Please do not post in this thread, as it is for the listing of judges only and not for discussion or conversation.

Here I will list the names and time-zones of each of the generous Unity Games members who have volunteered their time to judge the duels.

To see if a judge is online, simply follow their link to their FimFiction profile and look for the indicator at the top of their page.

When you have a post ready, send it to an online judge via private message: any online judge is acceptable. It is recommended that you sent the post to more than one judge, to ensure better processing, but this is not required. It might help you though: judges might give you advice, and more advice is always a good thing.

When your post has been screened and approved, please add "Approved by:" to the top of your post when you post in the dueling thread, and include the names of any judges who looked over your post. This will help us to ensure no unapproved posts slip by, and that nobody can fake approval.

The judge(s) you list as the approver will be contacted if the post is later reviewed and found to have broken rules. This is just a formality, to make sure that nobody is posting and then just saying they were approved, even if they weren't: the judge(s) you list would sure as hell know, so don't try to fake the system. I expect more honor than that from all of you, but I've played enough games and tournaments to know that people will look for loopholes. Don't bother looking for this one, I already fixed it. I'm not accusing anyone of anything ,just warning you that I'm watching... Always watching...

Guidelines and Pointers for Judges:

When a post is sent to you, be courteous and polite in your reply. Not all posts that get sent to you will make sense, and some might even seem downright ridiculous. It is your job to point out what is wrong, not to harass the people who send you their material. I'm not saying you will, but I know from experience with this tournament that disagreement can cause aggravation. Keep a level head, and moderate posts politely: you are all users of this group, so treat each other as such.

On that note, being a judge does not give you 'power'. If anything, being a judge is a position of humility. You are serving your fellow members by ensuring that their dueling experience is fun, and fair, not telling them what to do. Under no circumstances are you to use your status as a judge to disqualify a contestant without first asking me.

My approval is required for all disqualifications, even the obvious ones such as people who have consistently broken dueling rules. If I am not online, and you wish to report a user for disqualification, put the duel on hold until I have replied. Tag your PM with "DQ Report", and I will treat it with the utmost priority.

It is not your duty to moderate spectator posts. Only the posts of the duelists. If someone sends you a spectator post, simply let them know that no moderation is needed.

Health, stamina, and mana:

I should have addressed this sooner, but in order to ensure that health/stamina/mana loss gets handled the same way every time, please adhere to the following:

As a judge, if a contestant loses health, stamina, or mana, negotiate with them to determine their percent remaining. These negotiations are influenced the the stats of the duelists.

For example:

A character is hit by a weapon, but the character has very high vitality. As a judge you say that they lose 15% of their health. The contestant argues that they have a very high vitality, so they should only lose 10%, not 15%. This is a reasonable negotiation. Negotiation should be stat-based, whether its for mana, health, etc.

By giving the player their percent remaining, it creates a universal platform for the other judges to use. If the user has to ask a different judge for help, they can simply say they have X% of their health remaining, and the judges do not need to know flat numbers. This should provide ease of go-between for both judges and users.

As specified in the dueling rules, only inform the user, or other involved judges. Do not inform the user's opponent how much health the user has remaining, or mana, or whatever. Only the user and judges get to know those percentages.

Offering Advice as a Judge:

As a judge, you are in a unique position to offer your users advice during their duels. However, this is a mark of honor: I expect all of my judges to be unbiased, and to not offer anything that would give anyone an unfair advantage in their duels. What advice could you possibly give them, then? Allow me to provide an example.

Contestant #1 says in their action phase: "My character swings his sword hard for his opponent's head, gashing them badly."

Obviously nobody in their right mind would actually write this: it is blatant godmodding, but you'll phrase it more gracefully than that when you tell them they fucked up. However, assume this post did show up in your inbox. What would you do? Obviously you would reject it as-is, and warn them it is godmodding. They get five warnings in round 1 for this problem. If they do it after those warnings, you report them for possible DQ.

On that note, it was brought to my attention that it would be difficult for all judges to know the current warning tally for godmodders. If you warn a user for godmodding, make a post in the following format inside their duel:
(([Username]: this is a warning for a godmodding post.))

I know this isn't the best option for letting other judges know, but they can quickly find godmod warnings for any user in any thread this way with a simple [Ctrl + F] command.

Back to giving the advice, let's say this is their first warning. They apologize, they were just drawing a blank and didn't realize what they were writing. This happens. But when you tell them to edit it, they don't know how to change it for some reason.

This is the kind of advice you can give them. You can explain how to improve their posts in terms of imagery and description, but you may not change what happens in their post.

For example, you could say: "Swing for the head, but don't say it connects, and specify where you're attacking from to improve the imagery so that your opponent has a better idea of how to react. Leave it at that, and wait for your opponent's reaction."

This is good. It's solid advice, and you helped them fix their post.

You cannot do the following: "I wouldn't swing for his head. He's an agility character, so he'll just dodge it easy. You should use a spell instead."

This is not acceptable. You have given advice that (while questionable in terms of honesty) is unfair. You have given an option to the contestant that they did not think of themselves, and may have just provided them an advantage.

As a rule of thumb, never tell a contestant you are helping what you would do. Just touch up their post and get them moving again.

Last Note:

I know I've thanked you all individually, but let me just thank you again for offering your time and effort. This contest has been a great deal of work for me to organize, but organization can be done by one man, and maybe even should be for consistency.

But when it comes to the duels themselves, I don't have enough eyes. I certainly could do it all on my own, but it would take much longer, and with thirty-two duels in the first round, I would be running myself ragged.

So don't just go "Don't mention it," if you please. Your assistance is a very big deal to me, and is vital to the success of this tournament now that the games are finally underway. Do not sell yourself short, and take pride in what you're doing. You're not just helping me out, you're helping each other as well, ensuring the best event possible by cooperating on a level most writing contests never even touch.

I admire your dedication to this tournament, and your desire to help others. Thank you very much.

Judge Listings:
If you're supposed to be a judge and aren't on this list, PM me and let me know. If you are not yet signed up to be a judge, but would like to be one, send me a PM also.

I am now available for judging. Be afraid.
Razorbeam TZ: [-5:00 GMT]

subjekt omega TZ: [+1:00 GMT]
Man Gell TZ: [0:00 GMT]
Doorknobs TZ: [-5:00 GMT]
Helrumyc TZ: [-5:00 GMT]
Twilight at Dusk TZ: [-6:00 GMT]
Nathan Traveler TZ: [-7:00 GMT]
cannonSpectacle TZ: [-8:00 GMT]
_Medicshy TZ: [-10:00 GMT]
Dracmatais TZ: [Not Specified]