Games can be small. The rules for board games usually fit on a single page. The rules for card games can be explained in a few minutes. Most roleplaying games, however, seem to value page count and verbosity. Let's see what bucking that trend produces!

Write a fun, playable game, exercise, or experience that explains itself in a thousand words or less. Submit it by [DATE] and see what happens!

Submission Guidelines

Your entry, which can be a solo or group effort, must be:

1. A self-contained roleplaying experience. It can be a complete game, an exercise, a "roleplaying poem", or whatever, but you can't reference another rule set, data set, or submit a setting or situation in isolation. One of our judges actually lives in a shack in Wales and has no regular access to the Internet. She needs to be able to take your words and play.

2. A text file. The judges prefer that you use ReStructured text, so that it can easily be converted into a convenient format using a tool like RST2A. ASCII or UTF-8 are both fine.

3. No longer than 1000 words. Here's an example of the sort of document we'd prefer to see, in terms of length and format and roleplaying-ness. Don't cut it too close, because every word-counter counts differently!

4. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Make sure you read and understand the license before submitting your game, and that you are comfortable with others re-using and re-mixing your ideas (while giving you credit, of course). You don't need to include the CC verbiage in your document (unless you have extra room or really want to), but it is understood that this is a requirement of the contest.

5. Submitted as an email message to shrtgme@gmail.com by [DATE]. Please attach your entry as a text file.

Judging

Starting on [DATE], the secret panel of judges will review the entries and select a winner. If we have trouble deciding between two entries, shorter wins. There may be a prize for our favorite ultra-short entry as well.

The winner will be announced on [DATE] and will receive a wonderful and unusual prize from Bully Pulpit Games, as well as bragging rights. If a multiple-author game wins, therey can decide who gets the prize.

Good luck!

Later On

After the games have been judged, there will be another contest for artists, with equally gruelling parameters, to illustrate the games that were submitted. The art winner will receive a wonderful and unusual prize from Catch Your Hare, as well as bragging rights. Once we have games and art, there's nothing stopping some clever person from assembling them into a delightful booklet, pdf, or Web archive of short roleplaying trifles.

Advice

If you think 1000 words is murderously restrictive, you might want to check out some Norwegian roleplaying poems. The wonderful Mystery Loves Company clocks in at around 300 words. Small is beautiful! You can do it!

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

- William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style, 1918