The Art of Game Creation

[Ashbringer]

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place to ask, but is there any word on how Break Tank games will work? Like, would it just be a run game until it breaks beyond recognition, or would there be active rebalancing?

I have my Insert-Book-Climax-Game Core almost set up (which I'll post at some point), but because it relies on essentially an HP system I feel like there's a... lot that could be broken 

 

[Araris Valerian]

I mentioned in the AG thread that I was interested in a ruleset that incentivizes using PMs to discover roles. My rough sketch of the main concept is that everyone would have a "class" in addition to any role they may have (I was thinking roughly 4 classes). Then, all or most actions only succeed if you also correctly submit the class of the target. The game would either be role madness, or vanilla players would be able to enhance their vote by submitting the class of the player they are voting for. PMs would be open (but maybe only 1-1). Some potential roles would mess with player classes mid-game.

The thought is that everyone would be incentivized to use PMs to learn the classes of other players, but the villagers would want to exercise caution to limit who the elims can kill. The balance would probably be such that a total reveal of classes would overall help out the elims over the village.

It's still a rough framework, but I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this. 

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

On 1/25/2021 at 6:53 PM, Araris Valerian said:

I mentioned in the AG thread that I was interested in a ruleset that incentivizes using PMs to discover roles. My rough sketch of the main concept is that everyone would have a "class" in addition to any role they may have (I was thinking roughly 4 classes). Then, all or most actions only succeed if you also correctly submit the class of the target. The game would either be role madness, or vanilla players would be able to enhance their vote by submitting the class of the player they are voting for. PMs would be open (but maybe only 1-1). Some potential roles would mess with player classes mid-game.

The thought is that everyone would be incentivized to use PMs to learn the classes of other players, but the villagers would want to exercise caution to limit who the elims can kill. The balance would probably be such that a total reveal of classes would overall help out the elims over the village.

It's still a rough framework, but I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this. 

Sounds crazy! I love it!

[Kasimir]

I'm currently planning to use that second slot to rerun Wyrm's LG7 House Wars game instead. (Yes, I know, we've had a lot.) Or to rework it and reskin it - basically, he had a significant number of patch notes but I think his Informant mechanic was promising and fun, even if it disadvantaged the skaa. And Wyrm'alor's notes leave a prospective GM with a decent place to look to in terms of fixing it. 

Same insight as yours, Araris. With the meta the way it is right now, plus a few chaosmongers among the players, a fixed/reworked Informant mechanic might give players a lot of fun things to do.

[+Lotus]

Hello! I am working on a game with a neutral party that I need some help balancing.

They were originally a survival-wincon but Stink suggested they could have a goal of not being discovered/scanned instead.

In response, Gears thought that was too much RNG. EDIT: "Gears thought that STINK's solution undermined the player's ability to meaningfully contribute to their win-con."

Anywhere here is the (very much WIP) doc, advice appreciated

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RbmFDO9KFonreDcBV8vD3bTnhyfaC4o5EaW8iAk-LMo/edit?usp=sharing

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lotus
gears is mad at me for misinterpreting the statement in question.

[Ashbringer]

*Cough*

[+Lotus]

Thanks Ash.

I got the Ibis issue somewhat sorted out but I'm still looking for more imput, so please feel free to comment.

[---]

2 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

*Cough*

Yo yo yo you ain't getting 10 upvotes from this post as well good sir smh

[Elandera]

I'm developing a game where the village faction does not have the win-con to get rid of all the elims. Instead, their goal is to survive long enough to reveal a secret to the world. This is in an effort to balance the fact the elims "kill" has a chance to convert the target instead. For context, this is the Firefly game I've been thinking of today and it will be based on the events in Serenity. Elims are Reavers, there's a neutral Alliance faction, and the village is the Crew of Serenity. The secret they're trying to reveal is the secret of Miranda and the creation of the Reavers.

My only problem is coming up with a way to put the power of revealing the secret in the hands of the players rather than with RNG. The easy answer is that every turn, there's a percentage chance of getting one step closer to the reveal. 

One potential is that players can use their action either for their ability (everyone will have a role), or to make progress towards the reveal. Maybe something like fighting the Krell in Steeldancer's Skyward game. I'm open to suggestions.

EDIT: For reference, here are the rules so far.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Elandera

[StrikerEZ]

57 minutes ago, Elandera said:

One potential is that players can use their action either for their ability (everyone will have a role), or to make progress towards the reveal. Maybe something like fighting the Krell in Steeldancer's Skyward game. I'm open to suggestions.

I think a mechanic similar to the Krell from his Skyward game would actually work really well for that. The caveat of this being that I have no idea what this story is though.

[Elandera]

26 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I think a mechanic similar to the Krell from his Skyward game would actually work really well for that. The caveat of this being that I have no idea what this story is though.

It is a tragedy how many people don't know Firefly. It's a fantastic Space Western that was cancelled too early. Most of this game will be based on the movie, Serenity (which I found is free to watch on Peacock). It's independent enough that you can still enjoy it without having watched the series, but all of it is very, very worth it.

[Alvron]

Firefly is truly wonderful and is something I constantly rewatch.  But Serenity, I'm still not over that death.

[Araris Valerian]

I've written up a draft of the rules for my "PM (un)Safety" game. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Mat]

4 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I've written up a draft of the rules for my "PM (un)Safety" game. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Your doc formatting/wording looks an awful lot like my Highprince LG doc hmmmmmmm

The game itself looks mostly good though, but the Carpenter role seems a bit underpowered compared with the Elder.

[Araris Valerian]

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Your doc formatting/wording looks an awful lot like my Highprince LG doc hmmmmmmm

Guilty as charged. Take it as a compliment of your nice formatting .

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

The game itself looks mostly good though, but the Carpenter role seems a bit underpowered compared with the Elder.

Any thoughts on how to modify the Carpenter? Maybe twice per game? The Elder I think should feel a bit stronger since their role has maximum potential when working with another player.

[Quintessential]

8 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Your doc formatting/wording looks an awful lot like my Highprince LG doc hmmmmmmm

The game itself looks mostly good though, but the Carpenter role seems a bit underpowered compared with the Elder.

Yeah, I noticed that too--maybe the Carpenter can move every other turn? Or every turn?

Does the Elder have the option of guessing the locations of both players, and if one of them is correct then the action goes through? Or do they only guess one?

I also think the Informant is a bit complicated, and probably not very useful since in most cases you can't be certain who your target last targeted. It might be more useful to have Informant learn the role of another player, or who another player's target is, rather than the target's location.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Quinn0928

[Araris Valerian]

2 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

Does the Elder have the option of guessing the locations of both players, and if one of them is correct then the action goes through? Or do they only guess one?

The Elder would only guess at one location.

2 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

I also think the Informant is a bit complicated, and probably not very useful since in most cases you can't be certain who your target last targeted. It might be more useful to have Informant learn the role of another player, or who another player's target is, rather than the target's location.

I should clarify that. The informant learns both who was targeted and their location.

3 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

Yeah, I noticed that too--maybe the Carpenter can move every other turn? Or every turn?

I don't want this, since that would make them basically untargetable.

[Mat]

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Guilty as charged. Take it as a compliment of your nice formatting .

 That I will.

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Any thoughts on how to modify the Carpenter? Maybe twice per game? The Elder I think should feel a bit stronger since their role has maximum potential when working with another player.

Twice per game seems good, though with the specificness of the actions I probably wouldn't do more than that.

2 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

I also think the Informant is a bit complicated, and probably not very useful since in most cases you can't be certain who your target last targeted. It might be more useful to have Informant learn the role of another player, or who another player's target is, rather than the target's location.

Again with the specific action requirement, I think leaving it as the target's location makes sense. Though I must admit the wording of 'the last player targeted by your target' sorta flies over my head  

[Quintessential]

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I should clarify that. The informant learns both who was targeted and their location.

Ah, that makes more sense.

I also think that if it's a role madness game it might make sense to add a couple of roles... maybe a role that knows who started in their tenement (the Landlord) or one that can deflect someone's action back onto them (the Misting? I mean, the Obligators are hunting for Mistings, amirite?). Obviously I'm not the expert on game balancing or anything though XD so maybe I'm wrong about that...

[Araris Valerian]

Just now, Quinn0928 said:

I also think that if it's a role madness game it might make sense to add a couple of roles... maybe a role that knows who started in their tenement (the Landlord) or one that can deflect someone's action back onto them (the Misting? I mean, the Obligators are hunting for Mistings, amirite?). Obviously I'm not the expert on game balancing or anything though XD so maybe I'm wrong about that...

It is "role madness", sort of (I clarified that). There would probably be a lot of Workers, since I want to incentivize everyone to be involved in the information game. I also wanted to keep the mechanics pretty simple to see how the location idea actually works. I did think about some way to have starting information like the Landlord idea, but I'm not sure that helps with the concept.

[Quintessential]

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

It is "role madness", sort of (I clarified that). There would probably be a lot of Workers, since I want to incentivize everyone to be involved in the information game. I also wanted to keep the mechanics pretty simple to see how the location idea actually works. I did think about some way to have starting information like the Landlord idea, but I'm not sure that helps with the concept.

Ah, that makes sense. 

Another thought... wouldn't it be fun if the elims had to submit the correct location for their kill to go through? They could even start off with a list of where everyone is, so that during C1 they basically are where they're at right now, but then moving around actually can protect you? (This is a terrible idea don't listen to me XD)

[Araris Valerian]

Just now, Quinn0928 said:

Another thought... wouldn't it be fun if the elims had to submit the correct location for their kill to go through? They could even start off with a list of where everyone is, so that during C1 they basically are where they're at right now, but then moving around actually can protect you? (This is a terrible idea don't listen to me XD)

I think an inconsistent elim kill is one of the easiest ways to imbalance a game. What you suggest is what I thought of when writing the rules, but I think the elims will be highly motivated to seek out correct locations if they have a couple of roles on their team (or even if they just have Workers, since the vote manip is pretty strong).

[---]

28 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I should clarify that. The informant learns both who was targeted and their location.

Ohhhhh I for some reason didn't associate "name" with "player" and thought that you would have to figure out who they targeted instead of just learning it :P.

[danex]

I had an idea for an alternate voting system last night, what do you guys think about this? The way the village votes seems to be the one constant throughout most games, and I was thinking of how it could be varied.

I thought up a 'Poison-Antidote' system. Each player has 2 votes, represented as a dose of poison, and a dose of the antidote. The poison is essentially the same as a normal vote. An antidote vote is like a vote removal. So every player has vote manip kinda. One dose of antidote cancels out one dose of poison. If a player has even a single dose of poison not canceled out, they die. A Poison vote would be in Red, like normal, and an Antidote vote would be in Yellow. All votes would be public in the thread.

Does this seem like it would be fun? Is it needlessly complicated? Any game-breaking flaws I'm not seeing?

[Gears]

6 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Does this seem like it would be fun? Is it needlessly complicated? Any game-breaking flaws I'm not seeing?

It takes away the "majority vote" feel of a standard X. Recommendation: Have 3 doses of poison be fatal (or whatever number you want for balance), but doses stack over the game (and antidotes can cure doses from previous rounds). Antidotes cannot put a person into the negatives. Have some downside to being poisoned, but nothing too bad. 

EDIT: Does this belong in the Game Creation thread? I don't know where to put it, but this isn't really a game per se.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Gears