
I was thinking a poll but it seems some think that could lead to cheating. This is understandable, sadly. So maybe judges, with written guidelines on how to judge, a rubric on what qualities to look for and how much of the total score each quality makes up. How does that sound?
As for the no money bit, I really dont think it would get a good amount of participation otherwise. I think some reward would be nice and if not money than what? As for the capitalistic bit, how do you think people are encouraged to trade in this mod?
About not being able to judge a creative work on it's merits, how many awards ceremonies do we see a year for creative media. Books, movies, music, television, each of these has at least 4 or 5 major awards ceremonies every year.
Finally, as for encouraging new people to RP more perhaps a second category, best new RPer, and the person would have to have under so many threads or stories in the RP section to qualify.
Please comment on any and all of this and thanks for all the feedback so far.
How about this: every entry is critiqued and given feedback. I know that I love to get feedback for my stories, so for the new RPers it would be both recognition of their RPing, and comments on how to improve.
Or how about this: There is a giant pot with all the prize money, and every serious entry gets a slice of it. Just how big a slice is determined by how good the story is.
Edit: with that being said, I would offer my services as a judge. I would still like to put in my own works to be critiqued though.