How to Fix Quidditch
Inspired by this post by Tomás Bjartur, which is an allegory; but I’m not writing an allegory, I’m writing about the rules of Quidditch.
The rules of Quidditch have a big problem. The game ends when a seeker catches the snitch, and the snitch is worth 150 points. So most of the players on the field don’t matter; in almost all games, the only thing that matters is who catches the snitch.
This also makes it a bad spectator sport because you can’t see the snitch, so nobody knows what the hell is going on.
I propose some rule changes:
- The game ends when the snitch is caught. (This rule is still the same.)
- The snitch is worth 10 points.
- Instead of being nearly-invisible, the snitch glows and leaves a glowing comet-trail.
- The seekers are each given special wands that can only cast a limited set of spells: specifically, spells that make the snitch harder to catch. For example, they can give it a temporary speed boost, or render it temporarily invisible, or push it a fixed distance. The wands have limited energy that takes time to recharge after a spell is cast.
In my proposed version of Quidditch, the snitch still matters—and Harry Potter as the seeker still gets to play a central role, which is important for narrative purposes—but the snitch is no longer the only thing that matters.
Making the snitch more visible is a no-brainer because Quidditch is supposed to be a spectator sport. Spectators ought to be able to see what’s going on.
Under my proposed rules, the winning team wants to catch the snitch, and in a tied game, both teams want to catch the snitch. The losing team still has dynamic gameplay, in which they can use their restricted magic to make the snitch more difficult to catch. A seeker with strong defensive skills can keep a losing game interesting, and allow their teammates time to turn things around.
Some people play Quidditch in real life. I’ve never played the real-life game myself, but I did read the rules online, and it makes some similar changes to my suggestions:
- The snitch is worth 30 points instead of 150.
- Instead of being a magical flying ball that doesn’t exist, the snitch is a person who runs around with a tennis ball inside a yellow sock. As with my suggested modification, this has the advantage that spectators can see where the snitch is.
Having now looked at the real-life rules, I think it’s better for the snitch to be worth 30 points rather than 10 because it gives seekers more of an incentive to catch it—they can turn a narrow loss into a victory.
My fantasy ruleset has one advantage over the real-life rules, which is that it involves magic. We should use magic to give seekers the ability to make the snitch harder to catch; this changes the snitch-chasing objective from double-Solitaire to a legitimate multiplayer challenge.
If you look at most real-life sports, they have a single center of action. In team-based ball sports, the center is the ball. Spectators watch the ball. Quidditch has two centers of action, the quaffle (the main ball) and the snitch. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. My first thought was that it’s bad because most sports don’t do that. But then I remembered that I watch a lot of StarCraft, and StarCraft games often have multiple things happening simultaneously in different locations, and the games where that happens are the most fun ones to watch. So perhaps the split attention in Quidditch is a good thing.