Hangman is a pencil-and-paper game of guessing a word.
Merv Griffin's Wheel of Fortune is a syndicated television game show of guessing a phrase. As of February 2019, Xfinity TV's program guide described Wheel as based on Hangman: "In a classic game-show version of 'Hangman,' contestants solve word puzzles for cash and prizes." But it has several key differences:
Some viewers prefer Griffin's trivia game show Jeopardy!, often syndicated alongside Wheel, because of less random chance. So what sort of compromise can one make between Hangman and Wheel of Fortune? Make the puzzles longer, but nerf ETAOINSHRDLU. Wheel's pattern of letters with success rate over 70% is instead "EAT IRONS" according to "How to Win at 'Wheel of Fortune'" by William Spaniel (The New Republic, 2014-02-25). So to take the wheel out of Wheel, we first need to replicate the buy a vowel dynamic. Start with Wheel and remove prizes and varying dollar amounts, leaving the wheel with one Lose a Turn, two Bankrupts, and the remainder $250 spaces.
Rules of wheelless Wheel:
Spin requires at least one unrevealed consonant in the puzzle.
Buy vowel requires one vowel credit, at least one unrevealed consonant in the puzzle, and at least one unrevealed vowel in the puzzle.
Solve requires at least one revealed letter in the puzzle.
To adapt Wheel's turn loss dynamic to Hangman, treat a fault as a Bankrupt, as the next player may have no money. This behaves much like the "Express" space in later Wheel seasons. This means after you guess incorrectly, you have to guess another consonant before another vowel. Because each instance of a consonant provides one vowel credit, one can mark vowel credits that have been used or spoiled by a Bankrupt as a struck-through consonant. This results in Hangman with vowel buying, whose rules are as follows:
Start with 7 turns.
Guess consonant requires at least one turn and at least unrevealed consonant in the puzzle
Guess vowel requires at least one turn, and at least one unrevealed vowel in the puzzle, and either at least one revealed consonant not struck through or no unrevealed consonants in the puzzle
Categories: Tabletop games