CODENAMES
10-15-2015, 02:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-18-2015, 03:48 PM by Robust Laser.)
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Greetings, Comrades. The time has come. Our sleeper agents are in position, awaiting orders. Your Couriers must find and activate all of your agents before the filthy capitalists of Team Blue can activate their own agents. You will know your agents by their Codenames. Of course, we can not transmit these codenames to all agents, for fear of interception by the enemy.
Spymaster, you must guide your couriers to the correct agents through encrypted communications. Be careful not to mislead your agents into giving sensitive documents to ignorant bystanders, or even worse, enemy agents! And we have word that a mysterious and deadly extremist lies in wait, ready to slaughter the agents of either side. We know this rogue element only as THE ASSASSIN.
Team Red, deploy to the field. The Motherland is counting on you.
Hello, Agents. The time has come. Our sleeper agents are in position, awaiting orders. Etc etc etc look you have the commie documents you get the gist. Save freedom or whatever.
What the hell is Codenames?
Codenames is a word game designed by God of Board Game Design, Vlaada Chvatil. It is a team game, where each of the two teams, Red and Blue, consists of one Spymaster, and several Couriers. Two or three couriers depending on interest.
- The Spymaster on each team will know the exact identity of every word. They will know who is Red, who is Blue, who's a Bystander, and of course, the Assassin.
- Spymasters will take turns giving clues to their Couriers. The clue must Take the form of [WORD]: [NUMBER]. The Word represents a word that relates to allied words on the board. The Number represents how many words are relevant to the clue. For example, ANIME: 4 from the Red Spymaster means that four of the red words on the board are related to anime, and the Couriers have to figure out which ones those are.
- Couriers make guesses one at a time, at which point either I or one of the Spymasters will reveal if it was a correct guess. On a correct guess, the Couriers get to make another guess. Couriers may make as many guesses as [NUMBER]+1. So in the anime example, the Couriers may make up to 5 guesses, assuming the first four were correct. You may choose to stop guessing and pass to the other team at any time, as long as you have guessed at least one word.
- If the word matches a Bystander or an enemy agent, your turn ends, and in the case of an enemy card, they functionally gain a point.
- If the ASSASSIN card is ever chosen, however, your team loses IMMEDIATELY, giving on automatic victory to the enemy.
- The first side to have all of their agents revealed wins the game. Even if the agents are revealed by the enemy.
SPYMASTER RULES
When giving clues, there are a few things you have to keep in mind!
- Clues cannot contain words present on the game field. This includes partial words -- TABLE is an illegal clue if TABLET is one of the listed words. (As a side note, any word that is revealed, whether as an agent or bystander, is essentially removed from gameplay. You can potentially use that as a clue later on.)
- You also cannot use variations or derivatives of words on the field. If BROKEN is on the field, BREAKING or BREAKAGE are illegal.
- Homophones are ALSO illegal. If BREAK is on the field, BRAKE is not a valid clue.
- Spymasters may only use English words. Foreign words are okay if they're common loanwords (like STRUDEL or SCHADENFRUEDE or, y'know. Use your best judgement.)
- Proper nouns and compound words are okay. NEW WORK, BARACK OBAMA, and SELF-DESTRUCT are all valid. You don't get to make up proper nouns out of whole cloth, though. SIR LUNAR SQUID is not a valid clue for MOON and OCTOPUS.
- The second part of a clue, (the number), cannot be a hint in itself. CITRUS: 8 is not a valid clue for LEMON and OCTOPUS.
- That said, the first part of a clue can be a number or letter, provided it is related to the MEANING of a word, rather than the orthography. FOUR: 2 is a valid clue for SQUARE and CAR, but not FILE and TACO. X: 2 is a valid clue for RAY and FILE, but not EXACT and AXE.
- This rule is optional, and we'll allow it here: Rhyming clues are allowed, but, y'know, you can't give any indication that it's a rhyming clue. Just because WAND rhymes with BOND doesn't mean they aren't going to aim for PRINCESS
- Spymasters must not give any sort of extraneous communications in-thread, such as "This clue is a longshot, but..." Just say the clue and nothing but the clue.
- Finally, if you're unsure, ask me or, even better, the opposing spymaster. If your actual enemy doesn't think it's unfair, it's probably good.
Oh, oh, one more thing! There's a special kind of clue you can give! Spymasters can give a clue such as, FEATHER: 0. This means "none of our words relate to feathers." Your team gets infinite guesses until they fail for this. Similarly, you can also give FEATHER: INFINITY as a clue. Infinity is a number. You can guess for as long as you can until you fail. Or pass the turn. Or win, I guess.
THREAD SPECIFIC STUFF
In order to keep some semblance of pace happening, there will be a time limite of 24 hours after a Spymaster has posted their clue for the Couriers to make official guesses. After that point, you can keep going, but then the enemy Spymaster can just end your turn by giving their clue whenever they're ready. At that point, no more guesses for you. It's the enemy's turn.
Speaking of Spymasters, they have 48 hours after the enemy turn has ended (from a pass or a bad guess) to issue a clue. If they don't make the deadline, I'll treat it as an invalid clue.
In either case, an extension can be requested for whatever cirucmstances may call for it.
Game communication should be within the thread. You can, like, talk about it on IRC stuff, specifically if I'm there to see it, and that doesn't just mean I'm online because I leave IRC open while I sleep. Until the end of the game, Spymasters must say nothing to their Couriers except for clues. Couriers can say whatever they want, but, y'know, the enemy is watching. Anybody not playing can't help out the Couriers or Spymasters, but they can totally make fun of players.
Finally, When you're actively giving a clue, or making a guess you should bold it and give it in the format ## BODYPILLOW: 4 or ## GUESS ANIME. This makes it nice and obvious for either the Couriers who are looking for their clue, or me/Spymasters looking to confirm whether or not the guess was correct, as well as, for the guesses in particular, being able to tell whether or not it's speculation or an actual submission.
Our first game will have 6 or 8 players depending on interest. Post ## MISSION ACCEPTED if you're in, as well as if you'd like to be a Spymaster, a Courier, or would be fine with either. The Spymaster of each team will be PM'd a list of which words are allied to who.
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