# April Foolishness Haggle. \[Game in progress\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 20, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723 "2009-04-20T14:45:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/1 "2009-04-20T14:45:35Z")
I’m starting a MUCH BETTER thread this time, since last week’s didn’t really take off, and it’s been pointed out that I ‘phoned’ the OP in. 😃 Let’s start with the Frequently Answered Questions: **So, what is this Haggle thing anyway?** Haggle is a parlour trading game that we’ve been playing occasionally on the SDMB for about 2 years now. (There have only been 3 occasions so far.) The basic idea is that each player starts with a slightly different portfolio of ‘trading counters’, and the objective is to make trades so as to end up with the most valuable collection by the end of the game. The twist is that each player also starts with a few ‘rule slips’ that contain information about how different counters are valued - usually what the ‘base’ values of each counter by itself is, and then special bonuses or other cases where this might be changed. Other players have different rules that you don’t know at the start of the game, and you can trade in information by letting other people see the rules that you have slips for. **How many people do we need for an enjoyable game?** I’d say anywhere from five to a dozen. **What are the color and number rules for trade offers?** I try not to be a rule nazi, but to make my life easier running the game, please color your official trading statements like this: Chrisk offer #2: I’ll give anybody a small floppy disk in exchange for a purple flash drive. Accept Littlechap offer #4 Withdraw offer #3 Also number or otherwise identify all of your trades, (numbers are easiest on me, but if you want to use another scheme that seems clear, go ahead and give it a try.) Please don’t identify responses to offers that have been made to you as ‘counter-offers’ - it just gets confusing from there. **Don’t kid yourself - you’re the Rules Hitler. What else would piss you off?** It’s all common sense stuff. Don’t offer an item you don’t have for a trade, or a look at a rule that you don’t HOLD - and asking for the same out of another person isn’t really a good idea either. **All of this seems so confusing - can I see some examples?** Yes. Not long after this OP, I will be providing you with bunches of examples from real Haggle games from the SDMB. **How long will this take, and how is the game organized?** This is pretty simple really. There’s the signup stage, where players decide that they’re interested, and I take down their names. Possibly a brief delay after signups are closed during which I finalize the rules and the starting packages, and everybody confirms to an initial game PM. Might even have to scramble for a replacement or a smaller pool of players. I’ll post a ‘kickoff’ describing each player’s trading counters and identifying their rule slips by number. Then the text of the rule slips are PM-ed to each player. Once that is done, I’ll post again in the thread to ‘ring the trading bell’ and get things going. We’re probably going to take a few days getting organized, and trade for a little over a week, which will take us nearly to the end of April. At a pre-defined deadline, further trading is disallowed, and any player has a little time to decide if they want to ‘sink’ any of their score counters, (throw it away because it would hurt their overall score,) and then I run the final score and make a long drawn out process of announcing the results and getting to the final winner. **What if other people stop paying attention to the game, so I can’t trade?** This is something that’s been a bit of a problem. Please, don’t sign up if you don’t think that you’ll be participating for most of the week. In general, if there are a few Hagglers who don’t participate, they mostly hurt themselves, but they can also throw a few things out of whack because their counters aren’t really available for trading and the rule slips that they hold can be monopolized by the person who has the other copy. **Can you tell me anything cool about the rules this time around?** Not much, really. It may involve coins of some kind. And there will probably be rules that invalidate other rules, like “Rule #15: rule #5 is complete and utter hogwash.” If rule #15 is not invalidated in its turn, then rule #5 will not truly have any effect on the scoring. **And what about the previous games? Where can I see all of those?** Haggle 1: Spelling dope - [Haggle - a game of trading and secrets - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=421911) Haggle 2: Holiday bargain madness - [Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle? - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446660) Haggle 3: The dragon’s hoard - [Haggle: The Dragon's hoard [closed] - The Game Room - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=465689) ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/2 "2009-04-20T15:09:23Z")
What can I say I’m a bit of a whore for this game. I am so in. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/3 "2009-04-20T16:36:48Z")
_Get your examples here._ I’m going to mostly draw examples from ‘Holiday Haggle’ [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446660&highlight=haggle](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446660&highlight=haggle), December of 2007, because it was sort of the smallest and easiest to understand. First, here’s the kickoff post: > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/65): > > Thanks for signing up, everybody, and welcome to the kickoff for _Holiday Haggle_ > > Just come on over to the long table and take a seat, any seat but mine here at the head. Notice that there are starting packages at each place on the table. > > Everybody settled? Okay, open up your packages and let’s see what everybody has got. > > **Drain Bead** > Holds rules: 4, 7, 10, 15, 18 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Candle, Green Cane, Green Candle, Red Box, Red Tree > > **FarmerChick** > Holds rules: 3, 7, 11, 14, 17 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Cane, Blue Star, Green Star, Green Tree, Red Candle, White Cane, White Candle, White Star > > **Hal Briston** > Holds rules: 1, 5, 9, 13, 17 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Wreath, Green Cane, Green Wreath, Red Candle, Red Wreath, White Box > > **jsgoddess** > Holds rules: 2, 6, 8, 12, 16 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Cane, Green Box, Green Cane, Red Wreath, White Box, White Candle > > **NAF1138** > Holds rules: 1, 4, 8, 11, 15 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Star, Blue Tree, Green Wreath, White Wreath > > **Revenant Threshold** > Holds rules: 3, 7, 10, 13, 16 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Cane, Green Candle, Green Star, Red Candle, Red Star (2), White Tree > > **Santo Rugger** > Holds rules: 2, 6, 9, 14, 16 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Candle, Green Box, Red Box, Red Cane, White Cane, White Star > > **Uncommon Sense** > Holds rules: 1, 5, 8, 12, 18 > Has seen rules: > And holds these cards: Blue Box, Blue Wreath, Green Candle, Red Cane, White Cane, White Wreath > > I’ll come around to help each of you read your numbered rules, and then ring the starting bell to begin trades. Good luck hagglers! This should be fairly easy to understand, but let’s go through it in a bit more detail. The named items like ‘blue box’ and ‘red tree’ are trading counters, worth points. Each player starts with five rules and the same rule number repeats 2 or 3 times among the set of players. Rule text is not listed here, of course, because it’s secret information. The only reason that ‘has seen rules’ appears in this post is because I generated it with my usual mid-game update function. Nobody starts off having seen a rule that they don’t hold a copy of, but it’ll happen a lot once trading starts. More on that later. The full rule set from this game is listed below: > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/342): > > 1. A cane is worth 3 points to start. > > 2. A candle is worth 5 points to start. > > 3. A star is worth 8 points to start. > > 4. A wreath is worth 15 points to start. > > 5. A box is worth 25 points to start. > > 6. A tree is worth 40 points to start. > > 7. Whoever turns in the most counters of a particular color ‘has control’ of that color. If multiple players tie, then they ‘share control’ of that color. > > 8. Having control of red is worth 50 points. > > 9. Sharing control of red (no matter with how many people) is worth 21 points. > > 10. Having control of green will triple the value of your candles and wreaths. > > 11. Sharing control of green with 1 other player will give you 5 extra points per star. > > 12. Having control of white and at least one blue star will let you ‘steal christmas’ and keep all other players for scoring from their boxes, and any more than one tree per player. > > 13. Sharing control of white (no matter with how many people) will cost you 14 points. > > 14. Having control of blue gives you 6 points per blue item. > > 15. Sharing control of blue with 1 or 2 other people gives you 1 point per green item. > > 16. A red cane is worth a 10-point bonus. > > 17. A green wreath counts double towards green control. > > 18. A white box will double the value of all your canes. There’s a number of interesting things in this particular set that I could point out. Base value of each counter depends only on its shape/type, (can, tree, etcetera,) and not its color. Then the notion of ‘having control/sharing control’ of a color is introduced in its own rule, followed by the specific implications of that rule with each color. Notice that if you have any of rules 8-15 but not 7, you might not understand the criteria for the bonuses and modifiers mentioned, and if you have only 7 but not any of the others, you have no idea how having or sharing control might affect your score. I was a bit irrationally proud of the ‘stealing christmas’ rule, and hoped that at least one player would try for it, and come up against a coalition determined to stop him or her, which did sort of happen. Notice also that sharing control of white has a negative point impact, partly as a disincentive for trying to steal christmas and failing. And finally there’s a small selection of rules that apply to a particular shape-color match. The first trade that was finalized started with > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/69): > > I’d also like to extend an offer to anyone (Revenant Offer #2) for a look at my rule #3 in return for a look at your rules #1 or #2 (assuming you have them) This led to: > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/74): > > **Revenant** , I accept your offer #2, a look at my rule #1 for a look at rule #3. And also: > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/89): > > I’ll do that > > Accept RT offer #2 a look at my rule one for your rule #3 But at this point Rev pointed out that he hadn’t specified that he’d be willing to repeat the trade, so it was off the table once it was accepted. To get to a sample trade that involves actual trading counter, we’ll follow a slightly more involved series of negotiations - in my next post. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/4 "2009-04-20T17:25:58Z")
> [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/118): > > Revenant Offer 9 - Another one for Hal; a copy of my Rule #7 for your Green Wreath. > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/133): > > Accepted. > > Hal Counteroffer #1 – Throw in a look at rule #10 or 16 (your choice) and you have a deal. > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/134): > > So that’s a copy of #7 and a look at #16 for your Green Wreath? If so, deal. > [@Anybody up for a holiday round of Haggle?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-up-for-a-holiday-round-of-haggle/428904/135): > > Deal. This is a good example of some back-and-forthing on a deal involving rules and items. Note that there was a rule copier in this game, so that RT could ‘copy’ rule 7 and let Hal show it to other people, that will not be the case this time around. And Hal was not actually setting up a different series of numbers for his counteroffers - he hadn’t made any of his own offers at this point in the game, as far as I can tell. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/5 "2009-04-20T18:13:31Z")
I am totally in. Maybe I won’t finish in last place this time. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/6 "2009-04-20T18:17:42Z")
Sign me up! ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/7 "2009-04-20T19:08:20Z")
Players list: Oredigger77 NAF1138 Mahaloth ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/8 "2009-04-20T22:29:37Z")
I’m In. You better believe it. -Meeko Who is slightly peeved that ChrisK didn’t tell him that the sign ups were back on. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/9 "2009-04-20T22:31:42Z")
::Looks to OreDigger:: Can I take any copper off your hands, again, again ? ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/10 "2009-04-20T22:39:41Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > What can I say I’m a bit of a whore for this game. I am so in. Does that make me the Haggle Prostitute? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Credible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a8b319/32.png) [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/11 "2009-04-20T22:51:40Z")
When someone gets to see another person’s rule, does that player PM it to them, or does the mod do that? ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/12 "2009-04-20T22:56:04Z")
> [@Justin\_Credible](#): > > When someone gets to see another person’s rule, does that player PM it to them, or does the mod do that? Chrisk Does a LOT for the game. In the Haggle game I played, PM between players was not allowed. Chrisk stays on top of it all. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/13 "2009-04-20T23:12:04Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Chrisk Does a LOT for the game. > > In the Haggle game I played, PM between players was not allowed. Chrisk stays on top of it all. Which is the main reason why no one but Chrisk runs these things. They are awesome, but must be a hellish amount of work to run on a message board. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Credible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a8b319/32.png) [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/14 "2009-04-20T23:24:53Z")
Ok cool. I’ll think about playing. It might be fun sometime to do a Mafia/Haggle game where the players PM each other the rules, only a few players are scum and they are allowed to lie about their rules. 😃 Or that might be so complicated as to overload the hamsters and break the message board in half. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/15 "2009-04-20T23:31:53Z")
> [@Justin\_Credible](#): > > Ok cool. I’ll think about playing. > > It might be fun sometime to do a Mafia/Haggle game where the players PM each other the rules, only a few players are scum and they are allowed to lie about their rules. Ah. A Mafia player then. Haggle goes a lot faster than Mafia. There is no limit to how many actions you make. There is no time structure built into the general idea of the game. You can do it all and then some in this game, next to any time you wish. Jump in, drink the kool aid The second (out of game) day you are playing it,\*\* your brain will melt\*\*, and your ideas of traditional deal making and trading will go out the window. At that point, Haggle will own you. And you will be one of us. Congratulations. -Meeko Who will probably now watch ChrisK implement new timing rules into this version of haggle. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/16 "2009-04-20T23:37:28Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > The second (out of game) day you are playing it,\*\* your brain will melt\*\*, and your ideas of traditional deal making and trading will go out the window. > > At that point, Haggle will own you. > > And you will be one of us. > > Congratulations. > -Meeko As a mafia player…I support this post. I love mafia, but I am skipping a mafia game on the Giraffe Boards that will probably be fairly good so I can play in this latest round of Haggle. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/17 "2009-04-21T01:18:03Z")
**Players list:** Oredigger77 NAF1138 Mahaloth Meeko Justin Credible Meeko - I knew that you’d find me without a PM. 😃 > [@Meeko](#): > > Chrisk Does a LOT for the game. > > In the Haggle game I played, PM between players was not allowed. Chrisk stays on top of it all. Rule PMs between players to complete a trade has never been disallowed. However, I do get a bit huffy if: - the PMs contain anything other than the correct text of the rules that have been traded. - You don’t copy me on the PM so that I can verify the above. - There is any problem with the legality of the trade, such as one player not owning the rule slip he/she is trading free and clear. I do pride myself on staying on top of the trade PMs myself, and have been gradually refining the tracking software I use to manage the game. When I came back and saw that there were 9 new posts in this game since I checked in around 5:30, I was actually thinking that there were suddenly a heap of new players. Turns out that there’s only a few but a lot of chatter. That’s great too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Credible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a8b319/32.png) [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/18 "2009-04-21T01:29:40Z")
Okay, I guess I’ll play, since you already signed me up and all. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/19 "2009-04-21T01:35:10Z")
Let me see if I have a basic understanding of the game: 1. We are given two separate things: rules and items 2. The goal is to end the game with the most valuable collection of stuff, as defined by the rules. I assume some kind of currency/points are used to calculate value. 3. We can trade items and rules in order to increase our total worth and our understanding of the game rules. Right or totally wrong or somewhat on target? ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723/20 "2009-04-21T01:35:18Z")
> [@Justin\_Credible](#): > > Okay, I guess I’ll play, since you already signed me up and all. Whoops, sorry, so excited I guess I jumped the gun. I shouldn’t have done that. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/april-foolishness-haggle-game-in-progress/493723.md?page=2)