The Art of Game Creation

[Kasimir he/him]

On 4/15/2024 at 12:17 PM, DrakeMarshall said:

No one lets u live Drakebro >:P 

[CRichardThrone]

Late reply regarding the Things game. If you've watched the movie The Thing you'll get it fast.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I posted a sketch of these rules back a bit, but they've been fleshed out a lot more. I'm definitely interested in feedback, since I think I'll run this as my next LG.

Spoiler

LG ###: Re-Awakening at the House on the Hill

 

Growing up, everyone told stories about the ruined house just outside town. Mostly ghost stories, but a few of heroes and valor. One of your neighbors even claimed his great-great-great uncle had been the one to destroy the house. As if in opposition to that claim, one day, instead of a ruin, a mansion stood there, as impressive as it must have been in the old stories. No one claimed a part in rebuilding it, yet there it stood. So now you and some other curious folks have decided to pay a visit to the House on the Hill. As the first member of your party reaches the top, the front gate swings open without a sound, as if to welcome you in.

 

The goal of these rules is to accommodate 8-10 players in 3 different scenarios. The village needs to discover which scenario they are in to pursue their win condition. Players can choose to explore the 3 different floors of the house to gain roles, trigger the Haunt, and gain clues about the scenario they are in. The game starts during a night turn which is RP only, with a private vote for receiving a gift from the steward of the House. The effect of the gift changes with each scenario, and the recipient is not informed which benefit they have, only that they have the gift. Also during that night, players explore the house, gaining roles and setting which scenario happens. During Day 1 forward, there is a standard execution, and from Night 1 forward, there is a kill and players can continue to explore the house to find clues about the scenario.

 

General Rules:

• Cycles are 72 hours long, split into 48 hour days and 24 hour nights
• Each day turn, there will be an execution determined by a majority vote. There is no vote minimum, and a tie vote will have a random outcome
• PMs are open but group PMs are not allowed
• The game begins on Night 0

 

Alignments:

• Innocent Explorer: Now that you are inside, coming to the House doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Hopefully you can survive and come away with nothing more than some scary tales for nights around a fire.
• House Thrall: The House has Awakened, and you have fallen under its influence. Only your former friends stand in its way now, but they shouldn’t be too hard to dispose of.
• Insatiable Kandra: Unlike others of your kind, you have a ravenous hunger for the flesh of humans. Now that you’ve led another group of innocents to your home, it is time to feast!

 

Scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Standard Eliminator game
  • Weighted more heavily by players exploring the ground floor during N0
  • Elims are more likely to be chosen out of players that explored the basement during N0
  • Items/Roles are more likely to be given to villagers that explored the upstairs during N0
• Scenario 2: Free for All with Smoking Gun
  • Weighted more heavily by players exploring the upstairs during N0
  • The Smoking Gun is more likely to be given to players that explore the ground floor during N0
  • Items/Roles are more likely to be given to players that explore the basement during N0
• Scenario 3: Single Body-hopping Elim
  • Weighed more heavily by players exploring the basement during N0
  • Elim is more likely to be chosen from players that explored the upstairs N0
  • Items/Roles are more likely to be given to players that explored the ground floor N0

 

Exploration Roles/Items:

• Lerasium and Metals: Once during the game you can roleblock another player
• Proto-Radiant: A spren has bonded with you, granting you the power to protect another player once during the game. If you are roleblocked, you retain the use of your ability
• Aviar: Exploring the House will always give you a clue, and you will reroll the clue once if it doesn’t match the current scenario

 

Scenario Roles/Items:

• Smoking Gun (Exclusive to Scenario 2): You can kill another player. If you don’t submit a kill, or if you are roleblocked, you will die instead. This item is passed to another random living player at the start of each Night turn, unless the current owner is executed, in which case it passes to a random player that voted on them.
• Insatiable Kandra (Scenario 3 elim):
  • Serial Killer
  • Each Night turn you can steal another player’s body (by attacking them) and discard your current one, which will be revealed as having been killed in the writeup. The targeted player will become the new Kandra, and all present and former Kandra players share a doc (but only the currently “living” account can post in the thread)
  • Roles of attacked players are not retained, but if the original Kandra has the gift then that ability is retained
  • All players in the Kandra doc win/lose together
• Scenario 1 Gift: 
  • Village: Your vote counts twice, but only during ExLo (which will not be announced)
  • Elim: You will obtain a village role during Night 1
• Scenario 2 Gift: The first Smoking Gun shot against you will instead hit another random player, including the shooter
• Scenario 3 Gift: 
  • Village: If you vote on the Kandra, your vote is doubled
  • Elim: Once during the game you can choose to just kill a player rather than replace them

 

Detailed rules of exploration from Night 1+:

Players that explore the house post-N0 have an 80% chance to find a clue regarding what scenario is taking place. The clue has a ⅔ chance to be from the pool of clues for the current scenario, and a ⅓ chance to be from a different scenario. Each scenario has 1 unique clue, plus 1 clue shared with each other scenario. The clues will not be described exactly as below but it will be clear which one the player found.

 

Scenario 1 Clues:

• Jeskeri paraphernalia (Unique)
• Remnants of an explosion/gunshot (Shared with Scenario 2)
• Hemalurgic Spike (Shared with Scenario 3)

 

Scenario 2 Clues:

• Remnants of a Rithmatic Defense (Unique)
• Remnants of an explosion/gunshot (Shared with Scenario 1)
• A gemstone infused with Voidlight (Shared with Scenario 3)

 

Scenario 3 Clues:

• A pile of discarded bones (Unique)
• Hemalurgic Spike (Shared with scenario 1)
• A gemstone infused with Voidlight (Shared with Scenario 2)

 

Detailed rules of exploration on Night 0:

Scenario weights are Player Count + 2*Explore Count

For example, in a 3 player game, where 2 players explore the ground floor, 1 player explores the basement, and nobody explores upstairs, the scenarios would be weighted at Standard Elims - (3+4=7/15 or ~47%), Kandra - (3+2=5/15 or ~33%), Smoking Gun - (3+0=3/15 or 20%). Note that this calculation means the base weight for each scenario is 20%, and the remaining 40% is determined by exploration.

 

After the scenario is selected, the 2 elims/Kandra/Gun are handed out per the specific scenario. For each choice, a coin flip determines whether the player is selected from the Floor Exploration pool, or from the entire player pool. For example, if only Araris explores the Ground Floor during N0 and Scenario 2 is selected, there is a 50% chance Araris receives the Smoking Gun, and a 50% chance that anyone gets it (Araris could also get it from this roll).

 

Next, if scenario 1 is in place and the gift goes to an elim, they are randomly assigned one of the 3 standard roles/items with equal probability. Then the other two standard roles are assigned to villagers, with coin flips determining whether the players are selected from the Upstairs Pool, or from the entire player pool.

 

Otherwise, each standard role has an 80% chance to be handed out to a villager (everyone, including the player starting with the Gun, is a villager in Scenario 2), with a coin flip determining whether the selected player(s) are from the corresponding Floor Exploration pool, or from the entire player pool

 

Gift vote:

During N0 players submit votes to the butler (in their GM PM) to determine who receives a special gift, the effects of which are determined by the scenario. Players are not allowed to vote for themselves to receive the gift. A tie vote will be decided randomly, but if all players have 1 vote then no player will get the gift. There will be no official vote tally for the gift vote, and no announcement about the identity of the recipient or lack thereof, except to the potential recipient.

 

Win Conditions:

• Scenario 1: The House Thralls win if they outnumber the Innocent Explorers, and the Explorers win if they kill all of the Thralls.
• Scenario 2: When a shot of the Smoking Gun leaves 2 or fewer players alive, those players are allowed to leave the House
• Scenario 3: The Innocent Explorers win if they execute the Insatiable Kandra, and the Kandra wins if they reach parity.

Link to doc

Edited May 18, 2024 by Araris Valerian

[Araris Valerian he/him]

On a completely unrelated note, I was rereading Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne and thought that leaches could be a cool role/mechanic to design a game around. In the books, a leach draws their power from something in their vicinity (examples are iron, strong emotions, sunlight, etc.), and this source is the leach's "well". The implementation I was thinking of would be to have "wells" represented by the usage of a word in the thread. So if Kas has "stone" as his well, then each instance of the word "stone" in the thread for a given turn enables him to take more powerful actions. The hitch would be that if someone guesses your well, they can roleblock you. There would need to be some restriction to avoid people just dumping a bunch of text, so I think only counting words that show up in RP would work. My gut says that this sort of thing would probably be suited for a faction game, or a FFA one.

[Aeoryi she/her]

I have a Quick fix setup that I have tested on a separate site (and adapted for SE):

Spoiler

QF: 70-80

Ties kill no one; majority execution each cycle, all actions happen simultaneously (although killing actions happen first)

Odium's forces have taken over the very center of Dalinar's rule: Urithiru. Although things are looking poor for the humans who live there, the singers there have been bestowed by new ideas unearthed in the city. Perhaps this group of singers, fused, and radiants can escape the terrifying gravity of Odium?

Factions: Odium-aligned are the standard Elim faction with a mandatory factional kill. They win if they achieve parity with the non-odium aligned. If they fail to submit a target for their factional kill, a target will be chosen at random for them.

Non-odium aligned are the standard village/town faction. They win when all the odium aligned players are dead. 

Roles:

Singer: standard vanilla villager.

Knight Radiant: The knight radiant will announce the role of a player of their choice publicly when they die. The knight radiant must submit their target in advance, and the kill will take effect immediately 

Fused: The fused kills a player of their choosing upon their death, no matter how it may occur. The fused must submit their target in advance, and the kill will take effect immediately. If no target is submitted when the fused dies, a random one will be chosen. A fused that is odium aligned that does not submit a target when they die will have a random target chosen for them out of all remaining non-odium aligned players.

Midnight mother: Always Odium-aligned. Can target a player that is not Odium-aligned each cycle. If the player has a radiant or fused role, the midnight mother will gain a similar ability. If the midnight mother targets a Radiant, they will receive a single use role scanner ability. If the midnight mother targets a Fused, they will receive a single-use kill that can be used alongside the faction kill. If the midnight mother targets a vanilla, they will have to wait another cycle before they can attempt to mimick another player's ability. If they target Sja-anat, nothing happens.

Sja-anat: Can enlighten the spren of a player, making their role non-functional if they have one. This ability can not be used on consecutive cycles, and does not work on the midnight mother. 

Other stuff:

There may be multiple radiants or fused in a single game, and they may be aligned with either faction. There will only be one sja-anat, but they may be aligned with either faction. There is only one midnight mother, and it is guaranteed to be in the game.

Action slots do not exist for this game. Any player can make any number of different actions a cycle.

In the event that two villagers and one Elim remain, and a villager fused gets voted out but revenge kills the last odium supporter, the game is called as a draw.

An odium supporter without a role will have their role be revealed the same as a non-odium supporter without a role.

A singer is not informed if they were targeted by sja-anat, although radiants and fused will be informed that they have lost their role. A player that loses their role will flip as a singer, and will be revealed to be a singer if they are radiant revealed.

Or a tldr:

Spoiler

There are four types of roles in the game. The following two can occur in any quantity for any alignment:

Radiant: reveals a person's role publicly upon the death of the radiant

Fused: kills a player upon the death of the fused.

The following roles are limited to one player each:

Sja-anat: removes a target's role on non-consecutive cycles. Does not work on midnight mother.

Midnight mother: can target a player to gain a similar ability to the role they have, if any. If they target a vanilla, they have to wait a cycle to use the ability again. Is always elim-aligned. 

Elim faction wins at parity. Factional and fused kills are mandatory. Ties kill no one.

Thoughts?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

2 hours ago, Aeoryi said:

I have a Quick fix setup that I have tested on a separate site (and adapted for SE):

  Hide contents

QF: 70-80

Ties kill no one; majority execution each cycle, all actions happen simultaneously (although killing actions happen first)

Odium's forces have taken over the very center of Dalinar's rule: Urithiru. Although things are looking poor for the humans who live there, the singers there have been bestowed by new ideas unearthed in the city. Perhaps this group of singers, fused, and radiants can escape the terrifying gravity of Odium?

Factions: Odium-aligned are the standard Elim faction with a mandatory factional kill. They win if they achieve parity with the non-odium aligned. If they fail to submit a target for their factional kill, a target will be chosen at random for them.

Non-odium aligned are the standard village/town faction. They win when all the odium aligned players are dead. 

Roles:

Singer: standard vanilla villager.

Knight Radiant: The knight radiant will announce the role of a player of their choice publicly when they die. The knight radiant must submit their target in advance, and the kill will take effect immediately 

Fused: The fused kills a player of their choosing upon their death, no matter how it may occur. The fused must submit their target in advance, and the kill will take effect immediately. If no target is submitted when the fused dies, a random one will be chosen. A fused that is odium aligned that does not submit a target when they die will have a random target chosen for them out of all remaining non-odium aligned players.

Midnight mother: Always Odium-aligned. Can target a player that is not Odium-aligned each cycle. If the player has a radiant or fused role, the midnight mother will gain a similar ability. If the midnight mother targets a Radiant, they will receive a single use role scanner ability. If the midnight mother targets a Fused, they will receive a single-use kill that can be used alongside the faction kill. If the midnight mother targets a vanilla, they will have to wait another cycle before they can attempt to mimick another player's ability. If they target Sja-anat, nothing happens.

Sja-anat: Can enlighten the spren of a player, making their role non-functional if they have one. This ability can not be used on consecutive cycles, and does not work on the midnight mother. 

Other stuff:

There may be multiple radiants or fused in a single game, and they may be aligned with either faction. There will only be one sja-anat, but they may be aligned with either faction. There is only one midnight mother, and it is guaranteed to be in the game.

Action slots do not exist for this game. Any player can make any number of different actions a cycle.

In the event that two villagers and one Elim remain, and a villager fused gets voted out but revenge kills the last odium supporter, the game is called as a draw.

An odium supporter without a role will have their role be revealed the same as a non-odium supporter without a role.

A singer is not informed if they were targeted by sja-anat, although radiants and fused will be informed that they have lost their role. A player that loses their role will flip as a singer, and will be revealed to be a singer if they are radiant revealed.

Or a tldr:

  Hide contents

There are four types of roles in the game. The following two can occur in any quantity for any alignment:

Radiant: reveals a person's role publicly upon the death of the radiant

Fused: kills a player upon the death of the fused.

The following roles are limited to one player each:

Sja-anat: removes a target's role on non-consecutive cycles. Does not work on midnight mother.

Midnight mother: can target a player to gain a similar ability to the role they have, if any. If they target a vanilla, they have to wait a cycle to use the ability again. Is always elim-aligned. 

Elim faction wins at parity. Factional and fused kills are mandatory. Ties kill no one.

Thoughts?

Seems pretty interesting (and chaotic, which is probably good in a QF). I think you've got the wrong wording on the Knight Radiant. 

What is the intended player count here?

Also, what's the motivation behind having all of the kills mandatory, but not the exe? Just curious.

[Aeoryi she/her]

6 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

What is the intended player count here?

The game was tested with 8 people, although less would also be fine

6 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Wrong wording on the Knight Radiant. 

Yeah, I probably do. Mobile and autocorrect.

7 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Also, what's the motivation behind having all of the kills mandatory, but not the exe? Just curious

More worried about elims refusing to kill villagers because deaths can have some pretty caustic effects. It also helps in the event of people forgetting to submit kills.

 

[CadCom he/him]

Can someone point me to a previous faction game? I'm making adjustments to one of my rulesets, and would love to review other faction game rulesets.

[Aeoryi she/her]

16 minutes ago, CadCom said:

Can someone point me to a previous faction game? I'm making adjustments to one of my rulesets, and would love to review other faction game rulesets.

What kind of faction game are you looking for? Multiball (multiple Elim factions), Conversion (alignment changing mechanics), symmetrical factions (idk how this one works), a FFA?

Edit:

@CadCom this below game features a multiball setup with two evil factions, if you want to check that out.

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/96722-mid-range-game-49-lode-of-luthadel/

Edited May 31, 2024 by Aeoryi

[CadCom he/him]

44 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

What kind of faction game are you looking for? Multiball (multiple Elim factions), Conversion (alignment changing mechanics), symmetrical factions (idk how this one works), a FFA?

Was looking for one with several factions, each trying to be the last faction. Like houses. I remember one from several years ago where people were in a Mistborn House competing against other houses. Just can't find it. I'll look over the one you sent me though.

 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

4 hours ago, CadCom said:

Was looking for one with several factions, each trying to be the last faction. Like houses. I remember one from several years ago where people were in a Mistborn House competing against other houses. Just can't find it. I'll look over the one you sent me though.

 

I posted rules for one a few pages back I think. I can’t link the rules right now. Elandera has run some anti-faction games “Master of the House” or something, which I think have similar design principles.

[Kasimir he/him]

9 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I posted rules for one a few pages back I think. I can’t link the rules right now. Elandera has run some anti-faction games “Master of the House” or something, which I think have similar design principles.

You called I came.

[Coffeecat she/her]

Guys i would love to know what you think of this game I cooked up. Right now my worry is that the evil team is a bit overpowered, but at least they don't know each other.

 

(for clarification, banishment and spiking are the same: they make a player into a ghost. the only difference is a player banished by the village will be first inspected by bronze and their role will be revealed to bronze.)

Flavor:

Spoiler

QF: Stalker of the Mists

 

A tendril of mist reaches into your hovel, but your weak bonfire pushes it back. You bar your doors and prepare for another miserable dinner, and a lukewarm gruel. But upon sitting down on the cold dirt floor, a soft scraping sound can be barely heard. It is a quiet, foreboding sound. Practically all the metal your hovel can afford to use is in the nails that hold the hovel itself together; without them, the mists would...
With a crash, and a freezing breeze, the mists roll in. In them a figure lurks, a humanoid monster, terrifyingly unknown. You were the one sitting closest to the collapsed wall, the mists grip you with steel-hard certainty, and a sharp pain speaks to you.
"Hello little one! I am your God and you will obey"

A stalker is haunting the mists around the Treville plantation hovels. A mad, steel-spiked menace lurks. It seeks to create more tools for its ruinous god. But it won't be all fun and games, some of the Skaa workers have certain abilities, weak from deprivation, but with a metal-hard determination they will fight back.

Roles:

Spoiler

Spiked madmen:
-Steel: Evil kill role, uses steel to quickly move around the mists. Elims loose if Steel is banished. Selects a target to spike(night kill) every cycle. 
-Copper: Is read good by other roles, is read as a random good role by role-specific reads. Is told what role the player spiked last cycle was. Can send one message per cycle without it being shown in the message count
-Zinc: Evil poisoner role, chooses a target each cycle, that person has their role malfunction(reads gibberish or targets a different person.) Poison lasts one cycle. 

Evil wins when Steel reaches parity with the living players

Evil players know who the other team members are, but they have no Doc.

Skaa workers:
-Iron: Chooses a target once a cycle, that target can not become spiked that turn. Can't choose the same player back to back
-Pewter: Is saved from being spiked once per game.
-Tin: Patrols the mists, once a cycle chooses a player, if that player reads evil(Steel or Zinc) then Tin dies(copper will be informed of this death)
-Bronze: Investigates a player's allomantic pulse before they are banished. (Is told during rollover what the banished player was)
-Brass: Is saved from being banished once per game.

Good wins when they banish Steel and Copper

 

Misc:

Spoiler

24 hour cycles, rollover happens (almost)instantaneously.
Pms can be created at any time with another player, however during rollover a public PM count is revealed for the finished cycle.

"A and B were seen talking."

8 player game

Each cycle the players vote who is going to be banished. Each cycle Steel chooses a player to spike. A banished/spiked player is stripped of all belongings(including any spikes) and is cast out into the mists. Banished/spiked players effectively become ghosts; they can talk in thread but they have no role(still retain alignment), can't PM other players, can only vote in a separate banished player vote. This vote is to add one normal vote to a living player.

Lets say there are five living players and three banished.
normal vote count:
A- two votes
B- two votes
C- one vote

Banished vote count:
A: two votes
B: one vote

An additional vote is then placed on A's normal vote, making it:
A- THREE votes
B- two votes
C- one vote
This results in A being banished.
Banished votes are cast using the Yellow color.

 

 

Tell me how it looks.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Coffeecat

[Kasimir he/him]

13 hours ago, Coffeecat said:

Guys i would love to know what you think of this game I cooked up. Right now my worry is that the evil team is a bit overpowered, but at least they don't know each other.

 

(for clarification, banishment and spiking are the same: they make a player into a ghost. the only difference is a player banished by the village will be first inspected by bronze and their role will be revealed to bronze.)

Flavor:

  Hide contents

QF: Stalker of the Mists

 

A tendril of mist reaches into your hovel, but your weak bonfire pushes it back. You bar your doors and prepare for another miserable dinner, and a lukewarm gruel. But upon sitting down on the cold dirt floor, a soft scraping sound can be barely heard. It is a quiet, foreboding sound. Practically all the metal your hovel can afford to use is in the nails that hold the hovel itself together; without them, the mists would...
With a crash, and a freezing breeze, the mists roll in. In them a figure lurks, a humanoid monster, terrifyingly unknown. You were the one sitting closest to the collapsed wall, the mists grip you with steel-hard certainty, and a sharp pain speaks to you.
"Hello little one! I am your God and you will obey"

A stalker is haunting the mists around the Treville plantation hovels. A mad, steel-spiked menace lurks. It seeks to create more tools for its ruinous god. But it won't be all fun and games, some of the Skaa workers have certain abilities, weak from deprivation, but with a metal-hard determination they will fight back.

Roles:

  Hide contents

Spiked madmen:
-Steel: Evil kill role, uses steel to quickly move around the mists. Elims loose if Steel and Copper are banished. Selects a target to spike every cycle. Doesn't know who the other members of the team are.
-Copper: Is read good by other roles, Is spiked with steel when the original Steel dies. Becomes the new Steel, but still reads good. Doesn't know who the other members of the team are
-Zinc: Evil poisoner role, chooses a target each cycle, that person has their role malfunction(reads glibberish or targets a different person.) Doesn't know who the other members of the team are.

Evil wins when Steel reaches parity with the living players

Skaa workers:
-Iron: Chooses a target once a cycle, that target can not become spiked that turn. Can't choose the same player back to back
-Pewter: Is saved from being spiked once per game.
-Tin: Patrols the mists, Chooses a player, if that player is evil(Steel or Zinc) the Tineye dies.
-Bronze: Investigates a player's allomantic pulse before they are banished. (Is told during rollover what the vanished player was)
-Brass: Is saved from being banished once per game.

Good wins when they banish Steel and Copper

 

Misc:

  Hide contents

24 hour cycles, rollover happens (almost)instantaneously.
Pms can be created at any time with another player, however during rollover a public PM count is revealed for the finished cycle.
A Pmd B 2 times
B Pmd A 1 time
C Pmd B 1 time

8 player game

Each turn the players vote who is going to be banished, a banished player is stripped of all belongins(including any spikes) and is cast out into the mists. Banished players effectively become ghosts, they have no role(still retain alignment), can't PM other players, can only vote in a separate banished player vote. This vote is to add one normal vote to a living player.

Lets say there are five living players and three banished.
normal vote count:
A- two votes
B- two votes
C- one vote

Banished vote count:
A: two votes
B: one vote

An additional vote is then placed on A's normal vote, making it:
A- THREE votes
B- two votes
C- one vote
This results in A being banished.
Banished votes are cast using the Yellow color.

 

 

Tell me how it looks.

Are you running a partial BotC game? Because intuitively that's what it looks to me. I wouldn't super say Evil is OP here, ish. Depends I guess. Not being able to communicate is one thing but also having the kill be locked to one guy making it with no team input is not the easiest and there's the chance for (un)friendly fire.

[Coffeecat she/her]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Are you running a partial BotC game?

It is very much inspired by small BOTC games, a few years ago I used to play tons of small (7-9p) BOTC games.

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

there's the chance for (un)friendly fire.

The figuring out of one's teammates is a part of smaller BOTC games I really enjoy. 

 

Although I was contemplating either making copper invulnerable to spiking, or make copper known to steel. (They would still use whispers)

[Kasimir he/him]

3 hours ago, Coffeecat said:

It is very much inspired by small BOTC games, a few years ago I used to play tons of small (7-9p) BOTC games.

The figuring out of one's teammates is a part of smaller BOTC games I really enjoy. 

 

Although I was contemplating either making copper invulnerable to spiking, or make copper known to steel. (They would still use whispers)

Fair. It's a really fun format, off the top of my head I'd say this is borderline but I wouldn't super find it OP.

3 hours ago, Coffeecat said:

Although I was contemplating either making copper invulnerable to spiking, or make copper known to steel. (They would still use whispers)

I assume you mean invulnerable to being killed by steel? Or were you thinking of making Steel very much like the Demon with no backup Demon? (Given your wincon here is parity rather than getting rid of the Demon, the Elim numbers will likely need to differ from a standard BotC game.)

Making Copper known to Steel is fine as well. Whether the SE playerbase can work with it is another question but BotC meta-wise, it's not the worst line-up.

Edited to add:

I think Zinc and Copper not knowing who the other members of the team are can mess with the Village's ability to do team reads so I am on the fence about this - (again, because current wincon is not removing the Demon but parity.) That being said, I don't feel scanning as Village is itself a problem as we've run such roles in past games and Village in general doesn't tend to overtrust the scan if the player is just sus so that doesn't feel OP to me.

[Coffeecat she/her]

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

assume you mean invulnerable to being killed by steel?

Yes, spiking is the flavor name for the steel kill. 

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

you thinking of making Steel very much like the Demon with no backup Demon?

The backup demon would be copper in this case, since copper receives a steel spike upon the original steel dying

6 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Given your wincon here is parity rather than getting rid of the Demon

What do you mean by this? The villagers do need to get rid of the demon, as well as the backup. 

 

The elims are looking to pretty much kill four of the five villagers, the number of elims doesn't matter as long as one steel is alive.

[Kasimir he/him]

46 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

What do you mean by this? The villagers do need to get rid of the demon, as well as the backup. 

Standard BotC only requires removing the demon. In your version, both demon and backup minion are removed. I'm not saying it's not feasible but I'm saying the adjustment means that for balance, you probably need to go beyond just looking at BotC dynamics. (Not saying you are doing that but thinking aloud in terms of how to assess balance beyond "this works in BotC.") The immediate application in my head is that BotC can go three minions on this because the Village only needs to get rid of the Demon, which is why you can have a high minion % (still restricted by voting) in such a context. If you are forcing a play to parity, -

Ah okay I'm tired and conflated Village wincon and the Elim one. I'd say that if your numbers are small (e.g. 9 max) then the balance projections work out. [Edit: I'd add also that I think you are planning for full BotC with each player having a role. That's fine, I was partly working off the assumption you were considering some regular Villagers who were roleless among the numbers. I think it's still playable that way.]

46 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Yes, spiking is the flavor name for the steel kill. 

You probably might want some consistency with the flavour to avoid confusion because you also state in flavour that Copper stands to get Spiked by Steel if Steel is removed.

46 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

The backup demon would be copper in this case, since copper receives a steel spike upon the original steel dying

Yeah I got it. Then just be careful with the flavour (see above.) If spiking can mean "becomes new Demon" and also "got NKed," this is a recipe for player confusion.

Otherwise the line-up looks fine to me. Just to confirm, Tin is a oneshot? If Tin misshoots, they cannot shoot again? Are you handling poisoning there like the BotC drunk/poison where Tin, if poisoned, is told they shot successfully and cannot shoot again despite no one dropping dead?

Also, do you see poisoning here as being a state only for that cycle, or a permanent marker on the player?

In general I'm interested in this game!  But I also like BotC so.

Edited June 25, 2024 by Kasimir

[Coffeecat she/her]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Yeah I got it. Then just be careful with the flavour (see above.) If spiking can mean "becomes new Demon" and also "got NKed," this is a recipe for player confusion.

Ooo I see I understand the confusion now. Yes they become the new steel, which in flavor I was referring to as being spiked. Maybe I will say they get a steel spike to become the new steel. 

Also tin is not a one shot, I should clarify in the rules. They pick one target a night.  And I don't know if it's your wording or you actually understood this wrong, but the Tineye doesn't kill anyone, they die themselves. 

The problem with this is it might decrease the villager survivability a lot. As it stands the game probably might be over in 2 cycles with some lucky hits. I'm ok with it being 3 or 4, but 2 feels a bit short. 

Perhaps adding more vanilla villagers would be the answer here?

Like I said before I was going to lock the game at 8 players.

 

The thing I thought might be bad about having only one demon is that it could be easy for the village to accidentally hit the demon. But I would definitely consider making copper more useful as a role, but not a backup demon.

 

 

Also keep in mind I'm sick, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I can't think very well.

Edited June 25, 2024 by Coffeecat

[Kasimir he/him]

18 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Ooo I see I understand the confusion now. Yes they become the new steel, which in flavor I was referring to as being spiked. Maybe I will say they get a steel spike to become the new steel. 

Maybe just flavour the NK differently?

18 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Also tin is not a one shot, I should clarify in the rules. They pick one target a night.  And I don't know if it's your wording or you actually understood this wrong, but the Tineye doesn't kill anyone, they die themselves. 

I was trying to figure what role you were flavouring it from. I was thinking Slayer but the Slayer only picks one target in the entire game and only during the Day, and nothing happens if the target is not the Demon. I think I misread:

Quote

if that player is evil(Steel or Zinc) the Tineye dies.

Got it. So how does it work with poisoning specifically? Do you just treat it as being redirected to a Villager by default, therefore a false positive? (BotC-wise they're not supposed to know they're poisoned, so you wouldn't indicate in returns that they successfully targeted <Villager Name> instead.

22 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

The problem with this is it might decrease the villager survivability a lot. As it stands the game probably might be over in 2 cycles with some lucky hits. I'm ok with it being 3 or 4, but 2 feels a bit short. 

It probably will, but is there a reason why you are picking that role than rather, say, Slayer?

23 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Perhaps adding more vanilla villagers would be the answer here?

Possible!

23 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Like I said before I was going to lock the game at 8 players.

Fair.

23 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

The thing I thought might be bad about having only one demon is that it could be easy for the village to accidentally hit the demon. But I would definitely consider making copper more useful as a role, but not a backup demon.

Tbf that's kind of any BotC game isn't it? You usually only have one Demon unless it's a Legion game. And you require the Village to take out both the Demon and the back-up to win, which is a bit more resistant to a lucky shot.

26 minutes ago, Coffeecat said:

Also keep in mind I'm sick, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I can't think very well.

It's fine, I'm sleep-deprived so accidents are everywhere...

[Coffeecat she/her]

34 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Maybe just flavour the NK differently?

Definitely 

35 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

was trying to figure what role you were flavouring it from. I was thinking Slayer but the Slayer only picks one target in the entire game and only during the Day, and nothing happens if the target is not the Demon. I think I misread:

It's inspired by a role called the harlot, I used to play bot-gmd discord short form mafia games, and harlot was part of the basic role lineup in that server.

37 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Got it. So how does it work with poisoning specifically? Do you just treat it as being redirected to a Villager by default, therefore a false positive? (BotC-wise they're not supposed to know they're poisoned, so you wouldn't indicate in returns that they successfully targeted <Villager Name> instead.

Players shouldn't know they are poisoned, yes. I was thinking the rule of opposites for the Tineye being poisoned at least. IE they die if they targeted a villager while poisoned, vise versa.

55 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

And you require the Village to take out both the Demon and the back-up to win, which is a bit more resistant to a lucky shot.

Yes that is why I didn't want only one demon. However it can lead to the evil team being too resilient 

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, Coffeecat said:

Yes that is why I didn't want only one demon. However it can lead to the evil team being too resilient 

I don't think it's the worst if the team knows each other. But the other alternative is that if it ends too quickly, be prepared to just do a back-to-back rerun. Definitely not a new solution and we've done it for a number of QFs.

1 hour ago, Coffeecat said:

Players shouldn't know they are poisoned, yes. I was thinking the rule of opposites for the Tineye being poisoned at least. IE they die if they targeted a villager while poisoned, vise versa.

Also makes sense to me. While I don't think this will matter too much in this ruleset, are you allowing two poisonings to unpoison a player?

[Coffeecat she/her]

56 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

don't think it's the worst if the team knows each other. But the other alternative is that if it ends too quickly, be prepared to just do a back-to-back rerun. Definitely not a new solution and we've done it for a number of QFs.

A rerun would actually be fun, for me at least. Are you suggesting I keep the evil team as-is then? 

 

57 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

are you allowing two poisonings to unpoison a player?

It's impossible as it stands, with 8 players there aren't two poisoner roles, and poisoning only affects for one turn. However if there were two poisons then I think yes, double poisoning unpoisons

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, Coffeecat said:

A rerun would actually be fun, for me at least. Are you suggesting I keep the evil team as-is then? 

With no back-up demon or?

1 hour ago, Coffeecat said:

It's impossible as it stands, with 8 players there aren't two poisoner roles, and poisoning only affects for one turn. However if there were two poisons then I think yes, double poisoning unpoisons

Yeah I forgot as I've recently played a variant where poisoning persists. Since poisoning is one cycle, then this shouldn't be a big deal. 

[Coffeecat she/her]

 

24 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

With no back-up demon or?

I would need to make copper do something, but yes, one steel, no backups