Let me tell you about Conundrums
A new quiz format that we stole and kind of made our own.
It's off-season at B612, which means we have time to take a break from Mimir quizzing and try out some silly new formats. I'd like to tell you about one of them.
Round Britain is probably the world's oldest running quiz. It's broadcasted on BBC's Radio 4, though you'd probably find it easier to listen to the equivalent podcast, called BBC Radio 4 Quiz.
I have long adored Round Britain's style of questions. They sound like gibberish when they're first read out, but teams chip away at them and eventually, a connection emerges. Because the questions are typically just a few sentences, setters can usually squeeze in a bit of wordplay too, equal parts funny and groan-inducing.
Round Britain's own questions are designed to be a bit inaccessible since they are typically attempted by professional quizzers. They're also a bit UK-centric, so I wanted to try my hand at writing questions in that style, but targeted at a wider audience. Finally, 'Round Britain' is a terrible name, so we're going to rebrand. Such questions are now called Conundrums.
Before we go into what's great about this format, check out a run of Conundrums #1.
Featured Quiz
Why I Love This Format
Conundrums So Far
Conundrums To Come
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Featured Quiz: Conundrums #1
This video mostly shows a game played by Anindita Ravikumar, Calvin, Shyam Shreyas, Srinath Sundareswaran, Vikas Plakkot and (the voice of) Jeffrey Seguritan. But we've also spliced in some segments from other runs of the quiz, featuring Abhijith Bhadran, Aditi Surendra, Akshay Gurumoorthi, Appu S, Charles Mathew, Chitkala, Debasmita Bhowmik, Harsh Dinal Shah, John McKenzie, Suresh Vishnu, and (the voice of) Rahul Buddhavarapu. Phew.
Why I Love This Format
The Conundrum format has some hidden advantages. Notably:
Questions do not pass between teams, and
The host is permitted to help the teams when they seem to going off course or simply waning in energy.
Those two things sound unrelated, but the former is actually simply the result of the latter. The host wouldn't be able to help out if it meant the other team got robbed of potential points. So no passing.
That one simple rule, that of the host being allowed to modify the question and give additional clues, is actually extremely impactful to the kind of experience players have. Let me explain.
Quizzers often talk about how their favourite questions are the ones that can be 'worked out' rather than just answered from prior knowledge. Creating such questions is difficult because what's workable for one quizzer may be pure trivia for someone else. The Conundrum format solves this problem by starting out with an impossibly hard question and then progressively making it easier, thus meeting the players halfway and ensuring that every single question has a wonderful "Aha!" moment. The video above is packed with moments like that because the format pretty much guarantees it. No Xs, by definition.
There remains the problem of subjectivity and scoring. Without passing and with such an inconsistent clueing system in place, it's very possible and in fact even likely that the quiz will end up being 'unfair' to one team or the other.
Round Britain solves this problem the same way that college quiz clubs all over India solve quizzing disputes, i.e. by saying "QM is god, no arguments". This works well if you have a radio show that's been running for 75 years since the format and the host are unlikely to be challenged.
B612 hasn't been running for 75 years AFAIK, but we have another perk at our disposal. We're a non-competitive quiz community, meaning we don't really care about scoring, we just wanted to attempt the questions. Since the host's clueing can be subjective and inconsistent, the scoring needs to be well-accepted by everyone involved. Watch the video above to see how we achieved this. It first happens at the 9:16 mark and continues for every question. There’s a nice result at the end too!
I'm quite fond of this system, not just because it avoids conflict, but also because it usually results in both teams ending each question with a smile. That's a pretty unbeatable advantage if you're in the business of running quizzes for fun.
Conundrums So Far
Since its introduction, the Conundrums format has been attempted by several setters. I've made two sets (the second one isn’t great). Ruru has made one, Debanjan has made one, and Dhruv, being Dhruv, has made four.
The sets by Dhruv, Ruru and Debanjan all differ from the original Friendly Conundrums in that they all drop the two key rules that I mentioned above.
Questions DO pass to the other team when not answered completely, and consequently,
The host can't help, because the question needs to pass.
Naturally, this means that all that stuff about guaranteed "Aha!" moments I described in the previous section no longer applies and these are effectively regular quizzes, only with much more complicated questions.
On the flip side, these 'Formal Conundrums' have several other advantages.
Questions are much more consistently structured, and the scoring can therefore be taken much more seriously: 1 point for each of the 6 elements, plus 1 more point for the connect. This is in stark contrast to the scoring system in the Friendly Conundrums video, which, let's face it, is a bit of a joke.
The inability of the host to provide clues or simplify the question means that the player experience is much more consistent across groups, irrespective of who is conducting the quiz. In contrast, the Friendly Conundrums format can be completely insufferable if the reader is someone you already find a bit annoying.
Together, these advantages mean that if ever someone decides to create a 'Conundrums League' (please do), Dhruv's Formal Conundrums format is much more suited to competitive play than mine. The original is more suited to Friendlies, where people don't mind laughing at the scoring system.
I do wish more setters would try the Friendly Conundrums format though, and bring back the guaranteed Aha! moments. I hear Vivek Tejuja is working on one now, and I have high hopes.
Conundrums To Come
If you'd like to try making your own Conundrums set, Friendly or Formal, and you need help, please reach out to us and we’d love to help.
Lately, some sets have been lost in the flood of Friendlies that get released every week on the B612 forums, not getting the kind of gameplay they deserve, because people have resigned themselves to not being able to play everything. If you'd involve us in the release and announcement phase of your friendly, we can try and make sure they get maximum attention and gameplay.
Season 6 of B612 is set to start in June. Have you signed up already? Good.