Doc12 Posted May 7 Posted May 7 4 hours ago, Araris Valerian said: Following players played into this as well, but mostly because the scenario was known and nobody was self-interested enough to go for items instead. I think the issue was, as you pointed out, the risk/reward wasn't great, even if I'm trying to play self-interestedly. My main goal was to stay alive, and when I did not have the gun, my options were 90% chance of finding a useless item, or a 80% chance of staying cleared and thus not executed. So in that scenario looking for items just wasn't worth it. I did try striking out and looking for items a few nights, and it just felt like I kept getting punished for it. 5 hours ago, Araris Valerian said: Exploration now involves the discovery of Locations. When you try to visit a location you think has been found, you submit the name of a player you think found the location already. If they have, you visit it (with a small chance of getting lost), otherwise you always get lost The same location can be found independently by multiple players Locations! Again, favorite part of Betrayal is uncovering new rooms and gaining advantages/disadvantages based on rooms. Excited for whenever this happens. I'm a little confused about the two bullet points - When you say the same location can be found independently, is that separate from the above condition where you try to visit a room based on what you think another player went? Options being - I explore a room or I try to find the room that X went to? I think it might be interesting to simply announce in the day thread what rooms have been found, but not by who, perhaps? As to the other changes to make the scenarios harder to rule out, sure, that sounds perfectly fair. Myst ruined it for us here by blabbing about what scenario it was, otherwise we'd have been paranoid a while longer Also, re: dead doc, I'd love to be in a Survival alliance with you and Striker 2
Mystic He/Him Posted May 7 Posted May 7 1 minute ago, Doc12 said: I think the issue was, as you pointed out, the risk/reward wasn't great, even if I'm trying to play self-interestedly. My main goal was to stay alive, and when I did not have the gun, my options were 90% chance of finding a useless item, or a 80% chance of staying cleared and thus not executed. So in that scenario looking for items just wasn't worth it. I did try striking out and looking for items a few nights, and it just felt like I kept getting punished for it. Locations! Again, favorite part of Betrayal is uncovering new rooms and gaining advantages/disadvantages based on rooms. Excited for whenever this happens. I'm a little confused about the two bullet points - When you say the same location can be found independently, is that separate from the above condition where you try to visit a room based on what you think another player went? Options being - I explore a room or I try to find the room that X went to? I think it might be interesting to simply announce in the day thread what rooms have been found, but not by who, perhaps? As to the other changes to make the scenarios harder to rule out, sure, that sounds perfectly fair. Myst ruined it for us here by blabbing about what scenario it was, otherwise we'd have been paranoid a while longer Also, re: dead doc, I'd love to be in a Survival alliance with you and Striker It hard cleared me for 72 hours, why wouldn’t I do it? Plus it would screw over the future Elims
Doc12 Posted May 7 Posted May 7 Verna returned to the site of the house a few weeks later, all alone. Dressed as all had known her in life, all in black, in a mourning veil. Over the next few days, working in silence, she erected thirteen gravestones in the empty yard. Upon each stone was carved a name. Warren, wisp-touched. Archie, idealistic. Brax, the magician. Luminair, the unsung hero. Patrick, a true friend. Mabel, purest of heart. Talasin, the silent. K Tims, the sage. Harley, inquisitor. Randal, pathfinder. Monopoly, generous. Liam, fallen hero. . . . Verna, killer. On Brax's stone, she placed the remaining cards of his deck. To K, she returned the bone yo-yo. The others would be preserved. On Mabel's gravestone, she rested a silver star-tipped cane. The wind blew over the crumbling ruin of stone and wood, and the new set of gravestones in front of it. A memorial. A warning. She stood vigil for a night and a day. Then, she left. The sun shone bright, but Verna cast no shadow. It remained by the front of the house for a moment longer, then walked to the ruin, disappearing across its threshold.
Araris Valerian he/him Posted May 8 Author Posted May 8 22 minutes ago, Doc12 said: I'm a little confused about the two bullet points - When you say the same location can be found independently, is that separate from the above condition where you try to visit a room based on what you think another player went? Options being - I explore a room or I try to find the room that X went to? Yeah, the idea is that in the FFA scenario, for example, someone might not want to share that they found the room with items in it. Or if the elim team finds a room, they might want to keep that amongst themselves. Finding a room and using it would probably be separate actions due to targeting. If you’ve been to a room at least once, you can visit it to take the action. If you’ve haven’t been to it, but someone posts in thread or tells you in a PM that they found it (or you learned from some other source), you can attempt to visit the room using “directions” from that player. The action submission would be something like “visit the Vault using directions from Kas, and target Wilson with the Vault action”. If Kas has, in fact, been to the Vault, then the action usually succeeds (with some small chance to be lost by default) and I get to use the ability on Wilson. If Kas hadn’t been to the Vault then I get lost for sure.
StrikerEZ he/him Posted May 8 Posted May 8 I definitely like the idea of adding rooms. That would make the game feel more like its inspiration. I also wanna second something from the dead doc (which I just read) in that I think the cycles should be shorter. I can imagine a scenario where the thread is more lively with these longer cycles (maybe if a different scenario ends up being picked), but I think snappier cycles would've helped a lot.
Araris Valerian he/him Posted May 14 Author Posted May 14 On 5/7/2026 at 5:04 PM, StrikerEZ said: I definitely like the idea of adding rooms. That would make the game feel more like its inspiration. I also wanna second something from the dead doc (which I just read) in that I think the cycles should be shorter. I can imagine a scenario where the thread is more lively with these longer cycles (maybe if a different scenario ends up being picked), but I think snappier cycles would've helped a lot. Reading this, and thinking about some other things, like TUN not wanting to play because the game could end up as a FFA, makes me think that having wildly different scenarios is ultimately not great game design. The FFA and possibly the Kandra scenarios would work well as MR/QF type games, while the standard elim scenario really fits the LG format best. With that in mind, I’m thinking of instead having the 3 scenarios correspond to different types of elim teams. I really like the Tasty/Kandra rules I came up with, and I think that could be bundled with an arson setup (so most nights still have a single kill, preserving symmetry). I think another scenario would involve conversions. The third could just be a fairly standard elim game. I think conversions, arson+SK, and standard elims all have different enough methods of solving that there is still a pretty strong incentive for villagers to engage with the clue mechanic in order to determine which scenario is ongoing.
StrikerEZ he/him Posted May 14 Posted May 14 41 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said: Reading this, and thinking about some other things, like TUN not wanting to play because the game could end up as a FFA, makes me think that having wildly different scenarios is ultimately not great game design. The FFA and possibly the Kandra scenarios would work well as MR/QF type games, while the standard elim scenario really fits the LG format best. With that in mind, I’m thinking of instead having the 3 scenarios correspond to different types of elim teams. I really like the Tasty/Kandra rules I came up with, and I think that could be bundled with an arson setup (so most nights still have a single kill, preserving symmetry). I think another scenario would involve conversions. The third could just be a fairly standard elim game. I think conversions, arson+SK, and standard elims all have different enough methods of solving that there is still a pretty strong incentive for villagers to engage with the clue mechanic in order to determine which scenario is ongoing. Ooooooo one of the scenarios being a conversion game would be a lot of fun actually. I’d have liked that a lot more than the FFA version.
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