cdngooner wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 2:21 pm

The thought of how much work you must have put in on this rabbit hole did bemuse me a little...

Subjects like Irving Berlin are fun, because one unfortunate question from the players can throw the whole thing off. Once someone asked if he was born in Asia, the wheels all fell off for me.

That's what I was secretly hoping would happen with Dmitri Mendeleev.

The thought of how much work you must have put in on this rabbit hole did bemuse me a little...

Subjects like Irving Berlin are fun, because one unfortunate question from the players can throw the whole thing off. Once someone asked if he was born in Asia, the wheels all fell off for me.

cdngooner wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 2:21 am

Sorry I was away from the game for a few hours and this all developed rather quickly.

I knew all along that this would happen: once two or three of the answers got worked out, the rest would come extremely rapidly.

cdngooner wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 27, 2024 2:21 am

Excellent puzzle, Spartaculous. And congratulations to the winners!

Thank you! It was a fun round to QM.

cdngooner wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 3:35 pm

We should have enough information for Person A, but I can't find a single English film, based on a Russian work, by an author born after 1884 from Asiatic former Soviet Union. Aleksander Solzhynitsyn is close, but born at 43N on the European side of the Caucasus.

The thought of how much work you must have put in on this rabbit hole did bemuse me a little...

Sorry I was away from the game for a few hours and this all developed rather quickly. A very fun game, and I was wrong about A and F not being famous. Excellent puzzle, Spartaculous. And congratulations to the winners!

That was a cool idea for a round!

I was thinking the other day about how many Diplomacy place names are in my home state of Michigan (both towns and townships):
Smyrna, Livonia, Moscow, Holland x 3, Rome, London, Paris, Venice, Clyde x 2, Vienna x 2, Berlin x 3.

I just realized that the real people are SCs and the fictional people aren't.

Great Game! Missed out on all the guesses but still cool!

Hominidae wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 11:13 pm

I did figure out Clyde based on the Diplomacy connection, but once Clyde and London came up, I thought they would all be England provinces, with maybe someone named England as the seventh character. I think Clyde would have been harder if we had figured out the Diplomacy thing first, since Clyde is one of the less occupied provinces in actual games.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Toto the Yorkie was briefly under consideration. But good luck coming up with anyone named Liverpool.

I did figure out Clyde based on the Diplomacy connection, but once Clyde and London came up, I thought they would all be England provinces, with maybe someone named England as the seventh character. I think Clyde would have been harder if we had figured out the Diplomacy thing first, since Clyde is one of the less occupied provinces in actual games.

I think Richard Kiel was a good choice. Kiel is not a huge city in real life so its name evokes Diplomacy for me a lot more than London, Paris, or Berlin.

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).

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

Seems we have a three way tie.

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!

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

Great round, Spartaculous!

han-shahanshah wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:54 pm

Hominidae wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:44 pm

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 wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:53 pm

Free guess

E: Richard Kiel

han-shahanshah wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:54 pm

Free guess
B: Ron Burgundy

Correct and correct!

Hominidae wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:44 pm

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!

Free guess
B: Ron Burgundy

Free guess

E: Richard Kiel

Spartaculous wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:45 pm

Hominidae wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:44 pm

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.