Bringing your own letters to a "Bristol Style" Co-Event?
Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:21 pm
(This post will be continually updated as the discussion progresses)
So some co-events work by splitting players up into triples and making them play each other with one player hosting using the board game. When I say the board game, this usually means a pack of consonants, a pack of vowels and a suitable tool for generating random numbers. The system is a good way of doing things, and the events normally run smoothly. Now as the event organiser isn't really expected to have 20 odd copies of the board game, a lot of the players bring their own version of the game to ensure that there are enough copies of the game for all groups to be playing at the same time.
An issue that arises from this is that the contents of letters packs in different editions of the board game can vary significantly. I believe this introduces an element of random luck to the tournament in the sense that if you end up playing four of your games at a table with a poorly distributed set of cards, then you will have shorter words available, and therefore stand to get less points and not place as highly in the tournament as you'd like to. Of course, there is always luck involved in the game of countdown, in the sense that cecil might generate 105 when you are looking to claw back andget within 10 points, having picked 6 small in the final numbers round, or perhaps you'll be fishing for a letter A and it just so happens to come out when you ask for that final vowel. I consider this sort of luck as something beyond our control, which ultimately levels out in the long run. However this issue of the cards on tables at co events, people could be tempted to try and swap packs on table to avoid playing with that dodgy pack they just had to play with, or if you are a fair person, you might just sit there and play with the cards you're dealt and get really pissed off that everybody else is getting better scores than you and there's nothing you can do about it.
Because of this, I believe it would improve the play at co-events if there were a set of guidelines for letter packs that people bring with them for playing 9 rounders. At this point, I'd like to highlight to you guys that you are encouraged to post any points you see that give a good reason to disagree with me.
If there is a strong consensus that having a good set of guidelines that events could adopt (if they choose) would be a good idea, then I propose that we can work together to create a set of guidelines that:
-Gives a wide range of selections, distributed similarly to those on the show/apterous
-Most packs can be streamlined (i.e can have sufficiently many cards removed from them) to meet the guidelines
-Allows a little bit of variation (i.e doesnt specify exatly how many of each card) so that we don't know exactly what to expect whenever we play, and also so that the above bullet point can be achieved
-Have sufficiently many consonants and vowels in the pack to make card counting not worth doing
So some co-events work by splitting players up into triples and making them play each other with one player hosting using the board game. When I say the board game, this usually means a pack of consonants, a pack of vowels and a suitable tool for generating random numbers. The system is a good way of doing things, and the events normally run smoothly. Now as the event organiser isn't really expected to have 20 odd copies of the board game, a lot of the players bring their own version of the game to ensure that there are enough copies of the game for all groups to be playing at the same time.
An issue that arises from this is that the contents of letters packs in different editions of the board game can vary significantly. I believe this introduces an element of random luck to the tournament in the sense that if you end up playing four of your games at a table with a poorly distributed set of cards, then you will have shorter words available, and therefore stand to get less points and not place as highly in the tournament as you'd like to. Of course, there is always luck involved in the game of countdown, in the sense that cecil might generate 105 when you are looking to claw back andget within 10 points, having picked 6 small in the final numbers round, or perhaps you'll be fishing for a letter A and it just so happens to come out when you ask for that final vowel. I consider this sort of luck as something beyond our control, which ultimately levels out in the long run. However this issue of the cards on tables at co events, people could be tempted to try and swap packs on table to avoid playing with that dodgy pack they just had to play with, or if you are a fair person, you might just sit there and play with the cards you're dealt and get really pissed off that everybody else is getting better scores than you and there's nothing you can do about it.
Because of this, I believe it would improve the play at co-events if there were a set of guidelines for letter packs that people bring with them for playing 9 rounders. At this point, I'd like to highlight to you guys that you are encouraged to post any points you see that give a good reason to disagree with me.
If there is a strong consensus that having a good set of guidelines that events could adopt (if they choose) would be a good idea, then I propose that we can work together to create a set of guidelines that:
-Gives a wide range of selections, distributed similarly to those on the show/apterous
-Most packs can be streamlined (i.e can have sufficiently many cards removed from them) to meet the guidelines
-Allows a little bit of variation (i.e doesnt specify exatly how many of each card) so that we don't know exactly what to expect whenever we play, and also so that the above bullet point can be achieved
-Have sufficiently many consonants and vowels in the pack to make card counting not worth doing