Holiday Hippopotamus Invitational Packets (October/November 2023)

[a_random_squid]

Hello everyone! I’m incredibly excited to announce the inaugural Holiday (Halloween?) Hippopotamus Invitational. The packets have been written and edited by members of the George Washington University Quiz Bowl Team, with myself serving as the head editor. We intend to host this tournament during either the last Saturday of October or the first Saturday of November, depending on the preferences of attending teams.

Much like the glorious hippo, we wanted to create a packet that was more well-rounded, in an attempt to create a packet that was both fun to write and read. We have aimed for a 1.5-2 dot difficulty. The 12, 20/20 packets have the following distribution:

2.5/2.5 - History
2/2 - Religions/Beliefs
1.5/1.5 - Social Sciences
2.5/2.5 - Literature
2.5/2.5 - Science
2/2 - Fine Arts
1.5/1.5 - Sports
1.5/1.5 - Media
1/1 - Music
3/3 - Misc. Trash (including but not limited to Trash Lit, Current Events, Internet Culture)


We are open to having mirror tournaments run - if you are interested in either hosting a mirror or competing at the tournament, please send me a message at kuchimanchi [dot] sid [at] gmail [dot] com.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

Does anyone on the team that produced this set have any prior experience writing or editing for sets with an interscholastic audience? Either way, do you have plans to playtest this set with experienced writers/editors/players before running it?

6/6 pop culture per packet at the expense of the usual "Big Three" academic categories (7/7 if the "Music" is popular music) is also abnormally high. At that level, this is better classified as a "hybrid tournament" than as academic quizbowl, and I'd be somewhat concerned if a circuit chose to mirror this set while leaving a more typically academic set unscheduled.

[a_random_squid]

We do have experience writing packets, but it has been minimal with regard to interscholastic competition. That's been a consequence of there not really being many opportunities to packet write, especially over the past year. We do intend on playtesting - that is something I meant to add to the original post. The ideal date would be mid-late September for a playtest, and we would sincerely appreciate any interest in being part of a playtest.

As for the distribution - our intent was to have this be a hybrid tournament. I've had conversations with members from other teams that have inquired as to whether or not there would be mirrors, which is why I mentioned it. If this isn't the right place to put a hybrid tournament, I completely understand - I just felt as though placing this as a "trash" tournament wouldn't accurately represent the content of the packet, given that a significant portion of it is primarily focused on pure academic responses.

[emf484848]

As someone who doesn’t have the time or energy or desire to be competent at high-level collegiate academic quizbowl, I would really look forward to playing a good set with this kind of distribution. I’m all for more sets like this one. I’ll see if I can get a team of friends together at Lehigh to hopefully play a mirror.

Wishing GWU success with this endeavor!

[Krazy]

As I told Sid privately we, at Syracuse, were really looking for a hybrid to play this year and this seemed like a good opportunity when he brought it up. I understand the fear in scheduling a hybrid with a slightly more inexperienced writing team but personally I feel as hybrids have a place in intercollegiate quiz bowl and also make team construction much more challenging and so I feel that this has a place on our circuit's schedule and that is why Syracuse is considering mirroring this set.

[dni]

HUTTO HUTTO

[Adventure Temple Trail]

We do intend on playtesting - that is something I meant to add to the original post. The ideal date would be mid-late September for a playtest, and we would sincerely appreciate any interest in being part of a playtest.

That's great to hear! I'm not sure what my own availability looks like, but I imagine a decent number of more experienced folks would be happy to help out. (After all, it gives elder quizbowlers the chance to do two of their favorite things: (a) "play quizbowl questions for free" and (b) "have opinions.")

Usually, editors of an upcoming set do one or more of (a) read each packet as it is completed to a Discord channel [or similar platform] over audio, doing a bit per session across a few days (b) the same re: Discord audio, but divide up sessions category-by-category, so people with more interest/specialty in a particular category can show up for those days (c) run an "online playtest mirror" where full teams straight up play a tournament on the set, and share their thoughts/notes with the editing team afterward. In some cases, one might (d) invite a trusted advisor into the collaborative docs for the set to leave comments. Keep us posted!

As for the distribution - our intent was to have this be a hybrid tournament. I've had conversations with members from other teams that have inquired as to whether or not there would be mirrors, which is why I mentioned it. If this isn't the right place to put a hybrid tournament, I completely understand - I just felt as though placing this as a "trash" tournament wouldn't accurately represent the content of the packet, given that a significant portion of it is primarily focused on pure academic responses.

This is the right place to put hybrid tournaments -- past examples, such as the semi-regular Ontario Hybrid event from Canada, have gone on this subforum.


Also, I should add: You all clearly put thought into choosing this distribution, and are pretty sure this is the right choice for your event -- and as Eddie and Daniel indicate above, it does look like there is interest. I think I was assuming that you were unaware of circuit norms, which was uncharitable of me; for that, I apologize.

As backstory: Many people who put effort into academic quizbowl have seen cases in the past where clubs slide down a slope from regular engagement in academic quizbowl tournaments to more and more focus on pop culture; in many cases, those clubs soon turn entirely inward and/or cease to exist, leaving interested new players without a place to play. There were long stretches when GWU was one of those clubs -- to my great sadness, since I grew up in DC and started playing quizbowl there. I'm very glad to see you all engaging more with the circuit/community recently, and am hopeful this is a step forward towards more of that.

For similar reasons, I also think the "both fun to write and read" phrasing in the first post raised my hackles a bit. In one interpretation, it might imply that academic quizbowl is not "fun," the existing community is doing everything wrong by toiling to create it, and all tournaments should be (at least) 30% pop culture by volume instead. But more charitably, you probably meant that academic quizbowl is fun, and an occasional event with a different focus might provide a different kind of fun sometimes too. Personally, I'm not too worried about 1-2 hybrid tournaments a year, at a difficulty well below the Regionals or Nationals level sets that the most intense academic players focus on, assuming the latter attitude. I would be worried if more of them started crowding out interest in (or cannibalizing fields from) academic sets throughout the year.

[ryanrosenberg]

We do have experience writing packets, but it has been minimal with regard to interscholastic competition. That's been a consequence of there not really being many opportunities to packet write, especially over the past year. We do intend on playtesting - that is something I meant to add to the original post. The ideal date would be mid-late September for a playtest, and we would sincerely appreciate any interest in being part of a playtest.

As for the distribution - our intent was to have this be a hybrid tournament. I've had conversations with members from other teams that have inquired as to whether or not there would be mirrors, which is why I mentioned it. If this isn't the right place to put a hybrid tournament, I completely understand - I just felt as though placing this as a "trash" tournament wouldn't accurately represent the content of the packet, given that a significant portion of it is primarily focused on pure academic responses.

I forgot how the PM feature works, so -- I'd be interested in playtesting and echo Matt's thoughts about hybrid tournaments.

[Alkres]

when and where will this be playtested? i would like to participate.

[a_random_squid]

We will aim to playtest online (Discord) sometime toward the end of September/early October - I don't want to make any official announcements just yet as I need to gauge the availability of staffers for an online playtest first. I will update this thread and post something in the playtest forums once I have a more concrete date.