Board game relating to personality traits

A board game comprising a playing board of general hexagonal configuration, the playing area being divided into six triangular areas each representing a trait of the personality and each triangular area being divided into contiguous hexagonal areas; at least one set of cards printed with questions to be answered by the players to determine their progress during the game and a plurality of tokens for placing on the board to indicate the position and/or progress of a player during the game.

The present invention relates to a board game concerned with the 
personality, persuasion and mood of the players. 
The board game of the invention requires players to choose a position on 
the board representing their own and other players' personality. Then 
during play the accuracy of those predictions is tested, the player with 
the most accurate predictions being the winner. 
In accordance with the invention a board game comprises (1) a playing board 
of general hexagonal configuration, the playing area being divided by 
three main axes into six triangular areas each representing a trait of the 
personality and each triangular area being divided into contiguous 
hexagonal areas; (2) at least one set of cards printed with questions to 
be answered by the players to determine their progress during the game; 
and (3) a plurality of tokens for placing on the board to indicate the 
position and/or progress of a player during the game. 
During play of the game each player takes a card in rotation. Points are 
awarded in response to the answer given to the question on the card and 
the player places a number of progress tokens on the board in a line or 
lines which lead towards the edge of the board and the object of the game 
is for a player to produce a line of progress tokens leading from the 
centre of the board to a point on the edge of the board which he has 
previously predicted as being representative of the personality in which 
he has chosen to play the game.

As seen from FIG. 1 the board is hexagonal overall and the playing area 
itself consists of many smaller hexagons, herein called "hexons". In the 
preferred form of the game the board has almost 2000 hexons. These are 
divided into 6 triangular zones which have their apices towards the centre 
of the board and their bases towards the edge. Each triangle represents a 
major area or trait of personality. They are arranged so that opposing 
traits, occupy the opposite sides of the board. In the preferred version 
of the game the opposing traits are: Tough and Tender; Stable and 
Changeful; and Emotional/Physical and Intellectual. Thus there are 3 main 
axes within the board along which the players move their progress tokens 
during the game. Because the playing area consists of hexons all three of 
these axes are accessible from any position on the board during the game. 
Different sizes of board are envisaged for different versions of the game. 
For example, smaller sizes of board are appropriate for travelling or 
portable games or in versions for players of younger age groups. However, 
the currently preferred version has 24 hexons in each side of the 6 trait 
triangles. 
In the preferred version of the board each of the six major trait zones is 
sub-divided into fifteen smaller areas each of seven hexons. Since these 
smaller areas resemble flowers they are herein referred to as "florets". 
Each is labelled with a descriptive word for a sub-characteristic of the 
major trait, e.g. "idealistic" in the Intellectual trait zone or 
"sensuous" in the Emotional/Physical trait zone, so that the overall 
character of the trait is described by the fifteen words. 
In the preferred form of the game players are each given two predictor 
tokens for their own personality. Depending upon the level of competence 
of the players or according to their choice they may also use none, one or 
two predictor tokens when trying to predict the final position of the 
other players. Predictor tokens are placed along the edge of the board at 
the point along the bases of the personality trait triangles which the 
players think the progress tokens concerned will finish the game. Thus, 
for example, a player intending to play a very competitive role in the 
game would put a token down in the Tough triangle edge. He might choose 
the Intellectual side of the Tough triangle if he thought that answers 
showing an analytical and calculating tendency would be the way to achieve 
this prediction. Another player who wanted to see what it was like to play 
in an Emotional persona, for example, might choose the opposite side of 
the board. He might choose the Tender side of the Emotional/Physical edge 
but during the game his answers lead him more towards the Changeful side 
of this trait triangle unless he knows the game extremely well or is 
fortunate to receive enough questions which make Tender points available 
to him. Thus the initial choice of position is a skilled process because 
the 6 trait areas blend into one another in terms of the play despite the 
fact that they remain spatially discrete on the board. 
The process of trying to work out the value of the questions before 
answering is also skilfull. There is an element of chance in the questions 
that each player receives that influences the rate and direction of 
progress tokens. Players find themselves wanting to work out the answers 
before committing themselves to counteract this element of chance because, 
unless players specifically agree not to do so at the beginning, there is 
nothing to stop players lying in order to win the points they want. 
Points are awarded to answers which are usually a simple "Yes" or "No". For 
example, the question "Do you like driving, or being driven, fast?", 
awards Emotional/Physical points to the answer "Yes". The exact number 
depends upon the version of the game being played but in the preferred 
version it would be three points to reflect the physical nature of the 
enjoyment of speed. This is derived from "Sensuous" "lives-in-present" and 
"energetic" florets within the Emotional/Physical zone. This answer also 
wins Changeful points of which there are also three in the preferred 
version because of the willingness to take the risks that driving fast 
involves (derived from, for example, florets labelled "gambler", 
"performer" and "lively"). Tough points could also be awarded, derived 
from florets labelled "confident", "high self-esteem" and "competitive" or 
"agressive". In this example the player could place either 6 hexons along 
a single progress line or 3 hexons on each of two progress lines. The 
answer "No" to this particular question gains points in the Stable sector 
of the board. 
Some questions award points to a "Yes" or a "No" answer but not to both. 
For example, the question "Are you good at technical things like cameras 
or Hi-Fi equipment?", gives Intellectual points to the answer "Yes" but 
none to the answer "No" because the absence of a technical interest does 
not of itself mean that the player has the opposite trait. In the 
preferred form of the game the recipient of a question who wins no points 
for an answer is given another question so that players are assured of 
moving on the board at each turn. 
Another form of question involves a choice between two statements. The 
choice might be whether one of the statements is more valid than the other 
or perhaps more applicable to the player who is answering, for example. 
Such a question is shown on the card in FIG. 2. If the player replies 
"Yes", meaning that he tends to suffer in silence more than he knows where 
to find a shoulder to cry on, he would be awarded Intellectual and Stable 
points because he is admitting that he tends to subdue subjective feelings 
and emotions and, moreover, this is behaviour which is unlikely to cause 
the player to change. The answer "No" indicates someone who firstly does 
not object to exposing their feelings and thereby earns Emotional/Physical 
points, and secondly is prepared to react with other people in which case 
there is an implied willingness to learn from others, a Changeful 
characteristic. 
A third kind of question involves the answer being evaluated by other 
players. An example of this might be: "What is your favorite song?". 
According to the answer the other players will award points as they see 
fit, the number of points at stake being indicated on a separate list or 
set of cards. In this way an interaction occurs which is unique to the 
game. Some of these questions even lend themselves to another stage of 
interaction where the player who nominates a song, for example, might 
himself have several points to award for the way in which his choice of 
song was assessed. 
There is therefore a wide variety of questions and there should be a 
considerable number of them. It is envisaged that several series of 
questions will be made available to sustain this variety. This makes is 
difficult for players to remember the values of many answers, which 
prevents lying from becoming routine. In any case players often want 
different points from the same question in different games and this 
confuses them and tends to make them forget the value of the answer. As a 
further check on lying a rule may be included by which players select the 
questions to be put to their opponents. This causes those questions which 
have an obvious value to the answer for the two players concerned to be 
excluded. 
As indicated above, progress tokens are laid on the board in lines which 
lead from the centre of the board to the edges thereof, the hexons 
defining spaces in which the progress tokens are laid. Thus, for example, 
the award of three Intellectual points allows the player who wins them to 
add 3 tokens to either of his 2 token lines in the direction of the 
Intellectual edge of the board. Each progress token line must work its way 
towards a predictor token to win the game. The tracks left display the 
character played by each player as well as his rate of progress towards 
his objectives. 
Florets may serve other functions than merely describing a trait. Thus, for 
example, some florets are marked +and others -, since each trait has both 
advantageous and disadvantageous characteristics. These are used in the 
game to give players who land on them bonuses or forfeits. Bonuses awarded 
to a player who lands on a floret marked "+" need not be claimed 
immediately and can be used to offset a forfeit due when a player lands on 
a floret marked "-". This reflects real life situations when the 
disadvantages of a trait require to be offset by its advantages to produce 
a satisfactory personality. 
In other versions of the game abstract words such as "Shy" will be replaced 
with well known characters in literature or history for example. Thus 
"Scrooge" could be a character's name on a negative floret in the Tough 
zone. The name "Einstein" would apply, for example, to a floret in the 
Intellectual triangle. Also, trait names could be simplified for the 
benefit of younger players, so that Intellectual might become "Head" and 
Emotional/Physical "Heart", Changeful might change to "Growing", etc. A 
further alternative in the game for young players is to label the floret 
with animals and so describe the trait by a collection of animals. Thus, a 
lion would be in the Tough segment, a mouse in the Tender segment and an 
elephant in the Intellectual segment, etc. 
In the preferred form of the game there are two ways in which the game 
ends. Progress tokens are required to stop on the hexon upon which they 
land for the rest of the game when the hexon is in the outermost rank of 
hexons. When both progress token lines for one player reach the outermost 
rank of hexons, the game ends for all players, not just for the player 
whose second token has reached the outermost rank. The object of the game 
is therefore to be the player who reaches the edge first as near to the 
predictor tokens as possible, catching the others in positions further 
away from the predictions that they have made. However, timing this 
manoeuvre is difficult which tends to make players put it off. Also the 
questions provoke considerable discussion, for this is what they are 
designed to do, and this reduces the number of moves made so that the 
alternative of ending the game at an agreed time may be necessary, when 
the accuracy of the predictions may again be compared in order to 
determine the winner of the game.