It had to be #5 --it was the only one that didn't directly refer to Lincoln, therefore it wasn't any of the ones that we had made up.

I did like Llefser's and CCC's this round, although I didn't correctly attribute either of them....

I can't believe that inspiration suckered me twice in a row!


Anyway, our next book is The Space Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar. Set in contemporary India, it is the story of two women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage; and her housekeeper Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss.

Awaiting submissions from two of our contestants.

Wait a minute, that doesn't follow at all. In my round, the only entries that did not refer to Sid Halley (and generally in the first person) were Insp's and Stan's. In your round, Stan's Sylvie and Bruno entry referred to neither Sylvie nor Bruno.

Okay gang, here are your choices:

Awaiting one more submission.

Guessed correctly by inspiration for 2 points. She also correctly identified the author of each of the other submissions.



CCC and Stan Cold both picked this one, giving kitoba 2 points.



kitoba picked this one, giving CCC 1 point.








So: 2 points for inspiration and kitoba, 1 point for CCC, no points for Stan Cold or for me.

I was almost positive I'd get some guesses if I used Hindi.

Translation: Once upon a time in India.
At least according to Google.

In case anybody is interested, The Space Between Us is an okay novel but the actual writing is horrible. The first sentence was bad enough, but check out the prologue:

I was 99.99% convinced (it seemed like something Llefser would choose!) but then I was trying to figure out whose openings were whose, and the first one didn't sound like anyone's style so I chose it.

I'll be honest, I kind of love my smoking-porn opening, even if it didn't fool anyone.

This game was so fun! Anybody up for another round? Any tweaks we should make now that we're into it? Did kitoba's idea of two books jumbled work well? (I think it did.) Is this game the worst one I've ever invented? Discuss.

I think that this game is easier to guess the correct answer than in regular balderdash, because writing style matters so much more in this game (dictionary style is relatively uniform, and thus easier to emulate). As you wrote in your post, the trick is to look for the entry that doesn't appear written in anybody else's style.

On the other hand, this game was more fun for me than standard balderdash because it offered the chance to be creative with style, both in writing your entry and in guessing your opponent's. Future games would probably work better with more players, but also if we awarded points for guessing who wrote which entry as we did during kitoba's round. I'm undecided as to whether doing two books and two entries per round works well or not.

I thought your opening was fantastic, insp... the only reason I didn't guess it was because it was TOO good. I knew Llefser wouldn't quote the real one at such length, particularly with all those specific details. So that was how I identified you as the author! How'd you sniff me out on mine?

I've really enjoyed this game a lot --one of my all time favorite WGARS games in fact --but I'd rather have a few more players before doing another round. Maybe we should let it rest a little and then try it again.

On the plus side, I finally fooled someone with this round! And actually my entry wasn't too far from the real one, given that I've never read it.

I came stone last. I think that's because I'm no good at recognising styles.

Especially in such short pieces. Still, I had fun, and my immediate response to finding out that this game stops after only one round is "why?"

Stan, your Hindi one was - well, it was too obvious. It was the second one I eliminated from contention (after eliminating my own one).

Unfortunately, it turns out that the third one I eliminated from contention was the real one... nonetheless, thanks for voting for me, Kitoba. That means I only lost by half a point.

--------------



Yes.



Yes; consistency on the matter of guessing who wrote what phrase. Kitoba was the only one to give points for that, which means he was the only one who didn't get points for that (even I managed to scrape up one or two, despite a two-point penalty for trying to claim the points for guessing my own dashes - not that I'm complaining, Kitoba was lavish with the bonuses as well).

So, all in all, I think it would be fairer if everybody scored that in the same way. Since I'm really really bad at guessing who wrote what, I propose that the standard scoring be: two points for the correct answer, one point if someone guesses your answer, and one point if you get all the names right. That still rewards getting all the names right, but doesn't penalise me too much for never getting most of them right.



Well, I don't think it worked badly; I think that it worked, from that standpoint, as well as any other round. Kitoba awarding so many points for attributions and never getting points for attributions did kind of unbalance the scoring system, though.



No.

I mean, no, it's not the worst game you've ever invented, not no I won't discuss, because after all I am already discussing so claiming that I wouldn't discuss would be kind of counterproductive at this juncture, don't you think?

Well, actually... I'm not even sure of that. I mean, it's a very good game, and very high-quality, but what other games have you invented? Off the top of my head, I can think of The Easiest 100gp, down in FRPG, but that's an entirely different sort of game, right? And I'm enjoying them both, and I think I'm enjoying the Easiest 100gp more, so that means that of those two games this one is the worst, but that doesn't mean it's bad, no, on the contrary it sets a very high standard indeed, and so while I suppose it is possible that this is the worst game you've ever invented I rather doubt it, because it does after all set such a high standard, but then again I do have evidence that you are quite capable of meeting and exceeding that high standard, so if every game that you've ever invented previously does meet and exceed the high standard set by Bookerdash, then technically Bookerdash would be the worst game you've ever invented, but it's still a pretty good game nonetheless.

I certainly wouldn't mind going another round. And if we did a full round using kitoba's rule additions (two books at once, bonus points for guessing the others' entries) it would make up for having fewer participants!

Let's play another round --insp?