I found the rules a little hard to follow, but I think I get them. I'm going to attempt to restate the rules a little clearer (both to make sure I understand and to help anyone else having trouble with the linked rules) Let me know if anything is confusing or wrong.
Also -in.
Each player simultaneously: guesses any number of cards, and asks any number of questions. Then the game master reveals results.
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Guessing cards:
You can submit as many guesses as you like. You're basically guessing where cards are, example:
"1. Qvist has the 3 Green Opal
2. The 2 Blue Diamond is in the safe"
You may only guess each card once, so after submitting the above guess, right or wrong, I can never guess the location of the 3 Green Opal or the 2 Blue Diamond again.
Asking Questions:
You can ask as many questions as you like. You "pay" for each question with Private Eyes. A question is asked about 1 players cards, concerning 1 or 2 traits (#, color, type). For example:
"1 (3): Qvist has how many Blues?
2 (6): Grujah has how many Diamond 3's?"
The number in parentheses is what you are paying to ask the question.
Now, the gm reveals results and assigns points as follows:
Guesses Answered:
the gm reveals for each player the answer of the guesses, for example (guessing at format here):
"Theorel's guesses
1: correct, 2: incorrect."
He then awards points according to the following formula:
A card being guessed is worth 1 sleuth point per player, -1 for each time it's already been guessed.
(so, if I'm the second player to guess the 3 Green Opal's location in a 5 player game, it's worth 4 points.)
If multiple players guess a card at the same time, then you add up the points they would receieve and divide equally. So if someone else guessed the 3 Green Opal at the same time and everything else is the same, it's worth 4 + 3 = 7 points total, divided by 2 is 3.5 (not sure how the half-point is handled)
The total sleuth points each player gets are made public, but not how many they got for each guess.
A card is revealed publically once all eligible players have made a guess on that card (i.e. no more points can be scored...which only happens once all players have guessed, since cards are always worth at least 1 point if a player hasn't guessed them yet)
Questions Answered:
The gm answers a # of questions = # players. So he answers 5 questions in a 5 player game. He determines which questions to answer depending on the # private eyes each player spent on the question. Each question gets a 2-point bonus if it only concerns 1 trait.
So, my example questions have a weight of 5 and 6 respectively.
The questions with the highest weight will be answered, with ties broken by first going to the player with less private eyes (in reserve), then the one with less sleuth points, and finally by a coin flip. A public answer is given for all questions of the form:
"Qvist has 5 Blues."
or
"Grujah has 2 Diamond 3's."
But for 2-trait questions the player asking the question gets to see the cards (in the example I would see both of Grujah's Diamon 3's).
Game ends once all cards are public.
You start with 30 Private Eyes, and get 12 per turn.