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Sequitur

Sequitur is word association game. The kind of game you'd play anywhere with anybody any time you'd all feel like playing. One of those perfect "waiting" games you'd play at a restaurant while waiting for your food or in a line while waiting to get in or in a car while waiting to arrive.

I quote liberally:
"Any number of people can play, and there is no time limit either for the length of a turn nor the length of the overall game. Players can determine any limits for each game when they begin. They can even pursue other activities in the meanwhile, with the game played in the background...

"One player begins by stating a word or phrase.

"The next player then adds another word or phrase that is somehow associated with or suggested by the previous entry...

"At the end of the series of turns, the players reconstruct the entire chain in reverse, as a collaborative group, not taking turns. All participants pitch in as needed, since all the conceptual shifts and associations are contained in their aggregate memories."
Sequitur is what I would call a Pointless Game, to which, of course, author and Puzzle Mistress Kate Jones, would profoundly disagree. She is one of my more profound friends.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

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Blogger Bernie said...

Kate Jones sent me this:

Hi, Bernie,

Thanks for the blog mention. It would help if you had some examples of the kinds of clever, stylish, impudent, creative sequiturs people come up with. Until you've played a game with a group of madcap punsters or movie buffs,
you can't imagine the joie de vivre that accompanies this game. Here are a couple of highlights from actual games we've played:

...
Mouthwash
Transcend dental medication
Jack Nicholson [dental patient in "Little Shop of Horrors"]
Cuckoo (Nicholson was in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest")
Catch-22
Shoes of the Fisherman
The Devil Wore Prada
...

...
Tequila
Mockingbird (To Kill a)
Gregory Peck
Bushel
2008 (Bush'll be voted out of office)
A large banquet (2000 ate)
My wedding
...

And from the recent Double Festival lunch players:

...
Darwin's theory
The Beagle
"It was a dark and stormy night" (Snoopy)
...

See? But you kinda had to have been there. Try it yourself. Get your wife
into it, too. Send me your best scripts for the archives.

Warmest wishes,

-- Kate

 
Blogger Roger said...

Hi Bernie (and Kate)

I have had a lot of fun with NON-sequitur.

You can enter the game at any point by convincingly claiming a connection when players are trying to find a word that is not connected in any way to the previous one. Or you can just wait your turn.

Following Kate's example of giving an example:

...
Scissors
Feather
Elastic Band

Challenge: Both can fly [feather and elastic band] The group accepts the challenge. So the challenger makes a fresh start.Watercress
Saturn

Challenge: There's water on Saturn.

Someone objects that the challenge is too obscure, so the challenge is rejected and the next player continues where the game left off.
Saturn
Settee

Challenge: A settee is Sat-urn.

The group groan but approve the challenge. So the challenger makes a fresh start.
....

No eliminations. No scores. The only rules are ones that develop (and change) as the game is played. Each group has the fun of deciding what is and what isn't acceptable and how strict to be with smart people and how lenient to be with beginners.

What I particularly like about Non-Sequitur is that EVERYONE is always working to find connections to make a challenge, whereas in Sequitur [my understanding is that] it is only the next player who is thinking of a connection.

And it is surprising how difficult it is to find a word that does not connect!

I think I found Non-Sequitur in a two page list of 100 theatre games each described in one sentence - or less. Possibly my most favourite piece of paper ever.

Roger

 
Blogger Kate Jones said...

Very cute, Roger. It must be quite difficult to go more than one step in a sequence. The mind is amazing in finding correlations and connections. It's what has made human civilization possible. The only objection I would voice against NON-Sequitur is that it is basically a destruction device, where you seek to blow something up, whereas Sequitur seeks to build as long a continuous chain as possible. It is fission vs. fusion, devolution vs. evolution, explosion vs. construction, chaos vs. order, disintegration vs. integration, war vs. peace. And, of course, you miss the whole glorious replay in reverse. Also, although it is the next player's turn to choose the next Sequitur term, all players are tossing around their own ideas in the meanwhile. No one sits idle. It's a co-creation process.

I do recognize that some players just have to have their demolition fix. In a society of ever-tightening controls, a safe haven is needed for the rebel. Play on!

 

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