Event #2042

Kelsung Klue

Yorba Regional Park, 7600 E La Palma Ave, Anaheim, CA

This event is currently full, but you can join the waitlist.

Registered Boxes: All Traditional HH/Cootie/Flea Postal LTC Event Box Traveler Other

Starts	Sat April 9, 2011 11:00am
Ends	Sat April 9, 2011 3:00pm
Owner	Kelsung
Admins	Kelsung
Signups	33 (full)
Location	Yorba Regional Park, 7600 E La Palma Ave, Anaheim, CA View Map
Add to Calendar	Google calendar ICS file (e.g. Outlook, iCal, etc.)

Description

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nwTldvvxOM

What a lovely Spring day! Nothing could disturb the pleasure of those wispy clouds and chirping birds. Except, perhaps, murder!

You were one of a group of socialites invited to spend the day at Tudor Manor, the estate of Mr. John Boddy. A fine dinner party would, of course, commence in the evening. Meanwhile, each house guest whiled away the afternoon in various ways: reading in the library, playing piano in the ballroom, perhaps going for a horseback ride about the grounds.

But suddenly, the blood-curdling scream of a horrified man rang throughout the mansion! Within moments, all the servants and guests were assembling in the corridors, anxious to know what had happened. The ever-attentive butler whisked them all out to the patio around the pool and disappeared back inside.

Moments later he returned and quickly dialed the police. Everyone gasped in shock as he requested an inspector be sent round to investigate an incident of foul play: Mr. Boddy was dead! He hung up and announced that no one was to leave the area.

Soon the Inspector arrived, talked briefly with the servants, and proceeded to search the house as everyone sat about the pool, murmuring questions to one another. He returned with his arms full and dumped a pile of items on a table. Announcing that one of these things was in fact the murder weapon, he proceeded to take each house guest aside one by one and question them.

At that point, nobody knew by what means Mr. Boddy was murdered, nor even in what room of the manor the crime had taken place. It became clear that this was a deliberate ploy by the Inspector to smoke out the culprit, hoping that they would accidentally reveal themselves upon questioning.

Your own curiosity, of course, had you listening to the whispers of the servants. With the Inspector distracted by his interviews, perhaps you would slip out and do some investigating of your own and try to piece together where each person and item had been when you all heard Mr. Boddy scream.

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DO NOT arrive more than 30 minutes early, as I will still be finishing preparations for the game that morning, but PLEASE arrive on time so everyone can start together.

Location - From the 57 Fwy, head east on the 91 Fwy about 5 miles and exit at Imperial Hwy north. Turn right on La Palma Ave. Go through the light at Fairmount Blvd and take the first right turn into the park. This entrance and parking are free. Continue past the dirt overflow lot to the main parking lot, which shouldn't be full from the people at the softball games till after noon.

From the restrooms, walk east on the paved trail between the ball fields. At the Yorba Park trailhead is a large map. Maybe glance at it for a general idea of the trail layout, but don't bother memorizing it, because it isn't completely accurate.

Continue on paved trail from the map.
Left at triangle.
Right at fork.
Left at fork.
Right at fork.
Left at fork.
Right at fork.
Step into clearing on right with several picnic tables.

Is this the most straight-forward route to the meeting place? Probably not, but it will get you used to how the trails will look and how the clues will look. I will be at the group of tables, which are at the central point for six different loops. They are about a half-mile each, level and mostly paved, stroller friendly and dogs are allowed.

IMPORTANT NOTE - There are already two older letterboxes active in this park and I have verified their status. If you intend to seek out "Shanna The Piranha" by MrOspital, do so before the game. It starts in the same parking lot, but goes in the opposite direction. If you intend to seek out "Good To Be King" by Lee & Nancy, please wait until AFTER the game. It starts in the same parking lot and is located SMACK DAB in the middle of the game! I don't want anyone stumbling upon my boxes early, or stumbling upon me possibly still planting them. Besides, if you wait, you will find it much easier to locate.

--- Team Scarlett --- Piper Paws Tdyans Deniserows Roundupgang Team Tucker	*--- Team Mustard ---* Bumblebeebunny Bumblebeebunny's +1 Fleetwood 7 Fleetwood 7's +1 Lifetish	---- Team White ----- Zuhl is cool Naughty Zoot Dafamily Dafamily's +1 PenGwen
---- Team Green ---- Cherry On Top Dog On A Mission Lil Raindrop Gerwaiian Oma Pappasky	--- Team Peacock --- Summerfun I Dig Toasters Dezert Ratty Clarinet 226 Pandamonium	----- Team Plum ----- Lee Tara Tara's +1 Hansenclan Skater Chick

Each team needs to select a team leader who will be the person whom I give the clue sheets to for each trail, as each team will only get one at a time. They will also be the last word on your final accusation: remember, you only get one!

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Things you will need: Pen or pencil, COMPASS, deductive reasoning skills, strategic team cooperation. I will provide every single player with a "Detective Notes" sheet from a regular Clue game. Somewhere along the way in all the updates to this page, the fact that you'll need a compass got removed and never put back. I stated early on that most of the clues require a bearing from an obvious landmark to a generic tree. Since teams will be able to split up in round three, you'll need to have at least TWO compasses.

Things you won't need: Signature stamps, personal logbooks, ink pads. I will provide TWO logbooks to each team, with a single page for each stamp. The boxes will contain an ink dot for the stamp and no logbook. So you won't need them during the game, but bring all those things anyhow, because after the game we'll have the usual exchanges and personal travellers. There will be a logbook with the event stamp for everyone to log into.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLG66ER0UUM

The game will be played in three rounds: the first will be traditional letterboxing, the second will be traditional Clue, and the third will be a chaotic free-for-all race to the solution!

First - Each team will get a clue sheet to one of the six trail loops. Each loop has four boxes: three "card" stamps of a suspect, weapon or room and one stamp of a servant. Although they won't directly let you eliminate a "card", each servant will provide a bonus clue to a different trail, and some of the other boxes may contain bonus clues as well. In the first round DO NOT follow any of the bonus clues yet! Simply seek out the four boxes, stamping into both of the logbooks, and complete the loop back to the starting point.

Second - At this point each team will have three "cards" just like your hand in a game of Clue. The team leaders will then sit down around a table and make a "suggestion" of a suspect, weapon and room. Just like the game, each player moving clockwise around the table will either pass or show them a stamp from their logbook. Once a stamp has been shown, the next team leader will make a suggestion, and so on.

After once round the table, everyone will then get to make a second suggestion, but this will be done in reverse order to make things balanced. Not to confuse things at this point, but the idea is so the person who guessed first in the first round then guesses last in the second round. Rather than fully explaining it here, I'll explain in person so it's clear. Suffice it to say that if you take good notes, besides the two stamps you will be shown, it may be possible to deduce what others have shown one another, especially after you start finding more boxes in round three.

Third - Then I will give each team leader a clue sheet to a second trail. As things progress, they will need to give me back each clue sheet before receiving the next, so each team will have only one at a time. But at this point, you can also start to seek out the bonus clues you got in the first round, and any new ones you will begin to discover. This is where the teams can split in two, each taking a logbook. One group can follow a clue sheet to four new stamps, while the other seeks out bonus stamps. This will result in each team's two logbooks containing different stamps, so you will need to meet and keep each others notes updated and discuss other deductions you may have reached.

Obviously, now that people from other teams may be simultaneously on your trail following a bonus clue, it will be very likely you'll bump into somebody. If you meet someone from another team on a trail, both teams will be required to show a stamp from their logbook to the other team. Think strategically about what you reveal, hoping to give away information they already have. This is why you will only be given two logbooks and will only be allowed to split into two groups. As long as these guidelines are followed, any other strategies that a team wishes to employ are perfectly fair. But keep in mind that any time you waste stalking another team in order to poach a box you don't have a clue for is time you could have spent following clues you DO have in order to complete a loop and receive the next clue sheet. Use your time wisely.

Finally - Once a team thinks they've eliminated all but one suspect, weapon and room each, the team leader can offer me their "final accusation" in order to get the final three-part clue. You will only get one chance at this, and if any one of the three is wrong you'll be going on a wild-goose chase to nowhere. Each subsequent team who comes to me with a final accusation will be told what any previous team had guessed before giving me theirs. The first team to guess correctly and find the final box will be the only team allowed to stamp those final three stamps.

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Once the game is over, anybody who'd like to follow their remaining clues and gather the rest of the stamps will be able to do so during or after lunch. Everyone playing should sign up for the Post-Klue Potluck, and anyone else who didn't get to sign up for the game is welcome to sign up as well and join us for the usual fun of exchanges, personal travellers, food and good conversation.

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HISTORY:
Created by Anthony E. Pratt in 1944, Waddington Games first published Cluedo in the UK in 1949, licensing it in North America to Parker Brothers under the name Clue. That first UK edition lasted 47 years, but has had 3 newer editions since 1996. Meanwhile, in the US there were 7 editions in '49, '56/'60, '60/'63, '72, '86, '92 and '96. The current edition from 2002 is the eighth US and fourth UK edition, and the first to be the same in both markets since Hasbro bought both companies in the early '90s. This is to say nothing of the many special editions and spin-off games that have also been released.

This gave me a lot of artwork to choose from in making the stamps. For the weapons, I wanted a rope that was a noose, not just a coil, and I wanted a revolver that was actually a revolver, instead of a pistol as it is often represented, so I settled upon the photos from the Franklin Mint Edition. The rooms are usually represented by a top-down floor plan, which would make for a lousy stamp image, but the cartoonish 1963 edition gave me icons instead, which were perfect.

The suspects were a much bigger issue. Of primary concern was Mrs. White, who was represented as the cook early on, and in most later editions as the maid. Since I wanted to create servants separate from the suspects, similar to the film, in which Madeline Kahn is just another house-guest, I needed to find an image that would work. But the editions that gave me one I liked gave me an image I didn't like of some of the other suspects for one reason or another. I finally decided that the only real solution was for suspect images to come from six different editions. This freed me to use a version of Miss Scarlett (with two "t"s!) who was Asian, and a Reverend Green image from the UK (he was changed to simply "Mr." for North America. Other regional changes include the Dagger to Knife, Spanner to Wrench and Leaded Piping to Lead Pipe.) All in all, I was pretty happy with my final choices. I hope you are too.

STRATEGY:
A primer for those who only played by brute force as a child. For many, you simply make suggestions and people show you cards. You slowly check these off your list until only one remains. But actually seeing a card from another player's hand is only the beginning.

First of all, don't use just a single column on your detective notes. Most people are used to doing this to get as many games as possible out of a sheet and avoid ever needing to purchase additional tablets of notes. But the strategic player uses a different column for each player. In the first you check off which cards you have, putting a dash in all the others to show that no other player has that card in their hand. As cards are revealed to you, check them under the appropriate player's column (usually clockwise around the table) and dash out all other players.

Now, whenever a suggestion is made, any player who passes (meaning they have none of those three cards) can have those three dashed out under their column. But if they do indeed show a card to another player, note that as well, in whatever manner works best for you. I use numbers, like footnotes. For example: if Player A says "Peacock, Rope, Hall" and Player B shows them a card, put a 1 in the spaces for Peacock, Rope and Hall under Player B's column. Later, if Player C shows you the Hall, you'll check it under Player C's column and that note under B's will be dashed out. And if Player B then passes when asked for "Plum, Rope, Library" you'll be dashing out those three in his column, including the Rope. Therefore, Player B must have shown Player A Peacock.

If good notes are taken in this manner, you can deduce many cards without ever seeing them. This is especially easy if you hold a card that was suggested but a player before you shows a card first, because now you only have to eliminate one of the other two from their hand. And if you keep track of what others have passed from one suggestion to the next, something may be passed by every player at one point or another, making it obvious that it is in the solution envelope.

And in this game, another layer is added to all this. Once the guessing round is completed, you actually get to go out and find exactly what was in someone else's hand. Therefore, if you know Team A went on Trail A in the first round, and have noted they have either the Knife or the Study, but then in the third round you find the Knife on Trail C, you now know they got the Study on Trail A. Of course, since some of the trails start off in the same direction, you may not be certain just which trail another team took in the first round. We'll see just how clever some of you are.

Did you get all that, or did I just make your head explode?
(Don't click this link... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY-03vYYAjA

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