Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

Sorry, I was updating my sheet and realised I'd messed up what spells I'd cast. I'm going back through to see if I have the slots to do Identify.
That's taking a while, but I guess I know he'll have some slots to use, even if it is the new ones. Okay if I go with identify and work it out post-posting?

Yes please go ahead and assume you have an identify then sort it out afterwards.

Oh, we're playing Wordle? In multiple dimensions.

Are those 11 guesses each or across the group?

Do we know the length of the words? Are they all the same length, or different lengths?

Is this like mastermind? Like if we ask "how many As" we get told something like 1, 2, 0, 1?

It is Wordle but each of the 11 guesses applies to all words at the same time. There is a special name for this version of the game though. ;) All of the words are five letters long.

If, for example, the words were Seven, Kings, Fiend, Dodge and you guessed Broad, I would update the board I am posting to something like

Word 1: broad
Word 2: broad
Word 3: _ _ _ _ d broa
Word 4: _ _ _ _ _ but there is a d (not 5th) and an o (not 3rd) bra

I can't format it on here as well as the dedicated website does, of course, but the information is there for you.

I’ve never heard of this game before. Hopefully my guess is within the rules.

It is both a totally legal guess and a fairly strategic guess.

Okay, getting close here. DM says we have four guesses left, but I think his count is off -- we've made the following guesses:

• Sauce
  
• Chunk
  
• Curly
  
• Steal
  
• Child (correct)
  
• Stomp
  
• Fable
  
• Spear (correct)
  

That's 8 guesses out of a possible eleven, meaning we have three left.

We're pretty sure the first word is "Court", but we will have to spend a guess to confirm that. So at best, we have two guesses to figure out the fourth word.

Here are all the letters we've guessed, including how many times we've guessed. The ones in parentheses have not yet been guessed.

• AAAA
  
• B
  
• CCCC
  
• D
  
• EEEE
  
• F
  
• (G)
  
• HH
  
• I
  
• (J)
  
• K
  
• LLLL
  
• M
  
• N
  
• O
  
• PP
  
• (Q)
  
• RR
  
• SSSS
  
• TT
  
• UUU
  
• (V)
  
• (W)
  
• (X)
  
• Y
  
• (Z)
  

We're missing two letters from the fourth word: _ A _ L E. We know it does not contain any of the letters that have already been guessed in either of those two positions, because the GM would have told us so.

Therefore, both the missing letters must be from the seven that have not yet been named: G, J, Q, V, W, X and Z. Here is every possible combination of letters using those, which I have cross-checked against the OED to see which ones are actually words:

G A G L E - variant spelling of "gaggle" (c1399)
G A J L E - not a word
G A Q L E - not a word
G A V L E - variant spelling of "gable" (c1379)
G A W L E - variant spelling of "gall", Old English
G A X L E - not a word
G A Z L E - not a word

J A G L E - not a word
J A J L E - not a word
J A Q L E - not a word
J A V L E - not a word
J A W L E - not a word
J A X L E - not a word
J A Z L E - not a word

Q A G L E - not a word
Q A J L E - not a word
Q A Q L E - not a word
Q A V L E - not a word
Q A W L E - not a word
Q A X L E - not a word
Q A Z L E - not a word

V A G L E - not a word
V A J L E - not a word
V A Q L E - not a word
V A V L E - not a word
V A W L E - not a word
V A X L E - not a word
V A Z L E - not a word

W A G L E - variant spelling of "waggle" (c1594)
W A J L E - not a word
W A Q L E - not a word
W A V L E - to stagger, c1637
W A W L E - Old English spelling of "wall"; to roll one's eyes (c1500); to utter a loud harsh loud cry (c1558)
W A X L E - not a word
W A Z L E - not a word

X A G L E - not a word
X A J L E - not a word
X A Q L E - not a word
X A V L E - not a word
X A W L E - not a word
X A X L E - not a word
X A Z L E - not a word

Z A G L E - not a word
Z A J L E - not a word
Z A Q L E - not a word
Z A V L E - not a word
Z A W L E - not a word
Z A X L E - not a word
Z A Z L E - not a word

GM doesn't strike me as the type to dig deep into the linguistic past, so those are out.

I bet it doubles up on one of the letters already in the word. Let's see. Ah ha! EAGLE. I bet it's EAGLE. Man, words that double up on a single letter are the reason I quit playing Wordle.

Erk - closer than I like! Except I'm pretty sure Steal wasn't a real guess?
Nice analysis, sorry for missing Fable, I really thought that was it.

@Brookside GM: how are double letters handled?

1st word is better 'cos we know there are three letters, and what they are.

C _ u _ _ with an "r" somewhere but not 3rd or 5th. There is no "u" 2nd. "o" somewhere but not 3rd. "t" somewhere but not 2nd. hnksaelyidmpfb

so three letters, three places

out of COURT, CRIOT, and CTURO I'm pretty confident about COURT. maybe do that next and lock it down - going to have to do it sometime, and lets us know for sure how many more guesses we have?

Yeah. Go ahead and lock in court, we have to do it anyway. And you're right, steal didn't actually get used.

I took the last two, so I think I should back off for a bit - though that means the next one may be something else?

Indeed double letters are handled in an annoying way. IF that has come up here, I would have handled it the way Wordle does. Example:

If the word was CREEK and you guessed DEALS, you would be told there is an E somewhere but not 2nd. If you guessed SEVEN, you would be told the E at 4th is correct and receive no hint that there was another E somewhere else.

Go ahead and guess Court, Hal. I don't think anyone will mind -- it can't really be anything else, and then we'll have the evidence we need to take down the Duke.

3. The Duke told Faedi about a shipment of weapons down the western coast of Iustia that was intercepted by "pirates" actually flying a false flag operation for the Concordat, greatly raising Faedi's stock in the Concordat.

... huh?

A) Who owned the shipment of weapons? Iustia? The Concordat? Or does it not matter because the shipment wasn't real?

B) The pirates were not real pirates. Were they Iustians posing as pirates or Concordat sailors posing as pirates? "for the Concordat" could mean "attempting to trick the Concordat" or "a Concordat ship attempting to trick someone else".

C) How did knowing about this boost Faedi's reputation? Was she able to prevent an embarrassing loss somehow? Or just explain something after the fact?

Sorry, but the action in this one is totally unclear.

I see! The shipment of weapons belonged to Iustia and was intercepted by "pirates" that were actually Concordat agents. Beaumont tipped Faedi off to the route and timing of the shipment so she could help organize the top secret operation to grab the weapons, boosting her political stock in the higher, inner circles of the Concordat.