Change Two Letters Game v2.0

Black Hole

Black Hole

May contain traces of nut
The object is to continue the chain of valid English words, obeying the rules of succession at each step. There are no bars to anyone joining in, although a player needs to take care that another player doesn't get a post in first and thereby invalidates his word. There are no penalties, other than having your play ruled invalid and ignored.

There are no winners; the aim is to collectively extend the chain for as long as possible (ultimately it will not be possible to continue the chain in a valid way - the stock of words will run out). One could define a loser though - the person who plays a word for which there is no valid succession (so if you don't want to end up nominated as the donkey, it would be good tactics to have the next word up your sleeve as well, before your play). [As a corollary, one could also create a checkmate position, where the only valid successions are dead-ends in one (or a few) play.]

Rules for valid succession (note: these are slightly different from the previous version of this game):
  • Correctly spelt, recognised English word (not including proper nouns) - ie words that would be valid in Scrabble (but not those transliterated foreign words that appear in Scrabble dictionaries!). Note that not every word normally spelt with an initial capital is a proper noun (or not an excluded one, anyway).

  • The word must not be a repeat of a word played previously (and valid).

  • The new word may differ from the previous word to only a very limited extent:
    .
    • Two letters must be altered (ie changed for another), without any rearrangement of letter order; or

    • One letter may be added (in any position), without any rearrangement of the other letters; or

    • One letter may be removed (from any position), without any rearrangement of the other letters;

    • If a letter has been added or removed, one other letter must be altered.
      .
  • Any particular player may not play another word until two other words have been played. This is to prevent any one player dominating the play, or to devise a strategy. Players currently barred from playing again due to this rule are referred to as "in nib" - a tribute to the I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue game Mornington Crescent (what do you mean you've never heard of it??!).

  • In further tribute to Just a Minute, repeating a previous word will be ruled repetition, a word that breaks the rules of succession will be ruled deviation... and if the circumstances suit I might even declare hesitation.
Due to the requirement that words are never repeated, it is necessary to maintain a list of words that have gone before. An alphabetical list is maintained below, currently valid up to and including post 144 163 (also check valid plays subsequent to that post).
Code: 
Angler (25)
Anklet (24)
Appear (70)
Bangles (26)
Banter (105)
Barges (27)
Blamed (20)
Blanked (21)
Bleaker (62)
Blimp (134)
Breakers (53)
Bump (131)
Caned (108)
Carp (120)
Cinder (73)
Clamp (135)
Coral (117)
Crap (118)
Crated (49)
Craters (50)
Creators (51)
Dope (160)
Drone (159)
Easter (6)
Eaten (5)
Enter (104)
Estranged (88)
Fart (121)
Fasten (8)
Faster (12)
Flames (19)
Graded (47)
Grater (48)
Heater (4)
Hefts (128)
Helps (129)
Hit (154)
Humps (130)
Lad (96)
Lap (145)
Lasted (13)
Lids (97)
Limp (136)
Lopes (161)
Loud (95)
Loupe (163)
Louts (94)
Master (10)
Pa (146)
Parp (123)
Pasted (9)
Pasters (11)
Planes (18)
Planet (16)
Planned (17)
Planted (15)
Plaster (14)
Quarrel (37)
Quarter (38)
Rankled (23)
Ranted (106)
Render (103)
Salted (44)
Sanded (107)
Scalded (45)
Scared (109)
Scary (30)
Scatter (42)
Seated (3)
Senders (102)
Settee (2)
Shaded (46)
Shaft (126)
Shatter (40)
Sherry (32)
Shifts (127)
Shin (155)
Shires (34)
Shirty (33)
Shone (156)
Shouts (93)
Skater (41)
Slatted (43)
Sleeker (63)
Spankers (80)
Spars (124)
Spartan (113)
Spear (67)
Sporal (115)
Sporran (114)
Sprints (91)
Sprouts (92)
Squatter (39)
Squires (35)
Squirrel (36)
Starred (110)
Starry (31)
Start (125)
Steeper (64)
Steeps (65)
Steer (66)
Stinkers (81)
Stinkless (82)
Stranger (87)
Strangles (86)
Stringed (89)
Strings (90)
Stringless (85)
Tanked (22)
Tanker (77)
Tartan (112)
Tarted (111)
Tender (101)
Tope (162)
Treaters (52)
Under (72)
Upper (71)
Vendor (100)
Vends (99)
Voids (98)
Wander (76)
Wankers (78)
Wares (28)
Wary (29)
Xi (149)
Although there are no winners, there are points of pride (which may be awarded forum kudos points - ie "Likes"). For example: playing a different word when there was an obvious one; playing an obscure word (and it would have to be very obscure to impress us!); being the first to play a word beginning with a particular letter (but beware of leading the play up a blind alley and making yourself the donkey!).
 
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Settee

(seeded by generating a random number to choose a page from Chambers Family Dictionary, and then another random number to choose the entry on that page)
 
Invalid - you can't remove one and add one (and eater is a dubious word in any case).

Fasten
 
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