User talk:Rootbeer/to do

Randomness

Just had a couple of thoughts I wanted to share on this topic:

1. Draw pyramids out of a cloth bag. This obviously only works if all the pyramids in the bag are the same size, and serves only to randomize the color. Several games use this type of mechanic, including my game-in-the-making Capstone.

It's possible to make games where the size aspect is a feature, rather than a bug. IceFu, in the current competition, has randomly drawing out of pyramids from a bag where you get to chose the size. Granted, this could just be done with two or three separate bags with the relevant sizes in them. -- GregF 14:03, 25 Sep 2005 (GMT)

1. Do something like "The shell game" with the opaque (black and white) pyramids, nesting other pieces beneath them. Underneath a large opaque pyramid you can nest a medium and a small, possibly of two different colors.
2. Do something akin to spin the bottle, where the thing your randomizing is what the pyramid is pointing at when it comes to rest. A large pyramid works better (it's easier to handle and spin). True, this isn't completely random, but it's actually an interesting skill. Simply make a provision like "The Price is Right" and say that it has to go all the way around at least once. What makes it interesting is that different surfaces will affect the spin, so playing on your coffee table might be different from playing on a table at a restaurant.

These are just a few things off the top of my head. -- Jeremiah 19:11, 4 Jun 2005 (GMT)

Thanks for the ideas. These are getting more like I'm looking for. The cloth bag idea is very close to the method in Chess, where one player chooses one of two pawns, traditionally held in the other player's hands. That's not necessarily doing what I want, either, since the chess players could secretly agree that the white pawn would be in the left hand, say. We know they don't do that because of the nature of Chess, not because of the nature of the pawn-guessing game. If either the person holding the pawns or the person doing the choosing makes random choices (all the better if both do so) the outcome is random. But, short of involving a trusted randomizer (a black bag, a coin, another person), nobody else can be sure after the fact that the outcome really was random. This is a tough nut to crack.

With a stash of opaque pieces, you can do pretty well. For example, five large and five medium black pyramids could hide a pawn from up to ten players, using up to five black pawns as decoys. One person secretly covers them and another chooses which order they go in. You could even go around the room at that point and let anyone else rearrange the order, so long as the colors stay hidden. So long as there's no chance that the hider works together with the last rearranger to fix the game, it's good. — Rootbeer (Tom) ^{(U | T | C)} 20:18, 4 Jun 2005 (GMT)

I think there's some potential in your idea of hiding two different colors under an opaque piece. Where can you go with that? — Rootbeer (Tom) ^{(U | T | C)} 20:21, 4 Jun 2005 (GMT)

I had thought about this and generally don't care for the bag idea as well. I had an idea about rehabilitating (or building) a bingo cage sort of device where you can tumble the pieces and open a small door or something and let a piece tumble out (possibly into a chute to determine order just in case more than one piece comes out (the first being the chosen piece.)) Just a passing thought. Noles

Spam

Out of curiosity, is there any technical/logistical reason this is one of the most spammed (If not the most-spammed, I checked a few others and couldn't find on with more spam edits) pages on the Wiki? -- GregF 14:03, 25 Sep 2005 (GMT)

My guess is that the spammer's algorithm looks for recently-modified and often-modified pages, hoping that one more edit may not be noticed. Of course, since we have so few edits from non-registered users, and since we're looking for spam edits, that's not doing them any good. (But it doesn't hurt them, either.) Still, I'm not sure of this. Any other theories? — Rootbeer (Tom) ^{(U | T | C)} 15:47, 25 Sep 2005 (GMT)

It may show a high PageRank in the Google Toolbar for some reason. -- misuba 22:20, 25 Sep 2005 (GMT)