The Stars and the Cookie Jar

The Basic Rules for Literary Botticelli

The object of the game is to guess the identity of a entity selected by the person who is It. In this version, that person must be associated with reading and writing -- an author, a fictional character, a famous editor, a columnist, etc. It (for the first round, myself) starts the game by assuming the persona of the entity they are playing as and announcing, "My name begins with ___." (Supplying the appropriate initial of the name.)

The other players then ask It questions, having specific answers in mind, which It must then supply.

Thus, if It knows the answer:

IT: My name begins with J.
PLAYER: Did you write a short story about a village that regularly chooses to stone one of its members to death?
IT: No, I am not Shirley Jackson.

At which point it is somebody else's turn.

If, on the other hand, It has never read The Lottery, nor heard of it and cannot think of another answer to fit the question, the questioning player gets to ask ONE follow-up question, which must be answered, if possible, with a YES or a NO. This should deal with some major category, such as sex, age, nationality, race, provenance, etc.

Thus:

PLAYER: Are you female?
IT: No.

Once It has answered the follow-up, another player gets a chance to ask a question.

From there on out, questions may only be asked concerning male characters. And things continue thusly, with new restrictions being added, until it has been ascertained that this J is a male character in a twentieth-century play.

At which point, someone might ask:

PLAYER: Do you appear in a play written by Tom Stoppard?
IT: No, I am not Jackson.

But, really, this is too broad a question. A better one would be something along these lines:

PLAYER: Are you a servant in a play written by Tom Stoppard?
IT: Yes, I am Jellaby.

And that would wrap up the round. The turn then passes to the player who guessed correctly, they take on the identity of an entity whose name begins with the next consecutive letter in the alphabet and a new round begins.


Some LJ-Specific Rules (Altered because I like chaos)


1. Follow-up questions should be asked in the same thread as the original question by which they were gained. Otherwise, all questions should exist as separate threads.
2.Players who are guessing are allowed to wiki/google for inspiration. It, however, must rely entirely on their own knowledge, except in a confirmatory sort of way. So, y'know, if you know the witch's name begins with M, but you can't remember whether it's Morwen or Morgan or what, then double-checking that is allowed.

In addition, the letter a character's name gets classified under is the first letter of their LAST name, except in cases where said character has a one-word or one-phrase name, such as Winnie the Pooh or Shadowfax, in which case it's the first letter of that word or phrase. Thus, Schmendrick is an 'S'; Will Stanton is also an 'S'.

You may assume that the entity to be guessed is in at least some fashion available in English, though I will not provide information as to whether English is its original language.

My name begins with J.


ETA: Congratulations to eruthros, who correctly guessed the identity of Inspector Javert!