Gorean Fighting Championships

All around SL Gor, sword tournaments are held as a means of entertainment, making money, and seeing just who is the baddest fighters. Ever thought how that might play out IC? This of course comes with issues, as many of the gladiatorial battles of the Greco-Roman culture upon which Gor is based were to the death. But it would be nice to let the baddest men in SL Gor get the recognition they deserve IC, and I have a solution.

Introducing the Gorean Fighting Championships!

Yes, that's a play off of the Ultimate Fighting Championships, mixed martial arts league on earth. In essence this will provide in-character events that pits men of SL Gor against each other in weaponless, hand-to-hand fights.

The key issue is that these events would be *in-character* (though with some necessary OOC elements, which I'll get into), taking place in IC arenas. This is not about making lindens, the intent of this is to generate different RP possibilities centered around these fights. There will be a champion, a ranking system similar to those used by MMA publications, and the hope is that eventually we will tour all of Gor, holding events in the arenas of various cities, from the biggest traffic cities to the smallest struggling ones, thereby helping all cities with traffic and such. This also means that participation in these events will be limited to BTB cities and citizens.

It will start with an inaugural tournament to crown the first champion, as well as establish rankings. The next three or four events will pit the losers from each round against each other, thereby putting each fighter in the rankings objectively. My goal is to make the initial tournamnet 16-man, though if we can't get that number we will make it an 8-man tournament. Because we are starting on a completely even playing field, those 8 or 16 slots will be filled on a first-come first-serve basis; the first 8 or 16 people to sign up after enrollment is open will be in the tournament. The rest will be asked to be present at the event as alternates, in case any of the scheduled fighters no show.

After the initial series of events, we will regularly hold events in different cities, putting fights together based on the established rankings. These will be one-on-one fights. The occasional tournament may be held to shake things up, but mostly they will be a series of singular fights.

RP Opportunities:

As with all rp, it is largely subjective, and I don't have a whole lot in the way of specific ideas, it will be up to the individual to take this and make what they will of it. But here are a couple of ideas:

1. This will generate some IC notoriety and fame for fighters, turning them into local heroes. Each fighter will represent their city, giving their homestone the claim to being the home of the baddest man in Gor.

2. Each fighter will be required to visit their local Greens twice following each fight. Once right after the fight to treat resulting injuries, and another visit one week later to follow up. They will not be permitted to fight again until they receive medical clearance from their green.

As I stated, there will be some unavoidable OOC elements.

1. On top of the rp money payments for all fighters at the events, there will also be linden rewards for winners of the fights. However, as we want to make this about the rp and not about the money, the rewards will be small. 200l will be rewarded to the winners of preliminary fights, 400l for main event, and 600l for championship fights. Fight losers will not be paid. These rewards will not total higher than 3000l, and will be furnished by the hosting city.

2. The event will have an OOC sponsors of sorts. I am in contact with various weapons makers about providing a free trial version of their hand-to-hand weapon attachments to be available to the fighters, as well as with some clothing designers about providing shorts for the fighters to wear. No other weapons or clothes will be permitted; the event-specific clothes and weapon attachments will be mandatory for the fights. Because they will be given out for free, the builders' logos will be promiently displayed on the dispensers at each event.

I have anticipated some questions:

1. Is this BTB?

Yes and no. No such events were held in the books that I'm aware of. However these events will be perfectly feasible given the limitations imposed by being BTB.

2. Who will be eligible to fight?

All free men of all castes will be welcome to participate.

3. Will slaves be permitted to fight?

For now the answer is no, but I am open to change on this. In the Greco-Roman culture, many gladiators were in fact slaves. And if there is a physically gifted slave it would be perfectly feasible to have that slave trained and used to earn money and notoriety for the household that owns him. However the problem I see is that if that slave is successful, he will garner a lot of glory, as well as a luxurious material possession in the form of the championship belt. Not to mention the stigma involved with a slave beating up on Frees. The only thought that I had is that perhaps slaves can be limited to fighting each other, and are not eligible to championship fights. So I am open to the possibility of fighting slaves, and if you have any ideas on how we can make that happen, I'm all ears. But the vast majority of cities signing up for this would have to agree to those terms. So for now, the answer is no.

4. Will women be permitted to fight, perhaps in their own league?

I love a good catfight as much as the next guy, but currently there are no plans to allow this.

5. Where will the events be held?

The inaugural tournament to crown the first champion and establish the initial rankings will be in Imperial Ar. Likely most of the early events will be held there as well, but the eventual hope is to tour all of Gor, holding events at different cities, both high traffic and low. This will help the tourism in the cities hopefully.

6. Why would the hosting city have to furnish the winning lindens?

This is, for all intents and purposes, a non-profit event. There will be no money coming in from this at all as there will be no charge for participation in these events whatsoever. As such I can't be giving away 2000l at every event I just don't have that kind of cashflow. But as the hosting city will garner its own benefits from hosting the event and will have deeper resources, I ask that they provide the winnings.

7. How often will events be held?

That depends entirely on how deep a roster of fighters we can build. If we have enough fighters we could potentially have events every week. I will announce more details about this as we draw nearer to the inaugural event.

8. If the events are IC, does that mean raids in the middle of the events are possible?

This is something that will be up to the discretion of the individual cities. Some cities may opt to designate the city rp-only during these events. If not, then yes this will be possible. There will be a set of policies regarding this possibility which will be disclosed as we draw closer to the events.

9. Why rankings, and how will they work?

Rankings will give me an idea of how to set up fights. As a general guideline (thought not set-in-stone rule), fighters will only fight people within 5 spots in the rankings. That number may increase as the roster increases. All fighters will be ranked, but only the top 10 will be public knowledge. The rankings will be largely objective; based on recent wins and losses rather than any subjective perception of skill. However there will still be some subjectivity to it.

For example let's say Bob is currently three ranks above Aaron, and they are scheduled for a fight. If Aaron beats Bob, then he will, one way or the other, be placed higher on the rankings, no matter what their past records were. Period. What their past records will influence is whether Aaron moves up to Bob's old spot, or does Bob move down to Aaron's old spot. If Aaron had been on a winning streak, then he might be moved up to Bob's spot, and Bob will move down one. However if that was the latest in a string oflosses for Bob, then he might drop down to Aaron's old spot, and Aaron would move up one. That will be up to my discretion.

There could also be some resulting anomalies. For example let's say after Aaron beats Bob, he loses his next three fights, whereas Bob wins his next three. So even though Aaron has beaten Bob, those victories may move Bob up the rankings past Aaron again. Things like that will be subjective, but I will do my best to make it about wins and losses.

More information on the rankings will be provided as we draw closer to the launch.

10. Will there be grudge matches, or score-settling in these fights?

As far as the perspective of the organization goes, absolutely not. This is not professional wrestling, there are no "storylines" to set up fights. All fights will be set up on the basis of rankings and because they earned their spot on them. All fighters will be expected to maintain strict professionalism and handle their personal business on their own time. If two fighters scheduled for a fight want to hype up the event by establishing some kind of rivalry and talking shit about each other, that's fine. If two fighters scheduled for a fight based on rankings also happen to have a personal issue which they decide to let the fight resolve, that's fine. But a fight will never be scheduled for the purpose of settling any kind of personal issue.

11. Will there be divisions or weight classes and such like in actual MMA and boxing?

There may be divisions, but it will not be based on size, which of course in SL Gor is largely irrelevant. If we have enough fighters, we may start dividing them up based on other reasons. Region comes to mind, perhaps a Torvald Division and a Vosk River Division. Each division would have its own champion, and the original championship would become the Undisputed World Championship. This could make things interesting, with the regional champions periodically competing in superfights for the World title, etc. But to keep things interesting each division would need to have at least 15-20 fighters, so we would need a large, diverse roster. So I would love to do this but it will have to wait.

We are looking to launch around February.