The Summer of Gladiators

By Imperial Decree, 128 RomanPunk NFTs go Pugilistic

A Motley Crew of Pugilists Prepare to Bloody the Floor of the Gladiator Ring

RomanPunks is a movement inspired by fine art, history and the cyberpunk aesthetic.

A total of 1,000 RomanPunk NFTs will exist in the collection on the Ethereum blockchain. At the time of writing, approximately 400/1000 have been minted.

Art / Worldbuilding / Community / Utility

The grand vision for RomanPunks is the creation of a massive sci-fi alternate universe in which the setting is Roman-themed, but steeped in cyberpunk-inspired alternate history lore.

Creating the art and assigning the properties of each Ethereum NFT character is the first step in the evolution of the ongoing RomanPunk movement.

Building an active, friendly community on Discord is the next.

To do that, we are offering utility by allowing owners and spectators to engage in friendly competition, for which gamification elements are to be continuously refined and expanded over the coming months.

Apart from the community factor, offering prizes to the winners in the form of unique, priceless NFT characters is an additional incentive to encourage new owners to collect RomanPunk NFTs.

Emperor Commodus (center top) has Called for the Summer of Gladiators Tournament to take place in the RomanPunk Discord 🪓#gladiator-ring⚔️

Who are the Players?

128 fighting-class NFTs (those with the Property ‘Type’: Gladiator, Centurion or Soldier) are included in the bracket.

This includes a cohort of “Punktorian Guard” troops who are awarded for free to the first 10 Discord users to gain 10,000 ‘experience points’ that are earned by interacting/chatting on the server and helping to promote the RomanPunks community elsewhere.

These 10 Punktorian Guard NFTs will be given away to the first 10 Discord users to reach 10,000xp

There are 4 “Groups”. The winner of each group will move on to the final elimination round.

Screenshot from “Challonge” of Group A Round 1 in progress

How Do They Play?

We have utilized Challonge (owned by Logitech) to organize the tournament brackets.

It allows for easy recording, reporting and randomizing and provides flexible options for tournament types including ‘two stage tournament’ like the World Cup, and different formats (single elimination, double elimination, Swiss, round robin & free for all).

Challonge provides a robust infrastructure for swiftly and efficiently managing a tournament bracket.

Matches are scheduled in advance, giving players the option to participate in the “🪓#gladiator-ring⚔️” Discord channel, or be absent and let the house simulate the battle on their behalf.

Matches are hyped on Twitter, presented as a throw-back to classic arcade games of the 1980s and 90s

Players use Dice Maiden bot to roll their attack dice, ensuring that results are fairly, transparently reported, and matches are conducted swiftly and conclusively.

Dice Maiden Bot makes it really easy and quick to stage live battles on a Discord server.

In the first round of the tournament, matches are decided by a single roll with a variable number of dice. The rules for the second round are discussed in the next article.

If an NFT owner is not present, then the house will roll in their stead.

Match results are shared over Twitter, in a style that is a throwback to Street Fighter II arcade.

How are the Odds Calculated?

Each contestant starts with base strength of six 6-sided dice (6d6).

For the first round of the tournament, up to 3 bonus dice can awarded based on quality and rarity of equipment and other properties listed on a Google Sheet.

Fighter powers are publicly shared with contestants to help contestants decide which NFTs to collect

The second and third round will have additional rounds and additional bonuses.

What are the Prizes?

There are 3 prizes awarded to the top 3 winners of the Summer of Gladiators Genesis Tournament.

First Prize is the Cyclops (priced at 3 ETH)

Grand Champion wins the RomanPunk Cyclops NFT (priced at 3ETH)

Second Prize is a RomanPunk Emperor NFT (priced at 1 ETH).

The silver prize winner will spin the “Emperor Wheel”, and get the chance to win a RomanPunk Emperor NFT.

2nd Place Winner could walk home with the Emperor Septimius Severus

Third Prize is a RomanPunk Ape (priced at 0.1 ETH)

The bronze prize winner will get to spin the “Ape Wheel”, and get the chance to win a rare RomeanPunk ape NFT.

Ape Plebeian Man

When are the Matches Scheduled?

Times may vary, but they are usually held at 9pm EST every day of the week.

There is a weekly Sunday Discord party between 4–7pm EST with battles following until 9pm EST.

Check RomanPunks Discord for latest schedules, and look in the #gladiator-info channel for more info.

How to Enter?

Purchase (or win in a giveaway!) a RomanPunk NFT that has a “Property” with “Type” classified as either SOLDIER, CENTURION or GLADIATOR.

These types are the fighting classes of the RomanPunks NFT collection on OpenSea:

https://opensea.io/collection/romanpunks

Can I enter more than once?

The NFTs fight against each other whether they are owned by the house or a collector. So the more NFTs you own, of course the better your chances of winning the prize.

Roadmap Sketch for Future ‘Gladiator’ Utility

1. Multiple rounds of fighting — e.g. ‘best of 5’ dice rolls
2. ‘Gladiator Groupies’ — a ‘fan club’ for gladiators that can be joined by purchasing an NFT from the same “Property: Race” as the fighter, and opens up a whole new contest with additional prizes.
3. Team battles, allowing players to join forces to defeat their opponents
4. More detailed attributes (attack power, defense rating) attached to the properties, allowing for more precise character strength rating
5. Various multiple-sided dice to affect power ratings, based on the strength/rarity of equipment, class of fighter and previous battle experience of the NFT.
6. Expansion to WAX blockchain
7. Infrastructure for betting with exclusive game tokens
8. Graphical interface for automated gameplay through a dApp
9. Fully immersive online gaming experience (MMORPG)