Clue Giving: Firm Rules

Wavelength is all about wildly creative clues. So we tried to give players as much freedom as possible to do that.

These rules are here only to restrict clue giving methods that frequently broke the game-feel free to adapt them to whatever works best for you and your friends. And if you do, please share them with us!

1. Convey a single thought: A clue shouldn't combine multiple ideas or give a lot of explanatory context. Words like "AND", "BUT", "WHILE", "WHO", and "WHEN" are sometimes OK, but not when they basically combine two clues together.

   A dead giveaway is a team debating one part of the clue, then debating the other part, and figuring out how to weigh both.

   Example: Safe - Dangerous.

   Allowed: "A Honda Accord" or "Texting while driving".

   Not allowed: "Texting while driving a Honda Accord" or "Bungee jumping over crocodiles".

2. Don't "invent" something: The clue must exist as a thing in the universe outside of you giving the clue. It can be fictional, just not something you're making up exclusively for this situation.

   Example: Masterpiece - Failure.

   Allowed: "The Mona Lisa" or "The monkey Jesus fresco".

   Not allowed: "A Beatles album performed exclusively by Nicolas Cage" or "A gritty reboot of The Odyssey".

3. Be on topic: Your clue has to be related to the concepts on this round's card. You aren't allowed to use one side as a double meaning, e.g. "hot" meaning attractive-though if both words have the same double meaning, like the examples below, you can use those meanings.

   Example: Dirty-Clean.

   Allowed: "My bedroom" or "Stand up comedy" or "A cop".

   Not allowed: "The speed of light" or "Ennui".

4. Don't use the words on the card or any synonyms: You can't use words from the same "family" as those on the card.

   Example: Peaceful - Warlike.

   Allowed: "Gandhi" or "America".

   Not allowed: "Peace" or "A pacifist" or "Siege warfare".

5. No numbers: You can't use numbers, percentages, ratios, or anything numeric to sneakily suggest the location of the target.

   If a number is in the proper name of a thing, that's OK.

   Example: 80s - 90s.

   Allowed: "one by u2" or "three's company".

   Not allowed: "1991" or "A B+ grade".

Clue Giving: Suggestions

These rules aren't 1OO% necessary, but we've found that they improve the spirit of play, especially if players start bending the rules in ways that make the game less fun.

1. Be concise: Try to use five words or fewer. This often stops people from giving overly targeted, fussy clues.

   Example: Neurotic person - Chill person.

   Encouraged: "My older brother".

   Discouraged: "My older brother who works out at 5:00 am every day".

2. No modifiers: Words like "but", "very", "almost", "slightly", and "kind of" nearly always makes a team weigh the thing itself versus the qualifier used. Same with adding things like like "after [an amount of time]" or "during [another thing]". Keep it simple.

   Example: Bad date - Good date

   Encouraged: "Seeing a scary movie"

   Discouraged: "Seeing a very scary movie" or "Going out to dinner after being married for a year".

3. Use proper nouns: When a card asks for a specific category of thing, like "________person" try to use a proper name and not "Something that..". or "Someone who..".

   Example: Scary person - Nice person.

   Encouraged: "Freddy Krueger".

   Discouraged: "Someone who steals candy from kids".

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