Scoring

Scoring is a core mechanic in Keynotathlons.

Overview

Every contestant is given a number, which is referred to as their "score" or "points" in the series. This score typically starts at zero and represents the total number of points they've earned throughout the events. Each event gives points to every contestant depending on their rank, with better ranks earning more points.

Scoring systems tend to come in multiple different types.

Multiplication

The most common method of scoring system is to have the scores be multiplied by a set value after each event.

Here's an example scoring system, with 10 contestants, 9 individual events, and a per-event multiplier of 1.5:

	E1	E2	E3	E4	E5	E6	E7	E8	E9
1st	100	150	225	338	506	759	1,139	1,709	2,563
2nd	79	119	178	267	400	600	900	1,350	2,025
3rd	60	90	135	203	304	456	683	1,025
4th	42	63	95	142	213	319	478
5th	28	42	63	95	142	213
6th	16	24	36	54	81
7th	12	18	27	41
8th	7	11	16
9th	3	5
10th	1

Rounding is treated differently depending on the series. For this table, decimals are internally kept, and then the actual score number is rounded. The decimals are added back when multiplying the scores. Some series instead round the scores after each multiplication, removing the internal usage of decimals in the process. When modifying the table above to multiply and round scores like this, they're a little different:

	E1	E2	E3	E4	E5	E6	E7	E8	E9
1st	100	150	225	338	507	761	1,142	1,713	2,570
2nd	79	119	179	269	404	606	909	1,364	2,046
3rd	60	90	135	203	305	458	687	1,031
4th	42	63	95	143	215	323	485
5th	28	42	63	95	143	215
6th	16	24	36	54	81
7th	12	18	27	41
8th	7	11	17
9th	3	5
10th	1

Other series, such as Keynotopentacontathlon, remove the highest reward available each time someone is eliminated, instead of the lowest. Employing this change and increasing the multiplier to 2 leads to something like this:

	E1	E2	E3	E4	E5	E6	E7	E8	E9
1st	100	158	240	336	448	512	768	896	768
2nd	79	120	168	224	256	384	448	384	256
3rd	60	84	112	128	192	224	192	128
4th	42	56	64	96	112	96	64
5th	28	32	48	56	48	32
6th	16	24	28	24	16
7th	12	14	12	8
8th	7	6	4
9th	3	2
10th	1

Normalizing event results

There are some series that instead use a more unique scoring system where every contestant's event results influence how many points they gain.

For this system, a number is used as a maximum point gain, which is how many points the event's winner will receive. This number usually multiplies in a similar vein to the above system.

The contestants' event results will then be normalized into a number between 1 (for the best result) and 0 (worst result) and then multiplied by the maximum point gain to get every contestant's event scores.

Here's an example table, with 11 contestants, and the maximum point gain starting at 250 and multiplying by 1.5 after each event:

	Event result	E1	E2	E3	E4	E5	E6	E7	E8	E9	E10
1st/max gain	100	250	375	563	844	1,266	1,898	2,848	4,271	6,407	9,611
2nd	88	220	328	484	709	1,052	1,558	2,269	2,922	3,844	0
3rd	70	175	258	367	506	731	1,048	1,400	899	0
4th	62	155	227	314	416	588	822	1,014	0
5th	41	103	145	177	180	214	227	0
6th	33	83	113	124	90	71	0
7th	29	73	98	98	45	0
8th	25	63	82	72	0
9th	14	35	39	0
10th	4	10	0
11th	0	0

If you use spreadsheet software such as Excel or Google Sheets, you can copy everybody's event results to column A of a blank spreadsheet, then put the maximum point gain in cell C1 and the function ROUND(((A1-MIN(A:A))/(MAX(A:A)-MIN(A:A)))*$C$1,0) into cell B1, and extend B1 down to the row with lowest event result to get everybody's scores.

Arbitrary decision

Some other series simply have their creators decide point vales for each event without any specific pattern. Examples of series that arbitrarily decide points are Paintodecathlon and Slidtriaconlathon.

Tips

• If you're using a multiplication-based score system, try to have the initial points consistently increment more for higher ranks. For example, some series have points in an order like 20-18-15-12-10-8-5-4-2-1. To make this system more consistent, you can change this to 20-17-14-11-9-7-5-3-2-1.
  • This doesn't apply to multiplied scores after the first event, as discrepancies like that may happen due to rounding.