The Art of Game Creation

[StrikerEZ]

43 minutes ago, JNV said:

Yeah. In the role bits for Lightweaver and Informat you said the round bit happens if the other team wins.

But up top it says this

And it does the same but flipped thing for the Informat

 I understand now! Thank you for catching that!

[|TJ|]

8 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Pretty sure it was MR46. TJ was the neutral, and his engagement was pretty good- but keep in mind that he immediately aligned himself with the village.

Context for this was I had the alignment scan ability but I could only scan once I had aligned myself with a faction. So the sooner I aligned myself with the village, the more scans I got. 

[Kasimir]

10 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Context for this was I had the alignment scan ability but I could only scan once I had aligned myself with a faction. So the sooner I aligned myself with the village, the more scans I got. 

Let's face it. Who would go Elim anyway?  

[xinoehp512]

*shifts guiltily with voidspren gem*

[Steeldancer]

Well, I've finished my first draft of rules for my "Choose your own alignment" hallendren Manywar game. 

I really need someone to look it over, though as I said on the discord, if you see what the secret factions win conditions are, it's going to somewhat ruin the game. So if there's anyone who's definitely uninterested in playing but would be willing to look the rules over, that'd be great. Just shoot me a message on discord, I'll see it sooner that way. 

[---]

Two rough Break Tank ideas (with very much working titles):

Warning that neither of these would be run in the standard decided Break Tank format really (meaning short cycles.)

BT##: Are you tired yet? [working title #1]

There's quite a few people here who can't be in thread a lot, sometimes for days at a time during a game, sometimes for specific days every week. I wanted to try running a longer form game to see if people would be interested in trying that.

Day/Night Lengths are changeable, right now I have them set at 144 hours (6 days) for day turns and 24 hours for night turns. The idea is that a cycle would be about a week in length. People would not be allowed to talk during night cycles (besides the Elims, of course), and this is mostly because after a long day cycle I assume people will start to get burnt out. So the night cycle would mostly be so that they can ignore the game for a whole day if they like and come back later. This could also be extended to 48 hours.

There's nothing much in the doc right now, because if I would be allowed to run this as a BT (which I'm not sure on) I'd want to find a ruleset that would be pretty normal/similar to a lot of things that are run, and could be used with a smaller playercount. Looking at probably a 9 player game.

Doc here, not much in it right now.

BT##: Only for a night [working title #2]

This one isn't much of a full game, but a test. It was an idea I came up with after talking with some people about D1 accuracy in reads.

It would last exactly 96 hours, split into a 48 hour day turn, a 24 hour night turn, and a 24 hour twilight period. During the day cycle people will play normally like they would in a game. During the night each player would send in a list of who they'd like to Execute, in order. Alongside that, the Elims would send in a list of who they'd like to Night Kill, in order.

After the Night cycle is over, the Night Kill/any other public feedback from that night will be announced. Then a 24 hour twilight period in which no talking is allowed will start, and all players will be given the option to modify their lists one time.

Then once that is all over, the game is over and we'll see what each day's elimination and nightkill would be. There is a little bit more detailed explaination in the doc, if it's not clear, but that's it.

Doc here.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Illwei

[Straw]

7 minutes ago, Illwei said:

BT##: Are you tired yet? [working title #1]

There's quite a few people here who can't be in thread a lot, sometimes for days at a time during a game, sometimes for specific days every week. I wanted to try running a longer form game to see if people would be interested in trying that.

Day/Night Lengths are changeable, right now I have them set at 144 hours (6 days) for day turns and 24 hours for night turns. The idea is that a cycle would be about a week in length. People would not be allowed to talk during night cycles (besides the Elims, of course), and this is mostly because after a long day cycle I assume people will start to get burnt out. So the night cycle would mostly be so that they can ignore the game for a whole day if they like and come back later. This could also be extended to 48 hours.

There's nothing much in the doc right now, because if I would be allowed to run this as a BT (which I'm not sure on) I'd want to find a ruleset that would be pretty normal/similar to a lot of things that are run, and could be used with a smaller playercount. Looking at probably a 9 player game.

Based on what I've seen on other sites, I think games with longer cycles like this can be pretty annoying to play since you have to wait so long to get results. Also, I feel like you'd run into significant issues with player burnout or inactivity.

10 minutes ago, Illwei said:

BT##: Only for a night [working title #2]

This one isn't much of a full game, but a test. It was an idea I came up with after talking with some people about D1 accuracy in reads.

It would last exactly 96 hours, split into a 48 hour day turn, a 24 hour night turn, and a 24 hour twilight period. During the day cycle people will play normally like they would in a game. During the night each player would send in a list of who they'd like to Execute, in order. Alongside that, the Elims would send in a list of who they'd like to Night Kill, in order.

After the Night cycle is over, the Night Kill/any other public feedback from that night will be announced. Then a 24 hour twilight period in which no talking is allowed will start, and all players will be given the option to modify their lists one time.

Then once that is all over, the game is over and we'll see what each day's elimination and nightkill would be. There is a little bit more detailed explaination in the doc, if it's not clear, but that's it.

This could be interesting. My main question is whether the twilight period is even necessary, since I'm not sure how much info players would get from the one night kill. Also, the elim team would have to be very small, in order to counterbalance every vote essentially being a day one vote.

[---]

1 minute ago, Straw said:

Based on what I've seen on other sites, I think games with longer cycles like this can be pretty annoying to play since you have to wait so long to get results. Also, I feel like you'd run into significant issues with player burnout or inactivity.

Then you wouldn't be my target audience, but also why I'm wanting to run it as a BT, and then just close it when i find people getting too burnt out. That's why I'd be looking at players who like to pop in every day, once a day, comment on things going on and then leave. There are players right now who play like that in normal games, even QFs, and it's hard to mesh those with people who like to post more, which we also have quite a few of.

The reason people get burnt out in long form games is because they are the type of player who feels the need to threadcamp and sit and wait and interact realtime with everyone, when that isn't how you play longform games. It means people like Tani who aren't on on sundays don't miss a whole or half a cycle, it means people like Exp who have to dissappear for days don't have to get replaced out.

I was going to include a bit about the similarity with vanilla games in the problem about keeping people engaged, but that isn't really applicable because the goal would be to see if anyone would be interested in trying it out because maybe it could suit their playstyle, rather than try and get people who don't think they could play a longform mafia game and try and accommodate it to them.

3 minutes ago, Straw said:

This could be interesting. My main question is whether the twilight period is even necessary, since I'm not sure how much info players would get from the one night kill. Also, the elim team would have to be very small, in order to counterbalance every vote essentially being a day one vote.

The Elim team would be whatever the normal ratio is. The goal would be to test the accuracy of D1 reads. By saying this, you imply that you think D1 accuracy is >rand, when a lot of other people think it's very <rand. (see Archer saying "we're not going to kill an Elim today, but-" in every game).

[Straw]

9 minutes ago, Illwei said:

The Elim team would be whatever the normal ratio is. The goal would be to test the accuracy of D1 reads. By saying this, you imply that you think D1 accuracy is >rand, when a lot of other people think it's very <rand. (see Archer saying "we're not going to kill an Elim today, but-" in every game).

tbh I think it's good to have a game that the village actually has some chance of winning, since there's virtually no chance they'd win based only off of day one guesses. If you want to see if day one reads are better or worse than rand, why not tune the game so if village votes are random it's roughly a tossup? While this would normally just be done by altering the size of the elim team, you could also do other stuff like not giving the elims a kill / giving them limited kills in order to give the village more of an edge.

[---]

Just now, Straw said:

tbh I think it's good to have a game that the village actually has some chance of winning, since there's virtually no chance they'd win based only off of day one guesses. If you want to see if day one reads are better or worse than rand, why not tune the game so if village votes are random it's roughly a tossup? While this would normally just be done by altering the size of the elim team, you could also do other stuff like not giving the elims a kill / giving them limited kills in order to give the village more of an edge.

1) it's a breaktank

2) it's directly to test the accuracy of D1 reads

3) I don't think people will care/get too attached about winning a game that they only play for 3 days

[xinoehp512]

Well, I was trying to make a Serial Killer + Neutral QF game in case I wind up running one soon, but I think it might be more of a MR now... which is unfortunate, as I don't have a spot on the MR list, and it took me almost a year to get as high as I have on the QF list.

Either way, feedback would be appreciated!

QF/MR##: What Money Cannot Buy

[Araris Valerian]

20 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Well, I was trying to make a Serial Killer + Neutral QF game in case I wind up running one soon, but I think it might be more of a MR now... which is unfortunate, as I don't have a spot on the MR list, and it took me almost a year to get as high as I have on the QF list.

Either way, feedback would be appreciated!

QF/MR##: What Money Cannot Buy

My initial feedback is that you should have some sort of restriction on what counts as a post for the “most posts” boxing award. A similar mechanic was run a while back with no such restriction and it was a nightmare.

[xinoehp512]

11 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

My initial feedback is that you should have some sort of restriction on what counts as a post for the “most posts” boxing award. A similar mechanic was run a while back with no such restriction and it was a nightmare.

Fair enough! Perhaps posts over 200 words?

[Araris Valerian]

20 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Fair enough! Perhaps posts over 200 words?

Yeah, though you might want to also specify that the words need to be game related as well.

[xinoehp512]

9 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Yeah, though you might want to also specify that the words need to be game related as well.

Would RP be a problem, you think?

I would also appreciate feedback on the prices of items, if you see any glaring problems :P.

[Archer]

@xinoehp512

--The Thief can identify Investigatior because they won't get boxings from them. Their wincon is survival and there's one elim, so identifying and killing the single elim is the quickest path to victory. So they're best off aligning with the village and serving as an alignment scanner. I suggest patching this by having the elim give a couple boxings of bank money to the Thief instead of giving nothing. 

--Perhaps limit people to not being able to win Loudest Voice multiple times/in a row. Obviously spam should be discouraged through some guidelines, but the bigger problem is actually that as a driver of discussion, it fails to motivate people much once it becomes clear that one or two people have developed a solid lead in that department. Ideally you'd have some kind of contribution ranking system, but anything you do will be gamed or be too much work to be worth it. Best idea I can come up with is doing something that prioritizes interaction over individual content production. Something like you get a point for every interaction you have with another person's post, such as group RPing or responding to ideas. It'll be GM work intensive though 

--If I vote Player X, then vote for Player Y, but in the meantime someone votes for Player X and that becomes a big train, I don't get credit for starting that train, right?

--Senators paying their hush money should be a passive action to avoid accidental deaths to that.

--If the Thief needs to earn 5 boxings C1, they can't do that without winning Loudest Voice or starting a train. Unless the theft money they steal can go into their hush money payment in that same rollover?

--Thief will kill someone C1 by robbing them of enough money to pay the hush money expense

--The inherent flaw of single elim games is the elim must be an active player, so GM selection bias can be predicted. And if an elim kill ever goes through and someone hasn't been around that round, they're automatically cleared. Personal preference is that an elim kill is always submitted on a random target as a passive action, then the elim submitting the kill overrides that choice.

--And don't underestimate player frustration with what will be a LOT of village flips. They know to expect it in this set up, so that's good, just keep an eye on the thread mood

--Can boxings ever be transferred besides by the Thief theft?

--you should run the numbers on whether Bodyguard can be abused by the minority alignments to forcibly win the game. Or make it so it can't be used twice in a row. Or add a fun auction element where people bid for that ability and only the highest bid takes it. I'm zeroing in on that one because it blocks the exe

--I'd also look into what's your ideal player count and how you plan to adjust the game for less or more participants. Stuff like rampant kills might be bad in a small group

Edit: if the thief is removed from consideration, 2 people that alignment scan each other are guaranteed to be good. That's when you divert your efforts towards giving them all the boxings so they can spam Bodyguard (allow them to win Loudest etc) . Eventually you're left with 2 guaranteed goods vs 1 elim, and they'll win the exe. Both sides use vote manip, so it cancels each other out.

Do you really need an alignment scanning option? 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Archer

[Araris Valerian]

52 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Would RP be a problem, you think?

I would also appreciate feedback on the prices of items, if you see any glaring problems :P.

RP wouldn't be a problem (and I'd consider that game-related anyways). I'm thinking more of 200 words of filler/nonsense.

[xinoehp512]

10 hours ago, Archer said:

--The Thief can identify Investigatior because they won't get boxings from them. Their wincon is survival and there's one elim, so identifying and killing the single elim is the quickest path to victory. So they're best off aligning with the village and serving as an alignment scanner. I suggest patching this by having the elim give a couple boxings of bank money to the Thief instead of giving nothing. 

The Safe sort of serves that purpose right now, but of course it won't work if the Thief gets lucky and targets the elim C1. I was toying with this idea, but worried that it might be too obvious that the boxing count was faked. Maybe that's not a reasonable worry though.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

Perhaps limit people to not being able to win Loudest Voice multiple times/in a row. Obviously spam should be discouraged through some guidelines, but the bigger problem is actually that as a driver of discussion, it fails to motivate people much once it becomes clear that one or two people have developed a solid lead in that department. Ideally you'd have some kind of contribution ranking system, but anything you do will be gamed or be too much work to be worth it. Best idea I can come up with is doing something that prioritizes interaction over individual content production. Something like you get a point for every interaction you have with another person's post, such as group RPing or responding to ideas. It'll be GM work intensive though 

Hmm. Active on the Floor measures interactions through quotes, perhaps Loudest Voice should also? I have a web scraper program that I could probably configure to count it up automatically. Not being able to win it twice in a row would also probably be a good addition.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

If I vote Player X, then vote for Player Y, but in the meantime someone votes for Player X and that becomes a big train, I don't get credit for starting that train, right?

Yes. At the end of the cycle, the oldest vote on every train receives the boxings for that train.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

Senators paying their hush money should be a passive action to avoid accidental deaths to that.

That is the intention. I'll clarify that.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

If the Thief needs to earn 5 boxings C1, they can't do that without winning Loudest Voice or starting a train. Unless the theft money they steal can go into their hush money payment in that same rollover?

Theft money can be used the cycle it is obtained, just like all other methods of earning boxings.

Also, a train can be only one person.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

Thief will kill someone C1 by robbing them of enough money to pay the hush money expense

The Thief should want to target the person with the most boxings, so the Loudest Voice or the leader of a vote train.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

The inherent flaw of single elim games is the elim must be an active player, so GM selection bias can be predicted. And if an elim kill ever goes through and someone hasn't been around that round, they're automatically cleared. Personal preference is that an elim kill is always submitted on a random target as a passive action, then the elim submitting the kill overrides that choice.

I had some ideas for a secret body-hopping mechanic, but that could also work.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

And don't underestimate player frustration with what will be a LOT of village flips. They know to expect it in this set up, so that's good, just keep an eye on the thread mood

Thanks for the heads up.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

Can boxings ever be transferred besides by the Thief theft?

No. (Senators are too selfish to ever share).

11 hours ago, Archer said:

you should run the numbers on whether Bodyguard can be abused by the minority alignments to forcibly win the game. Or make it so it can't be used twice in a row. Or add a fun auction element where people bid for that ability and only the highest bid takes it. I'm zeroing in on that one because it blocks the exe

Bodyguard doesn't block the exe. I should clarify that. There is no way to block the exe.

11 hours ago, Archer said:

Do you really need an alignment scanning option?

Hmm... probably not, now that I think about it.  The original purpose was to give the village something expensive to save up for.

11 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

RP wouldn't be a problem (and I'd consider that game-related anyways). I'm thinking more of 200 words of filler/nonsense.

Naturally. Hopefully people can be trusted to be honorable about that kind of thing if asked politely.

[Archer]

On 10/06/2022 at 10:08 AM, xinoehp512 said:

The Safe sort of serves that purpose right now, but of course it won't work if the Thief gets lucky and targets the elim C1. I was toying with this idea, but worried that it might be too obvious that the boxing count was faked. Maybe that's not a reasonable worry though.

Hmm. Active on the Floor measures interactions through quotes, perhaps Loudest Voice should also? I have a web scraper program that I could probably configure to count it up automatically. Not being able to win it twice in a row would also probably be a good addition.

Yes. At the end of the cycle, the oldest vote on every train receives the boxings for that train.

That is the intention. I'll clarify that.

Theft money can be used the cycle it is obtained, just like all other methods of earning boxings.

Also, a train can be only one person.

The Thief should want to target the person with the most boxings, so the Loudest Voice or the leader of a vote train.

I had some ideas for a secret body-hopping mechanic, but that could also work.

Thanks for the heads up.

No. (Senators are too selfish to ever share).

Bodyguard doesn't block the exe. I should clarify that. There is no way to block the exe.

Hmm... probably not, now that I think about it.  The original purpose was to give the village something expensive to save up for.

Naturally. Hopefully people can be trusted to be honorable about that kind of thing if asked politely.

The catch with Safes is while that increases the number of people who could be the elim, those who robberies succeed against will still be confirmed village. 

I think people get excited enough about the prospect of a personal kill ability that you could make that the top tier. It'd also help lengthen a small player count game. 

The rest of your responses are reasonable. Once you decide how each of the suggestions you're considering will end up, let me know and I'll reread through the doc again. 

By the way, the elim wincon should be parity, not outnumber, in my opinion. I'd hate to see them get to the end and lose to a coinflip exe. Or maybe move the NK to before the exe in the Order of Actions (which you should write out in the rules).  I'm trying to remember if there's a reason people don't normally put NK before exe

[xinoehp512]

On 6/11/2022 at 10:09 PM, Archer said:

The catch with Safes is while that increases the number of people who could be the elim, those who robberies succeed against will still be confirmed village. 

I think people get excited enough about the prospect of a personal kill ability that you could make that the top tier. It'd also help lengthen a small player count game. 

The rest of your responses are reasonable. Once you decide how each of the suggestions you're considering will end up, let me know and I'll reread through the doc again. 

By the way, the elim wincon should be parity, not outnumber, in my opinion. I'd hate to see them get to the end and lose to a coinflip exe. Or maybe move the NK to before the exe in the Order of Actions (which you should write out in the rules).  I'm trying to remember if there's a reason people don't normally put NK before exe

I've implemented your suggestions and made a few more updates.

I've also created a simpler version of the game better able to run as a QF: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UmC7M3CFhSFesyEvDMwuWCG7eSpXiUzVJzeFt7i9d6U/edit

[Archer]

43 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

I've implemented your suggestions and made a few more updates.

I've also created a simpler version of the game better able to run as a QF: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UmC7M3CFhSFesyEvDMwuWCG7eSpXiUzVJzeFt7i9d6U/edit

With regards to the QF ruleset:

My brain always blanks on what the precedent here, so I'll ask how it'll go this game. If you're Assassinated before you submit say a Bribery action, does the vote manip still go through? (I think no because your bid is nullified)

I don't mind the possibility of multiple elims and losing the Thief, given the need to streamline it to run as a QF. You didn't specify if the elim kill is an action or not.

For higher player counts, I'd consider putting a hard cap on the number of boxings you can gather from Active on the Floor.

I worry about the risk involved with Blackmail, because if a bunch of people go inactive, it can lead to lots of death. But it's a QF and you can easily collect enough boxings to give yourself a buffer so this is fine. Just talk to your IM about your plan if say a bunch of people miss C1 for an unanticipated reason.

Speaking of IMs, I recommend reviewing how BT1 went because there's now some similarities. Also you should prep the action availability list in advance in your notes. Some GMs like to improvise it, but I feel it's fairer to make it in advance so you're not influenced by how the game plays out. If something isn't bought, does it remain in stock or does the supply list reset every cycle? Are people told if they succeed in buying things and what their boxing total is? 

I'd like it specified when bought actions apply. Do I buy a Bribe in the round I want to use it in, or a round in advance?

And I imagine exe candidates will blow their savings on Assassinations, so the extra cost won't be much of a deterrent. Not sure how those affect the balance - the impact of vig kills is a good conversation to have with an IM.

I'm quite impressed by the ruleset and I think it pulls together some fun elements while being simple enough for the format. Good job. You have my approval. I'll ping Araris to see if you can get a second. @Araris Valerian

I hope the BT will run as scheduled, but be prepared to bump your start date back if it's delayed. (Turns out the best way to break that game was a stubbornly low player count. :P) 

[Araris Valerian]

1 hour ago, xinoehp512 said:

I've implemented your suggestions and made a few more updates.

I've also created a simpler version of the game better able to run as a QF: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UmC7M3CFhSFesyEvDMwuWCG7eSpXiUzVJzeFt7i9d6U/edit

One question: Does your money get spent if your bid isn't accepted?

I'm also going to second Archer's suggestion for capping the boxings from Active on the Floor, but the details are up to you, so you also have my approval.

[xinoehp512]

3 hours ago, Archer said:

My brain always blanks on what the precedent here, so I'll ask how it'll go this game. If you're Assassinated before you submit say a Bribery action, does the vote manip still go through? (I think no because your bid is nullified)

Correct. Assassinated players cannot bribe. 

3 hours ago, Archer said:

And I imagine exe candidates will blow their savings on Assassinations, so the extra cost won't be much of a deterrent. Not sure how those affect the balance - the impact of vig kills is a good conversation to have with an IM.

To be safe, I'll populate the shop with the assumption that an Assassination will always be purchased when put up for sale.

3 hours ago, Archer said:

If something isn't bought, does it remain in stock or does the supply list reset every cycle?

 

Unpurchased items will remain in stock.

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Does your money get spent if your bid isn't accepted?

Yes.

Updates have been made, and rule clarifications added. Thank you!

[Araris Valerian]

@xinoehp512 you can go ahead and post signups when you are ready.

[Mat]

Finally thought of something worth using my pass on! MR##: Shadow Hunters

This is based off my favorite board game, one that you sadly can't buy anymore due to Z-man Games discontinuing its production. (Unless, that is, you don't mind spending 200+ dollars on e-bay). The board game itself is social deduction so I thought it'd fit quite nicely into SE!

As it turns out, it's... pretty complex but I think it works. As it stands a lot of the mechanics are mirrored from the board game mechanics, and ideally I'd change as little as possible from what I have written out now. The most flexible things for me are the hard percentage numbers, but I'm open to any suggestions as always. The win conditions and most of the mechanics I think are well balanced seeing as they actually exist in a product, but some things might have to be changed for a forum adaptation.

The most helpful critiquer would be someone who's played the actual board game, but I don't expect anyone here to have and it certianly isn't necessary to play it. Even if it would make critiquing and playing it alike easier.

The Clarifications section needs expanding. Help with that  I haven't got to the point of adding in the White/Black/Hermit item lists yet (Which will be links to separate google docs so this one doesn't grow exponentially) but a list of the corresponding cards can be found here. I don't think knowing the lists are essential for reviewing the game or even playing it, since again the mechanics have been proven. But they'll be there eventually, hopefully within 48 hours of this post. EDIT: Lists are in!

The rulebook for the actual board game can be found here.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Matrim's Dice