I designed/hosted a guild scavenger/race. Pick a starting point (which would be one of the character creation points), and a finish line. Along the way they would have to gather items that could be found in the wild (wool from sheep, reagents, gems (from killing monsters), one of the most fun and valuable things to "gather" was small tamed/herded animals like rabbits or birds...it would slow them down, and they were hard to keep alive on the race, but they were worth the most points. Oh yeah, and everybody had to do it with newbie characters, and you would assign them names at the start of the competition to ensure they made new characters. That way simple things like killing a monster became very challenging and also gave contestants a little bit of fun customizing a template to pursue a strategy (like taming to go after birds, or healing to ensure survivability). Additional points were awarded for whomever crossed the line 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and once 50% of the contestants crossed the finishing line, the rest were eliminated. So players had to gamble on whether or not to race like hell and ensure they weren't eliminated but this meant less time to gather items. Sounds more complicated than it actually is. The event was a success and everyone had great fun.
