Game of Tomes 2023

Who Will Claim the Iron Tome? by Dani Adventures

The Game of Tomes is a competition for writers who participate in National Novel Writing Month. It is made up of regular Twitch viewers and those who enjoy participating in virtual write-ins with a competitive and friendly spirit. Although the game was designed for Wrimos, it is open to any and all writers on Twitch who want to participate.

World Anvil Explains the Game of Tomes! (Twitch Clip)
Thanks for the support, Janet & Dimitris!

The Conflict

Prelude

2020 was a disastrous year on the third planet in the Sol system. As if the widespread political and social turmoil and the vicissitudes of climate change weren't enough, a global pandemic known as COVID-19 forced most of the world into lockdown conditions. In response to the health risks of gathering in public spaces, NaNoWriMo headquarters informed their Municipal Liaisons, including Sable Aradia, that they would not be authorizing any in-person events for NaNoWriMo 2020. Fortunately, the ASC Wrimos had the benefit of the Anvilite community to gather with online. Inspired by the #NaNoHouseCup, which is masterminded and organized by Elayna Mae, a number of ASC writers who participate in NaNoWriMo agreed to pit their word counts against one another in a month-long winner-take-all battle for the Iron Tome. Sable Aradia of House Lapin laid the challenge, and six ASC Wrimos accepted her invitation.

Deployment

The Game of Tomes is open to anyone doing creative writing who joins in participating streams and redeems their word counts. While this was originally geared to NaNoWriMo participants, this has expanded, and anyone doing creative writing may enter, with one project or many projects. For examples of acceptable projects for word counts, please see the sidebar. Each "Tome Knight" assigns themselves to one of the great Houses, depending upon inclination and habits as a writer, or just personal whim. Their word counts in the streams of participating streamers are counted towards the overall totals of their chosen House by selecting the appropriate channel point reward, marked by their House's banner as a Twitch emote, and entering their word count in the space one might typically type a "highlighted message".

Battlefield

The battlefield for this conflict is in the Twitch write-in streams of participating streamers. Only the word count totals from live participating write-ins count towards the overall House totals. Individual word count totals acquired off-stream, or in non-participating write-ins, are not counted. Neither are word counts acquired by watching VODs after the streams have aired.

Conditions

Attrition

At the end of every six days, as calculated in UTC, the overall scores of the Houses are tallied. The great House with the smallest overall word count is officially eliminated from the competition. This result will be announced on stream.

November 06: 5^th House eliminated
November 12: 4^th House eliminated
November 18: 3^rd House eliminated
November 24: 2^nd House eliminated
December 01: The Final Battle — last surviving House vs. the Undead Horde!

The Final Battle, unlike the other elimination periods, will not be tallied until NaNoWriMo has ended for ALL time zones.

Undead

The names of the members of the eliminated House, and their bannerfolk, will be entered into a random name selector. One third of them will be drawn randomly to be drafted into the ranks of the Undead Horde. If they are drafted, they must represent the Horde for the remainder of the Game of Tomes. "Mercenaries" who shift their allegiances will be counted as being part of the last House they joined before the end of the elimination period. Along with one third of the eliminated House members, the Undead Horde will also receive one third of their word count total at the point of elimination. Both totals will be adjusted accordingly. The members and bannerfolk of the eliminated House who survive the Undead Horde may then choose one of the surviving Houses to represent instead.

Dancing with Death

If a participating living Tome Knight submits word counts to the Undead Horde, either accidentally or intentionally, they are allowed ONE WARNING in which the mistake can be corrected, and the words returned to the House it is actually intended for. After that, the words they submitted disappear into the ether, and benefit neither a living House, nor the Horde. Further, that Tome Knight is automatically submitted to the Undead Horde draft, since clearly, they were getting a little too close to zombies. They are not guaranteed admission into the ranks of the Undead.

Bending the Knee

If a House leader -- whether they lead a lesser or a greater House -- survives the Horde, they must then appear on the stream of the leader of the new House they wish to serve to "bend the knee." This can be done with a live appearance, a chat conversation, the use of emojis, or any other method as appropriate to the stream and streamer. It is assumed that their House members will change their allegiance to the new House, but they are under no obligation to do so. A House leader may send a representative to offer their House's fealty instead, if circumstances prevent them from doing it themself. However, the representative must be a recognized "House regular" with an "official" title in the House's leadership structure, and just like a House leader, is bound to represent their House until it falls -- they may not voluntarily change loyalties. Further, they will be expected to bend the knee to the new House that the House leader chooses. If a House leader's House falls, they must either:

stop displaying their House banner on stream, signifying that their House has been destroyed
display the banner of the House they have bent the knee to in a more prominent, and usually larger, position than their own

If the leader of a minor House becomes part of the Undead Horde, their House is considered to be destroyed, and they must also take down their banner, and not display it on stream again for the duration of the Game. Alternatively, Houses whose leaders are drafted into the Undead Horde may feature a corrupted version of their banner instead, displaying their allegiance to the Undead.

Bodyguards

Tome Knights may volunteer to protect other Tome Knights from the Undead Horde. The Tome Knight so protected might be a House Leader, Regent, Seneschal, House Heir, or a Mercenary (so that they can continue to make money for charity). A Bodyguard must "volunteer as tribute," and the Core Team must be informed, at least 48 hours before an Elimination. All relevant website and Discord information must also be updated. Any given Tome Knight may only have up to a total of 4 Bodyguards in the course of an event. A titled House Scion (Leader, Heir, Seneschal, Regent) may only be protected by a loyal member of their own House. Mercenaries may be protected by anyone who chooses to do so. If a protected person is drafted into the Undead Horde, one of their Bodyguards may choose to sacrifice themself to the Horde instead. The Bodyguard choosing to do this is automatically drafted into the Horde -- it is assumed they threw themself in front of the killing blow intended for their charge. If there is more than one Bodyguard protecting a given Tome Knight, which one makes the sacrifice is randomly determined by die roll or another agreed-upon random selection method, live on stream. The current known list of protected Tome Knights and their bodyguards can be found in the sidebar.

The Last Stand

There is a period between each official cutoff, and the subsequent elimination stream, lasting several hours, in which the fallen House does not yet know that it has fallen. However, the words of that House must go somewhere. Therefore, prior to each elimination, every major House leader must inform the Wizard of GoT which House they will bend the knee to in this elimination, should they fall and survive the Undead draft. Until their fallen status is announced, words that would have been credited to the fallen House are credited to their intended new House instead, in a last stand against the Undead Horde, bolstering their new liege's defenses. Once the fallen House is announced, those who are not either the fallen House leader, nor their sworn elite guards or emissaries, may change allegiance if they wish to.

Responsibilities of House Leaders

The Major House leaders are part of the team of event organizers by default. They are expected to join the Discord, and to be consulted for rulings and decisions during the course of a Game of Tomes event. The House leaders may not reveal the current totals at any time in public, on stream, Discord, or any form of social media, which allows "mercenary" play. The only time in which total word counts will be revealed is on the stream in which the next elimination is announced. Whether a House leader is the head of a major or minor House, the role of a House leader is to inspire and encourage their bannerfolk. This is all about fun and about helping each other to succeed. Lead by example, be there for your bannerfolk, and use positive reinforcement to make Game of Tomes a success for them, and for you.

The Engagement

Streamers

Any Twitch Affiliate writer may host the Game of Tomes on their streams, and participate in the competition themselves. Please REGISTER at this website prior to October 15th.

Registrations for participating Twitch streamers for 2023 is CLOSED.

Streamers who wish to participate will find the necessary info and resources here:

Streaming Game of Tomes

Profession | Dec 23, 2022

Streamers: How to Add Streams to the GoT Calendar

Generic article | Jul 2, 2023

THE GAME OF TOMES BOT: FIRST TOME KNIGHT

The Game of Tomes Bot: First Tome Knight

Registering at the registration link authorizes the Game of Tomes bot, the First Tome Knight, to operate on your Twitch channel. You will be asked to authorize our bot by Twitch when you register. An administrator must approve your registration, so be aware that we may contact you through your channel or a Twitch whisper if we have questions. This site is also where you will go to redeem your word count totals after a stream. You will be asked to push a button on the site to opt in to each individual Game of Tomes event. You may opt in or opt out using this button at any time, though we'd appreciate it if you would see the event you signed up for through, unless there is an emergency. The bot installs a series of Channel Point Rewards on your Twitch channel. They will likely appear first, or near to first, in your list, since they are worth 1 Channel Point (if you're a House leader, this is your House,) 2 Channel Points (for a Major House,) or 3 Channel Points (for the Minor House reward.) These are how participants will report their word counts. The rewards will be deactivated when they appear, and without emotes to represent them. There is no need to activate them; they will be activated automatically when a Game of Tomes event starts, and deactivated automatically when the event ends. You will have to install the emotes to represent the rewards manually, however. You will find a series of graphics that are sized appropriately (and named accordingly) in the graphics resource GitHub. You will find the link to the GitHub on the Game of Tomes Image Resources page. The First Tome Knight also installs a series of chat commands, which are fully detailed on the registration and reporting site. They range from a description of what the Game of Tomes is with an accompanying link to this website, to descriptions of the participating Houses and links to their leaders' Twitch channels, to a means by which participating Tome Knights can track their own current word count totals, and the total words accumulated in a stream. We suggest that you assign FirstTomeKnight moderator status, as there may be some problems with the chatbot functioning as intended if you have Follower Only chat settings, block URLs, etc. Last, live registered Game of Tomes streams display on the registration site landing page in embeds, to show participants where to go to report their words.

Only Twitch Affiliates can use Channel Point Rewards, and therefore, only Twitch Affiliates can be Game of Tomes streamers. However, this is a very supportive community. Announce that you'd like to reach Affiliate so that you can help organize the Game of Tomes, and let one of the great House leaders know, and we're sure it won't take long!

Reporting Word Counts as a Game of Tomes Streamer

Thank you very much to Darth Nikolas of The Closet Forge for creating this excellent tutorial video!

Tome Knights

Participating Tome Knights may find live Game of Tomes streams in one of two ways:

The Game of Tomes Event Calendar shows which streams are live and when in a calendar display.
The First Tome Knight website displays which Game of Tomes streams are currently live in embeds, which you can then join by clicking on them.

Reporting Your Word Counts in a Stream

Word counts can only be reported in a live, participating Game of Tomes stream. What you wrote on the weekend when you were away from the computer does not count.

Word counts can only be reported in the stream they are accumulated in. As a result, many streamers will use some kind of alert system to inform viewers that the stream is about to end (a popular method is to ring a bell and cry, "Bring out your words!" - this was coined by Rowean during the first season.)

If you miss the end of the stream and find yourself in a new one without having reported your words, contact one of the major House leaders or event organizers to have your words counted with their approval.

Word counts are reported by selecting the appropriate channel point reward, which will be worth 1, 2, or 3 points, and therefore are likely to appear at the beginning of the streamer's list.

To report your words for a major House, select the appropriate House's channel point reward (ie. "GoT Lapin Report"). A dialogue box will appear. Type your word count into the box, adding the words "light edits" or "heavy edits" if you are editing, as appropriate.

To report your words for a minor House, select the "GoT Minor House Report" channel point reward option, and proceed as above, except be sure to add the name of the House you are supporting (ie. "300 Ailurus; 210 Avis light edits.")

If you are supporting a minor House, and you are in a stream that is led by a minor House leader, you may select the appropriate channel point reward for that House instead. These specific reward options will only appear in a minor House leader's stream (ie. "GoT Avis Report"). Proceed as above, except that it is not necessary to type the minor House's name in the dialogue box as well.

You may report your words as many times during a stream as you like. It is the number of words you have earned since your last report that you are reporting, not your total word count!

If you make a mistake on the number of words, it is possible to subtract words from your total by using the minus sign (ie. "-110," "-50 Avis," "-10 Ailurus light edits.")

If you have submitted your words to the wrong House, it may be easier to tell the streamer, who can just delete it for you (in the Game of Tomes, we prefer that you do this, since we keep track of your House loyalties). Once that has been done, just resubmit your words for the correct House.

Underage Tome Knights

Twitch's Terms of Service forbid children under a certain age from having their own Twitch accounts. However, it is not unusual for the Game of Tomes to have underage participants with parental supervision. Children may support the parent's House, or another House entirely. A parent or guardian may report words for their children in the following format: Sable Aradia is reporting words for herself (House Lapin) and two of her grandchildren (Liam and Elizabeth):

Sable Aradia selects the House Lapin reward and types "300 light edits" for herself

Sable Aradia selects the House Lapin reward and types "150 SableAradia:Liam" or "150 SableAradia-Liam" to attribute Liam's words

Sable Aradia selects the House Sauropoda reward and types "25 SableAradia:Elizabeth" or "25 SableAradia-Elizabeth" to attribute Elizabeth's words

This will make sure that the words are recorded under individual entries for Liam and Elizabeth. Note that it is important to type the name used the same way every time to make sure they are attributed correctly.

Remember, this is a Game

Although this event is designed to get the competitive juices flowing to inspire greater word counts, it is meant to be a friendly competition. There are no real stakes involved. There are no prizes or punishments for success or failure. Our hope is that participants will encourage and support one another, and any rivalries will be all in good fun.
We are all in this together to achieve our writing goals and if you wish, a bit of roleplay. Our task as members of the GoTverse is to make sure EVERYONE has fun.
Put simply, anyone being a jerk may be banned from participating in the event by a consensus of the event organizers.

Outcome

We hope that the Game of Tomes will make NaNoWriMo more fun and more effective for all participants! Good luck, and happy writing!

Aftermath

Success and partial success in NaNoWriMo has helped thousands of writers all over the world to achieve their dreams, boost their self-confidence, and celebrate their joy in writing. We hope the Game of Tomes will contribute to that in a positive way!