Thursday, July 10, 2008

Council

Now i have created a game that is intended to be a translation of the Olmec Rubber Ball Game which I can only make judgements about assuming the same evidence for a Mayan Ball Game (See The Popol Vuh or Stacy Doris' Cheerleaders Guide to the Universe). This Game is called Council. Here are the rules of the Game:

12 players are seated in a circle and each is given a red card with 6 words on it. The players pass the ball from one player to the next in an aleatoric fashion (each player may throw the ball to any other player in the room). Each time a player catches the ball he is to read a word from his card. No word can be used twice from the same card. The objective is to use every word on the card. If at any point in the game a player is unable to take his turn, he is "out" and the other players continue playing until there is only one player remaining or until one player has used every word on his card.

Rules of Play: When a player uses a word from his card he must use a word that does not disobey the list or RESTRICTED LIASONS. There are 12 RESTRICTED LIASONS and each RESTRICTED LIASON represents a combination of two parts of speech that cannot be used in conjunction at any time during the game (types of words that may not follow one another).

RESTRICTED LIASONS:

1. Noun-Verb
2. Verb-Preposition
3. Article-Noun
4. Adjective-Noun
5. Preposition-Article
6. Preposition-Noun
7. Adjective-Preposition
8. Noun-Conjunction
9. Conjunction-Noun
10. Adverb-Verb
11. Adverb-Preposition
12. Verb-Adverb

For example, if player 1 uses a Noun, then whoever player he throws the ball to may not use a Verb or Conjunction because that would invoke one of the RESTRICTED LIASONS. Likewise if that player used an Adverb, the next player may not employ a Verb or a Preposition. And so on. You may use to the same part of speech twice, but you may not use it more than twice. So if the player before you used a Noun, you may use one as well, but the player after you would not be able to.

The following is the result of a session of The Council Game that was played under the umbrella of The Red Rover Reading Series in Chicago on June 7th, 2008:

We later administration of until the provisional the of shall night as elected in drawn fifteenth provisional national constituent elected the setting constitution 1948 14th from shall state by constitute this as up and the accordance.

The text is based on the 3rd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence of Israel.