OK, maybe not that paladin you played in 6th grade, but this gadget here does uncannily well at guessing what character you're thinking of.
My first pick was Anasurimbor Kellhus (of Bakker's Prince of Nothing books) which it got in 20 guesses, and my second was the gygaxian archmage Mordenkainen, which took about 35 guesses.
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Damn, it got Druss the Legend in 19 questions!
ReplyDeleteIt got Gurney Halleck (Dune) in 20 guesses. Which is weird because I can't figure out exactly which questions differentiated him from any others of the 2nd-tier characters in the book.
ReplyDeleteThanks Al, I just wasted my whole lunch on that thing. Used to stand in KMart with one of those 20 question balls being amazed that it could always get it right.
ReplyDeleteGot River Tam, Matt Parkman and Sinterklaas, did not get Deagol or Cugel the Clever. Huh.
ReplyDeleteIt got Conan, Elric, Michael Weston and Karl Cullinane. It gave up on Ulrich von Beck, but it's been a long time since I read The War Hound and the World's Pain, so I might have given it some bad info. Yeah, I'm gonna pass it on to my wife and let her waste a few hours on it. :)
ReplyDeleteStumped him on Lythande from Thieves World.
ReplyDeleteStumped it with Spiny Norman from Monty Python's Flying Circus. I figured it would be easy to stump it with an obscure character from an obscure film or book, so the real challenge would be to find a pretty-well-known character from a famous book, movie or show that the "genie" doesn't know.
ReplyDelete@Talysman: Spiny Norman! Awesome.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't get Iucounu the Laughing Magician. It didn't get Riddley Walker (even though it knew he existed). But it got Gary Gygax in 35.
Awesome, the "animal" game on the web. Silly genie thought I meant Bran instead of Tyrion, but he recovered on his second guess.
ReplyDeleteStumped him with Abelard Malcolm Tyler Lindsay from Schismatrix.
ReplyDeleteHe was able to guess that a character was "your own character" when I picked a magic-user from my early days of gaming.
ReplyDeleteStumped him again with Lindsay. There are a lot of Iain M. Banks characters in there, and he tends to assume them a lot.
@Talisman - you stumped me with "Spiny Norman" - at least until an image search reminded me. :)
ReplyDeleteDinsdale!
did not get Deagol or Cugel the Clever. Huh.
ReplyDeleteHow odd. I just tested out Cugel without having read the comments and he got it in 47 questions. I think it was "Does he wear a funny hat?" that clued him in :)
Got Lan from Wheel of Time in 19 questions. Damn.
ReplyDeleteAnd Gord the Rogue in 29
ReplyDeleteIt got Corwin of Amber in 19 questions. The first time, I'd thought it meant "Does this character actually exist" in the sense of "Is this guy actually written about", so it gave me Neil Young, instead. I'm still not sure what made him different from, say, Random, based on the questions it asked, but it worked.
ReplyDeleteI managed to stump it with Locklear from The Man-Kzin Wars. The first time it gave me Jake Sully in 19 questions, and the second time was Star Man (Rush 2112) in 29.
I also managed to stump it on Chut-Rrit. It took 61 questions, and guessed that it was the mascot of auburn university, Bill the Cat, Rum Tum Tugger, some weird thing, then an original character. I had to introduce it as a new one.
Going back in, its first guess for him was The Mule, then next an Original Character, and then finally got him. It took 59 questions, but they were mostly different, so...
It got Nessus in 19 tries, no other guesses.
It got Severian in 19, too, also without other guesses. So that seems to be the average for fairly well known characters.
I also tested Dr. Horrible, who it guessed was me not really thinking of anyone, or Beakman, but who it finally got in 39 questions. So even for fairly well-known characters, the average may be off. Of course, that could be because I was looking at the weird blue-scale image of him on the cover of a calendar, and so thought his hair was black.
Oh, also, update: It did get Random in 29 questions, but only after going through Corwin. So I suppose that there might not have been anything in the questions it asked to separate them.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I tried Locklear again, this time getting that it could make multiple guesses. It guessed OC, Severian, Not thinking of anyone, Lister, and Cade Skywalker, and then admitted it was stumped.
Jesus in 8 questions :)
ReplyDeleteDinsdale...
ReplyDeleteI'm late to the party... Anyhow, I stumped it with Kothar (Gardner F. Fox's signature barbarian). Entered Kothar into it's database, then played it three more times, each time trying for Kothar. It got it on the 4th try. All totalled, about 190 questions before it would recognize a character completely new to it.
ReplyDeleteThought for sure I would stump it with Randolph Carter - but nope, it guessed it in 20 questions. Color me impressed.
ReplyDelete