The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hello everyone, I am pleased to announce MUSES II, the sequel to last years MUSES. This set will have a similar distro to last year's version, with somewhat major tweaks to improve playability. The set will consist of 8 packets of 20 tossups. The set will also have powers, but unlike last year's version, there will not be superpowers. The set will still be open level and will still be very whimsical. We will be charging $10 per player for mirrors of this event. If you are interested in mirroring this set, please email me at bamclai2 AT utexas.edu

The writing team for this set will consist of Mitch McCullar, Iain Carpenter, Bradley McLain, Ethan Ashbrook, Raul Passement, Ben Miller, and Tim Cho. We are aiming to have the set done by Summer of 2021 (with a more specific date TBD).

This year's distribution will be as such:
2 Calliope
-.66 Ancient Epics
-.66 Modern Epics
-.66 Other Epic (mostly film)
2 Clio
-1 Ancient Greco-Roman History
-1 Ancient non-Greco-Roman History
2 Euterpe
-1 Classical Music
-.5 "Other" Art Music
-.5 Pop Music
2 Urania
-1 Science
-.5 Pre-modern Astronomy/Astrology
-.5 Pop Culture/Cultural Depictions of Astronomy
2 Polyhymnia
-1 Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals
-1 Non-Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals
2 Thalia
-.8 pre-1900 Comedy Literature (including drama, novels, and short stories)
-.8 post-1900 Comedy Literature (including drama, novels, and short stories)
-.4 Other Comedy (including stand up, sketch, and film)
2 Melpomene
-.8 pre-1900 Tragic Literature (including drama, novels, and short stories)
-.8 post-1900 Tragic Literature (including drama, novels, and short stories)
-.4 Other Tragedy (primarily film)
2 Erato
-1 Love Poetry
-1 "Other Emotion" Poetry
2 Terpsichore
-1 Western Art Dance
-.5 "World" Dance
-.5 Pop Culture
2 Mythology
-1 Greco-Roman
-1 Other Near-East/Greater Mediterranean Mythology (may include religious narrative content and a small amount of other mythologies)


Additionally, each category may contain "thought" type content as appropriate (eg literary criticism, philosophy, social science, historiography, and mythography). Like last year's version, categories will be interpreted as loosely as needed to keep the set playable and fun.

EDIT: a few updates to distro, namely fixing ratio in epics and reverting myth distro back to the previous MUSES distro
EDIT: changes to bonus configuration

Illinois Admin wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:30 pm 2 Polyhymnia
-1 Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals
-1 Non-Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals

Are there really enough hymns for a second set with this many hymns?

Aside from the unwelcome introduction of "novels," this looks very enjoyable.

justinfrench1728 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:45 pm

Illinois Admin wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:30 pm 2 Polyhymnia
-1 Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals
-1 Non-Ancient Hymns/Prayers/Musical Rituals

Are there really enough hymns for a second set with this many hymns?

We are expanding our hymns to include more prayers, sacred texts, and chants than we did the first time in order to maintain playability. There will still be plenty of true hymn content so for those of you who enjoyed the hymns the first time around, do not despair!

Cheynem wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:45 pm Aside from the unwelcome introduction of "novels," this looks very enjoyable.

Fear not, the focus of the tragedy and comedy will still be drama! The novels and short stories have been added to give a bit of flexibility to include some of our personal favorite comedic/tragic literature as well as to increase the amount of creative common links we can (reasonably) do.

Looking forward to this, although I wonder if you're wasting a lot of effort by producing 12 packets with bonuses. That's an awful lot for something most likely to be run as a summer side event. I suspect most of your mirrors will do no more than 8 packets, with others closer to 6.

MORE PACKETS, MO MONEY

We will be writing at least 10 packets in order to ensure that UIUC can run a full tournament with finals at the 2020 iteration of Side Event Weekend. Once we have more written and have a better idea of when we will be finishing I will update with how many packets we are going to have for sure.

Mike Bentley wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:55 pm Looking forward to this, although I wonder if you're wasting a lot of effort by producing 12 packets with bonuses. That's an awful lot for something most likely to be run as a summer side event. I suspect most of your mirrors will do no more than 8 packets, with others closer to 6.

Actually what I strongly suspect will happen is that a lot of mirrors will just ignore the bonuses and play more packets.

Just an update, we are setting the completion deadline as no later than July 18th. We are also no longer reserving the set for the Illinois Side Event Weekend (although it may still end up being mirrored there) and are opening it to be mirrored any side event weekend type events, Chicago Open, and/or any other events I am forgetting.

Due to the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic, we are electing to postpone this set until summer of 2021. If things make a sudden turnaround we may have this set available for any Summer side events this summer.

There has been a change to the bonus structure of this set, which is now reflected in the OP

We are excited to announce that Ben Miller of U Chicago has joined the set and will be contributing to Clio/history!

We are still working on an expected finish date, we will likely wait until ACF Nats and CO's dates are announced to finalize the completion date in order to give the best chance of this set being played in person.

Hello everyone! We have been informed that the odds of an in-person side event weekend being hosted at UIUC this summer are very slim. Because such a side event tournament was the primary reason for having this set be of the scale that it was originally announced, we have decided to cut down its scope to make it more playable in more standard side event settings. This will be in the form of 1) reducing the number of packets from 10-12 to 8 and 2) removing bonuses. Some categories have already been written to the 10 packet limit and the extra questions will either be repurposed as tiebreakers or be used in a future side event/vanity packet. We hope these changes maximize the enjoyment derived from this set!

The announcement has been edited to reflect these changes.

Will there be an online mirror of this?

If there is interest in another mirror, whether in person or online, we will arrange or allow someone else to arrange it.

Interested in a mirror

A date poll for an online mirror has been posted

With the online mirror finished that is the last scheduled mirror of the set. If enough folks would like to host a mirror this semester (or would like a second online mirror to play) we will arrange for that to happen. Otherwise the set will be posted to the archives in the next week or so.

The packets have been posted. If you spot any errors please let me know and keep your eyes open for any exciting things on the horizon