The Art of Game Creation

[Silverblade5 he/him]

Is anyone here in need of a co-gm for an upcoming game? I'd be happy to help.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok, I kinda have a rough idea for a game. This'll be my first, so I won't make it complicated with roles and items and such. It's based off the Resistance. In each day turn, a leader is randomly selected and revealed in the writeup. They pick four people to go on a mission (can be suggested by others) which happens during the night. If those people are village, then they vote yes on the gm PM. If there is an Elim, then they can vote yes or no. If there's just one no, then the mission fails and everyone dies. I need help on how to let the Elim survive while the villagers die. If the mission passes, the alignment of a random Elim is revealed in the write-up. Also during the night, the Elims can kill someone. And of course, during the day the villagers can lynch someone.

Just a rough idea. Thoughts?

[Ecthelion III he/him]

So, kind of like this game:

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/52712-long-game-17-heronfall/

 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

On January 5, 2017 at 8:43 PM, Ecthelion III said:

So, kind of like this game:

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/52712-long-game-17-heronfall/

 

Yeah! So, rule revisions as follows:

Setting: Unknown as of yet. I'm thinking having the villagers being Sons of Honor, while the Ghostbloods are the Elims, but that's awfully close to MR19.

Roles: 

Son of Honor?: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit).

Ghostbloods?: Standard Elim. Starts game with PM with another Elim, forming a chain. Can vote "yes" or "no."

Day cycle: Lasts 24 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 12 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed for villagers. For the Elims, it is allowed and encouraged.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

[Metacognition he/him]

Might I suggest something that's not really game related? 

How about, rather than using the widely known type of factions, go with something else? I would love another Resistance style game (I didn't get to play in the last one after all), but why make the focus on something so prominent in the Cosmere? Why not focus on a section that hasn't been explored yet? 

For example, rather than Sons of Honor and Ghostbloods, why not make it more personal; like between factions in Elantris before it was restored? Or the Skaa Resistance against the Nobles Houses before the events of The Final Empire? Or even the Hallandren invasions into Idris before Warbreaker. 

These situations are hardly explored in recent games, but I think they hold a lot of potential. We tend to ignore the details and focus on the over-arching story a lot recently. Bringing it back down to individual worlds and events has the added effect of bringing a level of gravitas to it as well because it's contained. When the entire Cosmere is the focus, what happens on one, puny, world is insignificant. But it's not to the people living it. Sanderson writes his stories this way. He doesn't focus on the Cosmere, but on the stories within it. Why should we focus so much on the entire Cosmere? 

Just an idea I had and not just for your game. I'd love to see a lot more games that focus on the specific worlds Sanderson created for us. 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

6 hours ago, Metacognition said:

Might I suggest something that's not really game related? 

How about, rather than using the widely known type of factions, go with something else? I would love another Resistance style game (I didn't get to play in the last one after all), but why make the focus on something so prominent in the Cosmere? Why not focus on a section that hasn't been explored yet? 

For example, rather than Sons of Honor and Ghostbloods, why not make it more personal; like between factions in Elantris before it was restored? Or the Skaa Resistance against the Nobles Houses before the events of The Final Empire? Or even the Hallandren invasions into Idris before Warbreaker. 

These situations are hardly explored in recent games, but I think they hold a lot of potential. We tend to ignore the details and focus on the over-arching story a lot recently. Bringing it back down to individual worlds and events has the added effect of bringing a level of gravitas to it as well because it's contained. When the entire Cosmere is the focus, what happens on one, puny, world is insignificant. But it's not to the people living it. Sanderson writes his stories this way. He doesn't focus on the Cosmere, but on the stories within it. Why should we focus so much on the entire Cosmere? 

Just an idea I had and not just for your game. I'd love to see a lot more games that focus on the specific worlds Sanderson created for us. 

It could be in a random city post-Calamity. It'd be pretty easy to have the Reckoners be villagers, and then have people working for Epics and trying to bring down the Reckoners from the inside be the Elims. It would also be easy to incorporate missions into that. 

Sound better?

[Jondesu he/him]

1 hour ago, Assassin in Burgundy said:

It could be in a random city post-Calamity. It'd be pretty easy to have the Reckoners be villagers, and then have people working for Epics and trying to bring down the Reckoners from the inside be the Elims. It would also be easy to incorporate missions into that. 

Sound better?

The whole group playing could essentially be a Reckoner cell, then. Slightly unrealistic considering the sizes in the books, but still very interesting.

[Alvron he/him]

2 hours ago, Jondesu said:

The whole group playing could essentially be a Reckoner cell, then. Slightly unrealistic considering the sizes in the books, but still very interesting.

Not if it's more than one cell.  After Davids stunning success in killing Steelheart the other cells came together, pooling their resources to bring down the High Epics.  While the Epics themselves are now very concerned.  The Reckoners were nothing more than a nuisance before, killing off the weak while leaving the strong alone, but now they've proven themselves to be very dangerous and have sent some of their most loyal Agents, whether Epic or Norms, to root out and destroy the Reckoners once and for all.

Having it as more than one Cell would cover hem not knowing all the other members thus be unable to tell friend from foe.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Alvron

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok, here.

Setting: Los Angeles, post-Calamity. Several Reckoner Cells are joining forces to take down the ruling Epic, Darkblade. Unfortunately, his minions have infiltrated the Cells, with the intent of destroying the group from the inside.

Roles: 

Reckoner: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit).

Minion (Help with name plz): Standard Elim. Starts game with PM with another Elim, forming a chain. Can vote "yes" or "no."

Day cycle: Lasts 24 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 12 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed for villagers. For the Elims, it is allowed and encouraged.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

How do I balance this?

Edited January 7, 2017 by Assassin in Burgundy

[STINK he/him]

3 minutes ago, Assassin in Burgundy said:

Ok, here.

Setting: Los Angeles, post-Calamity. Several Reckoner Cells are joining forces to take down the ruling Epic, Darkblade. Unfortunately, his minions have infiltrated the Cells, with the intent of destroying the group from the inside.

Roles: 

Reckoner: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit).

Minion (Help with name plz): Standard Elim. Starts game with PM with another Elim, forming a chain. Can vote "yes" or "no."

Day cycle: Lasts 24 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 12 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed for villagers. For the Elims, it is allowed and encouraged.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

How do I balance this?

Well, first I'd address PMs. Dunno about others but to me, having it so that the village can only have one on one PMs but the elims can ahve group PMs is just a little awkward.

However, it looks like this won't change much from the resistance so I'd just say to get rid of group PMs as a whole this game, and have everyone use single PMs. 

Minion as a name for elims is perfectly fine, in fact I'd say you shouldn't change it

Item number 3 on the agenda is that you haven't actually said what the win con for the two teams are. In the Resistance, it's amount of missions passed so I'd assume you would go for that as well, but the mechanic of lynching and the elim kill doesn't slot in so well if no changes are made, so do you want the win con to be around killing elims or passing X missions?

Item number 4, I'm assuming people on the mission can still PM, yes? Just double checking.

And for general advice, if I was the one making the game (and I do have a resistance game if I ever feel like GMing one) then I'd leave how this currently is as the 0.5 of the game, and start designing a new one from the ground up, with clear intent of what the win cons are and various other stuff. So based off what you currently have, you could end up with

STINK Version 1:

Reckoner stays exactly the same, has win con of passing X missions (where X is determined by how many players sign up)

Minion: Starts in a doc with other minions, and can either pass or fail a mission. Win con is to kill the Reckoners.

Day Cycle: Lasts 48 hours, with the leader of the next mission announced 8 hours before rollover. There are lynches.

Night cycle: Lasts 24 hours, with the people on missions not being able to post or PM. Each votes on whether it succeeds or not. If the mission fails, a random villager (doesn't have to be on the mission) dies.

-----

And then from there, you can see that it is very similar to your game, but isn't quite the same. 'Course, this was made on mobile and I couldn't check what Wyrms game was exactly like, and it would need to be different from Wyrms. (Such as my one not having deaths in it)

Anyway, no idea how this looks cause I hate posting on mobile but there should be at least something substantial here.

 

 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok, so no group PM's. Minions have a Doc. Win con Reckoners: Pass five missions or kill all Minions. Minions: Outnumber Reckoners. 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Complete revised set of rules:

Spoiler

Setting: Los Angeles, post-Calamity. Several Reckoner Cells are joining forces to take down the ruling Epic, Darkblade. Unfortunately, his minions have infiltrated the Cells, with the intent of destroying the group from the inside.

Roles: 

Reckoner: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit). Win con: Eliminate all Minions or pass five missions.

Minion: Standard Elim. Starts game with google doc with other Elims. Can vote "yes" or "no." Win con: Outnumber Reckoners or fail five missions.

Day cycle: Lasts 24 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 12 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

Anything else that needs balancing?

[A Joe in the Bush]

I would avoid doing a hard and fast 5 missions to win. Base the number of missions off the number of players. say 1 mission per 4 players in the game? Balance wise, the rules are good. You'll just have to be careful with the number of eliminators in the game.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

2 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

I would avoid doing a hard and fast 5 missions to win. Base the number of missions off the number of players. say 1 mission per 4 players in the game? Balance wise, the rules are good. You'll just have to be careful with the number of eliminators in the game.

Yeah, that sounds better. How many Elims per villager? And round up or down?

[A Joe in the Bush]

For this game? Uh, 2 to 7 i'd day. Depends on how many players and the average generation. Wilson's better at that than me.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok. So, @little wilson, how many villagers per Elims should there be for this?

[Metacognition he/him]

I don't know if it would work for this game due to it being Resistance based, but as older players will know, I found out that there is an actual mathematical equation for figuring out the typical number of Eliminators in a game. If you scroll down in the link to Game Theory, it'll give you the equation. 
These numbers change with the addition of roles and the GM should modify them to account for factors like that most of us are veteran players with regards to each other. But, it's a good base. 

For this game in particular, I'd go with something closer to about a fifth of the player base. So if you have 20 people, roughly 4 Elims (give or take a few depending on other factors). This gives the Village somewhat decent odds of getting a non-Elim mission while still giving the Elims a decent chance of getting one of their members added to a mission. 

The one thing I would do though is expand the number of players on a mission. As it stands, if an Elim is in a mission, they don't have much incentive to vote "No," as that narrows the field down to only three people. If the people on the mission is closer to 5-6 players (or say about a quarter of the player base, depending on the number of players), then an Elim isn't entirely revealing themselves just to kill one person.

I'd also consider getting rid of the limited number of missions and make it a typical outnumber situation (or at least set it based on the number of players, as Joe suggested). Because, as it stands now, the Village just needs one all group village to succeed and then they can continue using that same group until they get their 5 missions and there's little that can be done about it. I'd leave out any additional roles and just use the Missions as the Villagers' way of tracking and finding Elims. 

Just some ideas. @Wyrmhero would be a great person to ask (and read his post game thoughts from his game) to really round it out. Since they've run something similar, I'll bet they'd have a good idea of what works and what doesn't.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Metacognition

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok, been revised. 

Spoiler

Setting: Los Angeles, post-Calamity. Several Reckoner Cells are joining forces to take down the ruling Epic, Darkblade. Unfortunately, his minions have infiltrated the Cells, with the intent of destroying the group from the inside.

Roles: 

Reckoner: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit). Win con: Eliminate all Minions or pass [number of players/4] missions.

Minion: Standard Elim. [number of players/5] of them. Starts game with google doc with other Elims. Can vote "yes" or "no." Win con: Outnumber Reckoners or fail [number of players/4] missions.

Day cycle: Lasts 24 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 12 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

Idea: Should there be a rule where you can't use the same group twice, I.E. you have to have at least one different person per mission?

[Jondesu he/him]

54 minutes ago, Assassin in Burgundy said:

Idea: Should there be a rule where you can't use the same group twice, I.E. you have to have at least one different person per mission?

When I played Resistance, we did that once and quickly discovered it wasn't a great idea.  I don't know if it'd be necessary to have a rule about that, but it doesn't necessarily work out well for the villagers.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

19 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

When I played Resistance, we did that once and quickly discovered it wasn't a great idea.  I don't know if it'd be necessary to have a rule about that, but it doesn't necessarily work out well for the villagers.

Ok, thanks. 

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ok, I talked to Wyrmhero about it and he said to make it an LG, with 48 hour Days, 24 hour Plannings, and 24 hour nights. So, complete set of rules looks like this:

Spoiler

Setting: Los Angeles, post-Calamity. Several Reckoner Cells are joining forces to take down the ruling Epic, Darkblade. Unfortunately, his minions have infiltrated the Cells, with the intent of destroying the group from the inside.

Roles: 

Reckoner: Standard villager. Must vote "yes" on missions. (More on that in a bit). Win con: Eliminate all Minions or pass [number of players/4] missions.

Minion: Standard Elim. [number of players/5] of them. Starts game with google doc with other Elims. Can vote "yes" or "no." Win con: Outnumber Reckoners or fail [number of players/4] missions.

Day cycle: Lasts 48 hours. Village picks a lynch, etc. Proceeds as normal. 

Planning cycle: 24 hours. One person is randomly selected. They pick four people to go on a mission. This can be themselves. They put people in the mission by writing their name in red. To retract, they write it in green again, like voting. If they do not choose four people by the end of the cycle, they are killed and the mission fails. (Somewhat an inactivity filter). 

Night cycle: Lasts 24 hours. The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread or in player-to-player PM's. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they do not send it in, it counts as a "no." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If they do not send anything, it is counted as a "yes." If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone. If the mission fails because a villager didn't send in an order, that villager is the one that dies.

PM's: Anyone can start a new PM with themselves and someone else per day or night cycle. Group PM's are not allowed.

Other: No special roles. No special items. Trying to keep it simpleish. 

So, what else do I need to do? If that's it, can I sign up?

EDIT: @Metacognition? @A Joe in the Bush? @Jondesu?

 

Edited January 31, 2017 by Assassin in Burgundy

[A Joe in the Bush]

On 1/8/2017 at 7:42 PM, Assassin in Burgundy said:

24 hours. The four players are sent on a mission. They cannot post in the thread or in player-to-player PM's. Before the night ends, they must send a "yes" or a "no" to the gm PM. If they are villager, then they must send a "yes." If they do not send it in, it counts as a "no." If they are an Elim, they can send in either. If they do not send anything, it is counted as a "yes." If there is just one "no" that is sent, then the mission fails and a random villager in the mission is killed. Along with this, the Elims can send in an order to kill someone. 

A question and a suggestion.

What happens if multiple players send in a no? And if the mission fails because of an inactive villager, i vote it automatically kills the villager, rather than a random player on the mission.

And, according to the SE Games: Master Doc, you are signed up. Slot 27 for LG. 

[Seonid he/him]

I'll sign up for another LG. And another MR, while I'm at it

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

1 hour ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

A question and a suggestion.

What happens if multiple players send in a no? And if the mission fails because of an inactive villager, i vote it automatically kills the villager, rather than a random player on the mission.

And, according to the SE Games: Master Doc, you are signed up. Slot 27 for LG. 

Then it would still fail. And yeah, that's a good idea. 

EDIT: Oh wow. Will I be running this in 2019 or something?

Edited January 11, 2017 by Assassin in Burgundy

[Jondesu he/him]

I like the idea of the inactivity filter just being death for a member of the team that doesn't vote. There shouldn't be any difference between 1 No or 2-3 for a single mission, which is part of what adds a bit of nice complexity to the game without needing a bunch of roles. I think you'll be good to go with that one minor change.