If I understand your meaning, this is what I was getting at for providing some bonus if your clues are actually understood.

ha, nope. Completely oblivious even after making this post.

Love the clue now that I know what it means.

Search was a good chameleon clue, can be made to fit almost any movie. It hit better than average here imo

he was a quack, so sort of

(and i completely whiffed on the lion = king of the jungle connection; my references to that clue were about how the scarecrow becomes the king of Oz at the end of the movie, although now that I think about it, that may have only been depicted in the books and in Return to Oz)

haha yes, i did not make that connection

but that's more a me problem than a you problem, because it's a good clue; it just relies on lateral thinking, and i think the issue might be that--unlike "balls," which sounds random--it both requires lateral thinking (that's gettable, thus making it a good clue) and sounds like it could have been a genericish answer, thus removing whatever equity you might gain from someone thinking "well, I don't get it, but he obviously has SOMETHING specific in mind"

if that makes sense

i think that random-sounding+gettable lateral thinking is generally going to be better than generic-sounding+gettable lateral thinking, and both are better than generic-sounding+no lateral thinking

yeah, fair enough, especially on the "way home" front

i'd argue that they weren't searching for the wizard, they were just paying him a visit. they knew where he was, after all

would people have made the "infrastructure" connection reasonably easily, at least in terms of it fitting Wizard of Oz, upon reflection, much better than any of the other listed movies? that was my worry

I'd play again. What about these points?

Chameleon caught, can't guess word: 25 points to village
Chameleon caught, can guess word: 10 points to the chameleon, 0 to village
Chameleon escapes vote: 20 points chameleon, 0 to village
Voting Chameleon: 5 points (no self voting allowed)

10xing the points to avoid fractional points for chameleon vote
I feel like this slightly encourages more specific clues, but I could be wrong about that.

Who won this last game?

I believe prip, eholle, and myself ended tied at 6 points

Congrats!

Did I come in last?

This is correct I believe. You're in 2nd place eb!

Prip 6
Carl 6
E_holle 6
EB 4
Gad 4
JM3 2

Ha!

Alice Podium, nice.

Was trying to think of a way in which the scoring might help offset the points being so highly correlated with chameleon opportunities.

Chameleon caught, CAN'T guess word:
Scoring: -5 Chameleon, +5 correct villagers, 0 incorrect villager(s)

Chameleon caught, CAN guess word:
Scoring: +5 Chameleon, +5 correct villagers, 0 incorrect villagers

(basically, this is a wash except the incorrect villager is 5 behind.)

Chameleon escapes
Scoring: +5 Chameleon, 0 correct villager(s), -5 incorrect villager(s)

This would need some tweaking obviously, but the smaller increments and the chance for negative scores could keep the game tighter while still rewarding good play everywhere.

For the most part though, it puts the chameleon in a (relative to the field) +10, 0, or -10 situation.

Thoughts??

I should see how the completed rounds of last game would play out with the above..

This might be better.... chameleon is certainly OP at the moment.

I've played 10 forum games, maybe 10 live games, and ~50 app games.
I think the has won maybe 70% or more of them.

Interested for future games