1. I LOVE this idea. I think a few things could be done with this.

Have a monthly "Challenger." Or maybe every three weeks if you really want to encourage sparring, though for records purposes it would be easier to do it by the month. Something like the things you had to fight for Halloween in Isilme, if I am remembering. People sign up to fight against it and you do a die roll for whoever gets to that time, and if you competed the previous month you can't do it again. The winner receives a prize, either something off their wishlist or something one of a kind and related to the fight--So if they fought a skeleton monster, they get a magical bone charm or whatever. You have to finish the spar within the month (encourages completion and efficiency) or else you lose automatically, because the creature's power grows so great or something as time passes. If you finish but lose, you get a small prize for your efforts, just not the main one. If you drop out, someone else gets rolled from the list. Prize could either be a surprise or stated beforehand (IE: Winner of this will receive MAGIC or UNIQUE BONE CHARM). For IC reasons I think unique tokens would be more interesting, personally.

Other thing: When you start a spar, include an "RE Allowed" tag--if that happens, an RE can pop up in your spar and do something that either affects one or both characters. If just one, die roll to decide who for fairness, and die roll for damage too, giving all RE things a set of base stats that members are aware of.

Also--Occasionally an opportunity to spar with THE GODS. AND LOSE PROBABLY. BUT HAVE FUN. Not that they'd dabble with mortals, maybe, but...



2. To be honest, one of the most stressful things for me is knowing that on top of trying to be clear and just figure out how writing works, the style of my writing is being critiqued at the same time. I understand grammar mistakes and whatnot, or points off for it being completely unreadable/incomprehensible, but I've never understood why the writing had to be so closely examined. And I know I want to be able to start sentences with and (lol I did this one) without being penalized--it's not technically grammatically incorrect and it's a style choice, but it's just one of those little things that sometimes get counted against people. IC it also isn't as relevant to me, you know? Idk, I think that is a huge stresser for me. Sparring is the only time when the quality of your writing is being judged on this site which is all about a mutual love of writing freely and however you want, and it's also such a subjective thing.

ALSO THE WORD LIMIT. I go above 800 almost every time because I have to include so much to clarify and then I feel as though my actual good writing suffers. Usually the parts I edit out are style and thought and I feel as though I lose something with that. Maybe if the writing style was less focused on and we were made to bold all attacks, it would be easier for the admin to focus on the technical stuff and read the rest less closely, so the word limit could be done away with (or at least raised)?