The Art of Game Creation

[Fifth Scholar]

1 hour ago, Cadmium Compounder said:

So I was reviewing the games I've played in, and in the King Killer Chronicle game (MR 29, I believe), There was a joke going on before the game actually started to lynch the GM, and it got me wondering...

Have there been any games where the GM also had a secret role or something that allowed them to directly influence the game in an unknown way? If so, could someone point me to it? It seems like it could be an interesting and fun mechanic.   

Hahahaha...

Any of Joe’s games are a good launching point (I recommend QF14 if you want truly interesting mechanics with supposedly OOG characters). GM intervention is interesting, but also fraught with risk in many ways. The main role of the GM is to be an impartial facilitator of an enjoying game, and having them possess direct influence would undermine that slightly. That said, having the GM function like an NPC and have a jester role or similar has been successfully implemented before. Consider LG15a and LG41, in which the GM had to be lynched for the Elims to win, or games (there’s quite a few of these) where the GM used a character of their own to advance writeups. It really kind of depends on what you have in mind, I suppose.  

[Lumgol]

2 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Hahahaha...

Any of Joe’s games are a good launching point (I recommend QF14 if you want truly interesting mechanics with supposedly OOG characters). GM intervention is interesting, but also fraught with risk in many ways. The main role of the GM is to be an impartial facilitator of an enjoying game, and having them possess direct influence would undermine that slightly. That said, having the GM function like an NPC and have a jester role or similar has been successfully implemented before. Consider LG15a and LG41, in which the GM had to be lynched for the Elims to win, or games (there’s quite a few of these) where the GM used a character of their own to advance writeups. It really kind of depends on what you have in mind, I suppose.  

There was also an idea for a Legion game in which the GM is Stephen and a village wincon is to help Stephen somehow while the elims are trying to hurt him. Could this be implemented?

[Snipexe]

10 minutes ago, Lumgol said:

There was also an idea for a Legion game in which the GM is Stephen and a village wincon is to help Stephen somehow while the elims are trying to hurt him. Could this be implemented?

Ooh, I really like this. Now I’m super tempted to build a game like this.

[Alvron]

On 3/14/2019 at 3:47 PM, Mailliw772 said:

There was also an idea for a Legion game in which the GM is Stephen and a village wincon is to help Stephen somehow while the elims are trying to hurt him. Could this be implemented?

On 3/14/2019 at 3:58 PM, Snipexe said:

Ooh, I really like this. Now I’m super tempted to build a game like this.

May I direct your eyes towards QF6. It doesn't have everything you are asking for but may give you a couple of ideas should you decide to make one yourself.

[Mailliw73]

Figured I’d throw these here as well to get some more feedback. I wanted to play with the 8 basic Allomantic metals, but in a different way from Meta’s classic rules for them. I’ll probably run this as a Long Game. 

Soother: A Soother can burn brass and Soothe a player each night, causing their zeal for justice to diminish. During the next cycle, the Soothed player cannot post in thread or use abilities.

Rioter: Once per game, a Rioter can burn their zinc during the day to encourage a second lynch. That day, the two players with the most votes will be lynched. The Eliminators will also get a second kill due to their anger being rioted.

Seeker: A Seeker is told which players used abilities that night. The more they use their ability, they grow in skill and the more information they’ll receive.

Smoker: Smokers interfere with Seeking. At night, a Smoker can choose a player to Smoke. When they do this, it distorts the information the Seeker receives about that person. If a Smoker is one of the two most voted for players up for a lynch when the Rioter uses their ability, the Smoker will not die.

Coinshot: As a Coinshot flies around the city at night, they spot any attacks. When they do, they have the ability to Push on the weapon and deflect it to the player above or below the intended target on the player list.

Lurcher: A Lurcher can choose to Pull attacks toward them and their protective shield, bringing the kill one person on the player list closer to the Lurcher’s own position.

Tineye: Tineyes have enhanced senses that they use to observe at night. To them, the city is an open book. Their senses enable them to evade any actions taken against them while burning tin at night. They’ll be told what action(s) were taken against them.

Pewterarm: When a Pewterarm is attacked, they will fight for their survival. They will stay alive for one turn after being attacked or lynched. During that turn, they can choose a player to kill. If they kill their attacker, they will survive.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12aSHFZDQ1AQJnYEOcSFvHHRioHHypWSBuAagcvFTVB4

[Fifth Scholar]

25 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Soother: A Soother can burn brass and Soothe a player each night, causing their zeal for justice to diminish. During the next cycle, the Soothed player cannot post in thread or use abilities.

I like this twist, but I’d be careful with restricting a player’s ability to post. The roleblock seems fine, but silencing people may cause disengagement or disillusionment with the game—as this ability stands, it effectively kills a player for one cycle, which can be incredibly frustrating especially in combination with denial of the ability to submit an action. 

26 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Seeker: A Seeker is told which players used abilities that night. The more they use their ability, they grow in skill and the more information they’ll receive.

Could you disambiguate this slightly? As this ability stands, I’m not entirely sure what this does. Would it simply provide imperfect lists of who takes action each Night, or is it more specific?

30 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Coinshot: As a Coinshot flies around the city at night, they spot any attacks. When they do, they have the ability to Push on the weapon and deflect it to the player above or below the intended target on the player list.

Would they target a specific player or attack, or would they simply say “any attacks are Pushed one player up/down” as an order? The same applies to the Lurchers. Would these abilities affect both Thug and Eliminator kills? 

31 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Tineye: Tineyes have enhanced senses that they use to observe at night. To them, the city is an open book. Their senses enable them to evade any actions taken against them while burning tin at night. They’ll be told what action(s) were taken against them.

This seems...a little overpowered? A village tin claimant could be both completely untouchable while at the same time knowing exactly what other people are doing to them. There’s heavy potential for a mayorship to be set up here, and even giving the role to an Elim doesn’t fix much; they’d still be immortal except to the lynch and generally have too much of a protective shield. Perhaps give the ability a limit on frequency of use, or add a drawback such as vote negation? 

Factions are presumably typical village/Eliminator, yes? Are PMs allowed? If two Rioters use their abilities simultaneously, would three people be lynched/killed at Night? 

I do think that this ruleset should prove very interesting, though, and I like the novel mechanics you’ve come up with. Your conception of Pewter is an excellent thematic twist as well. It’s good to see diverging interpretations of Meta’s original roles. 

[Mailliw73]

2 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

I like this twist, but I’d be careful with restricting a player’s ability to post. The roleblock seems fine, but silencing people may cause disengagement or disillusionment with the game—as this ability stands, it effectively kills a player for one cycle, which can be incredibly frustrating especially in combination with denial of the ability to submit an action. 

Could you disambiguate this slightly? As this ability stands, I’m not entirely sure what this does. Would it simply provide imperfect lists of who takes action each Night, or is it more specific?

Would they target a specific player or attack, or would they simply say “any attacks are Pushed one player up/down” as an order? The same applies to the Lurchers. Would these abilities affect both Thug and Eliminator kills? 

This seems...a little overpowered? A village tin claimant could be both completely untouchable while at the same time knowing exactly what other people are doing to them. There’s heavy potential for a mayorship to be set up here, and even giving the role to an Elim doesn’t fix much; they’d still be immortal except to the lynch and generally have too much of a protective shield. Perhaps give the ability a limit on frequency of use, or add a drawback such as vote negation? 

Factions are presumably typical village/Eliminator, yes? Are PMs allowed? If two Rioters use their abilities simultaneously, would three people be lynched/killed at Night? 

I do think that this ruleset should prove very interesting, though, and I like the novel mechanics you’ve come up with. Your conception of Pewter is an excellent thematic twist as well. It’s good to see diverging interpretations of Meta’s original roles. 

Most of these confusions come from me posting only the metal mechanics, not the rest of the rules for the game, so sorry for that. 

Concerning Soothing, that is a good point that I didn't consider. PMs are completely open in this game, so they would still have interactions that way. Maybe I would change it to only last for the turn, either day or night, depending on when the Soother used it. 

So, the first turn a Seeker burned bronze, they'd learn which players burned metals at all. The second night, they'd learn which burned physical and which burned mental metals, and so on, getting more specific each night they burn their metal. I left it ambiguous on purpose, since I haven't exactly decided how the progression will work, but the example here should suffice for now. 

• Maill is a Seeker and burns Bronze N1. He gets this as a result: Fifth, Alv, and Wilson burned metals. N2, he's more practiced with his metal and gets something like: Fifth and Alv burned physical metals, Wilson burned a mental one. N3: Fifth and Wilson burned a pushing metal, Alv burned a pulling metal. N4: Fifth burned Steel, Alv burned Tin, and Wilson burned Brass.
• Does that make more sense?

So the part I neglected to put in is that the eliminators would submit their kill during the day, but the action wouldn't take place till the night. Flavor-wise, they deliberate and then make the decision during the day so that the assigned killer can use the night to make the kill. At the beginning of the night, the Coinshot would be told who was being attacked and then could choose to not affect the kill, move it up the player list, or down, with the current rule. I think Iron/Steel need the most finetuning, but I want to do something along these lines. Their abilities would only affect the eliminator kill. I've also had the idea(thanks to Lum) that Lurchers might choose to switch places with someone else on the player list and affecting the elim kill and coinshots in that way. 

Good point concerning Tineyes. Maybe they can alternate nights between observing a specific player to see who they target and from being on alert themselves to evade attacks. I also like the idea of them being tired from being on guard all night so they fail to vote. 

Yep, typical village/eliminator game. There will be open PMs. Yes, if two Rioters used their abilities on the same cycle, up to 6 people could be attacked that cycle. 

Thanks for the feedback as well as the compliment! It helps to have people like you to analyze the rules as well.

[Alvron]

If a Rioter uses their ability and the Elims place kill orders during the Day, how would the Elims know to place a second kill?  Would they be allowed to submit a second order during the Night or would they have to submit an order each Day on the off chance a Rioter uses their ability?

[Mailliw73]

12 minutes ago, Gammalv Fiend said:

If a Rioter uses their ability and the Elims place kill orders during the Day, how would the Elims know to place a second kill?  Would they be allowed to submit a second order during the Night or would they have to submit an order each Day on the off chance a Rioter uses their ability?

Oh, good point. I’d probably say they can submit 2 during the day on the off chance of a Riot. 

[Furamirionind]

Hey Maill, this looks like a cool ruleset!

One question, if a Rioter uses their ability, but a Smoker also used theirs, if the Smoker was the person with the most votes, would they still die?

In other words, does smoking prevent lynch immunity when rioted, or only immunity to the extra rioted lynch?

[Mailliw73]

10 hours ago, Furamirionind said:

Hey Maill, this looks like a cool ruleset!

One question, if a Rioter uses their ability, but a Smoker also used theirs, if the Smoker was the person with the most votes, would they still die?

In other words, does smoking prevent lynch immunity when rioted, or only immunity to the extra rioted lynch?

Thanks!

It negates the Rioting completely, so if the Smoker was either the first or the second person with the most votes, they wouldn’t die. But the other person with the most votes would. So lynch immunity when there’s a Riot. 

12 hours ago, Mailliw73 said:

Oh, good point. I’d probably say they can submit 2 during the day on the off chance of a Riot. 

@Gammalv Fiend

I actually changed my mind on this. Burning Zinc will be a night action, that way everyone knows there is a second lynch and kill. 

[Straw]

On 3/15/2019 at 9:06 PM, tiny wilson said:

Soother: A Soother can burn brass and Soothe a player each night, causing their zeal for justice to diminish. During the next cycle, the Soothed player cannot post in thread or use abilities.

Along with the points that Fifth Scholar mentioned, this role seems to be biased towards to elims. I can't really think of a situation in which the village would want a player to be silenced.

On 3/15/2019 at 9:06 PM, tiny wilson said:

Rioter: Once per game, a Rioter can burn their zinc during the day to encourage a second lynch. That day, the two players with the most votes will be lynched. The Eliminators will also get a second kill due to their anger being rioted.

I'm seeing a lot of possible problems with this role. First of all, giving the elim team this role would be very dangerous. At any point, the elim team has the opportunity to remove four players in a single turn, drastically swinging the balance of the game (especially if they manage to remove valuable players). On the other hand, it would also give the village the ability to gain a burst of information, and possibly remove two villagers. Essentially, this role seems very swingy and difficult to balance.

On 3/15/2019 at 9:06 PM, tiny wilson said:

Coinshot: As a Coinshot flies around the city at night, they spot any attacks. When they do, they have the ability to Push on the weapon and deflect it to the player above or below the intended target on the player list.

Lurcher: A Lurcher can choose to Pull attacks toward them and their protective shield, bringing the kill one person on the player list closer to the Lurcher’s own position.

How important is the player list in your game? Are there mechanics allowing players to change their position on it?

On 3/15/2019 at 9:06 PM, tiny wilson said:

Tineye: Tineyes have enhanced senses that they use to observe at night. To them, the city is an open book. Their senses enable them to evade any actions taken against them while burning tin at night. They’ll be told what action(s) were taken against them.

Either part of this role is powerful on its own, but when combined it seems a bit overpowered. Maybe change it to just be the latter part?

[Mailliw73]

Here's an updated ruleset for the Mistborn game. Lurchers are the role I'm least satisfied with. Does anyone have any other ideas for how we could use iron? I'm not attached to the player list idea for it. 

---

Soother: A Soother can burn brass and Soothe a player each cycle, causing their zeal for justice to diminish. During the next turn, the Soothed player cannot post in thread. Brass can be burned either turn of a cycle.

Rioter: Twice per game, a Rioter can burn their zinc. If burned during the night, it will encourage a second lynch the next day. That day, the two players with the most votes will be lynched. If burned during the day, players will get two actions the following night.

Seeker: A Seeker is told which players used abilities that night. The more they use their ability, they grow in skill and the more information they’ll receive. Each turn that bronze is burned, the Seeker will learn a new piece of information. For example, N1, a Seeker could learn that 3 players burned metals. N2, they could learn that Wilson and Meta burned metals. N3, they could learn that Wilson and Gamma burned a mental metal, and that Meta and Seonid burned a physical metal. And so on.

Smoker: Smokers interfere with Seeking. At night, a Smoker can choose one player to Smoke. When they do this, it distorts the information the Seeker receives about that person. If a Smoked player is one of the two most voted for players up for a lynch when the Rioter uses their ability, the Smoker will not die. Only one lynch will happen that day, either the first or the second most voted for player, whichever is not the Smoked player.

Coinshot: As a Coinshot flies around the city at night, they spot any attacks. They will be told who is being attacked that night by the eliminators. They have the ability to Push on the weapon and deflect it to the player above or below the intended target on the player list.

Lurcher: A Lurcher can choose to Pull attacks toward them and their protective shield, bringing the kill one person on the player list closer to the Lurcher’s own position.
-Switch positions?

Tineye: Tineyes have enhanced senses that they use to observe at night. To them, the city is an open book. They can either go on alert at night and evade any actions that target themselves or they can sneak around, following a player to see who they target. A Tineye cannot take one of these actions two nights in a row. Being on alert all night causes them to sleep through the voting the next day; any vote they take will be negated.  

Pewterarm: When a Pewterarm is attacked, they will fight for their survival. They will stay alive for one turn after being attacked or lynched. During that turn, they can choose a player to kill. If they kill their attacker, they will survive.

Eliminators: The Eliminators get a group kill each cycle. This kill must be decided on during the day turn and one player on the eliminator team must use their action during the night to go out and make the kill.

Messengers are easy to come by and as such, PMs are open. Please include me in all PMs. Day turns are 48 hours and will include a lynch. Nights are 24 hours.

---

@Straw I think this new one answers your questions. If not, let me know.  

[Lumgol]

@The Storm, I think it would be super interesting to utilize the player list more - for example, have bronze, brass, and/or zinc have a range such that only players within a certain distance in the player list can/do get affected by the metal. However, you have stated that you aren't fond of the player list idea. Perhaps for another game, eventually?

As for other ideas for Lurchers, an option I see is to have them be able to find out who the elims attack like a coinshot does, and be able to redirect said attack to themselves with a 50% chance of surviving.

They could also target up to a certain small number of people during the night, and if any of them are targeted with a kill, they become severely injured instead and survive until the end of the next day.

Edited March 28, 2019 by Mailliw772

[Straw]

23 hours ago, Mailliw772 said:

@The Storm, I think it would be super interesting to utilize the player list more - for example, have bronze, brass, and/or zinc have a range such that only players within a certain distance in the player list can/do get affected by the metal. However, you have stated that you aren't fond of the player list idea. Perhaps for another game, eventually?

As for other ideas for Lurchers, an option I see is to have them be able to find out who the elims attack like a coinshot does, and be able to redirect said attack to themselves with a 50% chance of surviving.

They could also target up to a certain small number of people during the night, and if any of them are targeted with a kill, they become severely injured instead and survive until the end of the next day.

Yeah, having the player list be a larger component would be a really interesting mechanic.

[Mailliw73]

On 3/28/2019 at 0:24 PM, Mailliw772 said:

@The Storm, I think it would be super interesting to utilize the player list more - for example, have bronze, brass, and/or zinc have a range such that only players within a certain distance in the player list can/do get affected by the metal. However, you have stated that you aren't fond of the player list idea. Perhaps for another game, eventually?

As for other ideas for Lurchers, an option I see is to have them be able to find out who the elims attack like a coinshot does, and be able to redirect said attack to themselves with a 50% chance of surviving.

They could also target up to a certain small number of people during the night, and if any of them are targeted with a kill, they become severely injured instead and survive until the end of the next day.

I like those Lurcher ideas! What about this?

Lurcher: A Lurcher can pull metal, so each night, Lurchers stand watch and choose to protect 1-3(subject to change) players. If any of those people are targeted by the eliminators' kill, they are injured. The injury depends on how many people the Lurcher was focused on: if only one, that player will only be injured by not being able to vote the next day; if two, the injured player loses any abilities they have, if the player has no abilities, they lose their vote for the rest of the game; if three players were under the Lurcher's watch, the injured player survives till the end of the next cycle (if this player is a Pewterarm, they survive completely, but due to the amount of pewter they are burning to heal, they aren't able to use their regular pewter ability).

On 3/29/2019 at 11:32 AM, Straw said:

Yeah, having the player list be a larger component would be a really interesting mechanic.

I think so too! I'm just not sure it's what I want to do with this game specifically. With the Coinshot, my goal is to have them do something that can interfere with kills, but not stop them. The player list was the only way I could think of doing it without an RNG. And an RNG might not be bad. I could roll for two random players and those would be the Coinshot's two options. Thoughts?

[Lumgol]

On 4/1/2019 at 5:02 PM, Mailliw73 said:

With the Coinshot, my goal is to have them do something that can interfere with kills, but not stop them. The player list was the only way I could think of doing it without an RNG. And an RNG might not be bad. I could roll for two random players and those would be the Coinshot's two options. Thoughts?

I like that. I feel like it might be OP for the village near the end of the game if the elims decide to out themselves and hammer it out, since a coinshot can just redirect a kill onto a known elim (who has a good chance of appearing as one of the random names given). Also, since a Coinshot finds out who is going to be nightkilled, those people are almost guaranteed villagers, and that'll greatly narrow down the potential number of suspects. (And an elim Coinshot will make little to no sense, so a Coinshot by nature is pretty much cleared if they can prove their role.) However, it's a really cool idea and those are just some possible interesting things that can happen with it.

Edit: Some updated rules for my hemalurgy LG are going to be posted soon, so there's also that.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Lumgol

[Snipexe]

This is just a quick mechanic for a Snapshot game that I'd like to get thoughts on:

Cycle 0 (The first cycle is neither an A or a B cycle): An anonymous cycle, with every player using an anonymous account. People would have actions during the cycle, and most importantly there would be an elim kill.

Cycle 1A: The aftermath of whatever events took place during Cycle 0. All roles that players had on their anonymous accounts carry over to their actual ones. There is a lynch this cycle, as well as an elim kill.

Cycle 1B: Back to anonymous accounts. These are the "snapshot" cycles. All players automatically do their exact same actions, with the exception of the detectives, who can change their actions. All players who have previously died, are still alive in their anonymous accounts, though they are still dead in the non-Snapshot cycles. Anyone who the detectives pm and show their reality badge to (they would have to pm the gm that they have done this), proving that they are the detectives, will be broken free, and be able to change their actions. People may still talk freely in already created pms, and in the thread.

The game continues like such, alternating normal and snapshot cycles until either both of the detectives are killed, or the elim is killed (I am currently thinking that this would have a single elim, though I could see an elim team working as well.)

So, thoughts?

edit: I need to give credit, this is heavily inspired by Joe's time travel games, which I think are super interesting.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Snipexe

[A Joe in the Bush]

2 hours ago, Snipexe said:

This is just a quick mechanic for a Snapshot game that I'd like to get thoughts on:

Cycle 0 (The first cycle is neither an A or a B cycle): An anonymous cycle, with every player using an anonymous account. People would have actions during the cycle, and most importantly there would be an elim kill.

Cycle 1A: The aftermath of whatever events took place during Cycle 0. All roles that players had on their anonymous accounts carry over to their actual ones. There is a lynch this cycle, as well as an elim kill.

Cycle 1B: Back to anonymous accounts. These are the "snapshot" cycles. All players automatically do their exact same actions, with the exception of the detectives, who can change their actions. All players who have previously died, are still alive in their anonymous accounts, though they are still dead in the non-Snapshot cycles. Anyone who the detectives pm and show their reality badge to (they would have to pm the gm that they have done this), proving that they are the detectives, will be broken free, and be able to change their actions. People may still talk freely in already created pms, and in the thread.

The game continues like such, alternating normal and snapshot cycles until either both of the detectives are killed, or the elim is killed (I am currently thinking that this would have a single elim, though I could see an elim team working as well.)

So, thoughts?

edit: I need to give credit, this is heavily inspired by Joe's time travel games, which I think are super interesting.

Also makes a lot more sense then my time travel game.

As a bare bones mechanic, i like this. It's a good way to do it, though i'd worry about most of the players not having anything to do every other turn.

[Alvron]

How would people feel about a crazy game?  A game where players could have up to 4 roles with the chance of gaining (or losing) more.  One designed more for fun than balance.

[Mailliw73]

Just now, Alvron said:

How would people feel about a crazy game?  A game where players could have up to 4 roles with the chance of gaining (or losing) more.  One designed more for fun than balance.

Up to 4? Shoot, you want to go through all your new roles at once, huh?

[Alvron]

1 minute ago, Mailliw73 said:

Up to 4? Shoot, you want to go through all your new roles at once, huh?

At moment I have 47 roles.  Highly doubtful I would use them all in one game but if players enjoy the fun over the mechanics, it could have endless replayability.

[Mailliw73]

2 minutes ago, Alvron said:

At moment I have 47 roles.  Highly doubtful I would use them all in one game but if players enjoy the fun over the mechanics, it could have endless replayability.

I’m always down for more fun. 

[Elandera]

1 hour ago, Alvron said:

At moment I have 47 roles.  Highly doubtful I would use them all in one game but if players enjoy the fun over the mechanics, it could have endless replayability.

I love role madness games. I think it gives everyone a little more incentive to stay involved.

This sounds like role insanity.

Do it.

[Furamirionind]

10 hours ago, Alvron said:

At moment I have 47 roles.  Highly doubtful I would use them all in one game but if players enjoy the fun over the mechanics, it could have endless replayability.

Sounds awesome!