PMaphone

[Tambien]

Welcome to PMaphone, the new Forum Game!

The idea here is to play a game of telephone, but we will use PMs.

Basically, there a 6 steps:

1) The round begins, I post the begining of the round.
2) The scentence is sent by PM to the first person on the list, which will change every round.
3) The person adds/removes only ONE to THREE words to/from the sentence, but here is the catch: THE SENTENCE HAS TO MAKE SENSE. For example, you can remove one word and add another word, which would count as making two changes.
4) The person sends the revised sentence off to the next person in the list and me(so I can compile a list of the evolving sentences), and they send their revised sentence to me and the next person on the list who makes their changes and so on and so forth.
5) At the end of the round, when everyone has made their changes I will post the sentence I ended up with. Then, you all try to guess what the original sentence was.(Except, of course, the person who saw the original)
6) I will post the sentences, from the original until the very end so that everyone can have a good laugh.

THE RULES
-ABSOLUTELY NO telling anyone else what the sentence is. If you break this rule you will be PERMA-BANNED from the game.
-Follow the procedures outlined above.
-ABSOLUTELY NO FOUL LANGUAGE OR INAPROPRIATE CONTENT IS TO BE PLACED IN YOUR SENTENCES. If any of this appears in your sentence, you will be BANNED for the rest of the round and the following one. Plus, your revisions will be discarded.
-To prevent this taking forever, I am currently only allowing for 10 people to join the game. Sign up while you still can!

REMEMBER: THE POINT OF THIS GAME IS TO HAVE A GOOD LAUGH.

MEMBERS
1. landlubber
2. Perfection
3. Catharsis
4. mythmonster2
5. Mosher
6. Yoshiegg737
7. hoplitejoe
8. BigTin
9. Dhoomstriker
10. Red_Spy

Current PMaphone Order
1. Perfection
2. landlubber
3. Red_Spy
4. Dhoomstriker
5. Yoshiegg737
6. mythmonster2
7. BigTin
8. Catharsis
9. Mosher
10. hoplitejoe<

 

[landlubber]

I'll play.

 

[Perfection]

Probably won't get banned...

 

[Tambien]

Welcome

 

[Catharsis]

Whispering...

 

[Tambien]

Welcome! 7 SPOTS LEFT!

 

[mythmonster2]

Sure, I'll try this. Love a good game of Telephone.

 

[Optical]

In, looks like fun

 

[Yoshiegg737]

10 People? Yay, I'm the 6th ...umm...n

 

[Tambien]

Welcome to the game! ONLY 4 SPOTS LEFT!

 

[hoplitejoe]

Joining.

 

[Mosher]

In, looks interesting.

 

[Tambien]

Only TWO SPOTS LEFT!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A few thoughts:
1. If we all follow the rules, then the game will go a lot faster if we use standard approach for Private Messaging used in other such games, that is: send a Private Message to both the next person on the list and to the Game Master at once. That way, we won't require Tambien to move the game along.

2. Perhaps we should be allowed to add or remove words, with a minimum of one word changed and a maximum of three words changed. For example, you can remove one word and add another word, which would count as making two changes. Not everyone is used to writing long-winded sentences, while this flexibility could make the game a lot more fun.

3. The guessing part seems rather weird, since those near the start (players #2 and 3 in the list) will have a decent clue as to what the original sentence was but the players near the end (#9 and #10) would be totally guessing. Having a guessing stage could just delay the game. I'm not sure that it's really needed. Rather than having an actual guessing stage, you could simply spoiler all but the last sentence, then leave the last sentence out of the spoiler. Then you can challenge people to guess what the original sentence might have been without looking in the spoiler tag and whether they decide to do so or not will be up to them. They need not post their guess, but if they are going to talk about the sentences and if you REALLY want to maintain the guessing, then you should ask that they spoiler their comments, otherwise the guessing part will quickly become redundant anyway. I'm still not really sure that we need guessing at all and it might not be worth forcing people to put spoiler tags around their replies just to support this superfluous feature.

If you implement suggested changes 1 and 2, then I'll be in. I don't really care what you do about change 3--figure something out, but I'm not really convinced that there is a need for a separate "guessing stage," as it will be pretty unbalanced anyway.


If you REALLY want to do guessing, a more equitable way to do it would be for people, after they pass on their new sentence, to optionally send you a second private message wherein they try to guess the sentence from TWO PLAYERS in front of them. I.e. the first player doesn't get to guess, as you said already, while the second player sends you a Private Message with their guess as to what your original sentence was. The third player sends you a Private Message with their guess as to what the first player's sentence was.

You can release the results at the same time as the guesses, with the expectation that only some people will guess. That way, we'll have a bit of added hilarity but won't delay the game. What do you think?

 

[Tambien]

1. I just wanted to be sure that people followed the rules, after round one, if no one does anything bad, that stage will be removed.

2. I meant to put add/remove......

3. The guessing stage was really just for fun. If you guys want me to, I'll remove it.

ONLY 1 SPOT LEFT!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

1. I just wanted to be sure that people followed the rules, after round one, if no one does anything bad, that stage will be removed.

It is true that trust must be earned, but in most cases it is better to trust in the decency of players and to give them your faith from the outset.

You have a pretty harsh penalty for offenders while anyone is free to not only complain to you but to also report a Private Message that is offensive. I think that the penalties are harsh enough that you don't need to "play the babysitter" as well.

Empower us with your trust and we will be far more likely to reward you with a good, clean game. If you instead treat us as though we are untrustworthy, we will be more likely to break the rules the first chance that you give to us (i.e. as soon as you take the diapers off, we'll pee on your face--better to just give us underwear and show us the potty right from the start).

 

[Tambien]

I suppose you are correct. That procedure will be removed.

EDIT:
The procedure now reads

4) The person sends the revised sentence off to the next person in the list and me(so I can compile a list of the evolving sentences), and they send their revised sentence to me and the next person on the list who makes their changes and so on and so forth.

 

[Red_Spy]

In...

 

[Tambien]

And we are full!

I shall send out the first sentence in the next 5 minutes.

 

[Tambien]

This is the order for Round 1:
Round 1 PMaphone Order
1. landlubber
2. Perfection
3. Catharsis
4. mythmonster2
5. General Olaf
6. Yoshiegg737
7. hoplitejoe
8. Mosher
9. Dhoomstriker
10. Red_Spy

Check the OP to see where the PM is currently sitting! (the orange pointer under Current PMaphone Order)