Could I ask you to clarify the build and favourite features of your characters (as this was the main criteria of the competition)? I have read through your poem and derived the following best guesses:

3rd Edition
Race: Elf
Level: 10
Classes: Bard
Favourite Class Feature: Use Magic Device being a class skill?
Favourite Feats: Keen elven weapon training -is this a feat? Precise Shot

4th Edition
Race: Eladrin
Level: 10
Class: Bard
Favourite Race or Class Feature: Eladrin Intelligence Bonus
Favourite Powers: Majestic Words – is this a power? Vicious Mockery – I don’t have PHB2 but believe this is a power.
Favourite Feats: Jack of All Trades

Is this correct?

Yes, some people asked their friends to come and vote. As Snakebait says, it wasn’t very clear who was going to come to vote *apart* from people specifically invited by or on behalf of a participant. The votes started at a total of 26 on the first day, which is presumably the core readership who found out about this by some means other than being asked by a participant; rose pretty steadily to over 100 on the 5th day (Lawrence Greyson vs Kithran); then over 200 both the last two. Apart from day 4 and the final, the runner-up each round got more votes than the winner had in the previous round.

I see no reason to believe that there was ballot-stuffing. 152 isn’t a big number; it is perfectly possible to have well over than 152 friends (just looking at Facebook, I have over 500 listed, all of whom I know in real life) and presumably some of the 107 people who voted the on day 5 voted too. Sure it was a popularity contest, but it always was.

Disclaimer: Yes, I came here because a mutual friend told me Kate had entered. I signed up exactly once, read the entries, and voted exactly once each day, for the entry I liked best. As far as I can tell that’s more or less exactly how it was meant to work. Like Snakebait, I’m a bit surprised WotC haven’t used this as more of a selling opportunity for all the people lured here.

Voting on a forum with no existing traffic was always going to reduce this to a popularity contest though - who else is going to come across these polls other than people who were directed here by tub-thumping finalists and their friends? It’s not as though there are 10,000 neutrals whose voting would be solely on merit and eliminate the effect of a few dozen partisan votes unless it really was a close count.

Presumably the organisers were happy with this otherwise they’d have had their judges pick the winners.

I am intrigued though, given that the idea behind the voting must have been to get people to visit the site, there doesn’t seem to be anything else put on the site that’s likely to keep people coming back. I was expecting some sort of hook. Am I looking in the wrong place?