Member Basics

Note: Some information, including The Enigma, Graffiti on the Sphinx (GotS), the Krewe Online list of emails and Brutus, the cryptogram solver, are available only to NPL members , and you will be prompted for your userid and password when you access them. If you are an NPL member but do not have a userid and password (or have forgotten them), email the NPL Treasurer.

The Krewe gather annually for a convention. Details about past and future conventions are in another area of the website.

The following are basic website and e-mail features available to Krewe. They are detailed on a separate page.

• Access and Passwords
• @puzzlers.org e-mail aliases
• Mailing Lists
• Publications Available Online
  • The Enigma
  • Graffiti on the Sphinx (GotS)

In addition, we have a some lists that may be of interest.

• email groups,
• blog sites, and
• home webpages

A book of 45 National Puzzlers' League Cryptic Crosswords, edited by Hot and Trazom, with a foreword by Willz, is available for free download as a PDF. (This is the book that was published for $9.95 by Random House in 2005.) This is available to the general public.

• National Puzzlers' League Cryptic Crosswords

Current and back issues of our publications are available to members . Currently, these include The Enigma and Graffiti on the Sphinx.

• Index to the online Enigma
• Index to the online GotS

Other Enigma-related resources:

• A complete online copy of the The Guide to The Enigma
• An index to the non-Guide puzzles has been created that lists many recent puzzle types that have not yet found their way into The Guide to The Enigma.
• An Abbreviated Guide to Puzzles proves a list of flat types with a one-line description of the type and one or two samples.
• A database of hundreds of puzzles from The Enigma, from 1903 to the present.
• The E-nigma, an incredibly fun group of computer-related puzzles edited by Xemu and published in two issues, in 1995 and 2000.

The 1997 Census of the NPL is now available here. 100Down has published four sections, so far. You will need a website password to access the census.

• Corrigenda / Errata Online corrigenda are available for issues from August 97 to the present.
• Chat room, open to members and non-members alike. Scheduled chats are every Monday and Wednesday at 9:30 Eastern time.
• The Guide to the Enigma contains a glossary of NPL terms.
• Brutus, a cryptogram solver, written by Xemu, an NPL member. It will solve most cryptograms in seconds. (Members only [Password required])
• [BETA] The Penrose Cryptogram Solving Tool is a Java applet for solving cryptograms. Unlike Brutus, which provides a complete solution, this tool only makes the solving process easier.
• Tools to allow you to search or download word lists.
• A number of things are in our Miscellanea
  • Coach has compiled errata for:
    • errata and other notes on the Random House Famous Name Finder.
    • errata for Coral Amende's Legends in Their Own Time.
  • Chris Cole, the author of Wordplay has contributed the text (as far as I can tell) of the chapter Taxonomy of Wordplay, which is a long list of statistical records for various forms or wordplay.
  • A list of useful WWW links for solving Enigma puzzles, compiled by Plex.
  • We have located and listed many Online Dictionaries.

We have a number of base finding tools which use our start to find potential puzzles.

• Recruitment and nom stories for many of the Krewe, hyperlinked.
• Faro has collected a list of all of the noms known to be used by members of the National Puzzlers' League. This is available as a PDF from Noms, Cons, and Offices .

• The rules for games played online or at conventions.
• A description of a compact notation for specifying form shapes.
• A listing of the largest known forms for many shapes and categories of form.
• Some members have written reports about the Stamford crossword tournament.
• Nightowl created a very useful summary of flats and forms.
• Solving statistics (these are all Excel spreadsheets):
  • Analysis of all 1996 puzzles (large–412 kb)
  • Solver's records for 1996
  • Analysis of all 1997 puzzles (also large)
  • Solver's records for 1997
  • Composers' records for 1997

• Our Convention pages include photographs and reports from the national conventions as well as from several regional MiniCons.
• Articles about the NPL, about the NPL, conventions, or NPL members.
• Convention Attendance