I'm going to explain my favorite word game, Contact. See if you can infer the writing tip I'm employing, or jump to The Actual Writing Tip if you're in a hurry and hate fun.
Contact is a trivial (er, trivia-al) word-guessing game for three or more players. One person — we'll call him Warren the Wordmaster — thinks of a word, like “waffle”. The others — call them Gary and Gwen — try to guess it. Typically Warren would start by saying the letter his word starts with, but it also works for him to just declare he's thought of his word.
Either way, Gary and Gwen start guessing the word but (here's the first interesting part) without saying the word they’re guessing. Like to guess “wigwam” Gary might say, “Is it a Native American dwelling more permanent than a teepee?”. Warren would say “no my word is not ‘wigwam’”.
Where it gets really interesting is when Warren doesn’t know or can’t think of the wigwam answer. This is where the name of the game comes in. As soon as Gary asks, Gwen can yell “contact!” and then Gary and Gwen start counting down, 5-4-3-2-1, in unison and simultaneously say “wigwam”. Warren can interrupt before the countdown finishes and give the answer, or any valid answer, like “wetu” or “wickiup” (look them up). But if Gary and Gwen make contact (as it's called) by yelling the same word at the same time, then Warren has to tell them the next letter in his word.
From there it repeats but you’re restricted to words that start with the known letters so far. Maybe the letters so far are ALB-. Then Gwen could have the idea that it might be “albatross” and try to stump Warren by asking if it’s a metaphor for something burdensome. Eventually the guessers will either guess the word or no one will be able to think of any words that start with the letters given so far, in which case the wordmaster wins.
If there are more than two guessers, any two of them can make contact to get another letter from the wordmaster. Any guesser blurts out a question; any other guesser yells “contact!”. Or maybe Gary asks something, Warren appears stumped, and both Gwen and Gail hesitantly say “contact”. Gary just picks whoever seems mostly likely on his wavelength to start the countdown with.
And if Gary over-obfuscates a guess? This happens all the time, that neither wordmaster nor any other guesser knows what Gary is talking about. In that case Gary can keep adding hints, hoping that Gwen or Gail cottons on before Warren does.
Whether to allow guessers to use inside jokes is up to you. If Gary and Gwen are married, for example, that might be frustrating for the others. Or it might be half the fun, depending on the group.
The Actual Writing Tip
See what I did there? I picked alliterative names to make it easy to remember everyone's role. Rhyming works too, or just assonance in a pinch. It also helps to diversify the genders, for the simple rhetorical reason that you're taking advantage of distinct pronouns. It helps smoothen many otherwise cumbersome sentences.
Suppose we've introduced, hypothetically, Beth and Dan as players in some elaborate mechanism. "She then tells him her number, based on what he told her," we might proceed to explain. If it were Beth and Daphne instead, we'd have to say, "She (Beth) then tells Daphne her (Beth's) number, based on what Daphne told Beth."
Combining both parts of this tip — evocative, alliterative names with distinct genders — we might, for example, refer to hypothetical Yesenia who's betting on YES and Noah who's betting on NO in a prediction market. I find this especially helpful for stating math problems or defining fancy network protocols. You can do so much better than the traditional Alice and Bob.
And of course LLMs are good at names. Paste in this whole post and then ask for canonical first names that are maximally mnemonically evocative for the roles in the scenario you're writing about. Maybe remove this sentence if you don't want to plant the idea in its mind that you could go arbitrarily far over the top and pick something like Pastor Aster the Wordmaster.
Appendix: Math Puzzle Examples
Just to drive the point home, I'll end with five of my favorite math puzzles for which I've employed this trick.
The Sam-and-Pam Sum/Product Puzzle
There are two numbers, each greater than 1 and less than 100, and Sam knows the sum and Pam knows the product. Sam says he doesn't know the numbers and Pam says she doesn't know them either. Sam then says, “You know, Pam, I actually already knew you couldn't possibly know them.” To which Pam says, “Ha! Now that I know you knew that, I do know the numbers!” To which Sam says, “Double-ha! Now that I know you now know them, I now also know them!” What are the numbers?
(Having one person's pronouns be he/him and the other she/her is especially helpful when articulating the solution of this one!)
The Chuck-Chasing-Swarna Puzzle
Chuck and Swarna are at a perfectly circular lake in the wilderness. Swarna is swimming. Chuck is on the shore, and can't get in the water, because he is carrying a chainsaw. Swarna wants to get out of the lake, but doesn't want Chuck to be next to her when she emerges, because, like I said, he is carrying a chainsaw. Once she's on land, she can outrun him (it's hard to run with a chainsaw). But even with the chainsaw, he can still run faster than she can swim. Call Chuck's speed c. (Not the speed of light, this is all non-relativistic.) In terms of c, how fast does Swimming Swarna need to be able to swim to escape Chainsaw Chuck?
HannaH vs HunTer Flipping Coins
Flip a fair coin 100 times yielding a sequence of heads (H) and tails (T). For each HH in the sequence of flips, HannaH gets a point; for each HT, HunTer does. So for example, for the sequence THHHT, HannaH gets 2 points and HunTer gets 1 point. Who is most likely to win?
(This one's really maxing out the mnemonicity.)
Cursed Curtis and Lucky Lucy Go Broke
Cursed Curtis and Lucky Lucy each have $100 for betting against an infinitely rich bank. The game is to flip a coin and win $1 on heads or lose $1 on tails, which they do again and again. But Curtis's coin only wins 49% of the time and Lucy's wins 51% of the time.
Poor Curtis will go broke with probability 1 (you may assume this theorem). Lucy might go broke but there's a nonzero probability that she never goes broke.
Under the assumption that, eventually, each of Curtis and Lucy lose all their money, who is more likely to go broke first?
Wyatt and Talia Put Rectangles on a Sphere
Wyatt and Talia own roughly rectangular pieces of land on the planet Earth, which is assumed to be a perfect sphere of radius 3950 miles. Wyatt's land is bounded by four fences, two of which run in an exact north-south direction and two of which run in an exact east-west direction. His north-south fences are exactly 10 miles long; his east-west fences are exactly 20 miles long. Talia's land is similarly bounded by four fences, but her north-south fences are 20 miles long and her east-west fences are 10 miles long. (So Wyatt's rectangle is wide on a map and Talia's is tall.) Whose plot of land has the greater area?
Thanks to Serine Molecule for reading a draft and improving the exposition of the first section, and to Stan Wagon and Spencer Pearson for some of the math puzzles, sans the ridiculous names.
I'm going to explain my favorite word game, Contact. See if you can infer the writing tip I'm employing, or jump to The Actual Writing Tip if you're in a hurry and hate fun.
Contact is a trivial (er, trivia-al) word-guessing game for three or more players. One person — we'll call him Warren the Wordmaster — thinks of a word, like “waffle”. The others — call them Gary and Gwen — try to guess it. Typically Warren would start by saying the letter his word starts with, but it also works for him to just declare he's thought of his word.
Either way, Gary and Gwen start guessing the word but (here's the first interesting part) without saying the word they’re guessing. Like to guess “wigwam” Gary might say, “Is it a Native American dwelling more permanent than a teepee?”. Warren would say “no my word is not ‘wigwam’”.
Where it gets really interesting is when Warren doesn’t know or can’t think of the wigwam answer. This is where the name of the game comes in. As soon as Gary asks, Gwen can yell “contact!” and then Gary and Gwen start counting down, 5-4-3-2-1, in unison and simultaneously say “wigwam”. Warren can interrupt before the countdown finishes and give the answer, or any valid answer, like “wetu” or “wickiup” (look them up). But if Gary and Gwen make contact (as it's called) by yelling the same word at the same time, then Warren has to tell them the next letter in his word.
From there it repeats but you’re restricted to words that start with the known letters so far. Maybe the letters so far are ALB-. Then Gwen could have the idea that it might be “albatross” and try to stump Warren by asking if it’s a metaphor for something burdensome. Eventually the guessers will either guess the word or no one will be able to think of any words that start with the letters given so far, in which case the wordmaster wins.
If there are more than two guessers, any two of them can make contact to get another letter from the wordmaster. Any guesser blurts out a question; any other guesser yells “contact!”. Or maybe Gary asks something, Warren appears stumped, and both Gwen and Gail hesitantly say “contact”. Gary just picks whoever seems mostly likely on his wavelength to start the countdown with.
And if Gary over-obfuscates a guess? This happens all the time, that neither wordmaster nor any other guesser knows what Gary is talking about. In that case Gary can keep adding hints, hoping that Gwen or Gail cottons on before Warren does.
Whether to allow guessers to use inside jokes is up to you. If Gary and Gwen are married, for example, that might be frustrating for the others. Or it might be half the fun, depending on the group.
The Actual Writing Tip
See what I did there? I picked alliterative names to make it easy to remember everyone's role. Rhyming works too, or just assonance in a pinch. It also helps to diversify the genders, for the simple rhetorical reason that you're taking advantage of distinct pronouns. It helps smoothen many otherwise cumbersome sentences.
Suppose we've introduced, hypothetically, Beth and Dan as players in some elaborate mechanism. "She then tells him her number, based on what he told her," we might proceed to explain. If it were Beth and Daphne instead, we'd have to say, "She (Beth) then tells Daphne her (Beth's) number, based on what Daphne told Beth."
Combining both parts of this tip — evocative, alliterative names with distinct genders — we might, for example, refer to hypothetical Yesenia who's betting on YES and Noah who's betting on NO in a prediction market. I find this especially helpful for stating math problems or defining fancy network protocols. You can do so much better than the traditional Alice and Bob.
And of course LLMs are good at names. Paste in this whole post and then ask for canonical first names that are maximally mnemonically evocative for the roles in the scenario you're writing about. Maybe remove this sentence if you don't want to plant the idea in its mind that you could go arbitrarily far over the top and pick something like Pastor Aster the Wordmaster.
Appendix: Math Puzzle Examples
Just to drive the point home, I'll end with five of my favorite math puzzles for which I've employed this trick.
The Sam-and-Pam Sum/Product Puzzle
There are two numbers, each greater than 1 and less than 100, and Sam knows the sum and Pam knows the product. Sam says he doesn't know the numbers and Pam says she doesn't know them either. Sam then says, “You know, Pam, I actually already knew you couldn't possibly know them.” To which Pam says, “Ha! Now that I know you knew that, I do know the numbers!” To which Sam says, “Double-ha! Now that I know you now know them, I now also know them!” What are the numbers?
(Having one person's pronouns be he/him and the other she/her is especially helpful when articulating the solution of this one!)
The Chuck-Chasing-Swarna Puzzle
Chuck and Swarna are at a perfectly circular lake in the wilderness. Swarna is swimming. Chuck is on the shore, and can't get in the water, because he is carrying a chainsaw. Swarna wants to get out of the lake, but doesn't want Chuck to be next to her when she emerges, because, like I said, he is carrying a chainsaw. Once she's on land, she can outrun him (it's hard to run with a chainsaw). But even with the chainsaw, he can still run faster than she can swim. Call Chuck's speed c. (Not the speed of light, this is all non-relativistic.) In terms of c, how fast does Swimming Swarna need to be able to swim to escape Chainsaw Chuck?
HannaH vs HunTer Flipping Coins
Flip a fair coin 100 times yielding a sequence of heads (H) and tails (T). For each HH in the sequence of flips, HannaH gets a point; for each HT, HunTer does. So for example, for the sequence THHHT, HannaH gets 2 points and HunTer gets 1 point. Who is most likely to win?
(This one's really maxing out the mnemonicity.)
Cursed Curtis and Lucky Lucy Go Broke
Cursed Curtis and Lucky Lucy each have $100 for betting against an infinitely rich bank. The game is to flip a coin and win $1 on heads or lose $1 on tails, which they do again and again. But Curtis's coin only wins 49% of the time and Lucy's wins 51% of the time.
Poor Curtis will go broke with probability 1 (you may assume this theorem). Lucy might go broke but there's a nonzero probability that she never goes broke.
Under the assumption that, eventually, each of Curtis and Lucy lose all their money, who is more likely to go broke first?
Wyatt and Talia Put Rectangles on a Sphere
Wyatt and Talia own roughly rectangular pieces of land on the planet Earth, which is assumed to be a perfect sphere of radius 3950 miles. Wyatt's land is bounded by four fences, two of which run in an exact north-south direction and two of which run in an exact east-west direction. His north-south fences are exactly 10 miles long; his east-west fences are exactly 20 miles long. Talia's land is similarly bounded by four fences, but her north-south fences are 20 miles long and her east-west fences are 10 miles long. (So Wyatt's rectangle is wide on a map and Talia's is tall.) Whose plot of land has the greater area?
Thanks to Serine Molecule for reading a draft and improving the exposition of the first section, and to Stan Wagon and Spencer Pearson for some of the math puzzles, sans the ridiculous names.