Random motion generator

What the motion generator is for

The motion generator pulls a random motion from a curated pool of 150+ real debate motions across Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, British Parliamentary, World Schools, Asian Parliamentary, and standard Parliamentary formats. Filter by format, topic area, or difficulty level — or pull from the entire pool at once.

Most debate practice sessions stall because the hardest part is picking what to debate about. A motion you have thought about ten times before does not push you the way an unfamiliar one does. The generator removes the choosing decision: hit the button, take what comes, prep against it.

What is in the motion pool

Every motion in the pool is a real motion from competitive debate archives — not AI-generated, not paraphrased. The pool spans:

• Lincoln-Douglas: values and philosophy resolutions in the standard LD "Resolved:" phrasing.
• Public Forum: contemporary policy and current-events motions in the standard PF policy-question phrasing.
• British Parliamentary: classic BP "This house would..." motions covering economics, politics, ethics, and international relations.
• World Schools: WSDC tournament-style motions, including both narrow policy debates and broader principle debates.
• Asian Parliamentary: motions from Asian university and school circuits.
• Parliamentary: general parliamentary-style motions used at American university tournaments.

Topic coverage includes ethics and philosophy, politics and governance, economics and trade, science and technology, criminal justice, international relations, social policy, and environment. Each motion is also tagged by difficulty level (Novice or Varsity).

How the filters work

Three filters let you narrow the pool before generating:

• Format. Restrict to motions in a specific format's style (LD's "Resolved" phrasing vs BP's "This house" phrasing, for example). Useful when you are prepping for a specific tournament format.
• Topic area. Eight categories. Useful when you want to drill within a domain — for example, all economics motions before an econ-heavy bracket, or all justice motions if your team is weak on criminal-justice arguments.
• Level. Novice motions tend to be more accessible (concrete policy questions with obvious sides); Varsity motions tend to be more abstract or have less clear-cut argument paths.

The count badge below the generator tells you how many motions match your current filters. If you narrow too far and get zero matches, broaden the filters and try again.

How to use it

1. Set your filters at the top (or leave them as "All" to pull from the entire pool).
2. Click Generate motion. A random motion appears with format, topic, and level tags.
3. Click Another → to skip and pull a new one.
4. Click Copy to copy the motion to your clipboard. The "Resolved:" prefix is added automatically when the motion does not already start with "This house".
5. To time a practice speech on the motion, scroll down and click Open motion timer →. The motion and format pre-fill automatically.

Common use cases

• Solo case-construction drilling. Generate a motion, prep against it for the appropriate time, give a speech. Repeat with new motions across a session.
• Partner sparring. Both partners look at the same generated motion (one person sets the filters), then debate opposite sides with timed prep.
• Team practice warmup. Project the page on a screen, generate a motion, and have the whole team spend 5 minutes brainstorming arguments on both sides before discussing.
• Judge practice. Generate a motion, watch a recorded round on it (or have students debate it live), then write a ballot.
• Filling drill sessions with variety. Without a generator, practice sessions tend to cycle the same few motions everyone in the room can debate confidently — which defeats the purpose of practice.

Adding your own motions

The "Your motions" section at the bottom lets you add custom motions to the pool. They appear alongside the built-in ones when generating with default filters, tagged "Custom." Useful for adding tournament-specific motions, topic packets your coach wants you to drill, or motions you have encountered that should rotate into your practice.

Custom motions are stored in your browser's local storage — they persist across sessions on the same browser and device, but they do not sync across devices and will be lost if you clear browser data. Nothing uploads to a server.

Other practice tools

Once you have a motion, the motion timer handles prep countdown plus speech timing in one flow — the "Open motion timer" link at the bottom of this page passes the generated motion and format directly. For structured multi-interval practice sessions, the flow timer handles work-and-break cycles. For coaches running extemp practice rounds, the extemp prep room clock tracks individual prep windows for up to 10 students.

For real competition rounds, the two-device timer supports all major formats including Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, Public Forum, World Schools, British Parliamentary, and Asian Parliamentary.

Frequently asked questions