★ Step right up · free forever ★
The gavel
Host decides or the gavel decides. Guilty, not guilty, or whatever verdict you write.
Made by the PaperCarnival team · Updated
Bang the gavel
Which verdicts
Two or more of your own replace the set above. They stay in this browser and never reach a link.
Who decides
One bang, one verdict, drawn from the set. Nobody can be accused of choosing it, which is the point of handing the decision to a gavel.
Sound
One knock of wood on wood. The verdict is written on screen at the same moment, so sound is never the only ruling.
Rules arguments, and how they end
Every board game night reaches the same moment. Somebody has done something the rules did not anticipate, two people have strong views, and the game has stopped. What ends it is not a better reading of the rulebook: it is somebody being given the authority to decide and using it quickly.
That is what a gavel is. Hand it to one person for the evening and the game keeps moving, because the ruling is final by agreement rather than by argument. The house rules set here is written for exactly that: not guilty or otherwise, but allowed, disallowed, allowed this once, and allowed with the rule written down for next time.
For a debate club, write your own verdicts: carried, defeated, carried on a technicality, back to committee. If the question is who speaks first rather than who was right, the hat or the blind draw settles that in one move.
Kept in this browser under pph.gavel.bank, pph.gavel.verdicts, pph.gavel.mode and pph.gavel.muted, and nowhere else. Accounts, printing, storage and what the page loads are answered on the FAQ.
Questions
- Can the host choose the verdict?
- Yes, and that is one of the two modes. In host mode every verdict is a button, so tapping one bangs the gavel on that ruling and the room can see you chose it. In the other mode the gavel draws, and nobody can be accused of deciding.
- Can I write my own verdicts?
- Two or more of your own replace the set entirely. That is how you get a bench that rules on the things your table actually argues about, in the words your table uses.
- Is there a timer for speeches?
- Not here. A gavel that also timed things would be two tools in one and worse at both. Open the timer in another tab and let this one rule.
- Is the case I type saved anywhere?
- No. The case line lives in the page while it is open and is gone when you close it. It appears beside the ruling in the session record, and that record is cleared when the page is.
More from Pickers and random draws
Bag of tokens
Type what goes in, shake the bag and pull a token out. Nothing comes out twice unless you put it back.
OpenMarbles in a bag
Colours and quantities you choose, with the chance of each one shown before every draw.
OpenNames in a hat
Every name on its own slip. Pull one out, or pair everybody up without anyone drawing themselves.
OpenEverything in Pickers and random draws, and every family on the tools page.