The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is a revised sequel to the first Triacontakaipentagon.

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. Significant changes have been made based on what didn't go over well at the original tournament, as well as general input on how to make this event even better than the much-beloved first incarnation. Mostly, the changes were in the direction of replacing "any academic" and "any trash" type categories with topics from IRC packets, but there are other, subtler differences, so please work entirely from this new topic list below and not from the old thread.

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 exactly four people and not any more or less than that. Individual hosts can decide what to do about non-writing people on the day of their tournaments.

The mantra here is: "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

Category groupings are provided solely for your convenience and are not meant to bind you to any one interpretation of what these side tournaments might have contained beyond what is specified. E.g., your question on India can be on Indian music or an Indian scientist, it doesn't have to be on Indian history as quizbowl would normally define it just because it's listed under "history". However, a question that says "military history" should be on military history, etc -- the point is to be creative within the bounds of the specific subcategory names.

SCIENCE:
A question related to animals
A question on "engineering," however defined
A science question
A math question
A technology question in the spirit of The Questions Concerning Technology

HISTORY:
A question pertaining to India or Indian culture in some way
A question on military history
A question pertaining to "the 20th century"
A question on any event, historical or fictional, that somehow involved at least one citizen of Japan being injured in some way
A question on Byzantine or medieval Slavic history
A history question involving a famous serial killer or incident of murder, in which all factual details are otherwise accurate but all names of victims are replaced with the name "Kirk Jing"
A question involving the history of barbarians (non-Greeks/non-Romans in Europe before 476 CE)

LITERATURE:
A question on Asian literature
A question pertaining to a novella, short story, or poem
A question on classical (ancient Greek/Roman) literature
A question on post-World War II science fiction, children's, or pulp literature (listed here but it's OK if it's something that would clearly be considered "trash lit")

ARTS:
A question on painting from the years 500 to 1250 CE
A question on academic music
A question on architecture

RMP/SS:
A question on something related to Jews or Judaism
A myth question
A social science or philosophy question
A question that could appear in a putative "all-religion side tournament"

TRASH:
A question on anything from trash music as quizbowl defines it
A question on sports
A question on rock music
A question on a specific episode of a TV show, whose answer is the title of the episode
TWO questions on movies occupying any point on the academic/trash spectrum

OTHER:
A question somehow involving hats
A very difficult question of Gaddis-like level
A question on a fictional place (can be academic or trash)
A mashup question in which the answerline is an academic topic combined with the proper name of something from the Star Wars universe
A "your choice" question
A question using good geography parameters ("Tourism, economic impact of the physical landscape, interactions between humans and the environment, political conflict over resources and boundaries, and the impact of place on culture, history, and current events") but whose answer is the name of a city, town or village in Illinois other than Chicago

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.

Please write and randomize a packet containing precisely 1 of each question above (or two where noted). In categories where the broad category itself occurs (e.g. "a science question" under science) that is 1 distinct question in addition to all the other, more specific question subjects listed.

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 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.

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

EDIT: It seems the new distribution is a bit daunting for a reiteration of the "healthy Japanese content" packet. This is most unfortunate. Regardless, I will definitely make a good-faith attempt to assemble a solid "normal" packet for this monstrosity.

However, I raise very strong objections to the question in which people are depicting one of my friends as being murdered gruesomely, for obvious reasons. Brutal murder is not funny, unless you are a sick weirdo who fantasizes about people you don't like getting disembowled. Object as you may to the Modern World Tournament, quizbowl should have higher standards than that, even for a tournament that is evidently not entirely serious.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:EDIT: It seems the new distribution is a bit daunting for a reiteration of the "healthy Japanese content" packet. This is most unfortunate. Regardless, I will definitely make a good-faith attempt to assemble a solid packet for this monstrosity.

I can't say I agree with the ban on anime, but the way you did this for Tricon 2.0 was no fun. I doubt it will be much better this time around. Subverting the distribution in a fun way is great - subverting it to prove a point and inflict misery on everyone else is not.

Cody wrote:

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:EDIT: It seems the new distribution is a bit daunting for a reiteration of the "healthy Japanese content" packet. This is most unfortunate. Regardless, I will definitely make a good-faith attempt to assemble a solid packet for this monstrosity.

I can't say I agree with the ban on anime, but the way you did this for Tricon 2.0 was no fun. I doubt it will be much better this time around. Subverting the distribution in a fun way is great - subverting it to prove a point and inflict misery on everyone else is not.

Oh, I was meaning to imply that I am going to write a normal packet. I've edited my post to reflect this.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:However, I raise very strong objections to the question in which people are depicting one of my friends as being murdered gruesomely, for obvious reasons. Brutal murder is not funny, unless you are a sick weirdo who fantasizes about people you don't like getting disembowled. Object as you may to the Modern World Tournament, quizbowl should have higher standards than that, even for a tournament that is evidently not entirely serious.

This question is designed to represent an actual theme packet read in IRC a few weeks ago about murders. Also, stop concern-trolling for your awful side event.

Gautam and I are collaborating on a packet. I promise not to fantasize about anyone's murder while writing my questions.

Joelle and I are working on a packet, but we can't make the above promise.

I'm going to put myself ahead of this and say that any murder fantasies present in our packet will be the product of Auroni's fiendish mind, not mine.

I might like to write a packet of this if anyone's interested in collaborating.

Cheynem wrote:I might like to write a packet of this if anyone's interested in collaborating.

I would be.

I am fairly certain I will want to take part in this. I will know my exact VCU Open weekend plans at this time next week, but I do hope to be there from Saturday late afternoon through the end of whatever happens on Sunday, thus being available for this wackiness. [in other words, I am open to join a collaboration]

I probably won't be able to actually play this tournament, but I'd like to write for it. I'd prefer to collaborate with someone who can write trash, SS/Philosophy, math, and/or technology, since I'm not very good at writing in those categories.

EDIT: I'm now writing this with Nick Karas.

I plan on writing for this. If anyone wants to collaborate, feel free to contact me.

We need someone to chip in a music, math, and classical lit question for our packet. if you have any lying around, send them to me. Quality is not an issue.

[to Mike] Sure I'll do that. I'll email them to you by Monday, is that OK?

O-tay.

Due to my lethargy in completing my packet, I'm eager to collaborate with other folks if they're interested in doing so.

Several current and former Maggie Walker players are collaborating on a packet for this event. Our final lineup has not yet been determined, but will probably consist of myself, Connor Wood, Patrick Canteros, and Kevin Yuan.

In light of taking on a bunch of new writing commitments, I don't think I'll have time to write the 20-odd questions I need to complete my packet by Saturday. Anyone who wants to take my questions and use them is free to do so. I have questions for:

technology
India
injured Japanese people
Byzantine/Slavic medieval history
Asian literature (can be used as poetry instead)
early painting
myth
"religion side tournament"
rock music
both movies questions
hats
fictional place

I won't be playing the tournament at any physical site, so I don't mind if these get used liberally throughout. I would like to see them used, though, so I'd appreciate it if someone used my questions for their packet. Thanks!

I don't think I have a team for this. If someone wants to add me to their team for this tournament, or if I told you that I'm playing this tournament with you and I forgot, please get in contact with me

Please send your packets to Andrew Feist at [email protected] before Saturday afternoon.

Wiener's team won the VCU mirror. Warning to future sites: be careful where you use the UVA packet.

I am giddy with anticipation.

The Superfluous Man wrote:Warning to future sites: be careful where you use the UVA packet.

Well, let's be clear - the idea for this packet originated with me (though most of the answers were a joint project between Evan & I), and I wrote 26 of the 35 tossups, so it makes little sense to lay any blame at the feet of Tommy or Evan. That said, I've always been confident that every team will have at least one member who will enjoy a not-insignificant-portion of the packet, and sometimes much more (both member-wise and portion-wise). I was pleased with how the packet turned out and played (in the room I was in).

Plus, deciding the championship between the top two teams on that packet was definitely the correct choice - it was an exhilarating game with many lead changes.

The Superfluous Man wrote:Wiener's team won the VCU mirror. Warning to future sites: be careful where you use the UVA packet.

That was by far the best packet in the set*

*two packets weren't read by the time i high-tailed it out because they were finals. UVA's was easily the best packet read during the RR tonight.

There, you see, it was written for a narrowly defined set of Virginians.

Cody Voight killed Tricon.






In more positive news, I'll go ahead and commend St. Luke's and Chicago for making especially whimsical and entertaining packets.

This was fantastic, and I really wish I'd had the opportunity to do this last year. My only concern about this event is that somehow, I cannot recall the Voight et al. packet ever being played--the only coherent memory I have of that timespan seems to be of John Lawrence bouncing with glee as he got another question. The rest is darkness, occasionally accompanied by distant screaming.

I would appreciate if someone who has the packets sent them to me at quercusacerifolia at google's email service.