The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is the announcement for this year’s iteration of Triacontakaipentagon. The intended timeframe for this event to run is during the massive collection of side events that seem to be gravitating towards becoming the "Second Open" this summer.

This will be a totally guerilla (that is, 100% unedited, free of charge, and whatever "casual" may mean) tournament.

This tournament will require you to write a 35-tossup, no-bonus packet, containing 1 question representing each of the 35 subjects below. As always, the distribution has changed from last time to reflect new and exciting possibilities in question topics.

Note: Since this is a guerilla event, sites may expect you to staff the tournament on your bye. Thus, teams formed in advance to write should consist of no less than four people.

The mantra here i-s: "Write on creative and difficult things that are too weird or too hard to include in any other quizbowl tournament, but that you still might expect someone, somewhere to answer." Don't go too far in either the standard-ACF-Nationals canon or in the "let's just write on things that I know the best players in quizbowl can't get to prove I can do it" directions. The Hirsch, Weiner, Adams, Douglass, and Carson packets from the original set are the best examples of the tone we are going for here.

Distribution

SCIENCE:

-A question on a scientist/inventor who died doing science or on something related to a scientist’s death in the line of duty
-A question on pseudoscience, crackpot theories, or conspiracy theories related to science
-A math question with two answers required

HISTORY:

-A question on Canadian history whose answer is neither a province nor a prime minister
-A question on Byzantine or medieval Slavic history
-A question on foreign relations between two or more countries

RMP:

-A question from a hypothetical “hard side tournament exclusively on Christianity”
-A question about Roman myth or legend with little or no Greek counterpart
-A question on a (living or dead) philosopher who is not a white male, or their work

SS:

-A question from a social science other than economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or linguistics, that is on an answer that has never come up in quizbowl before
-A good linguistics question whose answer is the name of a specific language

MISC ACADEMIC:

-A question on a neighborhood, street, or other division of a city smaller than the city itself but bigger than a single building or structure, that is located in an English-speaking city that is not New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or London
-A question whose answer is a question (e.g. a question on “Who is John Galt?” but not that)
-A question on something John Swartzwelder would like or the “menacing old-timey Americana” aesthetic
-A question for a putative high school tournament with a 1/0 gym distribution
-An “in popular culture” question (a question where the answer is something academic but all the clues are trash)
-A question on a “lost canon” topic (something very popular in quizbowl before 2005 that has rarely come up since)
-A question from any academic category whose answer is something without a Wikipedia page and which contains no clues that can be learned from Wikipedia

LITERATURE:

-A Brazilian literature question not on Amado, Machado, or Lispector
-A question related to one or more anonymous authors
-A question on literary animals

ARTS:

-A score clue-heavy music question where all non-English language terms are replaced with the name “Mike Cheyne”
-A question on nonwestern visual art
-An architecture question whose answer is not a specific building, a geographical place, or an architect

TRASH/META:

-A question directly related to Twitter
-A question related to a famous incident of cheating (can be academic, trash, or meta)
-A question on a PG or PG-13 rated film from the 1980s
-A question on comic books or graphic novels with no Marvel or DC content (can be “serious” graphic novels or independent superhero comics, just not Marvel or DC)
-A question whose answer is the title of a specific TV show episode
-A question on standup comedy
-A question on a former Name of the Year contestant
-A question on a specific line from a movie
-A question on a thing from baseball that isn’t the name of a player or team
-A question (trash or academic) on something that rhymes with “Tron,” but isn't Tron, where power is awarded for answering in the form of Matt Morrison ("hey dudes have y'all seen ______”)
- A question (trash or academic) on something that rhymes with “Chris Ray,” but isn’t Chris Ray, where power is awarded for answering in the form “anyone, even ___-ay”

Note -- due to overuse at the first Tricon, the following topics are completely banned from this tournament and may not appear in your questions in any way:
*Anime
*The painter Duccio
*The early 90s rap group Arrested Development
*The Salman Rushdie novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Also, you should not write more than 1 tossup in your packet whose answer is the name of an album of music.

No “theme packets” are permitted. You know what this means.

Please write and randomize a packet containing precisely 1 of each question above (or two where noted).

Be as creative as possible and write on whatever difficulty or particular subject you want within the stated parameters. What constitutes a question "on" or "pertaining to" some thing is totally up to your interpretation within the limits of common sense, good faith, and not trying to be more clever than you are, as specified above. Questions should contain superpowers and powers, and probably be around 7 lines long on average, but do what makes sense for each category.

This tournament costs $0 to play and will be edited by no one. There will be a central collator (most likely this will end up being me) whose job is solely to collect the packets from each participating team across the various sites and send out the full compilation of packets for use. It would also be appreciated if you include the list of contributors *in the body of the email*.

Use this thread to form teams and let people know that you are writing or have completed a packet.

List of received packets:
-Will and Kenji
-Mike Cheyne
-Eric Douglass
-Mehigan, et al.

I hereby declare my intention to write for and play this delightful distribution.

I'd be so into this. I have a lot of ideas that didn't get into FTP 1 that can go into here. If someone need a teammate who knows sports and can write goofy tossups, I'd love to play with you!

Even though I might not be able to play, I would love to write for this packet. Sign me up!

I remember brainstorming a bunch of these categories with my own self-interest in mind, so I'm looking for a team for this. No guarantees, though, other than my assurance that I will certainly underperform relative to your expectations.

Can we get a list of submitted packets?

Cheynem wrote:Can we get a list of submitted packets?

The initial post has been edited as such.

I'm working on one. Hopefully we can get enough packets to run this thing. If not, I'll still read mine at VCU.

Ethnic history of the Vilnius region wrote:I'm working on one. Hopefully we can get enough packets to run this thing. If not, I'll still read mine at VCU.

I feel like in the past when I collected packets for this most of them showed up in the 24-48 hours before the tournament.

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:I hereby declare my intention to write for and play this delightful distribution.

My ability to write said packet unfortunately got eaten by the number of hours I wound up working this summer. Sorry, folks. :(

I'm almost done with a packet, although I ignored the distribution at times (or I guess, more accurately, took a very strange interpretation of some of the categories).

Cheynem wrote:I'm almost done with a packet, although I ignored the distribution at times (or I guess, more accurately, took a very strange interpretation of some of the categories).

That's the best way to write this!

Anyone potentially interested in collaborating on a packet? Hit me up.

Update: I have R Rosenberg writing a five q's now (maybe more, we'll see.) Would help if someone could write a music score tu for the packet. I should be able to knock out 15 or so q's today.