Q: I was trying to understand what kind of play you were try to solicit through the Goal Words. My only concern: while I think you're right about the risk of turning a very long list into "grocery playing," I was thinking about the opposite risk. Meandering after nearly all words have been checked and the group feeling quite awkward about "Well, everything seems resolved - so what now?" Have you thought about some rule like "in a sentence you can include every Goal Word you like but check only only one"?

A: I have indeed considered a rule stating that there may only be one goal word in a sentence, but decided against it for the following reasons.

The interesting thing about Do is that Mark Sherry's done the math and figured out the average length of a game session. There is actually an exact number of turns that will be in the average session: 14. Maybe a little more, maybe a little fewer, but usually 14, regardless of the size of the group.

So if you're only allowed one goal word in a sentence, and your letter has 7 goal words, then you have some room to meander. You only need to use one Goal Word every other turn and you'll probably get the Parades ending.

If the letter has 14 goal words, then there is a slight chance for a Pitchforks ending, depending on how the players' choose to keep their stones and whether they can think of a way to include the Goal Word in every single turn.

If the list of Goal Words is 15 or higher, then it's very, very likely that the story will end in Pitchforks. The only option players will have by the endgame is to keep pushing stones back into the bag, stalling for time a few more turns so players can get a chance to not have a Pitchforks ending. In doing so, their pilgrims may get In Trouble (even though the overall story ends with Parades).

There are two sometimes parallel/sometimes opposing forces at work in a player's decision during their turn. In the long-term, she is deciding whether she wants the story to end with Parades or Pitchforks. But in the short-term, she is deciding whether she is willing to let her own Pilgrim get In Trouble in the process. (There's also a long-long-term factor here, but I won't lengthen an already long blog post.)

Keep this in mind if you decide to play with the one-Goal-Word-per-sentence rule in your home game.

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