Triangulation
Triangulation Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 2 Insider Screens
- 2 Dry Erase Markers
- 6 Clue Boards (3 per team)
- 104 Message Cards
- 12 Mission Tokens (3 sets of 4)
Overview
In Triangulation, the Insider on each team tries to communicate a proper noun to their teammates by writing 3 related clues.
However, before their teammates can guess the message, their opponents get to reveal 2 clues and try to intercept it.
To outsmart opponents, you'll need to give clues that don't reveal too much by themselves, but only point to the answer once all 3 are revealed!
Setup
- Split into 2 teams with at least 2 players each. For 3-player games, see the 3 Player Variant.
- Each team takes a set of 4 mission tokens and places them facedown in front of themselves. The 3rd set is only used with 3 players.
- Shuffle the message cards and place them in the middle.
- Each team chooses a player to be their Insider for the first round. Each Insider places a screen in front of themselves and a set of 3 clue boards behind it (marked A, B, and C).
Game Rounds
Each round has 3 steps:
- Choose Messages
- Write Clues
- Guess 1st Insider's Message
- Guess 2nd Insider's Message
1. Choose Messages
Each Insider draws their own message card and secretly looks at it. They each choose 1 of the 6 listed options on their card as the message they want to transmit to their team.
Example: Kristin is her team's Insider. She draws a message card and chooses "The Bible" as her message.
Casual Mode
For a more relaxed game, each Insider can publicly declare the category of their chosen message. Players may ask to repeat the category at any time.
2. Write Clues
At the same time, each Insider writes down 3 clues on their clue boards behind their screen. When an Insider is satisfied with their clues, they flip all 3 facedown and remove their screen.
Example: Kristin writes down "Book," "John," and "Paul" as her 3 clues for "Bible."
3. Guess 1st Message
The Insider who finishes their clues first becomes the 1st Insider for the round. Both teams try to guess their message first, in the following order:
- Insider's opponents flip any 1 clue and guess
- Insider's opponents flip any 1 clue and guess
- Insider's teammates flip last clue and guess
The Insider's opponents may flip their clues in any order. Each flipped clue is revealed to all players.
Each team can only make 1 guess per clue they flip. They may discuss for as long as they like before publicly "locking in" their guess.
IMPORTANT: While guessing an Insider's message, the other Insider acts as a normal player and may guess with their team.
Message Example
- Kristin is the first to finish her clues, so players try to guess her message first.
- Kristin's opponents reveal "John" as their first clue. They discuss as a team and guess "Robin Hood." — Wrong.
- Kristin's opponents reveal "Paul" next. This time they guess "The Beatles." — Wrong.
- Kristin's teammates reveal the last clue, "Book," and guess "The Bible." Kristin tells them they're correct!
Scoring
When a team correctly guesses the message, they flip a mission token to show they've scored a point.
If the Insider's opponents guess correctly during their first 2 guesses, the message is intercepted, and the Insider's teammates don't get to make their guess.
If the message reaches the Insider's teammates, they have a single chance to guess. If they guess wrong, the message is lost, and their opponents score a point.
Example: Kristin's team flip a mission token for correctly guessing "The Bible." If they had guessed wrong, their opponents would flip a token instead!
4. Guess 2nd Message
After guessing the 1st Insider's message, the teams switch roles and try to guess the 2nd Insider's message.
Example: After Kristin's team scores, she joins them to try and intercept the opposing Insider's message.
End of Round
After guessing both messages, the round is over. Each team chooses a new Insider for the next round.
The new Insiders each take a screen and set of clue boards, then draw new message cards to start the round.
Game End
The first team to flip all 4 mission tokens immediately wins the game. If this happens in the middle of a round, don't finish the round.
The Message
The message is always the proper name of a person, place, or thing. It may be real or fictional, and may include multiple words (e.g. "New York City" or "Santa Claus").
A guess does not have to exactly match the message to be correct. Connecting words like "the" can be ignored, and alternate forms that are close enough to be unambiguous are considered correct.
Correct
- "White House" for "The White House"
- "Coke" for "Coca-Cola"
- "Santa" for "Santa Claus"
Incorrect
- "The President's House" for "The White House"
- "Diet Coke" for "Coca-Cola"
- "Luke" for "Luke Skywalker"
Allowed Clues
A clue can be any word or phrase that does not contain any form of a word in the message (except for connecting words like "the" and "and").
Clues may use multiple words, proper nouns, acronyms, incorrect spellings, other languages, or numbers and symbols.
Message: Batman
- Allowed: Ka-POW!, Adam West, Nocturnal Mammal, Lots of black, $$$
- Not Allowed: Bat, Manly, Batman
TIP: Remember, you don't want to give too much away, so shorter clues are often better!
3 Player Variant
With 3 players, each player plays on their own team, and the first player to flip 4 mission tokens wins.
Setup
Each player takes a set of 4 mission tokens. Choose a random player to be the Insider for the first round (there is only 1 Insider each round).
Game Rounds
The Insider chooses a message and writes their clues as normal. When guessing, the player to the Insider's left acts as their opponent, and the player to their right acts as their teammate.
If the Insider's teammate guesses correctly, both the Insider and their teammate score. If the Insider's opponent guesses correctly, or no one does, their opponent scores alone.
At the end of the round, the player to the Insider's left (their opponent) becomes the new Insider.
Winning
The first player to flip all 4 mission tokens wins. If 2 players flip their 4th token at the same time, they win together.
Last Chance Variant
Experienced players can adopt this optional rule to make the game more competitive. It can be used at any player count.
With this variant, whenever the Insider's teammates fail to guess the message, their opponents do not score automatically. Instead, their opponents have 1 final chance to guess the message. If they guess wrong, neither team scores.