Live Action Mafia

jasonye (red cluing blue): SCOTTISH AUSTRALIAN for 4
achester (blue cluing green): ANTIDUMPING for 2
python (green cluing red): ICOSAHEDRON for 3

I think the rules on multi-word clues should be made stricter for future games.

++ aok

Python and I (or at least I) knew we could veto SCOTTISH AUSTRALIAN.

Maybe "has a Wikipedia page" for next game?

I would have vetoed "Red Sea", "HP Lovecraft", and "SCOTTISH AUSTRALIAN" (but not HEWLETT-PACKARD, FOOT-LAMBERT, or ANTIDUMPING), but that's just my opinion about where the line would be drawn.

Multiple words is more important to me than obscurity.

Note that there's some selection bias in that you don't get to see the things we did veto. Those were:

CIRITH UNGOL (achester, day 1)
WORLD WAR (jasonye, day 1)
THE GREAT OUTDOORS (jasonye, day 3)
HP (jasonye, day 3)
HIGHROLLING (Python, day 4)
AVOGADRO'S NUMBER (Python, day 4)

Wait, why was high-rolling vetoed? I think it's reasonably a single word, with a lot of google results, and even a word that people might recognize. I understand why the others were vetoed.

Also, the ruling about "HP" makes me curious about what abbreviations/acronyms are legal. Like, what about MIT? ET? RSVP? GIF? SQL? USA? Etc? D20? R2D2?

I don't really get how "SHELOB" doesn't do everything CIRITH UNGOL was trying to do, and how AVOGADRO doesn't do everything AVOGARDO'S NUMBER WAS TRYING TO DO.

The only one of those I wouldn't have vetoed is HP.

HIGHROLLING was vetoed because it needs a hyphen.

AVOGADRO'S'd probably've accomplished everything that AVOGADRO'S NUMBER'd've, and not been vetoed, but Python found something better.

CIRITH UNGOL is much stronger for PASS than SHELOB is, and avoids the non-SPIDER animals and body parts.

Acronyms: I think it has to be something that people often use without knowing it's an acronym? I think I'd veto all the acronyms on that list. Etc.'s an abbreviation; I think ETCETERA is valid but not just ETC.

I'd like the "has a wikipedia page (not made for the game)" standard for requiring less judgment.

Wow, that's strict. I thought that "gif" and "R2D2" at least were pretty legit.

R2D2 is fine, actually; it's a name.

GIF: I definitely know what it's an acronym for, think of that, and am not confident in how you should pronounce it as a word. Maybe I'm old-fashioned for thinking it illegitimate, though.

I am wondering if HIT POINT would actually be fine in place of HP. After all, neither HIT nor POINT is a codename in this game.

I think multi-word clues (with spaces) should be outright disallowed. Hyphenated words should occasionally be allowed if they truly function as a standalone word. Acronyms should only be allowed if they truly function as a replacement of what they stand for. They must be used substantially more often than what they stand for. They must also not be obscure.

My opinion on some of the specific words mentioned in this thread.
Anti-dumping: no (this is just prepending anti to a word and adding a dash.)
Red Sea: no (two words)
High roller: no (This seems to usually be two words. If it were commonly written with a dash, then I would say yes, because its meaning is substantively distinct from its constituent words.)
World war: no (two words. WWII or WW2 would also not be valid.)
Footlambert: yes (Wikipedia says this is a legitimate spelling of foot-lambert. If it weren't, then probably no.)
Hewlett Packard: no (two words)

The abbreviations could be challenging judgement calls, but I would say:
HP: no
ET: no
MIT: no
RSVP: yes
GIF: yes
SQL: yes
USA: no
Etc.: no
D2O: no
R2D2: yes

Another rule that I think should be implemented/reiterated: clued words must truly be linked to the meaning of the clue (of course spymasters should be able to stretch this.) But I don't, for example, think that Packard should be able to clue 'cold' by means of 'cold pack'.

dgrazian, I don't agree with that last part. I think clues must relate to the meaning of the word being clued, but they don't have to relate to the meaning of the word used as a clue.

I think Packard would be legal even if PACK were one of the words in the grid (per the substring versus subword rules), so it shouldn't be allowed to clue PACK or by extension things that PACK'd relate to. (i.e. the substring versus subword distinction should extend to cluing things)

That's interesting. So you would say it's valid to clue "stand" with "situation" (the idea being that situation includes the substring 'sit'?) I definitely don't think that should be valid.

That's a great point Jackie! And I definitely do think that 'Packard' should be considered a valid clue. But not for cluing 'pack'

At least at the beginning of the game, I thought the rules where what Dgrazian was thinking. Hence why I thought that Bangladesh => Bang was the only way python’s clue would work, and not Bangor or Bangkok => Bang.