The Art of Game Creation

[Araris Valerian he/him]

15 hours ago, Kasimir said:

For mechanical search mechanisms with a luck factor, you're primarily looking at LG28 which was a SE version of Betrayal at House on the Hill; I later recycled Wyrm's search mechanic for MR43. In Wyrm's game, you had to keep running the searches to find Omens, and then the ability to locate and destroy the Heart of the House, and kill the Elims (converted each time an Omen was discovered.) Might be forgetting some details, but I co-GMed this with Wyrm.

Should run it again sometime, it was a blast.

I like mechanical search mechanisms . Was definitely a blast. Sadly, like several of Wyrm's games, it had significant activity problems, but the underlying game was very solid.

The Twinborn games also had a luck-based search factor that wasn't tied to win-conditions or alignment. I think LG 9 might also have had something like that? One of the early Reckoner games definitely did, but like Twinborn, it was searching for items. And the Elantris games also had search mechanics. And the recent Firefly game also had something like this; villagers would search for the Secret, and could win once enough pieces were found,

[Kasimir he/him]

19 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I like mechanical search mechanisms . Was definitely a blast. Sadly, like several of Wyrm's games, it had significant activity problems, but the underlying game was very solid.

Low key tempted to rerun because that Traitor team was so screwed over in so many ways - and like you said, rampant inactivity (seems to be Wyrm's curse actually) - but I feel that like the OG House game, you kind of need players not to look at the Traitor's Guide which means coming up with new Traitors and Omens and making it a blackout again...

[Karnatheon he/him]

Would a game set entirely within the confines of an Ice Cream parlor need a pass? Or could it be set within the confines of an Ice Cream parlor on Era 3 Scadrial and count even if no roles were related to the setting?

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

Here is what I put together. Probably a QF.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

The new rules have a non-sanderson every five games, so I don't think anything needs a pass any more.

[Archer he/him]

9 hours ago, Karnatheon said:

Would a game set entirely within the confines of an Ice Cream parlor need a pass? Or could it be set within the confines of an Ice Cream parlor on Era 3 Scadrial and count even if no roles were related to the setting?

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

Here is what I put together. Probably a QF.

Hey. Hey Karnatheon. I really like the flavor of this game. 

It's a shame Death by Pizza go reworked, because this might have fit well into it. Brandon has plenty of sentient objects throughout his work though, you could try and shoehorn something in. Or as TUA said, just time it right. 

I feel like this game is vulnerable to game breaking from well timed claims. The elims could lie to confuse things, but they get one shot at that each, so if the village chooses the other person, they can't retract their claim and continue being effective. And if they hammer, it'll be obvious who is on that team. The village wouldn't even need to mass claim all at once, although if they did and there's multiples of roles, they might be able to stay ahead of the NKs. They'd just have to say everyone who is role X, claim and we'll add one of you today. 

I suppose that opens them up to the possibility of the elims crippling them at some point with systematic NKing of key roles, but it feels like people are going to have to claim at some point if they want to be exed anyway, so my gut says it'll be a claimfest so that needs to be hashed out. 

[Straw he/him]

On 2/10/2022 at 11:10 AM, Matrim's Dice said:

Two more games, my MR and QF slots.

MR: Tyrian, but role madness. It's just the basic Tyrian rules but I don't know if a role madness version or an MR version has been done before. Taking suggestions for the name of the town; if you leave me to come up with the name it won't be good

QF: Threnody with a Shade vengeance mechanic. Yes, I know it makes more sense thematically to have Violation activate for every death, but that seems too hard to balance. Trying out a few percentage based death mechanics, in the inactivity filter and knife.

MR: Role madness Tyrian seems pretty tough to manage, particularly in terms of keeping balance vs keeping to the spirit of role madness. I'd bet that a balanced role madness Tyrian would end up with tons of Smokers and Tineyes as pseudo vanillas, with a good number of Mistborn and vote manipulators, with very few influential roles.

QF: I completely missed the factional kill bit and typed out a huge thing on how to make that balanced but I guess that's out the window now. This ruleset is pretty tough for the village, mainly because lylo is so much easier to hit.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Question. Has anyone ever experimented with in-thread actions before? I'm thinking about making a game basically without a traditional exe, and was thinking the flavor of The Abyss would work well for a more interactive thread experience. 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

1 hour ago, Steeldancer said:

Question. Has anyone ever experimented with in-thread actions before? I'm thinking about making a game basically without a traditional exe, and was thinking the flavor of The Abyss would work well for a more interactive thread experience. 

I think Alvron's Zombie QF 38 had the most in-thread actions. There were some problems with making sure everybody could be around to use those actions for timed events.

and the gun from Jondesu's MR 26 was also in thread.

Probably there are more I don't remember.

[Steeldancer he/him]

We're scrapping the made in abyss game for now, I've kind of belched out some rules for a Choose your own alignment game. It's a faction game based on the Manywar in Nalthis. I haven't figured out the action economy yet, but it'll be based on breath. 

Known Factions are as such

Royalist Hawks: want royals to survive, and join their side for war. 

Royalist Doves: want royals to survive, and join a bid for peace. (I'll flesh out the exact win condition for these two groups later)

Revolutionaries: desire to overthrow the royals. Win if royals die along with foreign spies

Foreign spies: a special role. Can still join any alignment, but win condition is predicated on killing the royals.

Royals: a special role that will be distributed to various people. Will more or less determine how the game goes, depending on what happens to them and what they choose. 

Cowardly elite: a possible role, still debating this one. They'd have the ability to change alignments once after N0, when all alignments are chosen. 

The 5 scholars: might or might not be in the game. 

Secret factions are named as such, and win conditions are hidden 

The Cult of Colors

The Adjuncts of the Scholars

The Followers of Edgli

How the selection would work is that roles will be distributed N0, upon which all players will have a turn to discuss things and submit their desired alignments. There will be limits imposed on how many people can join a single faction, to prevent game breaking. As such, you can submit up to your top 3 factions, to allow for maximum player choice. Anyone who doesn't submit anything will be shoved into a random alignment. 

I have various other thoughts, but I figured this is good for now. It's a cool concept, that shouldn't be too broken. Granted, I'll probably spend the next few days trying to mentally break it. 

[JNV]

Hi heres a game idea I have please critique and stuff also if the link share thing doesn't work let me know 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P_rJhza1K6FIZ55r1O1tQ1DWLcSHaV2_q6zMuDp44Z8/edit?usp=sharing

Edit oh by the way its based on The Bifrost Incident by the Mechanisms and it will probably be a mid range game

Edited March 8, 2022 by JNV

[StrikerEZ he/him]

6 minutes ago, JNV said:

Hi heres a game idea I have please critique and stuff also if the link share thing doesn't work let me know 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P_rJhza1K6FIZ55r1O1tQ1DWLcSHaV2_q6zMuDp44Z8/edit?usp=sharing

Edit oh by the way its based on The Bifrost Incident by the Mechanisms and it will probably be a mid range game

I like the roles and the flavor text for them! The only thing I'd worry about is No One's win condition. Just a straight up survival role isn't often very fun to play, unless they have something else to do as well. And what happens if they remember and switch to the elims? That means they only win if the elims do, but they don't count towards parity/outnumbering?

[JNV]

3 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I like the roles and the flavor text for them! The only thing I'd worry about is No One's win condition. Just a straight up survival role isn't often very fun to play, unless they have something else to do as well. And what happens if they remember and switch to the elims? That means they only win if the elims do, but they don't count towards parity/outnumbering?

Im kinda worried about that too honestly the switchy bit was mostly as a "oh no if you are dying tap out now" but I didn't really consider the interactions. Maybe tell the elims if No One sides with them and who it is possibly? But honestly No One feels kind of useless for both sides cause they dont count for numbers but also I dont relaly want them to count for numbers cause what if they dont die until late game. 

Honestly No One just feels a bit clunky and the only reason I want them in there is because of Loki in The Bifrost Incident as a holdover of my idea to have roles as characters but I scrapped that cause I didnt wnat alignment based roles

You know what would be fun? I could m ake them a serial killer but on the extra life loss they can remember and switch sides if they want but still dont count for numbers and stuff. does that sound like a viable thing?

[Mat he/him]

16 minutes ago, JNV said:

Im kinda worried about that too honestly the switchy bit was mostly as a "oh no if you are dying tap out now" but I didn't really consider the interactions. Maybe tell the elims if No One sides with them and who it is possibly? But honestly No One feels kind of useless for both sides cause they dont count for numbers but also I dont relaly want them to count for numbers cause what if they dont die until late game. 

Honestly No One just feels a bit clunky and the only reason I want them in there is because of Loki in The Bifrost Incident as a holdover of my idea to have roles as characters but I scrapped that cause I didnt wnat alignment based roles

You know what would be fun? I could m ake them a serial killer but on the extra life loss they can remember and switch sides if they want but still dont count for numbers and stuff. does that sound like a viable thing?

Tbh if I rolled No One I'd be tempted to immediately side with one of the factions but my gameplan would probably be to watch and see who looks like they're winning, then go there, mostly ignoring the survival aspect :P.

In the first game I created/ran, I had a neutral whose mechanics was to pick either the village or elims to side with (with a deadline of like C3) and they also didn't count for parity for either faction, and this looks similar to that, just without the stipulation that a side has to be chosen. So I think it works as a role, since it worked for my game.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[StrikerEZ he/him]

34 minutes ago, JNV said:

Im kinda worried about that too honestly the switchy bit was mostly as a "oh no if you are dying tap out now" but I didn't really consider the interactions. Maybe tell the elims if No One sides with them and who it is possibly? But honestly No One feels kind of useless for both sides cause they dont count for numbers but also I dont relaly want them to count for numbers cause what if they dont die until late game. 

Honestly No One just feels a bit clunky and the only reason I want them in there is because of Loki in The Bifrost Incident as a holdover of my idea to have roles as characters but I scrapped that cause I didnt wnat alignment based roles

You know what would be fun? I could m ake them a serial killer but on the extra life loss they can remember and switch sides if they want but still dont count for numbers and stuff. does that sound like a viable thing?

I think a serial killer would be an interesting way to do that.

Also, I listened to the Bifrost Incident this morning. Really interesting! That was a fun way to experience a story!

Also also, in other news, I finished the rules for that Stormlight Archive themed Mafia/Avalon/Secret Hitler game I signed up for last night. I want people's thoughts on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rj7Z9_9_O1uyNWQjnOCU0NKuLFMejxJnCaFebVbsGWI/edit?usp=sharing

[JNV]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Tbh if I rolled No One I'd be tempted to immediately side with one of the factions but my gameplan would probably be to watch and see who looks like they're winning, then go there, mostly ignoring the survival aspect :P.

In the first game I created/ran, I had a neutral whose mechanics was to pick either the village or elims to side with (with a deadline of like C3) and they also didn't count for parity for either faction, and this looks similar to that, just without the stipulation that a side has to be chosen. So I think it works as a role, since it worked for my game.

Which game was this? Sounds neat. How was that players engagement in the game? I wanna make sure the neutral palyer ends up happy with it

34 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I think a serial killer would be an interesting way to do that.

Also, I listened to the Bifrost Incident this morning. Really interesting! That was a fun way to experience a story!

Also also, in other news, I finished the rules for that Stormlight Archive themed Mafia/Avalon/Secret Hitler game I signed up for last night. I want people's thoughts on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rj7Z9_9_O1uyNWQjnOCU0NKuLFMejxJnCaFebVbsGWI/edit?usp=sharing

Yeah I changed it to serial killer for now. Fun fact youre the first Mechs fan Ive found without intentionally looking for Mechs fan discords and stuff. Gold star!

 Also in the place where you talk about the Informat and Lightweaver roles I think you mixed up the "if so and so group wins the main phase" bit cause right now you have it as Lightweaver needs to not die if the village wins and Informat needs to not die if the elims win but I think its supposed to be the other way around. Or you got it mixed up in the Basics section but rihgt now its contradicting

[Mat he/him]

19 minutes ago, JNV said:

Which game was this? Sounds neat. How was that players engagement in the game? I wanna make sure the neutral palyer ends up happy with it

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.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 hour ago, JNV said:

Also in the place where you talk about the Informat and Lightweaver roles I think you mixed up the "if so and so group wins the main phase" bit cause right now you have it as Lightweaver needs to not die if the village wins and Informat needs to not die if the elims win but I think its supposed to be the other way around. Or you got it mixed up in the Basics section but rihgt now its contradicting

I’m not sure I see the contradiction. The Lightweaver and Informant both don’t want to die during the main phase. If they survive the main phase and their team wins, the other team gets a shot at them.

[JNV]

3 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I’m not sure I see the contradiction. The Lightweaver and Informant both don’t want to die during the main phase. If they survive the main phase and their team wins, the other team gets a shot at them.

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

Quote

• Lightweaver: You are the lynchpin of the Unseen Court’s operation here. You are the best spy they have, and the best Radiant in the Court. You need to infiltrate the Council of Honor and get close to Ialai to figure out what she knows. You and your team need to get you in at any cost. Good luck soldier.
  • You do not know the identity of any of your teammates.
  • If you die, the game ends for the Unseen Court.
  • Your team wins the game if you are elected during the main phase of the game. If the Sons of Honor win the main phase of the game, your goal is to not be killed during the Investigation Round.

But up top it says this

Quote

• If the Sons of Honor win the main phase, after the last election there will be an Assassination Round, in which the Unseen Court will vote on who they believe the Informant is. If they vote for the Informant, then they truly win the game. Every player, including previously elected players or an executed player, can comment in the thread during this round.

And it does the same but flipped thing for the Informat

[StrikerEZ he/him]

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| he/him]

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 he/him]

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 he/him]

*shifts guiltily with voidspren gem*

[Steeldancer he/him]

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. 

[Illwei]

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 he/him]

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.