20 questions, round 204: 7-way showdown!

[Spartaculous]

D: Tom Holland?

Of course! Good job!

Scoreboard:

Wattsthematter: 1
han-shahanshah: 1
Aristocrat: 1
Hominidae: 1

[han-shahanshah]

I think I've gotten B and E nailed down as well, just waiting for someone to go in between :)

[Spartaculous]

I think I've gotten B and E nailed down as well, just waiting for someone to go in between :)

Poor han-shahanshah... someone else guess to help him out!

[Aristocrat]

I’ll try

Free guess, G: Paris Hilton

[Hominidae]

Free guess

G: Paris Hilton

[Hominidae]

Ninjaed!

[Spartaculous]

I’ll try

Free guess, G: Paris Hilton

Free guess

G: Paris Hilton

Drama! A point for Aristocrat, and disappointment for Hominidae!

Scoreboard:

Aristocrat: 2
Wattsthematter: 1
han-shahanshah: 1
Hominidae: 1

[Hominidae]

So we have

A: Irving Berlin
B: ???
C: Clyde (Pac-Man)
D: Tom Holland
E: ???
F: Jack London
G: (maybe) Paris Hilton

Still not quite seeing the pattern--they're all Diplomacy provinces, but what's special about the order?

[Spartaculous]

G: (maybe) Paris Hilton

G is Paris Hilton (in case I didn't make that clear)

[Hominidae]

G: (maybe) Paris Hilton

G is Paris Hilton (in case I didn't make that clear)

I know. I didn't see your post before I posted that.

[Hominidae]

Free guess

E: Richard Kiel

[han-shahanshah]

Free guess
B: Ron Burgundy

[han-shahanshah]

So we have

A: Irving Berlin
B: ???
C: Clyde (Pac-Man)
D: Tom Holland
E: ???
F: Jack London
G: (maybe) Paris Hilton

Still not quite seeing the pattern--they're all Diplomacy provinces, but what's special about the order?

Alphabetical!

[Spartaculous]

Free guess

E: Richard Kiel

Free guess
B: Ron Burgundy

Correct and correct!

[Hominidae]

Great round, Spartaculous!

So we have

A: Irving Berlin
B: ???
C: Clyde (Pac-Man)
D: Tom Holland
E: ???
F: Jack London
G: (maybe) Paris Hilton

Still not quite seeing the pattern--they're all Diplomacy provinces, but what's special about the order?

Alphabetical!

Yeah, I figured that out shortly after posting it.

So, I think han-shahanshah wins this one, right?

[Hominidae]

Also, now I get why you were slightly disappointed that I chose Jimmy Wales.

[Spartaculous]

Final scoreboard:

han-shahanshah: 2
Aristocrat: 2
Hominidae: 2
Wattsthematter: 1

Congratulations to Aristocrat, han-shahanshah, and Hominidae, who are all declared winners of round 204! By the special rules for this round, han-shahanshah will be invited to be the QM for round 205.

And also congratulations to Wattsthematter for an inaugural correct answer in the game!

[han-shahanshah]

Seems we have a three way tie.

[han-shahanshah]

Oh! Misread the rules. I'll set up round 205 directly.

[Spartaculous]

I've had this idea for quite some time... probably at least two months or so, maybe longer. I did a special round for game #157 three months ago, and wanted to spread out the special rounds a little bit. I'm trying to remember who was the first character who made the cut. It may very well have been Jimmy Wales. Probably I saw his name and simultaneously thought "Wales is a Diplomacy province." and "He would be an interesting Twenty Questions target.".

I then worked on assembling a list of interesting people who shared names with Diplomacy provinces. Irving Berlin, Ron Burgundy, and Tom Holland were all obvious choices. Clyde was always going to be the ghost. I'm not quite sure why I preferred him to [Bonnie and] Clyde Barrow; Walt "Clyde" Frazier was probably too obscure. I guess I was just partial to Clyde the ghost, despite the fact that Pac-Man had already been used. The initial draft of my draft also included Paris (from Romeo and Juliet) and London Breed (the current mayor of San Francisco; I decided that they were maybe not quite well-known enough, and so they got switched to Paris Hilton and Jack London. Richard Kiel was the last person to make the list, which gave me 8 persons.

At some point, I decided that 7 persons was more thematic (for obvious reasons), so Richard Kiel got booted from the list. But then, I had the mildly traumatic experience of Hominidae using Jimmy Wales himself before I could do so! Hominidae, you should know just how reluctant I was to guess Jimmy Wales in that round... if I was wrong, I didn't want to put his name in the minds of future guessers. But alas, I was correct, and so Jimmy Wales had to go.

Anyways, I won the game of chicken on Saturday, and decided it was time to uncork this game. I still was a bit unsure if Richard Kiel was the best pick for the seventh, but couldn't find anyone I definitely liked better. (I was familiar with Jim Rome, but most people probably wouldn't be, and I rather dislike him. I had heard of a musical performer called "Portugal. The Man", but that turned out to be (despite its name) a six-piece band. Hans-Joachim Marseille was an intriguing possibility.)

I think that the gameplay itself went relatively well. I was rather shocked that Clyde the ghost was the first one guessed! I had him pegged as one of the two hardest to guess. But kingofthepirates figured out that he was from a video game, and the jig was up. Hominidae nailed that one completely, and, after post #88, I thought that everyone was going to pick up on the Diplomacy province thing... but Jack London was surprisingly slow to get noted. I think my rule to make guessers wait after correct guesses turned out to be fun - or at least drama-inducing.

Anyways, that was fun! Thanks to everyone who participated (and especially to Hominidae for the summaries).