Trivia Rules

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Trivia Answer rules
These trivia answer rules are valid for both Quaffle and Snitch play.

Canon
The questions are drawn from the original books written by J.K. Rowling. These include Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch through the Ages.

Some material from Tales of Beedle the Bard features but currently questions are only based on information revealed in Deathly Hallows (like ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’), rather than the companion book featuring all 5 of the tales. Additional Beedle questions may be added in future.

‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ refers to the textbook, not to the screenplay or any of the other film tie-in materials.

All other sources, such as Cursed Child, the films or wizardingworld.com, are not considered canon, even if they were created by Rowling. Additional information about the worldbuilding, plot, characters or other facts is not considered as a legitimate answer.

One Letter (1lr) Rule
For most trivia questions where the answer is more than one word long, you are only allowed to have one spelling mistake in your answer.

More than one mistake makes the answer automatically incorrect. Punctuation and capitalisation do not count and are ignored. All numbers that might be in the answer have to be correct. Switching two consecutive letters counts as one mistake.

One word answers must always be spelled correctly. If there is a hyphen in the answer, the hyphenated words count as separate words (a space may be used in place of a hyphen, without counting as a mistake). Numbers and articles are included in the word count.

Examples:

Question: What was Harry Potter's house in Hogwarts?

Answer: Gryffindor (correct)
Answer: Gryffindoor (wrong)
Answer: Gryffndor (wrong)
Answer: Gryffundor (wrong)
Answer: Gryffidnor (wrong)
Answer: Grifindor (wrong)
Answer: Griffidnor (wrong)

Question: What are Slytherin's house colors?

Answer: silver green (correct)
Answer: sliver green (correct)
Answer: gren sivler (wrong)
Answer: sliver gren (wrong)

Numbers
Where an answer calls for a number, you can either write it with numerical characters (“3 feet”) or spell it out in full with letters (“three feet”). Both are considered correct.

If you use numerical characters, then the one letter rule does not apply. However, if you spell a number out in full, then it does apply.

Example:
Question: About how tall did Hagrid say the giants were?
Answer: 20 feet (correct)
Answer: twenty feet (correct)
Answer: tewnty feet (correct)
Answer: 10 feet (wrong)

No Abbreviations
Nothing in the answer that is required to make the answer correct should be abbreviated. All words should be completely spelled out unless otherwise noted in the question.

Examples:

Answer: Gryffindor (correct)
Answer: Gryff (wrong)

Answer: Professor Snape (correct)
Answer: Prof. Snape (wrong)

Answer: 50 feet (correct)
Answer: 50 ft. (wrong)

Full Names
If the answer is a character name, a player is not allowed to shorten the name. All names have to be either First Name and Last Name or Title and Last Name.

The only exception to this is when a character’s full name is mentioned in the question. Then the answer can only have a character’s first name or a pronoun if it makes logical sense.

Example:

Question: What part of Susan Bones was left behind when she splinched the first time?

Answer: her left leg (correct)
Answer: Susan’s left leg (correct)
Answer: Susan Bones’ left leg (correct)

The use of Mrs./Miss/Madam/Mr. is not permitted if the character's full name is known. For instance, an answer would be incorrect if it mentions ‘Mr Dursley’ as his first name (Vernon) is revealed in the books but correct if it mentions ‘Madam Malkin’ as her first name is not revealed in the books. This is always the case unless the honorific is a part of their actual name (e.g. Mrs. Norris).

On the other hand, professor/Healer are acceptable as titles.

If the character's full name is not known, you can simply type their first name or surname (for instance, ‘Grawp’ would be acceptable).

Example:
Question: Who was Hogwarts’ Headmaster during Harry’s 1st year?

Answer: Professor Dumbledore (correct)
Answer: Professor Albus Dumbledore (correct)
Answer: Albus Dumbledore (correct)
Answer: Dumbledore (wrong)
Answer: Prof. Dumbledore (wrong)

Question: Who were Harry's best friends?

Answer: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger (correct)
Answer: Ron and Hermione (wrong)

Keywords
All the above rules apply only for the "keywords" needed to make the answer correct. Many questions can be answered with different sentences. As long as the keywords are included, the referee can declare the answer as correct.

Articles such as “a”, “an”, “the” or “and” are usually not needed in an answer, even if the answer does not make grammatical sense without them.

Example:
Q: What was Vernon Dursley wearing the day he and his family went into hiding after Voldemort’s return?
Answer: A fawn zip-up jacket (correct)
Answer: fawn zip-up jacket (correct)

Quotes
Some questions might be marked with an [Q], meaning they refer to a quote a character has directly said. The answer to this type of question needs to be typed exactly, with all words and in the order they were said.

Example:

Question: What was the headline of the Daily Prophet the day after the 1994 Quidditch World Cup final?[Q]

Answer: Scenes of Terror at the Quidditch World Cup (correct)
Answer: Scenes of Terror at the World Quidditch Cup (wrong)
Answer: Sceenns of Terror at the Quidditch World Cup (wrong)
Answer: Scenes of Terror at Quidditch World Cup (wrong)

Typing your Own Answers
When you are playing, please type your own answers in the game room. Do not copy paste them from your team room, or any other source, into the game room. If it is obvious that you have done so, your answer will be ignored in favor of someone who did not do it.