2019 Schedule has been posted!

Sorry for the delay. Marshall and I have been busy and we weren’t able to give the challenge our full attention until now. And there have been several awesome developments I want to share with you!

May. Begin the search for Judges, Readers, and Prizes.
September. Contest details posted.
October. The challenge begins!
November. Winners announced, prizes awarded.

Jacqueline Bryk is an Organizer

We’re so excited to announce that Jacqueline Bryk is joining our organization team and will help moderate and innovate the challenge moving forward.

Jacqueline Marie Bryk (she/her), Jax to her friends, is a freelance game designer, writer, sensitivity reader, and editor from the oft-forgotten state of Delaware. She writes in many different genres, with her favorites being horror, honobono, low fantasy, and post-apocalypse. Her games are lauded for their compassionate, trauma-focused narratives and low-stakes engagement with high-stakes emotions.

She is a regularly featured guest at BreakoutCon and won the Golden Cobra Award for game design in 2016. Jax’s work for hire is featured in games by White Wolf, Onyx Path Publishing, Helmgast AB, Galileo Games, Growling Door Games, Uliesses North America, and Damocles Thread Development.

In short, she’s amazing, and we’re incredibly lucky to have her on our team.

2019 Judge Suggestions

We are actively searching for a panel of Judges who will help pick this year’s winners.

Let us know who you’d like to see on this year’s panel!

@200WordRPG on twitter
Post in the 200 Word Subreddit
Email our organizers at 200wordrpg (at) gmail (dot) com

Reader applications coming soon (June/July).

Patreon Explosions

Change of focus for 2019

In addition to our primary goal of “Encourage everyone to make a complete Role-Playing Game”, this year we’re adding an additional goal:

Provide constructive feedback on as many entries as we can.

While this has been a much-requested feature of the challenge, we were nervous about attempting feedback on such a huge scale. We have SO many entries every year, and the possibility for abuse and grief has never been higher.

But we think we have a solid plan going forward for this year. Still working out the details, but we hope that this year you can receive some helpful feedback from our Judges and Readers. Stay tuned for more updates on this!

Deliberate Re-focus

This is embarrasing, but I think it’s important to talk about so you know where I’m coming from. I’m speaking now as David, the well-meaning but mostly clueless nerd.

I always saw this challenge as a fun little event that was my way of giving back to the RPG community since they’ve been so good to me. This was MY challenge, and I’ll run it in whatever way I think is best.

Then Marshall came on board and proved invaluable. His cool head and experience with more “official” stuff like writing grants and dealing with beaurocracy turned this challenge into a real thing with real potential. Thank God for him.

Last year Marshall and I saw the limits of what two white guys could accomplish. We dropped the ball in several areas, the worst of which being representation among Judges and Readers. After a bit of a scramble and some hard work by wonderful people we righted the ship.

But still. If it weren’t for some true words from good friends, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. And I’m ashamed to say that. This is an area that I need improvement in. And now that Jax has graciously agreed to join our team, I’m SO SO excited to learn from her experience and wisdom.

It’s not mine or Marshall’s challenge or any more. It’s OUR, as in the entire RPG community. So if you ever felt unwelcome, or something about this even rubbed you the wrong way, please email us at 200wordrpg (at) gmail (dot) com.

With Jax, Marshall, and all of the wonderful people who contribute I know we can make the 2019 challenge the best it’s ever been.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling. I’ll post more updates here as we have them.