InsaneJournal

Awards for RP games are always fun! Whether you're doing character superlatives (great for college/hs games) or Oscar type awards, this walk through should help clarify some things and give you direction. Remember, remember, it's always about having fun. Awards can be a point of contention or drama, but just make sure everyone has fun. If the mods make sure everyone wins an award or makes one especially for those left out, sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn't. If your community isn't very cohesive or is overly dramafilled, I might suggest not doing awards, but it's up to you. These are just guidelines on how I've done it in the past, of course you can do whatever you want and make it your own! A fun name helps as well!

Pre-Set up questions
1) What kind of Awards are you going to do? Are they going to be Anonymous or Mod-directed? Or are they going to be categories that everyone comes up with?

2) Decide what kind of awards you're going to have Are they IC (meaning about stuff that has happened in game or about the characters) or OOC (about the players) or a mix?
The reason I ask is because it will help come up with categories for the awards and how nominations are done.

The Awards I have done, the categories are Mod-directed (or mod+committee). They pick the initial categories that all the players nominate to.

3) Are you worried about butt-hurt? If your community is large and not cohesive, there is the chance that people might get their feelings hurt about not being nominated or voted for.* If it's small, there's a chance that people might be slighted by group-mentality.

Mostly, I suggest you strongly word your nominations post with "THIS IS JUST FOR FUN" type stuff and it doesn't mean anything at all in game, just some pretty banners.

*You may want to have the mods/mod+committee be the last people to vote to make sure everyone has voted, gets votes etc, but this is just me. or come up with an award for everyone.

4) Are you ready for this possibly big undertaking? Making categories, polls and banners can take a lot of time! Plan accordingly.

Nomination/Category Set up
1) Categories;
Superlatives or thread-based seem to be the most popular.
In one game we do awards by year (that means you can vote for any thread from Feb 2009 to Feb 2010) but nothing beyond that. This one is more based off of the style of the Academy Awards.

Another way is to just have a limit. People can nominate however old threads so long as it hasn't won anything before. This makes it easier (and best for first time awards) for everyone to be included.

I wouldn't limit it to "only played now" characters (IE if you have someone who wants to nominate a thread that the other player is now out of the game) because sometimes we miss awesome people!

2) Start a doc. I suggest using gdocs or a locked journal entry if you're going to have lots of people contributing ideas. It's easiest than trying to coordinate who's on when and who's creative juices are flowing.

3) Research! Or just start making up your own categories. When a couple of my games started awards, we based them off of the Academy Awards, and tried to style our awards after those.

Some things to keep in mind when you're doing a mix of ic/ooc/player awards: have clearly defined rules. Example:

IC - these categories are voting as if your character were voting for other characters and their IC characteristics. Like if we had a Best Jean Fit category, Eli would vote for Ben. You don't have to vote with every character or tell us who is nominating who, just one journal is necessary. (if you have three characters, three nominations at most, etc) Like:
BEST JEAN FIT
(and alter comment with Eli's journal, but voting for Eli and Luke:) BEN SCOTT, TRAVIS BRYANT
(heather comments with nate's journal, but voting for nate and james:) LUKE STURRIDGE, LUKE STURRIDGE
etc. (this way characters can nominate the same person and get counted twice)

OOC/IC - these are categories for general things, like scenes/threads/quotes that happened IC but the players are voting for because they found them best/hot/funniest.
PLAYER - these are OOC categories, voted about the players by the players

Category Types

Superlatives you can use
IC Mr/Ms (Game/School) - Best Hair - Most Outgoing - Best Smile - Best Dressed - Most Laid Back - Most Athletic - Most Likely to Succeed - Class Clown - Most Unique - Most Dependable - Future Star - Most Spirited - Best Looking - Top Couple - Cutest Couple - Biggest Geek - Most Shy - Biggest Camera Whore - Best Mediator - Most Likely To Ramble - Best Stalker - Best Sense of Humor - Strangest First Impression - Biggest Tight-wad - Most Obsessive - Best Friends - Best Enemies - Dirtiest Mouth - Biggest Party Animal - Most Changed - Snarkmaster -	OOC/IC Best Fight Scene - Best Make Up Scene - Best Love Story - Best Hook Up - Most Shocking Scene - The Hottest Sex Scene - Tear Jerker Scene - Best IC Quote - Best Portrayal of Flaws - Most Comments [ just go to their profile and see the comment count] TL;DR [time intensive, pick your longest writers and do a word count] Most Entries [same as first] Most Icons Best Userinfo Best Layout	PLAYER Best Spammer - Most Comments - Most Journal Entries - Most Use of Formatting - Best Sadist - Best Username - Best OOC Quote -
OR If you're at a non-school game (which is why we went with superlatives there) you can go the Oscars route. This is where people nominate oocly (the player does) threads and characters ig. Voting is per player, but you can nominate as much you want (including your own) top nominated/seconded threads/characters get into the poll.
Funniest Scene Grossest Scene Most Dramatic (Male) Character Most Dramatic (Female) Character Best Fight Best Love Story Best Couple Ever (Dating) Best Couple Ever (Married) Best Not Couple [the ship that should be, but isn't] Best Engagement [scene] Best Break Up [scene] Best (Category) Character [like best death eater or best manager] [HP] House Pride - Best (Gryffindor/Slytherin/Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw) Best RP'd Male [kind of like Best Male Actor; here each player nominates one of their own and every single nomination gets put in the poll] Best RP'd Female [same] Best Thread [overall can be one in another category] Best Group Thread Best Journal/Comment Thread MVP [best sports character] Best BFFS Best Family Matters Best Baby Announcement Teh Hotsects [NSFW threads] Best Death GAAAAAAAAAAAAASP!!! [Most shocking thread here]		Other ideas:</b> Biggest little bitch Biggest camera whore Cutest couple Dirtiest mouth Best Duo Biggest flirt Best sense of humor Hottest hook up Best make up scene Best mediator Most Rambly Most Spam Biggest tear jerker Most uptight Biggest Whiner

Nomination Process
Once you get your nominations, I suggest either Email or Thread nominations. It's up to you whether you want them screened or private, but awards are a thing of fun fun fun and shouldn't be overshadowed by dramas. Just a game right?

So I suggest what you do is put up a post for nominations and tell everyone to stay off of it for awhile.

And then post your nominations in comment threads. like this:


This way the mod-account gets emailed the nominations (in case IJ goes nomnomNOM again) and people can see. You can either say everyone gets their own nominations or you allow seconds like this:


Give your players some direction; how long do they have to vote? If its just character categories maybe a week, or two. If its a big game and you're doing threads maybe three or four weeks with some nudging in between.

Have some rules:

EXAMPLE RULES

- JUST FOR FUN. OOC and just for the LOLZ.
- Nominate how many ever you want for whatever categories you want, top nominees will be voted on at a later date!
- Feel free to nominate only in the categories you feel comfortable, if you don't fill in one for everyone, that is a-okay!
- HAVE FUN.
- For Thread nominations and stuff, Links are very much appreciated. WE HAS TAGS NOW. go there. see them if you need help.
- Stick to Premades if you want, but also note what other developments have occurred in game when making your nominations.
- ANYTHING is open. Any thread, any character, any player is available. You may nominate players and characters that are no longer with us, but it's not as fun, yeah? Plus it might get a little confusing for some of the newer players if we included past-versions of current characters. So, use your best judgment!
- Seconds and thirds allowed! No need to nominate the same person 8 times in their own comment.
- NOMINATIONS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15th. We will remind you, don't worry!
- Comments are NOT screened, voting will happen later!
- Characters MAY nominate themselves.

example 1
example 2

Voting
Phew, nominations are over.

Now for the sticky part. If you have a paid account you can do a poll. If your mod account doesnt but you have a player that does with their CDJ or whatever, I would ask them pretty pretty please if they could help out. Give the CDJ access to the ooc comm (or award comm) and give them the code to post for you.

The code is fairly uncomplicated, but also very sticky because if you put a poll in a post and mess up, you HAVE to repost. You cannot edit the poll so SAVE YOUR CODE. Please save it.

Tally up the most-nominated in each of the categories and do a poll. For more information see the faq. Polls are pretty easy though, once you get the code. I can do another comment on polls later if you like.

Set up your poll in an entry with your rules.

Let the players have at it for the time period.

Awards
My favorite part, because BANNERS. I love making shiny shiny banners!

Examples:
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/faxuthread/15078.html
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/ashburyooc/65079.html








You can even make banners for the voting!

(I think we're on our 5th Annual this coming Feb for Voscars)

And then. Relax. And post them to your userinfos!

Such as Here

If you have any questions, just lave me a comment.

If you would like me to make banners (no more than 40 per game) let me know and we can schedule something in!