Fiction: Banned Books Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • Lie-brarian's Setup
  • Guessers' Setup
• Prologue
• 1. Guess
• 2. Deceive
  • Record Correct Clues
  • Change Exactly One Clue
  • Share the Clues
• Fact/Fiction Tokens
• Notes on Words
• Halftime
• Game End
• Legal Guesses
• Red Words
• Hard Difficulty
• Ability Cards
  • Setup
  • Guesser Abilities
  • Lie-brarian Abilities

Components

Lie-brarian's Setup

• 1 Dry-erase Marker
• 56 Book Cards
• 1 Lie-brarian Board
• 60 Clue Tokens
• 9 Lie-brarian Ability Cards (see pg. 5)

Guessers' Setup

• 1 Dry-erase Marker
• 10 Guess Boards (5 blue, 5 red)
• 1 Alphabet Board
• 3 Fact/Fiction Tokens
• 10-Minute Timer (not provided)
• 9 Guesser Ability Cards (see pg. 5)

Prologue

Before starting, the Lie-brarian draws 1 book card, selects a yellow word on it, and secretly writes it at the top of their board. The Guessers may see the back of the book card.

The Lie-brarian tells the Guessers 1 letter that is in the secret word (but not where it appears), then starts the 10-minute timer for the first half of the game.

1. Guess

The team guesses a 5-letter English word that is not a proper noun. All 5 letters must be unique. They write the guess on a blue guess board, hand the guess board to the Lie-brarian, and pause the timer.

The Guessers may continue discussing while the timer is paused.

2. Deceive

Record Correct Clues

The Lie-brarian writes the guess in the first slot on their board and records honest clues in the top half of the square (padlock icon).

• Check mark (✓): if that letter is in the same position as in the secret word.
• Cross (✗): if that letter does not appear anywhere in the secret word.
• Tilde (~): if that letter is in the secret word, but in a different position.

Example: If the secret word was "READY" and the guess was "ENTRY", the correct clues would be:

Secret word (READY)	Guess (ENTRY)	Clue	Meaning
R	E	Tilde (~)	Correct letter, wrong spot
E	N	Cross (✗)	Letter not in secret word
A	T	Cross (✗)	Letter not in secret word
D	R	Tilde (~)	Correct letter, wrong spot
Y	Y	Check mark (✓)	Correct letter, correct spot

Guessers can use the alphabet board to record clues about what letters may or may not be in the secret word.

Change Exactly One Clue

The Lie-brarian then must choose exactly one clue to lie about, changing any single clue (Cross (✗), Tilde (~), or Check mark (✓)) into any other clue.

The Lie-brarian records the new set of clues (with exactly one lie) in the bottom half of each square and circles their lie (megaphone icon).

Share the Clues

The Lie-brarian double-checks that they have correctly written 4 honest clues and 1 lie on their board. They then share their 5 bottom-half clues with the Guessers by returning the guess board and placing a clue token with the appropriate symbol under each letter.

Once the Lie-brarian places the last clue token, they unpause the timer. The Guessers may immediately begin making their next guess.

Fact/Fiction Tokens

The Guessers have 3 Fact/Fiction tokens to use during the game. At any time while the timer is running, they may declare they are using a token and point to a letter from the most recent guess they submitted.

If the Lie-brarian shared an honest clue for that letter, they place the Fact/Fiction token near the letter with Fact faceup. If it was a lie, they place the token with Fiction faceup instead.

Notes on Words

Although the secret words on book cards come directly from the book, they aren't necessarily thematically linked to it. Secret words may be plural, but proper nouns, archaic words, and very uncommon words have been excluded.

Halftime

After the Guessers make 5 guesses or the 10-minute timer expires, it's halftime.

• Discard any unused blue guess boards.
• Set a new 10-minute timer for the second half.
• Start using the red guess boards.

Game End

Repeat GUESS and DECEIVE steps until:

• The Guessers win by guessing the secret word.
• The Lie-brarian wins because the Guessers are out of guesses or the second 10-minute timer expires.

Legal Guesses

Each guess must be a single, correctly-spelled English word with 5 letters. Proper nouns aren't allowed. Repeat letters are only allowed when using red words.

Examples from the rulebook:

• FROGS (legal)
• TIGER (legal)
• TEXAS (not legal: proper noun)
• ONTOP (not legal: more than one word)
• FYKLI (not legal: not a real word)
• CHAUD (not legal: not English)
• TREES (not legal: duplicate letters)
• FRIEND (not legal: more than 5 letters)

Red Words

Red words contain duplicate letters. If players opt to allow these words, the Lie-brarian secretly picks a word of either color from the book card, without revealing which. During the game, the Guessers may use duplicate letters in their guesses.

When a guess contains a duplicate letter that appears once in the secret word, the Lie-brarian does the following:

• If either duplicate is a ✓, they mark the other as an ✗.
• If neither is a ✓, they mark the first instance as a ~ and the second as an ✗.

Example: The secret word is "BONEY" and the guess is "OBOES". Since the secret word only has one O, the first O in the guess gets a ~ and the second gets a ✗.

Hard Difficulty

Use any or all of the following:

• Guessers get 1 Fact/Fiction token per half.
• Use an 8 minute timer instead of 10.
• The Lie-brarian may choose a red word.

Ability Cards

Fiction: Banned Books includes 18 optional ability cards you can add to the game when you're ready to mix things up.

Setup

Before starting the Prologue, deal 2 random Lie-brarian ability cards to the Lie-brarian and 2 random Guesser ability cards to the Guessers. Each side selects 1 card and places it faceup in front of themselves, visible to everyone. Return all other ability cards to the box.

Guesser Abilities

The Guessers can use their ability by spending Fact/Fiction tokens. The icon on each ability card indicates how to use it:

• Icon with a red cross badge: Discard a Fact/Fiction token to use this ability.
• Icon with a blue question-mark badge: Whenever you use a Fact/Fiction token, you may use this ability.

Guesser abilities can only be used when the timer is running. The Guessers may still use Fact/Fiction tokens normally, without using their ability. They may use any number of tokens during each guess, for either purpose.

Example cards: "Your next guess may be 5 letters that don't spell a word." (red cross badge) lets the Guessers discard a Fact/Fiction token to make a guess with any 5 letters. Since they have 3 tokens, they can use this ability up to 3 times per game.

Example cards: "You may select a vowel in any previous guess." (blue question-mark badge) Normally, the Guessers can only use Fact/Fiction tokens on their most recent guess. This ability lets them use Fact/Fiction on earlier guesses, but only for vowels.

Lie-brarian Abilities

The Lie-brarian's ability card is placed faceup where all players can see it. Each time a guess is submitted, the Lie-brarian secretly decides whether to use their ability. If they use it, they cross off the feather icon next to the guess on their board. They may only use their ability once per guess.

The number below the feather icon on the Lie-brarian's card indicates the maximum number of times they can use their ability during the game. Once they have marked that number of icons on their board, they can't use their ability again. An infinity icon means they may use their ability as many times as they wish (up to once per guess).

The Lie-brarian's ability is always optional. They can choose to mark fewer feather icons than their card allows, or even decline to use their ability at all.

Example cards: "Lie about +1 letter." (feather icon with a 2 badge) With this ability, the Lie-brarian can choose to lie about 2 letters in a single guess, up to twice per game.

Example cards: "Lie about 0 letters." (feather icon with an infinity badge) With this ability, the Lie-brarian can choose to give totally honest clues, as often as they like.