As Joe mentioned in another thread, it would be nice to see a compiled list of all the different variants (terminology which seems to please Joe) of Contenders. So here's a start:

Bowling by me

Duellists by Chris Bennett

Gladiators by Andrew Kenrick

Pet monsters by Nick Novitski

Along the lines of Malcom Craig's Strike!, I'm planning to run a Contenders game at Dreamation, tweaked for superheroic play.
Contenders seems perfect for portraying supers dealing with the balance of power and responsibility. Only some name changes are in order, and I'd like feedback on the following ideas.

Contenders Term / Revised Term
Hope/Motivation
Cash/Information
Pain/Responsibility
Reputation/ Q Score

Also, Scene Types get new names
Contenders Scene / Game Scene
Connection / Organization
Work / Investigation
Training / Danger Room
Promotion / Planning

I was thinking about ways of using Contenders that don't involve fighting.

Why not...bowling.

The characters are all semi-professional bowlers, losers in life who only have bowling to look forward to and keep them going. They don't have many friends outside of the bowling scene. Bowling is pretty important to them. In fact, it's pretty much everything to them.

So ever since the thread on the Forge about setting a game of Contenders in Renaissance France with competitive fencing, I've been mulling over an idea for running Contenders set in ancient Rome world with gladiators instead of boxers. I'm planning to run it at Conception, but am wondering whether the game can be run "as is."

The world of the gladiator was very much like the world of Contenders - gladiatorial combat was a sport, after all, albeit a far more brutal sport than boxing. So the basic structure of the game will stay the same, but I think that some consideration needs to be placed on this brutality.