This is sure to be a big hit on college campuses (i.e. will work well with copious amounts of alcohol consumption). There are some details to work out, but there's plenty of time before the deluxe autographed box set arrives on store shelves and the mobile version is available in the app store.
The game combines most of the key aspects of Gematria. Things do not need to make sense other than a few recommended guidelines. There aren't any real hard and fast rules and scoring will be subjective based on peer review of your output. There's a chance for some creative bigotry, misquoted science, awkward PhraseShopping and of course insane conspiracy theories.
You'll need at least four people, which shouldn't be a problem since Gematria is sooooooo fucking cool. Everyone should have a laptop or smartphone with access to the Gematrinator basic calculator*. You should have access to a random person to identify topics; it works better if you don't tell them why you are asking them the questions. You'll want a timing device like an egg timer. And alcohol if you so desire.
The random person, or Patsy, is to pick one living non-sports celebrity generally deemed to be a nice person, one generally acknowledged bad person, one recently deceased celebrity, one non-sports current event and two relatively uncommon countries.
The classic game begins with the good celebrity, which is how the game first evolved. As a starting point begin with the phase, "Jenna Coleman is the AntiChrist.". Substitute the Patsy picked good celebrity and the goal is to change the phrase to total as close as possible to 666 in any of the various numbering systems. This is an example of antiphrasis. It's like the group of friends calling the fat friend, Tiny. You don't really believe Jenna, or the random celebrity, is the Antichrist. But in the time honored tradition of Gematria forcing things to match the script, you can. The "bad" celebrity works the same way. And provides an out to avoid potential legal issues as the popularity of the game goes viral. No, Mr. Trump. We were playing you as the "good" celebrity. <snicker>
In the spirit of PhraseShopping to force the total all reasonable evil words can be used. Various demon names or commonly used lords of the underworld or even mythical evil creatures can be substituted for AntiChrist. Cthulu, Satan, Hades, succubus, etc.... Evil adjectives should score creative points during judging. Foul, vile, dark, etc....
Everyone gets two minutes to PhraseShop and create a phrase regarding whoever is the AntiChrist. If nobody creates a phrase exactly equal to 666 there's an additional five minutes to use the time honored Gematria rules of "close enough". That is, in addition to 669 being close enough, consideration should be given to any triple digit combination or as many 6's as possible. It all comes down to the judges decision if there is no 666. Everyone will judge the other players for creativity and grammar.
Proper grammar should count. Let the judges decide. Actual demonic forces should count. A phrase such as, "Jenna Coleman actually be da Donald Trump guy in disguised." should not win over something more direct.
Save the results for later in the game.
After the good and bad celebrity rounds we have the two conspiracy rounds. This is where the sports celebrity, dead celebrity and countries come into play.
You'll need to generate random target totals. The deluxe boxed set will include a set of cards and/or dice, as well as a timer (to help justify the planned cost of $29.85). In the meantime go around the room and create a phrase that in the time honored tradition of Gematria doesn't need to make any real sense. Think of it like a Mad Lib, but it's really just to get numbers to work with. You might end up with something like, Schwarzenegger liked purple because it kills sunny nights with wolverines.
That's your target numbers. Everyone gets ten minutes to create as many phrases as possible to synch up the target number with the conspiracy. Remember, celebrities never die the way the are reported to have by the media.
Anything goes. If you want to claim Adam West was killed by Girl Scouts to sell avocado flavored cookies, go for it. In the time honored tradition of Gematria this is about quantity of matches, not quality. But no simply switching one or two words, the phrases should stand alone. If the number of matches produced ends close the judging will decide. Common conspiracy phrases like "fake" should score. Bizarre rituals are a must and anything to do with freemasonry, illuminati and the like is fair game. However, bigotry is to be limited to the countries picked by the Patsy. Valid racial slurs are made by the first syllable if the country followed by -o, -is, -man or -woman or the last syllable by -y, it's, ian or -ingo. No common slurs allowed unless I've missed some that accidentally are created in this manner. Sporting events are always rigged, so that phrasing should score in the judging. At the minimum the sports celebrity is used to determine which sport is rigged for the game. Matches on his name and well known facts count.
The final round is in honor of large totals in the Gematrix database. For a target total you can have the Patsy pick a three digit number. The phrase should be a mixture of words that mostly make sense together but include some strange elements that show up. The final phrase should include, any material from earlier rounds, text messaging style tricks like B4 for before, nonsensical science references not necessarily mentioned in previous rounds and overblown biblical type verbiage such as art, thou, whilst, and so on. So you might end up with, "Jenna Coleman, although I C thy form is comely your protons belie your murder of LeBron James."
Don't laugh this off. I can picture a water cooler conversation on Monday going like this:
Keith: Hey Ashley, I won at Jenna Coleman us the Antichrist on Saturday. I made up how you killed Erin Moran with your vacuous dialogue.
Ashley: Keith, your so hot. Gematria is so cool. I want to rip your clothes off and make violent love to you right now.
All kidding aside, if this game existed when I was in college, I would play it.
* If there are any ownership issues I can recreate the spreadsheet as I know all the basic numbering systems.
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