I wanted to make this idea a new post, but apparently I need karma for that. So I’ll just put it here:
The aim is to come up with sentences that are informative, true and maximally offensive. Each of the participants comes up with a sentence. The other participants rate the sentence for two values, how offensive it is on a scale from 0 (perfectly inoffensive) to 1 (the most unspeakable thing imaginable), and how informative it is from 0 (complete gibberish or an utterly obvious untruth) to 1 (immensely precise and true beyond question). As with any real-world probabilities, exact 0 and 1 should probably be avoided, but anything arbitrarily close to them is fair.
Each sentence is scored by it’s offensiveness score Q and its truthfulness score P. The total score of the sentence is P * Q. This will give a higher score the more the statement is both true and offensive.
Coming up with absolute probabilities and calculating the score formula might be a bit hard for a tabletop game. A variation could have the players just ordering the sentences on offensiveness and truthfulness tracks, assign 1 to the top item each, 2 to the next and so on, multiply the two values for each sentence. In this variant, the lowest score wins.
In the ordering game, getting a good position on either track should beat an average position, 4 2 = 8 < 3 3 = 9.
Could this be made into an actually playable game? How many sessions could you play and still have a social circle?
Could this be made into an actually playable game? How many sessions could you play and still have a social circle?
Once it starts getting personal, it’s all over. A game I used to play with my friends was just debating random propositions (I once defended with considerable success the proposition that puppies are tender and delicious.) I think this was as useful simply to see what pleased the onlookers the most, and there was little chance that someone might say something like ‘John’s acne is truly grotesque’. How many non-personal, awful truths does anyone know, or could people agree on?
The Unpleasant Truth Party Game
I wanted to make this idea a new post, but apparently I need karma for that. So I’ll just put it here:
The aim is to come up with sentences that are informative, true and maximally offensive. Each of the participants comes up with a sentence. The other participants rate the sentence for two values, how offensive it is on a scale from 0 (perfectly inoffensive) to 1 (the most unspeakable thing imaginable), and how informative it is from 0 (complete gibberish or an utterly obvious untruth) to 1 (immensely precise and true beyond question). As with any real-world probabilities, exact 0 and 1 should probably be avoided, but anything arbitrarily close to them is fair.
Each sentence is scored by it’s offensiveness score Q and its truthfulness score P. The total score of the sentence is P * Q. This will give a higher score the more the statement is both true and offensive.
Coming up with absolute probabilities and calculating the score formula might be a bit hard for a tabletop game. A variation could have the players just ordering the sentences on offensiveness and truthfulness tracks, assign 1 to the top item each, 2 to the next and so on, multiply the two values for each sentence. In this variant, the lowest score wins.
In the ordering game, getting a good position on either track should beat an average position, 4 2 = 8 < 3 3 = 9.
Could this be made into an actually playable game? How many sessions could you play and still have a social circle?
meh. The “say something maximally offensive” game is nothing new, and I’m not sure there’s a lot to be gained here.
It isn’t just shock value; it isn’t just “say something maximally offensive”.
Once it starts getting personal, it’s all over. A game I used to play with my friends was just debating random propositions (I once defended with considerable success the proposition that puppies are tender and delicious.) I think this was as useful simply to see what pleased the onlookers the most, and there was little chance that someone might say something like ‘John’s acne is truly grotesque’. How many non-personal, awful truths does anyone know, or could people agree on?