[pbmserv-dev] suggested game: Sid Sackson's Haggle

[Lyman Hurd <lhurd@yahoo.com>]

I suggest the game Haggle by Sid Sackson (described in
his book "A Gamut of Games").  There are some real
similarities to Werewolf in that it is massively
multiplayer and much of the game play consists of
chat.

Here's a brief description:

1) Everyone is given a finite set of cards of
different colors (e.g., two red, two blue, two green,
two yellow, two white).  Everyone has the same initial
hand.

2) The purpose of the game is to submit a set of cards
yielding the maximum possible score.  There has to be
some way to indicate an end at which everyone has to
have submitted their hands (this could be a fixed time
limit like 24 hours, or a command from a designated
master of ceremonies).

3) The point values are determined by a large set of
rules (one per player): examples might include:

a) a white card is worth the same as two blue cards.

b) a set of four yellow cards doubles the value of a
hand.

c) red cards are worth 2 points.

d) any hand containing more than seven cards counts
zero.

The catch is that every player is shown only two
(different) rules and every rule is shown to two
players (in the live game every rule is written on two
sheets of paper and all the sheets are dealt without
duplicates).

The only actions in the game are:

1) global chat:

talk to all

2) message someone

talk to someone

3) submit <hand> (submit a hand for final scoring)

turn in a subset of the cards in your possession.

4) propose <player> <giving: list> <receiving: list>

Propose a trade.  You may give or receive rule sheets
and/or cards.  Of course you can talk about rule
sheets without actually giving them up (and whether or
not you are believed...).

5) accept

Accept a trade.  Maybe this should have the same form
as the proposal so one knows which trade one is
accepting.

I thought there might be enough overlap with WW
functionality that it might be most easily implemented
in Perl.

Thoughts?

Lyman