When Stuck on GS Rules, Ask the GS Geeks for...

[Mike Tennant]

This evening I attempted for the second time to play a recently acquired copy of the You Don't Say! home game with family members, and a few questions cropped up which weren't specifically addressed in the rules.  Having never seen the show, I wasn't able to answer them in any other way, so I thought I'd bring them here and see what y'all can do for me.

First of all, I think YDS! is a really intriguing game, and I understand the basic concept of giving clues to words that sound like parts of the answer rather than clues to the answer itself.  I think it was a wise move on the part of MB (or whoever decided to do this) to include things other than names of famous people in the home version because that helps not only to provide variety but also to prevent the game from becoming dated.  On the other hand, the other types of items open up questions that would not often have arisen when guessing people's names.

Here are my questions:

1.  If the answer were, for example, "Clark Gable", would either of the following clues be legal, or would they be ruled out because they are giving the exact words rather than words that sound similar:

  A.  "The host of American Bandstand is Dick..."  (Yes, I know Ralph Andrews might not like this one nowadays, but is it legal?)

  B.  "Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven..."

2.  For the answer "Pink Lemonade," would "Red and white together make..." be a legal clue, or would it be ruled illegal on the basis that it was describing the word pink rather than something sounding like it?

3.  Similarly, for "Jersey City," would "A large metropolis is called a..." be permitted to obtain "city"?  Or would we have to work on it piecemeal, perhaps trying to get our partners to say "sit" and then "tea"?

4.  This one, I believe, is obviously illegal, but I'll check just to make sure.  For "Philadelphia," saying "A popular brand of cream cheese is..." is definitely out.  Right?

Thanks for all your help, gang.  This is one of those games that's hard to play solely on the basis of the rules in the box.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 08:43 PM\']

1.  If the answer were, for example, "Clark Gable", would either of the following clues be legal, or would they be ruled out because they are giving the exact words rather than words that sound similar:

  A.  "The host of American Bandstand is Dick..."  (Yes, I know Ralph Andrews might not like this one nowadays, but is it legal?)

  B.  "Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven..."

2.  For the answer "Pink Lemonade," would "Red and white together make..." be a legal clue, or would it be ruled illegal on the basis that it was describing the word pink rather than something sounding like it?

3.  Similarly, for "Jersey City," would "A large metropolis is called a..." be permitted to obtain "city"?  Or would we have to work on it piecemeal, perhaps trying to get our partners to say "sit" and then "tea"?

4.  This one, I believe, is obviously illegal, but I'll check just to make sure.  For "Philadelphia," saying "A popular brand of cream cheese is..." is definitely out.  Right?

Thanks for all your help, gang.  This is one of those games that's hard to play solely on the basis of the rules in the box. [/quote]
 I believe the clue had to be for a word that sounded like a part of a word in the name or phrase to be guessed, but could not be for the word itself. Ergo, the clues you offer would be illegal.

[Adam Nedeff]

1. If the answer were, for example, "Clark Gable", would either of the following clues be legal, or would they be ruled out because they are giving the exact words rather than words that sound similar:

A. "The host of American Bandstand is Dick..." (Yes, I know Ralph Andrews might not like this one nowadays, but is it legal?)

B. "Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven..."

Both illegal. A simple way to remember if a clue is legal or not is "Does it need a capital letter?" If yes, it's illegal.

2. For the answer "Pink Lemonade," would "Red and white together make..." be a legal clue, or would it be ruled illegal on the basis that it was describing the word pink rather than something sounding like it?

It's illegal for just the reason you gave.

3. Similarly, for "Jersey City," would "A large metropolis is called a..." be permitted to obtain "city"? Or would we have to work on it piecemeal, perhaps trying to get our partners to say "sit" and then "tea"?

Piecemeal. Or a similar sounding word.

4. This one, I believe, is obviously illegal, but I'll check just to make sure. For "Philadelphia," saying "A popular brand of cream cheese is..." is definitely out. Right?

Right. And I'm really surprised that none of this was in the home game's rules since it's rather crucial to the gameplay, but I guess they figured only people who watched the show every single day would ever own the game.

[Mike Tennant]

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 09:04 PM\']Right. And I'm really surprised that none of this was in the home game's rules since it's rather crucial to the gameplay, but I guess they figured only people who watched the show every single day would ever own the game.[/quote]
It's not that none of this was in there; it's just that it wasn't entirely clear to someone who had never seen the show.  The basic idea is there, even with specifics that you're not to describe the actual answer but things that sound like it.  The trouble comes more, I think, when the answer has multiple parts.  We were trying to decide if, in the "Jersey City" example, it was okay to describe a part of the answer ("City") as long as we didn't describe the answer in its entirety.

Also, as I mentioned early in my comments, when the answer is a person's name, it's pretty easy to tell if someone is describing the person or words that sound like his name.  It becomes a little less clear when the answer is a common word or phrase.

I think your answers cleared up my confusion pretty well.  Thanks.

[whewfan]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 08:49 PM\'] [quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 08:43 PM\']

1.  If the answer were, for example, "Clark Gable", would either of the following clues be legal, or would they be ruled out because they are giving the exact words rather than words that sound similar:

 [/quote]
 Here's what I'd do if I were playing

Clue #1- The grocery checker in a store is called, not a cashier, not a grocer, but a______ (Clerk)

Clue #2- The sound a turkey makes is..... (Gobble) (Ok, that's a stretch, but if they have the first clue, it MIGHT work)

[Matt Ottinger]

The main thing to keep in mind is that this isn't Pyramid (which hadn't been invented yet).  You can't give a clue that simply is part of the answer (pink for pink, city for city, Clark for Clark).  

IIRC, the brief seventies remake further codified the rules, adding that the clue word you give must not be spelled exactly the same as the answer.  That covered a lot of gray areas that really weren't addressed in the sixties home game.

For example, it seems to me that a "gable" (lowercase) is a part of a roof, and the word itself has nothing to do with the dashing actor, so therefore (in the sixties) it might have been a legal clue.  ("There's a slant to some roofs, and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about a house that had seven of them, and one of them is called a....")

OTOH, in the seventies version, you probably would have to go after the sound a turkey makes, as whewfan suggests, or perhaps "gamble".

[DrBear]

Or, as Colin Mochrie suggested in a chicken game show routine on Drew's Line, "I'm sorry, the answer is Cluck Gobble."

[Fedya]

For 'gable', I suppose you could always say, "a male cow that only has sex with other male cows".  :-0

[DrBear]

*yes I'm being nitpicky*

No, because the final word has to be one word, not two, so "gay bull" wouldn't be acceptable.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 09:19 PM\']
Also, as I mentioned early in my comments, when the answer is a person's name, it's pretty easy to tell if someone is describing the person or words that sound like his name.  It becomes a little less clear when the answer is a common word or phrase.

 [/quote]
I'm in exactly the same boat, having bought the game after just having heard about it. (And had to get rule clarifications here as well.)

I found it hard to use the improper nouns, as you did. We haven't played the game so often that we can't just skip them and play people's names.

Thanks again, Matt, for your clarifications.