Zendo, play by forum

[Proxima]

Alas, TAME has the Buddha-nature too.

[WillLem]

WILD
WICKED
HAVOC
LEMMING

[Proxima]

White koans:
CRAZY
TAME
TAXING
TRICKY

Black koans:
FUN
HAVOC
LEMMING
MAYHEM
WICKED
WILD

[WillLem]

AKHBN iff it begins with C or T

[Proxima]

REPTON also has the Buddha-nature. 

[WillLem]

Hmm. OK then, we need to start ruling letters out.

(*)
(**)
(***)

Where * is each letter of the alphabet, so:

A
AA
AAA

Then the same for B, C, D, etc. This can be expressed as:

(*) is white for (letters)
(**) is white for (letters)
(***) is white for (letters)

[Proxima]

Already? The round had just started    But if you insist:

White koans:
CRAZY
REPTON
TAME
TAXING
TRICKY

Black koans:
FUN
HAVOC
LEMMING
MAYHEM
WICKED
WILD

(*) and (***) are white for {A C E G I K M O Q S U W Y}
(**) is white for all letters except those

[WillLem]

Already? The round had just started

In fairness, that guess has shown that alternate alphabet letters is important, as is odd and even numbers of letters. It tends to give a lot of information in one go, so it actually makes sense to do it as soon as possible.

With that said, it hasn't revealed the rule so far in any round!

OK then, here are some more interesting guesses:

CAT
RABBIT
OSTRICH
ALIEN

PACIFIC
INDIAN
ATLANTIC
ARCTIC

[Silken Healer]

AKHTBN iff the first letter's place value in the alphabet is even if the word length is even and odd if the word length is odd

[Proxima]

Yes, correct.

I just think it's not in the spirit of the game if you guess 78 koans at once in the very early stages when people are still making the first connections and spotting the first threads. Also, if this becomes the normal way people play, then a lot of potentially interesting rules can't be tried because they're vulnerable to this kind of attack.

[Silken Healer]

I'll pass the next round on to whoever

[WillLem]

I just think it's not in the spirit of the game if you guess 78 koans at once in the very early stages when people are still making the first connections and spotting the first threads

Jeez, I can't even play Zendo without causing some sort of fuss <--- (N.B. This is meant as a light-hearted joke, I don't actually think this is true)

OK, fair enough, let's agree not to allow those sorts of guesses any more. It hasn't really been an issue so far (Ramon's round went on for over a week despite several of those sorts of guesses!), but I can absolutely see how, in your round, that guessing tactic basically gave away the rule. In fairness to Silken though, he managed to spot the rule and I didn't.

I have a great idea for a rule, but I think Proxima should go again and this time let's agree first to only guess actual, fully-written-out koans as opposed to conceptual guesses such as those that generate multiple koans at once.

[Silken Healer]

Jeez, I can't even play Zendo without causing some sort of fuss

I think Proxima meant that he was concerned that wildcards weren't in the spirit of Zendo in general, not that he was upset over this spesific round. Please don't get into a quarrel .

OK, let's agree not to allow those sorts of guesses any more. It hasn't really been an issue so far (Ramon's round went on for over a week despite several of those sorts of guesses!), but I can absolutely see how, in your round, that guessing tactic basically gave away the rule.

I'd be very hesistant to outright ban any guesses, as it's subjective what a "in the spirit" and "isn't in the spirit" guess is. In theroy you could type out all the guesses by hand. And in theroy when people make a guess and they think they're on to something, they may make "permutation-esque" guesses around it e.g. replace one letter with all the vowels and/or some other letters, or shift the guess around one etc. So where do you draw the line? I think the goal of forum Zendo is to have a good puzzle and to have fun, not about winning or losing.

That being said I've never really thought about bothering to use those sorts of guesses when playing, and I can totally see how the wildcard guess can be percieved as not being in the spirit of the game. I'm just scared if the rule about what guesses are and aren't allowed has an element of subjectivity I'll accidently make a mistake and spoil the game and make everyone hate me.

[WillLem]

Jeez, I can't even play Zendo without causing some sort of fuss

I think Proxima meant that he was concerned that wildcards weren't in the spirit of Zendo in general, not that he was upset over this spesific round. Please don't get into a quarrel .

That comment was meant as a joke (I've edited the post to make that clear). Things like that don't always come across on the Forums. There's no quarrel, it's all good, we're all buddies! Hugs

Anyway, I just felt a bit bad that Proxima was enjoying being rulemaster and it ended a bit quickly because my somewhat controversial guessing tactic pretty much gave away the rule. So, I think he should be given the opportunity to play as rulemaster again with the agreement that we won't make those sorts of guesses (at least for this round).

Going forward, we could agree that it's always up to the rulemaster to accept or reject such guesses in their round. That way, we don't have to worry about lots of extra rules and it can just be... whatever the rulemaster is happy to accept.

[Silken Healer]

Going forward, we could agree that it's always up to the rulemaster to accept or reject such guesses in their round. That way, we don't have to worry about lots of extra rules and it can just be... whatever the rulemaster is happy to accept.

Yes, the rulemaster being able to veto any guess on an individual basis seems like a good compromise.