Psychologizer
Psychologizer Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Equipment
Psychologizer contains one playing board with spinner, one card box containing a total of 600 cards, along with eight sets of eight response cards, eight token persons, and eight graduation caps and tassles.
Object of the Game
The winner is the player who first accumulates the number of credits necessary to receive a psychologizer degree. The length of the game depends on the particular degree being sought and is merely a matter of preference. In the shortest version of the game, the players strive for a Bachelors Degree in Psychologizing which requires 150 credits. If players wish to proceed to the next level, they must first stop to graduate before moving on. That is, credits obtained at the end of one degree level cannot be carried over as credits towards the next level. When a player earns 230 credits he or she receives a Masters Degree in Psychologizing. In the longest version of the game, the players strive to accumulate 380 credits to become the first to earn a Doctoral Degree in Psychologizing. Remember, the group of players decides which degree the game will end at.
Start of Play
After every player selects a token, they each take a turn at spinning the pointer. The player who first lands on one of the white spaces starts the game. In the event that two or more players land on a white space, these players should spin again until one player is the only one to land on one of these spaces. The player who starts the game then spins the pointer to determine on what category he or she will be required to give an opinion. One of the other players will then take the first card from the appropriate category. That player will read the issue and the four alternate responses out loud, filling in the name of the player who is required to express his or her opinion. The reader of the card should read slowly and clearly and should be sure to state the letters (a, b, c, d) which correspond to each of the alternate responses. If any of the players request that the material be read again, the reader should not hesitate to do so as it is not uncommon for players to want to give some of the material careful consideration The player who spins the pointer and expresses his or her opinion is referred to as the opinion player . The remaining players are referred to as the wager players . As the opinion player is privately selecting one of the four responses, the wager players privately prepare to predict the opinion players choice by selecting two response cards, one with the appropriate letter on it (either a, b, c, or d) to indicate their prediction and one with the desired number of credits on it (either 5, 15, or 25) to indicate the number of credits that they are willing to stake on their prediction. If a player wishes, he or she may select the response card which indicates that he or she wishes to pass. After everyone has selected their two response cards and placed the others aside, the opinion player reveals his or her response by holding up the one card (a, b, c, or d) that best represents his or her opinion. The wager players then follow by revealing their predictions and wagers to everyone else. The wager players then move forward the number of credits that they have earned by placing their tokens on the appropriate square on the game board. The players who are wrong in their predictions remain in the starting position. Obviously, the opinion player does not have the opportunity to earn credits on this turn. The opinion player is always required to express his or her opinion by selecting the response that matches his or her true opinion or by selecting the response that most closely resembles his or her true opinion and personal nature. At the end of a turn, the card is placed at the rear of the appropriate category section.
Play
Play continues in a clockwise fashion so that every player successively takes a turn at being the opinion player. The cards are always read by one of the wager players. When wager players are correct in their predictions, they add the amount of their wager to their present accumulation of credits and move forward to the appropriate square. When players are wrong in their predictions, they subtract the amount of their wager from their present accumulation of credits and move backward to the appropriate square or back to the start if they lose more points than they have accumulated. Once a player reaches one of the various white squares on the board, he or she cannot move back beyond that square. These squares indicate that a certain year level towards a degree has been achieved and cannot be taken away. That is, once a player gets to a particular year level, he or she receives a guarantee of never having to move back beyond that point.
Token persons. A player must earn a Bachelors Degree in Psychologizing before he or she earns the honor of wearing a graduate cap. It is not before a player earns a Masters Degree, however, that he or she earns the distinction of being able to place a tassle in the cap.
Special Spinner Spaces
Flash of insight. When an opinion player spins the pointer and lands on this space, he or she receives an immediate bonus of 25 credits in recognition of having a sudden flash of insight. (If you dont believe that the opinion player has, in fact, experienced this flash of insight, just ask him or her!) The opinion player then proceeds to spin again for a regular turn.
Move ahead to next year level. When an opinion player spins the pointer and lands on this space, he or she gets recognized as an underachiever and is promoted to the next year level as long as the next year level does not result in graduation. That is, a player cannot graduate by landing on this space. After landing on this space on the spinner, the opinion player proceeds to spin again for a regular turn.
Pick and score. This is one situation in which the opinion player wins or loses credits along with all the other wager players. When the opinion player lands on this space, he or she gets to choose the card category of his or her choice. Before the card is read, however, the opinion player picks the wager player who in his or her opinion will be most likely to guess his or her response. The card is then read and play proceeds as normal. At the end of the turn, the opinion player adds or subtracts the same number of credits as the previously selected player.
Pick and play. When a player spins the pointer and lands on this space, he or she avoids responsibility for being the opinion player for this turn. Instead, he or she picks another player to be the opinion player, gets to pick the card category, and then proceeds with the opportunity of being the only wager player for this turn. Everyone else must sit out the turn. The original clockwise rotation of play is not altered by this circumstance and proceeds to the player who is at the left of the one who landed on Pick and Play.
Morality. The wager players are not penalized for wrong predictions in this category. Thus, it is advised that the players wager the maximum number of credits when an opinion player lands on this category.
Winning the Game
The game is won as soon as one player accumulates the number of credits for the sought after degree.
Breaking a tie. If two or more players graduate at the same time and the play is proceeding to the next degree level, there is no need to break the tie. If, however, the game is being ended, play should proceed until one of the graduates earns the Magna Cum Laude distinction in a type of playoff format in which the graduates continue to play only as wager players and the others continue to take turns as the opinion players. During this playoff, only right or wrong answers matter as the graduates continue by a process of elimination in which wrong responses eliminate a graduate from the playoff and correct responses keep a graduate in the game until there is only one winner.
Notes
Fair Play. It would not be difficult at all to cheat in this game. All that one would have to do is misrepresent his or her true opinion to the other players in an effort to keep them from scoring credits. All that can be said about this strategy is that it would ruin the character of the game. True Psychologizers get more enjoyment from learning about themselves and others in an atmosphere of fun and friendship than they do from deceiving others for the purpose of winning a game.
Bypassing a card. If an opinion player feels too uncomfortable in responding to a particular card, he or she reserves the right to ask for the next card in the same category.
Familiarity with the issues and opinions. Players do not have to be concerned about becoming too familiar with the issues and opinions presented on the cards. To start with, there are 600 opinion cards and 2400 possible responses. In addition, if players do find themselves in the position of responding to an issue that they have had before, they will be surprised to discover how much their response depends on the mood that they happen to be in, on the particular group of people that they are playing with, and the comments, interpretations, and feedback that they received from other people for their response on a previous occasion. So yes, Psychologizer has hundreds of items and it can be played over and over again.