Here’s a fairly simple game that might be fun. Someone proposes a category. Then everyone (in spoiler boxes) submits a member of that category they think is obscure. Whoever comes up with the most obscure member wins.
But how do you figure out how obscure something is? By googling it, and seeing how many hits it gets. Fewer google hits = more obscure. (It’s debatable how meaningful that really is, but it’s a reasonable metric for a game like this.) (It does not matter, for the purposes of this game, how many other people in the thread also name that member. That’s a different game.)
So someone (starting with me) will name a well-defined category, and give a time limit. Then anyone who wants to play names an element of that category. Then when time is up, whoever named the category will google each submitted answer. Whoever came up with the most obscure one (which could be multiple people) wins, and then gets to run the next round. (If multiple winners want to run the next round, the tiebreaker is whoever submitted their answer first.)
The person running the round should clearly specify three things:
(1) exactly what qualifies as members of the category, and how to determine what precisely the name of each element is. (For instance, if the category is US presidents, is it “Bill Clinton” or “William Clinton” or “William Jefferson Clinton”)
(2) how they will be formatting their google query… with or without quotes? etc.
(3) whether people are allowed to browse through a list of items in the category while trying to choose which one is most obscure. I can see the game being interesting either way, depending on the category.
Note that the person who proposes the category can participate, because he or she is at no particular advantage.
So, round 1. My category is: Currently active Major League Baseball teams. I will be googling them with the most commonly used form of the city and team name, all in quotes. For instance:
“New York Yankees”
My entry is:
Milwaukee Brewers
This round will end at 9 a.m. Saturday morning, pacific time.
