Okay, so I decided when I started this fic that I didn't want it to be entirely about my decisions and my choices. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that I think the whole point of an SYOT is to be interactive and to provide a different experience from just reading a fic.

In this fic, as would happen in the real Hunger Games, the survival of each tribute will be decided by a combination of factors; the support or otherwise of the sponsors in the Capitol and Districts (or, in this case, in the reviews page and my inbox), the whim of the Gamemakers (i.e., me), their own skills and personality, and a healthy dose of luck.

Here's how it's going to work:

I GIVE EACH TRIBUTE A STARTING MARK OUT OF TEN:

Points out of six for my personal preference, points out of four for their chances. The breakdown, if you're interested, is as follows:

- ?/4 for their app - how creative their character concept was, how much I liked them, how much detail was included, stuff like that.
- ?/2 for writing them - how easy I found it to write their Reapings, and how interesting I found them once I started to actually write.

- ?/2 for skill - have they been trained, do they have a job which would give relevant skills, are their personal skills likely to help them in the Arena I have planned, will they attract sponsors, etc.
- ?/1 for Career - simple enough, are they from a Career District? Reasonably, they'll have the edge if they are, so they get a point.
- ?/1 for age - again, simple enough, because older tributes will have a better chance just based on size and experience. Tributes over 16 get this point.

I will not tell you what score your tribute got. I'm not opening myself up to that. Suffice to say that I've put a lot of thought into these scores, and I'd appreciate it if you'd respect that I had my reasons for every score I've given, they're not personal attacks or even attacks on your characters if they're low. Clear enough? Right, stage 2:

YOU VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITES:

Okay, this one should be fairly simple. You leave the name of a tribute in a review, or PM me your vote. Rules for submissions are below. READ THEM. If you ignore them, your vote may be taken away instead of added.

For each vote a character gets, they gain one point on top of their starting score.

If they get 5 votes in one chapter (4 for a Career, because yes, this skews the game in favour of the Career Districts, but the canon Games are skewed in their favour too) then they will get a sponsorship gift suitable to their situation in the next chapter. (The numbers may change according to how the voting actually pans out, because I've never done this before and I'm not sure how many votes to expect)

LADY LUCK DOES THE REST:

At the start of each chapter after the tributes enter the Arena, I will use a random number generator to decide how many characters will die in that chapter. (In the bloodbath, the number will be between 3 and 10; in later chapters, it will probably be taken from a range of 0-3) I will then take that number of tributes from the bottom of the list (so the tributes with the lowest combined score of votes and starting score)

If I feel particularly evil, I may have one or two chapters which are "wildcards", where I use the number generator more directly and pick an entirely random tribute to come by an unlucky accident.

So, in case that wasn't clear: each tribute has a score out of ten. This starting score is added to the total number of votes they receive to give them a score at the start of each chapter. When I select the number of tributes to die horribly, I will take the tributes with the lowest total scores. Hopefully, that's easy to understand. I think I've spent too much time doing tabletop RP.

Of course, there are rules! Please read them, please follow them. If you break them, I reserve the right to take whatever action I deem appropriate, which will probably mean your vote is either not counted or is counted as -1 instead of +1. (Which I would really rather not do, because I'm keeping these tallies in pen)

VOTING RULES

1. One vote per person per chapter. You don't have to vote every chapter, and you don't have to vote for the same character every time, but one reviewer, one vote.

2. You CANNOT vote for your own tribute. Nuh-uh. If we make that the thing, everyone will just vote for their own characters and the people with more than one character in the fic will be at a distinct disadvantage. If I catch you voting for your own character, that vote definitely counts as -1.

3. As I said, votes can be left in review or in PM. If you review, make sure you review the right chapter; if you PM me, say which chapter you're casting your vote on.

4. Anon voting is allowed. This is for the benefit of people who don't have a site account who might still want to vote. If I think you're using anonymous voting to break rules 1 or 2, I will disallow anon votes.

5. The Gamemaker's decision is final. Like I said, I've put a lot of thought into this, and I've tried to make it as fair as possible. Please don't accuse me of favouritism/lying/hocking the votes/anything else if your character dies. Just making this clear; that is not OK.

6. Voting starts from the next chapter I put up (which will be the tributes' goodbyes). No votes left on the Reaping chapters will be counted. No votes left on OOC/admin chapters (like this one) will be counted.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Questions? Concerns? Review button is down there, or you can PM me!