The Art of Game Creation

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Could I get a few people from around the world to PM me and I can send them a link to make sure this is working? I want to ensure it works for someone in Australia just as well as it works for someone down the street.

[Elbereth she/her]

On 2/24/2017 at 3:24 PM, Silverblade5 said:

@little wilson@Metacognition 

I seem to remember there being a spreadsheet containing a schedule for when future games are expected to start. Would it be possible for a link to that to be added to the OP?

There is a link - it's now in General Rules. And also here. 

@Jondesu, if you want a second pair of eyes I'm always happy to. 

Ecth - o.O That's... I'm actually really down for that. Maybe. Depending on how it works. I see absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be excellent, though. Not for every game, perhaps, but for some it'd be really, really nice. PM me, just because I want to see? 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

On 08/03/2017 at 3:14 PM, Ecthelion III said:

Could I get a few people from around the world to PM me and I can send them a link to make sure this is working? I want to ensure it works for someone in Australia just as well as it works for someone down the street.

I'm from Aus. I'll give it a shot.

[DeTess she/her]

Below the first draft for a game idea I had is detailed. It would probably be an MR or LG. I'm still pretty new at SE, but since there are waiting queues of well over year to start running a game, I thought I might as well show this idea and get some input early.

Spoiler

The Northern Interest Trading Company is preparing for another expedition to the Pantheon. All previous missions have been lost, or returned with extreme losses. This time will be different, however, thanks to the Northern Wind, the newly designed airship that will soon leave its hangar and start on its maiden voyage. Nothing will be able to stop a successful expedition when it launches, especially not those yokels from the Southern Influence Commerce Syndicate.

The airship

The airship will play an important role in this game. It has a number of critical parts. If all parts are sabotaged, the NITC loses the game. The amount of parts will be based on the amount of players participating (though not on a 1:1 basis).

Dismissal vote

This is the lynch. It is used to decide who should be dismissed from the project and put under police investigation. It works just like any other lynch, only your character is merely fired and imprisoned, not outright killed. The role and alignment of the dismissed person is revealed

.

Factions

Southern Influence Commerce Syndicate Saboteur:

You’ve heard of the NITC’s new project, and decided it could do with a couple of set-backs while the parent company rush their own air-ship into production.

The eliminiation team. Each cycle, this faction can either attack one player or sabotage one airship part. Victory is achieved when all airship parts have been sabotaged or all NITC players have been hospitalized or dismissed.

Northern Interest Trading Company:

This faction is making the final preparations for the Northern Wind’s maiden voyage. Construction work is being finished up, and you are all preparing for and looking forward to the big expedition. This faction wins when all SITC saboteurs have been dismissed from the project or have been hospitalized.

Hospital

Any player that gets attacked gets sent to the hospital. The role, but not the alignment of someone who has been hospitalized is revealed.

They get access to a shared doc with everyone else in the hospital, but they won’t be able to talk in the main thread, or respond to PM’s (though people will still be able to send PM’s to people in the hospital, they just can’t respond to them). All people in the hospital are immune to all actions except the dismissal vote.

Roleless players (just being a saboteur counts as roleless) can decide to visit the hospital. They can’t post in the thread or vote, and can’t answer PM’s for that cycle, but they do get access to the hospital doc. At the end of the cycle they leave the hospital again. Note that visitors are not immune to being attacked.

Roles

Nightwatch: You can protect one player or airship part from attack for the cycle.

Engineer: An engineer can work together with another engineer to repair a sabotaged part of the airship (this action requires two engineers to submit the order to fix the same part, if one of the two gets attacked on the cycle this order is submitted, the part is not repaired).

Doctor: A doctor can spend a cycle in the hospital, following the same rules as a visitor. At the end of the cycle, one hospitalized person of his choice can return to work. If a person gets hospitalized for a second time, he’s injured too badly and can’t be healed again.

Gossip: You don’t just talk about all the juicy rumors you’ve picked up, you’re also quite adept at making them be heard by the right person. You can move one vote each cycle (you can’t turn a no-vote into a vote or vice-versa)

Trapper: You’ve been hired by the NITC to help their expedition. Unlike the corporate softies, you have no problem with getting your hands dirty to solve a problem. You can hospitalize one player each cycle.

Ship’s mate: You are below the notice of most of the engineers, doctors and other high-and-mighty types walking around your ship. Unlike them, however, you know the ship inside and out, and can use that to your advantage. You can overhear the entirety of one randomly chosen PM each cycle, or just the responses from a person you’ve chosen to one PM.

Bureaucrat: Your predecessor was responsible for the hiring of everyone involved with the project. He was subsequently fired because his methods for recording information about the new recruits was horrendous and unintelligible. Every turn, you can compile and decipher a file on one person, revealing their role to you.

PM’s

PM’s are open, but can only be between two people. No group PM’s.

 

[Arraenae]

Finally, a game where people don't die by the masses!

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Alright... Going to lay out my first game idea.

Since I'm just starting, the mechanics and roles here won't be too ambitious. This is mostly just a straight game.

 

RP Background:

Spoiler

The setting is Nalthis.

Kalad the Returned has overthrown Hanald, casting out the royal family of Idris, and founded Hallandren in its place. The dethroned Idris royal family rallies old allies, and forms the Pahn Unity in response. The manywar has begun.

A detachment of Idrian Soldiers has just been dispatched from the infant nation of Idris, sent as sorely needed reinforcements to shore up the battle in Hallandren. Unfortunately for Idris, Hallandren Agents have infiltrated the camp, and are determined to keep the reinforcements from ever reaching the battle.

Due to a severe winter, and the occasional sighting of a band of lifeless, the soldiers decide to set up camp in the ruins of a town, destroyed by some forgotten battle in the manywar. Because supplies are low, sickness is spreading, and visibility is poor, it is decided that they must stay camped at least until the weather improves.

 

Format: QF

 

Alignments:

Loyal Idrian Soldiers play the part of townspeople. They get a normal lynch vote every cycle.

The Hallandren Agents play the standard eliminator role. Agents hold the commands to a group of lifeless. Every night, they may order their lifeless to attack the camp and take one of the soldiers. In the event that an eliminator has a role-based power, they may choose to either put in an order for the faction power or use their individual power. For the eliminators to use their faction power, only one order is necessary, so, for example, one elim could use a role-based power while a second used the faction power. If there's only one elim left however, it becomes impossible to use both in one cycle.

The Lifeless are basically this game's version of spectators. They have access to the elim doc, and in terms of the writeups, they are the ones that actually carry out nightly kills. They are technically members of the eliminator team. They can't actually participate in the game in any way however (can't post, vote for lynch, or decide kills); it's mostly a cosmetic role. People who sign up as spectators are lifeless from the game start, and people who die in the game are made into lifeless.

Note, lifeless are allowed to share information from their past lives. This will give the elims an edge as they kill more people, and as a result there will need to be fewer elims / more villager roles than normal.

 

Roles:

To deal with the threat of lifeless every night, the Idrians have sentries. A Sentry can choose someone to watch every cycle. Every other action that targets the sentry's target that cycle will be made known to the sentry, along with who committed each action.

Everyone agreed, one person, one vote. But there are still people in charge... An Officer can order one person to change their vote each cycle.

In its infancy, Idris still had awakeners, though the art was growing to be unpopular. An Awakener may immobilize a target with an awakened rope every cycle, roleblocking them for the cycle (does not block votes, but blocks all other actions including vote manipulations).

 

Inactivity Filter:

Players who are inactive for a cycle will fall ill. If they are active again in the following cycle, they recover from their sickness. If they are fully inactive for a second cycle, they will die of the sickness and be removed from the game. This means players aren't kicked after 1 cycle of inactivity, which can be rough... But inactivity is still filtered out.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Drake Marshall

[DeTess she/her]

it sounds like an interesting game, Drake. There was one mechanic I had some comments on/questions about.

2 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

The Lifeless are basically this game's version of spectators. They have access to the elim doc, and in terms of the writeups, they are the ones that actually carry out nightly kills. They are technically members of the eliminator team. They can't actually participate in the game in any way however (can't post, vote for lynch, or decide kills); it's mostly a cosmetic role. People who sign up as spectators are lifeless from the game start, and people who die in the game are made into lifeless.

Note, lifeless are allowed to share information from their past lives. This will give the elims an edge as they kill more people, and as a result there will need to be fewer elims / more villager roles than normal.

What is your way to incentivice/enforce sharing of information? In LG31, when I died, I was still rooting for the village and wanted them to win. If an elim had had a role allowing him to contact me and ask questions, I wouldn't have felt particularly inclined to answer his questions unless there was a rule stating I'd have to.

I can think of two ways to handle this, though other people can probably think of others. First would be to make the lifeless faction share the victory-condition of the elims. This means that everyone in essence has a traitor-role that triggers on death. This might be how you are already planning to do it.

The other way is to have a rule that elims get a (limited) number of questions they can ask a new lifeless, that the new lifeless has to answer truthfully. This could add an interesting dynamic in which the elims will actually need to know what questions to ask. If they don't know about that one PM the new lifeless had, they can't ask about it either. However, this would mean that the newly killed have no stake in the elim cause, and would mean they'd try and find ways to weasel out of giving actual information.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

What I was originally planning to give the lifeless the same win condition as the elims, yes.

The reason I allowed lifeless to tell the elims things is because I don't believe there's a good way to prevent that, so I might as well use it as part of the game, and adjust accordingly. If the lifeless are on the elim team, but they aren't allowed to share information... Well, lets just say that while I mostly trust you guys to stay in the spirit of the game, enforcing that rule becomes very murky.

Plus, it gives kind of the feel of the elims becoming more powerful over time, as their zombie-army grows. Even if the dead people don't know anything the elims can use, it still puts a fresh set of eyes on the team.

 

If the game were to incorporate your x-shot question mechanism on death... Probably the best way would just be make it all "yes" or "no" questions (or "I don't know" I suppose). If the elims had a decent number of those, they could figure out important information, without there being the possibility that villagers could give non-answers.

If that question mechanism were put in place, the role of their target would probably be revealed to the elims before they get to ask their questions. That means the elims could know if the person they just killed was a sentry, and accordingly ask "did you determine that so-and-so is an awakener" and have a chance at discovering someone else's role.

In some ways, this approach might be more realistic, because it can be roleplayed as the elims interrogating people before they kill them.

[STINK he/him]

10 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Format: QF (1)

Alignments:

Loyal Idrian Soldiers play the part of townspeople. They get a normal lynch vote every cycle.

The Hallandren Agents play the standard eliminator role. Agents hold the commands to a group of lifeless. Every night, they may order their lifeless to attack the camp and take one of the soldiers. In the event that an eliminator has a role-based power, they may choose to either put in an order for the faction power or use their individual power. For the eliminators to use their faction power, only one order is necessary, so, for example, one elim could use a role-based power while a second used the faction power. If there's only one elim left however, it becomes impossible to use both in one cycle. (2)

The Lifeless are basically this game's version of spectators. They have access to the elim doc (3), and in terms of the writeups, they are the ones that actually carry out nightly kills. They are technically members of the eliminator team. They can't actually participate in the game in any way however (can't post, vote for lynch, or decide kills); it's mostly a cosmetic role. People who sign up as spectators are lifeless from the game start, and people who die in the game are made into lifeless.

Note, lifeless are allowed to share information from their past lives. This will give the elims an edge as they kill more people, and as a result there will need to be fewer elims / more villager roles than normal. (4)

Roles:

To deal with the threat of lifeless every night, the Idrians have sentries. A Sentry can choose someone to watch every cycle. Every other action that targets the sentry's target that cycle will be made known to the sentry, along with who committed each action.

Everyone agreed, one person, one vote. But there are still people in charge... An Officer can order one person to change their vote each cycle.

In its infancy, Idris still had awakeners, though the art was growing to be unpopular. An Awakener may immobilize a target with an awakened rope every cycle, roleblocking them for the cycle (does not block votes, but blocks all other actions including vote manipulations).

Inactivity Filter:

Players who are inactive for a cycle will fall ill. If they are active again in the following cycle, they recover from their sickness. If they are fully inactive for a second cycle, they will die of the sickness and be removed from the game. This means players aren't kicked after 1 cycle of inactivity, which can be rough... But inactivity is still filtered out.

Trimmed all the stuff that I wasn't gonna comment on, and added points that I'm commenting on Also, (1) will be discussed last.

(2): That's all pretty standard for elims and village. So, I'd approve.

(3): Alright, I just gotta say that having spectators be able to talk to the elims is horribly broken, even if it is a nice concept. Just one spectator already throws all kinds of balance outta wack, and you'd have to reduce elim teams by a fair bit. There are ways to balance around this, but not for QF games. Of course, this is assuming that when you said 'access', you meant they could talk and not just watch the elims speak. 

(4): Same thing to the spectators, basically (but worse). Doesn't matter if the game is Open PMs or Closed PMs, but this is still pretty broken. First, I'm going to state that the real strength of the elims isn't just that they know who each other are and have a night kill for free, but that it's the discussion that they can have between the group. So adding someone to the discussion every cycle? That's strong. By C4, they have 4 more people telling them reads and suspicions, and how to counteract that. It's just horribly broken, but again Mediums are a cool concept. Elim Mediums though? 

Roles look alright I guess, but I don't really have the time to discuss them right now.

(1): Any kind of talking to the dead mechanic, I personally don't think is suitable to a QF, however I think it would be possible to modify this game so that it is more suitable for a QF game. 

STINK Version:

QF

Elim and Village are same as normal.

Open PMs.

Spectators just spectate. If people want to interact with your game, that's what signing up is for.

The Lifeless are dead players, who are put into a dead doc. This doc can only be viewed by the elims, however the Elims can request the GM to put one sentence in the doc for them, that the Lifeless must react/interact with. For example, the elims could put in 'Hello everyone!' and all Lifeless must respond with 'Hello' or something along those lines. The elims could also put in 'Who do you think is evil?' and the Lifeless would have to answer. The Lifeless do not know who the elims are after dying, so cannot offer too much help to the elim team.

Keep Inactivity filter the same.

As for Roles, I still don't have the time to look at them

[Elbereth she/her]

@randuir, I like your game quite a lot. Some questions: 

1. Will the number of airship parts be revealed at the beginning? 

2. Will cause of attack be revealed? 

And notes:

1. This feels like a LG much more than an MR in its current state. 

2. PM spying is annoying. You can totally do it if you want to: but I know from experience. It is not fun as a GM. (Alternatively, ask Meta about PM spying.  He has experience with it as well, and did not find it fun.)

3. As of now, the evil team seems weaker. This is fine, so long as you distribute accordingly, but I want to make sure you're aware of it. Mostly that's because of one thing: dismissals, generally the village's tool, are final. Attacks and sabotages are not. The village can reverse anything that the eliminators do, in theory. So no one's truly dead, and no piece is truly broken, unless there's only one engineer left (including those hospitalized), or there are no doctors left. That's not necessarily bad, but it's something to be very careful of. 

@Drake Marshall - this is a weird game, but I like it. So... comments. 

The bit about Hallandren Agents can be condensed significantly. "Hallandren Agents hold the commands to a group of liefeless. Every night, they may order their lifeless to attack one soldier. Commanding the Lifeless takes an action." And in the housekeeping section (how ties are handled, how long cycles are, what time rollover will be, etc), include that each player gets one action. Just saying.  

Stink has an excellent point regarding spectators, though it varies per game. MR20 had spectators able to access the evil doc, for instance, and all of them were busy and thus didn't actually do much to help Mage. But there was also a very specific reason for that. Having players be able to sign up to be lifeless at the beginning of the game, and revealing that? Very different. I would definitely sign up for that rather than playing, because it's essentially a dream role: being able to strategize in the evil doc, without being able to die. So yes. You'd have to be very careful about balancing the evil team. (Yes, this is the same as what Stink said. Just emphasizing it because it's an important point.)

The dead speaking to elims... for me, the thing with that is that it heavily depends on the person involved, and whether you do actually include that their win con changes. (In which case, there will be significant incentive not to die, I'll note. Not terribly fond of that, though that's more personal than game-relevant.) If it doesn't change, it'd depend on the specific players involved, but would probably disadvantage the elims, possibly significantly. If it does, I agree that the more deaths increasing the number could be broken fairly quickly. Particularly because this means that the elims will go after the most experienced good players first, and get them all on their side. And as it stands right now, there isn't a protect, so there's also nothing to stop those players from dying. 

Sentry seems OP to me. Learning who targeted a player and with what action? I'd recommend leaving out the second part, or changing it in some other way. 

In general regarding roles, you won't want very many - a well-placed roleblock or Sentry action could take out a member of the evil team easily. Roleblocks are actually significantly more powerful than protects that way, because they tell you who the elim is, instead of just protecting the elim's target. It's doable, but be careful with distribution. 

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Hm... So, addressing the above...

Lifeless: I'm leaning towards Rand's suggestion, or a variant at least. For example... Perhaps elims could only talk to people they killed, on the cycle after they killed them. There could be a limit on what can be asked, for example only yes or no questions. This gives elims an extra edge as they kill more people, but is much restricted. In this case, spectators and people who have been dead for more than one cycle would just be normal dead (but the writeups may still feature these players showing up as lifeless to attack the camp).

There are really two other options to balance lifeless.

The first is to balance distribution in such a way as to weight the odds against the elims (for example, making their be only 1 actual elim in the game...). I don't like this solution because it makes for a highly volatile game.

The second is STINK's suggestion. This one looks decent in terms of balance, and gives the idea that elims become just a bit more powerful as more lifeless are created. It's a good option; I'll need to think about it.

In any either case, I don't think spectators would be allowed to be lifeless actually. Just people who died in-game.

 

"housekeeping":

-Yes, only 1 action can be taken per cycle.

-Standard QF time frame is 24 hour cycles. This game would probably be easier to GM if the cycles were 48 hours, but 24 should work.

-Rollover... Could be at any number of times, depending on how that works for people. If I had to say a specific time though I'd probably go with 9:00 PM pacific time, or 4:00 AM UTC.

-Policy for voting ties is that a random person of the tied votes is killed.

 

Roles:

You may notice a pattern with sentry and awakener. The most vanilla elimination games tend to have sheriff and doctor. The sheriff targets someone they think is suspicious to out an elim, where the sentry targets someone they think is likely to be killed to out an elim. The doctor targets someone they think is likely to be killed to save someone, where the awakener targets someone they think is likely to be the killer to save someone.

Sentry is a very slightly more powerful version of vanilla lookout, since they see what action was used by who. Since there are only 4 actions in the game however, and they aren't too difficult to identify, I don't think that modification is a major increase in power (on the flipped side of that, removing the ability to know who did what wouldn't be a significant decrease in power, so don't have very much against doing that). Sentry is the only directly investigative role, and, while it definitely has the potential to out an elim, the elims do have a slight edge since they can talk to people once they die.

As for awakener... It's a standard roleblock. Yes, roleblocks tend to be more powerful than vanilla protective roles. But, note that if everyone is as quick to assume that the person you roleblocked on the night nobody died must be the killer, the elims could use that against the town. I agree that roles will need to be carefully distributed though.

 

In terms of role distribution... I'm not sure if I should be giving numbers on this because if the game were ever run, role distribution should probably be unknown. But, nevertheless, here are some thoughts on role distrubution:

Spoiler

Potentially, role distribution might just be 1 of each role.

Alternatively, it could be something like 2 of 2 roles, and 1 of the third role. In that case, one of those 5 roles would go to an eliminator. The advantage of this setup is that someone who can confirm a role isn't automatically confirmed town.

I'm leaning towards 5 power roles with 1 in the hands of an elim. This is advantageous because it means at the beginning of the game, confirming that someone has a power role tells you nothing about their alignment. If 1 in 5 people are elims, and 1 in 5 power roles are elims, then confirming a role isn't alignment indicative.

As for elim count... Due to the presence of town power roles, the eliminator count should be more or less directly proportional to the number of total players. Typically, the ratio in SE is 1/5, and that should be about right for this game. For ~14 players in a QF, probably 3 elims.

 

[DeTess she/her]

1 hour ago, Elbereth said:

@randuir, I like your game quite a lot. Some questions: 

1. Will the number of airship parts be revealed at the beginning? 

2. Will cause of attack be revealed? 

And notes:

1. This feels like a LG much more than an MR in its current state. 

2. PM spying is annoying. You can totally do it if you want to: but I know from experience. It is not fun as a GM. (Alternatively, ask Meta about PM spying.  He has experience with it as well, and did not find it fun.)

3. As of now, the evil team seems weaker. This is fine, so long as you distribute accordingly, but I want to make sure you're aware of it. Mostly that's because of one thing: dismissals, generally the village's tool, are final. Attacks and sabotages are not. The village can reverse anything that the eliminators do, in theory. So no one's truly dead, and no piece is truly broken, unless there's only one engineer left (including those hospitalized), or there are no doctors left. That's not necessarily bad, but it's something to be very careful of. 

Regarding the questions:

1. Yes, the number of parts will be revealed at the beginning of cycle 1.

2. I'm currently leaning towards not differentiating between the elim and trapper attacks. That will help a bit with note 3, in that the doctor can't be certain about the alignment of anyone in the hospital, unless he's got a good PM going with the trapper(s).

Regarding the notes:

1. I agree.

2. I'll take that into account. What exactly is the main issue with it? I assume it increases the workload of the GM, but are there other implications I've missed?

3. I've noticed that, and did take it into account with how I expect to divide some of the roles. Regarding that, if there's anyone around with some experience in running games, but who doesn't plan to take part in the game I described (or who'd like to co-GM it), I'd like to have someone to discuss some questions and ideas regarding balancing, as well as some other small ideas I have. If anyone is interested in, just send me a PM.

[Elbereth she/her]

6 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Roles:

You may notice a pattern with sentry and awakener. The most vanilla elimination games tend to have sheriff and doctor. The sheriff targets someone they think is suspicious to out an elim, where the sentry targets someone they think is likely to be killed to out an elim. The doctor targets someone they think is likely to be killed to save someone, where the awakener targets someone they think is likely to be the killer to save someone.

Sentry is a very slightly more powerful version of vanilla lookout, since they see what action was used by who. Since there are only 4 actions in the game however, and they aren't too difficult to identify, I don't think that modification is a major increase in power (on the flipped side of that, removing the ability to know who did what wouldn't be a significant decrease in power, so don't have very much against doing that). Sentry is the only directly investigative role, and, while it definitely has the potential to out an elim, the elims do have a slight edge since they can talk to people once they die.

As for awakener... It's a standard roleblock. Yes, roleblocks tend to be more powerful than vanilla protective roles. But, note that if everyone is as quick to assume that the person you roleblocked on the night nobody died must be the killer, the elims could use that against the town. I agree that roles will need to be carefully distributed though.

 

In terms of role distribution... I'm not sure if I should be giving numbers on this because if the game were ever run, role distribution should probably be unknown. But, nevertheless, here are some thoughts on role distrubution:

  Hide contents

Potentially, role distribution might just be 1 of each role.

Alternatively, it could be something like 2 of 2 roles, and 1 of the third role. In that case, one of those 5 roles would go to an eliminator. The advantage of this setup is that someone who can confirm a role isn't automatically confirmed town.

I'm leaning towards 5 power roles with 1 in the hands of an elim. This is advantageous because it means at the beginning of the game, confirming that someone has a power role tells you nothing about their alignment. If 1 in 5 people are elims, and 1 in 5 power roles are elims, then confirming a role isn't alignment indicative.

As for elim count... Due to the presence of town power roles, the eliminator count should be more or less directly proportional to the number of total players. Typically, the ratio in SE is 1/5, and that should be about right for this game. For ~14 players in a QF, probably 3 elims.

 

Regarding roles - the reason Awakener and Sentry are more powerful, though, is this: Awakener both discovers an eliminator and stops a kill. It fulfills the objectives of both the doctor and sheriff. (And regarding the elims not putting in a kill, The Sentry is essentially a Seeker. An Action seeker, but given that there isn't a kill role for the village, it discovers alignment as well. 

And removing the ability to know who did what is a significant decrease, I'd argue. I... here. For example.

So, I'm roleless, but I propose a plan in thread. Everyone target me, including any and all Sentries. If anyone doesn't target me and a kill goes through, they're immediately under suspicion of being evil. If a kill targets me, that eliminator is discovered. If everyone targets me and yet a kill goes through, I am evil. 

Sure, the eliminators could just not kill. So they lose one cycle. And there's no reason not to keep doing that. Perhaps picking a different target every time. If the eliminators have a Sentry as well, they can fix that within a few turns by killing all of the village Sentries, but they have to sacrifice an eliminator every time to do so. 

You can see why this isn't ideal. 

 

Regarding specific distribution - no, I agree you shouldn't be giving specific numbers.  Fortunately, those numbers are probably mute given that the average QF is nineteen players, not fourteen. The current QF is 22, if you hadn't noticed.  I don't recommend posting revised numbers - discuss it with your IM when you get nearer the time. 

5 hours ago, randuir said:

Regarding the questions:

1. Yes, the number of parts will be revealed at the beginning of cycle 1.

2. I'm currently leaning towards not differentiating between the elim and trapper attacks. That will help a bit with note 3, in that the doctor can't be certain about the alignment of anyone in the hospital, unless he's got a good PM going with the trapper(s).

Regarding the notes:

1. I agree.

2. I'll take that into account. What exactly is the main issue with it? I assume it increases the workload of the GM, but are there other implications I've missed?

3. I've noticed that, and did take it into account with how I expect to divide some of the roles. Regarding that, if there's anyone around with some experience in running games, but who doesn't plan to take part in the game I described (or who'd like to co-GM it), I'd like to have someone to discuss some questions and ideas regarding balancing, as well as some other small ideas I have. If anyone is interested in, just send me a PM.

1. Excellent. 

2. I'd agree there. 

2b. Yes, workload. Not really any other implications (except in the freak coincidence of something like MR19), but it is not fun for the GMs. Honestly, what I did in LG31 was screenshot the needed PMs and send them to the person over Discord if they had it, rather than copy-pasting, because copying every message for a player active in PMs (and if they're picked specifically it's generally someone active) takes as long as all of the other PMs combined, in my experience. (Meta in LG2 had to copy every PM for UberTin. I've gotten the impression that he's not intending to repeat the experience. )

3. I would be happy to help GM, if you'd like one and don't have one already. 

[Herowannabe he/him]

@Madagascar @Wyrmhero @Sart

Alright, now that the CR winners have been chosen, I can put a bug in their ear to see if any of my non-Sanderson ideas appeal to them. I figure this is the best place to do it, as well as the best way to go about it, but @Metacognition if you'd rather we handle this in a different way just give the word. 

Anyway, I'm currently signed up for a LG, a MR, and a QF, and I've been near the top of all 3 lists for quite a while now, but I'm finally getting to the point where I think I can start running these. The LG and the QF are both Sanderson related.

The LG will be a rerun (albeit with some major tweaks to the roles and powers) of my first Elantris game, which was LG 12. 

The QF will be based on the infinity blade games and novellas. I'm still refining the rules, but you can read what I've got (and make suggestions, please!) Here.

That leaves the MR game. I originally signed up for it to be a Star Wars game centered around a squadron of X-Wing pilots and their droids, but later decided I didn't like that. 

So now I have two possible non-Sanderson games in mind to slot in here. First is a Star Wars game with a different theme- basically, the players are at the Cantina in Mos Eisley minutes after the Millenium Falcon blasts its way out of the city, and Stormtroopers seize and lock down the Cantina until the mess can be sorted out, trapping the players inside. Still working out mechanics of it, but right now I'm thinking multiple factions with differing goals, not all of which are mutually exclusive. For example: Imperial faction is trying to eliminate the Rebels. Rebels are trying to locate the stolen plans. Bounty hunters are trying to locate and capture one or more fugitives. And so on. 

As for my other idea, well honestly, I'm surprised nobody has tried to run a My Little Pony game yet, with the way it's taken over the interweb. So if people are interested, I'll run one (by way of explanation, I have a 4 year old daughter, so yes I have become very familiar with MLP. And I may or may not have also watched a few episodes without my daughter actually being present. It is a highly entertaining show. ). Premise is simple enough- the eliminators are changelings (shape shifters, for the uninitiated) who have infiltrated Ponyville and are trying to steal the 6 Elements of Harmony. Everypony else (the villagers) are trying to uncover the changelings and save Ponyville. Mechanics: 6 main powers/roles, one for each element of Harmony, but players also get a (publicly known) sub-power depending on what type of Pony they are. Also, everyone gets to choose their own Cutie Mark (Cosmetic Role). Yay!

If by chance neither of those games get the stamp of approval, I also have a Mistborn game in mind as well, using my own take on the various allomantic powers. 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Following Herowannabe here. I would like to run an game based on a series I am developing. I changed it from an MR to and LG so it's now sitting on number 40 heh.

This is the original post on it. 

-------------------------

Ok here is an idea of a game I like to call "Tag". It also happens to take place in an original world, in a town called Icarus Fell.

Basically it's sort of like Hurt and Heal. There are Fallen Angels and there are the Agents of Providence

For some basic lore, The villagers like to fantasise that the lake next to their...village was where Icarus fell from the sky. But in fact, it was where Lucifer fell from his Expulsion from Heaven.

The town has always been a cursed place, abnormal things seem to happen there all the time, The Cardinal Sins run rampart there, as do The Dragon's fallen servants

There will be references to Islam, Christianity and Judaism (so bear with me) and roles relating to their teachings.

--------------------

I'm not completely set with the roles and things, but the general concept I just want to run through you guys.

There are the Villagers faction, the Agents of Providence and the Servants of Dragon. Every century, Providence attempts to "clean up" the town and close down the operations of the Servants. Some times they succeed, sometimes they don't, but the Servants eventually Reincarnate in new hosts.

The Villager faction are in a state of flux being Corrupted and Cleansed constantly. Someone who starts as a villager can end up as any faction. The original Agents have a doc that stays with only themselves. As do the Servants. There will be items in circulation that can provide a player with temporary powers such as PM creation etc. 

When someone gets corrupted, they cannot see the Servant's doc and vice versa. They get a PM saying that they have been Corrupted or Cleansed as well as any powers randomly gained. 

The Cardinal Sins are a random occurrence and Possess a player, making him instantly a Servant as long as they live. If a Servant dies, the players he has had a hand in Corrupting (explain in detail later) get Released and are Villagers again. If an Agent dies, the people they have cleansed, stay cleansed but the other Agents get the power of the dead angel split between them (minor boosts depending on the stacks). 

The Agents win if the Servants are successfully killed or if the Cleansed outnumber the Corrupted. And the Servants win if they outnumber the Agents and the Cleansed. 

If a player is killed then a random player is bestowed a Secret Word. The word allows the player to convene with the Dead via the GM or Co GM with a 100 word message. The answer is recorded over the Night cycle and returned to the player the next day should they still be alive.

-----------------------------------------

I have been working on it a fair bit lately, but it isn't polished yet, so I will post the updated version once completed. 

(Possession is basically a permanent conversion btw)

[Elenion he/him]

If anyone is interested in an SE version of The Bachelor, I'm working on a ruleset.

[Madagascar]

Man, all of those games look really fun. Star Wars and My Little Pony (especially with cosmetic roles) both look fun, and so does Icarus Fell. I'd probably be happy to play any of those. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.

[Metacognition he/him]

7 hours ago, Madagascar said:

Man, all of those games look really fun. Star Wars and My Little Pony (especially with cosmetic roles) both look fun, and so does Icarus Fell. I'd probably be happy to play any of those. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.

Once you've picked out a Non-Sanderson game that you'd like, just let that GM and us Mods know. That way, we can get it added to the list and then that game will be the one that is played when that GM is up. 

[Jondesu he/him]

I'd put forth my Lord of the Rings game, but it might not run until 2020. :-P

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

I also have a Wyrmeweald game in plan

But apparently none of you have heard of Wyrmweald...

[Jondesu he/him]

1 hour ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

I also have a Wyrmeweald game in plan

But apparently none of you have heard of Wyrmweald...

I'll look it up.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Alright I've had some time, so... Here's the reworked version of my game:

 

RP Background:

Spoiler

The setting is Nalthis.

Kalad the Returned has overthrown Hanald, casting out the royal family of Idris, and founded Hallandren in its place. The dethroned Idris royal family rallies old allies, and forms the Pahn Unity in response. The manywar has begun.

A detachment of Idrian Soldiers has just been dispatched from the infant nation of Idris, sent as sorely needed reinforcements to shore up the battle in Hallandren. Unfortunately for Idris, Hallandren Agents have infiltrated the camp, and are determined to keep the reinforcements from ever reaching the battle.

Due to a severe winter, and the occasional sighting of a band of lifeless, the soldiers decide to set up camp in the ruins of a town, destroyed by some forgotten battle in the manywar. Because supplies are low, sickness is spreading, and visibility is poor, it is decided that they must stay camped at least until the weather improves.

 

Format: QF

 

Alignments:

Loyal Idrian Soldiers play the part of townspeople. They get a normal lynch vote every cycle. If the vote is tied, a random person in the tied vote is killed.

The Hallandren Agents play the standard eliminator role. Agents hold the commands to a group of lifeless. Every night, they may order their lifeless to attack the camp and take one of the soldiers. In the event that an eliminator has a role-based power, they may choose to either put in an order for the faction power or use their individual power. You may only use one action per cycle, and using a role power or a faction power both count as an action. The elim who puts in the kill order will for all intents and purposes be the only one carrying out the kill action.

The Lifeless are players who have been lynched by day (Not players who are killed by elims though. There are several reasons for this. First, it means elims can't target good players to recruit them. Second, I find it ironic that someone falsely lynched by the town can do something to get the townspeople back. Third, the RP rationale for this is that people taken by the lifeless are physically injured and thus require some repairs to be made into lifeless, whereas people who have been hung have less physical injury and are significantly easier to make into lifeless). In terms of the writeups, they are the ones that actually carry out nightly kills. They can't actually participate in the game in any way however (can't post, vote for lynch, or decide kills). Lifeless share the elim win condition, since they are technically part of the eliminator force and are meant to give the eliminators an edge.

The lifeless have a doc, and every cycle, the elims may ask the GM to publish up to 5 yes or no questions on the lifeless doc. The eliminators will be informed of all "yes" or "no" replies the lifeless submit (the lifeless don't all have to agree on a definitive "yes" or "no" to a given question).

This is a somewhat further nerfed version of STINK's originally suggested nerf. This is because, in STINK's suggestion, the elims could conceivably send a message to the lifeless revealing their identity, which would subvert the intent of his suggestion to limit the knowledge the lifeless have access to. I could make a rule specifically prohibiting such a reveal, but I find this approach to be cleaner, since what counts as a reveal is conceivably not always black and white.

Eliminator mediums may seem an odd idea... But the mechanic is basically derived from the fact that more lifeless = more power, and the eliminators are using lifeless. And I suspect that this version won't give the elims so much power that QF levels of role and faction distributions can't balance it out.

 

Roles:

To deal with the threat of lifeless every night, the Idrians have sentries. A Sentry can choose someone to watch every cycle. The list of people who targeted the sentry's target with an action will be made known to the sentry at the end of the cycle.

Everyone agreed, one person, one vote. But there are still people in charge... An Officer can order one person to change their vote each cycle.

In its infancy, Idris still had awakeners, though the art was growing to be unpopular. An Awakener may immobilize a target with an awakened rope every cycle, roleblocking them for the cycle (does not block votes, but blocks all other actions including vote manipulations). I understand that a roleblocker is more powerful than a vanilla doctor role, but I believe this game should be able to account for that.

 

Inactivity Filter:

Players who are inactive for a cycle will fall ill. If they are active again in the following cycle, they recover from their sickness. If they are fully inactive for a second cycle, they will die of the sickness and be removed from the game. This means players aren't kicked after 1 cycle of inactivity, which can be rough... But inactivity is still filtered out.

 

PM policy: Open PMs. Should have mentioned that earlier.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Drake Marshall
Fixed "RP Background" spoiler

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

@Drake MarshallThe RP background spoiler thing is empty

[Aonar he/him]

Feel obligated to link back to my GC game, for consideration, although I don't know if I'll even be able to run it, depending how things go.

(TL;DR for people that don't feel like reading the original post: The LG is effectively two small MRs running in sync, with the elim faction in one being the village faction in the other. Mostly fairly standard roles, with a few twists, and some additional mechanics/secrets that make use of the split-game format.)

If you want a sense of the story/RP angle, here's a link to the comic. (Warning, it's long. I'd say it's worth reading for it's own sake, but if you just want to get a quick sense of the story, you might want to just read chapter 14, and go back to the beginning if that interests you. )

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

14 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

@Drake MarshallThe RP background spoiler thing is empty

Fixed. The RP background is also available in the initial post, since I haven't changed it at all since then...

 

Also, the rough outlines of another game idea occurred to me, that might be humorous...

A dark alley themed SE game. Among the innocents traveling through the alley, there are some people... Some people you don't want to meet in a dark alley.

This isn't much more than a speculated theme right now. To be a properly thought out game, this would probably need some kind of hemalurgy mechanic (a cursory search reveals that there aren't many examples of hemalurgy as a central game mechanic in past SE games).

Edited March 25, 2017 by Drake Marshall