I'm organising a little tournament that will include some members of a local forum and I was wondering if someone could give me some tips on organising and creating one, and just to let you know, this is not by any means a pro or an official tour, it's just a Lil tour for 6-10 players
Well... I've never organized a soldat tournament but I have run a few fighting game tournies at the office.
Here's a few thoughts for ya. First of all, I'm assuming that you are talking 1v1 DM (given the small pool of players) and not any kind of team game but I'll also give you number for a 2v2 type tournament below. Note that in most tournament styles it is a lot easier if you have an even number of players. If you don't, you usually have to randomly give one person a 'free' victory in the first round.
The big question though, is how long do you want it to run?Â
How many battles do you want it to take to resolve the competition? Are you looking for something you can resolve in a couple afternoons of play, or something that takes a month or two to finish? You have to think about how committed people are to the tournie before starting.
Round RobinFor a 1v1 DM tournie wih say 8 players, to run about a month long, I might go with a 'round-robin' In a round-robin, every player fights every other player once. That would be 64 1v1 fights. You could reduce this by making it a 2v2 tournament, which would be resolved in only 16 fights. You would need to make some kind of a lottery system to select partners though.Â
Very easy. You could score this by wins or by total score, just total it up at the end. Maybe you subtract deaths, maybe not...? That's up to you.Â
Double Round RobinYou can also run a double-round robin (this is the standard in soccer for example, and in many chess and pool tournies), in which each player fights each other twice. A 1v1 double round robin with 8 contestants that would be 128 fights. In a 2v2 double round robin with 4 teams, that would be 32 fights.
You might want each team or player to alternate map choice, ie A plays B two times, once on A's choice map and one on B's choice. Make it even more interesting by allowing the defender to choose what weapons are allowed, rofl.
EliminationIf you want to make it quick, go for Elimination. 8 players would make for a very quick elimination tournie, you could handle it in a few hours. It's only 7 fights for a 1v1 tourney, or a paltry 3 fights for a 2v2 tourney (which wouldnt be much fun).
Double EliminationDouble Elimination is a little more complicated than it sounds. I won't go into detail since it's probably not a good idea unless you have 16 contestants minimum.Â
But... you can get the same benefits of a double elimination by first doing a Round Robin and then using the scores to establish people's position in the pyramid for Elimination. The two top scorers from the Round Robin fight each other in the first round of Elimination, the next two top scorers fight each other, etc. The end result is that everyone has to lose TWICE in order to be kicked out of the tourney, which helps to reduce luck factors and also gives people more of a sense of participation than in a straight Elimination. Total battles would be.. um... 71 fights for 8 players in a 1v1 tournie, or 19 fights for a 2v2 tournie run this way.
Arcade styleThe easiest tournament style of all. Just make a post that you challenge anyone to knock you down. If they do... they become the Defender. Anyone can post a Challenge, but the Defender must fight the Challengers in the order that they have posted their Challenge. Once the Defender is knocked out, they can post a new Challenge (back of the line, buddy). Arcade style never ends... it is an Unending Tournament of Justice. Nobody ever wins, it is just a matter of climbing to the top and seeing how long you can stay there. This could be fun with 2v2 also... the Challengers would be able to post a Challenge with any partner they could get to agree... but the Defenders would have to stay as a team until they got knocked out.
Even though Arcade style has the disadvantage of being 'never-ending', it has always been the biggest hit in my fighting game tournies. I ran one that lasted a year and a half, with 1 fight every day, for Virtua Fighter 4. People just signed up on a whiteboard by my desk, and there would be like 12 people crowded around at lunch break to watch the day's battle, to watch and take notes on the style of the player that they would someday be fighting. I kept and published an Excel document that you could sort by number of wins by player, by character, longest streaks, most rounds won, etc. Was very cool, very fun.
Clearly I have too much free time and Bud Light on my hands. Good luck have fun.
