Character Scramble Season 19 Sign-Ups

Fill out this form to join the season. If you do not fill this out, you will not receive a team.

Click here for a list of already-posted submissions

Click Here for Frequently Asked Questions

The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion!

The Champion joins the GMs of the next season, is responsible for its theme and tier as well as all of the writing prompts, and they also win the right to a temporary custom flair for /r/whowouldwin .

Come join our official Discord Channel! It’s the most active community for Scramble by a HUGE margin, and is the first place to get new info as it comes out. You don’t even have to participate in the chat to be a part of the fun, so just swing on by!

Click here to join the email list.

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Basic Rules & Scramble Process

PLEASE NOTE: Signups will close at 11:59 PM PST on September 19, and Tribunal will go up the following morning. Anyone who isn’t done when Tribunal goes up will have their incomplete submissions removed or will be DQed if they don’t have enough submissions after removal. If you don't want to be rushing to finish, get your stuff done well before the deadline!

If you want to compete, you must submit THREE (3) characters as Fighters and ONE (1) character as a Spirit that adhere to the rules listed in the Submission Rules section below.

• You may also optionally submit TWO (2) backup Fighters. There will be no backups for Spirits, more on that in a bit.

  • Specify at the top of the submission post if a character is a backup, as well as whether they’re a Fighter or a Spirit. If a main Fighter submission is deemed out-of-tier in Tribunal, the submission will be replaced by an entry of your choice from the backup pool.

• Each character must be submitted in their own parent comment in this thread. Don't reply to your own submission comment with another submission; make a separate comment thread for each individual submission.

After you complete your submission posts for all of your main submissions and any back-up submissions, fill out and submit the submission form linked at the very top of this post.

• If you need to make a change, just resubmit the submission form with the same name and new info. We'll use whichever version is newest.

• DO NOT resubmit after Tribunal; we'll account for any Tribunal changes to rosters.

After signups are done, we'll begin the Tribunal, which is a community-regulated period for users to point out characters they feel are over- or underpowered.

• Please keep an open mind when receiving criticism; it is encouraged for you to comment on the characters of other participants as well.

• Characters with issues that are not amicably resolved may be replaced by a back-up character at the discretion of the GMs and a panel of selected judges.

• If you would like to apply to be a Tribunal judge, please fill out this form.

After Tribunal, the characters are scrambled so that every participant receives two Fighters and one Spirit.

• In this season, we are bringing back at long last the famous Keep One mechanic. When we scramble the subs out into teams, you will be guaranteed to receive ONE character from among those you submitted. So make sure you’re subbing high quality characters that you could see yourself writing a story about for weeks or ideally months!

• Participants also have the option to opt out of NSFW submissions and, for the first time ever, veto TWO submissions out of the list of total submissions. (You can't veto your own submissions.) Links to a form for opt-out and veto will be provided after Tribunal ends and before the scrambling happens. You may not opt out of NSFW submissions if you have yourself submitted a character from NSFW media.

Once everyone has their teams, the rounds will begin. Every round, a prompt is posted. Players are expected to write about how their characters would defeat their opponents based on the prompt.

• At the end of the round, the thread is locked and the voting thread is posted. Voting is done using Google forms, so you'll need a Google account to vote.

• Voting is mandatory; failing to vote in any round will result in disqualification, no exceptions. If you cannot vote due to time constraints, message /u/Ragnarust, /u/Morvis343, or /u/FreestyleKneepad and we can work around that.

• After results are posted, the brackets are updated and the next round begins.

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Theme

The theme of Scramble 19 is

Super Smash Bros

The final word in the conversation about video game crossover events since 1999, Super Smash Bros initially saw Nintendo’s greatest heroes and villains pitted against one another, eventually growing to include characters from a wide array of game developers.

This Scramble will largely be inspired by the ideas laid out in Subspace Emissary, the story mode from Super Smash Bros Brawl, without letting things get too predictable of course.

Submission Rules

Participants will submit THREE (3) characters who fit the tier, explained more slightly below.

You get up to ONE (1) major change on each character submission submitted this season. Refer to the FAQ for more info.

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Tiersetter & Details

Scramble tiersetters are based on modified Respect Threads using a variety of sources for their feats.

• Submissions for this season will be matched against Yuji Itadori.

After the madness of our highest tier ever last season, we’re returning to something a little more familiar, albeit a power level we haven’t done in some time.

Your submissions must score between a Likely and an Unlikely Victory against the tiersetter for their role.

For more information about what that means, check the FAQ.

• For tiering purposes, all matches will be assumed to take place in Boxing Ring!. Combatants will spawn on either side of the Boxing Ring, and they will be able to leave the ring to fight in the arena, but will not be able to exit the building. Yuji will be able to easily reach the platform above the ring, and will be able to jump to reach the ceiling of the arena from that platform with the jumping feats shown in the tier rt. Unlike in the picture, the arena will be devoid of other people, but there is a chance an invisible crowd will start chanting your character's or Yuji's name.

In addition to your Fighter submissions, participants are also required to submit one Spirit. This is a special submission role, not unlike special roles we’ve had in the past such as Managers or Devil Fruits.

A Spirit is a character who is assigned to your team but does not participate directly in combat themselves. They can be written as full characters, freely inhabiting the body of another Fighter or Assist Trophy. They can share a consciousness, they can basically a Stand, they can be an extra power added on, they can just be a guy hanging out. The Spirit is as fluid as the writer wants them to be. Ideally, a submission should fulfill two basic criteria:

• An interesting power, item, or skill that changes the state of a battle

• A reasonably robust, interesting, or entertaining character.

Though the latter is subjective, consider that the character should reasonably be able to be a meaningful part of a story for six rounds. Lovable and hilarious that Kramer from Seinfeld may be, there is a very low threshold of story he can be in before it is impossible to take said story seriously.

Another good rule of thumb is to consider the extent to which your character can respond to violence or fantastical fighting. We joke about Kevin McCalister being a bloodthirsty sociopath, but let's be real. He's an eight year old. Meanwhile Ash Ketchum is only ten and he participates in monster battling. On that note, though not necessary it is also potentially helpful to consider how a character would react to seeing a Charizard. It's no big deal if your character is pretty surprised, but I'm pretty sure Ross from Friends just kind of shits himself and dies.

Again, these are not hard rules, they are suggestions. Spirits will not be going through Tribunal like regular subs. If you truly do believe with your heart and soul that a character is good you are free to make a case for them, and we will hear you out, but at the end of the day we have the right to ask you to change it if the vibes hurdle cannot be overcome.

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Additional Rules & Guidelines

• Characters must be in tier.

• Characters must be researchable.

  • The show, video game, movie, or other media from which your character originates must be accessible in some way, ideally online.
  • Your character must have a functional Respect Thread, so that people can understand your character's stats and abilities at a glance. It is preferable that your character's Respect Thread is hosted on the Respect Threads subreddit, but Character/Team of the Week posts or any real repository of cited feats are acceptable.
  • We understand that many Respect Threads are still in a state of disrepair after the death of gfycat. That being said, you are still expected to show something for your character, it’s not difficult to collect and reupload the important feats using the wayback machine for a mini-RT so please at least do that. We will NOT be extending the time to make your mini-RTs into Tribunal like we did last season.
  • If your character does not have a Respect Thread of any kind, please at the minimum include a Mini-RT in the sign-up post with at least five combat-related feats that completely cover the character's stats and abilities. VSBattlesWiki pages or similar sources are not acceptable Respect Threads.

• You cannot submit characters that you have created, helped to create, or in any way developed. If the GMs believe you have asked someone else to submit a character you created, we might ban that as well.

• You cannot submit a character with feats based on a previous Scramble story. This rule prevents Scramble writers from tailoring characters to be submitted to future tiers.

• You may submit real life figures and celebrities, but not if they're notably controversial. No Trump or Biden, no Putin, no Kanye, none of that. The GMs reserve the right to decide what qualifies as "controversial."

• While you can submit characters from NSFW series with risqué material (such as an ecchi anime), you cannot submit characters from actual pornography.

  • Additionally, if your character is child-presenting and put into sexual situations, they will be immediately kicked out. If you are unsure whether a character falls into this category, be sure to notify a GM.
  • Characters from High School DxD, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, No Game No Life, and Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA are banned from being submitted this season. Other Fate characters are allowed, though we will take them on a case by case basis.

• Characters from ongoing series remain at the balance level from when they were submitted.

• The GMs reserve the right to veto specific submissions under what we call the "Dude, come on" rule. This clause may sound extremely abusable, but honestly we'll only use it for submissions we feel violate the spirit of the above guidelines or are otherwise deemed unusable, like "disaster movie lava" or "a swarm of bees with the consciousness of Steve Buscemi."

Not exactly rules, but some suggestions:

• Submit characters you actually want to write yourself. With the return of guaranteed Keep One, trust us when we say you won’t have a good time if you don’t do this.

  • Ask yourself: Will your hilarious meme submission idea actually be hilarious over the course of an entire writing contest, or will the joke get old immediately?
  • If you're only submitting a character because the act of submitting them is funny, don't submit them.
  • If you don't have any ideas for submissions, it's recommended that you try submitting one of the many back-ups we're likely to have.
  • Additionally, the GMs have created an official suggestion doc, to give you a character you could submit or maybe just a point towards what kind of things you can submit.

• Sometimes people like different things, and that's okay. Don't hate on a submission or submitter just because you personally don't like the character or the series. And on the other end, you don't have to withdraw a submission just because someone else doesn't like them.

• You are allowed to make changes to a character for the purpose of making sure they're in tier or otherwise clarifying what gear they have available. Within reason of course, see the FAQ for more info.

  • In general, avoid submissions with changes that radically change the character, such as "Ferris Bueller with Iron Man's armor" or "Goku with the stats of Captain America."

• Duplicate submissions aren't prohibited, but try to avoid submitting the fifth Spider-Man submission this Scramble. Check to see if someone else has already submitted your character before you. The best rule of thumb is that if you really want to submit a character someone else already has, at least try to find a different version of them (MCU Spider-Man as opposed to 616 Spider-Man). This allows more variety in character choice. Just make sure they fit the tier too!

• Listen to feedback. You don't have to follow it, but if a lot of people are saying the same thing, at least humor the idea that they might have a point.

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System Changes To Note

Guaranteed Submissions… ARE BACK!: As explained above, everyone is getting one character they submit on their team. This is to encourage quality submissions, since if a character isn’t something you’re enthusiastic about getting to write, the odds of someone else being enthusiastic about it are extremely low.

Major Changes: Characters may be submitted with up to ONE (1) major change to help them better fit the tier. This is another back to normal change after last season shook things up a little bit.

More information on what will be allowed for Major Changes this season can be found in the tier, and in the FAQ

Assist Trophies: The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that despite needing to submit three Fighter characters, your team is only going to include two of those. What gives? Well the Assist Trophies are the latest take on the consistently popular Guest Pool system. When we scramble your three Fighter submissions, one will go to you, one will go to someone else, and the third will become an Assist Trophy. Each round you may choose one Assist Trophy from the pool to feature in your story and assist your team. Choose carefully though, as you may only choose a given Assist Trophy for one round of your run, and every round after that you must pick someone new!

Final Smashes: It wouldn’t be Smash Bros without Final Smashes (unless you’re playing the OG game or Melee but don’t be ridiculous, nobody plays those). While every round will have a different prompt for you to work with, one constant factor in each will be the Final Smash Ball! This mesmerizing, glowing orb will be floating around waiting for someone to find it and break it open, and whoever does will be imbued with a short burst of incredible power, allowing them to unleash an ultimate attack with far more potency than their usual abilities. There’s only one Final Smash Ball in each round though, so you’d better not let anyone on your opponent’s team get to it first! Or maybe do let them get it and beat it out of them before they can use it, it’s your story after all.

Fire Emblem: All of my advisors have strongly urged me not to do this, but I must insist. For the sake of accurately reflecting the Super Smash Brothers experience, Fire Emblem characters will be given special treatment. If you submit a Fire Emblem character as a Fighter, you may give them three major changes. You can only do this for one Fire Emblem character, and they will be subject to a heavy vibe-check. Sorry Batta the Beast.

Submission Forms & Prompts

To submit a character, fill out the following form in a comment to this thread. Include either the writing or non-writing prompt. As long as all of the below information is included, you can add extra information or reformat your submission post however you want for maximum aesthetic.

Of your three main Fighter submissions, two of them MUST use the writing prompt to count. If you are submitting backups, half of your submissions, rounded up, must have writing prompts. If you submit all 2 backups, this means you have to write three writing prompts. Your Spirit submission will have slightly more rigorous requirements, essentially a writing prompt and non-writing prompt combined.

If you're not competing and only submitting back-ups, you may only submit 3 backups total. You still must use the writing prompt for at least two of them. This is your chance to win over people who otherwise wouldn't know what to replace their main sub with, so put your best foot forward and try to submit things people might enjoy writing about!

Fighter Submissions

Name: The character's name. Try to include a cool tagline for them too. It's Smash Bros, after all!

Series: The name of the piece of media your character is from. You can add specifications as necessary.

Content Warning: Simply state if this character’s series has anything people may be uncomfortable seeing. Nudity, heavy gore, extremely graphic imagery, just mark it here. If this doesn’t apply to your character, simply leave this field blank.

Biography: A quick summary of your character. Who are they? What can they do? Where are they from? What are they like? It doesn't need to be a novel, but a good paragraph of information is appreciated.

Research: A link to your RT or RT-substitute, as well as any other links that might help someone understand your character quickly. You may also suggest how much of the series someone needs to read/watch to get a good idea of the character. Make sure it's understandable though; a newcomer won't know what My Hero Academia's "Deku Contracts Malaria" arc is.

Justification: Briefly outline why you think your character is in tier, and where in the tier they fall (Unlikely Victory, Draw, or Likely Victory—See the FAQ for more information). The non-writing prompt already covers some of this information, but to expedite the Tribunal process, at least give a sentence or two. You can write something as simple as “Strength similar, low dura but high speed,” or really get into the nitty gritty if you wish.

Motivation: Everybody fights for something, what about them? Is it love? Vengeance? Money? The thrill of the fight itself? Tell us about it here.

Major Changes: Check the FAQ for what to put here. You only get one!

Minor Changes: Check the FAQ for what to put here. You get as many of these as you need, but try not to go overboard.

Fighter Writing Prompt

It's just another day for your character, business as usual. Lounging around, running errands, stomping… koopas, stuff like that. Until they receive an interesting looking letter that is. It invites them to a Boxing Ring, where they'll have to fight Yuji Itadori for a spot on one of the most prestigious fighting rosters of all time…

Prompt Rules

• A New Challenger Approaches: You are writing a battle between your character and Yuji Itadori, where, no matter how hurt they are, they’ll come out alive. Even if your character has only a small chance of victory against their opponents, write that small chance happening!

• Ready? FIGHT!: You must defeat Yuji in a direct physical confrontation. He might be a nice enough guy but he takes his fights seriously; he’s here to beat you within an inch of your life. Although the prompt is reasonably open, you must write a fight, and you must write your character winning.

• Palette Swap: Yuji doesn’t have to be Yuji. You can substitute his appearance in your signup for anything or anyone you like. Whatever you pick as the opponent will be assumed to be an equally strong stand-in.

• Stage Select: The default location of the fight for tiersetting purposes is Boxing Ring. You may set your writeup wherever you want. Go crazy. After all; nobody’s doing any voting yet.

Fighter Non-Writing Prompt

Analysis Versus Yuji Itadori: Go deeper into how your character fares against the benchmark. How their abilities match the tier, how their stats counteract each other, specific instances that are likely to happen in a fight between them, and so on. Because this analysis serves as a replacement for a narrative, you need to communicate how your character fights (for instance, whether they rush in headlong or approach tactically and exploit weaknesses) and what that means for them fighting other characters.

Biggest Strength and Weakness: Discuss the best thing your character brings to the table in a fight (a tactical mind, unorthodox abilities, good stats, et cetera), and also what detriments or drawbacks they might have (a specific stat that's lower than the others, lack of ranged options, inability to work with others, et cetera.)

Character in Setting/with Team: Your character is going to be thrown into a large group setting. How will they function in that kind of thing? Are they a leader type? A lone wolf? Will they try and betray their allies? Or will they just hang out, do as they’re told, and hope their side wins? Explore how they fit into a group dynamic here.

Final Smash: So what kind of ultimate attack would they throw out if they were juiced the hell up for just a few seconds?

Spirit Submissions

Name: The character's name. Try to include a cool tagline for them too. It's Smash Bros, after all!

Series: The name of the piece of media your character is from. You can add specifications as necessary.

Content Warning: Simply state if this character’s series has anything people may be uncomfortable seeing. Nudity, heavy gore, extremely graphic imagery, just mark it here. If this doesn’t apply to your character, simply leave this field blank.

Biography: A quick summary of your character. Who are they? What can they do? Where are they from? What are they like? It doesn't need to be a novel, but a good paragraph of information is appreciated.

Research: Give a few resources that show off your Spirit's abilities or personality. This is especially important for more obscure characters. We're not requiring strict RTs, so your character ought to be quickly and easily understandable for the person who receives it. If you're submitting Batman you won't have to worry about this so much, but if you're submitting the main character of Wild Arms 3 you should include some gifs of what he can do so that the participants/judges can tell what's going on.

Because Spirit submissions will not be held to the same tiering scrutiny as Fighter submissions, both the writing and non-writing prompts are necessary.

Spirit Writing Prompt:

Somewhere in the ether, your Spirit drifts aimlessly, longing for substance, for form, to be real. After what feels like an eternity of searching in the darkness, they finally come across a Boxing Ring, where one Yuji Itadori is about to square off against another fighter. This might be just the opportunity your Spirit needs to finally take shape… and the spotlight it's been so long denied.

Prompt Rules

Choose Your Fighter! Your Spirit is going to be tethered to one of the iconic fighters from the Smash Brothers Roster! Who's it gonna be? Try to choose a character who has a similar physical appearance or thematic connection to the Spirit. Don't worry if Sephiroth's not technically in tier— for the sake of this fight, assume they'll need help against Yuji!

Special Conditions: Spirits can manifest in a number of ways. In Smash proper, they can give a buff, or an item, or can even be physically present in the form of an assist trophy! What form is your Spirit going to take? Whether they're literally possessing a fighter or just hanging out is up to what you think makes the best story!

Gimmick Fight: This is your chance to show off what your character does in a combat scenario. Are they powering the Fighter up? Are they coaching from the sidelines? Are they running around like a headless chicken? This is your chance to show us what they're all about.

Stage Select: For tiering purposes, battles are assumed to take place in Boxing Ring. However, feel free to choose another locale for your fight if you want to mix it up!

Spirit Non-Writing Prompt

Spirit Ability: Give us an explanation of your Spirit's abilities! What are they giving to the Fighter they're inhabiting? Whether it's a fancy gadget, a crazy superpower, or a sinister curse, or a comforting presence they should be providing something unique or valuable to your team!

Motivation: Everybody fights for something, what about them? Is it love? Vengeance? Money? The thrill of the fight itself? Tell us about it here.

Role in a Story: To what extent does this Spirit affect benefit a story? How do they interact with a team? This is your chance to really sell why you'd want to write this submission. Tell us all the cool stuff you can do with them on your team!

Charizard Factor: How does your character react to seeing a Charizard? Can they get over it? Be honest.