A Guide for Easy to Maintain Games/Contests

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Yahtzee/ Dice Roll

How it works:
The base setup is easy. When a person initially posts, they have the option of several actions, including the dice roll. You assign:
1. The type of die
2. How many Dice to roll
3. The winning value
4. The Deadline (if there is one) and/or Number of winners (if there is a limit)
5. and the prize.

Notes: "Yahtzee" is like the game. You strive to match five 6-sided die. Results would read something like 1/1/1/1/1 , 2/2/2/2/2, etc

Quote:

Example:

Dice Roll Contest:
Roll three 10-sided die.
The first five people to get a Total Value of 20 or less get an Aquarium Turtle.

Dice Roll Contest:
Roll ten 4 sided dice
The first person to get an exact total value of 25 wins a watermeat.

Dice roll Contest:
Roll Four 6-sided die on page 25.
The person on page 25 with the highest total value will get an aquarium key.

Dice Roll Contest:
Roll twenty 6-sided dice.
If you get exactly seven 7's, you win a pink mystery gift box.

Some people add in a gameplay limit too, to keep people from swinging in, rolling over and over until they win, and leaving. Unlimited rolls will almost always kill any sort of chat, and leaves the contest host to sort through pages and pages of nothing but rolls. Some like it that way, and there is nothing wrong with that as the frequent attempts keep the thread bumped inear the front of the aquarium threads, resulting in more exposure. But if you want interaction or regulars to have a greater chance of recieving the prize, a post limit does help.

By restricting the roll to once or twice per page, every five pages, etc, then it is the ones who regularly return to your thread that have the advantage to win. Granted this will not prevent a stroke of one-time-post luck, but it shifts the odds in the favor of those who come back and give your thread a bump at the very least. How you penalize 'cheaters' for not reading or adhering to the rules is up to you.

Quote:

Example of a post restricted contest and penalty:

Dice Roll:
Roll five 6-sided Dice
ONE roll per page, or all your rolls for that page are disqualified.
First person to make a total value of 10 or less receives 5K in gold.

Dice roll:
Roll one ten sided Die.
ONE roll per page. If you roll multiple times, only the first roll will count.
If you roll a 2, you receive a Cuttlefish or Aquarium Easter Egg

 

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Post Race

While it does not allow for much interaction up to the finish line, a race is a very efficient way to get a consistent exposure via bumps. As this is meant to be short and requires minimal to no interaction, it is not recommended to give an expensive prize. It is completely up to the contests sponsor of course.

Race is just that. A race to be first to make a particular post, with an award at the end. The variations are endless, but they all have a designated number of winners, and an exact finish line. This is super time effective for the host because they only need to focus on the finish line itself in respect to judging a winner.

Quote:

Post race:
First person to post on page 75 gets an Aquarium Squid.

Bump Race:
Everybody bump our way to page 100! Everyone on page 99 gets a Coral Staff.

Response Race:
What is your favorite Aquarium fish? First 10 responders get 500 gold.

 

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Random Giveaways

There are endless varieties to this particular game. The Host of the game generates a random number, and the person linked to that number gets a prize. All the host needs is a prize, and decide how he or she gathers their candidates.

We'll start of with my friend Tumblina's 1K Giveaway on Beginner's Dreams.

Quote:

1K Giveaway:
arrow She does her giveaway every five pages
arrow Her candidate pool is every post on those five pages, with exception of unnumbered bumps, single emote bumps, and custom picture bumps with no chatter. In other words, her candidates are only those who chat or are participating in her contests.

After the fifth page, she randomly generates TWO sets of numbers
First: She randomly generates a number between the five page (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, etc) The winning page is the finalists. One of the 15 posts on that page will be the winner.

Next: She makes a roll between 1 and 15 (the number of posts per page). The generated number is the winning post and is sent 1K.

Special Condition: If the post is not a qualifying post (If it was a non-contest bump or spam), then she moves down to the next qualifying post on the list.(she also makes a post explaining if and why someone was disqualified).

Lets see this in action. Lets say her thread just cleared the 15 page mark:

She would roll 11-15 on the random number generator (Lets say it was 14)
Then on another post, she would roll 1-15 on the random generator. (Lets say it was three)

This means she awards the person that made the 3rd post on page 14. And their prize would be 1K in gold.

There is no limit to how you can construct a random Giveaway.

arrow You could declare that the candidate pool is page 10, and roll a random number of 1 to 15.
arrow You could make a list of all the people that have been active today, and assign a number by each of their names before doing a random number roll.
arrow You could roll a random number for a range of pages, and state the third poster on that page is the winner.

The choices are yours. The only criteria is you have to let the dice or the random generator decide the final winner.  

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Raffle

This is actully a spin-off of the random giveaway, only instead of being done right away at random, it has a criteria and a drawing date.

1) A criteria: How does a person get their name on the list?
2) A Date: When will the list close and a winner chosen?
3) A Prize
4) An area to list and number the entries

Quote:

Examples:

Watermeat Bump Raffle:
Every time you make 50 numbered Bumps your name is entered into the raffle
ONE bump per page
On August 1st, I will randomly generate a number based on the number of entirents.
Winner gets a watermeat!

Booty Grab Raffle:
Report and number your booty grabs
Every 25 grabs, your name will be entered into a Pool
Deadline is July 4th, Midnight Gaia time
On 15th I will generate random number, winner gets a choice of a Mermaid, a watermeat, or a fish bundle.

The Great Gold Raffle:
Every donation of 500 gold enters your name into the pot once with an assigned number.
On December 1st, I will generate a random number. Person with the matchig number gets all the gold in the pot!

Raffles and Fish:
One of the biggest debates on Raffles is some people require any fish that are won to be put in the winners tank. Especially in threads that are themed around building up tanks or where the prize is a super expencive item like a watermeat or fish bundle, which costs over 100K gold on market or over seven dollars of money from their own pocket to attain. Because of certain factors I believe very strongly in, I have always sided with the host that placed the restriction in any debates... and at times have been the host in question.

Aquarium fish are so expencive because they do not come onto gaia until someone has spent real money to put them there,with exception of giveaway fish like hermit cats, snow globes, and easter eggs. When someone donates a watermeat, whether it is the host or a third party donator, they have placed a significant investment in either gold or money-bought cash to make it possible. And many donate under the understandin they are helping another gaian either upgrade their tank, or provide a replacement for an aging fish. When they see the prize they gave for the contest in someones marketplace instead of their tank, it can be a hurtful experience if you were expecting your fish to go to someone that actually wanted and needed it.. rather than the gold boost.

Because of these, many out of respect to the donator will require the fish to be placed in the winner's tank in order to qualify for any more contests. Their argument is if the person did not need the fish enough to use it, then future winnings should go to those that are actively trying to win the fish for their tanks rather than their gold value.

Of course, like most things there are two sides to every coin. Some don't mind making the investment, and don't mind where the fish ends up afterward. They have helped the winning gaian achieve some sort of goal, even if it is not necissarily for Aquariums in itself. And that is a great thing too. Also, some are proud of their fish, and if they have a full tank or a particular look, they might not want to place a fish in Barrett's tank to wait out its lifespan just to add in a fish or set of fish.

It is currently an argument with no perfect answer. If you require the fish to go in the tank, there will be those that will argue the case that they could use the winnings elsewhere. If you do not require the fish to be put in their tank you will have people who will feel it unfair because they put effort into winning the fish for their tank and the prize is never seen in the winner's tank... and the donator of the fish may be equally upset if they expected the fish to benefit the winner's tank directly. It is something you will have to search yourself and your intentions for the raffle over and decide for yourself.

Neither answer is wrong. Both are wonderful sides to an equally generous coin. But you as the host will be the one who will give out the fish, who will congratulate the winner, and potientially be the one to start another contest in the future. You the host need to figure out which side of the coin will leave you satisfied with the result in the end and give you the mental boost to look forward to your next contest. There is no wrong answer, as long as you can smile, nod, and say "I'm glad I did this contest."  

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Reserved  

[Vhid The Chaotic]

Reserved  

[Vhid The Chaotic]

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