General Information [2nd Games]

In the beginning there were no elaborate arenas, no Gamemakers, no mentors, no careers, no training sessions, no pomp and circumstance. No precedent. All of that developed piece by piece, over time and countless mistakes. The goal of this event is to backfill our canon — to create reference points for the present day.

Instead of focusing on the hope that our tribute might be the one to survive, the goal is to focus on the diversity of the stories that have already come and gone: the career dynasties of yesteryear that have been usurped by a surge of lower district victories; tributes who figured out how to cheat the system and cause the kind of mayhem that led to high tech solutions; the kids who thought that refusing to kill each other might mean that no one died — until mutts were introduced to prove otherwise; the very first person to ask if they could volunteer in someone else's place...

This is an incredible opportunity to write characters you might not normally write. To write someone who doesn't fight back or who is merciless without redemption; to take risks in your writing and commit to an idea, rather than bending a character to match their dice; to see how much you can do with so little time; to write selfish characters who aren't fighting for allies or last chance arena romances because everything is sudden and brutal and new and unknown. There are no rules to break because they have not yet been made.

THE REAPING

These Games will run on a condensed timeline. The reaping will take place the evening of Tuesday, January 14th to match members with a district position. Please see the Reaping Sign-Up thread in order to take part.

This year, the children in each district will be assembled in front of the steps of the Justice Building, where the first public reaping will take place. The Treaty of Treason is read aloud. The names of the tributes are read off of paper slips drawn from glass bowls, the short ceremony performed by the district's Head Peacekeeper.

TRIBUTES

Each member will write a bio for their tribute — it may be a concise bio, but more in-depth bios are absolutely welcome. As per a standard Games, there will be one male and one female tribute per district, ages 12-18. All bios will be accepted by the GM and should be completed/accepted by the evening of Friday, January 17th.

Twelve of these bios will be allowed to be rebel soldiers. Rebel characters will be granted the following combat stations: blades, hand-to-hand, and self-defense. Priority for rebel characters will be given to the site members highest on the reaping list.

Twelve of these bios will be citizens. Some of these citizens may be family members of government officials who (either actively or passively) assisted anti-Capitol activities. Such a connection will not grant any combat benefits. Other citizens will be average children of the community, with minimal ties to the rebellion. If too many people want to write one type of citizen versus another, priority will be given to the site members highest on the reaping list.

None of these tributes may be relatives of tributes from the 1st Games (no siblings, no cousins, etc).

No career tributes will be allowed.

No tributes may volunteer to take the place of another.

Since this is an old games, all of these tributes are dead in present day, including the victor. As such, face claims may be used for posts, but not claimed on the official site face claim list (as it would be confusing for the staff). Any FCs used should be unclaimed or used with permission. FCs are not required.

Descendants of a tribute's family may be made in present day with permission from the original tribute's writer.

It is highly recommended to have general character ideas approved by the GM before writing a bio. This is to prevent bios from being rejected due to similarity with other character ideas that may have already been approved and/or significant overlap with characters or plots of recent retro games. Some ideas may also not be allowed yet due to wanting to spread landmark events out between a variety of retro games. For example, some things that will not be allowed these games are (but are not limited to): relatives of 1st Games tributes, careers, romance plots between tributes, pregnancy, suicide, and tokens.

THE BLOODBATH

The only fight of the 2nd Annual Hunger Games will be the bloodbath, beginning on Saturday, January 18th at 12:00pm EST and will end when only one tribute remains.

There will be no alliances. Tributes are not allowed to interact before the bloodbath begins and will be kept separate until the Games, including on the train to the Capitol. Tributes will be directly escorted to the train from the Reaping.

Starting times for the bloodbath will be slightly staggered (determined by initiative dice rolls) and the required time between posts will be increased to 1 hour, in order to discourage pre-writing and encourage more in-depth tribute interaction.

Tributes may be attacked up to 3 times in between each of their posts. However, each of these attacks must be made by a different character, i.e., a tribute may not be hit multiple times by the same person between their posts.

Tributes will be required to post at least once per 24 hours (i.e. once between 12pm EST one day and 12pm EST the next) and fillers are not allowed. Breaking either of these two rules will result in a tribute's damage being brought up to 39.5.

For each additional armed attack post a tribute makes within the 24 hour timeframe beyond the one required, they will heal 1 damage (up to a maximum of 5) at the end of the timeframe.

Intro posts may contain attacks, including armed attacks. All tributes may be attacked immediately, regardless of whether or not their intro has been posted.

Attacking in the bloodbath is not required, if it is not in character for your tribute. However, starting on the second day, you must make at least one armed attack post per day, or else you will be considered a peaceful tribute. This means that: a) tributes who are attacking you may attack you two times per post rather than one, and b) you will not be allowed to roll to attack again for the remainder of the Games (IC shoving, swinging and missing, etc is permissible if the target tribute agrees.)

Turn order will come into effect for the final six tributes.

Each tribute will roll for their starting health (everyone will start with 5-15 damage). This is to give the games a more manageable pace, but it's also to give everyone a sense of who the first tributes to die will be and prevent that from being based on OOC factors. This damage may be written as wounds from the war, a lack of strength, etc. Please consider making this important to your characterization and make the most of a character's weakness if you roll high damage. Remember, these games are not about competition or victory — they're about the stories and giving the site a fuller history to look back on.

THE VICTOR

Although the victor will be dead in present day, the winner of these games is highly encouraged to write a timeline, oneshots, etc of the rest of their character's life. Writing present day descendants will be allowed.

Please do not aim to win if you are not interested in writing follow-up content, as this is a major reason for these games. It is a huge honor to write a legacy victor and our hope is for that to be about much more than the title.