Top 12 baby!

The first eleven games were just practice rounds, right?

Rank	Prev	Player	Game 1		Game 2		Game 3		Game 4		Game 5		Game 6		Game 7		Game 8		Game 9		Game 10		Game 11		Game 12		Game 13		Game 14		Game 15		Total Score	Cham.
1	1	bolt2112	5		25		0		0		25		25		25		5		20	c	5		20		10	c	25		0				190	2
2T	2	Carl_Spackler	5		5		25		0		25		20	c	0		0	c	20	c	25		20	c	25		10	c	5				185	5
2T	3	D1iabol1cal	5		25		5		0		25		20		20	c	25		0		0	c	5		25		5		25				185	2
4	4	xander biscuits	5		25		0		0		0		0	c	0		25		25		20	c	5		25		20		0				150	2
5T	5T	Gadarene	0		5		20	c	20	c	0	c	25		5		25		0	c	25		20	c	0		0		0				145	5
5T	5T	insanity31	5		0	c	25		20	c	5		25		0		10	c	25		0		25		5		0		0				145	3
5T	8T	True North	5		25		0	c	5		5		25		20		25		0		0		0		5		5		25				145	1
5T	8T	inDheart	0		10	c	25		5		20	c	0		10	c	25		5		0		0		0		20	c	25				145	4
9	7	Nicholasp27	10	c	0		0		0		20	c	25		25		25		25		0		0		0	c	0		0				130	3
10T	13T	Priptonite	0		25		20	c	0		5		25		0		0		5		25		0	c	0		0		20	c			125	3
10T	13T	iraisetoomuch	10	c	0	c	5		0		0		25		5		5		25		0		25		5		0		20	c			125	3
12T	8T	PokerCrazy94	20	c	0		0		20	c	20		5		5		0	c	0		25		25		0		0	c	0				120	4
12T	8T	Eric	0		25		25		0		0		0		0	c	25		0		20	c	0		20	c	5		0	c			120	4
14	15	ArcticKnight	5		25		0		0		0		0	c	25		5		0		5		0		5		20		25				115	1
15	12	eyebooger	5		25		0		0		5		0		0		25		0		0		0		25		25		0				110	0

Game RR
xander biscuits
Carl_Spackler
eyebooger
Eric
iraisetoomuch

Game SS
Gadarene
bolt2112
insanity31
D1iabol1cal
Priptonite

Game TT
inDheart
Nicholasp27
PokerCrazy94
ArcticKnight
True North

jesus

you can sense my exhaustion around where the double letters started, i think

also, if anyone's planning to run another series, i think anything that gives each player an EV of 2 chameleon rolls is enough games, and the "must be chameleon" stopping condition can make people think about metagaming in a way that doesn't seem fantastic

and ban research

I like the villagers can research before the game, but not after rule.

The game is broken if a villager doesn't know the word. It could be an issue on a few of the boards.

But yeah I've had my fill of chameleon for a bit.

T4 at a game I completely sucked at and ended up absolutely detesting seems like a huge win.

I was just getting my mojo back

First. kudos to JM3 for running this. There were so many times he jumped into a game at odd times of the evening to reveal votes.. It was well beyond the call of duty he had when he set this up...

As for the game. A bit frustrating having been villager 0/6 in a series before this, and then 1/15 in this series. You get a bit discouraged seeing "YOU ARE A VILLAGER".in your inbox over and over, but that is the rand.

Research after the game started kind of ruined things. And yeah, I was one of the persons who said leave it in for the rest of this series ...but, like the rest of you, I did not expect it to take forever for EB to rand chameleon...lol.

Biggest problem was chameleons google clearing themselves. Also, dealing with nonsense clues turned some folks off. For those who could not or did not want to commit lots of posting and research time, you could tell that they were checking out early just based on what kind of effort it was going to take to get the chameleon based on a board full of crazy clues. I don't blame them.

Anyway, it was fun playing with you all.. I had some fun games with 2 or 3 of Nich, bolt and Prip, and upon reflection I think it was because we all were pretty active posters so there was lots of engagement, info and deception.

The hardest games for me were ones with crazy clues and low volume posters. Forced to rely too much on unreliable clues..

Anyway, what a great crowd of 15 to play with.. You are all great sports...

Who won?

Echo all of what AK said. Thanks JM3.
I got a bit too salty in the 2nd to last game, sorry about that.

It was fun, I could have gotten by with 4-5 fewer games, though.

gg all

Before playing this game, I never would have guessed how often one could make connections to clues that seem rock solid, but were either unintended or lucky binks by the chameleon. Amazing really.

Humans are pattern seeking creatures to be sure. This is a great example of why rigorous scientific study is so important. Our assumptions are so often wrong.

It is scary when you think about criminal investigations. How easy it is to make a connection, and then prop up the initial connection with other things that would all seem to support and further validate a first connection, which was never ever valid to begin with..

Scary because we know this has happened, and will again.. Also scary when it goes beyond just a natural "human nature" tendency to want to find things that reinforce our initial assumptions. How about when some of those tasked with making any connections already have built in biases to being with....

Wrong forum, I know, but food for thought nonetheless..

In a couple of the games where I was the chameleon, I laid out a very good (imnsho ) and well reasoned argument for my guesses. It turned out that in neither instance did I guess correctly. Anyone else could have done the same, and we could probably have done the same thing for other incorrect guesses. It strikes me as a flaw in the game if the clues can lead to multiple legitimate guesses. It kind of turns the game from a logic game into an actual guessing game. I suspect that researching to find obscure clues plays a significant role in this.

I not really trying to rag on the game - I think it is fascinating, but it takes a lot of energy/time to play. It may work better without the points, as one shots.

The physical game instructions seem to encourage this. A scoring system is included, but it is the last part of the instructions and marked as optional.

I think it's meant to be played for a few quick rounds (5 min max) and some laughs. Leave it to POG to turn it into something else entirely.

I think bolt? But not on a computer & the chart is almost unreadable on Tapatalk haha.

Yes, we definitely moved the game away from its roots. My initial thoughts on playing the game were that if you gave the list of words and your clue to 100 people, at least 10 (say) should guess the secret word. Any less, then we are really just in the realm of random expectation. I dare say, a lot of the clues given might not have passed that test. On the other hand, we ended up playing in different conditions.

no research turbos (like 20-30 mins max?) would be fun imo

only research exception would be if someone doesn't know a word?

Yeah, not one in 1000 woulda said ghost for “tenner”

Some joke punchline that PC’s cousin made up

I am not really a gamer like many of you folks, but I think that without points (25,20,10,5,0) we would get a change in the game that none of us would like.

Right now if you are villager the goal is to get three votes on the chameleon without giving up too much (or any ) info. If you are chameleon your goal is to escape the majority vote and if you cant, gather enough info to guess the word.

Under our current scoring situation, if I really liked voting TN, but Nich really liked voting EB, the current scoring forces us to work together on a majority vote, or neither of us gets rewarded (well, 5 instead of 25).

If we take away the points, then the game changes from "village" pride in getting the chameleon to "personal" pride. So, with points not mattering as measure of "village" success, Nich and I probably each decide to dig our heals in he votes EB and I vote TN.. We only become concerned with "individually" being right.

So, if we lose the aspect of the game where the village needs to work like a village, the game changes for the worse, and the chameleon escapes way more often because the incentive to get 3 votes as a village is replaced by just being right on your own..

In fact, if you look at the suggested scoring system in the Chameleon game rules, there are no individual points for guessing the chameleon correctly. There are only village team points.. They could not be clearer in that regard that it is about villagers against the chameleon.

http://www.boardgamecapital.com/game...-chameleon.pdf

So, while I am not sure that "points" are the answer, absent points we would need something in place to incentivize the village to work as a village as opposed to working as 4 individuals.

AK, you make a good point. On the other hand, should the goal of the village be to ensure a majority vote, ideally the correct choice? Or is it better to have each player come to his own decision (after discussion and debate), and vote accordingly? Which is more likely to produce the best result?

I favour the latter, but I understand the appeal of the former. I liken it to party politics. Do you follow the party line, or do you vote your conscience? I happen to think the latter produces better government, but I can see that it may be less effective.

Why am I rambling? It doesn't really matter. They probably end up in about the same place.

thanks for all the continued work JM3 and congrats to whoever took this down

The game designers seem to think so. Our scoring system gives at least 5 points to a villager for guessing correctly, regardless of majority. The Chameleon game rules (if you use their scoring) gives nothing to an individual for being right. They reward the entire village with points if they get the chameleon by majority vote.

I guess you can also look at the way the game has evolved in POG as some proof of optimal strategy. The villagers get the most points with a majority vote. If players started to believe that individual deduction/reasoning worked better to get a correct and majority vote than group discussion/debate, etc, then I would assume that would have become the default tactic, and the last 7 or 8 games would have had minimal or no teamwork.

We played one series under the official scoring rules. The correct vote points were added for balance purposes, and to give a little credit for being correct outside of the majority.

I think the game is working about as well as it can as it is, except for the allowing research part.

Maybe if there was a rule that points were lost (or something) if NO villager could correctly interpret your clue correctly. Don't think such a thing could be implemented in practice, but it might be nice theoretically.