Hot Potato Rules

[+travisl]

The only flaw in the [proposed weekend] game that I see is the ending time. Someone might say it was rigged.

 

Easy enough -- just encrypt or protect the ending time somehow, give the encrypted/protected end time to selected participants, and provide the key after the game is over.

 

This could be done through a complex code; by locking the end time in a box at the start point; by providing sealed envelopes to selected participants and demanding they be returned sealed at the end of the game; by sending the end time ahead of time to a handful of impartial non-participants and telling the participants who they are; or by many other methods.

 

The question then is how to inform all the participants that the game has ended.

[+Right Wing Wacko]

And another advantage..... we could play a complete game each time south grabs the bug for the current game.

[+Stump]

When I think of a hot potato game with the whoever has the bug when time is up rules I think of having many "time's up" times. If it's just whoever has it at the end there would be way too much luck involved. Team A could have the potato for 46 hours and Team B for only 2 but just happen to have the potato at the end. So they lose.

 

I'd see having multiple ending points and whoever has the potato at the time gets the point and the game continues on. This would not only make the game more fun I would think but would also encourage fast movement. If the rule only applies to who has it at the end then what's the hurry to get rid of it the first few hours?

 

Radio idea is interesting. Top 40 stations repeat songs often enough to use. Wouldn't even have to tell them beforehand. But there may be enough of a "what a strange way to spend a weekend" factor to warrant them talking about it.

 

I don't really see any way to get out of having a referee on this. Even if it's just one person on each team plays referee and together they count the points and everyone promises to not push the envelope on the rules.

 

Also, you'd need to include a rule about following people. I can see this ending up as a big caravan of both teams driving together back and forth dropping off the bug and then taking it back.

[+Wander Lost]

I think this could be somewhat easy to implement. You have a random number generator with numbers from say 5-50. A number is selected known only by the ref and a group of neutral observers. That number represents the number of hours a team has to get rid of the potato. I would give each team at least that five hour window so that if they were unlucky enough to get the short straw, they technically would have enough time to drop the bug, wait the 3 hours, grab it again and place it in another cache.

Edited January 15, 2004 by Wander Lost

[+wildwillys]

My thought is that the ref would decide prior to the start how long each game would be. Example A=1,b=4,c=2,d=6,E=3,f=4,g=1 for a total of 21 days. This would be decided by the ref before the game starts. He would list scoring after it happens.

[+WeightMan]

I would also set the playing field a bit smaller. Perhaps have a traveling game so that one area could play this month and another next month. As it is right now both teams have members that will probably not see any action due to their being so far away from the cache with only three hour to get to it. One idea might be south of I-90 against Pierce Co west of the sound. PC east of the narrows against Kitsap/Mason King north of I-90 against Snohomish or something alone those line.

[+Criminal]

Make it challenging!

 

• Pierce County vs King County

• Any cache equal to or less than a total rating of 5.25 (Terrain + Difficulty cannot exceed 5.25)

• Caches placed in must be at least one month old

• No MOCs

• Bug can move any distance

• Score one point for each placement in the opposing team’s territory

• No back-to-back pickups by the same person

• Teams must wait three hours before reclaiming the bug if they were the last placement

• No puzzle caches

• Multi’s allowed as long as there are only two steps total w/o puzzles

• Less than 3000’ altitude

Edited January 15, 2004 by Criminal

[+kiltsurfer]

********************okay how does this sound***************’

 

Play like Tennis. Team North (TN) gets the TB. They place in South in Pierce County at noon. (That’s one point)

 

Hours noon-2:00 no added points. At 2:01 TN gets another point. Every hour until Team South (TS) picks up the TB, TN gets a point.

 

Once TS picks up the TB, no more points are earned. TS then must place it in a cache in King County. Then they earn one point to placing the TB in the cache, and after two hours they will start earning points.

 

This will give each team a chance to play, and earn points. The key is how quickly the other team can return the TB.

 

Add this in there… it looks like we have enough players to set some type of limit. If TravisL finds the TB in a cache and then places it in another cache, then he must wait until 5 players from his team places the TB before he can touch it again.

 

If there is a hand off… TravisL hands it to me, and I put it in a cache. We both must wait until 5 other people place the TB. (if the next person on our team Happy Gillmore hands it to Bilbo19 who hands it to Ajetpilot who then places it in a cache, counts as one. Then they all must wait.) So hand offs are okay, but it could hurt your team.

 

Of course there would be all kinds of other rules and stuff like that.

 

Just trying to think outside the box and come up with a better game. I really like playing, and I love the fact that I have to keep tabs on it. I’m really tired after only 4 hours of sleep, but I had fun today.

[+Wander Lost]

KiltSurfer, I like that idea. I was thinking something similar.

 

Now that I don't have to spend my time hitting the refresh button on the bug page I'll try to organize my ideas and post them here.

 

As an aside....It's nice to see all these different options being presented. We could come up with several different games from all these good ideas. Keep them coming.

[+NomadRaven]

I've done a bit of thinking this weekend about hot potato issues, and I like most of everything presented here, with the exception of player limits. Some people have presented the possibility that a player should be only allowed to make a move every 72 hours or every 5 players, and I see just a couple of problems with this.

 

First, if I'm only allowed to make a move every 72 hours, I'm going to lose interest in the game. Every 48 hours? That's fine, but every 3 days seems like a long time to wait. Also, it'd discourage hand-offs, since both players participating in a hand-off would be locked out of the game for 72 hours.

 

Besides, every XX hours seems a little difficult to track, to me. What if we said a player could make a move every other day, where a day is defined as midnight-to-midnight? Then, player A could make a move at 8 p.m. Wednesday, 6 a.m. Friday, and 5 p.m. Sunday. Seems a little kinder to those who have difficult, irregular schedules.

 

The problem with saying that 5 players on a person's team must make moves before a player can move again is that, depending on the length of the game, once people start to lose interest in the game a little bit (like last year) it may be nearly impossible to get 5 active players to make moves on each team. The people who are active now might hit a busy spot in their lives, and have to back off a little bit.

 

So, my proposed "movement" rule would be each player may move every other day, where a "day" is defined as midnight-to-midnight OR after two players on their team move, whichever is first. This way, if a team becomes mostly inactive, they're not penalized and can keep up with the other team.

 

Last year, we ended up with a "team of one" on the south side, and I'm not sure we can combat that kind of extreme loss of interest, but we ought to at least compensate for the possibility that each team might get down to only 3 active players.

 

Stopping things from midnight to 6 a.m.? What if we stopped the scoring from midnight to 6, since most people don't cache then... but some people might actually prefer it. Just a thought. I'm all for the 24-hour clock, too.

 

Also... I think it should be said that the sport of geocaching comes first, and that we're using caches that may or may not belong to players of this game, so we need to treat them with respect accordingly. Maybe a rule should be made to state something along those lines, just so we all remember.

 

Some interesting variations are cropping up! I'm excited to play again, and maybe play a couple of the variations eventually, too!

[+CameraThyme]

A potato as the hot potato. This is my sole suggestion. The dynamics of the actual game, as new rules are hash-browned out, is up to you brainiacs. TravisL, if you'd like the potato, I will personally deliver it to your Pot O' Gold cache for retrieval. - CT