I could be wrong, but I don’t think Ron viewed the Ronnies as having any element of being “invitational”. From my POV Ron seems to have an idiosyncratic element of egalitarianism where he thinks beginners and veterans are equally capable of designing an RPG.

Personally I am annoyed with the way Game Chef doesn’t really value the things I think are important, but an “invitational” contest seems like an odd idea to me. Why not just do things with the structure of the contest itself to emphasize different priorities, and then rely on self-selection the way other contests do?