What is Battleship? How does it work?

Two teams compete to clear boards of targets. Each board is a grid on which targets of various sizes and shapes are secretly placed. Teams fire shots at the boards. When a shot is fired at a square on the grid, the mods declare it a hit or a miss. Once all the squares occupied by a target are hit, the target is eliminated.

The rules are loosely based on the Battleship board game, but for the Battleship Exchange, shots are fired by creating fanworks with particular tags. This year, each square is randomly assigned a quantity (from 2 to many) and some tags (such as Sharing a Bed or First Time). There will also be goal quantities of AO3 ship types, ratings, and archive warnings (collectively labels). Once a team collectively posts enough works to meet the goal quantity of a square's tags, the square is cleared; once all the necessary squares are cleared and the AO3 label goals have been met, the board is beaten.

After the first board level, there is a boss level. Like the boss at the end of a video game level, this boss has hit points. Each team must defeat the boss by creating more works. For the boss level, tags and labels don't matter. Points are earned through wordcount or elaborateness of art. Another boss appears after the second board level.

This is a fanwork exchange, so works must be created to fit fandoms, ships, and tags in the exchange tagset, and to fulfill requests or prompts by exchange participants. This year, there will be no official assignments. The mods will provide a giftless and treatless list to ensure that everyone who requests at least 3 unique fandoms receives a gift.

There are a number of additional rules that make the game more complicated and more fun, but the gist is this: Create both rapidly and strategically, collaborating with your team, to clear the boards, defeat the bosses, and win the Battleship Exchange!

What is the Battleship history and lore?

The Battleship Exchange was created in 2020 by Soulstoned and Red Ranger, inspired by a community challenge in the Trick or Treat exchange. This year's mods are Soulstoned (Team Volcano), Tavina (Team Crystal), gaialux (Team Tunnel), Eirvyan (Team Mermaid), and Firebird and lailah_tov (Team Spreadsheet).

The 2020 round of Battleship had a similar design to the board game, with the Yellow and Red teams directly competing to find ships on each other's 10x10 boards. They fought so ably that a separate board was created to battle a boss called the Ocean Witch. The Yellow Team won, but more peril loomed. One of the teams was taken off to space by an eldritch entity; the other was pulled into the ocean by a tentacle monster.

In 2021, teams Void and Abyss returned, once again looking for ships on each other's boards. The mods introduced new rules to include non-team players called mercenaries, who were bribed with in-game gold to create works supporting a particular team, and NPC pirates, who held the team captains for ransom. Just as Void closed in to defeat Abyss, the Ocean Witch banished the teams to dry land.

In 2022, the competition was between Forest and Frost, who went hunting for each other's strategic buildings. This time the game design was considerably more complicated, with a separate grid of shields that protected various board sectors. There were multiple types of weaponry and in-game currency, including gems stolen from two local dragons. Competition was fiercer than ever, and mercenary bribery escalated. In the end, Frost prevailed but offered a truce to Forest, hoping for an era of peace in which everyone could recover from the exhausting battle. But it was not to be. Tarina the Fairy, angry at the harm done to her beloved Ocean Witch and the theft of gems from her dragons, imprisoned the two teams in her castle: one in the tower, the other in the dungeon.

In 2023, teams Dungeon and Tower fought, but not against each other. Each team cleared three castle floors, Dungeon working upward while Tower worked downward. At last, they disarmed all the traps, found all the loot, escaped the castle, and took a much-needed break. But soon the adventurers grew tired of resting. At the Shoulder Dragon Cafe, they agreed to help two groups in need: spark-sprites, whose belongings have been buried by a roof collapse in the crystal caverns, and cave-trolls, whose treasures have been stolen by lava goblins and hidden in a volcano.

In 2024, teams Crystal, Mermaid, Tunnel, and Volcano will embark on exciting new dungeon crawls. Each will have three levels. A level is cleared first by making works with needed tags to reveal what's hidden on a 10x10 board, and then by defeating a boss with wordcount hit points.

Which team will meet its goal first? And what secrets will they discover about the spark-sprites and cave-trolls? Play the game to find out!

How do I participate?

Everyone is welcome to play Battleship. There's no requirement to collaborate on strategy, create prolific amounts of fic or art or podfic, or be on a team at all.

In order to nominate fandoms and ships, post works, or post prompts, you must have a free AO3 account. If you don't have an account, join the account creation queue or contact the Battleship mods for an invitation code.

Some of the ways to participate:

• Join a team. You do this by signing up with at least one request, the way you would in an ordinary AO3 exchange. If you want to be on a team, you must sign up! Team assignments will be made as soon as sign-ups close, and are set in stone once the first boards are revealed.
• Post prompts. Having prompts to create for is very important! Over the course of the game, the two teams will post hundreds of works, and each one must fulfill a request or a prompt. Plus, the more you prompt, the more gifts you could get.
• Support creators. Edit podfic, brainstorm artwork, beta-read fic—anything that helps the team members and treasure hunters hit their goals.
• Hang out in Discord. If you're not playing, you won't have access to the team channels, but you can still enjoy the general chatter, explain freeforms, promote your favorite fandoms, and cheer from the sidelines.

This year, there will be no defined role for people who aren't on teams. Only team members will be able to post to team collections and contribute to team progress. Anyone can post treats to the main collection just for fun, but if you want to play the game, sign up!

If you want to collaborate on developing team strategy, you'll need to be in Discord, and you'll probably want to check in at least once a day so you can assist your team in hitting the most strategic targets. However, it's also fine to post works at your own pace and choose whatever tags you like. Your team will need to hit a total wordcount-equivalent number to defeat the bosses of round 1 and round 2, and all works posted during boss battles will count toward that goal, regardless of labels or tags.

What are the requirements for works?

Fic and podfic must be in English and at least 300 words long.

Art must be at least a clean sketch on unlined paper, or digital equivalent.

All works must be complete (no missing chapters or truncated scenes) and created specifically to fulfill requests in this year's Battleship main collection or prompt collection. You must create your work yourself. Works may not be wholly or partially created by generative text or art programs (so-called "AI") such as chatGPT or OpenArt.ai, or by text-to-speech programs. Works may not be wholly or partially duplicated from other works, and may not contain substantial repeated material (such as paragraphs or comics panels that are copied with minor variations).

Are there any other major rules?

You must be 18 or older to participate in this exchange.

Don't be an asshole. We know it when we see it. Treating Battleship participants or mods disrespectfully is grounds for a ban.

This exchange allows for a large variety of different themes and prompts, some of which may be sensitive for some participants, and tags of all types will be discussed in team channels. If there's content you don't wish to create, don't create it. If there's content you don't wish to receive, be unambiguous in your DNWs.

Battleship is about the joy of creativity under constrained circumstances. Using generative text or art programs to create works completely misses the point, and is grounds for a ban. Any other kind of cheating is grounds for a ban. (Excessive rules-lawyering, however, is traditional and always welcome.)

An individual person may sign up with a maximum of one account, since that account will be placed on a team and eligible for the gift guarantee. Don't worry—there will be plenty of gifts for everyone. Additional accounts may be used to nominate or leave prompts.

All Battleship works are technically treats, so anyone who signs up or prompts must enable treating in their AO3 settings. Do this by going to your Preferences, scrolling to the Collections, Challenges and Gifts section, and checking the box for "Allow anyone to gift me works."

Since there are no assignments, there's no defaulting and no pinch hitting. Participate as little or as much as you like.

I have so many more questions. Where do I find answers?

Join the Discord and ask there, or email the mods at battleshipexchange@gmail.com.

Freeform tags

For this year's game, we need about 400 freeform tags. That's a whole lot. You can help by suggesting tags for the mod team to choose from.

Follow the instructions in this post to contribute tag suggestions. If you won a guaranteed tag last year, that post also has instructions on how to claim it.

Tag suggestions will close on June 22.

Fandoms and ships

Nominate fandoms and ships at our AO3 tagset. Nominations will continue through the sign-up period. After sign-ups and nominations end, if you really need a fandom added so you can create a late prompt, message the mods and we'll add it.

This year's mods have a "tagset anarchy" policy. If you nominate a fandom, we assume you want it to be in the tagset the way you nominated it.

Fandoms

All fandoms may be nominated, including All Media Types, Original Work (including subtypes such as Original F/F as their own fandoms), Creator's Choice of Fandom (which includes original work and any fandom at all, not just nominated fandoms), and Any Fandom I've Requested Before. If a fandom has multiple formats, please make sure you nominate the particular format you want.

Nominate all crossovers under Crossover Fandom. The instructions on the nomination page say to do something different; ignore those instructions.

Ships, characters, groups, and worldbuilding

Use the format A & B to nominate ships that are non-romantic and non-sexual. Use the format A/B for ships that are romantic or sexual. If your ship doesn't fall clearly into either category, use your best judgment or nominate it in both & and / forms. Combined ships such as A/B & C are permitted, but be aware they may be interpreted differently by different people (are both A and B friends with C, or is only B friends with C?). Other ship formats, such as "Werewolf!A/Vampire!B" or "A xcons B", are not permitted.

Please put characters in alphabetical order by family name (like Lan Zhan/Wei Ying) or only name (like Jay-Z & Alicia Keys). You don't need to use the AO3 canonical form of a name or a ship. Feel free to omit piping, special characters, etc. if it makes your ship easier to read.

All solo characters and non-shipped groups may be nominated in the relationship field in the format 1: Character or 1: Group. Groups should be finite and clearly defined. The mods will not arbitrate disputes about who is or isn't in a group.

Significant objects and places can be nominated with the 1: prefix: 1: The Shire (The Hobbit), 1: Daniel da Silva's Nipple Ring (England Series - KJ Charles). This can be useful for art and worldbuilding prompts. 1: Worldbuilding may be nominated in any fandom.

You may nominate OCs, solo and in relationships, with or without specification (Original Character, Original Nonbinary Character, Original Elf Character, etc.); "Any" with or without specification (Any Character, Any Female Character, Any Villain, etc.); and "Reader" with or without specification (Character/Reader, Character/Non-Op Trans Male Reader, etc.).

Disambiguation

Please put the fandom name in parentheses after the ship or character. This is called disambiguating and helps us reassociate ships with their fandoms if they get separated. If the fandom has multiple formats, the disambiguation should reflect the format you want. For example, Dorothy Gale & The Scarecrow (Oz) is not a useful disambiguation because there are multiple Oz works featuring those characters. Dorothy Gale & The Scarecrow (Oz Books - Baum) is clearer and will help us put the ship where it goes.

Limitations

RPF: No non-famous family members of 20th/21st-century famous people. No living people under 18. No 20th/21st-century Nazis, fascists, or white supremacists.

Recursive fanwork: Nominations must have the original creator's approval in writing. Please provide approval evidence to the mods before nominating.

Sign up at the main AO3 collection. You must sign up in order to be on a team, and your sign-up must contain at least 3 unique fandoms for you to be guaranteed a gift. An individual person may sign up with a maximum of one account, since that account will be placed on a team and eligible for the gift guarantee. Don't worry—there will be plenty of gifts for everyone.

Prompt at the prompt collection. Prompts are very important and we need as many of them as possible! You don't have to sign up in order to prompt, and there's no minimum or maximum number of prompts you can add. Putting a request in the prompt collection doesn't sign you up for a team and doesn't guarantee you a gift. Prompting will remain open throughout the game. Multiple accounts may be used to leave prompts in the prompt collection.

You need a free AO3 account in order to sign up or prompt. If you don't have one, contact the mods for an invitation code.

What to put in your request

You may make up to 10 requests in your sign-up and an infinite additional number in the prompt collection (50 prompts per account times however many accounts you have).

For each request, select 1 fandom, 1 to 20 ships, 1 to 3 formats (in the Character field), and 1 to 400 tagset freeforms (20 in the Additional Tags box plus an unlimited number in the Optional Tags box). Please only use freeforms from the Battleship 2024 tagset in your sign-up or prompt.

Fandoms may be requested multiple times. For each request, you can indicate whether fic, art, and/or podfic is desired.

If you're requesting original work or original characters, please note that these will be created by the work's creator. To request work with your OCs, nominate your original work as a fandom.

Since nominations will be open throughout sign-ups, you may want to periodically check the tagset for new nominations and adjust your requests.

There are no formal assignments. AO3 requires that each sign-up have one offer with some content, so there's a big text box there and you need to put something in it or your sign-up will break. Feel free to say hi or link to a cat photo or tell us your philosophy of life. Don't put any important information in that text box! Use email to communicate with the mods.

DNWs

Your DNW list does not need to explain why you don't want something. Please don't use your DNWs to disparage something that someone else may be into.

DNWs that create an impossible request, such as "DNW incest" for an incest ship, and DNWs that are vague or difficult to understand, such as "DNW hard kinks," will be disregarded. DNWs that directly contradict a freeform (such as requesting an omorashi tag and then "DNW watersports") will be disregarded. However, DNWs may be used to specify how freeforms are applied to requested ships or characters ("DNW Bill Nye wetting his pants").

If you're requesting a solo character, you have the option to DNW romantic or sexual ships involving that character. By default, your creator may depict that character being in relationships.

If you're requesting Creator's Choice of Fandom (CCOF) or Any Fandom I've Requested Before (AFIRB), you may DNW up to three fandoms.

Optional details

Ideas, inspiration, and likes are encouraged but not required.

For each request, you may opt in to receiving sequels to your past gifts and remixes or sequels of your own work.

Linking a letter or a list of likes is encouraged but not required. Please complete and unlock letters by July 6.

If you request Any Fandom I've Requested Before, please link to a list of your past requests or your "everything search" results in the AO3 Automagic App.

Participation anticipation survey

At the bottom of the main collection sign-up form is a link to a Google Forms survey where you tell us your availability and how you think you might participate in the game, so we can balance teams, and also where you tell us what your AO3 and Discord usernames are, so we can add you to the correct team channel in Discord. Please fill it out once you've signed up. The participation questions are optional, and all we ask is your best guess. It's okay if your actual participation turns out to be very different from what you anticipated.

The survey doesn't collect your Google login address, and you can fill it in while entirely logged out of Google. If you prefer not to use the survey, you may email your responses to us instead.

Assignments

There are no official assignments or pinch hits.

Joining teams

After sign-ups close, team placements will be posted to Dreamwidth and Discord. We will do our best to create balanced teams based on what we know about the participants.

Soulstoned will be the mod for Team Volcano. Tavina will be the mod for Team Crystal. lailah_tov will provide spreadsheet support to both teams.

Using Dreamwidth

The Battleship Dreamwidth account is where boards and major game updates will be posted. To subscribe to posts there, create a free Dreamwidth account and then subscribe to see posts on your reading list or track posts to get notifications of them. Links to Dreamwidth posts will also be posted in Discord.

Using Discord

Being in Discord isn't required, but it is both helpful and fun.

Each team has a locked channel for discussing strategy and mutual support. Please don't share information from those channels with people who aren't on that team.

There will be a general discussion channel. There are also channels for explaining tags and boosting fandoms.

If discussion gets too boisterous, mods may employ slowdown to help it chill out a little. Everyone is encouraged to keep the conversation congenial. Please remember that team members are in different time zones and have different amounts of time and energy that they can devote to Battleship, and keep team spaces inclusive of all types of participation.

Posting works

Each team member is limited to posting 7 works per board on board 1 and 2, and 5 works for boss battle 1. In boss battle 2, the cap is 50,000 points, with no cap on the number of works. On board 3, the cap is 10 works; once one team completes board 3, the cap is lifted for all other teams.

Team members may post works to their team collections: Crystal and Volcano.

Treats created by people who aren't on teams may be posted to the main collection. They won't count toward team progress.

Each work must fill a request from someone's main collection sign-up or prompt collection prompt, and be gifted to the requester. Requests may be filled multiple times, and there's no need to claim a prompt before filling it. Anyone can gift a work to anyone; you aren't limited to gifting works to people on your team.

A mod account, Ocean_Purl, will provide open-ended Any/Any, Any & Any, and 1: Any prompts for Creator's Choice of Fandom and Original Work. However, we ask that you try to fill a more specific request before resorting to using these. Works gifted to Ocean_Purl are greatly appreciated, but Ocean_Purl will not leave comments.

If you create for a Creator's Choice of Fandom or Original Work request, please mention in the author's note which request you're fulfilling.

Quality

We understand wanting to cut corners if you need to hit a tag in a hurry. However, please remember this is a gift exchange, and the ultimate goal is to make something that your recipient will enjoy. Make sure your work sufficiently fills the recipient's request or prompt without hitting any relevant DNWs.

After the game is won, there will be a 24-hour editing period. Nonetheless, everything posted should be complete and ready for the recipient to see it. Please don't leave placeholders in titles, summaries, or the work itself. If possible, ask someone to check your work for errors.

Anonymity

Works are as anonymous as you want them to be. It's fine to openly discuss and brainstorm a work with a potential recipient, or to say "I just finished a work that hits tags X, Y, and Z" in team chat. Sequels to your previous works are allowed, art may be watermarked, and podfic may include the podficcer's handle in the recording and on cover art.

Scoring

Board attacks

During board attacks, each claimed tag on a work counts once toward the needed quantity of that tag's square on the current board. In addition, the AO3 labels (ship type, rating, and archive warning(s)) on that work automatically count toward any label goals on the current board.

One tag may be claimed for every 100 words of a fic or podfic. Art may claim as many tags as can be reasonably considered present within the artwork. You can tag the work however you want in AO3's tag field, but only tags listed in the author's note will count toward the Battleship board. You may remove the author's note after the game ends, or keep it for posterity.

Boss battles

During boss battles, works score points. All works scoring more than 10,000 points will count as 10,000 points.

Boss battle 1

Fic and podfic are worth 1 point per word. Images are worth 500 to 1500 points. Images are scored as follows:

• 500: the first character, vehicle, or structure depicted in black (or a single color) and white
• 400: each additional character, vehicle, or structure
• 200: each character, vehicle, or structure depicted in full color
• 200: detailed background

Points for fic and podfic will go by the AO3 wordcount. For art, list the points earned in the author's note to make sure the mods score your artwork correctly.

Example artwork scores:

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (500) flying through the sky (200) in black and white: 700 points
• Daphne and Velma (500 + 400) with the Mystery Machine (400) in orange and white: 1300 points
• Kirk and Spock (500 + 400) on the bridge of the Enterprise (200) in color (400): 1500 points
• Three Neko Atsume cats (500 + 400 + 400) on a porch (200) in gray and white: 1500 points
• King Kong holding Fay Wray (500 + 400) and climbing the Empire State Building (400) in color (600): 1900 points, counts as 1500 points
• An eight-panel comic, each panel showing a different incarnation of Doctor Who with a companion (500 + 400) and the TARDIS (400) in color (600): each individual panel is 1900 points but counts for 1500, and the comic as a whole is 12,000 points but counts for 10,000

Boss battle 2

Team collaboration

Round 1 board

Your team will face a 10x10 board where each square is labeled with a numeric quantity and some tags. The tags jointly contribute to the quantity goal.

Squares may hide traps or treasure. A trap may occupy one or more contiguous squares, and is disarmed when it's fully revealed. All traps must be disarmed in order to fight that board's boss. Treasure is used to reduce the boss's hit points. Each treasure is worth between 400 and 1000 points. The board's total treasure is not more than half the boss's hit points.

In addition, there will be set goals for AO3 labels such as "M/M" or "Major Character Death." These goals must be met for the board to be completed.

Example: A square is labeled "15, First Kiss, Hanahaki." The team posts 9 works that are tagged First Kiss but not tagged Hanahaki, 4 works that are tagged Hanahaki but not tagged First Kiss, and 1 work about hanahaki resolved with a first kiss (which counts twice). This clears the square, revealing treasure worth 1000 points.

Round 1 boss battle

Once all traps on the board are cleared, the team chooses when to give up on seeking further treasure and begin the boss battle. If all 100 squares are cleared, the boss battle begins automatically.

When the boss appears, all the treasure found on that board will be applied to reducing the boss's hit points. Bosses are then defeated by posting works equivalent to their remaining hit points. Works posted during the board-clearing phase do not count toward the boss battle.

Example: If the round 1 boss has 100,000 hit points, and a team has found 35,000 points' worth of treasure, the team will need to post 65,000 points' worth of new works to defeat the boss.

Round 2 board and boss battle

Your team will face a 10x10 board where each square is labeled with a numeric quantity and some tags. The tags jointly contribute to the quantity goal.

Squares may hide crafting materials or dust. Each vein of crafting materials may occupy one or more contiguous squares, and is mined when it's fully revealed. All crafting materials must be acquired in order to fight that board's boss. Dust is used to reduce the boss's hit points. Each square of dust is worth between 400 and 1000 points. The board's total dust is not more than half the boss's hit points.

Example: During round 1, a team posts 16 T-rated works. In round 2, there is a board goal of 20 T-rated works. That team must post 20 new works that are rated T to beat the second board.

Round 3 board (no boss)

After this board has been completely cleared, you win the game!

Strategy

Once the traps are cleared or materials are mined, your team must decide: keep looking for treasure or dust that will make the boss battle easier, or move on to the boss and write write write?

During a boss battle, tags and labels no longer matter. This is a great time to finish any works you left incomplete when their tags or labels stopped being strategically useful.

Don't discard your unfinished works from the first two rounds—they may be useful in round three.

Works are technically anonymous. However, it's fine to openly collude on posting a prompt someone else wants to fill if that will help your team get a needed tag.

Non-team participation

You're welcome to make treats if you see a prompt you like. However, gameplay is only happening between the teams this year.

Game duration

Our goal is for each round to last about a week, but the real competition in Battleship is players vs. mods. No matter how much we try to design a game that will last long enough to be fun, the players always astonish us with the speed and volume of works produced. If the first round goes too quickly, we may make the second one harder. If it goes too slowly, we'll make the second one easier. We want there to be enough time for everyone who signed up to feel like they got to fully participate.

Ending the game

If your team is the first to clear the final board, you've won!

Once a team has won and everyone who requested at least 3 unique fandoms receives a gift, there will be a 24-hour editing period, and then works will be revealed. During the editing period, the other team may continue to work toward clearing its board.

Rest your hands, drink some water, get some sleep. Then enjoy all your gifts and be awed by how much everyone did in such a short time!

Please leave kudos and comments on your gifts, and be understanding if a gift is a little rough around the edges because it was made in haste. Remember that optional details are optional, and be open to getting something gloriously unexpected.

Authors will be revealed two weeks after works are revealed.