Heh, Spock would use his tricorder to discern the size, color, composition, and approximate age of any 'mids under an opaque 'mid.:) Easiest solution might be to play on a glass table. Not only can you observe the koan from the respective top and sides, but also from underneath. Or ask questions of the person who made it, but the glass table top would be cooler. -----Original Message----- From: icehouse-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:icehouse-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Hickman Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:27 AM To: Icehouse Discussion List Subject: Re: [Icehouse] How many colors do you use? (Zendo) On Monday, March 24, 2008, at 12:12PM, "Don Sheldon" <don.sheldon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >On 3/21/08, Benjamin Kleber <benjamin.kleber@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> I've played Zendo with a good assortment of different groups, players >> of different experience levels - ranging from my 7-year-old nephew to >> one time with Cory and 'da gang - and we've done everything from 2 >> colors to all 11, with various mixes of transparent and opaque and all >> other aspects to get picky about. >> >> How many colors do you prefer to use? Why? > >8. I don't like playing with opaques because I find we're always >picking up koans to make sure there's nothing underneath them. I solve that in my game by declaring that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn't make a sound. That is, only objectively observable characteristics are considered. A koan consisting of only a single large upright grounded white pyramid and a koan consisting of large upright grounded white pyramid covering a small pyramid are the same koan. This is to jibe with the Spock metarule. If Spock beams up those two koans, he didn't watch them being built, so he cannot objectively observe a difference between them. _______________________________________________ Icehouse mailing list Icehouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.looneylabs.com/mailman/listinfo/icehouse