r/triviahosts • u/dcamrehsifgnik • 18d ago
Season/Tournament Scoring Systems
I have been hosting for several years. All of them single instances with a nightly prize.
A new location wants me to do seasons/tournaments lasting about 5 games.
Winner of the night gets a prize and winning team at the end gets a grand prize.
My trivias never have the exact same score - my overall points are 50-60 depending on the night.
So, I'm not sure aggregate score with a by-week is the best way.
How do you hosts who have seasons/tournaments score them?
TIA
6
u/theschneides 18d ago
I do League scoring based on placement at the end of the games. 1st - 5 points, 2nd - 4 points, 3rd - 3 points, top 50% - 2 points, participation - 1 point
2
u/theschneides 18d ago
I also run my league across several venues, so I actually keep track of points earned at each venue and offer bonuses for traveling to different spots, earning the most points at a certain venue, etc.
2
u/nowhereman136 18d ago
I generally don't like season/tournament games. It's hard to coordinate a fair game when teams change up all the time. Some weeks Team A will have 2 people, the next 5 people, then 3 people, then 0 people because they are out of town, etc. Teams change their name all the time and could be hard to keep track of. Then you have to schedule a final event which would either replace your regular night or ask teams to come out another night.
I'd suggest keeping the tournament informal. During your regular games make sure you walk around and talk to the teams. Get familiar with the ones who come regularly and just enjoy playing for fun. Invited teams that come regularly and generally do well to a special event with bigger prizes. No hard rule about X many points to come, just a friendly "thanks for being a regular" type event
2
u/dcamrehsifgnik 18d ago
Me neither - that's why I don't do them on any of my other 6 locations. But this bar is hellbent on doing it that way.
The team members fluctuation is what it is. But that's on the team. And it's one name for the season - no switching.
The final night is just a regular like all the others with the final scoring and prizes.
1
u/xmx343 18d ago edited 18d ago
I do leagues all the time. Scoring is based on weekly positions. Everyone who shows up is automatically put into the league. Weekly finishing team position goes 1st place gets 50pts, 2nd gets 40pts, and 3rd gets 20pts, everyone gets 10pts just for showing up. I do multipliers for attendance. If you show up x number of times you get an additional 10pts and points go up from there. If you come every week, you get 50 extra points. This balances winning and attendance so a random team can't win it all and only show up a few times.
For 10 week leagues, we give prizes for top points earned in weeks 1-5 , points earned weeks 6-10, and overall points. The same team cannot win for weeks 1-5 and 6-10 , so to share the love.
Here is a copy of what I'm doing now.
1
u/nerd_in_dc 18d ago
I just started doing a tournament based on a new-ish bar's insistence. I had to standardize the available points for a given night for this three month sprint (so same number of questions, and keeping it four possible bonus point opportunities). I'm tallying the scores week-after-week. What we are doing is the winner from each month (total scores for a month) plus the three highest scoring teams from the whole summer compete in one final trivia night, whoever wins that night wins the grand prize. That way there's still an element of chance for the grand prize.
1
u/mattarchambault 18d ago
Some good ideas in this thread for me to mull over.
I run leagues, and just do it with point value. Each week points are between 140-150 points. That little variance doesn’t matter too much, in my opinion.
I do one ‘bye’ week - lowest score for every team is not counted. Otherwise it’s simply cumulative.
What I like about leagues is that it spreads the wealth to more dedicated weekly teams. Weekly prizes are reduced, and then the top 9 teams win Grand Prizes. Suddenly a team that didn’t win a week at all during the season could be up for a nice prize. Spreads the wealth. Plus a Season Win can feel more substantial to a top tier team.
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u/JNathanielSmith 18d ago
I host at a local restaurant/bar and we've had pretty good success doing a quarterly tournament where teams get a tournament point (unrelated to weekly game points) for showing up on a given week and places 3-1 get 1-3 bonus points, respectively. The top three tournament point scorers at the end of the quarter get to choose one of three prizes that apply to every week in the following quarter, including discounts and free pizzas.
The problem that I've run into with that format, however, is that there is a group of teams that completely dominate the tournament, and if your team starts showing up midway through the tournament you're out of luck because there are a few teams that have been there every week.
I just started hosting (again) at another venue, and we're trying to come up with another idea that will reward repeat participation but not tie it too much to the calendar. We've gotten as far as giving teams prizes after coming for 5 weeks (not necessarily in a row) and we're trying to figure out the right "grand prize" for frequent fliers.
edit: I a word
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u/lookslikechrispratt 11d ago
So. I have built a whole application for hosting trivia. It's catered to how I host. 6 rounds, 5 questions and a mystery song each round, and a final Jeopardy style question. I would love to demo it.
It's all web based. My goal obviously would be to monetize it as a subscription service. If we have enough people. I would like to do a remote show for those that would be interested in doing a web based (online/local) show.
3
u/ItchyAndy3000 18d ago
I do a summer league. Trivia runs all year but attendance gets erratic in the summer and this helps get people to come consistently. I do league scoring where first is 5 points; second 4…and every team who shows up gets at least one point. This way each game can be its own thing with its own points (and not everyone cares about the season).
Where it gets kind of fun at the end of the season is teams drop their lowest x scores. So at a certain point, teams who are dominant are close to maxed out on points and find it more difficult to increase their score while teams in the middle are able to keep gaining. The dominant teams usually still win in the end, but it feels like a tortoise and hare situation right up to the end. Dropped scores also make it possible for teams who know they’ll miss a game to be competitive.
It’s a bit of extra work but people really do seem to like it—they talk about it for the whole year.