Spell Competition?

[Aeon Summers]

Hey guys,
I remember ages ago there was a competition for users to submit new spells that their characters had created, but haven't heard of or seen anything like it since.

So I was wondering if we could hold another competition, maybe have it set up as a yearly thing, for people to exercise their creativity and design new spells for the community to use, with the winner or winners having theirs added to the spells list. What do you think?

 

[Nicolas King]

Hey Jesse - sorry for the lateness of this response.

Truth be told, both Cyndi & I were not huge fans of the spell creation competition when it was run. While creativity is great, creating spells involves a lot of different moving parts and considerations - from the incantation's name to the spell's effect, and often the community will simply vote for what seems the most ridiculous while perhaps not actually being the best example of a spell (or of how magic works) in the Harry Potter universe.

Additionally, if I recall correctly, it was an awkward mix of in-character and out-of-character competition that just added another layer of insanity and confusion when it was run.

So I don't think I'd like to see it run again - especially as there is so much freedom for 'spells' to be cast that we know are possible but aren't well defined in the canon because there wasn't really need to. Somehow you can make pots wash themselves, but we don't need to know the incantation for that. So a simple roleplay of "with a wave of her wand and uttering some words under her breath Mary Sue made XYZ happen" will almost always be OK and be a perfectly fine way to roleplay magic beyond those spells which are explicitly defined.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Aeon Summers]

I see. It does make sense, thank you!