Lore Dump: Expanded Universe (summer 2024)

[anderson]

Hi everyone!

This is an announcement for Lore Dump: Expanded Universe, a tournament heavily inspired by Patrick Quion and Purdue's Lore Dump and Lore Dump 2 events. This event will be written by a group of my friends - we have Patrick's approval but otherwise aren't related to the writing team for the other Lore Dumps, so consider this a spin-off instead of a sequel.

We plan on writing at least 7 packets of 20 tossups each, with a decent chance of more. Like the other Lore Dumps, tossups will be about fictional lore, with a focus on "geekdom" (sci-fi, fantasy, etc.), and purely use in-universe clues. The topic distribution will be similar to Lore Dump 2, with maybe a slightly larger emphasis on video games and "online" content (including webcomics). We're also aiming for a similar overall difficulty to Lore Dump 2, and hope that anyone who enjoyed that event will similarly have fun with this one.

We currently have ~100 tossups written, though editing hasn't started yet. If anyone would like to use this for a side event weekend or something, the set should be ready by May 2024 (and will be free to play), and we'll probably also run an online tournament sometime during the summer.

[Cheynem]

Nice to see other people trying a hand on this.

I'm wondering if a tournament like this could work that puts less emphasis on "geekdom" popular culture--obviously, sci-fi/fantasy type things seem very much the best place to mine clues from, but I might try doing something else in this vein yet focusing on different genres (I feel like you'd be focusing heavily on fake businesses of some sort?).

[L.H.O.O.Q.]

I'm wondering if a tournament like this could work that puts less emphasis on "geekdom" popular culture--obviously, sci-fi/fantasy type things seem very much the best place to mine clues from, but I might try doing something else in this vein yet focusing on different genres (I feel like you'd be focusing heavily on fake businesses of some sort?).

A few of my ideas for Lore Dump 2 were in this vein of cluing realistically-plausible stories, but it was a matter of set philosophy to avoid those. I think this would be cool to do, though.

[Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!]

I will similarly share the hype for this event. Happy to either play or chip in some questions if you need.

I'm wondering if a tournament like this could work that puts less emphasis on "geekdom" popular culture--obviously, sci-fi/fantasy type things seem very much the best place to mine clues from, but I might try doing something else in this vein yet focusing on different genres (I feel like you'd be focusing heavily on fake businesses of some sort?).

Yeah I agree here that exploring the "lore" of less geek-y pop culture could be pretty cool. For instance, more mainstream shows like Suits, Succession, White Lotus, etc all have a lot of room to do "lore-based" questions. I think it would be really interesting to get a few lore dump-style questions on, say, Seinfeld, but that breaks a bit with the "like a historian" writing style the set has taken in the past.

I just want my rewatch of Coronation Street to be rewarded.

[anderson]

Just to give a quick update on this, the questions have been written (enough for 7 packets, though it's looking like we'll end up with 8) and editing is underway. The distribution is looking approximately like:
5 TV (split evenly among live action/animated)
5 video games
5 literature (including ~1 comics)
2 movies
3 other ("online" content like webcomics goes here, along with other miscellaneous topics that don't fit elsewhere)

Regarding the earlier discussion in this thread, this tournament will have a decent chunk of questions on mainstream, non-SF/fantasy pop culture (hopefully in the Lore Dump spirit), though the focus is certainly still on the geek-y universes.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Very exciting! Looking forward to this