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OUTLINE OF THE GAME:

In this board game we play in here at FunTrivia, players shoot questions at each other. The game starts on the 1st of the month and ends on the last day of the month. Each day a player may answer 2 questions, a daily (worth 20 points) and a stumper (worth 10 points). During the last 7 days of each month the quota is doubled to 4 questions (2 dailies and 2 stumpers) per day, and the points values are also doubled. Stumpers which remain unanswered after 7 days expire, and the player who posted the question receives the 10 points. The game is played Monday to Friday only (FT Time). The player with the most points at the end of the game is that month's winner!

RULES OF PLAY:

1. Answers allowed per day Unless otherwise stated, each player may answer one daily and one stumper per day. A correct answer for a daily = 20 points, and a correct answer for a stumper = 10 points.
2. Daily To receive 20 points for answering a question as a daily, the answer must be submitted within 24 hours of the time it was posted. These questions are sometimes aka "unanswered 20 pointers".
3. Stumper A question which is not answered within 24 hours of the time it is submitted becomes a stumper (it is no longer a daily). A stumper stays on the board for 7 days.
4. Submitting a question After answering a question a player may ask a question of their own (it doesn't matter if the answer posted is right or wrong). A player does not have to submit a question each time an answer is posted. However, the question must be submitted before the end of the day (FT time).
5. Email your question After submitting a question, the question and the answer must be emailed to the Sheriff aka Sagebrush at: mcarter1@kscable.com, as this will allow him to determine correct and incorrect answers and award points when he updates the rankings table (see paragraph (m) below).
6. Number your question Each player must assign a number to the question submitted. Whoever submits the first question at the start of the month labels it Q1, whoever submits the next one Q2 and so on.
7. Have backup for your question Players must be able to verify the answer which has been emailed to Sagebrush, in case of a challenge by another player.
8. Expired stumper A stumper stays on the board for seven days. If it remains unanswered then it goes to the dead pile (the "Dead Stumper Pile" thread) and the submitter will receive 10 points. A stumper in the dead pile may be challenged by any player. If the challenge is successful, then the challenger will get the 10 points and 10 points will be deducted from the submitter's score.
9. Last 7 days of the month The last 5 week-days days of the month is "The Blowout /Catch-up Week" where all points are doubled (daily = 40, stumper = 20), and each player's quota is also doubled (two daily and two stumper answers per day).
10. Monday to Friday The game is played on week-days only: answers and questions are only allowed during week-days (the game is not played over the weekend, it closes down on Saturday and Sunday). This has no affect on any of the other rules except one - answering a daily. If the question is submitted on a Friday the 24 hours expires at the same time on Monday ("the following day"), at which time it then becomes a stumper. (The stumper will remain on the board for 7 days and expire at the same time on the following Monday, as per Rule 8).
11. Bonus questions posted by Sagebrush These are song titles, where players are required to name the artist. Any player who is more than 70 or more points behind the player in 2nd place, will score double for a correct answer (40 points) and it won't count against their daily limit. In other words their daily quota is 3 questions: a daily, a stumper, and a song title. Although it won't count as your daily, you can answer only one of these bonus questions per day. This offer is good until you get within range of the player in 2nd place. It is not available at all during the last 5 week-days of the month (The Blowout / Catch-up Week). All other players may answer these questions in lieu of a daily i.e. for 20 points (and it will count as your daily). Rule 3 does not apply to these bonus questions i.e they never become stumpers, their points value never changes.
12. Unexpired stumpers at the end of the month These are carried forward into the new month. They expire in accordance with Rule 8, or at the end of the first week. Their expiry date is usually shown by Sagebrush in the opening post of the thread for a new month.
13. Enforcing the rules and adjudication Sometimes the rules are not strictly enforced e.g. with newbies until they get into the swing of things. On the odd occasion the rules may be changed temporarily e.g. the daily quota in Q1 may be increased if there are a lot of questions on the board e.g. the expiry date for unexpired stumpers brought forward from the previous month (Rule 12) may be extended to the second week if there aren't many questions on the board. Correspondence will be entered into, but the final say on all matters tests with Sheriff Sagebrush.

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Some explanations and strategy tips

a. More than one answer to a question Do not make your questions too general such that there is more than one answer to the question. Both answers will be accepted as correct and/or a player will challenge your question when it expires and goes to the Dead Stumper Pile.
b. Submitting multi-part questions A question may have more than one part to the question, but if there are more than 2 parts then 10 points may be given for each part correctly answered e.g. a question with a 5 part answer will give 50 points to the other player(s) when answered correctly, and you don't want your competition getting extra points, do you?!
c. Choosing a stumper to answer. Obviously a player cannot answer their own question. Therefore leave the leader's stumpers alone and answer other stumpers first (i.e. save the leader's stumpers for last). That way you take a possible 10 points away from the leader (he or she has fewer questions to answer). You get the 10 points for the stumper, and the leader won't find any stumpers on the board which he or she can answer for the 10 points.
d. The leader's stumpers Don't let them expire into the Dead Stumper Pile. Answer the leader's stumpers last (see paragraph (c) above) but before the 7 day period is up. This way the leader won't get 10 points for their own question (an expired stumper). n.b. from the time that a question is submitted until the time that a question has expired as a stumper, a total of 8 days is involved, being 1 day as a daily and 7 days as a stumper.
e. Don't give up Answer your limit each day and if unsure of your answer, do some research first. If somebody answers it before you finish your research, at least you didn't lose your daily quota and can answer another one.
f. Bonus song title question If you are more than 70 points behind 2nd place, take the opportunity and answer a 3rd question each day as per Rule 11, after all they're worth 40 points each! But, on any given day, answer the bonus question first, not last e.g. if you are 90 points behind 2nd place, answer a daily and get your 20 points, and then answer a stumper and get your 10 points, then you can't answer your 3rd bonus question as you are no longer more than 70 points behind 2nd place (you are now 60 points behind 2nd place). You've taken your 3 question quota in the wrong sequence! btw paragraph (a) does not apply to bonus song title questions i.e. there may be more than one answer to the song title question. You must find the artist that Sagebrush is looking for, which is usually the original artist, but that's not always the case (they are, after all, bonus questions!).
g. Editing a post .. submitting a question on the same day Rule 4 states that you may submit a question every time you post an answer; the time limit is by the end of the same day. If you answer a question at say 2 am and are ready to submit a question at say 6pm on the same FT day, do NOT go back to your 2am post, hit the edit button, and add your question to the bottom of the post .. other players will now only have 8 hours in which to answer your question as a daily! Submit your question as a new post at 6pm.
h. Numbering questions see Rule 6. Try and have 2 FT screens open at the same time and then, when you have punched in your question and are ready to hit the submit button, pause for a moment .. refresh the other screen to see if anyone has just posted a question and "taken" your number. This will, hopefully, avoid double numbering of questions.
i. How to "double your daily quota" If you want to "take a rest" and not log on each day try this: print off the whole thread and prepare answers for as many questions as you can remembering, as stated in paragraph (e), don't give up. Log on shortly before midnight FT time, check to see if the questions you've chosen have been answered, post two answers (a daily and a stumper, plus submit your 2 questions if you wish) and then, when midnight clicks over, post two more answers and submit 2 more questions. You can then stay out of this place for 48 hours, and only log in 3 times per week.
j. Choosing not to submit a question There is no obligation to submit a question with your answer (or to submit it later that day). However, if we all did this all of the time then we will probably end up giving the game to the leader, as none of us will have a question to answer.
k. Answering a question already answered If you find that the question you've chosen to answer has already been answered by another player, but you think the other player has answered incorrectly, do it! Post your answer. Obviously, if the rankings have been updated and the previous answer has been marked as correct, don't do it!
l. Two players answer the same question with the same answer This does happen at times, and sometimes they post at the same instant. Remember, this is a shootout! The player whose post is second in line can answer another question, his post is there but it just doesn't count. e.g. you post an answer to a daily and when you go back into the thread you find that a few minutes before hand another player has posted an identical answer to the same question: you have not used your quota.
m. Updated rankings during the month These are posted every few days by Sagebrush, showing correct and incorrect answers, the progressive points totals for each player, and a summary of the unanswered questions. Sometimes you'll find it's updated every day, but it's all a function of the time he has available at his end. Please note that the questions listed in the rankings post are valid dailies and valid stumpers as at the time the rankings table and summary is posted. That is why the date and time that each question was submitted is shown in the summary. The 20 pointers may no longer be a daily by the time a player logs in (their 24 hours is up and they've become a stumper); or a stumper may no longer be available (it's expired). So keep your eyes on the date and time!

Good luck and enjoy the game!

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[This message has been edited by gtho4 (edited 01-29-2001).]

re: 11. I never knew you couldn't answer a bonus song title during the last 5 days of the month.
good thig I read these rules

oh, and typos I saw as I read:

4. "if the answer possted<--- is right or wrong"
8. in parenthesis is "e.g." , should be "i.e"??
9. a) " The Blowout /Cath-up<--- Week" : 9 b) "each player's quota is also doubkled<-- "
g. "editing" not "editting"

Great job gt. This game comes out sounding complicated, doesn;t it?
Anyone thinking of playing, it's not that bad once you get used to it

I think I like dead stumpers as 10 points. Just doesn't seem enough incentive to post winning questions if the reward is only 5 points.

ttfn

jw, all the typos you found have been fixed, the parenthesis in 8 and its contents have been removed .. where in 11 does it say you can't answer a song title in the Blow Out Week! hmm looks like that'll be a re-write .. ic your point on the expired stumper .. any thoughts on prohibiting the leader answering a song title?

.. rules 11 11 12 and 13 have just been renumbered as 11 12 13 and 14

Good job, GT. Thankyou for doing it. I won't make a comment on your suggeestions yet, let's see what the other players say about them.

JW - In the blowout/catchup round the titles can be answered, they just aren't offered as a bonus. They count as a daily.

Gtho..hey well done on the rules consolidation, looks even understandable lol..like JW said, anyone thinking of playing this shd not be disheartened, it is a lot simplier when you play.

I have had a month or so away from this game due mainly to having to do other things but do intend to return at some point real soon I hope....the possible changes Gto to the current scoring and rules sounds great I reckon....I think you are right about posting impossible q's...I know if they were onlt worth 5 i wouldn't beas keen to try to come up wih Q's people can't get, which I think is one way that the the game could die out...well done and I'll be back...lol...cya

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If all the worlds wealth were divided between every man, woman & child
presently alive on the planet, we would all have $13 million a piece.
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$13 Million for every single Human....
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I've moved all the trash talk out of the first post and put it down here ..

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If there is anything which is unclear or ambiguous, or both, please feel free to post in this thread. Ditto with typos that I still can't see. Have I left a rule out?! The rules and explanations look long, but I've put a short outline of the game right at the top .. it's a skeleton which hopefully will help to make sense of each rule, and each rule has a short title in bold so you can find it. Is there anything in paragraphs (a) to (m) which should be in the Rules section?
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sage,

two possible changes for you to ponder over
.. anybody is allowed to answer a bonus sing title except the leader, or joint leaders if there is a tie: let's handicap the leader and make him or her work for it, if he or she is leading they can't answer a song title as a daily:- only a question submitted by players
.. when stumpers expire the player who posted the question receives 10 points: let's reduce that value to 5 points (no change to 10 points when a player answers a stumper correctly) .. I haven't got my mind around this completely, it's just a thought at the moment, as this exercise in consolidating the rules into a new thread has got me thinking (and exhausted) .. the logic (I use that tern loosely) is this: a daily halves in value from 20 to 10 points when it becomes stumper .. a stumper halves in value from 10 to 5 points when it expires .. I'm thinking of ways to stop impossible questions being posted
what do you think? anybody else got any thought on these two matters?

I'm away Tue+ Wed and Fri is a public holiday in oz .. when the final edition of the rules is in here I'll edit out these comments

Sounds good to me GT. I also have a new rule to add.

Rule Change:

A player player is authorized to answer two questions (one daily and one stumper) only if they submit a new question. Otherwise only the first question answered will be counted. In the blowout / catch-up round, two new questions must be submitted to answer three or four questions. This will help to keep a supply of questions going.

GT - Rewrite this if it needs to be explained better.