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On 7/23/2018 at 1:44 AM, Herowannabe said:

Hey everyone, so I just played a game tonight called "Deception, Murder in Hong Kong." It's kind of a mix between werewolves/mafia/SE and Clue with a hint of Codenames. After playing a couple rounds of it I would love  to adapt it to the Cosmere. Has anyone else played it or heard of it? Anyone interested in helping me flesh out rules for the forum and convert everything over to the Cosmere?

If you haven't heard of it, the gist of it is this (sections put into spoiler tags to make it easier to navigate this post, not because of anything spoilery):

General Rules:

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Everybody is an investigator at a crime scene except for one person: the Forensic Scientist (who also fulfills the role of moderator/GM), and of course, one of the investigators is secretly the murderer. Each player has 4 murder weapon cards (things like knife, noose, bare hands, drowning, explosion, etc.) and 4 evidence cards (various things like fingerprints, pieces of clothing, food, and other random objects) displayed in front of them for all to see. At the start of the game the murderer secretly picks 1 murder weapon and 1 piece of evidence from the cards directly in front of them, and tells them to the Forensic Scientist. 

The Forensic Scientist (FS) is trying to help the investigators win, but can only communicate with them through the use of special scene tiles. Each scene tile is different and covers broad categories with several options for the FS to choose from (For example, one tile that is used in every game is the cause of death, and includes the options:

  • Suffocation
  • Severe Injury
  • Loss of Blood
  • Illness/Disease
  • Poisoning
  • Accident

pic2896278.jpg

The FS marks one of the options on each of the scene tiles to give clues for the investigators to decipher. 

The investigators' job is to decipher the clues to figure out the 1. Murderer, 2. Murder Weapon, and 3. Key piece of Evidence. They must guess all 3 correctly in order to catch the murderer and get them convicted at court. Any investigator can make a guess at any time during the game, but each investigator only gets one guess. Once they've made their guess, the FS tells them if they were right or wrong (and nothing else). If they were right, they win (obviously). If they guessed wrong, then the game continues. The investigator(s) who guessed may still participate in the discussion, but may not make any more guesses for the rest of the game. 

The game is played in 3 rounds, and at the end of rounds 1 and 2 the FS may swap out one of the scene tiles for a new one (thus giving them a way to get rid of tiles that are throwing the investigators off track and adding new tiles to give new clues. 

There are a couple other roles and things that can spice up the game, but the description above is enough to give you an idea of how it's played. If you want to learn more, you can check out the BGG description here, or read the official rule book here

 

 


I'm posting this here because this game is very similar to SE and would fit well in this section of the forum, but there are some significant differences: 

  • First, nobody is ever eliminated or removed from the game, so there wouldn't be any players getting lynched or murdered or gradual whittling down of suspects or any of that.
  • Second, the game is designed to be played with up to 12 players (including the FS/moderator). Now, it might be possible to play with more players than that, but for now I say we stick with a cap of 12 players, and then maybe experiment with more players later on.
  • Third, the game isn't set up with Roleplaying in mind, but then again, neither is Mafia/werewolves. I don't see any reason why we couldn't incorporate roleplaying into the game like we've done with SE. 
  • Fourth, with only 3 rounds, even if we make each round 48 hours long that would give us a 6 day game time, maximum (Upon further thought I think we ought to make it 72hr cycles / 9 day max game time)- possibly shorter than that if the investigators make a lucky guess early in the game. That's significantly shorter than most SE games. If we tried to fit it into the normal formats it would definitely have to be in the QF category, unless we did something like run multiple rounds of it to take up time. Alternatively, we could add it as it's own special format, or even take it to a different part of the site (there are a number of other forum games being played over the in the general section, for example) if it's deemed to be different enough from regular SE to be considered it's own thing. I'll leave it up to the moderators to decide that ( @little wilson @Orlok Tsubodai @Alvron @Seonid), though in the meantime I'm sitting at the top of the QF list and wouldn't mind using that spot to give this format a try, if people want to. 

 


Now, assuming there is interest in trying this, there are a number of things that would need to be done to get it converted to Cosmere and prep it for play on the forums, and I could use some help with that. If you're interested in helping out, read below. 

Things that need to be done to get the game ready to play:

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  • Switching the names of the roles and things over to Cosmere should be fairly simple. "Murderer" could easily become "Assassin (in White)," for example.
  • Mechanics of all the roles could stay the same, at least at the beginning. Maybe further down the line we could try meddling with the roles and mechanics. 
  • All of the cards and tiles need to be handled in such a way as to make them usable on forums. We can't exactly shuffle a deck of cards and deal them out to players online, but since everything is public knowledge except for the roles, we should be able to simulate the cards with a spreadsheet and a randomizer function fairly easily. We would just have to populate the spreadsheet and insert the appropriate formulas. 
  • All of the cards would need to be converted to Cosmere equivalents. In order to match the quantities included in the real game, we would need at least:
    • 90x Murder Weapon cards (Actually they are called "Means of Murder" cards, since not all of them are weapons). They could be things like shardblade, coins, hemalurgic spike, fed to a chasmfiend, Lifeless soldier, Nightblood, etc. 
    • 200x Evidence cards. These can be just about anything- the real game has random things like lightbulbs, candy, money, playing cards, shoes, etc. Many of those could just be copied over, while some could be converted to and/or replaced with some Cosmere-related things like Seons, Spren, metal vials, spheres, Elantrian robes, Hallandren dyes, etc. 
    • 32x Scene tiles. Again, many of these could probably be copied straight over, while many of them would be fun to Cosmerify. For example, the "Cause of Death" tile above could largely remain the same, but it would be fun to change one of the options to something like "Harm to the Soul/Spirit."
  • The Rules would need to be rewritten and adapted for forum play. 

None of that is especially difficult, but most of it would be pretty tedious, especially if I try to do it all by myself. Coming up with 300+ different cosmere weapons, items, locations, etc. is a lot for one person to do, which is why I'm putting the call out for help. Also, I want to see if there is any interest in trying this before I potentially put all that work in for nothing. 

So, what do people think? Want to give this a try?

I’ve been given the green light to run this game, and I’m at the top of the QF list so I’m going to try to get the rules formalized and ready to go so I can post sign ups in the next couple days. 

Thanks to @Drake Marshall and everyone else (I’m not sure who all helped, since it was all done anonymously in the google sheet, but thanks!) who helped put together the lists of murder methods and pieces of evidence. I have sorted through everything and filled out the lists where necessary and pruned and consolidated where necessary, and I’m pretty happy with where we stand, too. 

I also filled out all of the scene tiles and I’m happy with them, too. But if anyone wants to look things over and see if anything should be added or changed or deleted, feel free to do so here

The next step is to actually write out the rules and adapt them for forum use, and then to set up the spreadsheet and make it functional so we can randomize the “cards” and deal them to players. 

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Deception: Murder in the Cosmere rules are finished and awaiting review and approval. You can see all the Methods, Evidences, and Scene Tiles that will be used in the game here.  The game will take about 1 week maximum, and can be as short as a couple of days if the Investigators get a lucky guess in early. Because of this, *If and only if* the game ends too soon, I would like to request permission from the Moderators to run this game back to back a second time (using all the same players that signed up for the game). I don't know how much time is normally allotted for Quick Fixes (which this game will be run as), so I will let the Moderators decide whether or not to allow back-to-back games and if so how much time they will be allotted. @little wilson @Orlok Tsubodai @Alvron @Seonid

Also, other than the Moderators, I forget who all is part of the review committee (we should really have that info posted somewhere easy to find- I searched the stickied threads and couldn't find it), so if someone wanted to tag them for me that would be great. Thanks. 

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8 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

Deception: Murder in the Cosmere rules are finished and awaiting review and approval. You can see all the Methods, Evidences, and Scene Tiles that will be used in the game here.  The game will take about 1 week maximum, and can be as short as a couple of days if the Investigators get a lucky guess in early. Because of this, *If and only if* the game ends too soon, I would like to request permission from the Moderators to run this game back to back a second time (using all the same players that signed up for the game). I don't know how much time is normally allotted for Quick Fixes (which this game will be run as), so I will let the Moderators decide whether or not to allow back-to-back games and if so how much time they will be allotted. @little wilson @Orlok Tsubodai @Alvron @Seonid

Also, other than the Moderators, I forget who all is part of the review committee (we should really have that info posted somewhere easy to find- I searched the stickied threads and couldn't find it), so if someone wanted to tag them for me that would be great. Thanks. 

I think it's also @A Joe in the Bush, but I could be wrong.  I don't know who else is in it.

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14 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

Deception: Murder in the Cosmere rules are finished and awaiting review and approval. You can see all the Methods, Evidences, and Scene Tiles that will be used in the game here.  The game will take about 1 week maximum, and can be as short as a couple of days if the Investigators get a lucky guess in early. Because of this, *If and only if* the game ends too soon, I would like to request permission from the Moderators to run this game back to back a second time (using all the same players that signed up for the game). I don't know how much time is normally allotted for Quick Fixes (which this game will be run as), so I will let the Moderators decide whether or not to allow back-to-back games and if so how much time they will be allotted. @little wilson @Orlok Tsubodai @Alvron @Seonid

Also, other than the Moderators, I forget who all is part of the review committee (we should really have that info posted somewhere easy to find- I searched the stickied threads and couldn't find it), so if someone wanted to tag them for me that would be great. Thanks. 

I'm not on the rules committee, but I have some concerns:

First off, I was confused on this particular line. " The Oracle may put the tiles in any order they wish, and marks one item on each tile that best fits the crime. " The first part makes sense, but the second one confused me. I didn't realize that a tile was a general category. I thought a tile was a general word, like "The Victim's Build was Large". I would reword that section slightly. "The Oracle receives 4 random category tiles. They mark one item on each category, and can arrange the categories in any order." I only figured this out once I saw a video explaining how the real game is played.

My major concern is the role of the Oracle. Quite frankly, I don't think that should be the GM's role. In the games we run, the GM is supposed to be impartial, so they can resolve disputes between the factions. Having the GM be on the village's side is a very slippery slope. While I know you would never abuse it, it's a really dangerous precedent that I don't want to set. In more practical concerns, I imagine there would be some kind of write-up, which the GM might be tempted to put more hints in.

To avoid this situation, why don't we have the Oracle be another player? They would still be banned from posting, but would control the category tiles through a PM with the GM. The GM would still be responsible for confirming player's guesses. That would alleviate my concerns, and allow for another player to join in.

The main issue is timing. To setup the game, the murderer selects a piece of evidence and a murder weapon, and then the Oracle marks out information implicating those items. The Oracle can't do their job until the items are indicated. If we allow 24 hours for the murderer to select those, then we would need another 24 hours for the Oracle to work. That's 48 hours where no one is posting to the thread, which would be highly annoying. The simplest solution is to determine the key evidence and murder weapon randomly as well. That would save 24 hours, while still giving the Oracle time to make their case.

Overall, I'm excited for this game, and I hope you consider my suggestions.

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3 hours ago, Sart said:

I'm not on the rules committee, but I have some concerns:

Thanks for the feedback!

3 hours ago, Sart said:

First off, I was confused on this particular line. " The Oracle may put the tiles in any order they wish, and marks one item on each tile that best fits the crime. " The first part makes sense, but the second one confused me. I didn't realize that a tile was a general category. I thought a tile was a general word, like "The Victim's Build was Large". I would reword that section slightly. "The Oracle receives 4 random category tiles. They mark one item on each category, and can arrange the categories in any order." I only figured this out once I saw a video explaining how the real game is played.

Thanks, yeah that was a case of me knowing what I was talking about but it wasn’t very clear. I have edited that section and explained things a lot better. I also dropped the bit about putting tiles in any order- that was a poor attempt at emulating an aspect of the real life game, but it was just too confusing and not really necessary for forum use. 

4 hours ago, Sart said:

My major concern is the role of the Oracle. Quite frankly, I don't think that should be the GM's role. In the games we run, the GM is supposed to be impartial, so they can resolve disputes between the factions. Having the GM be on the village's side is a very slippery slope. While I know you would never abuse it, it's a really dangerous precedent that I don't want to set. In more practical concerns, I imagine there would be some kind of write-up, which the GM might be tempted to put more hints in.

This is how the RL version of the game does it so that’s how I wrote it for the forum version. That being said, it is different from what we’re used to, so I understand your concern. The limiting factor is that the Oracle cannot convey any information, directly or indirectly, to the Investigators other than by marking the Scene Tiles and by answering yes or no to Accusations. They’re not even allowed to comment on things. The Oracle is under just as much obligation to adhere to these rules as all players are under obligation to adhere to other rules, like following PM guidelines and not using 3rd-party code breaking software and etc. 

As for writeups, there isn’t as much of a need for them in this game as in regular SE games, but let’s face it, we’re going to include them because they’re fun. However, the Oracle would be under obligation to not reveal anything they shouldn’t (and I already have plans on how to do writeups/RP without giving anything away). This is the same as any other GM in any other game. 

As for dispute between parties, I’m trying to imagine what sorts of disputes might arise in a game like this and I’m drawing a blank, but even if there is something, couldn’t/shouldn’t the Impartial Mod fulfil the role of... moderating disputes... impartially...? ;) (forgive the cheekiness, but it’s still a valid question). 

Lastly, if the Moderators decide we need to split the the GM and the Oracle into two separate roles we certainly could, but my major concern with that route is this: there isn’t really anything for the GM to do. Unlike regular SE games, there are no votes to count, no actions to log, no player deaths to take care of, etc. Even the writeups, such as they are, are going to be pretty limited because there’s not any behind the scenes activity to report on, just what’s happening in the thread. 

So like I said, if the IMs want to split the roles like that then I’ll roll with it because at this point I’m committed to seeing the game through, but I’mma be honest I would never run the game again after that. Being a GM without the added roles/responsibilities of being the Oracle sounds dreadfully dull. :rolleyes:

4 hours ago, Sart said:

The simplest solution is to determine the key evidence and murder weapon randomly as well.

That would definitely NOT work. The Assassin picking their Key Evidence and Means of Murder is one of the most strategic and important aspects of the game. Replacing that with a randomizer would be a terrible idea. It would be the equivalent of taking away the Eliminators’ kill action in a normal SE game and replacing it with a random death each cycle. 

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4 hours ago, Sart said:

The main issue is timing. To setup the game, the murderer selects a piece of evidence and a murder weapon, and then the Oracle marks out information implicating those items. The Oracle can't do their job until the items are indicated. If we allow 24 hours for the murderer to select those, then we would need another 24 hours for the Oracle to work. That's 48 hours where no one is posting to the thread, which would be highly annoying. The simplest solution is to determine the key evidence and murder weapon randomly as well.

 I feel that being able to choose the evidence and murder weapon is important for the assassin's strategy. Perhaps cards could be publicly dealt out as each player signs up, and then every player would send in a PM before signups end stating which evidence and murder weapon they would choose if they happen to be selected as the assassin. It isn't the most elegant solution, and starts to fall apart if too many people sign up at the last minute, but it does shave 24 hours off the preparation time without sacrificing the assassin's ability to choose the cards they feel will be most difficult for the oracle to represent.

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15 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

 I feel that being able to choose the evidence and murder weapon is important for the assassin's strategy. Perhaps cards could be publicly dealt out as each player signs up, and then every player would send in a PM before signups end stating which evidence and murder weapon they would choose if they happen to be selected as the assassin. It isn't the most elegant solution, and starts to fall apart if too many people sign up at the last minute, but it does shave 24 hours off the preparation time without sacrificing the assassin's ability to choose the cards they feel will be most difficult for the oracle to represent.

That's a better solution, but still flawed in that the Assassin really wants to see all of the cards in front of the players before making a decision. For example, as the Assassin, if you see that a lot of players have cards related to poisons in front of them, then you might want to pick a poison in front of you as your Method of Murder, because then it will be harder to pick you out of the crowd. 

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2 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Hero, i hereby give this game a pass. I don't think the timing issue raised by other players will be a problem, nor do i see any other problems with the rules as you have them written. This game is good to run.

Thank you! What about the potential issue that @Sart raised about the GM/Oracle role? I'm obviously biased in my opinion in how it should be run, so I'd like an official, outside decision one way or the other before we begin. Thanks again. :)

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Just now, Herowannabe said:

Thank you! What about the potential issue that @Sart raised about the GM/Oracle role? I'm obviously biased in my opinion in how it should be run, so I'd like an official, outside decision one way or the other before we begin. Thanks again. :)

Honestly, I would just say post it at this point. We've waited long enough for a QF, and I trust you to run a fair game.

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7 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

Thank you! What about the potential issue that @Sart raised about the GM/Oracle role? I'm obviously biased in my opinion in how it should be run, so I'd like an official, outside decision one way or the other before we begin. Thanks again. :)

I don't see how giving an Oracle role to a player would be any different than giving it to the GM. Both are confirmed village players who cannot talk outside of their role powers. All GM's have the responsibility to not reveal information in the writeups, and have the responsibility to remain impartial. You having an active role in the game does not change that. I would trust any member of this website to be an oracle and a GM until they prove that they are unable to do that.

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21 minutes ago, Sart said:

Honestly, I would just say post it at this point. We've waited long enough for a QF, and I trust you to run a fair game.

 

12 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

I don't see how giving an Oracle role to a player would be any different than giving it to the GM. Both are confirmed village players who cannot talk outside of their role powers. All GM's have the responsibility to not reveal information in the writeups, and have the responsibility to remain impartial. You having an active role in the game does not change that. I would trust any member of this website to be an oracle and a GM until they prove that they are unable to do that.

 

Thanks to both of you, your trust means a lot. :)

I'll get signups posted later this evening. 

Edited by Herowannabe
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On 8/10/2018 at 7:54 AM, randuir said:

That's kinda the kind of scenario I'd like to avoid. Having the starting elims know who everyone is would help keeping things a secret, but an active doc would still show plenty of hints if the elims aren't effortlessly coasting to victory, as people discuss and coordinate how to move votes in certain directions. Then there's the fact that some people have recognizable writing patterns that might out them*.

I don't disagree the the idea of the role is neat, but its not a balancing factor if there's nothing preventing the mole from outing the entire elim team if he could. One way a mole in the elim team could work is if the mole had some special win-con that prevented them from just outing everyone. In a game without PM's, making them want to survive, or have some form of anti-village win-con could fix that.

*I was in a game with an anonymous doc a while back that wasn't safe (there could be both villagers and elims in it)  and managed to figure someone out pretty quickly based on her distinctive writing pattern, but in a later game I learned that me saying 'kinda' is apparently recognizable as well.

(Finally got a chance to come back and look at this)

I'm actually not too concerned with the Snape ability - Voldemort converting people isn't required.  If he decides that there's too much in the elim doc to risk converting someone, he could just avoid that.  Plus it fits thematically :)  I guess maybe adding a wincon of something like 'Harry must survive' might work?  Not sure what a decent additional wincon would be (Yes, I know 'survive' would also be a decent one...but that doesn't fit thematically...)

The Cedric one is a bit different...  I purposely used the word 'speak' so that he wouldn't die automatically if Voldemort just started making PMs.  Honestly, I think it's more of a weakness than anything else.  I did consider that to some degree...  In order for it to reasonably be used as a scan, I'd think Cedric would need 2 open PMs with other people (or somehow trust people enough in thread?) and then start opening PMs after that?  With 1 PM/night, and only being able to reasonably say, "This is not Voldemort" or "I'm dead"...I don't think that's too bad.

The ability I'm actually most unsure of is whether the Resurrection Stone is a decent one.  Again, it's something that fits thematically with the game, but, as written, it 100% outs that player's role.

Anyway, I know there's a decent backlog of games and this one doesn't hit the S in SE...but I think (a variation of it at least) would be a lot of fun at some point.

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  • 1 month later...

Made some revisions to the quick fix game I'm going to eventually run.

The Melee (QF Game)

Flavor: Every year, students from Armedius Academy participate in a free-for-all tournament known as the Melee. You're going to be one of those students, hoping to take top prize.

Rules: This is a free-for-all game. There are no teams in this game. The last man standing wins the cup. If the game ends with all players dying, the person who survived longest with the most kills will be the winner. Cycles are 24 hours long, but have no day-night distinctions.

Each cycle, you can do one of the following actions.

  • Line of Forbiddance: Protect a player (usually yourself) from one attack.
  • Line of Vigor: Attack another player.
  • Line of Making: Send chalklings at another player. They cannot do any actions during the next cycle.

The order of actions is Forbiddance, then Vigor, then Making.

Cycle 0: The first cycle will be different than the rest. It will be 48 hours long, and PMs will be open for everyone to strategize in. You must choose one of the following defenses.

  • Ballintain Defense (4-point circle) The quickest defense. You can no longer defend yourself, but your attacks deal double damage.
  • Matson Defense (6-point circle) The standard defense. This defense has no drawbacks,  but no advantages either.
  • Taylor Defense (9-point circle) The hardest defense to set up. You can't take any actions Cycle 1, but if you make it to Cycle 2, you gain an extra life.

Be wary! If more than a third of the players chooses one defense, people will be expecting it, so half the players who choose that defense will be eliminated before Cycle 1 starts.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So, for those of you who read the AN 3 spec doc, you may have noticed that @Elandera and I got talking and ended up collaborating on a Lovecraft Threnody game. Well that game has been nearly entirely built, but before we share it to the people, we need a 3rd pair of eyes to look over it to make sure things make sense and it is balanced So, if you’re interested in looking over the ruleset, but not playing in it (As there are certain advantages this would give) please shoot us a pm.

Edited by Snipexe
Grammar
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  • 1 month later...

I've been away for a long time, did anyone ever run my Drakeface game?

 

Spoiler

Basic Setup

There are two teams, the Drakeface Villagers and the Dawnface Sorcerers. The sorcerers have infiltrated the town, but the hardy villagers have struck a deal with the dragons to rid themselves of the Sorcerers. The sorcerers can communicate telepathically (Faction Doc) and can use their magic to "Get rid of" a villager each night turn. They win when they outnumber the villagers. The day turn is 24 hours and the night is 12. (For now) Rollover TBD. During the day turn, everyone votes on who to throw to the dragons. You may open a PM during the night turn, and it it will last until the next night turn.

 

Knacks

Knacks! Before the game starts, there will be an extra large rollover, where you will receive your GM PM. You may tell the GM what knack you want, ie. "I want to be able to hear gossip about myself!" And the GM will decide a role that goes with your knack, and give it back to you, ie. "You know one person who has mentioned you in a PM." Sorcerers do not get a knack.

 

Food

You need food to live. Every day turn, you will consume one food. If you run out of food, you die. You will receive a food every day turn, as long as you use dialogue in all of your posts, and roleplay a bit in every post.

 

Sell Your Soul

At any point during the game, you may sell me your soul. I will purchase your soul. Your soul is worth three foods. You may only sell your soul once. I accept hemalurgically modified souls. You may not make the excuse that you do not have a soul. If you try, I will take your soul and one of your limbs.

 

Sorcery

Sorcerers have a kill every night turn. They may, once during the game, revive one of their members with sorcery. They may only do this once one of their members has been killed. (A random person will be converted to the elim team, and the dead elim will stay dead, but Shh.)

 

Edited by Ookla the Stroller of Road
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