- The purpose of this game is to guess real lines from books while fooling others with your made-up lines.
- We will be playing with one dasher at at time (thanks, Kitoba!)
- A single round is played as follows:
- IF YOU ARE THE DASHER: Choose a book: Something where the first line is pretty famous. Post the book title, author, and first single sentence. E.g., "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Note: since we're dealing with smaller pool of available books, I'll ask people to try to choose their book and then look up the first line, rather than looking up a bunch of first pages, just in case they end up looking at books that other people choose later. It's unlikely, but you never know ... - IF YOU ARE A PLAYER: Come up with a SECOND line for the book: Make up a single sentence to follow the real first line and PM it to the dasher. For example, you might PM the dasher with, "Also, I'm pretty high right now."
- DO NOT LOOK UP THE ACTUAL OPENINGS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S BOOKS. THAT IS CHEATING!
- When you make up fake lines, remember that you're trying to convince others that your line is the real one. Do your best to make it believable. Other players may correct your spelling and grammar if they're nice, but they're under no obligation to do so, so proofread your answers! Since the real line is supposed to be copied from the actual source, bad spelling/grammar = obvious fake.
- If you already know the second line of someone's book, make up a fake line anyway. You'll get your chance to shine when it's time to start guessing.
- DO NOT LOOK UP THE ACTUAL OPENINGS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S BOOKS. THAT IS CHEATING!
- DASHER: Post the lines: After you have received fake lines for your books from all active players, post the lines to the game thread, with the real ones placed randomly in the list. Assign a number or letter to each opening to make it easy for players to send in their guesses. Don't include the other players' names next to their openings!
- PLAYER: Guess the lines: Read the list and try to guess which line is the real one. PM your guess to the dasher. BONUS POINTS: Guess who submitted each line.
- DASHER: Post results: Once all the active players have guessed, post the guesses, the real answer, and how people scored.
- Player A correctly selects the real line = +2 points for Player A
- Player A incorrectly selects Player B's line = +1 point for Player B
- Player A correctly matches Player B to Player B's line = +0.5 point for Player A
- Nobody guesses the correct line = +3 points for the dasher
- IF YOU ARE THE DASHER: Choose a book: Something where the first line is pretty famous. Post the book title, author, and first single sentence. E.g., "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
- Points are tallied up and the next round begins.
- Everyone takes a turn being the dasher. I like to make a list ahead of time and follow it, but I'm not going to rend my garments if the order gets mixed as long as everybody gets a chance. (I do not, however, recommend using the "highest scoring player goes next" rule.)
- Please try to be timely with submitting openings as a player and tallying results if you're the dasher. If you're going to sit a round out, let us know so the dasher doesn't wait for your entry.
Sound good? Any questions? Who's in?
