The tournament is kinda in a weird spot in that it really advertises itself as a monk tournament, with titles, names, locations, themes and so on, but the way the rules and brackets are designed means that characters often end up where you wouldn’t expect them to (and sometimes do not match the theme at all). You need to have trained any amount of pandaren monkhood to enter, but the amount has no bearing on your brackets, so master monks end up paired versus novices on the regular. For that reason I’ve always seen this as closer to a generic brawling tournament than one specifically about monk skills.
For obvious reasons it’s therefore not a design I entirely agree with, but it seems more or less set in stone by now and the only way to have it different would be if I made my own tournament (which would probably be seen as petty, and definitely feels like more competition than our already tiny niche can handle).
With all that said, Sey Li signing up for the master’s bracket. No promises but we’ll see if we can make this work.
Although I can’t participate myself, it certainly is great to see the initiative make a return! I wish all of the hosts and those who participate in the event, the best of luck.
Strong Hou, signing up for the intermediate bracket!
I’ve never set a specific number of years to his age or experience, so he’s probably somewhere around the border between intermediate and master, but in terms of relative skill and how I’m able to portray him, intermediate suits him better.
Thank you so much for all the sign-ups! We are still looking for volunteers who would like to create and share screenshots of the tournament!
But most importantly, I’d like to remind participants that, like all the other Celestial Fist Tournaments, we would like the emphasis of the event to be the presentation toward the spectators. What I mean by this is that even though the roll system declares who scores a point, the point needs not necessarily be scored within the next emote. Instead, the participating roleplayers are invited to see their characters organically exchange blows until the defender (or the one who receives the hit) can say ‘Ok, getting hit now makes perfect sense for my character’.
Secondly, I’d like to remind you that we put a strong emphasis on the quality of emotes. This standard is higher with every bracket. Should a participant continue receiving good rolls, but the emotes reflect poorly upon the essence of being a monk or the bracket in question, the referees retain a full right to null and void any won rolls behind the scenes until they see an improvement.
Likewise, when a roll declares a right to a point, that right may be declared null and void should the hit that lands be a forbidden strike (head, neck, crotch, permanent damage, hadoken)
On the topic of emote quality, we will not look at grammar but rather keep an eye on how the flow of combat is put into text. This is one of the main reasons that the Celestial Fist Tournaments are prepared ideally 3 months in advance. If you feel uninspired, there are a few things you can do:
Watch a Kung-Fu flick (any, feel free to ask anybody for recommendations! Drunken Master and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon off the top of my head!)
Play a video game that contains any semblance of Kung-Fu (Sleeping Dogs, Judgment, Absolver, Shenmue, Jade Empire, off the top of my head ) and pay attention to the moves. Most beat-em-ups also contain a few characters you can get inspired by.
Do content on your monk, even if it’s just leveling. This class has drawn absurd amounts of inspiration from Street Fighter and it reflects in the various combat animations that are unique to this class! Plus there are a few cool new moves hidden among PvP talents
If you happen to also practice martial arts IRL, stay on course because over the years you will attain enough of an understanding to be able to make sense of what validates literally every martial art out there. This knowledge even translates back and forth between Asian and non-Asian martial arts
You have one month to prepare!
By the way: Sign-ups are still open! Here are the current participants:
With the intermediate at 8-9 participants (one might not make it), 4 novices and 4 masters, it’s looking to be a small but well-digestible tournament
Unfortunately, we are likely going to be one referee short, so we are either looking for a volunteer, or looking to delay the masters’ bracket until after the novice bracket!
Sign-ups are technically still open for another few days! Unfortunately you cannot sign up on the day of the tournament itself!
Need to rep the Ronin even though he’s probably nowhere near that level and maybe surviving 2+ seconds vs a real champ is a good way to show people how good you are at fighting.
Will put you down for the intermediates bracket! Please also read post 32! We hold our tournaments to a special standard and therefore would love to see it reflected, and for the spectators to see. We believe that each and every monk begins with a school’s signature foundation, and then slowly develops their own style over time. We’re always thrilled to see each character’s style tell a story of the character themselves!
We also usually don’t do this but we are going to leave the sign-ups open until 18:00 (that is one hour ahead of the tournament!) - We will not accept any sign-ups on-site as we do not want to needlessly delay the tournament for everybody. If you would like your character to participate, please be responsible and sign up via this thread between now and (not later than) 18:00 CET (realm time)!
You’re on
) and pay attention to the moves. Most beat-em-ups also contain a few characters you can get inspired by.
