Theme Pool

[TroytheRobot]

Theme Pool

 

Here is the official list of themes that we are likely to draw upon during the CBUB tournament. While the theme topics aren't restricted to those listed here, this is nonetheless the listing for thematic ideas. From time to time, we will be adding themes to the listing so be on the look out. Having said that we encourage you to make suggestions that could potentially added to this listing. Keep in mind the themes should be encompassing a wide variety of prospective ideas. Something like a DBZ theme would really be a bad idea, because it so restrictive in its context. While on the other hand, a theme like "Dark humor" may be used because it can be used in a wide variety of ideas.

 

 

Theme Pool:

Abduction

Action

Comedy

Comic Book

Crime/Gangster

Disaster

Drama

Epic Battle

Fantasy

Heist

Horror

Madness

Martial Arts

Musical

Mystery

Nobel Sacrifice

Poetry

Pursuit

Race

Revenge

Revolt

Romance

Science Fiction

Sports

Survival

Trickery

War

Western

[IKA]

I vote Comedic Horror.

[treacherous]

The Big Trick

"Someone or some group of people intentionally trick someone else. Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Ridinghood are in this category. Stone Soup is an old story in which several men trick the inhabitants of a village into providing them with food. This theme was evident in Snatch, starring Brad Pitt, and The Sting, staring Robert Redford and Paul Newman."

 

Revenge

"The subject is obvious, but the outcome differs. Sometimes the outcome is good, like in the movies Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House. Sometimes the outcome is bad, as in Macbeth and Moby Dick. Other movies based on this them are Revenge, staring Anthony Quinn and Kevin Costner, and Payback, starring Mel Gibson."

 

Note: All theme ideas stolen online.

[Nesh]

The Rivalry- Simple, the ultimate clash between to rivals, you can even mak up a rivalry backstory.

[Skirmisher]

Would this help?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Si...atic_Situations

[TroytheRobot]

Would this help?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Si...atic_Situations

 

I could see some of those being used, but we're trying to stay away from things that are unnecessarily limiting. Saying this certain thing has to happen in your story is a little different than having a delegated "genre" in your story which is what we we're going for. I'll take a look through this listing and see which ones could be of potential use.

[TroytheRobot]

I vote Comedic Horror.

 

 

This could easily be used as a potential theme idea, but I'm not going to be adding it to the theme pool. The reason being that this is simply a combination of two already listed genres. Keep in mind that combining the above ideas will be common place, as will disecting these respective genres and focusing on one aspect of that genre. What we're looking for from you is a genre/theme idea that is entirely unique to the ones listed above.

[Landon]

Treacherous is getting at something that seems ideal. Rather than sticking with a specific genre, he's going for concepts that would work in any genre, but narrow the scope of the scenario. I dig it.

[IKA]

Working of one of the 9 MAJOR sins or 9 layers of Hell.

 

Circle One - Those in limbo

Circle Two - The lustful

Circle Three - The gluttonous

Circle Four - The hoarders

Circle Five - The wrathful

Circle Six - The heretics

Circle Seven - The violent

Ring 1. Murderers, robbers, and plunderers

Ring 2. Suicides and those harmful to the world

Ring 3. Those harmful against God, nature, and art, as well as usurers

Circle Eight - The Fraudulent

Bowge (Trench) I. Panderers and Seducers

Bowge II. Flatterers

Bowge III. Simoniacs

Bowge IV. Sorcerers

Bowge V. Barrators

Bowge VI. Hypocrites

Bowge VII. Thieves

Bowge VIII. Counselors

Bowge IX. Sowers of Discord

Bowge X. Falsifiers

Circle Nine - Traitors

Region i: Traitors to their kindred

Region ii: Traitors to their country

Region iii: Traitors to their guests

Region iv: Traitors to their lords

[TroytheRobot]

Working of one of the 9 MAJOR sins...

 

Simplify. Simplify, simplify, simplify. This is way too elaborate.

[Guest ThreeDark]

Knowledge(all), you're going way too far. This isn't for anything ongoing. This is a pool of Ideas. One-shot ideas for each round.

 

Like Landon said, Treach hit the nail on the head. IE this is the kind of thing that I was thinking when I suggested themes.

[treacherous]

In that case, here are three more (once again, these are all coming from an online source, so don't think there is any creativity on my behalf regarding them):

 

The Great Battle

"The Iliad and A Tale of Two Cities are classic examples of this theme. It is about people or groups of people in conflict. It is sometimes a good vs. evil story like 1984 by George Orwell, but not always. The film The War of the Roses, starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, is an example of a battle in which neither character is wholly good or evil. In theatre, we see this theme at work in Westside Story and Les Miserables. We often see this theme in horror or science fiction, like in Alien and Terminator, where the antagonist--a monster/creature/human/alien/computer/etc.-- is trying to kill the protagonist, who must fight to stay alive and/or defeat the antagonist. Sub-categories would be person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, person vs. technology and etc."

 

The Noble Sacrifice

"The sacrifice can be for any reason except self--a loved one, an enemy, a group of people, the whole of humanity, a dog--but the bottom line is that the protagonist sacrifices himself or herself in an effort to save others. In literature, this is demonstrated in the story of Jesus in the New Testament and King Arthur in Mallory's Morte d’Artur. This theme is used is used in the films Glory, Armageddon, The Green Mile, and in just about any war movie where the hero dies gloriously."

 

The Big Mystery

"Something unexplained happened and it is the protagonist’s job to find an explanation for it. The story of Sherlock Holmes are good examples, as are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries. In film, we have seen it Silence of the Lambs and The Maltese Falcon, and it took a comedic turn in Clue and The Pink Panther. Almost all police and detective dramas work within this form, as do most espionage and spy thrillers. Agatha Christy and Tom Clancy work within this form."

[Guest zig7]

Femme Fatale

Film Noir

Vigilante

Religion

Specific Time Periods

Real People

 

These are all pretty self explanatory.

[treacherous]

More themes...

 

The Amazing Race

Basically a race for something. Doesn't have to be a straight forward foot race. There can be obstacles (ex: the Amazing Race), It can be characters with the best vehicles, animals, Mario Kart starring any genre of character.

 

Heist

Two villains must set out to steal the penny from Batman's cave or something along those lines. It's a heist.

 

Team Sports

If two teams were to compete in a major sporting event who would win? Ex: Fantastic Four vs. the Metal Men in Basketball.

[Guest Dark Ranger X]

More themes...

 

The Amazing Race

Basically a race for something. Doesn't have to be a straight forward foot race. There can be obstacles (ex: the Amazing Race), It can be characters with the best vehicles, animals, Mario Kart starring any genre of character.

 

This was done once before as an FPL tourney. Heaps of people on the forum warmed to the idea.

 

Funnily enough, come tourney time, around 5 people were bothered to submit characters. Tourney was canned as a result.

[IKA]

"Funnier commercial"

 

Ex:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bRSM4EbLFw

vs

[Hugo Fowl]

Just throwing out my two cents in this.

 

Western

 

A re-imagining of our favorite universe's a la Gotham by Gaslight style. Like the Deadpool kid from Marvel or perhaps a take on how we imagined the 1800's version of the Sorcerer Supreme, long before Dr Strange. We can further mix this up by adding era characters into the mix. Like the Man with No Name, helping out against say a Skrull invasion. It would certainly challenge us in research and believability.

 

Mystery

 

I just finished "Who killed the Scarlet Witch?" and I thought it had some promise. This would also challenge us, and would be a far cry from the regular slug-fests. Here, we would have to examine motive, means and perhaps we could even give a bonus point for the one who solves the mystery.

 

 

So there are my choices. Any other takes?

[TroytheRobot]

Western and Mystery are already included in the pool. Please make sure your suggestion is not included in the listing before you propose an idea.

[Hugo Fowl]

Western and Mystery are already included in the pool. Please make sure your suggestion is not included in the listing before you propose an idea.

 

I was only bouncing off ideas as to how we could do them. As to original ideas, what about these?

 

Survival

 

A group of beings are taken to some area of the world or even a whole planet with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The object of the game is to survive for an indeterminate amount of time. Like Newt from the second Alien movie. Or Operation Snake Eater where Big Boss has to obtain his own food and equipment in enemy territory.

[Guest Pseudonym]

Total War

Give a Character a TV show

Urban setting

[Stranglehold-prime]

I like Action

[Guest ribbonz]

Road trip?

[AVP vs The Terminator]

Okay, just off the top of my head:

 

Choose two non-powered (i.e regular humans) characters, and pit them against one another in something other than a fight. The "battle" can be anything from a cooking contest to a surfing competition, as long as it's not a direct, physical fight.

[treacherous]

I have a few ideas:

 

- creating an underwater race between water based heroes and villains.

- A character from the Toon genre must hunt a creature of sub-human intelligence.

- A vehicle only battle. Two vehicles must battle it out.

- Video game challenge. Two street level human characters from any genre must make it through a tough video game board (IE: Racoon City, Call of Duty 4 Mile High Mission, Super Mario Brothers Final stage (Original)

- Girl Fight - A bunch of girls have to fight. All girls.

[Guest sirmethos]

If more 'specific' themes are welcomed, then I have quite a few that I had intended to use for my own monthly writing challenge. Mostly in the form of questions, that should then be answered by the story.

 

Examples: "How does an immortal being, handle when being faced with his/her own imminent death?" "How does a (relatively)normal human, react when suddenly gaining god-like power?"