Attached is the first draft of the bracket for the championship. It includes some characters who haven't been confirmed (such as Badge and Jack, who were implied, but haven't been posted here, and Jabari, who Ben had mentioned to me some time ago). That said, it is subject to change.
Attachment:
There are also a ton of empty spaces in the part. If those aren't filled, we'll just move forward, assume that the main characters shown won those fights, and go to the next round of matches (which I have projected in grey text in the spreadsheet, though this is subject to change if those slots actually get filled).
Again, I gotta say it is
not my intention to see every single fight played out. I mean, this is a 32 fighter bracket, here. That'd be insane. However, people are welcome to play out whatever they
do want to do, either as a full fight or as a sort of highlights reel. Only major, main character-vs.-main character fights will probably be played fully (or at least mostly).
That said, the final outcome of this event is not determined. I have a general idea of who has better odds, especially where
in-character cheating is concerned, but it's still set up so that pretty much anything can happen. You guys are welcome to either talk about it amongst yourselves and decide who's going to win what, or approach it competitively. We'll figure out some sort of judging structure to try to keep it fair, but I'm hoping that we can take it
not too seriously, and just have some fun beating up each other's characters, with plenty of drama in-character, but minimal drama out-of-character, if you get what I mean.
HOW IT'S GONNA WORK: THE NITTY GRITTY DETAILSTo break it down, here's some unseen background stuff that will make this all feel a little more real, and large scale (because it's hard for me to mentally accept that only 32 people in the whole world would respond to the tournament, and that most of them would be our characters).
Stuff we won't play out, but will assume happened, and may reference:A week or so before the tournament, contestants are auditioned, and tons are selected (over a hundred). Within a few days, contestants are paired up for a first trial spar, the winners of which move on. Then, a few days before main event, the "Qualification" round begins, with very short 3-round bouts that determine our final 32 starting fighters, as seen in the bracket.
Stuff we MIGHT partially play:• The beginning of the main event. The first round of matches consists mostly of main characters versus NPCs or secondary characters, and thus may only be partially played (i.e. "highlight reels" or however you wanna do it) Just have fun with it. The results narrow it down to 16 fighters.
• Threads in-between matches--Because this whole event cannot physically happen in a single night. There will be some spaces between match nights where characters have a break, and where we might explore other parts of the story (including possibly attempts to steal the prize, if anyone is so inclined, or at least learn more about Vince's operation).
Stuff we will definitely play out, at least partially:• The second leg of the tournament: 16 fighters remain, and now it's going to be lots of main characters versus main characters. This is where it starts to get intense. Matches are still short, at 6 rounds each. Not every minute of every fight will be played, obviously; everyone is welcome to cooperatively skip through their fights, playing the most interesting parts, timeskipping ahead, etc. Just work together with the player you're competing against to make it fun and
cinematic-like.• Quarterfinals: 8 fighters remain. Matches are now 9 rounds long. If any of the matches go full-length, there will definitely have to be some timeskipping in play. Same goes for the matches below.
• Semifinals: 4 fighters remain. The matches are 12 rounds long.
• Championship Bout: The final two. The match is 15 rounds long.
Next post I make, I'll mention some stuff about the
rules of boxing, since I know not all of us quite understand how it works beyond the basic principle of "punch badguy in head 'til he fall down go boom." (And that is pretty much the goal of the sport, but there's more to it.) We'll naturally be using
relaxed rules, with some in-character cheating, too, but, still. I'll give a rundown later.