Balderdash
Dec. 10th, 2007 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI assume it goes without saying that I'm not very good at Balderdash :) However, I was wondering about the rules.
The basic idea (varied slightly in different incarnations) is that one player picks a random word (or film title, or acronym[1]), either by drawing the next card in the pile from the published game, or by flopping a dictionary open in the freestyle version.
She announces it, and then each other player invents a definition, handed to her on a bit of paper. Then she reads them all out, and each player guesses which is correct. You get one point for guessing the correct definition, and one point for each person who guesses yours.
This has the implicit assumption that no-one will know the definition already. Typically, if you know the right definition beforehand, you get N points (where N is 1 or larger), but don't participate in the rest of the round. (One set of rules says the rest of the round is cancelled if several players do.)[2]
The question is, what's the fairest way of doing it? Should players be rewarded for knowing? It's actually barely related to the real point of the game. Giving them a bonus and moving on seems most sensible.
Another option would be that you don't get anything extra; you make up a definition anyway, and just get one extra point for voting for the right one.
Another would be that your definition is entered, and everyone who votes for an equivalent answer to the real one gets a point, but you get a point for anyone who votes for yours instead of the real one.
The things to avoid are: it being an advantage to *not* know the answer, which really seems unfair, and putting too much judgement on the caller. After all, if she doesn't know wha
[1] You know what I mean.
[2] Did someone in fact get it right?
Words are ok, you generally know or not.
Complete the silly law is ok for the opposite reason. They're all made up, so (unless by an immense stroke of luck, you actually really know the answer), you don't get any points for saying something else it's illegal to do on Tuesdays in Cardiff -- after all, there's lots of things -- you have to guess what's on the card.
But we had difficulty with people. Do you have to guess whatever's on the card, however weird? The correct answer for "John Dee" was "invented the crystal ball" and for "Christian Huygens" was "invented the pendulum clock"[3]. Do you get points for saying "British court magician/philosopher" and "Dutch physicist and astronomer"[4]?
Those are possibly less specific, but a whole lot more accurate. They (when we went over to the internet) basically the first sentences of the wikipedia entries.
But if so, how is the caller supposed to know if they're accurate or not? I guessed that John Dee supposedly invented the crystal ball, but I wouldn't done if I didn't know who he was.
[3] Leaving aside the inaccuracy of that.
[4] I wasn't *sure* of either. I knew the scientists I was thinking of existed and had similar names, but I could equally well have been confused with "Jack Dee" and "Hayden Christensen"
The basic idea (varied slightly in different incarnations) is that one player picks a random word (or film title, or acronym[1]), either by drawing the next card in the pile from the published game, or by flopping a dictionary open in the freestyle version.
She announces it, and then each other player invents a definition, handed to her on a bit of paper. Then she reads them all out, and each player guesses which is correct. You get one point for guessing the correct definition, and one point for each person who guesses yours.
This has the implicit assumption that no-one will know the definition already. Typically, if you know the right definition beforehand, you get N points (where N is 1 or larger), but don't participate in the rest of the round. (One set of rules says the rest of the round is cancelled if several players do.)[2]
The question is, what's the fairest way of doing it? Should players be rewarded for knowing? It's actually barely related to the real point of the game. Giving them a bonus and moving on seems most sensible.
Another option would be that you don't get anything extra; you make up a definition anyway, and just get one extra point for voting for the right one.
Another would be that your definition is entered, and everyone who votes for an equivalent answer to the real one gets a point, but you get a point for anyone who votes for yours instead of the real one.
The things to avoid are: it being an advantage to *not* know the answer, which really seems unfair, and putting too much judgement on the caller. After all, if she doesn't know wha
[1] You know what I mean.
[2] Did someone in fact get it right?
Words are ok, you generally know or not.
Complete the silly law is ok for the opposite reason. They're all made up, so (unless by an immense stroke of luck, you actually really know the answer), you don't get any points for saying something else it's illegal to do on Tuesdays in Cardiff -- after all, there's lots of things -- you have to guess what's on the card.
But we had difficulty with people. Do you have to guess whatever's on the card, however weird? The correct answer for "John Dee" was "invented the crystal ball" and for "Christian Huygens" was "invented the pendulum clock"[3]. Do you get points for saying "British court magician/philosopher" and "Dutch physicist and astronomer"[4]?
Those are possibly less specific, but a whole lot more accurate. They (when we went over to the internet) basically the first sentences of the wikipedia entries.
But if so, how is the caller supposed to know if they're accurate or not? I guessed that John Dee supposedly invented the crystal ball, but I wouldn't done if I didn't know who he was.
[3] Leaving aside the inaccuracy of that.
[4] I wasn't *sure* of either. I knew the scientists I was thinking of existed and had similar names, but I could equally well have been confused with "Jack Dee" and "Hayden Christensen"
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 05:57 pm (UTC):) I was going to say "dealer" too, but thought it would confuse more people than it helped. That's the rule I heard too, though I didn't try to explain it.
our consensus at the Pembury was that a fair score would be n/2 rounded down, where n is the number of players.
I don't know, but I can guess. (I appreciate the confidence that I might be able to :)) It depends what you seek to achieve. I see two considerations (am I missing more? I've only played about twice...):
#1: Balance the scores out, so if you don't have a whole number of rotations, it's neither an advantage or disadvantage to be dealer more often
#2: Encourage fair play, reading out all the descriptions in the same tone of voice, etc.
I'm going to think aloud a bit, apologies if I ramble...
#2 doesn't seem to make much difference. They have little control, so a *small* reward seems appropriate, one point. Do they choose the word, or just scan for the first sufficiently obscure word on the page? If you were asking any choice, a larger outcome might make sense. Eg. if you wanted words people *might* be able to guess[1].
But so long as they just have to pick something really obscure, I think not scoring anything at all would be fine.
That leaves #2. They should score the average of all the other scores that round, so they don't fall behind/get ahead. Maybe with a one-point swing if no-one guesses it for the above reasons.
The expected number of scores? If no-one guesses the right answer, the average is one point each: there are N non-dealer players, each giving a point to one other player by voting for them. N/N=1.
If n of the players do guess the right answer, suppose they all score one point each. That would be the same total: each player gives out one point, to someone else if they guess wrong, or themselves if they guess right.
In either of those cases, it would be fair to just give one point to the dealer.
What would be a fair score given only if no-one guesses? That would satisfy both criteria. I'd advocate giving the smallest swing possible, but if the average has to be one, then the score when anyone does guess must be less than one, so nought.
You'd have to divide by the chance no-one guesses to get the dealer's average score, and make that equal to 1. If the players are really good, each choice will be random, so there'll be an [(N-1)/N]^N chance no-one guesses it. That's approximately three points for 3-10 non-dealer players, though you could work it out at the time if you wanted.
If the players guess the right answer more often than average, then the dealer would need a higher score when none of them do -- I don't know what the chance of that is.
If the players score *more* than one point for guessing right -- or for writing the right answer in advance -- then it's harder to calculate, even the average score depends on the number of people who guess.
However, if you score 2 points for guessing right, and on average one person per round guesses right, then that's one extra point over everyone, ie. the average is (N+1)/N = 1+1/N, so you could basically forget it.
That was a bit disjointed, hopefully, I'll have time later to rewrite it to be a bit more helpful (I'm going out now). Although, more likely, also hopefully, someone'll come along and correct the answer before I have a chance :)
Briefly:
* Always getting one point is pretty fair
* Always getting three points is fairly fair
* But I'm not certain, I need to check. N/2 isn't very far off, though I don't think is correct. (But I've a horrible feeling I've missed something obvious and that is right after all.) It might well be fairest if people guess the right answer every so often.
How often *do* you find people guess rightly? I seem to recall it fairly rare, none, one or two a round. But don't know if that's normal.
[1] That can be fun, choosing a word you think *one* person would have heard of, etc. Though wouldn't be appropriate here and probably too complicated even if it were. FWIW, I did see a game designed for that sort of judgement, and it was ingenious, though I wasn't particularly good at that either.