Vaniver comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 104 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Suppose there is a clock that determines the end of the game. Then Quidditch becomes similar to football (of the non-American variety) or basketball, with a slightly more hostile field. But it loses some drama from the Seeker no longer having a role.
I do think that multiple snitches is a good way to go, but video games provide the right role for them: power-ups. Then there's lots of room to get creative. Suppose there are, say, three snitches active at any time, in order to get their effect they have to be held (but they also attract the attention of the Bludgers, which has lots of potential for manipulation), and they all have a maximum duration of, say, two minutes, at which point the Snitch is depleted and is replaced by another one from the supply (and it reenters the supply to be available when the next one is depleted). Probably the seeker gets a faint glow of whatever color Snitch they're holding, both to make it more obvious to spectators and to make it easier for the other team to try to interrupt the Seeker's boosting of their team.
That's a very videogamey design, but still interesting.
I will point out that removing a player for two minutes at a time is already the standard penalization scheme for one major sport, so it's clearly not that terrible a frictional problem.
That's where I got the idea, but the penalty box triggers because that player did something. If I grab the snitch that expels one of the other team's players, somebody has to make a decision which player, and then they need to leave the field, and so on--and if the benefit only lasts as long as I'm holding the thing, and I let it go and grab it again, what does that do to the time they're out? And so on. I don't think that's a workable idea, but it might suggest other ones that do work.
Then just make it automatically the opposing Seeker(and ensure the same Snitch doesn't recur for at least five minutes, to prevent lock-out).