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Mad Librarian: a word game to end wars.

(c) copyright Chris Sullivan, Jan. 2013.

A mad librarian is unexpectedly involved in an adversarial quarrel. Madness somehow turns to co-operation and/or laughter. How is this done?

You will be amazed!

2 or more players

there is an argument. each person is coming up with escalatingly worse, more negative, insulting, unpleasant things to say (or yell - volume might be increasing). it's getting serious.

take the last comment, criticism, insult, negative statement, unpleasant question, negative utterance of any kind spoken to you.

hurl it at the enemy: analyze it; quickly change one word only, into a similar one that has a different attribute: part of speech, colour, number of legs, sound, first letter - be creative. quickly say the changed version, possibly directed the other way, or at least away. this change will make it more absurd.

next player, catching on quickly, should do the same or similar with a different word, repeating it back again with both words changed. this continues until either the entire sentence has had every word changed, or someone cannot think of the next change, or conciliation, consolation, or agreement has been achieved, and the argument settled. the round ends, and the other person wins. the round also is finished when or if somebody laughs genuinely - no sarcasm, irony, etc. is allowed. non-genuine laughter means the other person takes your turn.

play continues until the end of the argument. the winning phrase or sentence is written in soap over the tub by the one who said the last negative thing in the real argument. the funniest phrase or sentence is written in soap on the mirror by the winner, if they so desire.

option: "if you lose, you drink" (Dar Williams, Party Generation), or eat, or pay some penalty; take off another item of clothing, purse lips and kiss pinkie, etc.

if nobody can think of another phrase or sentence, everybody wins.

LOL. Sounds like fun! You *do* realize some of us might be likely to forget what the argument was about in the first place? What if its an important issue like...who has to run in the check for the gas bill so your heat doesn't cut out just as a 3 day blizzard hurls itself at you? People could DIE.

Good game but I think you need to add some precautionary advisories.

People could PIE!

I laughed. Big surprise. Let's pretend I didn't though...

Poople could PIE!

In early testing, it was found that delays could make the game less interesting. It is now recommended not to attempt a round of Mad Librarian except in live person to person verbal contact. The Internet is not yet ready.

People could PEE? Is that more interesting? I feel like such a failure.