![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Rack 'Em Up
Jul. 17th, 2003 02:48 amPeople seem to be intrigued by my mention "living Scrabble" in a recent entry, so I thought I'd elaborate. I think I'm resigning myself to writing a lot more about this convention than will fit snugly into my "official" report, so we might as well start here.
The game was actually called "On The Rack" and was designed by San Francisco resident Hot. Teams of twelve or so divide into two groups: seven stand in a stage-type area where everyone can see, and five sat on chairs in front of them. The seven on the stage then drew five random cards from a deck prepared by Hot to represent a bag of Scrabble tiles. Then two more letters are chosen (this avoids all-vowel or all-consonant hands) to make a Scrabble rack of seven letters. So there are seven people representing seven letters on a rack. The other five players then provide clues of three words or less
They game is not all that complex or difficult, and the scoring quickly falls by the wayside. The real draw is watching the letters struggle to arrange themselves into words. The letters are not allowed to talk ("There will be no talking."), and so various things happen when they are given a word to form. First, there's a pause as the letters struggle to understand the clue. Next various letters spring into action, some leaping into the fray, some backing away because their letters are not needed. Of course, not everyone does the right thing at the right time, so next, one or more letters start grabbing and pulling other letters trying to get them into order. This can be especially difficult when an I absolutely insists that he is in the word CAT, or when the very-in-demand E starts to space out and can't figure out why everyone is gesturing frantically at him.
Some of the more daring teams performed feats of ballet-like anagramming, with members sliding across the carpet to get into position. But there are dangers too. On Thursday, the day after On The Rack, I saw that LA Kreweman Bartok had a noticeable limp. "I've had a Scrabble-related injury," he said. If my memory serves, the injury occurred during a collision of two letters trying to get into position. Poor Bartok.
(Scrabble-related injuries are common, of course, but most apply to the board game or subsequent arguments [dead link removed, 10/26/10]).
The game was actually called "On The Rack" and was designed by San Francisco resident Hot. Teams of twelve or so divide into two groups: seven stand in a stage-type area where everyone can see, and five sat on chairs in front of them. The seven on the stage then drew five random cards from a deck prepared by Hot to represent a bag of Scrabble tiles. Then two more letters are chosen (this avoids all-vowel or all-consonant hands) to make a Scrabble rack of seven letters. So there are seven people representing seven letters on a rack. The other five players then provide clues of three words or less
They game is not all that complex or difficult, and the scoring quickly falls by the wayside. The real draw is watching the letters struggle to arrange themselves into words. The letters are not allowed to talk ("There will be no talking."), and so various things happen when they are given a word to form. First, there's a pause as the letters struggle to understand the clue. Next various letters spring into action, some leaping into the fray, some backing away because their letters are not needed. Of course, not everyone does the right thing at the right time, so next, one or more letters start grabbing and pulling other letters trying to get them into order. This can be especially difficult when an I absolutely insists that he is in the word CAT, or when the very-in-demand E starts to space out and can't figure out why everyone is gesturing frantically at him.
Some of the more daring teams performed feats of ballet-like anagramming, with members sliding across the carpet to get into position. But there are dangers too. On Thursday, the day after On The Rack, I saw that LA Kreweman Bartok had a noticeable limp. "I've had a Scrabble-related injury," he said. If my memory serves, the injury occurred during a collision of two letters trying to get into position. Poor Bartok.
(Scrabble-related injuries are common, of course, but most apply to the board game or subsequent arguments [dead link removed, 10/26/10]).