New Game: The Best By The Best

[Penelope]

Also, are we going to use the same categories as the Academy, which changed from year to year, or can we establish a set number of categories for each year?

[OscarGuy]

I don't think I would see a problem with that. We're after all modeling our game after the Academy Awards, but with some flexibility. I would say this: Use the US release date if applicable unless A) it has never been released to theaters (not festivals) in the US or B) it has been five or more years since it's world release that it gets a US release. (e.g. For B, Army of Shadows would qualify the year of its initial non-US release but The Counterfeiters would be held to the 2008 year of release).

[Penelope]

Will this also follow the rules of the Academy regarding release date (ie, playing in Los Angeles in the year under consideration)? I'd like this game to be a bit more flexible and more global in scope--think of it as the UAADB World Film Awards; can we use the initial release date as listed at IMDb? I mean, this could my chance to get films like The Great Silence and White Dog--neither of which were ever released in the U.S.--into consideration.

[OscarGuy]

This new game will allow the best Oscar-themed message board on the planet to make known its choices of the best of the best.

The concept in year selection will be that of the Nomination Elimination Game: Each Oscar decade, one year is selected randomly. Then those 8 years are mixed together randomly and a Year Order established.

For each year, the players select (in their selected order, read below for more info) one film/individual to place into each category. We have no nominees as framework. We create the "nominees" as we go along. There is no upward limit of nominees. The only rule is that each player may place one and only one nominee in each category. If all your favorites are there, you can pass and it moves on. We go once through the player turn order and we're done with the year, the list remaining will be declared The Best By The Best of the UAADB.

Each player who participates will be placed in a random order, which will then be shifted each turn randomly. You may ask why I would say this instead of just allowing everyone to play in a set order for each year. That answer is simple. Since we have the right to place or pass, if player A decides to place a choice Player B would have made on his turn, he can place something else instead. This means someone going later in the turn gets a chance to be more eclectic in his choice whereas someone going early must be more frugal and must think about what film his compatriots would not place in the list. For, if you place something and it gets to the end and your favorite wasn't put in, your favorite isn't declared.

How does this sound to everyone?