Interactive Paintings - the Vagabonds: a Mid-Season behind the Scenes-Episode
For all of you who have been following, upvoting, commenting and even resteeming the Interactive Paintings - The Vagabonds: first of all A big Thank You! It has been a lot of fun already, there's been some awesome interaction and some hilarious, fantastical names, professions and artefacts have been made up! Thank you!
For those who have never heard about The Vagabonds: you can still check out and enter the wildly interactive and randomized game - at the time of writing this: this is the post where you can read all about them, and still join the game.
As we have had four Vagabonds already in season 2, and four more to go, I thought it was an apt moment to give you all a peek behind the scenes of how I'm running this game.
Introducing - my Master Spreadsheet (right click on it and select View Image to see it in full resolution):
These are my tables from which you can randomly choose 1-9 positive traits, 1-9 negative traits and 1-9 professions of all characters, neatly ordered per character/painting. These are all unique and the second half -of the paintings still to come- are unique as well.
So if, for example, for Episode 1 you would have chose 2-2-2, you would have gotten
the Genius but Deceptive Oligarch
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519074779/ekt1rdzrt9iaxhbuux5t.png)
9-8-7 would have given
the Formidable but Unhygenic Bodyguard
The winner was for episode 1 was @edward.maesen with 9-6-5 which resulted in
the Formidable but Lazy Octogenerian
(By the way, 9 times 9 times 9 gives a wonderful 729 unique combinations of interpreting the painted character!) And that's not even adding the original first name and superpower/artefact/magical item provided by you!
Whenever a number is selected in a comment, I put it in bold, as you can see on the spreadsheet, that gives me a reference of which and how much entries have been selected. If you look at epidose 1, you'll see all 9 negative traits (Column D) were eventually selected. Checking the professions of epsiode 1 (Column E), you'll see two blurred entries (Rows 1 and 8) weren't selected. I may or may not re-use these professions in the final episodes - I just don't want to give them away here :)
Whereas Season 1 had 13 entries to choose from, this season only has 9, but that's still more that enough, as almost every time, there still are unchosen entries amongst those 9.
Still reading? Great!
I also collect the entries of all contestants of every particular episode alongside the traits/professions, in chronological order. That gives me a reference, and makes it easy for the dice (yes, it's almost always the dice that decides) to choose the winning entry.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519075359/m3z5rwndwwkdhhcqyjly.png)
Some little sidenotes, if you're still reading:
In the beginning of this game, I transferred an equal share of 1 SBD to every participant. I cannot keep this up, as I have no idea how much these posts are going to make (and I'm flat out of SBD). This isn't something I have to do, but I see it's appreciated by some of the players! Which is cool - but I've changed to splitting up 1 SBD amongst upvoting participants. Non-upvoting participants will still get my 75% upvote (I cannot handle a 100% upvote as it is draining my voting power), and will still be able to win the bragging-rights to any particular episode.
I'm seeing (as I asked for, woo-hoo!) participants upvoting other participants entries! That's the spirit of the game: if you happen to see a particularly cool entry by someone, upvote it, even if it's just a little bit. Get the conversation going and support each other. This is all good fun, nobody's winning anything except a good time with weird and fantastical results! Oh, in the same vein: don't guess - guessing makes it sound random in the opportunity to win something. Make a choice instead: choosing gives you more control than "guessing" which sounds like you're playing the lottery. This isn't the lottery, it's The Vagabonds, it's plain, silly fun and if you compete: you always win!
Did I mention: Have fun? Have Fun!
Oh, after four more of these Vagabonds, when there will be eight in total, we're entering Phase II. I haven't written anything about it, but it will be like this is the regular season, and Phase II will be like the Play-Offs following this competition. You'll see the eight winners back, but in a different format. It should be pretty weird, very interactive and a lot of fun! :)
Comments and feedback on the game are highly appreciated, even typing 3 random numbers (between 1 and 9) will get you some kind of reply!
Hey Marty... from one excel guru to another, I deeply respect what you are doing here!
Your posts are amongst the most heartful and engaging places that I visit regularly here on steemit.
But I do not just say that because I am your biggest fan, no, I am your biggest fan because your steemit blog exhibits what I admire about this platform.
Despite the fact that a few pennies of monetary reward get us all going here, this reward grows into something better, it becomes the grease of the community and with a spirit of giving-is-better-than-taking you are creating a hub of original content and genuine human creativity for all of us.
I know how much work it is and I know how little you try to make it work for you... you are creating a little happy (and weird!) place for all of us.
THANK YOU!
Hey @fraenk, thank you for this, bigtime! It sure can be a fun place and I'm glad I can do my own fun and weird thing here, and even find it being appreciated!
It even takes up more time than I'd like to - I find myself catching up on other people's blogs, and, uhm, life out there sometimes. But hey, yeah, it's fun :D
And, oh, I suck at excel!
Yeah... in all honesty, the biggest pay-off for creating a "hub" is the fact that it actually helps discovering stuff around here.
The feed is pretty useless and hot and trending are a paid-promotion-show... 95% of the good posts and nice people I find here are through my kittens and Planet Googly these days.
I've hardly ever checked the trending and hot - unless in some niches here and there. Planet Googly is the first discord "hub" where I do feel at home - even though I'm not there alot! But I get great interaction from the people there, so I would like to upvote them all back. It's... just... the... time :)
Fraenk really hit the nail on the head on this one - you really have managed to create a unique space on Steemit! Well I haven't been around for long, but coming across the Vagabonds was definitely a reason for sticking around :) And with the choice of weapons/powers, it's feeling more like a dnd game (ok without the bloodshed and tyrannical dungeon master) - social and fun!
Keep up the awesome work! Can't wait to join get back into the game :)
Thank you very much, great to hear my quirky game has made you at least stick around! :)
Your input on the game has also been valuable to me, you really take things to the next level. And wait till you see the second phase of this game!
(nope, still not giving anything away about that... hehe)
Thanks again!
Cool! Throwing around so much nonsense was a lot of fun, glad it served some purpose as well :) And it's been really interesting seeing the game grow and with it the number of people participating! As Fraenk says, it's turned into a hub which is worth coming back to, I've found more interesting posts/contest/people through here than anywhere else. (sorry Dee for not drawing lately!)
Should i start planning a list of deviant habits or of unlikely places for a sexual encounter for phase 2? (that would really turn it into a Big Brother/Big Brothel game!) I know you won't be giving up anything just like that so a bribe is coming your way :)
Aaaah, it was a bribe, not a sponsorship!?
It would make for an interesting scenario, Big Brothel, but I have something different in mind. Great you're willing to start already, but I'm still not giving anything away. I know you're eager but you'd get a head start and I feel you're at your best when improvising on the spot ;)
haha it was a sponsorship! The bribe part was just a joke :) A dungeon master has to keep his secrets til the end and let the players
mess upimprovise as the story progresses ;)I really enjoy your game! Aside from the wacky number combinations I mostly enjoy reading the magical powers/objects. I'm not much of a gamer or fantasy reader so I had a difficult time in the beginning to think of something, but as the episodes progress I find myself in between thinking about possible magical powers/objects... Darn, starts to sound like an addiction... ;)
Haha, I didn't know it was that addictive! Great to see, and yeah, it's great fun to see what people come up with. Doesn't have to be fantasy/game-related, anything that appeals to the imagination is good!
This game is so much fun! I love the stories you come up with around the winning characters. :)
Thank you, glad you're having fun :)
thank you for being so happy to hear it,and great fun
Thanks!
The game you created is very fun and very draining mind to answer it, hopefully this game will never run out for us to play.
We'll have to see how much longer it can go on, a lot of time goes into the paintings, as well as all the adjectives, as you can see :)
Thanks!
Missing a couple of posts was a total bummer for me, I hope to keep up this time! The game is so creative and I really enjoy playing it. And before I forgot, Thank you a lot for the reward! :)
Hey thanks, and you're welcome about the reward :)
And plenty more to come! :)
The game you on the best good luck always
Mr.@marty-art
The game is ever on, best of luck to you too!
with the game we can be happy always, life is great if there is game. whatever type of game it is, the burden that is on the mind will be lost,
Games are awesome, and I'm glad I can provide one to you - as much as I love playing games myself, providing one is even awesomer. Play it in all good fun, and don't let other players annoy you - it is, after all, just a game. And we'll have a drink when it's over :D