The Art of Game Creation

[Quintessential she/her]

I'm noticing that in most games, if the village doesn't find an elim in the first couple of cycles (and sometimes even if they do), they end up losing simply because as their numbers decrease towards the end, inactivity becomes more and more of a problem, discussion stalls, etc. Actually, it sometimes seems like the beginning of each game has the opposite problem: too many people to keep track of, way too easy to slip under the radar, etc.

So... I made this. It was originally supposed to be just a response to the fact that less than 1/4 of the games that have been run since I joined were won by the village, but it morphed into more addressing what I think might be part of the cause of that. Er... Lemme know what you think xD it's definitely... different.

[Illwei]

1 hour ago, Quintessential said:

I'm noticing that in most games, if the village doesn't find an elim in the first couple of cycles (and sometimes even if they do), they end up losing simply because as their numbers decrease towards the end, inactivity becomes more and more of a problem, discussion stalls, etc. Actually, it sometimes seems like the beginning of each game has the opposite problem: too many people to keep track of, way too easy to slip under the radar, etc.

So... I made this. It was originally supposed to be just a response to the fact that less than 1/4 of the games that have been run since I joined were won by the village, but it morphed into more addressing what I think might be part of the cause of that. Er... Lemme know what you think xD it's definitely... different.

not sure i understand the confirmed evil. everyone knows they're evil, they would always be evil, so... ? honestly that's a position where the best thing to do strategically is not talk. you don't risk giving away teammates and if you're replaced you're still evil.

And then how would the elims outnumber if there's only one set of people to go through? and...

and wait, the confirmed Evil isn't allowed to vote? at this point i'd call it an NPC??

Also if the wincon is to get a unanimous vote then tbh I feel like that's pretty easily broken, because the Elims never could vote that way because they do and village can win right away, and if everyone votes but the elims then it's pretty obvious. idk.

uhhhh I've read this like 5 times and I still don't quite understand.

 - functionally 6 v. 2, elims get a +1 for parity
 - Elims win at Parity, functionally. (would end at best with 2 v 2, + the one who doesn't count)
 - People who die are replaced, and can speak, but can't vote (functionally no difference from not dying, imo, and just losing your vote. I don't understand the point of pinch hitters here, imo. gives more people spots to play the game but tbh I think that's kinda ?? when you still have people dying off D1 who could be still playing like the pinch hitters?)

Idk it's not my kinda game because the alignment re-roll is functionally useless, and adds a layer of seeming unnecessary, other than allowing people to talk in the Elim doc, for fun? making it so you no longer can trust the dead people? again, feels functionally the same as the vote just removing someone's vote rather than flipping them and replacing them. So I guess I'll let someone else try and make sense of this now :P.

EDIT:

Wait they can still vote. but don't count for Parity. Yeah idk how I feel about that either because that's hm in a way I am so confused?

Reminds me a bit of BoTC. in that, no one is flipped after death, and people get one more vote, to be used in any further cycle, but only one vote.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Illwei

[Quintessential she/her]

41 minutes ago, Illwei said:

[1] not sure i understand the confirmed evil. everyone knows they're evil, they would always be evil, so... ? honestly that's a position where the best thing to do strategically is not talk. you don't risk giving away teammates and if you're replaced you're still evil.

[2] And then how would the elims outnumber if there's only one set of people to go through? and...

[3] and wait, the confirmed Evil isn't allowed to vote? at this point i'd call it an NPC??

[4] Also if the wincon is to get a unanimous vote then tbh I feel like that's pretty easily broken, because the Elims never could vote that way because they do and village can win right away, and if everyone votes but the elims then it's pretty obvious. idk.

uhhhh I've read this like 5 times and I still don't quite understand.

 - [5] functionally 6 v. 2, elims get a +1 for parity
 - [6] Elims win at Parity, functionally. (would end at best with 2 v 2, + the one who doesn't count)
 - [7] People who die are replaced, and can speak, but can't vote (functionally no difference from not dying, imo, and just losing your vote. I don't understand the point of pinch hitters here, imo. gives more people spots to play the game but tbh I think that's kinda ?? when you still have people dying off D1 who could be still playing like the pinch hitters?)

Idk it's not my kinda game because [8] the alignment re-roll is functionally useless, and adds a layer of seeming unnecessary, other than allowing people to talk in the Elim doc, for fun? making it so you no longer can trust the dead people? again, feels functionally the same as the vote just removing someone's vote rather than flipping them and replacing them. So I guess I'll let someone else try and make sense of this now

[1] tbh that's mostly in there because A. flavor and B. it was the idea I started with, and the rest built off of it. I could always take it out and have the council be voting on something else that's unrelated to the Diem and the Lord Mastrell lol

[2] Not quite sure what you mean : P

[3] Confirmed evil is allowed to vote.

[4] That's just the flavor lol. The actual wincon is more or less the same as any normal game. The village wins if they kill all the original elims. The elims win if their original members outnumber the original village that's left.

[5] No, it's functionally 6 v. 3 except the elims get a -1 for parity. They have three votes in-thread but only two members who count directly for the wincon. 

[6] they don't in this game, because the village will still likely have a majority of the votes, just not of the players that count for parity. So even if there are the same number of original elims left as original villagers, it'll still take effort to get a misexe.

[7] I have no idea where you're getting that the pinch hitters can't vote : P I literally said they can at one point in that doc. They can do everything a normal player can, just that they don't count directly towards the numbers for either win condition.

[8] The alignment reroll is because people replacing in would be confirmed one way or another otherwise. This way, they're not worth killing but they can't be trusted just because the person they replaced was village (and they can probably be trusted even if the person they replaced was elim). So they can still participate in the debate without overpowering the elims with confirmed village opinions, essentially.

So... basically: when someone dies, the player is removed from the game and is now dead. Their seat on the council no longer counts for parity. A new person, who has a 1/5 chance of being elim, fills that seat. They can do everything a normal player can, and they win or lose with the team they're on, even if they die. They just don't count for the final tally that determines when win conditions have been met.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

Confirmed Evil can work, it's just hard.

Just read LG 42. I was outed as elim very early on, but then used the fact I WILLINGLY outed myself to get people to work with me to take down the 3p. I didn't even betray them or anything, we just had a nice fun time cooperating for a bit.

One of my favorite games I've ever played.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

Why would a pinch hitter ever be killed if they don't count towards parity? The elims will always kill an original villager since it gets them closer to winning and grants them a 1/5 chance of taking a vote away from the village. For the village, even if they knew that a non-Mastrell pinch hitter is an elim, exing them just lets the elims get one step closer to winning in exchange for a likely boost to voting power they should already have an advantage in, which isn't a great trade.

 

[Quintessential she/her]

8 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Why would a pinch hitter ever be killed if they don't count towards parity? The elims will always kill an original villager since it gets them closer to winning and grants them a 1/5 chance of taking a vote away from the village. For the village, even if they knew that a non-Mastrell pinch hitter is an elim, exing them just lets the elims get one step closer to winning in exchange for a likely boost to voting power they should already have an advantage in, which isn't a great trade.

The only reason I can think of that a pinch hitter would be killed is if nobody's sure of their alignment, and knowing their alignment would clear or condemn one or more players who do count for parity. But other than that they aren't really meant to die--the point is to have the same number of people contributing to the discussion throughout the game, while also having somewhat of a process of elimination with a narrowing pool of people who count for parity.

[Random Bystander she/her]

I have a game idea...

It's for Mistborn Era 2.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PlRhYTvTUPMvuDO3TPTkQkYGuaECMDnT_cENOP-211A/edit?usp=drivesdk

Does this seem like a functional game?

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 hour ago, Random Bystander said:

I have a game idea...

It's for Mistborn Era 2.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PlRhYTvTUPMvuDO3TPTkQkYGuaECMDnT_cENOP-211A/edit?usp=drivesdk

Does this seem like a functional game?

Some things:

• Do the Elims/Lawmen have an Elim Doc, or some way of knowing each other / communicating?
• Based on how the Hemalurgists work, I guess that players are put in a limbo-doc before their alignment is revealed? How does that work? (Bringing players back from the dead is a very finnicky thing, and works better as a central mechanic instead of a side role - but it can work.)
• Does the Allomancy work, like, if someone uses Steel and someone uses Iron in the same cycle then both actions fail? Do they lose the charges?
• Are F-Steel, F-Brass, F-Gold, and Awakener/Breath the same thing? Survive the first kill targeted at you?
• Soulcaster is... very very powerful. Probably too powerful, as it would take 3 Elims to kill off one Village Soulcaster.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

Order of actions for the game I've started working on again.

Order of Actions:

Hemalurgist steal

Alignment scans

Role scans 

Exe

Forger study

Elim kill

Coinshot kill

Protection roles

Roleblocks 

Electrum

Redirects

End: 

Forger role change 

Returned revive 

 

[Random Bystander she/her]

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Do the Elims/Lawmen have an Elim Doc, or some way of knowing each other / communicating?

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that. Yeah. They'll have an Elims doc.

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Based on how the Hemalurgists work, I guess that players are put in a limbo-doc before their alignment is revealed? How does that work? (Bringing players back from the dead is a very finnicky thing, and works better as a central mechanic instead of a side role - but it can work.)

Yeah. It would basically be just there, but I'd have a google doc open for people to chat while I wait and see if a Hemalurgist decides to bring them back. People who are lynched would just go straight to the dead doc.

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Does the Allomancy work, like, if someone uses Steel and someone uses Iron in the same cycle then both actions fail? Do they lose the charges?

Yes, and yes. If there are 2 people, and they each use one of the paired metals, then yes. That's why I gave Alomancers 2 as opposed to the Feruchemists, who I gave 1.

5 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Are F-Steel, F-Brass, F-Gold, and Awakener/Breath the same thing? Survive the first kill targeted at you?

*F-Bronze

For three of those, yes. F-Steel, F-Bronze, and Breath allows someone to survive the first night kill targeted at them. For F-Gold, they could survive either the lynch, or a night kill.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Soulcaster is... very very powerful. Probably too powerful, as it would take 3 Elims to kill off one Village Soulcaster.

Good point. I'll change that a bit.

Anything else you can notice that 1) needs to be clarified, or 2) needs to be added or changed?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I've updated the rules for my PM Unsafety LG: link. The main change involved limiting the uses of all abilities, and changing the location abilities, taking inspiration from One Night Werewolf. I'd love to hear any feedback. The goal of these rules is to explore the current meta of PMs in the community by forcing players to share information to be able to successfully use their roles.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

So a random weird game idea I just had:

A Serial Killer type role but with a very nonstandard killing power based on information gathering. Every night they can submit one role+alignment guess for each player. All players whose roles and alignments were both correctly guessed on that night are attacked.

Now, this would be horribly unbalanced in anything but an extreme role madness game, probably one where each player has a unique role or set of roles, and there are some possible configurations of roles that never even appear in the game. But for such a game, it might be balanced. The Serial Killer starts out extremely weak and probably unable to kill anyone on the first cycle, but gets stronger as they accumulate more information, to the point where if the other factions let them live into the late game they are a massive threat who could theoretically end the game in a single night. Serial Killers often have a much harder time hiding in the late game compared to the early game, so this sort of escalation sort of works. Also, it gives the Serial Killer quite a bit more to do than just avoid being caught. Also, it provides a significant mechanical incentive for everyone else to avoid roleclaiming like the plague, which might be desirable in some setups.

Idk how well it would actually work, but I am generally rather fond of unusual SK roles that impact how the village and elims play the game.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

I also just had a random weird game idea which might be completely unbalanced.

Only it’s worse.

Anyway, the idea is a limited-communication type game where no one can post in the game thread, only in specific docs. My idea was that each doc represents a cosmere planet, but they could be just about anything. At the start of the game, you are assigned one doc, and then each turn you can “worldhop” to another doc. Each doc has their own special thing - like maybe on one doc, your vote is counted twice, and a special elim role has to stay on another doc.

The elims, of course, would have seons so that they could communicate across the planets in a separate elim doc. The elim submitting the NK can only kill people who are in the same doc as them.

Of course, this setup would be extremely unbalanced. Limiting village communication would make it very hard to coordinate votes, and even if somebody knows who one of the elims are, they’re going to have a very hard time getting everyone to vote for them.

Tell me what you think. Can this idea maybe be wrangled into a fun, balanced game? Or will it just not work, whatever you do?

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

I also just had a random weird game idea which might be completely unbalanced.

Only it’s worse.

Anyway, the idea is a limited-communication type game where no one can post in the game thread, only in specific docs. My idea was that each doc represents a cosmere planet, but they could be just about anything. At the start of the game, you are assigned one doc, and then each turn you can “worldhop” to another doc. Each doc has their own special thing - like maybe on one doc, your vote is counted twice, and a special elim role has to stay on another doc.

The elims, of course, would have seons so that they could communicate across the planets in a separate elim doc. The elim submitting the NK can only kill people who are in the same doc as them.

Of course, this setup would be extremely unbalanced. Limiting village communication would make it very hard to coordinate votes, and even if somebody knows who one of the elims are, they’re going to have a very hard time getting everyone to vote for them.

Tell me what you think. Can this idea maybe be wrangled into a fun, balanced game? Or will it just not work, whatever you do?

Where would you vote? In the world doc?

I would think that players would basically only vote on people in their own doc... It could be interesting if you ran with that and gave each doc it’s own execution, but the player count would diminish pretty fast. If you didn’t do that I think PMs probably should be allowed in some way.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

14 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Where would you vote? In the world doc?

I would think that players would basically only vote on people in their own doc... It could be interesting if you ran with that and gave each doc it’s own execution, but the player count would diminish pretty fast. If you didn’t do that I think PMs probably should be allowed in some way.

Voting in the world docs was my intent. A special exe for each world is a good idea. I think it should have to be a unanimous vote, though, since there are only going to be 4 or 5 people in any given doc at any given time.

[Ashbringer he/him]

7 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

I also just had a random weird game idea which might be completely unbalanced.

Only it’s worse.

Anyway, the idea is a limited-communication type game where no one can post in the game thread, only in specific docs. My idea was that each doc represents a cosmere planet, but they could be just about anything. At the start of the game, you are assigned one doc, and then each turn you can “worldhop” to another doc. Each doc has their own special thing - like maybe on one doc, your vote is counted twice, and a special elim role has to stay on another doc.

The elims, of course, would have seons so that they could communicate across the planets in a separate elim doc. The elim submitting the NK can only kill people who are in the same doc as them.

Of course, this setup would be extremely unbalanced. Limiting village communication would make it very hard to coordinate votes, and even if somebody knows who one of the elims are, they’re going to have a very hard time getting everyone to vote for them.

Tell me what you think. Can this idea maybe be wrangled into a fun, balanced game? Or will it just not work, whatever you do?

World docs, or some form of group docs, are actually decently common - if you’ve read RoW (or at least, know the Part 2 Epigraph contents) AG7 shows a good example of planet docs. AG7 isn’t a great role model of many other things, but... the world doc idea is tried and tested and worked pretty well. Other Shard Games - search for Shard or Adonalsium in game titles - also do this, if you’d rather avoid the RoW stuff and/or see a better executed game.

(Speaking of which, I’d highly discourage tying known Elim roles to specific planets, as that will just end up with every Villager evacuating that planet to another planet and exeing the ones who didn’t move with them. And restricting players to specific areas in general can be both unfun and very exploitable. (See, AG7 where Odium could only attack Shards on Roshar/Ashyn/Braize, so literally Shard left there within a cycle and Odium could do nothing until the GMs stepped in and let him strike anywhere.))

Of course, in those games you could post in the thread. I might advise for limited in-thread discussion, such as votes being cast there as normal without context. And have at least some method of inter-planet communication.

But it sounds fun!

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

3 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

World docs, or some form of group docs, are actually decently common - if you’ve read RoW (or at least, know the Part 2 Epigraph contents) AG7 shows a good example of planet docs. AG7 isn’t a great role model of many other things, but... the world doc idea is tried and tested and worked pretty well. Other Shard Games - search for Shard or Adonalsium in game titles - also do this, if you’d rather avoid the RoW stuff and/or see a better executed game.

(Speaking of which, I’d highly discourage tying known Elim roles to specific planets, as that will just end up with every Villager evacuating that planet to another planet and exeing the ones who didn’t move with them. And restricting players to specific areas in general can be both unfun and very exploitable. (See, AG7 where Odium could only attack Shards on Roshar/Ashyn/Braize, so literally Shard left there within a cycle and Odium could do nothing until the GMs stepped in and let him strike anywhere.))

Of course, in those games you could post in the thread. I might advise for limited in-thread discussion, such as votes being cast there as normal without context. And have at least some method of inter-planet communication.

But it sounds fun!

A seon box item might work - e.g. if you have one, you can start one PM per turn.

I like the idea of votes in the thread without context - I think it would be easier than specific-doc exes, and it would be a way for somebody to get information on someone else, even if they’re never in the same doc. I’d have to put significant restrictions on color choice, nicknames, and capitalization with the thread votes, however, so there can’t be coded information going around in the votes (e.g. light red means it’s a stab vote, dark red means they’re confirmed elim).

As for the restricted elim role, the elim is constrained to only communicating on that doc as well.

(RoW)

Spoiler

So, if someone notices that they’ve only been seeing Player A on the Scadrial doc, they would know that person is probably Thaidakar.

Plus, all of the other elims are able to move around and submit NK’s on different planets than the restricted elim, so you could be NK’d on any planet.

[Mat he/him]

3 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

A seon box item might work - e.g. if you have one, you can start one PM per turn.

I like the idea of votes in the thread without context - I think it would be easier than specific-doc exes, and it would be a way for somebody to get information on someone else, even if they’re never in the same doc. I’d have to put significant restrictions on color choice, nicknames, and capitalization with the thread votes, however, so there can’t be coded information going around in the votes (e.g. light red means it’s a stab vote, dark red means they’re confirmed elim).

As for the restricted elim role, the elim is constrained to only communicating on that doc as well.

(RoW)

  Reveal hidden contents

So, if someone notices that they’ve only been seeing Player A on the Scadrial doc, they would know that person is probably Thaidakar.

Plus, all of the other elims are able to move around and submit NK’s on different planets than the restricted elim, so you could be NK’d on any planet.

Codes or secret messages like that aren’t allowed anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem. You’d have to be careful to have the only posts are votes mechanic not turn out like it did the first time, but that game didn’t have the world docs.

With the confirmed elim, everyone else could move and once it’s clear one person in the game hasn’t moved then they’re confirmed evil. I don’t really see a downside to moving docs.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

29 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

With the confirmed elim, everyone else could move and once it’s clear one person in the game hasn’t moved then they’re confirmed evil. I don’t really see a downside to moving docs.

But how would they know that the elim didn’t move? There wouldn’t be a list of who’s in what doc in the writeup.

[Ashbringer he/him]

13 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

But how would they know that the elim didn’t move? There wouldn’t be a list of who’s in what doc in the writeup.

“So there’s a confirmed Elim stuck on Sel. Everyone on Sel move to Roshar. Whoever doesn’t show up on Roshar dies.” 

Or something like that. Even if it’s not explicitly like that, or the rules don’t explicitly force Elims to stay in place, rules that favor Elims and Villagers differently can be exploited. No in-thread communications prevent mass mayoring, but the general rule is if there’s a way for Elims to be found mechanically, the players will take utmost advantage of it.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

13 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

“So there’s a confirmed Elim stuck on Sel. Everyone on Sel move to Roshar. Whoever doesn’t show up on Roshar dies.” 

Or something like that. Even if it’s not explicitly like that, or the rules don’t explicitly force Elims to stay in place, rules that favor Elims and Villagers differently can be exploited. No in-thread communications prevent mass mayoring, but the general rule is if there’s a way for Elims to be found mechanically, the players will take utmost advantage of it.

Oh, that makes sense. That probably isn’t the best idea, then.

Spoiler

But if it was a secret rule...

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Szeth_Pancakes

[Ashbringer he/him]

6 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Oh, that makes sense. That probably isn’t the best idea, then.

  Reveal hidden contents

But if it was a secret rule...

 

Spoiler

Don’t crowd-source secret rules 

(RoW, same thing as last time)

Spoiler

Well, Thaidakar’s whole thing is he wants to learn how to get off of his planet... he’d also be pretty hard to kill, so could make him public + immune to most kills.

 

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Well, I’ll work on the rule set for this game. I’m thinking Seventeenth Shard v. Ghostbloods, but that could change. I probably won’t have time to GM it, but I could be the co-GM if somebody else wanted to use it.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Was gonna say the setup reminds me of the shard games. Others already pointed this out. There are parallels, what with there being planet docs and players getting abilities based on what planet they're on and stuff.

 

But you know, the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of another game from long ago: QF21. Actually this was the first game I ever played as an eliminator  Didn't end up winning that one, alas 

Basically, the premise of the game was that game-related discussion was banned from the thread. Everything had to be done in one-on-one PMs.

Except, you couldn't just make PMs at-will. You were put in contact with 2 random other players at the start of the game. IIRC, the only ways to gain additional contacts was from the intervention of a special role, or if one of your contacts died you would inherit one of your dead contact's contacts. So it kinda resulted in this really tangled web of PMs where game discussion could happen, but a lot of the stuff you would hear would be second or thirdhand.

It worked surprisingly well, all things considered.

I think the setup you have in mind could also work surprisingly well.

 

There is a possibly pertinent difference between your setup and QF21, though. In your planets setup, if you wanted to get a message out to somebody on a different planet, you would have to wait at least one cycle for people to move between planets, and potentially another cycle to receive their reply. In QF21, it was theoretically possible to have something you say reach any other player without having to wait a cycle, if enough people were interested in relaying it. You might have needed to go through several intermediaries, but everyone was reachable, and so the game discussion was still at least sorta unified.

Idk hopefully this anecdote is at least somewhat relevant and/or helpful.

Like you said, a possible spin on the "planets" setup is that people are given a fairly limited ability to use PMs. So a small amount of communication between planets is possible, but the quality of communication between people who are on the same planet is vastly better. I can think of maybe a few meaningfully distinct ways to do that:

• Everyone starts the game with 1 or 2 PMs with other players.
  • This is maybe boring, but it ensures that connections are spread evenly and that they exist from D1.
• There is a role/item that confers the ability to start PMs.
  • Possibly flavored as seons.
• Anyone can start PMs, but only with people who are currently on the same planet, and it costs an action.
  • Possibly flavored as creating a pair of spanreeds and giving one half to another player.
    • In which case, this might be the ability players get when they visit Roshar, instead of a thing you can do everywhere.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

I thought I'd share the first draft of my ruleset here

Constructive criticism would be very much appreciated.

Spoiler

MR## - 17th Shard v. Ghostbloods

 

Premise

The Seventeenth Shard is under attack from those dastardly Ghostbloods! They have infiltrated your organization, and are trying to take control of it by wreaking havoc and killing your members! You must stop them (and capture Hoid) before it’s too late!

 

Basics

• Each cycle is 48 hours long, with a combined Day and Night.

• Each cycle, a player is voted out of the game. If no player gets more than two votes, no one is removed. If two or more players each have the same number of votes, (two or more) all tied players are removed.

• There will be a certain number of shared docs, which correspond to different planets in the cosmere (one for every four players who join). Each player will be assigned one of them at the beginning of the game. At any one time, each player has viewing and edit access to one and only one of these docs. See Worlds And Worldhopping.

• Each cycle, players can worldhop. This involves gaining access to a doc of your choosing, and losing access to your old doc.

• After the game has started, players may not make posts in the game thread other than to vote, to retract their vote, or to participate in Out-Of-Game Discussion. Using this to send coded messages is strictly forbidden.

• PMs are not open, unless you have a Seon Box (See Items).

• You may take one action each cycle, not including worldhopping.

• When a player is removed, their items are randomly split up between the players on the same planet as them.

• When a player is killed, all of their items go to the killer.

 

Factions

• Seventeenth Shard: You win if there are no Ghostbloods remaining.

• Ghostbloods: Each cycle, one of you can submit an action to kill one player who is on the same planet as you. You win if you reach parity with the rest of the players.

• Hoid: If either the Ghostbloods or the Seventeenth Shard reaches their wincon and you’re still alive, then you win. Note that this does not count as a win for either of the other two factions.

 

 

Roles

Each player can have up to three roles, and only one role from each category.

 

Faction-Specific Roles:

 

• Hoid: If you are on a planet, you may gain the Investiture Role associated with that planet. On Roshar, you can obtain Lightweaving. On Scadrial, you can obtain Soothing. On Nalthis, you can obtain Awakening. First of the Sun and Threnody (if used) have no associated roles. These roles will not show up on scans.

• Thaidakar: You love being at the top, so you couldn’t stand to impersonate anyone but one of the most noteworthy members of the Seventeenth Shard. Your vote counts twice.

• Demoux: As a former Church of the Survivor member, you know all about Thaidakar. Once per cycle, you can scan one player, and you will get a result that tells you if that player is Thaidakar or not. As one of the more influential members of the Seventeenth Shard, your vote counts twice.

 

Investiture Roles:

 

• Lightweaver:  Once per cycle, you can disguise yourself to look like a different role and alignment than you actually are. You have two Lightweavings worth of Stormlight to use during the course of the game, and you can refill your Stormlight for one action while on Roshar.

• Soother: Physical Allomancy is nice, but as a high-ranking member of the Seventeenth Shard (or the Ghostbloods), emotional Allomancy is far more useful. Once per cycle, you can burn brass to cancel out one vote from a person on the same planet as you. You have two Soothings worth of brass to use over the course of the game, and you can refill your brass stores for one action while on Scadrial.

• Awakener: Once per cycle, you can Awaken an object and send it to kill another player on the same planet as you. You aren’t likely to get your Breath back after you use it, so you can only do this once per game.

 

Other Roles:

 

• Records Keeper: You have access to all of the records of each of the Seventeenth Shard members. Once per cycle, you can look into another player on the same planet as you to see any and all of their non-faction-specific roles. 

• Investigator: You have the skills needed to dive into each members’ pasts, and figure out if something seems to be off. Once during the game, you can look into another player on the same planet as you to learn their alignment and faction-specific roles.

• Records Writer: Each cycle, you can send a message to HQ to be put in the write-up. This does not cost an action.

 

Worlds and Worldhopping

 

At the start of the game, each player is assigned one of the following world docs, which they can access and edit. Once per cycle, they can then transfer to another doc of their choosing. This does not cost an action. There is no Sel doc because of the dangerous conditions in Sel’s Cognitive Realm.

• Roshar: While on Roshar, you can instantly start a PM with anyone else on Roshar once per cycle by using a pair of Spanreeds. This PM can be accessed for the rest of the game, even if you leave Roshar.

• Scadrial: While on Scadrial, you can get a Device (the latest technology) that tells you if you’ve been targeted by the Records Keeper, the Investigator, or Demoux. However, this costs you one action, and the device will stop working after one cycle.

• Nalthis: While on Nalthis, you have a 20 percent chance of Returning if you are executed or otherwise killed. However, if you have Returned once, you cannot do it again.

• First of the Sun: First of the Sun is only used if there are 14 or more players. While there, you can bond with an Aviar (for one action) that will protect you from any causes of death except for the execution. This is only available once per game.

• Threnody: Threnody is only used if there are 18 or more players. While there, you can send a short (100 words or less) message to the dead/spec doc. This does not cost an action.

 

Items

 

• Spanreeds: See Roshar.

• Device: See Scadrial.

• Aviar: Aviars are only available if there are 14 or more players. See First of the Sun.

• Seon Box: If you have a Seon Box, you may instantly start a PM with one player of your choice for an action. This PM will last until the end of the game.

• Connection Medallion: When taking an action targeting someone, you can use the Connection Medallion to target someone on a different planet. 

 

Order of Actions

 

1. Records Writer

2. Lightweaving

3. Aviar

4. Demoux/Thaidakar Vote Manipulation

5. Execution

6. Returning from Execution

7. Awakening

8. Returning from Awakening kill

9. Records Keeper/Investigator/Demoux

10. Device