[Icehouse] Four-house Zendo

[Marc Hartstein]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 07:23:44PM -0400, Subhan Tindall wrote:
> On 6/16/06, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath at eblong.com> wrote:
> >On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Christopher Hickman wrote:
> >
> >>> "Contains at least one vertical piece in your favorite color" is
> >>> OK if everyone is OK with player-specific metarules, and the
> >>> favorite colors of all players are well-known.
> >>
> >> No.  Spock doesn't know players' favorite colors.  You can only
> >> base rules
> >> on objectively observable characteristics of koans.
> >
> >That's not a clear diagnosis. The actual problem is that "*your*"
> >favorite color is illegal; Spock doesn't know who is the guesser at
> >any given moment! A rule has to come out the same for everybody.
> >
> >If the favorite colors of the four players are red, green, green, and
> >chartreuse -- and the Master knows this -- it would be valid for him
> >to formulate a rule as "Contains a piece in the favorite color of one
> >of these four people." Of course the players will wind up guessing
> >"Contains a red piece or green piece", which is equivalent (lacking
> >chartreuse pyramids). And it would be illegal for the Master to add
> >"blue" to the valid list, if I happened to sit down at the table in
> >mid-game.
>
> This would only be a valid rule if ALL the players knew each other's
> favorite colors.

Not at all.  The rule "Contains a pieces in the favorite color of one of
these four people." is exactly the same as "Contains a red piece or a
green piece." (in the example given), and will always be of the form
"Contains a <color> piece [or a <color> piece [or a <color> piece...]]",
which are all vaild rules.  It's just inspired in an unusual way and the
"official" way of phrasing it is unusual.
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