Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Proposal: Head Start

In the rule “Acronym”, insert the following as the third paragraph:

There is a publicly tracked list called Starter that may be empty or may be a list of one or more Wordsmiths, defaulting to empty. A Wordsmith whose name is in the Starter is considered a Starting Wordsmith.

In the same rule, insert the following steps just before the last step in the Acrogenerate atomic action:

* Set the Starter to empty.
* For each Wordsmith who has the lowest Points among all Wordsmiths, add that Wordsmith’s name to the Starter.
* Set the Word Bank to an empty list.

In the rule “Backronym”, replace “If they have not done so since the last time Acrogenerate was performed, a Wordsmith may post a Backronym.” with the following:

If they have not done so since the last time Acrogenerate was performed, a Starting Wordsmith may post a Backronym.

If they have not done so since the last time Acrogenerate was performed, a Wordsmith who is not a Starting Wordsmith may post a Backronym if any of the following are true:
* It has been at least 24 hours since the last time Acrogenerate was performed.
* Every Starting Wordsmith has posted a Backronym since the last time Acrogenerate was performed.
* There are no Starting Wordsmiths.

In the same rule, move the text “A Backronym is either Open or Closed and defaults to Open.” to its own paragraph.

Trying to balance the first-mover advantage by allowing only those with the lowest Points to have the first-mover advantage within the first 24 hours, on the theory that first-movers will be able to pick the best words first and earn better Scoring, thus allowing some of the other Wordsmiths to be first-movers next time.

Also setting the Word Bank to empty on each Acrogenerate. It’s becoming a bit cluttered with words from past Backronyms, and I think it will do more harm than good to continue to persist them if any of those same letters come up again.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

25-06-2025 16:27:38 UTC

against Holding most players back at the starting line for 24 hours is going to feel frustrating. We could just say that the players at the back get to ignore the Word Bank restriction, if we want them to have a catch-up mechanism.

JonathanDark: Puzzler he/him

25-06-2025 17:16:00 UTC

Good point. I’ll withdraw this and try it again with your suggestion.

against

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