The Art of Game Creation

[Coffeecat]

On 6/9/2020 at 11:05 PM, Straw said:

By one PM per cycle, do you mean one PM channel with unlimited talking? Or do you mean one PM message, like MR42 has?

I was thinking one PM message.

On 6/9/2020 at 11:05 PM, Straw said:

I'm not sure about how balanced it is to have Adolin be able to dodge kills while visiting someone. It basically removes any consequences to him outing himself in the thread. All it does is it stops him from saying who he is going to visit, and not much else.

well, i thought adolin was going to die quickly, possibly revealing one elim, and securing one or two villagers.

Although it could make it more interesting, making the village less powerful.

On 6/9/2020 at 11:05 PM, Straw said:

If you add Szeth, the main issue would be if he got lucky and hit Dalinar early, instantly winning the game. To fix this I would recommend buffing bridgemen, maybe to 50% each. If that sounds OP, you could make the bridgeman protection all or nothing where if two bridgemen target someone, they defend against all attacks, but if only one bridgemen protects them, all attacks hit. These two changes would essentially make it so Szeth's win condition would be to kill all but one of the bridgemen and then attack Dalinar. This adds opposition to Moash's goal of keeping the bridgemen alive, and discourages the bridgemen from claiming. It also gives the traitors a choice between keeping bridgemen alive and taking the risk that their attack will be blocked vs killing bridgemen and bringing the game closer to a win for Szeth.

Also, on the topic of Dalinar, I'd recommend making Dalinar an outed NPC who doesn't count for parity. Being confirmed good and unkillable isn't particularly interesting to play, and he works better as a NPC. I think past games have done similar things (Ex: Elend Venture in LG41). It also helps prevent mayoring from Dalinar, especially since if he could talk, Renarin and Adolin could just PM him with results.

you mean both of these?

it actually makes sense, i actually planned to have both Elokhar and Dalinar NPC. then opted to have dalinar a real player, and elhokar just be part of the write ups.

so Dalinar NPC and nerf bridgeboys.

Bridgenoys: Each Bridgeboy can target someone else, if two Bridgeboys target the same player, that player is protected. The Bridgeboy have a doc to communicate and have the same goals as the Royal Entourage.

Dalinar: outed NPC

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Lord_Silberfarben

[Guest Coda]

Spoiler

Factions

• Arbiters - 1 scan per night/cycle (Need to figure out a better ability), doc to discuss. 

• Glory Faction - 1 kill per night/cycle, doc to discuss. 

Roles

• Forger - Essence Marks: Has five Essence Marks, each can be used once per game and last for one cycle (except for the Way Out), Essence Mark actions are free actions, Restoration: Work on the emperor’s Essence Mark, takes 5 uses to restore the emperor, one for each keystone stamp(Maybe change it to 3, 5 seems too long).

  • Warrior: 1 kill

  • Survivalist: 1 extra life (passive)

  • Scholar: Double your vote

  • Beggar: Immune to vote manipulation (passive)

  • The Way Out: Changes win-con to survive and removes all abilities. The arbiters still need to kill you.

• Bloodsealer - Ward: Roleblock, Skeletals: Kill (Once per game? Several times?)

• Striker - Training: Extra life

  • Striker Captain - Skilled Warrior: 1 kill per night/cycle

• Resealer - Physician: Protect

• Arbiters - Unbribable: Immune by vote manipulation (Add an ability for all arbiters or no arbiters. Gaotona’s steadfast stays? What to add for the faceless ones‽)

  • Frava - Criminal Connections: Move a vote

  • Gaotona - Powerful: Double your vote, Steadfast: Once the emperor is restored, you will take attacks in his stead (passive)

  • Stivient

  • Ushnaka

  • Yazaken

• Emperor Ashravan: (Make NPC? Change random pleb to Emperor? I feel like I should give the emperor epic powers, which makes me think Ashravan should be an NPC, but then the GF can’t kill him. Conundrums…)

Win Conditions

• Arbiters: Restore the emperor and kill the Forger OR kill the Glory Faction

  • Gaotona: The emperor is alive at the end of the game

• Glory Faction: Kill the Heritage Faction OR kill the emperor (once restored)

• Forger: Restore the emperor and survive

  • The Way Out: Survive

• Striker: Heritage Faction win-con and kill the Bloodsealer.

• Bloodsealer: Kill the Forger and survive.

Problems

• Lynch too risky

  • Arbiters know who the Forger is?

• No de facto village

  • Add more unique roles with WC and discard village entirely?

Behold, a SE Emperor's Soul game I typed up over the course of an hour, complete with notes about my failings. Please help.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Coda
Formatting

[Straw]

To be honest, it's kind of hard to help balance at this point until you start to nail down the core mechanics and stuff, but I'll try. 

The first issue I see is the Arbiters. They're a confirmed good bloc of five people with a doc and scan. The easiest way to fix this would be to give them some kind of opposing win condition.

With the Emperor, I would indeed recommend making him a NPC, probably with no abilities.

In my opinion, I don't see much of a reason to have the additional win conditions for the Striker and the Bloodsealer. It seems best to just have a classical village vs elim setup, with the Arbiters and the Forger being extra elements to the game.

With the Forger, I don't see much reason for them to not just use Restoration four times, and then wait until the very end of the game to use Restoration to bring back the Emperor.

[Guest Coda]

You're probably right about the Striker and Bloodsealer. I could make the arbiters' win-con to kill the forger and nix the scan. I could also have the arbiters turn against each other once the Forger dies. I would probably need a policy of anonymity in the doc, then. 

If the emperor becomes an NPC, then an argument could be made for removing that plotline from the game entirely, thus making it not identical to Emperor's Soul. Glory Faction needs to kill the arbiters, village faction needs to kill the Glory Faction, arbiters don't revive the king. Make the Forger need to kill Frava? 

[Mat]

Okay, went a little crazy... here is a full MR game plan, complete with starting writeup:

Spoiler

Mid-Range Game ##: A Broken Imperium 

As the dim sun rises over an ashen sky, the Lord Ruler gazes from Kredik Shaw with distaste. His Obligators and Inquisitors are at a standstill- fighting and struggling for power in and out of the Steel Ministry. The Lord Ruler grimaces. How was he to rule while struggling against the Deepness and while his followers squabbled in the ruins of the Final Empire? 

---

Factions: 

Obligators: The Village 

• Win Condition- Kill/lynch all the Inquisitors 
• Remains unknown to each other- no group doc 

Inquisitors: The Eliminators 

• Win Condition- Reach equal numbers with the Obligators 
• Has a doc to communicate in and a kill every cycle which must be submitted by an elim in their GM PM 

Lord Ruler: The Hidden Overseer 

• Win Condition- By the end of C3 the Lord Ruler must formally align themselves with either the Obligators or the Inquisitors in their GM PM. Their win condition will become the same as their new alignment, but they also must remain alive to win. 
• If they align themselves with the Inquisitors they will not join the doc and the Inquisitors will not be informed 
• Has a doc to jot down their thoughts

 

 

Roles/Abilities: 

Faction-Specific: 

• Obligators: None 
• Inquisitors:  
  • The Spiked: Due to their incredible survival skills it takes two lynches/kills to take out an Inquisitor. Because of this there will be less eliminators in the game than there would otherwise be. 
• Lord Ruler:   
  • Ruling Lord: The Lord Ruler can discover the alignment of the targeted player once he aligns himself with a faction. This ability is available three times per two cycles. i.e., C3 and C4 the ability is available 3 times, then it resets in C5 back to 3 times until C6 ends. 

 

Non-Faction Specific: No player will have more than one of these roles, and some will have none 

• Misting: Once per game, a Misting can kill a player 
• Canton Member: Canton Members belong to one, and only one, of these Cantons: 
  • Canton of Orthodoxy: A member of the CoO can rolescan a player. 
  • Canton of Resource: A member of the CoR can remove a lynch vote 
  • Canton of Finance: A member of the CoF can move a lynch vote, but this action cancels their own  
  • Canton of Inquisition: A member of the CoI can roleblock a player, delaying their action for a cycle. This action will delay elim kills. Members of this Canton do not have to and won’t necessarily be Inquisitors 

 

 

Private Messages: 

PM’s are freely open as long as a member of each Canton lives. Once this is not the case PM’s are restricted to one per cycle. Group PM’s are allowed up to three members, not including the Game Master, who must be included in every PM. 

 

 

Details & Housekeeping: 

• Ideal player count: The higher side, 22-30 ish 
• Turns are combined, with 48-hour cycles. 
• One vote lynch minimum. A tied vote results in a random player from the tie being lynched.

So, once the kinks get worked out, ideally I would absolutely love to GM this but it would be far to long before I would be qualified for that, so I wouldn't really care. I would want to play it, though.

Questions/Concerns/Tips/Kinks?

 

EDIT: Actually, how qualified do you need to be to host a game?  

Edited June 15, 2020 by Matrim's_Dice

[The Young Pyromancer]

Finance is strictly better than Resource in almost all scenarios. I would suggest the Financier canceling their own vote, as that's standard in Allomantic setups.

[Mat]

2 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Finance is strictly better than Resource in almost all scenarios. I would suggest the Financier canceling their own vote, as that's standard in Allomantic setups.

Cancel their own vote, or switch abilities with Resourse?

[The Young Pyromancer]

First. It adds a drawback to the ability. They can move a vote around, but they lose their own.

[Mat]

2 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

First. It adds a drawback to the ability. They can move a vote around, but they lose their own.

Ah I see. Edited to comply.

[Straw]

First of all, thanks for formatting. 

To clarify, The Spiked applies to all Inquisitors?

Is there a lynch minimum? What happens if the lynch is tied?

What’s the point of having the rolescan possibly fail? It’s not that strong compared to the other abilities.

Yeah, Pyro’s right about the vote manipulation. If you want resource and finance to be somewhat equal, you want them to cancel their own vote. Of course, another alternative, though less common, is letting them double a vote.

Hmm, very clever having TLR give an equivalent benefit to each faction. The main issue I see is him doing the following: scan three times C1 and pick village, then claim to all villagers he scans.  To fix this, I’d suggest doing a few things:

-Remove his alignment scan until he picks a side. This should prevent him giving such a huge benefit to the village compared to the elims.

-Think about making it so he’s always assigned to the losing side on C3, instead of letting him choose. This would hopefully remove the issue of him choosing villager C1 and then being their alignment scanner. It would also remove the issue of him tilting the game, since he’d always try to choose the winning side.

-Also, remove the deepness. No matter what alignment he is, getting revealed to the thread would end with him dying. Plus, making it random just isn’t fun for him. Survivor roles are hard enough.

I don’t see much point to having this be 24/24 instead of 48/0. There isn’t that much night stuff going on, so unless you feel strongly about it I’d recommend changing that. Lots of the actions are during the day anyway.

About GMing experience, there isn’t really any requirement? It’s advisable that you’ve played a decent number of games, but by the time you get around on the list, you should have a decent body of games played. It’s also probably advisable that you get a co-GM for your first game, to help if you have any issues with stuff. I’d be willing to help out, assuming I’m not super busy whenever you end up running this. Also, you can always ask if someone else needs a co-GM, so you can get a better look at how a game is run.

You do have to sign up to run a game, usually by pinging a mod with your request and the format of your game. You’ll then be added to the GM list. You also have to run the game by a committee of mods and a few other people once you think it’s ready. They’ll check to make sure it’s balanced and everything. 

[Mat]

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

To clarify, The Spiked applies to all Inquisitors?

Yes. Is this a bad thing?

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

Is there a lynch minimum? What happens if the lynch is tied?

Uh, One I guess, to prevent there being no votes and a lynch. If there is a tie a random voted on player will be lynched

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

What’s the point of having the rolescan possibly fail? It’s not that strong compared to the other abilities.

Eh, I don't know. Maybe in my first draft it was stronger and I forgot to take that out? it might have originally been an alignment scan, or maybe I just like the probability mechanic...

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

-Remove his alignment scan until he picks a side. This should prevent him giving such a huge benefit to the village compared to the elims.

Oohhh this is smart. Okay.

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

-Also, remove the deepness. No matter what alignment he is, getting revealed to the thread would end with him dying. Plus, making it random just isn’t fun for him. Survivor roles are hard enough.

I don’t see much point to having this be 24/24 instead of 48/0. There isn’t that much night stuff going on, so unless you feel strongly about it I’d recommend changing that. Lots of the actions are during the day anyway.

Gotcha. Thanks for all the recommendations! 

[Straw]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Yes. Is this a bad thing?

Nope! Just checking.

[Coffeecat]

On 6/15/2020 at 1:15 PM, Straw said:

About GMing experience, there isn’t really any requirement? It’s advisable that you’ve played a decent number of games, but by the time you get around on the list, you should have a decent body of games played. It’s also probably advisable that you get a co-GM for your first game, to help if you have any issues with stuff. I’d be willing to help out, assuming I’m not super busy whenever you end up running this. Also, you can always ask if someone else needs a co-GM, so you can get a better look at how a game is run

This sounds interesting, if anyone needs a co-gm, please consider me. i dont have that much time, but i am capable of writing a semi-good write up in about 20 min.

i need the experience!

thanks

[Mat]

Agreeing with Silberfarben, that experience would be nice, though it would need to be post-July.

 

Edit: Here's a question I had about my game design. When the LR aligns himself with a faction, would he join the numbers? For example:

If he aligns himself with the Obligators, will the Inquisitors have to kill one more? (Can it end with this ratio: 2, 1, 2 or will the Inquisitors have to kill another villager/the LR?)

If he aligns himself with the Inquisitors can the Obligators win if the Lord Ruler is the only non-village left? (Can it end with this ratio: 4, 1, 0 or does the village have to kill the LR?)

Edited June 15, 2020 by Matrim's_Dice

[xinoehp512]

Am I on the list for co-GMing? I think I asked about it once, but can't recall what the outcome was...

[Straw]

Just now, xinoehp512 said:

Am I on the list for co-GMing? I think I asked about it once, but can't recall what the outcome was...

There isn’t any list for co-GMing. You pretty much just ask around and see if anyone is interested.

[xinoehp512]

Ah, I see.

Is anyone interested?  Or do I actually have to be social?

[Araris Valerian]

There is a GM PM where requests usually go out. I think Fifth would have to add you to it (although it really is more for GMs than co-GMs, I think).

[Elbereth]

Matrim, Xino, and Silber, you've all been added to the GM PM, where people will occasionally ask for co-GMs. 

There might also be a co-GM signup list going up somewhere soon, once I'm slightly less busy.  If it does, your names will be the first three on the list! 

[Straw]

14 hours ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Agreeing with Silberfarben, that experience would be nice, though it would need to be post-July.

 

Edit: Here's a question I had about my game design. When the LR aligns himself with a faction, would he join the numbers? For example:

If he aligns himself with the Obligators, will the Inquisitors have to kill one more? (Can it end with this ratio: 2, 1, 2 or will the Inquisitors have to kill another villager/the LR?)

If he aligns himself with the Inquisitors can the Obligators win if the Lord Ruler is the only non-village left? (Can it end with this ratio: 4, 1, 0 or does the village have to kill the LR?)

I would probably advise having him count towards parity once he joins a faction.

Some of this stuff is stolen from Elbereth/Haelbarde/me chatting in Discord so credit to them:

You might want to give TLR some sort of ability if he joins the elims. As it is, the benefit from him joining the village is quite a bit greater than the benefit the elims gain.

Balance would probably be easier if you made it so that Inquisitors can have a single life. That way you have a bit more flexibility when distributing, and can make the game a bit less vulnerable to random hits on Inquisitors.

If you go through with letting TLR pick which side to join, you'll probably want to give some sort of buff to the side that he doesn't choose. I'm not exactly sure what kind of buff to give, since it would largely depend on how/if you end up adjusting him.

[Mat]

1 hour ago, Straw said:

I would probably advise having him count towards parity once he joins a faction.

Some of this stuff is stolen from Elbereth/Haelbarde/me chatting in Discord so credit to them:

You might want to give TLR some sort of ability if he joins the elims. As it is, the benefit from him joining the village is quite a bit greater than the benefit the elims gain.

Balance would probably be easier if you made it so that Inquisitors can have a single life. That way you have a bit more flexibility when distributing, and can make the game a bit less vulnerable to random hits on Inquisitors.

If you go through with letting TLR pick which side to join, you'll probably want to give some sort of buff to the side that he doesn't choose. I'm not exactly sure what kind of buff to give, since it would largely depend on how/if you end up adjusting him.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well.

Noted.

Mhm, maybe. I do like the idea of having there being consistent outed elims, though. That would create some interesting situations.

The reason I'm shying away from this is that I like the mechanic of the mystery that only TLR knows which faction he is aligned to, and the elims and village then have to figure out which one. Giving this buff would decline that and I don't really want to.  

Edited June 16, 2020 by Matrim's_Dice

[Straw]

15 minutes ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well.

Noted.

Mhm, maybe. I do like the idea of having there being consistent outed elims, though. That would create some interesting situations.

The reason I'm shying away from this is that I like the mechanic of the mystery that only TLR knows which faction he is aligned to, and the elims and village then have to figure out which one. Giving this buff would decline that and I don't really want to.  

Yeah, I very much like the consistent outed elims bit, but it's useful to have some single life people for balance purposes. In Discord, I think Elbereth recommended three spiked, and then having the rest have single lives. That would probably result in there being a few outed elims to mess around with, but not so many that it becomes really swingy. @Elbereth any thoughts/advice on this specifically?

The issue with that is that if TLR joins the village, he will scan people, PM the villagers he confirmed with the full results, and then have them reveal to the thread and act as messengers for his scans. If he doesn't do that, it'd be obvious that he chose to join the elims instead.

[|TJ|]

I was skimming the pinned threads, and there's some stuff about some special requirement to host non-Sanderson games. Is it so? I have a very brief outline for a Gentleman Bastards game. I'd like to know if I should continue to develop it or not. It will probably be a blackout game. 
I'm also planning a relatively normal 3-sided game (because blackout is definitely not the first thing I'd want to host) set during the Well of Ascension, the 3 sides being - Cett, Venture, Venture. Was a game with this specific setting played in the past?

[Straw]

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

I was skimming the pinned threads, and there's some stuff about some special requirement to host non-Sanderson games. Is it so? I have a very brief outline for a Gentleman Bastards game. I'd like to know if I should continue to develop it or not. It will probably be a blackout game. 
I'm also planning a relatively normal 3-sided game (because blackout is definitely not the first thing I'd want to host) set during the Well of Ascension, the 3 sides being - Cett, Venture, Venture. Was a game with this specific setting played in the past?

From AG3 onwards, non-Sanderson games require a pass to be run. Each AG (other than AG5), passes have been distributed to some players. If you want to run a non-Sanderson game, you'll have to convince one of the following people to give you their pass:

• Wyrmhero
• DeTess
• _Stick_
• Arraenae
• StrikerEZ
• Burnt Spaghetti

As for the Mistborn game, the first Siege of Luthadel game that comes to mind is LG41, but I can't think of any with that exact setup. How exactly would the factions work? Would it be all against each other, two elim factions, a split village, or something else?

[|TJ|]

Hmm, I'd imagine they have plans for their passes. Time to check for the next AG. 

Yeah I can't decide on the factions. That's why I asked if there were any similar previous games. I was thinking about all against each other, with Straff Venture and Cett factions being semi-elim in nature. They don't get docs but they get to know the identity of one of their teammates. Either - 

• A knows B. B knows C.... so on till Z knows A (but without PMs) OR
• A knows B. B knows A. C knows D. D knows C, and so on. 

Thoughts on this arrangement?

Main reason is I want to have around equal number on players in each teams. So I'm a bit worried whether knowing even one of their teammates would give them an unfair advantage over Elend Venture (let's call them village). If it does, how to sort them? Give the village the same thing as well?

If it is balanced, then I have to worry about kill roles. I can't have all the 3 factions with night (or cycle) kills. That's 4 kills per cycle which is too much. I'm thinking of having something like an automatic transfer steel flakes vial which shifts to another team after current use (it will also shift if they don't use it). So one faction will have a kill once in 3 cycles, but there will be 2 kills per cycle (including the lynch). Could this be a problem in the endgame where the team holding the vial would have an advantage?

What do you think?