Hey, it's me again. I've been in-between scripts lately, but I've really been into this one, but I just can't seem to get it together. I have all the characters down, where they come from, and the premise. In the future, there 8 territories, each with their own "Lords." When one territory is tired of being separate and decides to invade the other to conquer them all, the Lords come together and propose a single elimination tournament. The winning fighter's territory will be the Capital and rule over the rest. I had it as a straight Martial Arts Tournament at first like Mortal Kombat, or Tekken or something, but I wasn't feeling that angle. Then I decided to give them each a certain ability. E.g., Fighter, Swordsman, Gunslinger, Archer, Super strength, Mystical Martial Arts, Tech Guy, but I was still struggling to make it interesting. Does this all sound interesting? Would you go with the Martial Arts angle, or the Abilities angle? What do you guys think is missing? Thanks.
What would cause the losers to allow enforcement of the outcome? If I was a Lord with a massive army and my champion lost some tournament that would determine control, I would simply send my army to take over by force. And what level of technology are they at in your world? If my territory has invented gunpowder and nobody else did, I also would not care about the outcome of a tournament. Don't get me wrong, these types of stories can be very interesting, but you need something more powerful than any of the lords to enforce such rules. Gods are quite useful in this way: The remains of the Roman Empire was ruled by a loose set of laws and groups like that and kept in check largely by the church. A shared superstition like that can also add some interest to your story.
I would start with realistic abilities and add the more extreme abilities if it adds any depth to the characters. Either way, you need lots of weaker abilities to make the strong ones appear strong in comparison. Increasing the main character's ability is like slowly burning a candle since you cannot go back once the fighter is too powerful. I would either just go with a war story showing the suffering of the civilians and sacrifices of the soldiers or make a fight club theme where the main character is forced to infiltrate them in order to save someone. It can be hard for the reader to relate to a fighting character without a good cause. An important thing is that the weakest can beat the strongest by having different types of strengths and weaknesses. The battle between Touma and Accelerator in "Toaru Majutsu No Index" where Touma is immune to all esper abilities for example.
I agree with the above--there needs to be a convincing reason why the results of this fight will matter, and why they're choosing to solve things this way. A few suggestions. --Because of the nature of war or weapons in this world, total war would risk escalating out of control and resulting in a Pyrrhic victory at best. Perhaps they're already recovering from a terrible war, and there's no taste for further mass battle. A limited conflict serves to keep the escalation under control. --The tournament doesn't determine the war directly, but instead the control of some vital asset which could tip the balance of power. A legendary magic weapon can only be wielded by an undefeated warrior, the ruler of a nation in a "kingmaker" position holds the tournament to seek a powerful warrior as their wife / husband, etc. --A la the movie "Fearless", the tournament is a sham, intended to prove the primacy of the most powerful nation (either because they have the best warriors, or because they've rigged the contest). If an underdog starts to perform unexpectedly well, they may attract attention for making the sponsors look weak. --The tournament is a sham in a different way, intended to draw out and eliminate potential rivals of the sponsor--I'm thinking of a recent "One Piece" arc, where the tournament was a means to attract powerful warriors who could then be magically transformed into loyal minions of the villain.
