My Views on OCTs pt. 2

OCTs, as I mentioned last week, was my life for 3 years. That doesn't mean I always joined the best ones - OH HO NO, I joined some weird ones too. I always tried to inspect which one was going to be the most interesting to me and what I can do with it but it's usually the management or the approach to the storyline that turned me off. Or if it was just a really stupid idea.

It might be slightly biased of me and kinda conjures up the egg or the chicken conundrum but I always feel it's better if the host had experience in an OCT as a participant or a judge before starting up one themselves. I just feel that they would understand how OCTs would be run or should be run better than someone who, on the spur of the moment, wanted to do something 'wacky' or 'random'. Sometimes it works! But more than likely not.

I personally would never host an OCT because it takes astronomical amounts of responsibility, time and effort that I'm pretty sure I'm not ready to take on. Which is why I'm finding that a lot of young teens are trying to start them up because they probably don't have as many commitments to anything to deal with it (or that they don't know about it.)

1. Run the idea with your friends to see if it's a solid idea. I've seen many a half baked story cooked up in a half hour that's been thrown out in attempt to be a 'tournament idea'. This isn't to say that a simple idea is a bad thing. But something stupidly convoluted won't do anything productive.

2. Keep the rules simple and easy to understand. The rules for OCTs have usually been the same all around but I've seen people who add the weirdest twists to everything that make it difficult to understand.

3. Have reliable people be your judges. It's all well and fun to have your friends in your OCT but if the judges are also your friends, then no matter how reliable they are, there will be instances of accusations of biased. Sad as it sounds, the accusations will happen more often than not. Of course there are times where it's blatantly obvious which then, it's up to the host to not let that happen! (If you're a good host of course.) A solution would be to either just deal with what may come. If the entry's good, then it's good, or to get people who aren't your friends but are reliable to judge.

4. Be reliable yourself. If you're the host of an OCT, then your attention will be needed nearly 24/7 to answer questions or explain clearly or just anything that the contestants need. It's your responsibility to do what you can for them.

5. Once you've made the rules, you better flipping stick to them. Nothing's worse than a flip flopping host.

Those are my general rules for these sort of things. I've seen them broken so many times, I couldn't care to count.

There've been a bunch of debates about Animation vs Writing vs Comics. They're all their own style of art and they have their own strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes things are better portrayed animated but that doesn't mean it's the ultimate form. I never liked how people seem to think that animation means auto win. It doesn't. It still requires the same amount of arrangement effort that comicking does (I think a bit moreso since transitions from one to another have to be somewhat consistant I guess). It's up to the host to decide whether they want animation or writing or comics. I'm fine with all of them (although, I don't have as much paitience for writing).

I think those are my views on them! I'm sure I'll think of something else to rant about next post. (or maybe a continuation of themes to avoid..)