The Goblins Fan Forum

Voting is now closed. Winners have been posted.

To help support the Goblins Kickstarter, I am running two contests.

1. Altsplanations Alternate Realities: A fanfic contest. Create your own alternate reality (using any characters from the comic) and tell us about it. Can involve the Maze Of Many, but does not have to. Use whatever medium you want. Short story is probably easiest, but you can include art or even make it in the form of a comic. Whatever works. PM me what you've got (to keep entries anonymous) by midnight (US Eastern time) on Sunday the 23rd. I'll post all entries on Monday the 24th (shortly after midnight) and we'll have a poll to determine the winner.

2. Spread the word about the Kickstarter: Get people to back the project, even with just a dollar or two. Then ask them to join the boards and post here that you referred them. (Unless someone has a better/easier way to do this?) Whoever brings in the most new backers by Wednesday the 26th wins.

Details (subject to updates):

What do you win? Money! I'll work out the details with the winners. I can do PayPal or an Amazon gift card easily enough. I might be able to do a prepaid debit card. Or we can find another option.

How much money? $55 US dollars! Enough to get the game sent to anywhere in the world! Or, if you're in the US, to get the game with the Shield of Wonder expansion!

You may submit up to two entries for the Altsplanations contest.

Given the lack of interest in the other contest, I may award additional prizes for the Altsplanations contest, depending on how things go. ETA: Thunt mentioned on yesterday's broadcast that he planned to announce bonus goodies for anyone pledging at least $11. If that does happen, I'll give away additional $11 prizes to at least second and third places.

A couple of people have commented on the short time for writing. I've extended the deadline by a day to give people the weekend to work. That unfortunately will mean less time for voting. Hopefully people will have enough time to read all the entries and give them a fair chance.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Let me know, here or via PM.

This sounds awesome, Wears! Thanks for being a superfan as usual, and good luck to people who enter

Yea.. I have to 2nd nickohl... just a little reminder, this is a time limited contest.. as the KS ends in 18 days... when is the contest of yours ending?

I plan to have both of them wrap up on the 26th, giving me a few days to get the money to the winners. But since the first one requires a poll to pick the winner, I want entries in a few days earlier.

Clarification: Although the contest is called "Altsplanations, " the story/world you create does not have to have anything to do with FMK or the Maze Of Many. Sorry for any confusion.

Also, while I appreciate the kind words from Nikohl and LAYF, I've only had one person so far express an interest in actually participating. I don't need your entries yet, but I would like to know if you're at least considering taking part in either or both. If you are planning on maybe entering the Altsplanations contest, please let me know privately so we can keep it anonymous.

Is more than 1 entry allowed?

I've tended to not notice Contests and other subforums, so you might need a global anouncement (moved by a mod?) to get people's attention.

I hadn't anticipated more than one entry. So far, I've got one in hand and three more people who are interested. Four if I take your question as implied interest in entering. On the one hand, more entries would be good. On the other hand, I'd rather not have one prolific person take over the whole thing. So... I guess I'll go with the rule from the fanart contest:

You may submit up to two entries.

Making the thread a global announcement would be nice. I'd thought of it, but hadn't followed up. I'll look into it.

And now on to announcements:

The prize for winning the Altsplanations contest will be $55 USD. That's enough to get the game sent to anywhere in the world. Or, if you're in the US, to get the game and the Shield of Wonder expansion set.

So far, no one has expressed an interest in the other contest. I may cancel that one and instead give out more in the Altsplanations contest. I'll see how things go.

Hmm.... I really dont know.... I'm intrested.. yet... I've allready bougth it.. so...

I'd rather someone who have not been able to buy it got the chance....

A bit confused here

Join in. You can use the money to increase your pledge. Or buy a copy for someone else. Or accept the accolades and graciously give the prize to someone else. Or something.

If I regain some creativity tonight I'll try and enter, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to produce anything. I'm hoping to, though!

K, I'm interested in the altsplanations.

I really do recommend the global announcement. 1, it may get more entries. 2, and almost more important, it may provide more voters. It would be bad to have entries and then few votes.

Speaking of which, Wears, you'll know who the entries are from, so will you be voting? I'm of 2 minds on that. Shouldn't everyone get to vote as long as they don't vote for themselves and don't reveal who an entry is from? And, if you are putting up real money, at least you ought to get 1/x # of total votes say in directing it. OTOH, anon is supposed to avoid favoritism. I don't care which way it goes. But more votes, in a limited number of votes setting, is a good thing, and 1/x is a very limited form of favortism.

Will participants be able to vote, subject to the above restrictions?

Hmm... while I agree with you, there is one problem, if Wears uses a poll for the votes, anyone can vote on anyone (including themself) and no one would be the wiser...
on hte other hand, he could do a "send me the votes" , sad but true part of that is, that he would get fewer voters.. (dont underestimate peoples sloth (sorry for the word, dont know a better for it..))

so.... yea...

BUT.. i do thing Waers should vote... it is his money after all...

Oh, a poll does change things, slightly. Okay, everyone votes, but no one besides Wears knows who is who. It will help if there are many voters. Does that work good enough?

Sigh, Wears, with your money you might want to consider the risk of sock puppet accounts in a poll. No, I think people should vote by post.

A poll would be completely anonymous; not even I would know who voted for whom. I'd have to trust everyone not to cheat, but this isn't a community where cheating is rampant.

Still, last contest was vote by post, and that seemed to work fine. And it's not much more work to use the quick reply box compared to clicking the poll button. Actually, it allows for preferential voting, which has its advantages and disadvantages.

Or I could just set it up to let people vote for two entries. Isn't that what we did last time? So far I have 5 entries. I'll probably get a couple more, but I don't expect to have more than 10, at the most. So picking two lets people express a wider choice without having to rank everything or let any of the authors see that someone put their work dead last.

Thinking it over, I'm currently inclined to do vote by post, and let people vote for two, but I'm open to suggestions.

As for me, I'm running the thing and I'll be the only one who knows who wrote what. I don't think I'll vote.

Literally just noticed this now, can I write a decent altsplanation in a day? One way to find out

You've got two days. Entries are due Sunday night (by, say, midnight US Eastern time).

I love the idea of writing an Altsplanation, and had the idea of writing FMK from a reality which has no magic/supernatural and how they would experience the MoM using only their 'real world' physical abilities and feats. However, I'm too busy to write anything by the deadline.

You have until tomorrow night if you change your mind. To be clear, the story doesn't have to have anything to do with the MoM. Sorry for the confusion. (I thought I'd added a note about that. I guess I put in the note about it being any characters, leaving the MoM implied. I shouldn't have used the Altsplanations term. It's late, but I'll fix that.)

In any case, I'll probably be running another contest later this summer, after the Kickstarter dust settles. Prizes would be $5 and $10 gift cards to the site that sells the Goblins PDFs. Not as much as first prize here, but better odds of winning one. And, without the Kickstarter setting the schedule, there would be more time to write.

Just read it, too short notice for me... :((((

Maybe I'll get something done during the week, once the kids are in bed...
But definitely not this weekend, and unlikely on Monday.

But thanks for running (and sponsoring) this!

Haven't had much time to let my creativity flow anyway.

But I have one idea.
Now to find an angle to make a nice short story out of it....


And having some problems with geocachers on my property. Have to address that very soon, before more bushes get damaged...
I don't mind the bikers and hikers, horse-riders, dog-owners,... to cut the corner to get to the cache, but the cars parking either on the road, the bike lane or on my property do annoy me... Need to find a creative way to disturb the car-parkers without damaging the cache or making it more difficult for horse-riders to reach the cache.

I shall have to bang out a story this afternoon!

I have 9 entries so far.

There are at least a few more people who have said they'd try to get one in.

At the time I'm posting this*, there are 6 hours left to send me your entry (or to revise what you've already sent).

*The time stamp is in the upper left corner of this post, next to my name. It should be adjusted to your local time zone; you can double check that in your profile settings.

Remember that you may submit a second entry of you wish. No one has done so yet, but there has been some interest expressed.

Also, although you can tie this in to the Maze Of Many, you don't have to. Just create an alternate reality and tell us about it through description, a short story, art, some other media, or any combination of the above.

I will post a new thread with all entries late tonight. Voting will be in that thread, and will run for about 48 hours.

The vote thread will be an global announcement as well right? Seems important that it is.

I don't have that power. I can ask. But I'll link to it here. In a new post and prominently in the first post in the thread.

I'll also update the thread title.

Wish I could have joined, but I've been gone for most of the weekend and haven't had time- And now it's far too late here for me to still start and I don't have that large amount of inspiration anyways. Oh well- Good luck to all contestants!