Mornington Crescent (game)

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Mornington Crescent is a game invented by Geoffrey Perkins , made famous by the BBC Radio 4 show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue ( ISIHAC ). It was named after the Mornington Crescent underground station in London . Players play their moves by naming London Underground station names. The winner is whoever shouts “Mornington Crescent” first.

The game is intended as a parody of complicated strategy games and particularly depicts the complex rules and terminology of Skat or chess in a satirical way.

The playing

The players take turns placing a “train” in the name of a station on the London Underground, while a game master (in ISIHAC it was Humphrey Lyttelton ) moderates the game. The first player to name "Mornington Crescent" wins.

Over time, the choices of directions have become much wider than the London Underground network, mainly to make the game more fun. There were also local variations such as the Slough version and Scottish variations during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In a game recorded in Luton , the moves even went as far as Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport , Nevsky Prospect and Pennsylvania Avenue . A train to Luton High Street has been invalidated for being too far away.

Because of the show's cult status, the game is also played by fans on Usenet and web forums , which has only increased the myth about the rules of the game.

Rules of the game

There are about 200 people a year who write to the show and ask about the rules. They are usually referred to NF Stovold's Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins and made aware that it is out of print. They are advised to ask "the local bookstore" for a copy of The Little Book of Mornington Crescent by Tim, Graeme, Barry and Humph.

This carries on the main joke of the game: there are actually no rules or a 'game' - the game is only played for the entertainment value gained as a player by watching the audience's reactions. The hidden goal is to maintain an appearance of great skill and strategy, which is achieved with the help of almost absurdly complex and lengthy rules and strategies. The game works as a parody of games and sports in which similarly cumbersome systems have developed. This is an open secret and few, if any, viewers succumb to the illusion. Even so, it is possible for people to get involved in the game without realizing it and try to play the game seriously. In that way, it bears some resemblance to party games where few know the secret rules. But unlike these games, which have certain but secret rules that new players have to figure out, the point at Mornington Crescent is to uphold the fiction that the rules are well defined but numerous, and that the moves are not at all random are.

As Humphrey Lyttelton says, “The rulebook is kept with inimitable accuracy by the lovely Samantha, and she sleeps with the rules under her pillow. Since there are now 17 volumes, she's slowly running out of pillows. "

The following selection of strategic tips from Graeme Garden gives a good indication of the type of "rules" that will be presented:

  • If you omit the stations that begin with F, J, O and W, you force your opponent to make an elliptical progression from north to south.
  • On the defensive it is extremely important to have an already strong outer quadrant, e.g. B. Pentonville Road to consolidate.
  • In a game of straightforward rules, it is illegal to move the other way around, which is a strong tactic in other cases.
  • The triangle opening will block any of the three possible reverse moves and is usually used early in the game (before the center line has been quartered), so the risk of a diagonal move is negligible, as is the possibility of a quarter.
  • The lateral shift decisively breaks the horizontal and vertical attempts of the opponent.

There is some evidence that in the early days there were some simple rules that the players knew but the audience didn't. The fact that the audience didn't know the rules was an inside joke for the players. But since nobody would notice the difference, these rules were only freely followed and later completely abandoned. Since everyone who has long been involved in the game is very mysterious about its rules, it is quite difficult to find out the original ones, but they could have insisted on the London Street Atlas and some simple rules about which pages to turn to the previous one and which ones don't. The point of the game was to prevent the opponent from turning over to the side of Mornington Crescent on the next move.

Recurring themes

As the game evolved, some rules have surfaced and these are mentioned in players' aside:

  • As a general rule, making a move to Mornington Crescent early in the game is not allowed - it is implied that it will take some time or point accumulation. Tim Brooke-Taylor once started a round with "Mornington Crescent", which was frowned upon for breaking the basic code of conduct for the game (the audience was still thrilled and Tim was declared the winner after Humph got on the "Audience Gossip") had referred).
  • Various sets of rules such as the "Finsbury Rules" are called up and are usually the subject of other aside notes in the game.
  • Certain moves are honored by the audience with applause or perceived with audible astonishment. The reaction of the audience can also shape the game. On one broadcast, a lone person applauded Willie Rushton, which resulted in Rushton being cut by Graeme Garden.
  • Players can be "in the spoon", which limits their moves in an unspecified way. During a broadcast in 1995, the game master declared that this was a corruption of the actual term "in Spain " (English: "in spoon" - "in Spain"). How this happens, what effect it has, or how the referee pondered what the player could do in Spain, was never revealed.
  • There are similar states called "Knip" (English nip = dt .: 'gap', 'Kniff') (or "Knid") and "prig".
  • A move to Mornington Crescent can be predicted in some moves in advance, as in chess : "Mornington Crescent in two moves".
  • Aldwych is always a dangerous move.
  • Real-world changes to the underground network are sometimes mentioned in the game, especially when the real Mornington Crescent station was closed because the elevators needed to be replaced. Allegedly, a "rules committee" was set up very quickly to make the necessary improvements to continue playing the game. (The situation only became clear when Graeme Garden's triumphant win was invalidated.) The ISIHAC team started a joke charity, the Mornington Crescent Elevator Repair Fund.

In fan games, the rules and their variations are routinely expanded and varied.

Culture of secrecy

Part of the fun (and almost the point) is to pretend the rules are real (i.e., set). There are hints of an elusive set of rules and of Stovold, and the great lack of clarity of the rules is the main source of humor. Players sometimes refer to the International Mornington Crescent Society (IMCS), supposedly the dominant society for making and overseeing the rules.

Among Mornington Crescent fans, it is good form not to admit the fictional nature of the rules. This is because while it is true that the game rules are fictional, Mornington Crescent, like any complex social activity, inevitably develops social rules that are not fictional, although they may well vary from one clique to the next. To take the simplest case: a player who consistently 'wins' with his first move will either very quickly lose interest in playing or be no longer popular with fellow players who play the game 'right'. One of the lovely paradoxes of the game is that you can play it despite the 'missing' rules - but only if you cooperate with the central illusion of the game.

Publications

In the 1990s, Radio 4 broadcast a Christmas special Mornington Crescent Explained ( Mornington Crescent Explained ) a "two-part documentary" about Mornington Crescent. Part one was a story of the game and part two was the rules. At the end of the broadcast of part one there was an announcement that part two had to be postponed due to planning difficulties.

Part two aired on Christmas Eve 2005 . It was called "In Search of Mornington Crescent" and was voiced by Andrew Marr .

Two books on the 'rules' and history have been published:

In the late 1980s, Roger Heyworth, a director of Gibsons Games, raised the idea of ​​selling a Mornington Crescent game. This game was supposed to consist of an empty box with a slip of paper on it that would have advertised a club of lovers. The plan was rejected because of the expected high number of complaints. In the late 1990s, he proposed a card game to the BBC, but it too was dismissed because it was too serious to be outsourced from a comedy game.

From 1997 an attempt was made to develop an actually playable version of the game, with the means of a nomic . This idea was inspired by Nomics' propensity for creating sub-games and the observation that Nomic players always complicate their games to keep them interesting. Mornington Nomic was a successful Nomic for a while and actually became an interesting and playable game that followed the shape of Mornington Crescent. But while the 2001 Nomic fizzled out, the rules for Mornington Crescent remained.

variants

When Humphrey Lyttelton (Humph) announces a round of Mornington Crescent during an ISIHAC broadcast, he usually includes a set of special rules for that round, such as 'Trumpington Variations' or 'Tudor Court Rules'. This means that every episode of ISIHAC that plays Mornington Crescent introduces a new twist. Various ISIHAC fan sites on the Internet have documented these rules as described by Humph. Similar inventions and developments can be seen in groups playing Mornington Crescent outside of the show.

Ultimately, Mornington Crescent can be played on any schedule, be it subway, bus or tram, that the players have available. You can actually play it from any list you want (for example 'Organ Pipes Crescent' or 'Pub Name Crescent'). All that is required is sufficient copies of the map or list and an agreement as to which point corresponds to the Mornington Crescent map.

Some game variants:

  • The Paris Métro game is aimed at Château d'Eau. Swell: . See also 'Mornington Croissant' -.
  • Some episodes of ISIHAC broadcast at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival played with the local variant - called Morningside Crescent, after a residential area in Edinburgh.
  • Wikington Crescent is a variant played using the online encyclopedia Wikipedia . Players begin with a 'random article' and must navigate to the Mornington Crescent (London Underground) article by clicking through the links in the random article and related ones. The fewer links that are used, the better the game. For example, you need four links on the English Wikipedia from Matterhorn to Mornington Crescent (London Underground).
  • There is also a variant played on street names on the Isle of Thanet called Wellington Crescent.

In the edition broadcast on June 11, 2007, a 'computer player' (with a female voice) was introduced. But she spent more time complimenting Stephen Fry on his clever way of playing than actually playing along.

Cultural references

  • Science fiction writer Michael Moorcock used a reference to the game in a comic book titled Michael Moorcock's Multiverse .
  • Task # 101 of the 2005 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt was for one player on each team to "participate in an email adaptation of the classic game Mornington Crescent," using the Chicago rail network . Attendees were warned, "We will follow the standard Thurgood-Hamilton conversion algorithm but will not allow half-way branches."
  • After the death of Willie Rushton 1996, a long-standing ISIHAC poker players, his life in 2002 with was Blue Plaque (blue sticker) thought at the ticket office of the subway station Mornington Crescent. ("Willie Rushton: Satirist")
  • In the Alternate Reality Game Perplex City , there is a card # 140 with the name "Mornington Crescent" in the blue ban set . The puzzle is to find out the real game based on stations in Perplex City. The card does not explain the rules on the grounds that it would offend the intelligence of the players.
  • "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" by Iain Banks mentions the game as an invention of a fictional company Wopuld Ltd. and is described as "a game based on the London Underground map with an intricate double board".
  • In the 11-Day Empire of the Faction Paradox , important relics are kept in stacks, a maze built from ghosts from London Underground stations. The stations "can only be reached by following a complex series of ritual trains"; Mornington Crescent is particularly difficult to get to.

swell

  1. ^ The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts , Pan Publishing. ISBN 0-330-29288-9
  2. ^ Mornington Crescent Rules . Retrieved November 12, 2006.
  3. ↑ BBC - Radio 4 - Comedy and Quizzes - In Search of Mornington Crescent . Retrieved November 12, 2006.
  4. ^ Mornington Nomic
  5. ↑ Archived Stora Mossen transcript in Swedish ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / forum.karspexet.se
  6. ^ Archived Stora Mossen game transcript in English
  7. ^ Archived Chateau d'Eau game transcript
  8. ↑ Description of the rules of Chateau d'Eau
  9. ↑ Description of 'Mornington Croissant'
  10. ↑ Exercise sheet (English) (PDF; 143 kB)

Web links