Just wanted to note that Quidditch is in fact a perfectly workable game—if you just change up the player strategy a bit.
It’s like a game of attack/defense where different plays can be worth different amounts—you go for the highest-payoff thing (the snitch) most of the time, but sometimes you also go for the less valuable things to get free wins or distraction.
If the snitch is the most valuable resource, then just have everyone on your team work towards catching the snitch. It’s certainly not what Rowling intended, but it makes sense—catch snitch first, win game. If a seeker can find the snitch quickly, then 5 practiced teammates should be able to keep track of it almost all the time. Then it becomes something more like a race, or dogfighting—particularly if the snitch moves according to predictable patterns so that there’s reasonable strategy to it. As the snitch takes longer to catch, it makes more and more sense to split someone off to take points with the quaffles. At this point quidditch actually becomes a high-skill game again, capable of containing brilliant plays that advance your team’s position both in terms of catching the snitch and in the slow game.
I’ve often thought about how Quidditch could be made into a better game, without simply getting rid of Seekers and Snitches. My idea:
Each team has three Chasers; at any time, one of them is acting as Seeker.
There are five Snitches, each of which is worth 50 points when caught.
When a Seeker catches a Snitch, (s)he becomes a Chaser, and the next Chaser in line becomes the new Seeker.
A caught Snitch flies to the goals of the team who caught it; it places itself in the exact center of the leftmost or rightmost goal hoop (at the option of the team’s Keeper) and renders itself immovable, so it can block the Quaffle when it’s thrown too close to the center of the goal.
The game ends when one team has caught three Snitches.
By these rules, all the players must make active contributions to the goal-scoring game, and catching more Snitches earlier confers a significant advantage, but not an unovercomeable one.
BELATED EDIT: I must also add, so long as we’re talking about Quidditch rules:
Goals are worth one point and Snitches are worth five points everywhere except for official Hogwarts games. It really bugs me when the possible point increments in a game aren’t coprime.
I was under the impression that only the seeker could legally catch the snitch and take the points, but having the rest of the team act as spotters seems like an obvious good idea.
Its entirely possible (at least in HPMOR canon) that the tactics at a professional level are wildly different to at the school level, as is the case in a lot of sports.
In “Quidditch Through The Ages”, it states that non-seekers touching the snich is not allowed, and if you do so that is a penalty, that is it gives the opposing team a penalty shot at your hoops. However, yes, hving the rest of the team act as spotters could be a good idea. The question is how far do you take it. If literaly your whole team did nothing more than look for the snich, your opponents could easily score imediatly at least 15 goals, rendering the strategy moot.
Just wanted to note that Quidditch is in fact a perfectly workable game—if you just change up the player strategy a bit.
It’s like a game of attack/defense where different plays can be worth different amounts—you go for the highest-payoff thing (the snitch) most of the time, but sometimes you also go for the less valuable things to get free wins or distraction.
If the snitch is the most valuable resource, then just have everyone on your team work towards catching the snitch. It’s certainly not what Rowling intended, but it makes sense—catch snitch first, win game. If a seeker can find the snitch quickly, then 5 practiced teammates should be able to keep track of it almost all the time. Then it becomes something more like a race, or dogfighting—particularly if the snitch moves according to predictable patterns so that there’s reasonable strategy to it. As the snitch takes longer to catch, it makes more and more sense to split someone off to take points with the quaffles. At this point quidditch actually becomes a high-skill game again, capable of containing brilliant plays that advance your team’s position both in terms of catching the snitch and in the slow game.
I’ve often thought about how Quidditch could be made into a better game, without simply getting rid of Seekers and Snitches. My idea:
Each team has three Chasers; at any time, one of them is acting as Seeker.
There are five Snitches, each of which is worth 50 points when caught.
When a Seeker catches a Snitch, (s)he becomes a Chaser, and the next Chaser in line becomes the new Seeker.
A caught Snitch flies to the goals of the team who caught it; it places itself in the exact center of the leftmost or rightmost goal hoop (at the option of the team’s Keeper) and renders itself immovable, so it can block the Quaffle when it’s thrown too close to the center of the goal.
The game ends when one team has caught three Snitches.
By these rules, all the players must make active contributions to the goal-scoring game, and catching more Snitches earlier confers a significant advantage, but not an unovercomeable one.
BELATED EDIT: I must also add, so long as we’re talking about Quidditch rules:
Goals are worth one point and Snitches are worth five points everywhere except for official Hogwarts games. It really bugs me when the possible point increments in a game aren’t coprime.
I was under the impression that only the seeker could legally catch the snitch and take the points, but having the rest of the team act as spotters seems like an obvious good idea.
Its entirely possible (at least in HPMOR canon) that the tactics at a professional level are wildly different to at the school level, as is the case in a lot of sports.
In “Quidditch Through The Ages”, it states that non-seekers touching the snich is not allowed, and if you do so that is a penalty, that is it gives the opposing team a penalty shot at your hoops. However, yes, hving the rest of the team act as spotters could be a good idea. The question is how far do you take it. If literaly your whole team did nothing more than look for the snich, your opponents could easily score imediatly at least 15 goals, rendering the strategy moot.
Then you’d end up with each team attempting to distract the other teams spotters by scoring goals.… and you’re back to the start.