The Mole: Episode 03 - The Beach Trip / The Ball and Chain / The Popularity Contest
Sept 24, 2011 11:16:12 GMT -5
Post by Beelzebibble on Sept 24, 2011 11:16:12 GMT -5
We march onward, pausing only briefly to pay tribute to the departure of Geo, who was obviously never the Mole to begin with, although that would have been a pretty clever choice given his screen name.
Ten players remain: nine contestants, and the Mole. Will this be the episode in which one of the former finally catches sight of the Mole's trail? Or are you contestants planning to keep chasing each other in circles until someone accidentally wins? Let's find out. Three new challenges await, and ample new opportunity for sabotage. Time to play.
* * *
Players, I've got such a simple first challenge for you here, it's going to rock your socks and knock your faces off. "Damn," you will say, "where do you even get a challenge that's that simple?" You will not be able to comprehend how damn simple this challenge is. On the surface, at least.
Are you all familiar with the game variously known as "the beach game", "the beach trip", "bring to the beach", etc.? For those who aren't, and once again for the benefit of future cyber-archaeologists, I'll explain. It's a parlor game, good for passing the time at a restaurant while you wait for youralcohol food to arrive. Whoever's turn it is -- whoever "hosts" the round -- starts off by declaring something they're going to bring to the beach. Then, going around the table, everyone asks if they can bring something else to the beach. The host either accepts or rejects each answer based on some pattern she's got in mind (more on that in a bit); furthermore, every time the loop comes back around to her, the host will declare something else she's bringing. The game ends when one player, the winner, successfully guesses the pattern.
We're going to do things a little differently, but not much. There are ten of you still remaining, but if we tried to enforce a rule that everyone has to wait their turn, and all ten of you need to make requests in every round, that would be bullshit and the challenge would be a bust. So, as with "Twenty Questions", I'm going to let you guys regulate yourselves in this regard. After every ten requests, I'll declare something else I'm bringing to the beach, but there'll be no rules about how those ten requests are distributed. They could all be from the same player for all I care, and if you don't fancy that idea then you need to sort that out among yourselves.
Wow, this isn't sounding quite so simple now that I have to type it out. I promise it's a lot smoother in execution.
So, this pattern you're trying to figure out. What could it be? There are a few broad categories of patterns in this game. The pattern could be conceptual in nature, such that all accepted answers need to have some common property (i.e. they can't have exactly four appendages, or they need to be able to come in red). The pattern could be verbal, focusing on the words themselves (i.e. they need to contain a silent "e", or at least five consonants). Or the pattern could be superordinate, being somehow concerned with the actual players themselves and the environment (i.e. an answer will be accepted if the named object is there in the room, or if the player has their elbows on the table when they ask). Further, any of these categories might be given a sequential twist, so that whether a new answer is accepted will at least partially depend on what the previous accepted answer was -- for instance, a verbal sequential pattern might accept any word that begins with the same letter that ended the previous accepted word.
All that might sound daunting, but it's not too hard for a clever player to discern early on whether they're looking at a conceptual, verbal or superordinate pattern. Then the only trouble is, well, figuring it out.
So what happens when you do figure it out? Are you gonna post it here in the thread? Not if you're paying attention to the words right after the colon, here, the words in bold: You really should probably PM me when you have a guess about the pattern, instead of posting that guess here. I'm just saying. Something to consider. Could make you happier.
Oh right, and there's another exemption on the table today too.
Maybe I'll let you guys figure out the endgame as it happens. For now, I'll just stake a five-day limit on this challenge. If, by the end of that period, no one's guessed the correct pattern, the challenge is a failure and no EP gets added to the pot. If someone does guess correctly by then, why, a whopping ?? EP will go into the pot! Oh man! Riches beyond imagining! I...
Hmm. Well, that's weird. I guess... we won't know how much this challenge is worth until it's over.
Better get cracking, then. I'll start us off. Then you guys can start asking about stuff you want to bring.
I'm going to bring... let's see... an ottoman to the beach.
Ten players remain: nine contestants, and the Mole. Will this be the episode in which one of the former finally catches sight of the Mole's trail? Or are you contestants planning to keep chasing each other in circles until someone accidentally wins? Let's find out. Three new challenges await, and ample new opportunity for sabotage. Time to play.
* * *
Players, I've got such a simple first challenge for you here, it's going to rock your socks and knock your faces off. "Damn," you will say, "where do you even get a challenge that's that simple?" You will not be able to comprehend how damn simple this challenge is. On the surface, at least.
Are you all familiar with the game variously known as "the beach game", "the beach trip", "bring to the beach", etc.? For those who aren't, and once again for the benefit of future cyber-archaeologists, I'll explain. It's a parlor game, good for passing the time at a restaurant while you wait for your
We're going to do things a little differently, but not much. There are ten of you still remaining, but if we tried to enforce a rule that everyone has to wait their turn, and all ten of you need to make requests in every round, that would be bullshit and the challenge would be a bust. So, as with "Twenty Questions", I'm going to let you guys regulate yourselves in this regard. After every ten requests, I'll declare something else I'm bringing to the beach, but there'll be no rules about how those ten requests are distributed. They could all be from the same player for all I care, and if you don't fancy that idea then you need to sort that out among yourselves.
Wow, this isn't sounding quite so simple now that I have to type it out. I promise it's a lot smoother in execution.
So, this pattern you're trying to figure out. What could it be? There are a few broad categories of patterns in this game. The pattern could be conceptual in nature, such that all accepted answers need to have some common property (i.e. they can't have exactly four appendages, or they need to be able to come in red). The pattern could be verbal, focusing on the words themselves (i.e. they need to contain a silent "e", or at least five consonants). Or the pattern could be superordinate, being somehow concerned with the actual players themselves and the environment (i.e. an answer will be accepted if the named object is there in the room, or if the player has their elbows on the table when they ask). Further, any of these categories might be given a sequential twist, so that whether a new answer is accepted will at least partially depend on what the previous accepted answer was -- for instance, a verbal sequential pattern might accept any word that begins with the same letter that ended the previous accepted word.
All that might sound daunting, but it's not too hard for a clever player to discern early on whether they're looking at a conceptual, verbal or superordinate pattern. Then the only trouble is, well, figuring it out.
So what happens when you do figure it out? Are you gonna post it here in the thread? Not if you're paying attention to the words right after the colon, here, the words in bold: You really should probably PM me when you have a guess about the pattern, instead of posting that guess here. I'm just saying. Something to consider. Could make you happier.
Oh right, and there's another exemption on the table today too.
Maybe I'll let you guys figure out the endgame as it happens. For now, I'll just stake a five-day limit on this challenge. If, by the end of that period, no one's guessed the correct pattern, the challenge is a failure and no EP gets added to the pot. If someone does guess correctly by then, why, a whopping ?? EP will go into the pot! Oh man! Riches beyond imagining! I...
Hmm. Well, that's weird. I guess... we won't know how much this challenge is worth until it's over.
Better get cracking, then. I'll start us off. Then you guys can start asking about stuff you want to bring.
I'm going to bring... let's see... an ottoman to the beach.