Fall Novice Tournament

Fall Novice Tournament is a novice-difficulty high school tournament written and edited entirely by high schoolers and/or rising freshmen each fall, with logistical supervision from interested collegiate players who do not write for the event. Its goal is to provide an extremely answerable set for new players and novices in every region and expose interested contributing high schoolers to question writing in a controlled environment for the first time.

Because it is a volunteer outreach effort, no fees are charged to hosts that use the packet set. However, this means that all potential host sites must bid to use the set. Bids are used to ensure that the hosts comply with the principles of good quizbowl, including the use of playoff structures that keep all teams engaged, eligibility restrictions to prevent obviously non-novice players from competing, and prompt reporting of statistics. It is believed that no bid has ever been denied unless it was in direct competition for teams with another already-approved bid.

2009

Inspired by online discussions of then-inadequate A-sets, the 2009 Fall Novice Tournament was a project aimed to create an accessible, pyramidal, and canonical tournament specifically designed for novice teams. Edited by Sarah Angelo, Charlie Rosenthal, and Zhao Zhang, the tossups were written in 12-point Times New Roman and rarely exceeded five lines, with few bonus parts exceeding two lines. It was overseen by George Berry, Charlie Dees, Donald Taylor, Andy Watkins and Dwight Wynne.

Several mirrors of the set were hosted across the country from September to December 2009, with individual hosts setting different eligibility restrictions. Overall, the set was well-received, with scattered complaints about difficulty outliers.

2010

George Berry oversaw the second iteration of Fall Novice, which was edited by Stephen Eltinge, Douglas Graebner, and Matt Jackson. Although eighteen bids were accepted from fourteen states and Ontario, Canada, only twelve of those sites were able to run actual tournaments.

2011

George Berry returned to oversee the 2011 tournament with further oversight and difficulty-reduction by Charlie Dees. Its editors are James Bradbury, Lily Chen, Diana Gerr, Tanay Kothari, Aidan Mehigan, and Max Schindler. As of September 2011, twenty-one host sites in sixteen states, Ontario, and the District of Columbia have been approved.