RMP Fest 2: IO/TIT Side Event

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

This is the formal announcement for RMP Fest 2: Hay any Worke for Cooper?.

RMP Fest 2 will be a tournament that consists entirely of questions about religion, mythology, and philosophy. It will be completed before first light on November 14, 2009, and thus will be available as a side event to any mirror of IO/TIT. I strongly encourage all IO/TIT locations to pick it up. While it is designed to be a doubles tournament, individual hosts can run it in whichever format they believe will work best for their location.

RMP Fest 2 will be broadly similar to RMP Fest from last year. However, there will be a few differences:

* the distribution will now be 7/0 Religion, 7/0 Mythology, and 7/0 Philosophy.
* there will be 21 tossups per round. Individual locations can decide whether it will be played as rounds of 20 with a tiebreaker, or rounds of 21 with no tiebreaker.
* the tossups will be significantly shorter. I'm aiming for an average length of 7 or 7.5 lines.
* Shantanu Jha has replaced Michael Arnold as philosophy editor
* Dominic Machado has joined us as Classical mythology editor

I will be TD'ing the RMP Fest 2 mirror at Harvard, which will take place on either Sunday or Saturday of Harvard's HFT/IO weekend.

If you would like to run RMP Fest 2 at your IO/TIT mirror, please contact me.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

The per-packet distribution, for those that are curious:

2/0 Classical Mythology
1/0 Norse/Germanic Mythology
1/0 Celtic Mythology
1/0 Other European Mythology (Slavic, Finno-Ugric, etc.)
1/0 Hamito-Semitic/Hittite/Elamite Mythology
1/0 Mythology Grab-Bag (anything else)

2/0 Judeo-Christianity
1/0 Islam
1/0 Hinduism
1/0 East Asian Religion
1/0 Other Asian/Subcontinental Religion
1/0 Religion Grab-Bag (anything else)

2/0 Middle Era/Pre-Socratic Philosophy
1.5/0 Anglo-American/analytical 20th Century Philosophy
1.5/0 Continental 20th Century Philosophy
1/0 Non-Western Thought
1/0 Philosophy Grab-Bag (anything else)

[Pilgrim]

Is Egyptian mythology really being relegated to the "grab bag"?

[dtaylor4]

Is North/South American myth being relegated to the grab bag?

[marnold]

I'm also having a hard time thinking of what

1/0 Non-Western Thought

would mean that isn't usually put under R or M. Also, that's a metric fuckton of 20th century philosophy - learn your Simon Blackburn titles, everyone!

[Auroni]

Asian myth, grab bag, etc.

[Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe]

My non-western thought distribution will tend to be Buddhist/Chinese/Indian philosophy, exemplified by the Yogacara tossup at CATO.

The 20th century philosophy distribution is to account for the Lagavulin induced list of philosophers I've learned about at bars in Bologna. Less Simon Blackburn, more Mario Perniola and Giovanna Borradori. I know Ahmad isn't the only one who finds the work of Adriana Cavarero an effective aphrodisiac.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Is Egyptian mythology really being relegated to the "grab bag"?

The Ancient Egyptians are probably going to be the only Hamitic group represented in the Hamito-Semitic distribution.

[rylltraka]

Dammit, I wanted more questions on Melqart and Astarte.

[theMoMA]

Considering there are only seven spots for myth, that seems about right, as long as Egyptian, American, and Asian myth make up the bulk of the last two spots in the distro.

[DumbJaques]

* there will be 21 tossups per round. Individual locations can decide whether it will be played as rounds of 20 with a tiebreaker, or rounds of 21 with no tiebreaker.

Will tossup 21 be of the usual tossup 21 nature (ie the shittiest tossup in the packet), or will the packets be more or less internally homogeneous?

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

* there will be 21 tossups per round. Individual locations can decide whether it will be played as rounds of 20 with a tiebreaker, or rounds of 21 with no tiebreaker.

Will tossup 21 be of the usual tossup 21 nature (ie the shittiest tossup in the packet), or will the packets be more or less internally homogeneous?

No, we will be writing 210 tossups of equal quality and randomization will determine who is #21.

[DumbJaques]

Cool, thanks. No additional tiebreakers, though, I assume?

[millionwaves]

I'm also having a hard time thinking of what

1/0 Non-Western Thought

would mean that isn't usually put under R or M. Also, that's a metric fuckton of 20th century philosophy - learn your Simon Blackburn titles, everyone!

For everyone's favorite Neo-Humean, can you do any less?

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

RMPFest 2 is currently looking for anywhere between 1-3 additional writers, especially in the following fields:

* Celtic Mythology
* World Mythology
* East Asian Religion
* Any Religion

The position does not come with the title of editor, but you will still be acknowledged as a member of the tournament writing staff and will receive a portion of the profits from the tournament. You should expect to write at least 5, and as many as 10, tossups.

[Kwang the Ninja]

I have 5 World Myth tossups written right now, and I can write more if needed. Do you want them?

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Yes -- what is your email address so I can contact you and add you to the google doc?

[Kwang the Ninja]

[email protected]
We're driving to South Carolina today, but I will take my laptop and hopefully the hotel will have Wifi so I can send them on.

[Kwang the Ninja]

PS I can also do the Celtic myth if you don't find anyone else.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Did you get my email?

[Kwang the Ninja]

Negative. I don't think I typed it wrong before, but just in case, it's [email protected]

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

There seems to be a problem with my school's mail servers not interfacing properly with Google. So please just email me directly:

BruceOnAComputer AT gmail DOT com

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I am pleased to announce that RMPFest will have a trash packet this year. This will replace the worksheet round from last year's RMPFest. All of the answers will be things somehow related to RMP (for instance, there might be a tossup on football players with the last name "Pope"). If you would like to help write the trash packet, please email me.

The trash packet will not cause any decrease in the number of academic questions or packets in the set.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

As RMPFest 2 comes closer and closer to completion, I encourage all quizbowlers interested in playing the premier tournament of Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy to contact their local IO/TIT host and express their interest. I understand that many sites are unsure whether they want to run RMPFest or the rival social science tournament and are looking to YOUR opinion to decide.

[Cheynem]

Can't we run both?

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

It seems unlikely to me that you can run a big tournament like IO PLUS two side events on the same night. What seems far more likely is that if IO/TIT locations run both RMPFest and its competitor, one of the side events is invariably going to get the "bitch seat" and be run either VERY late in the evening (when many people will say "fuck this, I'm tired and going home"), or will be played on Sunday, when much of the field will have left.

Obviously I'd prefer for RMPFest -not- to get the bitch seat.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

There will be a playtesting of R and M questions at 9:00 PM tonight on IRC. All who are not playing this are invited to come.

P is not yet ready for playtesting.

[Cheynem]

9:00 Central or Eastern?

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

If anyone wants to write some philosophy tossups on a sort time notice, I hereby offer you an opportunity to do so. Please contact me ASAP if interested.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

This tournament is done and has been mailed to the hosts.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I have sent the full set to the following sites:

* UIUC
* Maryland
* Guelph
* Harvard

The full set contains the following materials:

* 9 packets of 22 tossups (21 regular tossups, 1 tiebreaker)
* 1 finals packet of 24 tossups (21 regular tossups, 3 tiebreakers)
* 1 trash packet (20 regular tossups, 1 tiebreaker)
* a PDF scoresheet
* a DOC scoresheet

Thus, there is a total of 243 questions in the set.

The finals packet is, on average, more difficult than the other nine packets, but each packet contains a mix of accessible and challenging answer choices. While it is recommended that mirrors read 21 tossups per game, if you believe that your field would be better served by 20 or 22 tossups per game, you may choose to do that instead.

The trash packet, as described above, contains trash (popular culture) answers that are somehow related to myth, religion, or philosophy.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

People in the Mid-Atlantic bring word that RMPFest at UMD has been delayed until Sunday night. Thus the questions are not yet cleared for discussion.

Anurag/Yetman and Jerry (solo) tied by record at Harvard. Any word from UIUC or Canada?

[The Moviegoer]

The Will to Fifteen (Seth/Marnold) defeated Negative Five Dialectics (Sorice/Trygve) in a final to win at UIUC

[maxis7]

People in the Mid-Atlantic bring word that RMPFest at UMD has been delayed until Sunday night. Thus the questions are not yet cleared for discussion.

Anurag/Yetman and Jerry (solo) tied by record at Harvard. Any word from UIUC or Canada?

The Guelph mirror (of both Terrapin and RMPFest) is actually next Saturday

[dtaylor4]

People in the Mid-Atlantic bring word that RMPFest at UMD has been delayed until Sunday night. Thus the questions are not yet cleared for discussion.

Anurag/Yetman and Jerry (solo) tied by record at Harvard. Any word from UIUC or Canada?

Stats are up here.

We ran an 8-team RR, after which Seth/Marnold finished 7-0 and Trygve/Sorice finished at 6-1. Seth and Marnold won the first game of the advantaged final, 105-65 to win the title.

I would like to extend gracious thanks to the writers of the set, as well as to Surya Sabhapathy of Michigan, Lauren Johnson of Minnesota, and Shantanu Jha of Chicago for volunteering to read. Without you guys, this tournament would have been a shambles.

Following the final, a large group of people, including: Mike Sorice, Trygve Meade, Andrew Hart, Brandon Roney, Charlie Dees, Seth Teitler, Bernadette Spencer, Charlie Rosenthal, Rob Carson, and Michael Arnold played on the trash packet. Rob owned all, putting up 70 points. I'm pretty sure Mike had 25, which was second high. I didn't keep score on paper, so I'm just going from memory. I hope everyone had a good time, and I hope to see everyone here in the spring, assuming we host something.

EDIT: It might help to include the URL to the stats.

[dmac587]

I just wanted to give some props to Bruce, Shantanu, Andrew, Tommy, Ahmad and Dallin for putting together what looked to me to be very solid set. Bruce did an excellent job of organizing everything and making sure that all the set was done on time.

I was responsible for all the classical myth in this set and hopefully, it was not a source of too many frustrations. Since this is the first tournament for which I have written for extensively and because I wasn't able to attend any of the mirrors (because I am enslaved to my job), any feedback would awesome. My email address is [email protected].

[AKKOLADE]

Oh, just in case anyone has a burning need to yell about five trash questions, I wrote the ones on Snuffleupagus, the Undertaker, Beyond Good and Evil, Okami and Captain Marvel.