Forum:"Who am I?" game

I've been watching a lot of vintage TV game shows recently (,, etc), and I figured it might be fun to try out a game on TSW. It's based on a few of these older panel-style game shows. I was going to call it "20 questions," but as that name has rudely already been taken, I'm instead just calling it, "Who am I?"

So, here's the rules. A user takes a turn as moderator. The moderator chooses a well-known person, historical figure, or fictional character. The chosen person/figure/character should be someone that is knowable, but not necessarily someone who would be easy to guess.

A player (there can be any number of players) may ask a question about this person/figure/character, as long as the question is answerable by "yes" or "no" (e.g. a player can ask, "Does this person have brown eyes?" but cannot ask "What color eyes does this person have?"). There may be instances where a yes/no question might result in an answer such as "maybe," "possibly," "probably," etc., but the questions should fundamentally be yes/no questions. If there is a question asked that the moderator cannot answer, the moderator will tell the player, and allow the player to ask another question instead (the unanswered question will not count against the total number of questions).

Only one player may ask questions at any time. Any question responded to with a Yes awards the player 5 points, and the player is allowed to ask another question. Any question responded to with a No awards no points, and the player's turn ends. Answers which are not yes/no will award two points and will not end the player's turn. Once a player's turn ends, another volunteer player may ask the next question; players who have had a turn may not have another turn (i.e. may not ask another question) until at least one other person has had a turn.

During the round, a player who has at least 10 points may guess the identity of the person/figure/character. If the player guesses correctly, they win 25 points, plus 5 points for each question left to be asked (e.g. if there were 7 questions left to be asked and a player made a correct guess, they would win 60 points). If a player guesses incorrectly, they lose half of the points they've accumulated (rounded down, in the case of fractions of points); if they are the current question-asker, they also forfeit the rest of their turn; if they are not the current question-asker, they become ineligible to ask questions again until the current question-asker and at least one other player has had a turn. Guesses do not count against the 20 question limit.

If no player has made a guess after 20 questions have been asked, each player who participated in the round will be allowed to make one final guess. There is no penalty for a wrong guess at this stage. A correct guess yields 25 points. If after this final round, no player has correctly guessed the person, the moderator should reveal them.

The winner of the game is the player with the most points at the end. If there is a tie in points, the win goes to the tied player that correctly guessed the person. If no points leader correctly guessed the person, the win goes to the player that had the most questions answered with Yes during the game.

This all might seem a bit complicated at the outset, but I'm sure once the game starts it'll make sense.

--  LostInRiverview talk · blog  ·  contribs 02:54, April 17, 2019 (UTC)

Round One
Let's kick things off. I'll be the moderator for this round. I have chosen a person/historical figure/famous character; let's see if you can guess it. Who will ask the first question? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog  ·  contribs 02:54, April 17, 2019 (UTC)