Codenames 17

[Lewwyn]

Here s the full grid

FIRE	COMIC	SCALE	OPERA	DRESS
MOLE	DINOSAUR	CONTRACT	TORCH	PIN
SCHOOL	SPOT	LASER	SHOE	LIGHT
EAGLE	WEB	COTTON	WAVE	BOW
DECK	ALIEN	QUEEN	PRESS	DRILL

I went looking for a way to win in three and it took me about 40 minutes to get my plan straight. At first I was thinking UFO: 3 for alien, laser, light, but a bunch of my words kept getting stuck on red words. And I was having difficulty with dress, mole web if I went with UFO. So I broke that up and thought about web and mole and what I could add to that. torch/light and laser seems to go together (excepting fire) so I set that too. Mascot pulled the rest in.



I started with conspiracy because it was the least likely to trigger a red word and I wanted Warriorknight to get rid of either fire or dinosaur.  If he clued dinosaur Mascot wouldn't trip up on it. If he got Fire then I could go straight to light ones.  I was debating between luminous: 3 or Flash: 3 (required comic out of the way) or strobe: 3



You guys got conspiracy right like I wanted and you followed on Mascot really well too.



Red's board is pretty tough I think.

[El Grillo]

Yeesh, that's definitely a rough board for Red. Maybe Extinction 3, Waldo 3, and Sharecroppers 2? Iffy at best, and if Blue has a plan to win in 3, it's looking pretty dicey. GGs everyone!

[Cheater Hater]

As a lurker, what makes the assassin a good part of the game design? I get that it discourages purely-random guessing (making the plus-one rule simple in concept), but doesn't hitting an opposing color accomplish the same thing in most cases?

[rho21]

Not if you're way behind in a game, I think: there are more of your colour words left to hit, and you may need a bit of luck anyway.
Equally if you're way ahead but your team are looking like guessing the assassin as their next catch up clue, you may have to spend a turn warning them off it, which wouldn't be worthwhile for one of your opponents' words.

That's not to say that the game wouldn't work without the assassin, but I trust Vlaada Chvátil above pretty much any game designer to get this sort of balancing correct.

[El Grillo]

I find it helpful as the spymaster to have more constraints. When I'm scoping out the board and planning my clues, it's helpful to try and put myself in the guessers' shoes and reflect: "Is there any way they could possibly get the assassin from this clue? Is there a significant chance that they could get the other team's words? How easily do my words come to mind, and are they the first and only words to come to mind?" I also think it's more interesting when played live with time pressure (if only in the form of wanting to keep the game moving), it forces you to evaluate every association you make in real time so that you don't accidentally lead your team to the assassin.

[pjabrony]

At first I was thinking UFO: 

I believe this would have been an illegal clue. It's in the "Flexible Rules" part of the official rulebook, but I think we play with the rule that the acronym is only allowed if it's pronounced like a word (SCUBA, gif), and not where you say all the letters individually.

[Jkaen]

I would say UFO is allowed under rule 9, but i agree its open to interpretation