ASOIAF Botticelli

[honeyed chicken]

Greetings forum games fans!

This is something I've contemplated doing/offering since I first discovered forum games.

Here's a quick summary.

Botticelli is a guessing game for famous people (in the general version). It has a wrinkle. Players must first earn the right to ask a question by stumping the it player with a trick question.

To start:

the it player thinks up a person and gives the first letter of the last name of that person to the group. If the it person has only one name, Cher, for example - you'd give a "C" or Neymar would be "N", or Flipper (the TV dolphin from the 60's) would be "F". In ASOIAF, the common folk - Bronn for example, have only one name - he would be a "B".

In general Botticelli, every trick question has to be about a person with the same letter as the it person's name. I don't think that will work well for ASOIAF Botticelli, so we'll let trick questions come from the whole universe of ASOIAF.

A trick question is asked in the form of "Did you do such and such?" or "are you such and such?" The form is as if you are speaking directly to the famous person/ASOIAF character behind the letter clue.

If/when the "it" person is stumped, the trick questioner earns the right to ask a yes/no question. The it player must answer truthfully. These questions are asked and answered publicly. They may also be stored up and you may ask several at once, or rather in a series, as the answer to one will impact the next question. You may also ask compound question. For example, the following is legal and not uncommon in general Botticelli - "are you a live, American male in the arts?" If the answer is "yes" the asker has scored a coup. If "no", they have gained little.

In Botticelli it is common that one player does all the spade work, asking the trick questions and getting the answers, but another player "wins" the game. You can look at this as unfair, or as a community effort.

If the asker of the trick question happens to hit upon the exact right name, the it player may feign ignorance rather than give up their person unnecessarily. But if the trick questioner is right, the it player graciously concedes that he is right, and that player gets the right to pick the next it character from ASOIAF.

Players have the right at any time to ask for a summary of what is known about the character.

A word about trick questions:

the best trick questions involve a little creativity and reframing of the truths we know of the characters from the book. If you were asking about Howland Reed, you might say, "Would you be more at home in the Amazon than most ASOIAF characters?" or "Did you help bring down a star?"

For a little more about the game check this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botticelli_%28game%29

The letter is "H".

[Castellan]

Ok. I'm not trying anything fancy.

Are you a drop out?

[honeyed chicken]

A drop out?

Qyburn?

He wasn't really a drop out - he was expelled. But I'll stick with that guess.

[Castellan]

So, you are not Haldon Halfmaester, then.

Are you from the North/Iron Islands? (yes/No)

[honeyed chicken]

Yes.

[Castellan]

were you once an unlikely candidate for promotion?

[honeyed chicken]

hmmm.

That could apply to Jamie Lannister. As the slayer of the king he was sworn to guard might have been seen as an unlikely candidate for LC.

or

Qyburn again. An unlikely candidate for Pycelle's spot on the small council and would not have gotten it were it not for Cersei's "unique style of governance." :P

[Castellan]

I think this game wouldn't work unless you pre-arranged it to get a few people to play and do it quickly, no 40 minutes delays (or just always put them up at prime time when you can round up more players).

Because, quite frankly, my first name was off the top of my head but to pick this one I looked at the wiki. If the host looked at the wiki too, it would just be a boring wiki look up game. If it was an honour system that no-one looks at the wiki, it might work, but you need to round up a bunch of people to pool knowledge.

I don't think i've described the issue very clearly!

I stuck with H, the old fashioned way, by the way.

Maybe I'm being too fussy about the game.

So, you're not Hob the NW cook, who kept inexplicably getting votes in the Lord Commander election? Are you Ironborn?

[honeyed chicken]

No, I'm not ironborn.

Impressive that you're sticking with H. Great trick questions btw.

I like what your idea - a prime time game with a bunch of players focused in.

The problem being which prime time do we go with - American east coast? West coast? Somewhere in between? European?

It may be too early to get that specific.

So far we've established that you and I are interested. Let's (if you don't mind) play this out and see if it attracts enough people to do what you suggest.

[honeyed chicken]

Bump.

Castellan suggested playing at a predetermined time so the game would move quickly. I am wondering if we did that would anyone other than Castellan and me be interested and show up?