20 Questions Round 363

[DreamTrawler]

I agree with the following rule changes:

- Change the 2 questions and a free guess rule back to 2 questions including a free guess. Prevents people from essentially triple asking and getting the answer.

- Remove conditional questions. It was I who originally instituted this, and the reason was just as you say - to avoid Person A asking the final defining question, QM failing to answer for 12 hours, and Person B getting online before A to gazump him to the answer. But it has become unwieldy and should be scrapped.

- Pick easier targets. Highly agree. This is the single best thing we can do to improve the game. This used to be an interesting challenge in general knowledge. It has become an exercise in scouring Wikipedia pages, and using Google and ChatGPT to win the game.

- Maybe its just me, but I like themes. Spartaculous' multiball games, or my "guess the connection with the past subject" games.

I will change the 2 aforementioned rules for the next round. The 2 questions and a guess thing definitely has to go, I was the one that had suggested it but coupled with conditional questions it allows for a huge range of bases to be covered. Let’s see how getting rid of conditional questions turns out - it could also lead to the threads getting less traffic since everyone is waiting for a question to be answered.

As for picking easier targets - I generally agree, but we do also lose some of the fun that way. If we go too easy, the threads may just become a “buzzer race” of everyone rushing to guess the answer. I think some of the most fun recent rounds, to me personally, have been ones like 332 (Chang and Eng Bunker) or 334 (Muntadhar al-Zaidi). While not everyone knows their names, most people have heard of “Siamese twins” or “the guy who threw his shoes at George Bush.”Also - ChatGPT? Has that actually yielded results for anyone?

And I agree, themes are fun. The connection to the previous round can sometimes be a huge clue, but it’s fun as a once in a while thing. I will see if I can keep it going.

[DreamTrawler]

Oh, one more thing - I was looking at some of the way older 20Q threads and I feel like people used to ask more fun/silly questions. Like “is this person famous for doing something with a manmade object longer than it is wide?” (i.e. paintbrush, gun, javelin, whatever)

Maybe we could change up our question asking formula. Ask about peoples place of death instead of birth. Or what biome they lived in or something.

[Hominidae]

Removing conditionals seems reasonable, as long as we just ignore questions that are stated as conditional (because someone forgot the new rule) rather than answering them anyway.

I don't think there should be hard and fast rules on how "easy" the target should be, but increasing the percentage of targets that are well-known is probably a good idea.

I also wonder if there's a way to slow down the game a bit. People have complained that things move to fast for people to participate. Maybe some kind of time limit on asking questions, but I'm not sure exactly how that would work.

[Hominidae]

Another thought on conditionals: in the case of conditional questions, the conditional rule can be bypassed by creatively worded questions. For example, if conditionals are allowed:

Person A: Born in Eurasia?
Person B: If yes: born in Asia? If no: born in the Americas?

If conditionals are not allowed, this set of questions would result in exactly the same information for the questioners:

Person A: Born in Eurasia?
Person B: Born in Asia or the Americas?

So ultimately, getting rid of conditional questions doesn't change much in this regard, but it arguably makes things more fun.

However, with conditional guesses, I think getting rid of them makes the game more challenging in a good way, so you have to actually be sure of yourself if you want to put in a free guess. "Free guess: Taylor Swift" is a lot more risky than "Born after 1985? If yes, free guess: Taylor Swift." Getting rid of conditional guesses would even the playing field a bit because if all the successful players have already made free guesses, the less successful players will have a better shot.

[Wattsthematter]

Coming from someone that is only on twice a day that used to stalk the forums… it does often feel like the game has become very formulaic and I’m not active enough to compete with those more familiar. I think reformatting our typical questions and trying to have more fun with it would help a lot!

[DreamTrawler]

Next thread will be up tomorrow! I will keep the feedback in mind.

[JECE]

I believe that my version of the rules were the ones in use "6 or 12 months ago" when more users played 20 questions.

Here is my latest game in case it's helpful to compare the current rules with my version:

https://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=403925#p403925

I think I was the first game master to ban conditional questions, so I'm glad to see that that is being considered as the standard going forward. If conditional guesses are causing similar or even worse problems, then I agree with banning them too.

Also, I was the first game master to codify that asking two consecutive questions and then making a free guess was fair game. I still think that it makes more sense that way. Has it really decided a lot of games of late? It used to be a once-in-a-blue-moon thing.

[Hominidae]

I believe that my version of the rules were the ones in use "6 or 12 months ago" when more users played 20 questions.

Here is my latest game in case it's helpful to compare the current rules with my version:

https://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=403925#p403925

I think I was the first game master to ban conditional questions, so I'm glad to see that that is being considered as the standard going forward. If conditional guesses are causing similar or even worse problems, then I agree with banning them too.

Also, I was the first game master to codify that asking two consecutive questions and then making a free guess was fair game. I still think that it makes more sense that way. Has it really decided a lot of games of late? It used to be a once-in-a-blue-moon thing.

JECE, I think you were right about conditionals--conditional guesses at least. I think conditional questions don't matter much either way, as I said earlier.

I do think that the ability to scratch is harmless, and the more formalized ability to pass on questions allows for more creative (not necessarily more obscure) picks.

[Aristocrat]

Appreciate all of the thoughtful responses here. And to be clear this wasn't meant to be a shot at the players who are currently doing so well! Just meant to get the ball rolling on some ideas and ensure users continue to flow into the game.

For my two dipcoins: I agree with the above comments about conditional [free or unfree] guesses being a good candidate to remove for a trial period. That should be one of the easiest ways to slow down the game a bit and level the playing field.