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ATRL Scattergories: S4 | Thank You!


alexanderao

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Welcome to ATRL Scattergories!

 

When I took my hiatus from ATRL, hosting games was one of the things I missed most. I have fond memories of the countless moments of hilarity and unadulterated fun that Scattergories brought me all those years ago. That’s why I’m so thrilled to be back hosting one of my favorite games of all-time. I first played Scattergories in my sophomore year of high school, during U.S. History 2. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to adapt it for a round in my other game, Persistence, and eventually made the decision to transform it into a tournament of its own.

 

RULES

For those who have never played before, you need to understand how the game is played in real life. In essence, Scattergories is a reverse Family Feud. First, the host picks a letter and several categories. For example, the letter might be "A" and a few categories might be "methods of transportation" and "state capitals." Everyone has a certain amount of time to list things that begin with the given letter and correspond to the given categories. Continuing the example, I might write "airplane" for the "methods of transportation" category, and "Albany" for the "state capitals" category. After time is up, everyone reveals their answers to each other; each person with a unique answer for a given category receives a point. However, if you wrote down the same thing as someone else, neither of you earn a point for it. In our version, each round will include roughly 12-14 categories, with fewer categories for the more difficult letters. I will use Google Forms to collect your entries. You will have several days to submit your entries for each round, and I will unveil each round's results category-by-category live, almost identical to the submission & results processes in ATRL's Family Feud.

 

SCORING

Players will earn points based on how many people came up with unique answers for a given category. You will earn one point for every non-unique or invalid answer. For example, if 5 people submit a non-unique answer, everyone that did submit a unique answer gets 5 points. This system rewards unique answers in more difficult categories. In this example from Season 1, 4 people submitted non-unique answers, so everyone that did submit a unique answer got 4 points:

 

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Additionally, I will make some challenging categories double or triple points, meaning that you'll receive more for coming up with a unique answer. Some rounds may also feature various bonuses and advantages.

 

Players will earn no points for a category if their answer is deemed invalid, even if it is unique. This has been a major point of contention in the past, so I will try to explain clearly and comprehensively what makes an answer invalid. Clarifying questions are welcomed. An answer shall be defined as invalid if it disobeys a specific rule outlined in the category, contains a non-essential adjective, or is not unambiguously sufficiently relevant to the category.

 

BREAKING CATEGORY RULES

Answers that disobey a specific rule outlined in the category are invalid. These tend to be self-explanatory, so I will provide several examples here and hopefully this motivates you to read the categories carefully.

 

Spoiler

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LETTERS AND NAMES

Answers that begin with a different letter than the current round’s letter are, obviously, invalid. When the category requires a response in the form of a proper noun, it should be noted that the first letter of the response is the letter that must match the round letter. Players are not allowed to change the word order of a title. For example, the iconic "Auto, Grand Theft" was not a valid answer. “The Weeknd” would only be a valid response during the “T” round. If the response is a name, the name will be displayed in accordance with traditional naming customs. For example, “Abe Shinzo,” the correct presentation of the Japanese Prime Minister’s name, would only be a valid response during the “A” round. Adding honorifics to alter the first letter of a name is disallowed.

 

Spoiler

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NON-ESSENTIAL ADJECTIVES

A non-essential adjective shall be defined as an adjective that does not differentiate an object in function, substance, or value in a manner relevant to the category. Consider again the “methods of transportation” example category referenced above. Clearly, if we were in the C round, “car” would be a valid answer for this category. However, suppose that the letter for the round was instead B. One might think of submitting “blue car” in this case. However, that would be invalid because “blue” is a non-essential adjective. A blue car is functionally no different from a car of any other color. Adding “blue” does not make it a distinct method of transportation and therefore it is substantively as if the answer was simply “car."

 

In contrast, suppose the category was “a baked good.” Of course, “cookie” would be a valid answer. Would “sugar cookie” also be valid? Yes. A sugar cookie is a distinct type of cookie that is substantively different from, say, an oatmeal raisin cookie. Thus, “sugar” is an essential adjective in this scenario. The fundamental goal of the non-essential adjective policy is to encourage creativity in answers and prevent players from simply appending adjectives to the beginning of a thing or phrase in order to make valid answers. The line between essential and non-essential can get blurry, so I suggest you try hard to avoid adjective-laden answers in those cases. My judgment on whether an adjective is non-essential is final.

 

NOT SUFFICIENTLY RELEVANT

Scattergories rewards the discovery of obscure, esoteric knowledge, and I always get excited when I learn something new from someone’s answer. That being said, compiling results is already a very time-consuming process, and it is slowed further when someone submits an answer that I need to spend a long time researching to confirm its validity. If I cannot find unambiguous evidence of an answer’s validity in a reasonable amount of time, I will mark it as invalid. To prevent this from happening, if you know your answer is obscure, please send me an explanation or link to a reputable source justifying it. Even if an answer is not obscure, it may simply be irrelevant to the category at hand. Note that “a term” does not mean “a name,” with very rare exceptions. Answers can also be deemed not sufficiently relevant for being too generic. Suppose the category is “something you would find specifically in a hotel.” The crux of this category is to come up with things that you would observe much more commonly in a hotel than in other places. Thus, answers like “TV,” “bed,” or “rug” would be invalid because those objects are ubiquitous outside hotel settings. An answer like “room service” would be much stronger.

 

LOGISTICS

The game will last 15 rounds, and each round will have roughly 12-14 categories. These are notable decreases from previous seasons, as I found that it became difficult to generate viable categories as rounds went on. The goal this season is to have fewer categories overall but more high-quality, competitive ones.

 

Players will have 1-2 days to submit their responses for each round. Results will be revealed category-by-category live in this thread the day after the round deadline (perhaps the night of if the deadline is in the morning).

 

Players will be permitted unlimited answer changes before the deadline. After the deadline, each player will be permitted one answer change which must be used within 30 minutes of the deadline.

 

The winner shall be the player who accumulates the most points after the 15th round. There is no elimination in this game, and players may join or quit at any time. That said, I would still like to compile an initial signup list to assess the overall level of demand for the game. 

 

All that being said, I am so excited to kick things off and I would love to have you play ATRL's Most Educational Game!

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1. Element

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