Grand Battle Planning and General Discussion Thread

Welcome to the Grand Battle Forum! This is where we engage in battles to the death with words.

Some of you are very familiar with Grand Battles, as writers, readers, or both. Others have heard us babbling about them in IRC and other venues but don't know much about them. And then, of course, there are people who just stumbled onto this section of the forum and wonder what all this is about.

Well, fortunately, I have some answers right here, written by Not The Author in the introductory post of Petty Squabble. (With a little rewording for context, seeing as this is more general than just one battle.)

Rules and Explanations of a Grand Battle:

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:: So what's a Grand Battle?

The gist [of a Grand Battle] is that eight people come up with interesting characters and then write about them interacting and they die off one at a time based on who is the worst or most inactive writer.

:: Woah wait hold up what’s this about dying

Yup! This is an eight-man battle to the death. You will probably die!
Note: It's not necessarily for eight players! We've had smaller battles, and occasionally larger battles too - though only one that was a lot larger. Eight is pretty much the standard, though, so you'll see it mentioned a lot here.

:: But I don’t want to die!

Well then you’re gonna hafta write well.

:: …Write? I thought we were fighting.

Despite their trappings as slaughterfests, Grand Battles are all about story and character development. Each round, the contestants are put in some bizarre locale and muddle along until an arbitrary point at which the round’s end is announced. The host will solicit opinions as to who ought to be offed, and once they’ve made up their mind, someone (usually the to-be-deceased) will send up a deathpost and the game will move on to the next round.

:: How do you decide who’s going to die?

Contestants are eliminated based on how well (or how poorly) they write. Judging writing quality is not always the easiest of jobs, so it's common to ask for others' opinions at that time. Frequently, though, players are eliminated for not writing anything. At all. Really ruins it for everyone. Don’t feel bad if you want to forfeit, though! Life intervenes, or it stops being fun, or whatever; I understand! But don’t just drop off the face of the round if you can help it.


:: So, I can’t just kill other players?

Killing other players before the end of the round is strictly forbidden. Hell, doing anything that would seriously impair another character without the permission of that character’s author (chopping off their limbs, destroying their weapon, etc.) is Not Cool. If everyone could just kill everyone else, then the game would be short and boring. This is not a combat-oriented thing. This is a story-oriented thing. I cannot say that enough.


:: Must take a while to get going, if you have to wait on everyone to advance the plot.

Ah, but that’s one of the great things about Grand Battles! Unlike in traditional roleplays, you can write what other characters are doing, so long as it makes sense. I’ve seen posts where an author barely even mentions their own character, but does a bunch of stuff with the other characters. Hell, one time an inactive player was carried through, like, two rounds on others’ writing alone! …Then they died. But that’s not the point.


:: That's cool and all, but what if someone puts up a post before me that ruins all my plans?

Never fear! Just post a... post containing RESERVE or some clever variant thereof and you'll have four hours in which no one else is allowed to post. Beyond those four hours, though, it's fair game again.


:: Four hours? That's not really much time.

Well, it's not really Four Hours as much as it is "four hours." Most people understand that writing takes time, and are willing to be lenient. Frequently those four hours will extend into four days, or (if you're in round three) four weeks. Bear in mind that these "extended reserves" are a gentleman's agreement, i.e. if you've gone well over four hours and someone wants to post, you'd better bet they're going to post. Best to be certain you can finish your post within the reserve limit.


:: Oh, I see how this works. One guy reserves, and then another guy, and then another guy-

Lemme just cut you off right there. Consecutive reserves are not allowed. Nobody like waiting indefinitely for posts which may or may not come. The only time concurrent reserve posts should appear is if the earlier ones are void. Nor can the same person try to cheat the system and repeatedly reserve multiple times in a row. That's just being mean.


:: Right, okay. So what’s this about rounds?

The game is divided into rounds, which have two basic criteria: Each round must end with the death of at least one player, and each round must take place somewhere new. There will be seven rounds, barring any multiple-eliminations. The description of each round will be pretty vague, so be creative!
Note: Again, if the number of players is different, the number of rounds will be, too.

:: Anything else I should know?

Talk to the other players. You want a coherent plot? You want this to be interesting? You damn well better talk to the other players. Ask what their plans for their character and the environment are, and work together to make this interesting. You don’t have to have everything approved by committee, of course, but lone-wolfing it tends to present problems here and there. I strongly recommend using the Grand Battle IRC channel, #grandbattle on Esper.net. Failing that, you could always PM people via the forums.

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:: tl;dr
This… might not be the thing for you, then. Nevertheless, here’s a condensed list of guidelines.

• Writing is God. Grand Battles are, first and foremost, about writing a good story. If you can write well, you’ll go far. This rule sometimes overrides other rules.
• This is still part of the Eagle Time Forums, so all the rules of the forum still apply.
• No godmoding. No doing things to other people’s characters that they don’t want you to. No killing other players until the end of the round.
• You can write for characters that are not your own, so long as it makes sense in context.
• Work together with other players. This is, again, a story, and if other people don’t know what you have planned, events may seem disconnected and random. Make something you’d want to read, and would want others to read.
• Relatedly, ask questions if you don’t understand something about the story or rules. Preferably via PM or IRC.
• If you don't want others ruining your plans, place a reserve and you'll have four(ish) hours to put up a post.
• Don’t forget to have fun! This is not a serious, intense competition. This is a bunch of friends getting together to write a story. So enjoy yourself!
• Visit the Grand Battle IRC at #grandbattle on Esper.net and the Grand Battle Introduction/FAQ/Planning Thread for more information.

In general, when signing up for a battle, you'll fill out a character profile, which looks something like this:

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Username: Your username. Generally considered optional these days.

Name: Your character’s name. This one isn't so optional.

Gender: Your character's gender. Most of the time, this will be Male or Female, with None in third place. That said, if you have an unusual gender in mind for your character, you're free to use it.

Race: Might be more accurately called "Species", but who cares. This can be anything, and it often has been. The very first battle had an undead vacuum cleaner as an entrant, and that's far from the most unusual contestant. Of course, you don't have to go that route; you can go ahead and use a human or an elf or a dwarf or something more typical. It's ultimately about whether you can tell an interesting story about them.

Text Color: Each character in the battle will have a color. Depending on the writer's preference, this color will either be used for their entire posts, or they may opt to color different sections based on which character is most prominent in them. Basically, pick a color and write your posts in it. If you end up with a color that's hard to read or very similar to someone else's, the host will just ask one of you to change, so don't worry too much about this.

These next three sections don't go in a fixed order; feel free to put them in whatever order they read best in.

Equipment/Abilities: This is where you explain any noteworthy items the character has when they're brought into the battle, and any skills (for example: "good with computers", "fights well with a sword") or special abilities (such as "can breathe fire", "makes people around them more paranoid").
I recommend not worrying too much about specific rules for how abilities work; for instance, if you have a character who's an expert mage, don't try to make a full spell list. If they only have a few spells, on the other hand, then feel free to list those.
In particular, you want this section to be useful to other writers when they decide to have your character do something.

Description: This section is where you describe the character's appearance, and more importantly, their personality. Or in shorter words, "what do they look like and how do they act?"
Again, this section can be useful as a guide for other players; the key points to hit here are "what might another character notice about them?" and "how would they react to other characters, in general?"

Biography: This is where you talk about what the character was doing before they were in a battle to the death. What did they do? What were their great victories, or great defeats?
This biography may or may not have direct relevance to the battle. An example of direct relevance (which has actually been used) would be a robot programmed to do a specific task; if the task involved a place or person in the robot's original universe, they wouldn't be able to do that and that would have an impact on the battle itself.
The key thing to do here is to show that you can put this character in an interesting scenario; you don't necessarily have to make this a full story, but this is your main chance to demonstrate the character doing interesting things. If you can't manage that, in battles that are more competitive with their slots, you might get left out.

Finally, a note about "Seasons".

A season is a set of eight battles. Currently, we have four of these. Seasons 1, 2, and 3 are all in the same continuity; Season Intermission, abbreviated as S!, is not officially in that same continuity.

The current plan is for Season 4 to start when all the battles in Season 1 finish, not counting the All-Stars battle with the winners of the eight battles in that season. However, that doesn't mean that other people can't start their own unofficial battles. Go ahead and do that if you think it sounds fun; it won't be declared Official, but that's not a big deal.

There are also Mini-Grands, which are battles with only four players and three rounds. Sometimes these are treated as being in a shared continuity with other Mini-Grands, and sometimes they aren't. It's pretty much entirely up to the people involved.

I think that's about it. Somebody yell at me if I missed any major points.

Feel free to use this thread to talk about ongoing plans, your favorite characters, or rounds, post fanart, and just generally talk about battles.

Links of note:
The Grand Battle Discord server. This is where we actually talk these days.
The #grandbattle IRC channel - Where we talk about battles and other things. Usually other things. (Edit: we use Discord these days instead. Only keeping this link for archival purposes.)
The Grand Battle Wiki - Where we post information on battles, characters, rounds, and other things.
Grand Battle TV Tropes page - Not really important to read, but you might find it entertaining.