Then let me be the first to complain (not about the inclusion of folktale clues and answers in RMPFest, which I liked, but a particular example): the tossup on elves had a bunch of fairly hard clues that no one buzzed on in my room, followed by the clue about Svartalfheim being Frey's tooth-gift. At that point I negged with dwarves, which are interchangeable with elves (or at least dark elves) in a lot of Norse sources. I'm sure the Hungarian folklore clue and the Charlemagne episode refer to elves that are not interchangeable with dwarves in those traditions, but if those clues fall in the "these are things I looked up for my own learning purposes and I don't seriously expect anyone to buzz on them" category (and it seems to me that they do) it seems unfortunate not to make things as clear as possible when the question finally transitions into "meaty clues that people playing the set might actually buzz on." The same comment may apply to some of the other Norse clues that appear right before the Frey clue, actually--there's a clue about Skuld's parents that doesn't mention that you're talking about Skuld the princess, not Skuld the Norn.Whig's Boson wrote:I put some folktale clues and even answers in RMPFest, and have not heard any complaints about this. There was a tossup on vampires in the tiebreakers somewhere, a tossup on elves that used a lot of folkloric clues, etc. Also, I think folklore clues come up a lot in common link TU's, especially on animals.
Speaking of additions to the RMP distro, what about medieval epics?
Again, this is not a complaint against questions with folklore content, just a note that some such questions (like all categories) have to be written carefully to avoid ambiguity.
Finally, I'm not sure whether medieval epics are more properly literature or myth. If we were to apply a variant of the Watkins Criterion, I'd guess that almost all questions on medieval epics would wind up being classified as literature, since there would be very few such questions that include clues culled from multiple works.
-Seth