The Gaming Den

Everyone with even a passing understanding of sports knows that the rules for Quidditch are completely insane.

So, other than "take quidditch, add clock, deflate the snitch value," what would a better wizard sport be?

I like the idea of summoner/polymorph duels, but those kind of seem barely magic. So ideas?

Apparently she came up with the game after having a fight with her boyfriend. So, the fact that it pisses most men off is working as intended.

Quidditch is now my favorite thing ever. It's still dumb as a game, but that's great.

The cheaper you make the snitch, the narrower the score difference when both teams try to catch it and end the match with a victory. The snitch adds nothing but variable play length, which is generally something you want to avoid as much as possible. It's stupid when it's caught within the first seconds of the match and everyone goes home. It's stupid when a team falls behind on points but gave the other team's snitch-catcher a concussion so he can't hold onto the broom, much less catch anything. Get rid of it.

The best fantasy sport is probably Pro Bending from Legend of Korra.

Pro Bending from Futurama was better.

Also legend of Kora sucked because it had fucking Kora in it, and Kora fucking sucked. So even though I theoretically watched a bunch of pro bending episodes if there was a sport in there worth noting I missed it because it was obscured by Kora sucking so fucking much as a person and a fictional protagonist.

Yes, I say that after referencing a Bender episode from Futurama. Yes Kora was that fucking bad and then some.

Agreed.

"Hey, we need to have this sport based around bending the elements. How should be go about it?"

"Uh....Really stupid dodgeball!"

"Brilliant!"

I ran an HP type game where Quidditch was replaced with 'wizard polo.' In each game the players rode [steed] and used [implement] to get [thing] into [goal] on a [field]. And all the variables were filled at the start of each match. So we had one match where it was giant geckos, bellows, wiffle ball, hole, rotating spherical maze; and another where it was magic carpets, butterfly nets, living butterfly, chimney, sky over school grounds.

Self-transformation duels are nicely traditional, but also traditionally lack a team aspect.

Avatar: The Team-Sport.
Do something that requires more than one spell/element being cast simultanously. That should require Teamwork.

And then judge the End-Result.

Prak wrote:Everyone with even a passing understanding of sports knows that the rules for Quidditch are completely insane.

So, other than "take quidditch, add clock, deflate the snitch value," what would a better wizard sport be?

I like the idea of summoner/polymorph duels, but those kind of seem barely magic. So ideas?

Quodpot. It's exactly like Quidditch, except that there is no snitch, there is a set time limit, and the ball is a live grenade with a random timer. If it explodes while you're holding it you're out of the game, and possibly severely injured. You score points by throwing it into a pot full of a chemical that disarms it.

Creaothceann is also a great game.

You strap a cauldron to your head and fly into a field of hundreds of falling boulders, attempting to catch as many as you can in your cauldron while your opponents do the same.

Whoever catches the most and doesn't die from severe head trauma wins.

Brockian Ultra-Cricket

I personally like pro-bending. It's not like you can't simplify RL sports into dumb sounding activities; soccer is just glorified "kick the ball into a net."

Broomstick Tennis. You have a set of Quidditch goals, a ball and 3 players on brooms with rackets on each side. You get a point every time you hit the ball through a hoop and ten points every time the other side drops the ball. Fixed clock.

Broomstick Racing. Works like horse racing, but with brooms an in 3D.

Broomstick Jousting. Probably not one for the kids. You both get on broomsticks, put on armour and charge at each other with lances in an attempt to unseat the other wizard from their broom.

Handball, but you're allowed to use (some) spells (probably nonlethal spells only, of course).

Have a long, utterly irrational list of allowed spell (Merciful Fireballs are OK, but Merciful Lightning Bolts aren't because back in 723 Orzuthon used one to electrify the steel floor around his team's net and the Grinnin' Goblins lost, leading to the Perisil Riots. You can summon Formians but not Girallons because four hands aren't allowed, but the Formians don't actually have hands. And so on and so forth.)

PhoneLobster wrote:Pro Bending from Futurama was better.

Also legend of Kora sucked because it had fucking Kora in it, and Kora fucking sucked. So even though I theoretically watched a bunch of pro bending episodes if there was a sport in there worth noting I missed it because it was obscured by Kora sucking so fucking much as a person and a fictional protagonist.

Yes, I say that after referencing a Bender episode from Futurama. Yes Kora was that fucking bad and then some.

Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

Wiseman wrote:Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

This is PhoneLobster we're talking about here. Except for his personal house-rules, I don't think he actually likes anything, media or otherwise; kind of a mini-Kaelik in a lot of ways

virgil wrote:

Wiseman wrote:Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

This is PhoneLobster we're talking about here. Except for his personal house-rules, I don't think he actually likes anything, media or otherwise; kind of a mini-Kaelik in a lot of ways

I don't have any particular hatred of media. That is purely PL's thing.

Wiseman wrote:Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

It wasn't as good a show as The Last Airbender. It's just the truth. Pro Bending was amusing, though, if not exactly the most creative thing they could have done.

Wiseman wrote:Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

If you even got to the last two seasons you have some serious issues dealing with sunk costs fallacy.

PhoneLobster wrote:

Wiseman wrote:Fuck you the last two seasons were brilliant.

If you even got to the last two seasons you have some serious issues dealing with sunk costs fallacy.

Yes, because surely no one likes things that PL doesn't like.

Which is why all shows ever made are canceled immediately, and no movie ever makes back it's budget.

Also all videogames are abject failures because no one buys them.

MisterDee wrote:Handball, but you're allowed to use (some) spells (probably nonlethal spells only, of course).

Camori handball does not fucking need spells to be an awesome fucking fantasy game. Not across the line my ass.

Starmaker wrote:The cheaper you make the snitch, the narrower the score difference when both teams try to catch it and end the match with a victory. The snitch adds nothing but variable play length, which is generally something you want to avoid as much as possible. It's stupid when it's caught within the first seconds of the match and everyone goes home. It's stupid when a team falls behind on points but gave the other team's snitch-catcher a concussion so he can't hold onto the broom, much less catch anything. Get rid of it.

The best fantasy sport is probably Pro Bending from Legend of Korra.

Catching the snitch is so absurdly difficult that it pretty much never happens in the first seconds of the match.

Most quidditch games last for several days, and they have been known to last for months. This is part of the appeal.

I think this is borrowed from cricket, which also has variable length and usually lasts for 3-5 days.

Huh? I don't think any of the matches played in Hogwarts during the series lasted more than an afternoon - and they're kids! The professional seekers would surely be more skilled and therefore find and capture the snitch more quickly. In the Goblet of Fire, the World Cup we get to witness is similar in length to the Hogwarts games. Multi-day matches seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Also, wildly varying game lengths are just terrible for things like broadcast, event location handling, scheduling for non-professional players (what if a school match took a month?), and so on. Just another reason Quidditch is terrible.

Well, it's never stated, but it's not unreasonable to suppose that school quidditch uses a slower/larger/less elusive snitch than league quidditch. It's not uncommon for younger athletes to have a shrunken field or something.

I had a teacher in middle school who liked baseball specifically because it had a variable length, but he was one of those "I need time away from the woman I married, heterosexual marriage is HARD GUYS" assholes.

For pro games, remember that broadcast is less of an issue (sure, there's radio, but no TV), and wizards basically just pick an unused spot of land and set up their stealth spells because they don't give even half a shit about the muggle land owners. Non-Pro games probably use modified snitches, like I said above, and so probably have a shorter potential duration.

I wonder if in the future there will be airbenders in pro-bending?

We have sport fighting like boxing and MMA, mixed magical arts tournaments seem sensible in a setting where magic is going to be used in combat in some way.

Could have variants like the "capture two scrolls" free for all in Naruto's Chuunin exam.

Shrieking Banshee wrote:Agreed.

"Hey, we need to have this sport based around bending the elements. How should be go about it?"

"Uh....Really stupid dodgeball!"

"Brilliant!"

If they had professional dodgeball where people dodged jets of water, goddamn rocks and fireballs on a platform a dozen or more feet above water I would fucking watch that.

Anyways the last season showed the world has underground cage fights too so Elemental MMA will probably become a thing in their future.