Discussion Main / GoldenSnitch

I don't think the example from Splatoon's Ranked Modes counts as an example. The knockout victory condition doesn't overrule any other way of scoring, since the only way of scoring is to work toward a knockout.

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by Ghilz on Jul 27th 2014 at 8:22:22 AM

I actually have a story about this happening at a camp I went to. Campers were divided into four teams. Each day, there would be one ore more challenges that the campers could compete into to score points for their team. The very last challenge however, was worth far more points than any of the other challenges, about five times as much. It was still possible for a team to win without getting first place on the final challenge since a smaller amount of points were awarded for getting second and third place, but only if you were ahead by a whole lot. I remember that during one year, our team was way ahead of any of the other teams, but nearly lost because we didn't get first place on the last challenge. I think that they deliberately set the scores for each place such that a team could always manage to get to get ahead of the team above them in points if they beat them in the final. I think we only won because the team that got first place in the final wasn't the team that closest to us in points.

Pulled this from the Unseen Academicals example;

• The big game between UA and the city team winds up being an example when the ex-Dean referee, fed up with the business and out of patience, arbitrarily proclaims that the next goal scored will decide the match, irregardless of any previously-scored points.

I've just re-read this scene, and I'm pretty sure that at this point the score is actually two-all:

• Bengo Macarena scores two goals early on (2-0 to Unseen)
• Ridcully "generously" gives one of the goals to Ankh-Morpork United (1-1)
• Andy Shank scores with a nasty shot that drives Mr Nutt into the goal. (2-1 to United)
• The ball enters AMU's goal when it accidentally bounces off Rincewind's head (2-2)

So it's not a Golden Snitch, just a tiebreaker.

Random question. Is there any thought to splitting the trope (or at least, introducing a Category 1 and 2) for games where "How well you do in the prelims" directly influences the "Winner Take All" round?

Examples include: from Literature, Harry's Tri-Wizard tournament; Game Shows "The Crystal Maze" and Supermarket Sweep. Having an additional ten seconds in the latter two games is an absolute difference maker.

Wouldn't the Academic Olympics in Billy Madison fit this trope?

Would the Senior Project count as this? Many high schools require 12th graders to complete a project during their senior year. If they don't do it, they don't graduate, regardless of what their grades were.

RE

• The new Family Game Night on Hub awards one "Crazy Cash Card" to each family at the start of the show, then an additional card to the family who wins each game. Most cards are worth no more than $1500 or so (and generally only a couple hundred bucks), but one card is worth anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. Thus, a family could lose all five games and still win the grand prize if the card they chose happens to be the jackpot one.

Does that actually fit this trope, seeing as the scoring is random and not revealed until the end of the game? Seems more like simply being an unbalanced scoring system with insane amounts of Anyone Can Win than truly being The Golden Snitch to me.

Reguarding the Million Pound Drop fifty-fifty question, and the rant in the examples page (Might remove that, it's probably better in discussion than examples which is why I'm responding to it in here):

The problem is more the fact that enforced-all-or-nothing gambles are overdone and boring, than the game's difficulty. Far easier than Knightmare ever was. Low quality questions aside (Lets see, the sunset question - where depending on how you read the intention of the question setter, all three answers could be interpreted as being correct, the Doctor Who question, where the actual answer is up for debate but the answer they were looking for is a very, very difficult one to justify out of the four answers they were given (Though possible if you squint and hold your nose, Christopher Eccleston was the only blatantly wrong answer of the four), and the US Postal Notes question... Where the answer they were looking for was, quite simply, wrong.)

Granted, its also something that's entirely wrong for the US market - You guys even scrapped episodes of Deal Or No Deal if the board collapsed early or the player didn't win a reasonably big amount; A show about watching people lose a million was never going to fly in a market that, traditionally, likes seeing people win big but hates seeing people lose big - Britain, meanwhile, is more accomodating to shows where there's a possibility of winning big as well as one of losing big... Or even where losing is the rule and the prize for winning is a trophie (Though those tend to be kids shows).

I'm still not sure that The Crystal Maze really counts as this. There's no points system; the main rounds earn you time in the Crystal Dome, and your performance in the Dome determines whether you win. The main rounds are far from invalidated by this system — winning the Dome was so hard that you had to earn at least 40 seconds (i.e. win eight out of fourteen) to stand a chance. A bad performance in the Dome could blow your hard work in the main rounds, but not vice versa.

I'm not sure "Universities in general tend to do this; it isn't uncommon for %50 (or more) of the entire grade to rest on a single project or exam, meaning if you screw it up, you fail." matches this trope. This trope seems to be about doing something meaning you automatically succeed, not that failing to do something means you automatically fail. If half your grade is one assignment and you do only that assignment, you still fail the class. To pass, you have to do that assignment and some other ones.

People have confused this with a MacGuffin repeatedly, and it shows all over the page. As I understand, this trope is specifically about scoring in games, not strangely valuable objects. I suggest a sweeping edit, and a name change to "Caught The Snitch" to prevent people from thinking it's about the object that grants the score boost.

Could someone explain why this is under Romance Novel Plots?

Edit: Ah, I see. Is there any way to have The Perfect Gift described as a "Romantic Golden Snitch" without the index thing appearing on this page?

I am moving this sentence here because it makes no sense.

It can be considered to define victory as "defeat, but with No Ontological Inertia" - you are a single (though perhaps freakishly difficult) action away from victory.