How to Start Your Own KOTL

Hello, KOTL community! My name is hitthepin, and welcome back to another informative article.

There was once a time where KOTLs were rare. The number of KOTLs that existed could be counted on one hand - maybe two a little bit later. 

Nowadays? Eh, not so much. There's DOZENS of KOTLs that you can find in the Directory, big and small. Oh, yeah. And we have a Directory now. That thing didn't exist until a month ago, I'll have you know. 

This article is intended for new members of our KOTL community who'd like to start their own KOTL, for whatever reason. Be it for the popularity and posts, the strange love of spending hours upon hours in chess.com forums, or out of sheer boredom, I'm here to help. 

Without further ado, let's begin!

NAMING YOUR KOTL

This might actually matter more than you'd expect. Having "KOTL", "King of the Ladder" or something similar in the thread's title might be of use, to signify what it is. 

However, your title should be distinctive. Using templates such as "The _____ KOTL", or "KOTL: The _____" are easy and popular choices. All you have to do is insert a word of your choice, and you've got a pretty nifty title. 

Your title should also be short. Having a title that's too lengthy is a bit of a turn-off. Using either of the two templates above also happily sidesteps this problem. 

Don't put your name in the title. It really doesn't need to be there. In all of existence, there's exactly one successful KOTL where the mod's name was located there, and that's King of the Ladder run by Angel9505 . That is the exception, not the rule. All other KOTLs where the creator's put their names, such as extremedragon's KOTL, KOTL the Shattered Dimension, and Woof's KOTL, have all been total failures. 

BE ACTIVE

Sadly, there's simply no other way around this. If you want your KOTL to be popular and get those posts into the thousands, you have to be willing to sink in an absolutely massive amounts of time. Hours upon hours, I tell you. There's no KOTL that's reached the heights that it has through sheer luck or randomness. 

But heck. You're already in the official club for it. You're probably ready for that commitment. 

THE GAMES YOU PLAY

The popular games played on KOTLs change constantly. Of the original three pillars back in the early days that everyone relied on - Escaping, Murder Mysteries, and Rob the Museum - only one remains in the limelight - MMs. 

At the time of this writing, battle royales, boss fights, and open-world games seem to be quite popular. Open-world games can be hellishly long and intensive projects to work on that often don't get fully completed, which is a terrible shame. The other two, however, are much simpler affairs that pit the player against fellow players or NPCs, respectively, and are very easy to utilize. 

BE INNOVATIVE 

Of course, if you only do what everybody else is doing, you're not going to get far. If you want your KOTL to truly reach its greatest heights, you have to be different and stand out. Create something new, and bring it to the table. 

For example, Kind of the Ladder was the original spin-off, as oxymoronic as that sounds. This was the second KOTL - nobody else had ever tried to do something like that before. The Sky Battlefield brought about a consistent, enjoyable theme that could be found throughout all of its games, and the Bad KOTL helped revolutionize open-world games. 

To be sure, innovation isn't easy or simple. In fact, it's very difficult and complicated. You can spend hours upon hours trying to think up of good ideas, and sadly come up empty. 

If I knew how to come up with good ideas consistently, dear reader, I'd most certainly tell you. As it is, new, good ideas are worth their weight in gold. Treasure them. 

THE COMMUNITY

Ah, the "KOTL community". I come from a time where all the important people could be easily remembered. Now? This club is getting pretty close to hitting a triple-digit membership. 

You and your KOTL do not exist in a vacuum. Other people can be an invaluable resource when constructing your thread and your games. Taking a peek here and there can provide much-needed direction. The trail you're walking has been paved before - don't try to start from scratch when you don't need to. 

To be sure, I absolutely do not promote plagiarizing without giving credit. I also don't suggest that you directly replay other people's games without building something new on top of them, or at least putting a slightly different spin on it. Once again, innovation reigns king. 

Then, of course, there's advertising and putting yourself out there, an issue that some users have been particularly notorious for. I could go on and on about the etiquette of ads, but basically: there's an appropriate amount of advertising that you can do, and there's an inappropriate amount of advertising that you can do. If you're savvy enough, you'll be able to pick up when the community is sick of you bugging them. Know when that happens. 

THE STORY

The story. The lore. The meat of it.

It might or might not be a surprise to you, dear reader, but making a good story is hard. Like, really hard. Think about the number of bad stories you’ve seen in comparison to good ones. And if it seems to skewed in favor good stories, go read some fanfiction. 

Anyways. a story isn't necessarily required. Stories, even bad stories, require a lot of work and effort. 

But everybody loves a good story. And if you make a story that captures the attention of your playerbase, you can expect them to come back, day after day, time after time, ready to see the work that you've created come to its fruition and completion. 

Interestingly enough, not only do most of the top KOTLs not only have stories, they're some of the most outlandish, silly, and ridiculous stories that you can imagine. Iron golems with AKs, a moose and a goose, Joseph Stalin with a giant chainsaw, a tomato monarch. 

If you've got a good story, go ahead, put it in. If you don't? That's OK. You don't necessarily need one. But suffice to say, when there's a thread connecting all of your games and your player's actions, there's a lot more sanctification as a whole. 

For some more clear advice on how to write a story, do read my fellow SA @ChessNerd1320 ‘s article on the topic.

HAVE FUN

It might sound corny, but I want to top things off by just giving a friendly reminder to have fun. KOTL was created and reached the heights that it has because it was made so that people can have fun. It's entertainment. And hopefully, it'll be slightly more engaging than the average book or movie or video game. 

Enjoying yourself should be your number 1 priority. Once that's it place, much of the rest will follow as well. And it's not something that can be faked. If you're not enjoying yourself, please. Stop wasting time doing something that you don't like, and go do something else.

Thanks for reading! If you're enjoying the stuff that I'm writing, go check out my previous article, or go check out all of the stuff that I've done, which can be found in the Directory.  See ya on the flipside.