Talk:Zendo-Tao

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Seems interesting, though I don't see why we couldn't play regular Zendo via Wiki. I think the definition of "simple" is perhaps a stumbling block.-- GregF 18:53, 8 May 2005 (GMT)

Don't let anybody tell you that you can't play regular Zendo via Wiki! But it presents some as-yet unsolved problems, to me anyway. (Is there any easy and fair way to do a mondo on the wiki?)
Fortunately for Zendo-Tao, using the wiki solves as many problems as it causes. Players can abandon the game at any time? Okay, maybe the rest of us can keep playing somehow. But now that we don't have to wait for someone to take a turn (or for a master to answer), we're free to let anybody take a turn whenever they're ready. (And when you're not ready, you simply don't take a turn, and there's no holding up the game.)
As for the definition of "simple", you're right about that. I'm hoping that a better way to say that will emerge once we play a game or two. I'd like also to post a sample game, and an example of how a consensus would nullify a bad rule. The intent of requiring "simple" rules isn't to penalize a player for being clever, of course, but to avoid ad hoc rules in the first place. -- Rootbeer 19:42, 8 May 2005 (GMT)
The mondo/guessing stone structure is the one thing that breaks down when you move it online to a forum where it's easier to post publicly than privately, (I remember the LiveJournal Zendo games trying to figure it out as well) but I think it's more of a sideline to the experiment to inductively determine the rule thing.
The emergent behavior I could see happening is that the rules people think of get more and more complicated until the endgame is determined by the most complicated possible rule that stays on the "simple" side of the line. But that'd have to be tested to see.
And was this inspired by something else? I seem to remember another game with a similar break-down-possibilities idea, but that might've just been something I was thinking about designing myself. -- GregF 22:16, 8 May 2005 (GMT)
Inspired by something else? Mostly Zendo itself, and wishing I could play it when I had only N gameplayer brains available simultaneously, for values of N < 3. If you don't have a master and two players, it's not Zendo. Even though Zendo-Tao requires more than one brain (that is, it's not a solitaire game), it doesn't require them to be available to play at the same time or place.
As for breaking down possibilities, I was alluding to a binary-search algorithm in the prologue. Is that what you meant? -- Rootbeer 01:31, 9 May 2005 (GMT)
Now that my second brain has come back online, it points out that Zendo-Tao can be a game for one brain after all. It has no idea what my first brain was talking about. -- Rootbeer 03:48, 9 May 2005 (GMT)

And then I go and jump in to the sample game. One thing I noticed is that, by the fact we had two white koans and one black, and that the unmarked koan had some features in common with one of the white ones, it was a lot easier to come up with rules that'd mark it white than black, though I eventually came up with a couple. Hopefully uploading images will be fixed by the time we run out of pre-uploaded koans. :) -- GregF 22:34, 8 May 2005 (GMT)

The name of this game has always bugged me. The "do" in "Zendo" is the Japanese derivative of the Chinese word "Tao," so you're really saying Tao twice in the name--The Way of Zen The Way. It seems like there's always a language problem when people make variations on Zendo. I told the guy who made Ikko-Zendo that the name sounds like the game is played with one pyramid, rather than one tube of Treehouse, but I guess it didn't bother him. :P Forget I said anything.--Archangel James 15:19, 13 June 2007 (EDT)

I have been playing a version of Zendo-Tao in real life with some friends of mine. Our ruleset is very ambiguous, but the rules come down to: when you have a rule, state it and mark the un-marked koan accordingly, then build a new un-marked koan. If no-one else can come up a rule within a grace period (5 min? 10 min?), you may state another rule that applies and claim the win. Also, if someone can state a simpler rule than you, their rule takes precedence. very enjoyable for 2 players, and due to the nature of Zendo-Tau, we rarely need more than three Treehouse sets. Any suggestions for tightening up a rule-set? -- Hrusk 17:19, 16 Apr 2009 (GMT)