Would a turn order opposite the disprove order affect the strategy or gameplay in Clue?

Question

The official Clue rules call for a clockwise turn order, and a clockwise order of disproving suggestions. Would changing the order of the turn, or the order of disproving a suggestion so one is the opposite/reverse of the other have any meaning effect on strategy or gameplay?

Miss Scarlet— the player with the red token— always plays first. Play then proceeds, in turn, to the first player’s left.

Proving a Suggestion True or False - As soon as you make a Suggestion, your opponents, in turn, try to prove it false. The first to try is the player to your immediate left. This player looks at his or her cards to see if one of the three cards you just named is there. If the player does have one of the cards named, he or she must show it to you and no one else. If the player has more than one of the cards named, he or she selects just one to show you.

If that opponent has none of the cards that you named, then the chance to prove your Suggestion false passes, in turn, to the next player on the left.

Answer 1

It makes a subtle difference, in that, to prove you wrong, they have to reveal a card in your proposed solution.

If you (Ay) say Col M in the Kitchen with the Pipe, and the next player (Bee) has Col M, the one after (See) has Kitchen and Pipe, you don't find out that See has kitchen or pipe; you only know that Bee has the Col M card.

To find out if Kitchen and Pipe are out there, you need to use a guy that YOU don't have, and Bee doesn't have, so that See has to reveal either kitchen OR pipe.

• Also note, in the above example, See knows which card was revealed to Ay, because he has the other two. He can now mark it off. But going the other way, Bee doesn't know which card was revealed to Ay. The reverse can happen in other ways, too.

If you go with first to reveal, you might find out about the pipe or kitchen AND Col M.

Note that, if the first to disprove is the one who played last, you have reason to suspect that they don't have their called suggestion; it changes slightly the strategy in what you pick, because you know that they will get to examine you based upon what they have just tried to solve with. If you go with simultaneous reveal, you guarantee learning more than what you're supposed to.

If you just change the turn order the other direction, you learn either the pipe or the kitchen, but not the Col.

Answer 2

One variant I've played is to make suggestions to a specific opponent. That opponent is then first to either show you a card or say they have no matching cards, and it then proceeds clockwise from there, until either one of your opponents shows you a card or noone does.

This allows a bit more strategy in that you can tailor questions for specific opponents.

Answer 3

The player who reveals his card always learns a little less than everyone else. This is because everyone else learns that he has one of the suggested cards, but the revealer already knew that.

In the normal rules, the next player to act is also more frequently the player who reveals a card. If you reversed the suggestion order, this disadvantage would go away. This probably only has a minor impact, but you'd have to test to be sure.

Answer 4

I can't imagine changing turn order would change much. When I play, we usually roll to see who goes first and pick you pick a character on your first turn. It doesn't seem to affect things.

Changing the order of proving a suggestion True or False, could change things if the order was dynamic. I think any fixed order would be equivalent, but if the order were randomly determined after a suggestion is made, that would need to be accounted for in the suggestion. Sometimes I'll be really only testing one person on one card, so I'd have to be more careful if I didn't know the order. This would probably also slow down gameplay and be a bit confusing.

I suppose you could have the suggester (or another player) determine the order of proving accusations false on each turn. This would change the game, at least if I was playing and following the strategy outlined in this answer, because then (following that example) Player B could skip straight to Player A and capitalize more efficiently on what she learned from Player B's turn. Thus I think it would weaken that strategy.