Pyramidal style, as I see it, Nathan, is that the harder, less accessible clues come first, leading to the more generally-known clue as the FTP part. Thus, if I discover a biographical clue that hasn't been used to death already (see Lens Grinder and Tent Maker), I think it's a valid lead in for a question that perhaps goes on to something more technical. For instance, if I wrote a question on a scientific principle, but found in some obscure source that the scientist responsible for the principle thought of it while riding on a carousel on Coney Island, I think that's a pretty good lead in. I agree with Mike W that qb is a game about subjects. If every question in a round started with two or three lines that would mean nothing to anyone not studying that subject, it would be pretty boring, even for ACF. And would you care to define "this" game? If anything, any quiz bowl format is "general knowledge" (except TRASH, since that limits itself to pop culturey things). The fact that most Americans am dumb leads us to think that "general knowledge" can only be questions about curved yellow fruits, but the fact is that quizbowl rewards general knowledge of a higher level than most yokels have. If qb weren't a game about general knowledge then every question would be written at a post-graduate level.
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