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[korora]

So I found a forum version of the board game Clue/Cluedo, and since this is one of my favorite games I thought I'd host a version here.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, check Wikipedia.  There are some gameplay changes for forum purposes as follows (stolen shamelessly from here):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Every player is a detective, and also a suspect. The real murderer, murder weapon and location will be picked at random, and everyone will get 3 random clues of who/what/where isn't the right answer (I'll send these by PM once the game starts).

On your turn, you can either stay where you are, or move to a neighbouring location, and make a suggestion about the murderer (explained below). Alternatively, you can get on your electric skateboard and start travelling... you won't be able to make a suggestion this turn, but next turn, you can go anywhere on the board and make a suggestion... so you'll get one less suggestion in, but you can move around a lot faster. As an exception, in the first round, to make the game start faster, you can travel anywhere to make your first suggestion. You're also not allowed to make a suggestion in the same place twice in a row... if you make a suggestion, and aren't moved somewhere else before your next turn, then you'll have to move on your next turn.

When you make a suggestion, you pick a player, a location, and a murder weapon... but you have to be currently standing in the location you're suggesting. The player you've chosen then moves to your location, and then we start detectoring. Ideally, the way this works is that the person whose turn is next gets the first try at proving the suggestion wrong. If that player is holding a clue that proves the suggestion is wrong, then they show it to the suggester, otherwise they announce that they can't prove it wrong, and the burden of proof passes on to the next player, until either someone can prove it wrong, or it passes all the way back to the suggester (so the suggestion is either correct, or the suggester has the clues that prove it wrong). Really though, the players won't have to do this, and your friendly host (ie me) can do all this at once... I'll send a PM to whoever would prove it wrong saying that they showed whichever clue, a PM to the suggester saying which clue was shown, and a post in the thread to say who proved the suggestion wrong (but not mentioning which clue was shown).

So, an example... if Player 1 moves to the soundstage on Mars, and suggests Janeane Garofalo there with the human-sized hamsterball, then Janeane is also moved to the soundstage, and the detectoring begins... if player 2 doesn't hold any of those clues, but player 3 holds the hamsterball clue, then after everything is revealed, player 1 will know player 3 has the hamsterball, player 3 will know player 1 knows player 3 has the hamsterball, and everyone else will know that player 3 has at least one of the things that were suggested. Everyone will know that player 2 has none of them.

The only situation where me, as host, doing all the disproving automatically could be a problem (ie, the only time that the players have a choice in the matter at all) is if you can prove the suggestion wrong with two clues at once. Since it'd be a bit of a giveaway if I held the game up while asking you which one to show, I'll just pick one and do it for you. If you'd have a preferred strategy for me, then PM it to me at the start of the game, and I'll try to work it in, but otherwise I'll try to show the one that you've already shown to people... and failing that, just pick one at random.

To keep the game moving, I'll give you 24-48 hours to make your move and suggestion... if you don't play in time, I'll just assume you wanted to do the free-move thing, and when you come back next round, you can move wherever you want and make a suggestion... unless of course you've been moved to some other location to defend yourself against someone else's suggestion.

Once that's over, you have a choice of making an accusation. Be careful with this, as you're only ever able to make one. Unlike the suggestion, you can pick any location to go along with your chosen suspect and weapon, not just the location you're in, and no-one moves around. Also, the disproving round is skipped, and I'll just come right out and say if it's right or wrong. If you get it right, then congratulations! You win! But if you pick incorrectly, then you lose, and are kicked out of the detective squad (I guess the club charter has strict rules about slander, or something). You still exist in the game, in a way, since you're still a suspect, and people can still suggest and/or accuse you, but you can't make any more suggestions or accusations yourself, and I'll just skip you when it's your turn. Again, to keep the game moving smoothly, I'll only ask you if you want to make an accusation if (a) your suggestion doesn't get proven wrong by the other players, or (b) you specifically say to keep your turn open when you make your suggestion. If you don't ask beforehand, but really want to get an accusation in anyway, then I'll allow it, but you'll have to beat the next player in line to the punch, since it'll be their turn already.

In the forums I've played this before, whoever wins gets to host the next game, but we can worry about that when it happens.

Anyone interested in a game?  I'll host the first one, and if people like it we can go from there.  I'll be thinking of DF-themed weapons and locations to make it slightly topical for these forums as well.  If you sign up, you should also give yourself an in-game identity that fits the DF setting (or not) and, if you like, choose your place in the turn order.  10 people total can play.

Players:
1. Boksi/Kaslal Amakas, human
2. Duke 2.0/Herbert the Hammerer
3. Creamcorn/Creamcorn, Soapmaker
4. qwertyuiopas/?
5. LazerBomb/The Miner
6. Sean Mirrsen/Mechanic
7. a1s/Recruit
8. Kashyyk/Thingbert, Armorsmith

[Boksi]

I'll join.



Kaslal Amakas, a human. Preferably going first, too.

[Duke 2.0]

 I'll join. Herbert the Hammerer.

[korora]

Duke: Do you care which slot you're in?

[Duke 2.0]

 Not really. I just want the Hammerer to die in the Dungeon by a Silk Sock.

[Creamcorn]

I'll join.

Creamcorn. The pretty dwarf soaper.

[qwertyuiopas]

Why not make it/ heve it devolve into a RTD?
Once you know who did it, it could be a RTD to eliminate him, but he gets a +2 bonus to counter the fact that it's all vs him...


Whatever happens, I'll join.

[korora]

I think we have enough RTDs, despite being in one myself.

[Lazer Bomb]

I'll join. I am the Miner.

[Kagus]

Alright, I admit it!  It was me, in the Various Nonsense forum, with the 9:00 thread!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh heh. It looks to be fun. Though I can't say I really understand the mechanics, I'll give it a try.

Make me a Mechanic.

Hey! Let's add RTD to it! Drawing cards the other way! Roll a d6 for every player each turn, a [1] represents a clock. Once someone gets the 8th [1], he is killed by the murderer, thus speeding up the game.

[korora]

Though I can't say I really understand the mechanics, I'll give it a try.

The Clue mechanics, or the modification for forum play?

[a1s]

I think I'll join.

as for the killing part, instead, on a roll of 6 (out of d6) the murderer picks who dies. the clues are then randomly distributed between the people who have the least clues (or, you know, given out clockwise from the dead guy, 1 at a time). (I'm joining in any case)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Both, actually. I read the wiki article, hence the clock-dice suggestion.

So I kinda gathered that in the original, there was a limited amount of cards/clues (who/where/what), and everyone got three cards, taken from a pool total. Three cards were put away, and the players were using the cards they have as proof to a suggesting player that the card cannot be one of those put away, because they had it with them.

What I didn't understand though, is if everyone had three cards, and the pool total was constant, then how would you play it with a different amount of players? At some point there would be more choices to choose from than the players could disprove. Something else had to happen there.

As for the forum, well, I suppose you can't do it in any other way than with PMs. But, maybe to avoid constantly sending out PM's, you could "get smart"? Go look at the random sequence generator over at random.org. The 33 cards that we will have in play (3 hidden, 30 are held by players) can be numbered 1 to 33 in a bajillion different ways, way more than 10 at any rate.
Set a list for every player, by firing up Excel, typing the list of cards into a column, putting in the numbers in the sequence into another column, then sort by the numbers, copy and paste into the message. Thus, in the first PM that you will send to the player, containing the three clues that he has, you will also send him a list, his personal, randomized list of the cards available to him. You, of course, will keep all the players' lists in the spreadsheet. And then you can just post this message: "Player 3, Player 2 denies your claim by showing you card 23". Player 3 will look into his first PM, and see that card 23 is an adamantine pick that he suggested. And since everybody has different lists, nobody else will know what was shown, only the fact that it was, and that player 1 had nothing of it.

Edit: just tested it, and it's even easier than I thought. You can gen sequences of 1 to 33 very easily, or you can instead put the stuff into a list randomizer, and work with it like that. Excel also automatically arranges either the sequence or the list output into individual cells, without any manual typing (except entering the initial list) required.

[korora]

OK, I looked at the wiki article and I see what you're talking about with the clocks now.  That's not part of the original Clue game, though, so I'm not planning on including it.

In the board game, you just deal out the 30 leftover cards to all the players.  Sometimes it works out that some players see more cards than other players, and there are various ways around it (like having people with more cards show a card to the people with fewer cards, etc.) but here I'll just tailor the number of weapons/locations so that everyone gets 3.

As for the random numbers,  I think it's important in this game to conceal as much information as possible from people who aren't part of the reveal.  Using the numbers is a lot like playing with a marked card, in that there are potential deductions to be made if you pay attention (e.g. if someone shows you 23 twice, on two different guesses, I can probably figure out based on the intersection of those guesses what the card could be).  And I don't expect the PM'ing to get too burdensome.

Still 3 slots open if anyone's interested.  If we're not full by the end of the week I'll go ahead and start anyways.