h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello. you don't know me, or rather you kind of do. Once upon a time I used to be Mykl. I coinvented and updated Surreality Rules Blackjack. I happened to spot your last post on the subject and thought I'd reply.
We too had a player who couldn't pronounce Veeblefetzer and we used to delight in making him constantly pick up cards. I know it's a form of bullying but it is fun, almost as fun as giving someone four two eyed BlackJacks at once. I have recently unearhed my special Bibble cards which includes the pvery pack the game was invented with. It is French, and all the picture cards have names which MUST BE SAID of course. The other pack is German. This means instead of K,Q,J on the picture cards you get R/K, D, V/B which adds to the confusion.
I would be interested to know if you still play the game. If so, you may be interested to know that I may yet complete work on a newer version for professionals featuring CONDITIONAL MODIFIERS.
As a guitar player myself, I was going to ask what sort of guitar you had but as I've seen your picture, I think it is a Squier (by Fender) Affinity series Stratocaster. Keep up the good work.

Hi there,

Nice to finally meet one of the creators! I do still play the game, teach it to anyone I meet who wants to know. I also tried playing with a French pack, and for the benefit of my French cousins, I translated it into French -- it makes it easier for them to play. International Bibble, that's a thing to be played.

I am very, very interested in conditional modifiers. Also perhaps something for making the game more interesting when there are only two players -- an invisible third player, perhaps? Modify one of the cards (or a total hatstand, perhaps) so that you can choose to play a card from the third player's hand. It would also make it better for when you've both recently had to pick up a lot of cards and it's quite predictable what the other person is going to do.

Yeah, I do play a Squier, one that was "Crafted in China". Very fake but it still does make quite a nice sound. Recently I've been playing my acoustic a lot, it's a Squier SD-3, and looks like the blue one on the top left in this link:

http://images.google.com/images?q=%22Squier+SD3%22-&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&filter=0

Sounds very nice, but I'm using 13s on it at the moment which means it's a bit hard on my fingers, but then again, it's very nice to go back to my electric. Trying to get some stuff recorded, got a very neat little program that'll do it. What do you play?

13's? Christ!! You are obviously a real man. I own 6 guitars. ( I used to work in a music shop where I could get cheap prices and pick up good second hand bargains.
I have an Alhambra 4P Classical guitar called Consuela.
A Celebrity CC157 Shallow bowl 6 string Electro-acoustic guitar called Midnight Cloud
(Strung with 10, 13, 17 plain, 30, 42, 52. You can bend strings but still get some oomph when you hit it one. You need fingers of steel to play it either.)
An Ovation 1115 Deep Bowl 12 string Electro-acoustic called Precious (I acquired it for myself as a birthday present) which is older than me and I've just turned 32.
I have a Gordon-Smith SG2 electric called Spike ( It's basically an SG copy but it's hand built in Britain and I sold a very nice Gibson SG Standard to buy it because the Gordon-Smith was actually nicer)
A Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro electric called Desert Gold ( It's my tart's handbag guitar. It has a 5A grade quilted maple top and abalone and mother of pearl falling maple leaf inlays.
And my main guitar strangely enough as it's the cheapest electric is a customised Washburn MG44 called Velvet Dream. It has DiMarzio pickups and switching arrangement to give me 17 different pickup settings. Of which about 12 are any use.

I'm glad to see that Bibble is still going. And internationally too (don't forget to make French people play with a British pack) I don't currently know anyone who is mad enough to play the game which is a shame. Originally, the conditional modifier meant a rule existed on certain days of the year. (My birthday, Vincent Price's Birthday, The days of the patron saint's of music and the insane, April fool's day etc) but I can't remember what the rule was. I got the idea from a Robert Asprin book but had to try not to make it too complicated. After all, I have to remember when the rules are in force myself.
When I get the chance, I will work on it. And I keep welcoming any more suggestions you may have.

As I feel I have met a kindred spirit who plays guitar and bibble I will let you in on a little secret you may not have discovered yet.
If amongst your cards you have 3 jokers and 1 non working card you can really infuriate all your fellow players:

Keep the non working card safe so you know where it is.
Play the Total Hatstand.
Move the cards around for as long as you can stretch the patience of your opponents. Up to about 10 minutes should be more than sufficient.
Make sure the last thing you do is leave the player whose turn it is next with just the non working card.
Move the people about, again for as long as you can get away with.
As a final move, make sure you move yourself into the place of the person whose turn it is next ( not forgetting to say "Frogspawn" as you now only have one card).
Then you say, all innocent like, "oh is it it my turn now?" lay your non working card on top of the joker and you will win the game and really piss off all the other players.The likelihood that someone else now has 2 jokers in their hand when you have just laid 3 is very remote, even if you make sure the bridge rules are in there too. Even if you do get sweetleafed, you will still appreciate the irony of the situation and have a good laugh.

That should have read you don't need fingers of steel.
and someone has stolen half of my close brackets.

13s I play because it's very easy to go back to the electric (which has 11s on it). And I just like the sound I make with chunky strings. So yes, it seems you have a nice number of guitars, but one thing we have in common is that we each tend to play the cheaper of our collections, as I'm glued to my acoustic which was £85.

Anyway, I think I saw the b*stard who nicked your brackers, sah, and I hope to apprehend him very shortly .

He got away.

So tell me more about these conditional modifiers? Are there certain rules that only apply on certain days of the year, are they on the Bibble page or are they entirely separate? I am very interested to know.

And many thanks for the Bibble trick. I rarely play with more than one other person, because when trying to induct someone into Bibble, they are frequently stunned by the complexity of the rules and of course, my own mastery of the game . Such is life, but Total Hatstands are very fun.

Originally there was one rule that only worked on certain days of the year. But I can't remember what it was.
I will work on something and get back to you.
As I can't persuade anyone else to play me at the moment, if I'm working something out and having a very tough 4 way game with myself, I sometimes catch what I'm doing and question my sanity. So don't expect anything too quickly, but you'll be the first to know if there are any new rules. They will have to be added on my Sikufanya page as there is no way at all to get back into the Mykl page.
I do like a chunky sound but I also like to bend. I only use 9's o the Washburn (25.5" scale length) and 10's on the Gordon Smith (24.75" scale length). As the Eggle is 25", I'm still not sure where I will stick. Probably 9's as I now have a EQ pedal to remove the clankiness with distortion that you get from the fact that it doesn't have a tone control.

Ah yes; to make a two player, or indeed, a one-player game more interesting, it is worth cutting out some of the pack. I think I added something to that effect on the Penalties thread.

Also, if you want to get back into your old account, as long as you remember the email address you put into it, you can probably persuade the Italics to let you back in. It's worth looking into, at least.

I like to bend as well, but the thing is I always over-bend. Thick strings prevent this to some degree, but also they make my fingers really work. That is really satisfying -- wanting a bend, and having to really PUSH to get it, which I like. It just makes it all feell neater.

What, in fact, does an EQ pedal do?

I did look into it, and apart from the fact that I can't remember the Email address as it was a long time ago before ComTel bacame NTL, It is also no longer at all possible to reactivate a Pre BBC user.
An EQ pedal does exactly what it says on the tin. In my case it is a Boss GE7 which has a seven band graphic EQ on it. You can boost or cut the volume and also 7 frequencies. If your guitar has no tone control, it will be slightly more trebly than a standard guitar with the tone turned to 10. I tend to back my tone off a little so this can make the sound a bit clanky on distortion.
After a lot of fiddling, I have found a setting on the pedal which cuts off the clanky harshness of the treble without losing clarity of tone. It just makes it all a bit beefier. I still use it without the pedal for clean sounds.

I have just started a guide entry on Conditional Modifiers. There is only one in there at the moment which has a title that provides a hint at the inspiration without me getting sued, hopefully.
I would be interested to know your feedback on this and any others as they come to me. Talking of which, I have just thought of another so there will be at least 2 by the time you read this.

I think we should have two threads so we should just talk Bibble here and I will start a Journal Entry about guitars so we can keep these seperate.

Sounds like a good idea.

Also, do forgive me, but I am rather stupid when it comes to guitars. I just play the things, don't know about gadgets and makes and stuff it's all a very large and imposing closed book to me.

Anyway, I shall run off and check these conditional modifier things.

Do you have a proper pack of Tarot cards?
If so, I'm thinking of a use for Death.
Slip it into the pack with the other cards. Death can obviously happen at any time so you can lay it when you like while saying in the most hollow tone you can manage " The Salmon Mousse!"
As any Tarot reader can tell you, Death does not actually mean death, but is a sort of cleansing so it basically acts like a hoopyfrood.
Unless of course someone stirs up EVIL by making you play ANTI CLOCKWISE also known as WIDDERSHINS or THE DEVIL'S DIRECTION.
It's so easy to stir up evil just by slapping a Queen down isn't it?

In that case it does mean death and the next player will basically be dead for the rest of the current game. They will turn their cards face up on the table and will then turn up their toes, pop their clogs, buy the farm and become bereft of life, a stiff etc

If the deceased has had the foresight to make a will, the player who dealt the hand will be executor and must comply with the wishes of what must be done with the estate (or cards to you and me)

A standard will might read: I, (NAME), being of unsound enough mind to play Bibble, hereby bequeath that should I die suddenly during the game, my cards shall HAUNT the git who killed me. They will be able to play them and the usual rules will apply but they will have to pick them back up again straight after and keep them in their hand until the exorcism has been performed ( The exorcism will be performed by the next person who lays a queen.Instead of a line from Bohemian Rhapsody, they must say "Your mother sucks cocks in hell!".) The play will resume clockwise and the haunted player can now finally get rid of their phantom cards next time they lay them.
You could stick a repossession clause in so that if play returns to anti-clockwise, any of those ghostly cards the haunted player still has are now haunting them again.

Of course if other players didn't have the foresight to make a will beforehand which is always a possibility, especially if it's the first time they have been introduced to the death card, then we have a different situation.
Their cards will be left face up on the table to the mercy of others. Anyone can make a grab for them or if no-one fancies them, they will stay lying there for the rest of the sitting, not just the current game. Although a Total Hatstand can still do what they like with them of course

As an extra way to pick on the sort of person who can't even pronounce VeebleFetzer (Veeble to rhyme with Weeble and Fetzer to rhyme with Brian Setzer from The Stray Cats. How can they get that wrong? They deserve to be punished)you will obviously only accept a will if it is in an envelope with Last Will and Testament written on the front but you don't mention that of course as it should be obvious to everyone.
If anyone tries to offer an illegal will, the next time they are alive and play the game, as soon as they have been dealt all their cards must say " I am paying for the sins of my Forefathers" and pick up 10 cards before the game starts.


What do you think?

Sounds brilliant! A bl00dy wonderful set of rules! I like the Salmon Mousse as a touch.

Do I assume however, that one plays with a full pack of Tarot cards, taking out all the, er you know, picture cards that aren't death, or do you keep them in and assign them uses? (For example Burn Pile, where you put all the cards that have been played into the pick-up heap. It just would make things easier.)

Also, when you play a queen, obviously you have to sing a ling of Bo Rap. What about when you play the next queen? Surely you should have to sing the next line of Bo Rap backwards? Or perhaps the last line. Hmm, tough choice, what do you think?

You know where the salmon mousse line comes from then?
To start with, you will just have to use Death. As I only have tarot cards from the Jeux de Tarot, I only had numbers on the Major Arcana. I have just looked them up on another website and will write them on my Tarot pack. If I come up with anything for other cards, I will let you know.
The advantage of course is that my tarot pack has the normal suits on. If you want to use a proper tarot pack you will have to assign suits i.e cups=clubs or whatever.
Of course in tarot, there is another card: The Knight. You could either say "NI!" or "Icky icky icky ptang zoop warble" or whatever the line actually is, it's not very clear, best just stick to "NI!" I think.
The knight could just act as another BlackJack or I could find another use for it.What do you favour?

As for the guitars, as I used to work in a guitar shop and have repaired and set up guitars, I started a thread on my own page to talk guitars for many things. If you have any questions on guitars and related stuff like "what the hell is a flanger?" I will try and help you.

I forgot to mention the queens.
Just like in a normal game, you sing the next line of BO Rap for each queen that is laid.
The only time you say anything different for a queen is if the play is going anti clockwise and someone is dead and they have bequeathed their cards to another. In this instance you say the exorcist line and from then on queen play will be back to normal.

I think it will take some time to work something out for all the major arcana, even if you want a card that will make all the chicks get naked, which to be honest is a bit sexist, sad and childish.

Perhaps if you play The Lovers, you can pick another player to be your "lover" and you can then show each other cards, swap cards and whisper strategies to each other, much to the annoyance of all the "single" players.

I do indeed

Yup, handy thing about my Tarot pack is that it has emblems of the normal suits occasionally, on things like the King of Cups et cetera. Very useful, very uncomplicated.

"NI!" is a very apt exclamation to make on playing the Knight. Perhaps, one should elect a target and then force that target to make a shrubbery? Or perhaps that they should have to find Roger the Shrubber, which would then be the result of playing another working card. Roger the Shrubber would then have to collect three identical cards (not jokers) and present them to whoever played the Knight card.

I submit that for your critical appraisal.

Very generous of you to offer that, I've posted there.

Got it!!!

They do not need to select a target as they will be saying "Ni!" to the next person that comes along i.e. the next player. They will not be able to play any cards ( and must therefore say potted meeat and pick one card up each turn) until they can produce............a shrubbery!! As we all know, shrubs are made of wood.
So a shrubbery will be 3 pieces of wood in any combination. Now there aren't many cards that contain wood. a Mashie-Niblik is a golf club and amongst golf clubs you have 1-4 woods so a four will do.
Also we know that if she weighs the same as duck then she is a witch and we can burn her. This means that ducks are made of wood. Anyone who goes to bingo will tell you that 22 is two little ducks, therefore one 2 is one little duck so a shrubbery is 3 cards made up of any combination of 2's and 4's.

That is rather ingenious!

While making a shrubbery, they can assumably be the target of things such as Bibble Trotsky Who's and Bibble Trevor Austins, which leads me to another thought: could there be such thing as team Bibble? Because that way, when someone was made a shrubber, by means of a Bibble Trevor Austin one's teammates could help-out.

It does seem a bit of a length to go to just to get a shrubbery though.

Possibly if we played the lovers card from the tarot pack as I suggested, that might work. Either way, there is no reason why they couldn't be attacked in any other way, including with Blackjacks which they couldn't block as they can't play any cards without a shrubbery. This will definitely work. Of course, if they have a king in their hand of any sort. If someone lays a second Knight who says "Ni" on them,if they do not wish to procure a second shrubbery, with a split level effect and a path running down the middle, they can simply lay the King, even if the suit doesn't match and just say "IT!"

How does a king help things, specifically? Have I somehow missed that it is a general neutralisationg.

The lovers' card is a good idea.

As we are generally refering to a well known film, the knights who say "Ni"are thwarted by the King saying "IT" (you can tell he's a king because he's not covered in shit like the rest of us)
I had an imaginary 4 way game yesterday to test some of these rules and ended up with one dead player and two players desperately trying to acquire 2 shrubberies. It got amusing when one of these just realised as he was finishing his turn that the dead player had had 3 fours in his hand so the other player nicked them first.
I did come across a problem where a player has to get a second shrubbery while still working on the first. On this occasion, if he has a king in his hand when he gets his first shrubbery, he can avoid having to get the second.
Also, I should point out that even if players are dead, they still exist. That means that they can play sweetleafs if the other players are too dopey not to pick the jokers up off the table and if you give three cards to their direction, you put those three cards face up on the table with the rest of the hand. Also, if you Leeroy Snood with a red King, you can swop players into the dead man's spot and change which player is dead.
I am going to have to start a new article on the use of Tarot cards in Bibble.
I have a use for The Tower now.

Yeah, I can see problems with someone having to get two shrubberies. Frantic shrubbing. Perhaps one collecting two shrubberies should be referred to as a Frantic Shrubber? If then, when Leroy Snooding them or Total Hatstanding them you refer to them by their actual name, the duty of collecting one of the shrubberies then falls to you.

Do tell your use for the tower?