I had my players participating in tournaments: a race, a shooting contest, and a armed martial arts tournament.

The race was a standard race and the shooting contest was marksman ship competition.

I wanted to figure something different for the martial arts than just rolling against 2 purple so I decided to have it be a touch contest where the player rolled against the opponent's skill. They ranged from 1 purple to 3 reds and 2 purple. The players loved it and said that they really felt the tension!

Awesome! Nothing wrong with the odd competitive skill check now and again to get the idea of a competative enviroment.

I guess the thing about the marital arts tourney is that it's so much about how you preform the battle rather then that you did. After all DQ's, fouls and such are all part of the fun.

I gave my players plenty of opportunities to sabotouge the enemy both before and during the game. The poor Devronian gunner who was the best in the shooting contest ended up with a ton of black dice because they got him so drunk the night before that he was still drunk the day of. He was on the verge of passing out the whole contest and then one of my players decided to switch his water for vodka!