2017 Tournament of Simulations (ToS) Winners!
The results are in and we have some winners! If you’ll recall, we asked for nominations back in December. If you’re not familiar with ToS, the original competition was held back in 1999. For this year’s ToS, each participating sim submitted 10 posts that were written sometime during 2017. The posts were then evaluated by three judges in three different categories (Story, Characters, and Readability/Grammar) on a 1-10 scale. The final scores were then adjusted based on the individual judge’s respective averages and standard deviations to adjust for both hard & easy grading judges and judges with small & large ranges of scores.
As I say every year, evaluating sims is a subjective art, and this is certainly true with ToS. We’re not here to identify the best games as this is impossible. Instead, we’re here to identify what we think are outstanding role plays that exude excellence. A different set of judges may very well chose a completely different set of winners. And that’s okay! With that our of the way, here are your 2017 tournament winners:
- Outstanding Original Scifi: YSS Hana of Star Army*
- Outstanding Star Trek: USS Vindicator of UCIP
- Outstanding Star Trek: Cold Station Theta of UCIP
- Excellent Star Trek: USS Bonaventure (independent)
- Excellent Original Scifi: YSS Kaiyō II of Star Army*
- Great Star Trek: USS Black Hawk of Bravo Fleet
- Great Star Trek: USS Artemis of UCIP
- Great Star Trek: USS Enterprise of UCIP
- Great X-Men: X-Men Awakening (independent sim)
*YSS Hana & YSS Kaiyō II were the only chats sim to receive awards. All others winners competed in the play-by-post division.
Congratulations to all 9 winners! They were selected from 23 absolutely wonderful and engaging sims. Believe me when I say that there were some really good ones that didn’t make the above list! For that reason, I’d like to personally thank everyone who took the time to enter your games in the competition. Thank you for providing a fantastic role play experience for your players–that was more than evident in all of the entries. The individual grade sheets and judges’ comments have already been emailed to each sim’s respective representative.
I’d also like to acknowledge our amazing panel of judges: Chas Hammer, James Drysdale, James D. West, Kenny Gillis, Lindsay Bayes, Myrkul Sharr, October Veritas, Sam Jones & Zachary O’Connell. They’ll forever be known as the Noble Nine! They volunteered hours of their time to serve the simming and online role playing community. I can’t thank them enough for the wonderful job they did!
Not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 OWCHs!
While we’re on the subject of judging, Chas Hammer of Trek Online, James Drysdale of UFOP: StarBase 118, James D. West of Independence Fleet, and October Veritas of UCIP are all hereby awarded the Ongoing Worlds Community Honor (OWCH) for serving as judges in three Tournament of Simulations. Indeed, they volunteered hours of their time to serve in this capacity: Chas Hammer, 2014, 2016-17; James Drysdale, James D. West, and October Veritas, 2015-17. Their selflessness and volunteer attitude are an example for us all to follow. Without them, we simply wouldn’t be able to hold major events like the Tournament of Simulations. Well done, Chas, James, James, and October! In addition, Sam Jones completed his fourth year as judge… but he got his OWCH last year.
A few notes about this year’s tournament
- This is the 7th year in a row that a tournament was held (2011-2017). Six total tournaments were held 1999-2007. No tournaments were held 2008-2010. Thirteen total tournaments have been held to date.
- Nine awards were bestowed this year. The 2007 tournament saw the most awards presented, with 26. 157 total awards have been bestowed dating back to 1999.
- Star Army (11) and Bravo Fleet (10) join Starfleet Legacy Alliance (31), Federation Sim Fleet (12), and Phoenix Roleplaying (10) as the only clubs with at least 10 total all-time awards.
- Star Army becomes the first club to win awards in 6 different competitions (2012-2017). Six other clubs tie for second place with awards in four different tournaments.
- UCIP (4) & Star Army (2) were the only clubs to win multiple awards this year. The last club to win two awards in a single competition was Obsidian Fleet (2016). The last club to win four awards in a single competition was Star Army (2014). The most awards won in a single year belongs to Starfleet Legacy Alliance, which took home 10 of the 15 awards in 2005.
- This is only the third competition without a winning club with no previous awards (2001 & 2013). In 2016, Shadow Fleet won its first award; 2015, Sixth Fleet; 2014, RPGWriting.com; 2012, three clubs; 2011, four clubs.
- UCIP’s USS Vindicator and the independent X-Men Awakening were the only repeat winners from last year. Besides the inaugural 1999 competition, all tournaments have seen at least one repeat winner except the following: 2001 & 2002 (only one award presented in both years), 2005 (three years since the previous tournament), and 2011 (four years since the previous tournament).
- The record for longest period between awards belongs to Bravo Fleet at 10 years (2007-17).
- Two independent sims won awards this year. At least one independent sim has been represented in every tournament since 2006.
All results are final and are not subject to appeal. Look for next year’s tournament to begin in late 2018 or early 2019. Have a great year of simming!
