The Art of Game Creation

[Amanuensis he/him]

14 hours ago, Mistfallen Soldier said:

I had an idea for a game, this most likely would be very… weird and potentially boring, so I don’t think I’d ever run it if I could. Anyways, the idea was to basically have a small group of people(3 or so) and each of them has a NK, except that the NK is just making the person they targeted unable to talk for a cycle in the thread. The people with NKs would be unable to talk in thread(who they kill would be their only way of communication) and the the players have to somehow find some piece of info about one of them. And yeah, the NKs would be differentiated between each other.

How bad would this go?

I do think that any kind of silencer role, especially in forum mafia, ends up being counter-intuitive. That said, I like open-box ideas and something along those lines could maybe work with some fleshing out. I do think it's probably not great to have the elims unable to post, but if the point isn't to exe the elims, it's pretty far outside of mafia territory at that point.

This did inspire a random idea for a game on my end tho

• Premise: Alignments are revealed in the player list (let's say 8 villagers, 4 mafia). Some of those alignments are lies, but most of the village and some of the elim are accurate. That or 6 and 6 but the actual team is smaller.
• The Twist: Every player is given two names. One is the player who dies if you are voted out or attacked. The other is the player who kills you if they are ever voted out or attacked. You are not told which and they are not always the same or different alignment.

Sounds chaotic!

Edited March 13 by Amanuensis

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

10 minutes ago, Mistfallen Soldier said:

I had an idea for a game, this most likely would be very… weird and potentially boring, so I don’t think I’d ever run it if I could. Anyways, the idea was to basically have a small group of people(3 or so) and each of them has a NK, except that the NK is just making the person they targeted unable to talk for a cycle in the thread. The people with NKs would be unable to talk in thread(who they kill would be their only way of communication) and the the players have to somehow find some piece of info about one of them. And yeah, the NKs would be differentiated between each other.

How bad would this go?

Since people are only gone for one cycle, people just have to look at the player list, then see who isn't talking for two cycles in a row, and those are your elims. Unless they target the same people every cycle, which would be boring.

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

This did inspire a random idea for a game on my end tho

• Premise: Alignments are revealed in the player list (let's say 8 villagers, 4 mafia). Some of those alignments are lies, but most of the village and some of the elim are accurate.
• The Twist: Every player is given two names. One is the player who dies if you are voted out or attacked. The other is the player who kills you if they are ever voted out or attacked.

Sounds chaotic!

Ooh really cool

[Araris Valerian he/him]

16 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

This did inspire a random idea for a game on my end tho

• Premise: Alignments are revealed in the player list (let's say 8 villagers, 4 mafia). Some of those alignments are lies, but most of the village and some of the elim are accurate. That or 6 and 6 but the actual team is smaller.
• The Twist: Every player is given two names. One is the player who dies if you are voted out or attacked. The other is the player who kills you if they are ever voted out or attacked. You are not told which and they are not always the same or different alignment.

Sounds chaotic!

This seems like it could be the basis for a neat game. Maybe add a little extra chaos with some roles that switch things around mid-game without informing anyone.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

On 3/12/2026 at 11:10 PM, Amanuensis said:

I do think that any kind of silencer role, especially in forum mafia, ends up being counter-intuitive. That said, I like open-box ideas and something along those lines could maybe work with some fleshing out. I do think it's probably not great to have the elims unable to post, but if the point isn't to exe the elims, it's pretty far outside of mafia territory at that point.

This did inspire a random idea for a game on my end tho

• Premise: Alignments are revealed in the player list (let's say 8 villagers, 4 mafia). Some of those alignments are lies, but most of the village and some of the elim are accurate. That or 6 and 6 but the actual team is smaller.
• The Twist: Every player is given two names. One is the player who dies if you are voted out or attacked. The other is the player who kills you if they are ever voted out or attacked. You are not told which and they are not always the same or different alignment.

Sounds chaotic!

OOOoooOOOooo

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

Alright, so I have an idea for a game with CR mechanics

So basically, when a player dies, they join the CR for a fixed number of cycles. Everyone in the CR has a PM in which they can communicate with everyone else in the CR, but they can no longer talk in-thread or via PM to people in the PR. 

Every cycle, each dead person can send one message in their GM-PM, which'll be posted publicly like Tineye messages, though who wrote what message will be unknown. I'm also thinking of adding roles like Elsecallers and Bondsmiths which can travel to and from the CR. 

This way, dead people can still influence the game for some time, and only join the dead doc after transitioning to the Beyond.

Before I start properly sorting out mechanics, would this concept work?

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

45 minutes ago, Through The Living KSauce said:

Alright, so I have an idea for a game with CR mechanics

So basically, when a player dies, they join the CR for a fixed number of cycles. Everyone in the CR has a PM in which they can communicate with everyone else in the CR, but they can no longer talk in-thread or via PM to people in the PR. 

Every cycle, each dead person can send one message in their GM-PM, which'll be posted publicly like Tineye messages, though who wrote what message will be unknown. I'm also thinking of adding roles like Elsecallers and Bondsmiths which can travel to and from the CR. 

This way, dead people can still influence the game for some time, and only join the dead doc after transitioning to the Beyond.

Before I start properly sorting out mechanics, would this concept work?

I think that Sounds like a fun Game, maybe there could also be a way to become a Cognitive Shadow and Return to the PR. Or Since it seems like you want to do it as a Roshar Game, maybe a Spren Role which starts in the CR and wouldnt Pass into the beyond but has to 'bond' (give him extra abilities) a Player to enter the PR

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

23 minutes ago, Wahrheitswächter said:

I think that Sounds like a fun Game, maybe there could also be a way to become a Cognitive Shadow and Return to the PR. Or Since it seems like you want to do it as a Roshar Game, maybe a Spren Role which starts in the CR and wouldnt Pass into the beyond but has to 'bond' (give him extra abilities) a Player to enter the PR

Yeah I was considering spren roles, though it would complicate things due to how a spren would win if their Radiant was the opposite alignment, and how immortal players would work.

Returned mechanics were actually the inspiration for this, though I don't think that would work very well, as Returned lose their memories when they Return.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

18 hours ago, Through The Living KSauce said:

Alright, so I have an idea for a game with CR mechanics

So basically, when a player dies, they join the CR for a fixed number of cycles. Everyone in the CR has a PM in which they can communicate with everyone else in the CR, but they can no longer talk in-thread or via PM to people in the PR. 

Every cycle, each dead person can send one message in their GM-PM, which'll be posted publicly like Tineye messages, though who wrote what message will be unknown. I'm also thinking of adding roles like Elsecallers and Bondsmiths which can travel to and from the CR. 

This way, dead people can still influence the game for some time, and only join the dead doc after transitioning to the Beyond.

Before I start properly sorting out mechanics, would this concept work?

Remember that PMs have history. If you join a PM, you will be able to see all of the history.

17 hours ago, Through The Living KSauce said:

Yeah I was considering spren roles, though it would complicate things due to how a spren would win if their Radiant was the opposite alignment, and how immortal players would work.

Returned mechanics were actually the inspiration for this, though I don't think that would work very well, as Returned lose their memories when they Return.

When you die, become a spectator and have an NPC take your place. The NPC does completely random actions, and you can use actions on them.

You can use 2 actions on an NPC, Guide and Remind. Each NPC, based on how long the player was in the game and what actions they took, has a specific, mostly randomly generated, Memory stat, which dictates how many Remind actions must be used to regain their memories (bring the person back into the game from spectator). They can then see all of the actions their NPC did, which were previously hidden.

Guiding an NPC will give them a point in your favor, at the end of the day or night, each NPC with an applicable vote (for exe or if night, NK) will vote with whoever guided them the most. Upon death, alignment will be revealed. When Guiding, you may input the name of whoever you wish to the NPC to vote for, Guide and Remind may only be used once each every day and every night.

Boom, Returned.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

4 hours ago, Through The Living Coder said:

Remember that PMs have history. If you join a PM, you will be able to see all of the history.

I could make a new PM every time someone dies, like the docs in the Politics of Gods game

4 hours ago, Through The Living Coder said:

When you die, become a spectator and have an NPC take your place. The NPC does completely random actions, and you can use actions on them.

You can use 2 actions on an NPC, Guide and Remind. Each NPC, based on how long the player was in the game and what actions they took, has a specific, mostly randomly generated, Memory stat, which dictates how many Remind actions must be used to regain their memories (bring the person back into the game from spectator). They can then see all of the actions their NPC did, which were previously hidden.

Guiding an NPC will give them a point in your favor, at the end of the day or night, each NPC with an applicable vote (for exe or if night, NK) will vote with whoever guided them the most. Upon death, alignment will be revealed. When Guiding, you may input the name of whoever you wish to the NPC to vote for, Guide and Remind may only be used once each every day and every night.

Boom, Returned.

Ah

Really cool concept, but how would an NPC actually contribute to discussions?

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

21 hours ago, Through The Living KSauce said:

I could make a new PM every time someone dies, like the docs in the Politics of Gods game

Ah

Really cool concept, but how would an NPC actually contribute to discussions?

They wouldn't. After all, the player did die, so like

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

2 hours ago, Through The Living Coder said:

They wouldn't. After all, the player did die, so like

So...

The NPC only votes and does actions?

Because Returned still retain their personalities 

[Qianweilian He/him]

I am enjoying the current Hogwarts themed game, and I had an idea relating to the Group PMs (but no individual ones).MR## - Authority wherever the Light is.pdf

[Myst He/Him]

9 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

I am enjoying the current Hogwarts themed game, and I had an idea relating to the Group PMs (but no individual ones).MR## - Authority wherever the Light is.pdf

Completely unrelated, but this has also given me a weird PM mechanic. Basically:

Spoiler

There is no “thread” it’s only a place for GM updates and the occasional bit of rp(as long as said rp doesn’t reveal any info about your role or reads.) plus a daily message to everyone from the top commander or something 

It would basically be a chain of command thing, where each person is in a PM with the people above him, a PM with the people below him, and a PM with the people equal to him, or something like that. And since theirs no talking in thread, in order to talk to people, you’d have to go through other people. Oh, and you’re not allowed to directly quote what the other person is saying, you have to paraphrase, or something like that.

it’s basically telephone + mafia

And the Mafia could purposefully change what someone told them when telling someone else, and you wouldn’t know. And there’d always be at least one village at each rank so that there’s always someone you can go through to the lower of higher ranks and will represent you accurately.

This obviously favors the Elims, but hopefully some roles wi counter-act that. Like: the main character (because the main character always deals with the important people) who, once per game, may have a PM with the highest ranking person(who is confirmed villager), but only for a day. After a cycle they will no longer be able to talk to each other.

Anyways, onto your idea: so, a lot of the council requires consensus, which is not going to happen. Are you going to do a majority there, like the vote, or if there’s no consensus, is the ability just not going to happen.

(Needing full consensus in order to do something would be interesting because then you’d try to exe people who don’t agree so you can get stuff done)

[Qianweilian He/him]

48 minutes ago, Through the Living Mist said:

Anyways, onto your idea: so, a lot of the council requires consensus, which is not going to happen. Are you going to do a majority there, like the vote, or if there’s no consensus, is the ability just not going to happen.

(Needing full consensus in order to do something would be interesting because then you’d try to exe people who don’t agree so you can get stuff done)

I was planning for only a majority being required for actions. Although full consensus is an interesting idea, I think that it would a) be too time consuming to achieve b) be really brutal on less active players and c) make it way to easy for the mafia to gum stuff up.

Edit: The actions all require a positive vote to happen. If a vote fails, it just doesn’t happen.

Edited March 27 by Qianweilian

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

7 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I am enjoying the current Hogwarts themed game, and I had an idea relating to the Group PMs (but no individual ones).MR## - Authority wherever the Light is.pdf

Quote

The Hand of the Light, with the approval of the majority of its membership, may determine a person’s alignment (with a 50% chance to fail and give the opposite alignment),

Are they told whether or not they failed? Because if they are, then it's actually just 100% chance of success, and if they aren't, then this ability is spectacularly useless. I would urge caution with having a fail chance that gives the opposite alignment, because it either forces players to spend two cycles on every alignment check, or results in bad executions that get the player doing the seeking executed. If you want to have a fail chance, I would say have the failure not give them any alignment, so they know it failed but receive no information.

Quote

The rest of the distribution is random, with the following probabilities for each player:
● 8/16 Vanilla
● 3/16 Lord Captain
● 2/16 Council of the Anointed Member
● 2/16 Inquisitor
● 1/16 Becomes Darkfriend; Aes Sedai Witch (note: elims are already selected. This is, in effect, a conversion before the game begins)

I'm somewhat confused about the wording here. It sounds like you're rolling at random for each player when the game begins to determine their role? I can't tell if they have a chance to become all of these things, or if they only have a chance to become one of the 5 of (Vanilla, Captain, Councilor, Inquisitor, Witch). 

Quote

Lord Captain Commander: Council of the Anointed Member: Inquisitor:

• Immune to Roleblock

The Aes Sedai Witches and the Annointed Council can roleblock players, but it looks like literally only the Aes Sedai Witches and Shadow Informants have actual actions that can be roleblocked? Being an Aes Sedai Witch doesn't seem at all useful, and the Shadow Informant's action is one-use. What is the purpose of roleblocking at all? 

[Qianweilian He/him]

On 3/27/2026 at 9:41 PM, A Jo in the Bush said:

Are they told whether or not they failed? Because if they are, then it's actually just 100% chance of success, and if they aren't, then this ability is spectacularly useless. I would urge caution with having a fail chance that gives the opposite alignment, because it either forces players to spend two cycles on every alignment check, or results in bad executions that get the player doing the seeking executed. If you want to have a fail chance, I would say have the failure not give them any alignment, so they know it failed but receive no information.

No, they are not told if they failed. I didn't intend that to be a serious ability, more a dig at the Hand of the Light in the books. It's probably best to just remove that or take your suggestion of failure being inconclusive.

On 3/27/2026 at 9:41 PM, A Jo in the Bush said:

I'm somewhat confused about the wording here. It sounds like you're rolling at random for each player when the game begins to determine their role? I can't tell if they have a chance to become all of these things, or if they only have a chance to become one of the 5 of (Vanilla, Captain, Councilor, Inquisitor, Witch). 

I don't really know how most GMs actually do role distribution, so I just came up with this on the fly. This is the part I'm most likely to change. How it worked was the guaranteed roles were randomly distributed, and then the rest of the players rolled on this table. For example, if there are 16 players, a player would have a 1/4 chance of getting one of the 4 guaranteed rolls. If they do not get one of the guaranteed, then they have a 1/2 chance to get vanilla, 3/16 to get Lord Captain, and so on.

On 3/27/2026 at 9:41 PM, A Jo in the Bush said:

The Aes Sedai Witches and the Annointed Council can roleblock players, but it looks like literally only the Aes Sedai Witches and Shadow Informants have actual actions that can be roleblocked? Being an Aes Sedai Witch doesn't seem at all useful, and the Shadow Informant's action is one-use. What is the purpose of roleblocking at all? 

That's a good point. (Although some of the spymaster, and all of the Lord captain can be blocked). I was unsure of whether to include roleblocking. The problem with roleblocking any of them (Inquisitor,Anointed,Lord Captain Commander) is that you have to make a new PM will everyone else. Unless, I suppose, you could have them stay in the PM, but they couldn't speak in it our vote.

 

Edit: This is a very rough draft

Edit2: I’m thinking of just tossing the elim roles (aes sedai & informant) altogether. The vote manipulation is very minor, as Jo mentioned, roleblock is not extremely helpful, and the Shadow Informant doesn’t do that much either.

Edited March 29 by Qianweilian

[Doc12]

I have an MR upcoming at some point, don't know when, but I've finally threw together an extremely basic, barebones version of the game I want to run. I'm starting with the mood and atmosphere I want to create, and changing one or two main mechanics. Please let me know what you guys think! 

Pitch: Dead doc gets a voted kill, becoming the vigilante. 

Doc's Dead Doc Game

[Myst He/Him]

1 hour ago, Doc12 said:

I have an MR upcoming at some point, don't know when, but I've finally threw together an extremely basic, barebones version of the game I want to run. I'm starting with the mood and atmosphere I want to create, and changing one or two main mechanics. Please let me know what you guys think! 

Pitch: Dead doc gets a voted kill, becoming the vigilante. 

Doc's Dead Doc Game

Alright.

So obviously, avoid spoilers in dead doc. How are you planing on votes being cast? In the dead doc? Or in GM PM?

Will you flip alignments on death? After being revealed Elim, an Elim in the dead doc will have their votes scrutinized and everything. (Think Burnt after we realized she had the stone mask in LG110, she couldn’t really do anything)

The main problem I see is a lack of anything for the alive village to do. The idea(as I understand it) works better without an exe, so there’s not really anything for the alive village people to do until people are dead and they have options to mess with the shades

I’d suggest maybe letting the people alive be able to scan the shades for alignment (perhaps a role that only activates C3+) but I’m not sure about the early turns. You could perhaps just start with 2-3 people as shades to begin with.

Edited April 6 by Through the Living Mist
Spag

[coco.pudding she/they]

So I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread so I’m gonna put it here now. It’s still very rough but I’d love some thoughts perhaps 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10-Pb2J9bf90sP-Ke4rJLDN9SoQoUeoKInyM9GMwFNV4/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

I like the Idea, but what would the stronger abillities look like?

[coco.pudding she/they]

9 hours ago, Through the living Wahr said:

I like the Idea, but what would the stronger abillities look like?

That is an excellent question I don’t have an answer to yet, and would love some ideas for. I want to have an incentive to keep your bond alive as long as possible, but I’m not sure how to make that work (and be balanced)

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

Ah Ok, maybe you could make it so that the first upgrade allows the Spren Radiant Pair to both have access to both abillities?

A second Upgrade could be some sort of Passive ability that is identical for both Players.

Maybe like this:

Spoiler

Windrunner+Honorspren:

The first attack on a member of this Bond fails automatically

Skybreaker+Highspren:

To be executed you need at least 2 more votes than the second Place

Dustbringer+Ashspren:

Both of you can talk (not vote) in the opposite cycle as well

Edgedancer+Cultivationspren:

Post an anonymous Message to the Writeup when you die

Truthwatcher+Mistspren:

Your death will reveal your last scan result.

Lightweaver+Cryptic:

You will be informed of all actions that targeted you.

Elsecaller+Inkspren:

Each of you has 1 additional PM with a Player of their choice.

Willshaper+Reacher

You will be informed when Conversions happen. Although not the target. Starter elims can be reconverted.

Stoneward+Peakspren

You cannot be roleblocked

[coco.pudding she/they]

40 minutes ago, Through the living Wahr said:

Ah Ok, maybe you could make it so that the first upgrade allows the Spren Radiant Pair to both have access to both abillities?

A second Upgrade could be some sort of Passive ability that is identical for both Players.

Maybe like this:

  Hide contents

Windrunner+Honorspren:

The first attack on a member of this Bond fails automatically

Skybreaker+Highspren:

To be executed you need at least 2 more votes than the second Place

Dustbringer+Ashspren:

Both of you can talk (not vote) in the opposite cycle as well

Edgedancer+Cultivationspren:

Post an anonymous Message to the Writeup when you die

Truthwatcher+Mistspren:

Your death will reveal your last scan result.

Lightweaver+Cryptic:

You will be informed of all actions that targeted you.

Elsecaller+Inkspren:

Each of you has 1 additional PM with a Player of their choice.

Willshaper+Reacher

You will be informed when Conversions happen. Although not the target. Starter elims can be reconverted.

Stoneward+Peakspren

You cannot be roleblocked

Ooh wait I like that a lot thank you!

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

Always happy to help. 

Also has anyone some feedback for this Game Idea? This will probably be a Partial Blackout so there are some rules that are not visible in the Doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aSJFRGSFSiAQFhjkkEDVBWzVqpdXtWxruZE3wVYhuhc/edit?usp=drivesdk

Its based on Emberdark so there are some Spoilers for that, as well as a very slight Spoiler for Elsecaller

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

On 4/5/2026 at 8:37 PM, Doc12 said:

I have an MR upcoming at some point, don't know when, but I've finally threw together an extremely basic, barebones version of the game I want to run. I'm starting with the mood and atmosphere I want to create, and changing one or two main mechanics. Please let me know what you guys think! 

Pitch: Dead doc gets a voted kill, becoming the vigilante. 

Doc's Dead Doc Game

I hope this makes it into a game!