Fifteen to One being revived

[SuperMatch93]

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-12-09/quiz-fifteen-to-one-to-return-to-channel-4-after-10-years---minus-william-g-stewart\'>http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-12-09/quiz-fifteen-to-one-to-return-to-channel-4-after-10-years---minus-william-g-stewart

[clemon79]

So I have a slightly-unrelated question here for the old-timers.

I remember back on ATGS that someone ran a netgame version of this, but unlike the ones that were played over email or Usenet post, they were basically (overly-descriptive) transcripts of a game session.

Did anyone who is still around participate in that back in the day, and how did that work?

[Matt Ottinger]

In the earliest days of our coming together on the internet, Chris Dickson sent me a bunch of VHS tapes of British game shows.  That was my first real exposure to the fact that they make \'em better in the UK than we do here.  My two favorites, on quite opposite ends of the spectrum, were Fifteen-to-One and Don\'t Forget Your Toothbrush.  So I welcome this news, even if it will be a different celebrity-driven animal, especially since seeing UK games is so much easier now than it used to be.

[TLEberle]

Did anyone who is still around participate in that back in the day, and how did that work?

Host would send you the question, you\'d answer (and nominate a new challenger if that was the round at hand.) For the buzzer round you\'d choose an integer from 1 to 999, nearest was \"fastest\". At the conclusion of each round the host would collate the questions, answers and results and post them in narrative form as the next segment of the \"episode.\"

Or did you mean more generally?

[clemon79]

Host would send you the question, you\'d answer (and nominate a new challenger if that was the round at hand.) For the buzzer round you\'d choose an integer from 1 to 999, nearest was \"fastest\". At the conclusion of each round the host would collate the questions, answers and results and post them in narrative form as the next segment of the \"episode.\"

Or did you mean more generally?

Nope, this was precisely my question. Thanks.

[JasonA1]

My two favorites, on quite opposite ends of the spectrum, were Fifteen-to-One and Don\'t Forget Your Toothbrush.

 

I find that itself interesting, Matt, because I\'ve never inspired to check out an episode based on what seemed to me a rather humdrum rules description. Just checking it out now, I didn\'t even remember the \"nominating\" bit of it, so maybe there\'s more to it than I originally thought. But, how would you summarize what it has to offer?

 

-Jason

[TLEberle]

But, how would you summarize what it has to offer?

I\'m not Matt; but I\'ll chime in: if you really like your quizzing you\'ll get more questions per episode in one shot of Fifteen-to-One than just about anything else, including Jeopardy. The nominate bit doesn\'t get interesting until the final round where you have to choose between building up your own score and improving your place on the Championship Episode leaderboard or trying to knock out your opponents (with the risk that if they get one right they wrestle control away from you.)

It moves quickly and efficiently and the episodes do have an amount of sameness to them; but if you want something that\'s game all the way through from open to close and light on bells, whistles and effects it\'s what you\'re looking for.

[Matt Ottinger]

But, how would you summarize what it has to offer?

 

 

Shorter (but no less accurate) answer that Travis:  A cubic buttload of questions.

[tvmitch]

 

But, how would you summarize what it has to offer?

 

 

Shorter (but no less accurate) answer that Travis:  A cubic buttload of questions.

 

There was some article I read about this revival, can\'t locate it now, where they said that in the entire original run of 15 to 1, William G. Stewart asked over 350,000 questions. Which is mind-boggling.

[TLEberle]

I find that itself interesting, Matt, because I\'ve never inspired to check out an episode based on what seemed to me a rather humdrum rules description.

I\'ll have more to say about this later, but don\'t judge a thing just based on what you read. There\'s lots of awful writers out there who can sway opinions without even knowing it. These days the bar to entry is low and easy to cross. If four questions a minute isn\'t your bag there\'s nothing in the world that will get you to like 15:1, but at least have a go before making a judgment.

Notice that just about all the write-ups of Match Game tell you how the game is played but rarely make a point of explaining that a large amount of the show is devoted to dick-around time. They could likely play two games per show if they dispensed with the frivolity, but then it would be stupid.

[JasonA1]

Oh no, said description was from the UK Game Shows site, which was quick to call the show brilliant several times. It had just been a while since I read it, so I didn\'t remember the finer points of the game - just that it had 15 people answering questions. A lot of questions. I\'ll watch one sooner than later and see if I agree.

 

One of the many sub-sections we have in our group are the people who treasure Q&A in high volume, and I guess I\'ve always needed a bit more to like a show. I\'m not saying 15-to-1 fails that test already, but just as an example, there are several pilots on the Pilot Light that Mike gave high marks to that I didn\'t like near as much. He\'s got the same love for Q&A, as far as I can tell.

 

-Jason

[Brig Bother]

In fact there was a broadcast pilot of sorts a few months ago with celebrities. It was an hour long, had fewer questions and more chat. Don\'t know where they\'re intending to pitch this in the afternoons, Countdown and Deal or No Deal are fairly immobile, against The Chase and Pointless it would look like madness.


I don\'t see it being that successful, it was originally axed when people stopped watching it after all, and that was when there was little competition. These days afternoon shows are outrating primetime ones.

[Matt Ottinger]

One of the many sub-sections we have in our group are the people who treasure Q&A in high volume, and I guess I\'ve always needed a bit more to like a show.

 

I\'m not saying 15-to-1 fails that test already,

 

I will. If the aforementioned cubic buttload of material doesn\'t draw you, then nothing will.  It is totally just a game of answering questions.

[dscungio]

So I have a slightly-unrelated question here for the old-timers.


I remember back on ATGS that someone ran a netgame version of this, but unlike the ones that were played over email or Usenet post, they were basically (overly-descriptive) transcripts of a game session.


Did anyone who is still around participate in that back in the day, and how did that work?

 

That was my game, \'Net 10-to-1, which began way back February 2000.  It was my very first game which led to me hosting many other games over several years.

 

As Travis mentioned, most \'NetGames basically worked where the host E-mailed you a question or asked you to make a decision.  After a series of back-and-forth correspondence, he would link everything together into a transcript which made up a segment of the \"show.\"

 

For an E-mail adaptation of Fifteen-to-One, I obviously had to make several rule changes in order to shorten the game.  The biggest change (and certainly the most unfair) was the rule I had in Round 2 where if the Nominee answered correctly, then the Nominator earned a strike (as opposed to losing a life) for losing the challenge.  If I had stuck with the actual rule, then the game could have gone on forever.

[TLEberle]

One of the many sub-sections we have in our group are the people who treasure Q&A in high volume, and I guess I\'ve always needed a bit more to like a show.

Please don\'t take this the wrong way, but I\'m going to pick on you for word choice again. I happen to enjoy quizzing. A lot. I like a whole bunch of other formats but I like quizzing and I think I\'m decent at it. I could be flippant and say \"at least they\'re not trading bales of wheat\" but that\'s inside baseball and doesn\'t drive the discussion forward, so I\'ll ask this: what is it about Quiz Questions for their own sake that you don\'t care for. (I assume that something like Sale or Challengers, where players are asked questions but there\'s another layer to the proceedings is more palatable; if that\'s the case what\'s the difference?) I\'ll say that I find Trump Card and Wintuition insufferable because there\'s not enough \"other\" out there, but Daily Doubles or the spin of a slot machine wheel is enough for me; what\'s your hurdle?

I think if someone conducted a survey the results would find that people do tend to like the games with a high volume of quiz questions.