games people play

both of these games reward rounds with points, which may be spent on armor, weapons, spells, potions, food, or saved to try and 'win' the game, although in both cases, the winner is the player who has had the most fun.

1. the cockney rhyming slang game.

this game takes the form of 'charades', in that there is one player performing, and other players have to guess what the answer is, while thinking of what there own performance will be.

a player says a sentence [X] of the form [a]B[c], where B is a word from that sentance replaced by a piece of obscure or new cockney rhyming slang of the form B (&) D, E. the mystery word E should be implied by the content, accent, and appropriate delivery, of [X]. there are two points at stake here: one each for guessing D and E. consider the following example:

i nipped down the baker's for a hugh.

the first task is to work out how this matches the pattern [a]B[c]. since hugh does not make any sense in the sentence, we can calculate that [a] = 'i nipped down the baker's for a', B = 'hugh', and [c] is empty (warning! it is possible that this is incorrect. maybe 'baker's' was the mystery rhyme, and it would make 'hugh' make sense. this is subtley implied by the possesive apostrophe and s. fortunately it is not the case).
so we are looking for rhyme of the form 'hugh (&) D, E', where E is something you would find in a bakery. the obvious solution is 'hugh and cry, pie'. a point for each correct word. thus the answer can be tackled from both directions of the rhyme and the content.

2. top trumps
you know top trumps - the crazy statistical card game everybody loves, for half an hour. any deck gets boring as the game stretches on into infinity with no joy in sight. so why not play with all the decks in world? in your head?

a player picks something out of their head that can have a statistical attribute. given this freedom, the player may pick anyone of any skill at anything, and thus can play a tough game ("egon spengler, hair factor: 8", for instance). the remaining players must think of other things or people that have an arguably higher value in the first player's chosen field; they have to be beaten on home turf, as it were. in this, the game is not dissimilar to that other pub thinking game, 'best band'. however, when the players agree on the winner of the round (which theoretically could be the player whose go it was) the winner must 'draw a new card' from the same 'deck' as their victorius card. they are free, of course, to claim whatever deck they wish to for their next card, and play begins again. the winner of the round receives a point. if no decision can be made as to the victor of the round, a draw is declared and the players must introduce another card into the round in the same category, and continue until a clear winner arises (n.b.: this gives lower scoring players the chance to introduce a really really good card that they've just thought of, which may beat even the original card). a replacement card may only be played in the case of a draw.

a variation exists where if nothing can be thought of to beat the initial card, the losing players may challenge the active player, like in the card game 'cheat', to reveal a superior card to the one played. failing this, the cheating player has a point taken off them.


both of these games may contain long periods of silence.