Talk:Set (game)

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[edit] Image

I'd like to get a picture of some Set cards here. I'm not well-versed in the copyright issues (with respect to Set Enterprises, or whoever holds the copyright, if any, on the cards' design) or in trademark issues (if, again, there's a trademark on the cards' design). Perhaps someone else, who has experience with pictures on Wikipedia (I have none) can deal with this. (Oh, how I love passing the buck.) —msh210 20:38, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See, e.g., Image:RiskInPlay.jpg. This is a photo of a board game. The photographer released it under GFDL, but isn't the manufacturer's copyright an issue? Or its trademark? —msh210 20:49, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Very good pictures for this article are [1] and [2], but those also require copyright permission from the image-maker, I guess, no? Although, if we already must ask permission for using a picture of the cards, we may as well just ask for permission for using that picture of the cards. (Or just implicitly include both requests: "may we put on Wikipedia a copy of your /images/card.gif?". Hm?) —msh210 20:58, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Why not just take a screenshot of the computer game version, and add the picture to the article under fair use? Use the screenshot template, like so:

{{screenshot}}

I went ahead and added an image as per Wikipedia:Requested images before I noticed this talk page. The image is my own creation though it uses the Set designs, so I think it falls acceptably under fair use. —Miles (Talk) 00:48, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
next step on the image is to add perhaps 1-4 other variations of sets. the one pictured is a "good one" in set parlance, but to best communicate the notion of the game/article, we could perhaps add some more. e.g. three green solid triangles; 1/2/3 purple hollow/lined/shaded all-squigleys; 3/3/3 solid r/g/b. need at least 3 and better yet 6-12 types of examples to best convey the notion. -:)Ozzyslovechild 04:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Variations

I have heard of (and played) other variations of Set, but if they were merely inventions of my friends (or me), are they notable? For example, the memory variation mentioned in the article gave birth to a "Go Fish" game using Set cards: players fish for sets rather than pairs, and may ask other players for cards as specifically or as generally as they wish ("do you have any diamonds?" and "do you have any green solid diamonds?" are both legal requests). My guess is that Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive, and unless it can be demonstrated that enough people play this variation to make it notable, it stays out of the article. Your advice is appreciated . -- Mitchell k dwyer 23:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the Go Fish version sounds pretty interesting. Do you know whether or not the other variations listed are that common? I had never heard of any of those. None of those are even listed at the setgame.com Other Rules site. I don't see why the Go Fish variation shouldn't be added to the article. --Paulie Peña 16:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC) P.S. For Memory Set, do you lay down all 81 cards or just 12? It seems like it would be hard to know when there are no more sets, if only three cards are turned up at a time.

[edit] Basic Combinatorics Error?

There are 1080 sets. Clearly each card is used in the same number of sets and each set using three cards, so each cards is used in 1080*3*81=40 sets. (Alternatively that can be seen be realizing that once we pick a single card, for each possible second card there is a unique third card to add to make a set. So once we've picked our card, the other 80 cards form 40 pairs to make sets with).

Now I question the next fact. Suppose we move the three red diamond cards with all three shadings into a separate pile. This fact states we only lose 3*2/2=3 sets (sets that require crossing between our piles of 78 and 3 cards). Now how many sets involve those triple reds? Each is involved in 40, but that counts the set of them all three times. So there are unique 3*40-2=118 sets involving them, and only one is still in existence. So we lose 117 sets, not 3. If someone can clarify this fact to me (with a link to a proof) we can keep it. Also, just to further the inconsistency, if we made a pile of 78 and 3 cards, but the 3 cards DIDN'T form a set, those three cards would be a part of 3*40-3=117 sets (the -3 is for each set involving two of them we double counted), and we would lose all of them. So maybe there IS a formula, but -n*(n-1)/3 isn't it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.246.79 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Is it worth linking to pSet on Sourceforge?

Is it worth linking to pSet on Sourceforge? There is no software availiable for download, and there is no indication there ever was, or ever will be. --Logomachist 04:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No Cards Left if Played Rigth is incorrect

The part in the main story that says: "When a game of Set is played correctly (i.e., no one accidentally takes a false Set) with a complete deck of 81 cards, it is impossible to end up with only 3 cards that are not a Set. Put another way, if a complete deck of 81 Set cards is partitioned into 27 piles of three cards, and 26 of the piles form Sets, the remaining pile must also form a Set." is just wrong. The person who wrote it has obviously never played the game. If three cards made a a SET and only THAT SET, it would be true. But a single card, and any other card, will connect with a third, specific, card to form a SET. When dealt out 12 at a time, players cannot predict, and control, the taking of the cards in such a way as to use them all up. I'm no mathematician, so I can't explain it, but you do end up with cards most times, and it's not because someone "accidentally takes a false Set". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.25.82.43 (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It is possible (and common) to end up with 6, 9, 12, maybe more cards without having any sets left, but if all the sets taken during the game were correct, valid sets, it is impossible to finish with exactly 3 cards left that are not a set. --Mwalimu59 03:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Probability of a setless deal?

What the combinatorics subsection needs is: what is the chance that a deal of 12 cards has no set? When you play this game, and you're all staring at the cards without seeing anything (this happens to me because I am dumb and perhaps my friends are too), you keep asking this question. Llajwa 01:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be a good question for a general discussion forum about the game. I'm not sure how much of that sort of detail we would want to go into in the Wikipedia article about the game, but if you know of a website where game discussions can take place, that would be a candidate for adding to the article too, subject to WP:LINK. --Mwalimu59 21:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC) (edited earlier comment)

[edit] Logical statement

I don't pretend to have the least understanding of what Set is. But aren't these statements logically equivalent? 1: "Two are ... and one is not if and only if it is not a set." and 2: "Two are ... and one is if and only if it is a set."? If so, the latter is more direct and thus preferable. 128.95.217.229 00:35, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

As applied to the game of Set and interpreted in that context, no, they are not equivalent. --Mwalimu59 06:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
More formally, that statement would be: "A group of three cards is not a Set if and only if there exists a characteristic (red, green, blue, single, double, triple, oval, diamond, squiggle, clear, shaded, or solid) such that the number of cards in the group having that characteristic is 2." DropZone (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links are promotional and/or not notable

To bring this article in line with linking guidelines, I suggest we pare down the external links, many of which appear to be spam. Quaternion (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and pared down the links, although I left the board game geek link. If I've removed a link that's important to the article, please discuss that here. Please keep in mind that a wikipedia article is not a web directory. Thanks. Quaternion (talk) 13:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I wish you'd stop leaving ads to the card game up, while removing links with content. The versions that you can actually play are probably the best links up there. Specifically, the JavaScript iPhone one is simple, elegant, and a good resource for anyone interested in Set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.133.82 (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I have not previously removed links from this article. Nonetheless, the game of Set is directly attributable to Set Enterprises (with whom I have no relation). In the same way that Monopoly provides a link to Hasbro, this article should provide a link to the game's creator. (That said the external links of the Monopoly page are also turning into a web directory.) I removed the long list of external links to play the game of Set, as they do not meet linking guidelines. Links to play the game can still be found by following the link to the BoardGameGeek website. I think this is more in line with Wikipedia's recommendations for dealing with long lists of links (ie. to link to one directory of links, rather than duplicate those links on the article page.) Quaternion (talk) 14:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Erroneous caption

There is an illustration showing three cards that form a "set". But the caption reads:

Three cards from a Set deck. These cards each have a unique number, symbol, shading, and color, and are thus a "set."

which does not at all accurately describe why the three cards form a set! Of course each card has a unique number, symbol, shading, and color -- this applies to every one of the 81 cards in a Set game. But it utterly fails to describe why these particular cards happen to form a "set".

In fact, this group of three cards includes all three numbers, all three shapes, all three colors, and -- if one interprets the middle card as striped -- all three shadings (but the middle card does not appear at all striped to me).Daqu (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)