OCTs, OCLs, OCRs, RP Groups... What's the difference?
I want to build my character's story & interact with others-- what are my options?
Written in conjunction with ElectricEidolon— another OCT Host & vet with over a decade of experience.
Hey there— if you’re new to the OCT community, welcome! There’s a lot to learn, but take it one step at a time and you’ll feel at home. If you’ve been in the OCT community for some time, also welcome! Never hurts to refresh your memory, or explore the differences between major tournament structures. The goal of this post is to help individuals find the right experience for them. OCTs, OCLs, OCRs, and RP Groups offer very different experiences— so let’s try to understand what we’re getting into.
Individual tournaments may have varying formats, but there are key differences in the fundamental structures of:
Original Character Tournaments (OCTs)
Original Character Leagues (OCLs)
Original Character Royales (OCRs)
Role-Playing Groups
All of the above may include written media, comics, and/or animation content. However, the majority of OCTs, OCLs, and OCRs are comic tournaments featuring original characters (hence the origin of the term “Original Character Tournament”. OCT is the umbrella term; OCLs and OCRs are both OCTs but have more fundamental structure differences that lend to offering unique experiences.
This guide is introducing OCRs for the first time— we felt that recently there’s been an increase in tournaments presenting more varied and flexible challenges that deserve their own distinction.
This will help individuals in the community to find other like-minded individuals that prefer to challenge their comic-creation skills in a new way while still crafting a narrative like a classical OCT.
Please note that some character tournaments may straddle the lines of these definitions. The classifications elaborated here are an attempt at distinguishing the unique types of character tournaments, so that competitors have an easier time clarifying their ideas, expectations, and intentions going into character tournaments.
OCT: Original Character Tournament
A brief history on OCTs— The term “OCT” appeared early in 2008 with Law of Talos, hosted by Sins-of-Angels on DeviantART, but OCTs have been around since 2007. (Endling’s Endzone may have officially been called the first OCT, but it is difficult to confirm.) Character tournaments were around prior to Law of Talos, but this is notably most OCT-goers’ first experience with OCTs. These tournaments first came about as a way for industry professionals to spend their free time honing skills and making friends, and now are enjoyed by artists & writers of all skill levels.
OCTs are narrative-based, single-set tournaments. OCTs are formatted with a focus on having character stories & interactions play out within the setting of the tournament. “Single-set” refers to the audition period that determines the competitors for the duration of the tournament. Most OCT competitors focus & are judged upon their story-writing skills here. It is a collective effort to write 1 narrative of a tournament, with an actual tournament occurring between the writers & artists.
OCTs are generally standard tournaments with one-to-none “gimmick” that distinguishes them from other OCTs (Crown of the Beast’s party system, Trinity Tournament’s 3-character teams, Summer Leagues’ neo-leagues, etc.).
These tournaments have time-restrictive formats to maintain their limited competition structure, and generally only run once. Tournament re-runs are often sequels— they maintain the setting of the original, but at a later (or earlier) state in time to maintain canon. Many OCTs are single elimination tournaments, but it’s not difficult to find a handful of non-elimination tournaments every year. OCTs are usually a 1-1.5 year commitment for competitors that make it to round 4+, but can take 2 years (or more) depending on hiatuses.
An OCT will run with a set number of competitors, decided from the pool of auditioners; the number of competitors is usually a power of 2 (ie. 16, 32, 64, even as many as 128), but may vary based on the individual OCT’s format (ie. multiples of 8 for mini-tournaments or “neo-leagues”, or 24 competitors with one round of 1v1v1, etc.). In rare cases an OCT may only be open to auditions via invite.
An OCT round may or may not have prompts that affect the circumstances of each round. OCT rounds consist of two competitors being paired up as opponents by the judges— both will create an entry, usually a comic, featuring their own character competing against their opponent’s. The competitors are expected to collaborate during the round by discussing their own characters with each other, so that they can accurately characterize their opponent’s character(s). Competitors may also collaborate with other competitors (not just their opponents) in creating the overarching story of the OCT. After the round ends, the judges will pick which entry out of the pair wins— the winner will proceed to the next round and get a new opponent, and generally (with some exceptions*) the loser’s entry will be considered non-canon. (*OCTs may have second-winds to bring back lost competitors to fill a spot.) The loser may be allowed to participate in a loser’s bracket if present in the tournament, or continue their own canon story adjacent to the tournament as a spectator entry.
Once the final round’s winner is decided, the OCT will end and prizes will be doled out to the winners. The community around that OCT may persist, but many will move onto the next tournament that pops up and try their hand at auditions again.
Current OCT News Curator, OCT Newscast
Examples of OCTs: Law of Talos, Endzone, Artists at the Ready, Tower Tournament, Walking City, Haunted Library, Wizard Palooza, Dreamcatcher, Pantheon, Cascade Cabaret, Parasomnia, Summer Leagues (yes, despite the name), Splinter City, Crown of the Beast, and Midwich
We’re working on adjusting the definitions of OCLs & OCRs due to additional feedback! Hang tight— thank you!
OCL: Original Character League
Collaborative: ★★★
Competitive: ★★
OCLs are indefinite, narrative-based, non-elimination tournament “guilds”. OCLs are formatted with a focus on crafting a narrative, relying on the spirit of competition to help motivate its members in continuing the story. (OCLs are essentially the love child of an OCT and an RP Group.)
OCLs may or may not be standard tournaments, and often feature unique settings that bring in outside characters to participate. Like OCTs, they may feature “gimmicks” to differentiate themselves.
These tournaments have time-restrictive formats to maintain their competition structure, and can continue on indefinitely. They do not require auditions and can have competitors roll-on-and-off the project as their schedules dictate. They are not beholden to the power of 2 for their number of competitors, and can support an irregular number of participants.
Rounds are won by having a higher number of points. Points are tallied more for bragging rights and to have a scoreboard/ranking system than elimination purposes. No one is ever eliminated—the OCL goes on for as long as its participants want it to, like a huge RP. So where an OCT is by-and-large a TOURNAMENT in the end, OCLs are more of a GUILD that can last indefinitely.
The winning entry of each matchup becomes the canon version of events, but the loser can continue and run with the canon that is set from each winning matchup. The main driving factor in wanting to win against your opponent is to have YOUR story become the canon in that instance, but you may continue creating entries as long as you desire (for the duration of the OCL). It still is a competition, but not as heavily or strictly competitive as OCTs.
A brief history on OCLs— OCLs have been around since at least 2007. While few in number, OCLs fulfill a niche that standard OCTs struggle to fill by continuing on for years within the same setting. It is possible for an OCT to have an involved RP scene, but this is fundamentally different from the OCL due to the setup of the tournament— one is definite, the other is indefinite.
Examples of OCLs: Entervoid, Samurai Duelers League, Oculama
OCR: Original Character Royale
Collaborative: ★~★★★
Competitive: ★~★★★
OCRs are more challenge-based narrative tournaments with major format or structural differences from OCTs. OCRs are formatted with a focus on the challenges and structure that define their rounds or overall tournament. The tournament’s narrative development comes from the challenges the tournament’s structure and creators are beholden to.
OCRs are defined by their differences to the standard tournament format that OCTs generally follow. These differences (plural) may include: creators being assigned teams rather than fighting solely for themselves, map-based battles that decide character pairings, rounds commonly including more than two character teams battling, joining a tournament during a later round, not needing to audition to join, etc.
These tournaments have time-restrictive formats for each round but may have more open competition structures, allowing competitors to roll in-and-out of rounds. OCRs are alike OCTs in having single or non-elimination tournaments, but this structure is more flexible in also allowing double elimination tournaments (Black Market Brawl), round robins, or even special tournament formats unique to the competition (such as War for Rayuba’s team system competing for a map or Goku Royale’s cauldron format). The length of an OCR varies dependent on its format, but can conclude in as little as 6 months.
OCRs more commonly have a rolling structure for competitors, rather than a set number. This allows OCRs to often not need auditions, and to accept character submissions for each round. (OCRs’ format is more friendly to running death matches due to this.) They are not necessarily beholden to the power of 2 for their number of competitors. Competitors that participate in multiple rounds are able to continue their own narrative (to their dis/advantage, dependent on their ability). Determining the canon of events depends on the format of the competition.
OCRs are more likely than OCTs to have unique prompts every round. OCR rounds, like OCT rounds, usually include pairing 2 competitors— but this is heavily dependent on their format. Some tournaments have competitors creating entries based on their team, and/or based on the characters’ physical map location.
A brief history on OCRs— This is the first instance of the term “OCR” being coined. Character tournaments that were created with more varied structures are more appropriately termed OCRs within the context of OCTs— not because they’re not tournaments (they absolutely are tournaments), but to help distinguish their unique formatting from the classical, standard-tournament OCT that many are used to from DeviantART.
The term OCR using “Royale” comes in part from a community that features this type of format, Goku Royale, and it is also fitting as these tournaments are more easily free-for-alls.
Examples of OCRs: War 4 Rayuba (+ interactive map), Goku Royale, Black Market Brawl, World Beast’s Song
Another way of thinking about OCTs vs OCRs in game terms— as Classic vs. Ranked game modes. Different playstyles for different players.
RP Group: Role-Playing Group
Collaborative: ★★★
Competitive: n/a
RP Groups are not tournaments at all. RP groups are formatted with a focus on collaborating with others in a given setting to craft a narrative. Oftentimes, the characters participating in these settings are created within the setting to organically integrate them & expand upon the setting’s world.
RP groups may be created within existing fandoms, while OCTs generally prohibit using fan characters for existing copyrighted IPs. They may also organize around creating table-top or other game experiences for their participants. Some RP groups organize around closed species, which are a wholly different topic.
These groups may have time-based events and can run competitions, but often have on-going RPs to contribute to. The groups can run indefinitely, as long as their hosts continue to support their communities. RP groups may have application phases (similar to OCT auditioning) when opening up to more members.
A brief history on RP Groups— RP groups predate OCTs, and depending on the definition, may include the LARPing groups of the 1960s. RP groups were plentiful on DeviantART around the early 2010s.
Examples of RP Groups: Chancel of Mythos, Cardians, Hiems Mansion, Domain of the Wolf, The Ridge, Chai Chateau
TL;DR
OCTs are standard tournaments with 0-1 gimmick
OCRS are varied tournaments with 2+ gimmicks
OCLs are OCTs in the frame of an RP Group