Announcement: THING

[Is it the myth?]

I am pleased to announce the Tournament of Hard, Interesting, or Notable Gnosis (THING), a collaborative set by a number of UK universities. The tournament will be head edited by Andrew Rout and Michael Kohn, and subject edited by Daniel Lawson, Michael O’Connor, Ben Russell Jones, Fatima Sheriff, and Rishi Sundar.

THING will be played in the Scotbowl format, with a 30/20 format played until either the tossups or bonuses run out. The tossups are shorter, with most being between 2 and 3 lines of size 10 Times New Roman. Tossups are worth 10 points, and bonuses are worth 5 points each. The philosophy behind this format can be found in the 2020 Scotbowl announcement. Given the different question philosophy, the difficulty is difficult to describe, so we suggest looking at the 2019 edition of Scotbowl. To address some of the timing issues faced by previous tournaments, we will be implementing a game clock on the UK site (the length of which will be determined in playtesing).

We are planning on producing 13 packets, including one designated finals packet, with the following distribution (included within each of the “major categories” is one common link starter per packet):
4/2.66 History (1/0.66 each of British adjacent, European, World; 0.5/0.33 each of American, Writer’s choice)
4/2.66 Literature (1.5/1 Anglophone; 1/0.66 each of European, World; 0.5/0.33 Writer’s Choice)
5/3.33 Science (1/0.66 each of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Other)
3/2 Fine Arts (1/0.66 each of VFA, AFA, OFA)
2/1.33 Thought (1/0.66 each of Philosophy, Religion&Myth)
1/0.66 Social Science
2/1.33 Geography (1/0.66 each of Physical, Human)
1/0.66 Current Events
5/3.33 Trash (1/0.66 each of Visual, Auditory, Sport; 2/1.33 Writer’s Choice)
3/2 Misc (Writer’s Choice)

We aim to run the main UK event in August/September of 2022, so the tournament will be available for mirroring from that date onwards, with a mirror fee of $40/team.

We are happy to answer any questions you have about the set.

[Is it the myth?]

UPDATE: We have now added Ali Izzatdust, Delia Cropper, and Oliver Church to the writing team, with Oliver also joining the editing team. Ben Russell Jones has also become one of our head editors.

We plan on running the main British site on Saturday the 13th of August, so mirrors will be open from that point onwards at a cost of $40 per team. Please email [email protected] if you are interested in hosting a mirror.
We also plan to run an online playtest on the 6th of August, which will be announced in a separate forum post.

EDIT: The tournament will now consist of 13 packets, with two designated finals packets. The original announcement will be updated to reflect this.