The Art of Game Creation

[Nyali she/her]

Yes, but what if the Page and Squire are alive? Does the Page become a Squire?

 

No, it says that in the description. The Page stays a Page until they become a Knight due to both the knight and squire above them being dead.

[Master Elodin]

Oh sorry. I must have missed that.

[Haelbarde he/him]

So I've been musing about a Cthulhu themed game:

Innsmouth has become home to a secret cult that is terrorising the town with a string of kidnappings for human sacrifices. If not stopped, the whole town will have gone mad, or will be rotting in the deep. 

 

Village wins if they stop all the Cultists

Cultists win if they make all the villagers go mad.

 

Each player will have a randomly assigned Mental Stability. Actions and events can produce Insanity points, which reduce the players Mental Stability. When a player’s MS gets to 3, they begin exhibiting signs of madness, which get worse the closer their MS gets to 0. If it reaches 0, they go completely mad (sent to asylum, suicide).

 

Sources of IP:

- Lynching a fellow villager (Murdering an innocent)

- Not posting on a cycle (Crazy bored)

- Lynching a cultist (catching them in the middle of one of their rituals)

 

Once per game, cultists can publicly reveal themselves, and reduce all players MS by making a public display in the town square. 

 

Signs of madness become evident in the way players speak (think MR1 curses, for those who played that or have read through that game). Maybe every post/paragraph has to start with the letter 's'. Maybe you can't use the letter 'e'. Maybe you can't directly name anyone. If you forget to use your rule, you lose another IP. And if you tell anyone that you have a condition, you lose 3 IP. 

Needs a bit of work to decide on the range of starting stabilities, and the point loss values, but thoughts? 

[Nyali she/her]

So I've been musing about a Cthulhu themed game:

Innsmouth has become home to a secret cult that is terrorising the town with a string of kidnappings for human sacrifices. If not stopped, the whole town will have gone mad, or will be rotting in the deep. 

 

Village wins if they stop all the Cultists

Cultists win if they make all the villagers go mad.

 

Each player will have a randomly assigned Mental Stability. Actions and events can produce Insanity points, which reduce the players Mental Stability. When a player’s MS gets to 3, they begin exhibiting signs of madness, which get worse the closer their MS gets to 0. If it reaches 0, they go completely mad (sent to asylum, suicide).

 

Sources of IP:

- Lynching a fellow villager (Murdering an innocent)

- Not posting on a cycle (Crazy bored)

- Lynching a cultist (catching them in the middle of one of their rituals)

 

Once per game, cultists can publicly reveal themselves, and reduce all players MS by making a public display in the town square. 

 

Signs of madness become evident in the way players speak (think MR1 curses, for those who played that or have read through that game). Maybe every post/paragraph has to start with the letter 's'. Maybe you can't use the letter 'e'. Maybe you can't directly name anyone. If you forget to use your rule, you lose another IP. And if you tell anyone that you have a condition, you lose 3 IP. 

Needs a bit of work to decide on the range of starting stabilities, and the point loss values, but thoughts? 

 

First, I think you changed a word and didn't update it everywhere because you appear to use IP and MS interchangeably. They are the same thing, right?

 

Biggest concern at first glance is that if Cultists can instantly lower all villager MS by one once per game, you need to be careful that every cultist revealing at once doesn't cause them to instantly win way earlier than intended. For instance, if people start with 5 MS and there are 5 cultists, then they can win on turn one. Obviously, that's too few. If they start with too much, then it becomes a meaningless mechanic that doesn't matter. Balancing those two extremes seems like it could be difficult since the value is rather volatile, and you need to consider the case of every living cultist revealing at once when MS is thought to be low enough as a very likely possibility. If I was a Cultist in that game, I would try to balance it such that any targeted MS loss would focus on the players with the highest MS, and then when everyone exhibits a madness symptom, have all cultists reveal. You can even ignore several villagers, one or two fewer than the number of cultists, since you only need to outnumber them to win. Unless this game requires complete victory, in which case the cultists control the lynch and have a night kill (I'm assuming?).

 

On that note, do the cultists have a night kill? I assume the cultists' goal is actually to make all the villagers go mad or kill them, since you seen to list killing as a thing.

 

Oh, and you seem to be saying that if the villagers lynch a villager, they lose an MS. If they instead lynch a cultist, they lose an MS. That sounds like any lynching results in an MS loss, which doesn't seem right. Also, do only those who vote suffer the loss?

[Sart he/him]

Summer vacation is officially here, which means I can finally revise this old game concept. Also, I'd like to apologize to the players of the last game I was in. Classes made me too busy participate, and I forgot about the game I was in. Sorry. Anyways, back to the concept at hand.

 

Eliminating Elysium

First off, there are massive spoilers for Defending Elysium, a short story Brandon wrote, in this game. Thankfully, the story is free to read on Brandon's website. Here's a link to it. Now then, on to the game itself.

 

Spoiler

Chaos has erupted in the Outer Platforms after it has been revealed that rogue aliens have been impersonating humans in an attempt to gain superior weaponry. Unfortunately for the visitors to Jupiter Platform 19, their missile station has just been infiltrated. The bunker has been cut off from the outside. If the aliens gain control of the missiles, who knows what chaos they might cause.

 

Missiles:

The aliens need weapons to wage war on their oppressive regimes. Unfortunately for the humans, atomic missiles have been stored in this facility. To launch one, the aliens need two things: a technician to guide the warhead to its destination, and the access code that arms that particular missile. Each technician has the access code to a single missile to start out with. These codes can be given away to someone else during the night. If a technician is killed during the night, their killer takes the access code. If they are lynched, one of the people who voted for them gets it.

 

Position:

Each player will receive a different position before the game starts. Each players' position is public knowledge. Any faction can have any role. Here are the roles.

• Technician: You're one of the few people that actually know how to launch the rocket. As long as you have the Launch Codes for a missile, and the town votes for you to launch you can fire that missile to a location of your choice. One technician is guaranteed to be an Alien.
• General: You are in charge of this facility, and you will be respected. Your vote counts double. However, no one actually likes you that much. Any votes from Mechanics and Technicians against you are doubled as well.
• Soldier: You were assigned to protect the facility. You failed in that duty, but it left you with an advantage. You still have your gun. If you are lynched, and you guarded against one of the people voting for you, you will kill that person as you die.
• Mechanic: You're in charge of maintaining this facility in the middle of nowhere. You know a way to disarm the rockets; unfortunately, it involves blowing them up. When you are lynched, you can activate the self-destruct sequence, destroying a rocket of your choice.
• Politician: You were touring the facility when everything went crazy. You automatically have 1 vote assigned to you, since no one really trusts you.

 

Cytonics:

The ability to sense other minds is present in all intelligent lifeforms. During the night cycle, a player can protect himself from the actions of another player. If that player tries to use an action on the protected party, it will not happen, and the other player will be immediately killed.

For example, Tom (A normal Human) sends in his night action to protect himself from Steve. Steve tries to investigate Tom during the night. It will backfire hilariously, and Tom will kill Steve instead. Oops.

 

Roles:

 

Roles are assigned normally, and are revealed after death.

 

• Innocent Bystander: You don't have any special powers aside from your role.
• UIB Agent: Instead of using Cytonics, you can target one player during the night to learn that player's role.
• Cyto Adept: You can target two players with your Cytonic powers.
• Phone Company Operator: You can target two players with your Cytonic powers. Furthermore, instead of using Cytonics, you can kill a target player.
• Alien: You swapped minds with a human, and now look just like one of them. You have a Google Doc to conspire in, and you have a group kill.
• Thief: You're in the employ of one of Earth's mega-corporations. They will pay top dollar if you can make it out with some of the missile codes. Instead of using Cytonics, you can target a player to steal any launch codes they are carrying.

Win Conditions:

• Humans: Destroy all missiles by either launching them into the sun, or by having Mechanics blow them up.
• Aliens: Fire a missile at the Alien Homeworld, or outnumber the humans to force them to do it for you.
• Thief: Kill all the aliens, then escape with a working launch code.

 

I'd be interested in running this as a Quick Fix Game. Feel free to give me suggestions about the game.

[Bugsy he/him]

<p>Summer vacation is officially here, which means I can finally revise this old game concept. Also, I'd like to apologize to the players of the last game I was in. Classes made me too busy participate, and I forgot about the game I was in. Sorry. Anyways, back to the concept at hand.Eliminating ElysiumFirst off, there are massive spoilers for Defending Elysium, a short story Brandon wrote, in this game. Thankfully, the story is free to read on Brandon's website. Here's a link to it. Now then, on to the game itself.SpoilerChaos has erupted in the Outer Platforms after it has been revealed that rogue aliens have been impersonating humans in an attempt to gain superior weaponry. Unfortunately for the visitors to Jupiter Platform 19, their missile station has just been infiltrated. The bunker has been cut off from the outside. If the aliens gain control of the missiles, who knows what chaos they might cause.Missiles:The aliens need weapons to wage war on their oppressive regimes. Unfortunately for the humans, atomic missiles have been stored in this facility. To launch one, the aliens need two things: a technician to guide the warhead to its destination, and the access code that arms that particular missile. Each technician has the access code to a single missile to start out with. These codes can be given away to someone else during the night. If a technician is killed during the night, their killer takes the access code. If they are lynched, one of the people who voted for them gets it.Position:Each player will receive a different position before the game starts. Each players' position is public knowledge. Any faction can have any role. Here are the roles.

• Technician: You're one of the few people that actually know how to launch the rocket. As long as you have the Launch Codes for a missile, and the town votes for you to launch you can fire that missile to a location of your choice. One technician is guaranteed to be an Alien.
• General: You are in charge of this facility, and you will be respected. Your vote counts double. However, no one actually likes you that much. Any votes from Mechanics and Technicians against you are doubled as well.
• Soldier: You were assigned to protect the facility. You failed in that duty, but it left you with an advantage. You still have your gun. If you are lynched, and you guarded against one of the people voting for you, you will kill that person as you die.
• Mechanic: You're in charge of maintaining this facility in the middle of nowhere. You know a way to disarm the rockets; unfortunately, it involves blowing them up. When you are lynched, you can activate the self-destruct sequence, destroying a rocket of your choice.
• Politician: You were touring the facility when everything went crazy. You automatically have 1 vote assigned to you, since no one really trusts you.

Cytonics:The ability to sense other minds is present in all intelligent lifeforms. During the night cycle, a player can protect himself from the actions of another player. If that player tries to use an action on the protected party, it will not happen, and the other player will be immediately killed.For example, Tom (A normal Human) sends in his night action to protect himself from Steve. Steve tries to investigate Tom during the night. It will backfire hilariously, and Tom will kill Steve instead. Oops.Roles:Roles are assigned normally, and are revealed after death.

• Innocent Bystander: You don't have any special powers aside from your role.
• UIB Agent: Instead of using Cytonics, you can target one player during the night to learn that player's role.
• Cyto Adept: You can target two players with your Cytonic powers.
• Phone Company Operator: You can target two players with your Cytonic powers. Furthermore, instead of using Cytonics, you can kill a target player.
• Alien: You swapped minds with a human, and now look just like one of them. You have a Google Doc to conspire in, and you have a group kill.
• Thief: You're in the employ of one of Earth's mega-corporations. They will pay top dollar if you can make it out with some of the missile codes. Instead of using Cytonics, you can target a player to steal any launch codes they are carrying.

Win Conditions:

• Humans: Destroy all missiles by either launching them into the sun, or by having Mechanics blow them up.
• Aliens: Fire a missile at the Alien Homeworld, or outnumber the humans to force them to do it for you.
• Thief: Kill all the aliens, then escape with a working launch code.

I'd be interested in running this as a Quick Fix Game. Feel free to give me suggestions about the game.

This has some pretty interesting ballance mechanics. I, for one, would be interested in seeing how it plays out. Quick question, though. You said any faction could have any role, but the thief win condition directly contradicts the alien one. Perhaps alter the thief to make their win con be the win con of their faction, plus a secondary win condition of controlling a working launch code at the end.

Oh, and the General/politician should probably be made public at the start. I'm not sure about the mechanic/technician votes counting double, as it may reveal a role and make the aliens' job much easier. Perhaps make it optional or make it so all votes against them count double?

Also, does the technician pass their role when they pass the codes? It seems like that's what you mean, but just making sure

Edited May 16, 2016 by Bugsy6912

[Haelbarde he/him]

First, I think you changed a word and didn't update it everywhere because you appear to use IP and MS interchangeably. They are the same thing, right?

 

Biggest concern at first glance is that if Cultists can instantly lower all villager MS by one once per game, you need to be careful that every cultist revealing at once doesn't cause them to instantly win way earlier than intended. For instance, if people start with 5 MS and there are 5 cultists, then they can win on turn one. Obviously, that's too few. If they start with too much, then it becomes a meaningless mechanic that doesn't matter. Balancing those two extremes seems like it could be difficult since the value is rather volatile, and you need to consider the case of every living cultist revealing at once when MS is thought to be low enough as a very likely possibility. If I was a Cultist in that game, I would try to balance it such that any targeted MS loss would focus on the players with the highest MS, and then when everyone exhibits a madness symptom, have all cultists reveal. You can even ignore several villagers, one or two fewer than the number of cultists, since you only need to outnumber them to win. Unless this game requires complete victory, in which case the cultists control the lynch and have a night kill (I'm assuming?).

 

On that note, do the cultists have a night kill? I assume the cultists' goal is actually to make all the villagers go mad or kill them, since you seen to list killing as a thing.

 

Oh, and you seem to be saying that if the villagers lynch a villager, they lose an MS. If they instead lynch a cultist, they lose an MS. That sounds like any lynching results in an MS loss, which doesn't seem right. Also, do only those who vote suffer the loss?

By once per game, that's for the team. Once one cultist has done it, none of the others can.

MS refers to your sanity level, whereas IP is what gets taken away from the MS pool.

The 'night kill' involves the cultists showing someone a glimpse of a great old one, sending them mad. The village lynch is either a kill or sending the person to an asylum. Point is that death or madness remove players from the game.

Only those who vote lose MS. And both lose MS, one loses more. I might pull that though. Depends if I can balance the point usage.

And I was thinking that the revealed cultist to drop everyone's MS insta dies.

[Nyali she/her]

I've updated my game format suggestion posted here.

 

Would this be a good mid-range game? I'd love to run it if people are interested in playing. If people feel I should play more games here first, I can wait, but no MR14 was appearing, QF15's theme was unappealing to me, and LG21 doesn't seem to be getting enough players to run D:

EDIT: Umm, I can no longer edit my post. If I try, I get the error "You are not allowed to use that image extension on this community." even if I make zero changes to it. There are no images in my post at all and I have no signature. I'm confused.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Nyali

[Elbereth she/her]

The schedule for games is here. MR14 will come after QF15 finishes. You can sign up to run a MR in this thread (you can see the signup schedule for each game format in the second post), if you want to. Hope that helps!

Can't help with the technical problems, though. Sorry.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Elbereth

[Nyali she/her]

The schedule for games is here. MR14 will come after QF15 finishes. You can sign up to run a MR in this thread (you can see the signup schedule for each game format in the second post), if you want to. Hope that helps!

 

Aha! There's where that info is. I'd missed it when I went looking. Thank you!

[Straw he/him]

Midrange game idea: Mad Science

Roles:

There are 4 classes of mad science and 4 classes of people. They are:

Robotics:

Level 1: Create a drone that spies on a random player.

Level 2: Create a force field that protects a player of your choice.

Level 3: Create a killer robot that kills a player of your choice.

Genetics:

Level 1: Create a mutant that runs wild and kills a random player.

Level 2: Create a sentry mutant that tells you if someone tries to kill you.

Level 3: Create a mutant that protects you.

Biology:

Level 1: Dump your biological waste in a random location. This will infect three random players. The three players will die in three cycles.

Level 2: Create a virus that kills a player of your choice.

Level 3: Create a advanced virus that kills a random player each turn.

Cybernetics:

Level 1: Create a suit of armor that protects you from one attack or Lynch. This can only be used once.

Level 2: Create a explosive that kills the person who kills you.

Level 3: Create a message that will be posted in the writeup when you die.

Charisma:

Level 1: You can ask the game master for a player's level in a certain category.

Level 2: You can discover the alignment of a random player.

Level 3: You can discover the role and alignment of a player of your choice.

Insanity:

Level 1: You must include the word "goobertastic" in every post you make.

Level 2: You must spell 5 words backward in each post.

Level 3: You must spell people's names backwards.

Madness:

Level 1: Your actions have a 25% chance of hilariously backfiring.

Level 2: Your actions have a 50% chance of hilariously backfiring.

Level 3: Your actions have a 75% chance of hilariously backfiring.

Evilness:

Level 1: You must say "The world is mine!" once every cycle.

Level 2: You must say "Cower before me!" once every cycle.

Level 3: You must say "I will bathe in your tears!" once every cycle.

Factions:

The Council of Evil: You get a doc and a group kill. Your win condition is to outnumber The Agents of Doom[/color=green] The Agents of Doom[/color]: Your win condition is to kill every member of The Council of Evil.

Edited May 17, 2016 by ThatTinyStrawMan

[Master Elodin]

So do the insanity penalties stack?

[Straw he/him]

None of the abilities stack.

[Master Elodin]

The insanity penalties should, I think.

[Straw he/him]

Probably.

[AliasSheep]

This is an experimental game I wrote up earlier today.  Wondering on thoughts for it, I think it would fit as a QF pretty well, and would probably want to run it some time in the future. Without further ado:

 

The name's Smith, John Smith

There is no main thread in this game, except for information from the GM which is shared with all players, and if anyone wants to, RP.

Each person starts with two PMs, each containing themself and another player.

Roles

“Contacts”

Once per cycle, you can create a new PM between two players, one of which may be yourself..  The PM will be created at the beginning of the next cycle.

 

“N”

Once per cycle, you can break off one of someone else’s PMs and recreate it with another player of your choosing. This will occur at the beginning of the next cycle.

 

“005”

Once per cycle, you can remove one PM of someone else in the game. This will occur at the beginning of the next cycle.

 

“The Bureaucrat”

Once per cycle, you can cut off a person’s PMs for the next cycle.  This counts as cutting off the Double Agents’ contact.

 

“The Hacker”

Once per cycle, you will have relayed to you all the messages exchanged in one of the PMs of the person you choose.

 

“The Siren”

Once per cycle, you can change one person’s vote.

Factions

Spies

The Spies make up the majority of players.  Their job is to cut off all the Double Agents’ contact from anyone but the Double Agents.  They do this by each voting on someone to expell.  Expelling someone removes all their PMs.  A person needs at least two votes to be expelled, and if votes are tied, no one is expelled.  Votes are submitted via a PM with the GM.

Double Agents

The Double Agents’ objective is to have a PM with every single player between them.  They achieve this by using their Faction action, which allows them each cycle, to create a new PM between one of their members and another player.  The Double Agents all have a doc to discuss in.  If a Double Agent is expelled, they use a cyanide pill so no information can be extracted from them, removing them from the game.

The Freelance

There is only one Freelance.  The Freelance is a spy who, when in a PM with at least one Double Agent, is added to a separate doc with all the Double Agents, and shares their win condition.  When all PMs between the Freelance and the Double Agents are broken, the Freelance becomes a normal spy again.

 

Order of Operations

Voting

Vote manipulation

PM removal

PM addition

Hacking

Freelance Alignment Switch

 

EDIT:
And since I'm here, might as well post the other one I wrote up stuff for.  This one is a bit bigger, looking more to be an MR or LG than a QF.  It's a WoT game, set during the 10th book.

 

The Eyes of the Dark One

 

Roles

Ajahs

 

Everyone’s Ajah is public knowledge, and so everyone knows what Ajah abilities everyone else has.  Each Ajah has its own PM/doc (depending on size) in which to communicate.  One member of the Ajah must be assigned to carry out that Ajah’s action for the cycle.

 

White Ajah

The White Ajah can scan one player each night to determine their alignment

.

Brown Ajah

The Brown Ajah can use the action of any other Ajah, however, once they have used it, they may not use it again until they have used the actions of all the other Ajahs.

 

Red Ajah

The Red Ajah can redirect the action of another player during the night.

 

Green Ajah

The Green Ajah can remove one Sister from the Tower during the Night.  This is equivalent to exile.

 

 

The Grey Ajah can create three PMs each day, each PM containing up to 13 players.  At least one Grey Ajah member must be in the PM.  The PM can include exiled players.

 

Yellow Ajah

The Yellow Ajah can protect a player for the cycle. This means that if they would be converted, they are not, if they would be exiled by the Green Ajah, they are not, and if they would be executed, they are instead exiled.

Other Roles

 

Amyrlin Seat

The Amyrlin Seat is able to block one person’s actions for the cycle.  The Amyrlin Seat may choose a Keeper on the first turn of the game who they then have a PM with.  If the Amyrlin Seat is removed from the Tower, the Keeper becomes the Amyrlin Seat.  The Hall may then choose to elect a new Amyrlin Seat during the Night turn, who can choose a new Keeper.  The Hall must decide unanimously on the new Amyrlin.  If a new Amyrlin is raised, then no one may be exiled or executed the next turn. If the new Amyrlin is not raised, then they are exiled. If the Keeper role becomes vacant, the Amyrlin Seat must choose a new Keeper.

The Keeper

The Keeper may change the vote of one person during the day.  They can change a vote to a no vote and a no vote to a vote.  The Keeper remains in the PM of their Ajah.

 

Investigator

The investigators are Sisters who have been tasked by the Amyrlin Seat to find the Black Ajah and remove them from the tower.  They have a doc to discuss in and a Faction action which allows them to target one player to force to retake the Three Oaths.  If the player was Black Ajah, the player is added to the Investigator doc, and the Investigators may give the player up to two instructions to carry out for the turn, the limits of which are the discretion of the GM. (Example, the player cannot be instructed to perform no actions at all). If the player was not Black Ajah, they are protected from being converted to Black Ajah.

 

 

Factions

Black Ajah

The goal of the Black Ajah is to outnumber all remaining players in The Tower. Exiled players do not count towards this win condition. None of the Black Ajah may know the identity of another member of the Black Ajah. If one member does reveal the identity of any member of the Ajah to any other member, they are exiled for a cycle, without the Hall being informed. Each member is assigned two other members who they can communicate with. This communication is anonymous, and is done via the GM. The member will write out their message to the GM, say which of their contacts the message is for, and the GM will carry the message to the contact. Each Night, the Ajah gathers to talk freely, though still anonymously. A [doc/other, better method of communication] is created for that night, and all the members are assigned an alias/colour for communication. Each Night, the Ajah may convert a player to the Ajah.  After the person is converted, each member is assigned two new partners with which to communicate. If the Ajah targets one of their own number, they will be told that the conversion was blocked, like if the Investigators or Yellow Ajah protected the player. A single member must be assigned to perform the conversion action.

The Hall of Sitters

The Hall of Sitters consists of the all players.  Their objective is to remove all members of the Black Ajah from the White Tower.  Every turn, The Hall can vote on who to exile from the White Tower.  Alternatively, they can choose to execute a player.  The alignment of an executed player is not revealed, however, an exiled Black Ajah member can still communicate with their faction, and all exiled players can continue using Grey Ajah PMs.

 

Order of Actions

TBD

Edited May 22, 2016 by AliasSheep

[Nyali she/her]

I understand what you're trying to do with the Black Ajah communication, but it sounds to me like it will be really, really clunky in practice. Communicating through the GM will mean that the ability for them to communicate will be strongly dependent on the activity of the GM. if the GM is away, they can't communicate. That'll put a lot of pressure on you, and it would be frustrating to players who fail to communicate something important in time. The conversion mechanic is combined with an optional town kill, so if the town is lucky, they will be able to kill one per turn, while the Black Ajah are creating one player per turn. That means, in order to outpace the eliminators, the town has to successfully block or protect, along with successfully killing an eliminator every turn.

 

Having all the roles be public would also change the game significantly, but if that's what you're going for, I guess it works? It does mean that a Red Ajah darkfriend can protect whomever they want AND prevent a town protection by redirecting a Yellow, which is pretty strong.

[Straw he/him]

Idea for a long game called: The School of Magic.

Factions:

Students: The Students wish to destroy the Creations.

Creations: Corrupted in a magical accident you wish to kill all the Students. You get a doc and a group kill.

Magic:

There are 5 types of magic each with a focus. Spells will be put in a doc called The Spellbook.

Summoning: Summoning focuses on summoning entities to serve you.

Attack magic: Attack magic focuses on harming other players.

Transmution: Transmution focuses on altering elements of the environment.

Necromancy: Necromancy focuses on the dead.

Aether: Aether focuses on the base elements of magic.

Roles:

Novice: You start with two spells of a random type. Example: 1 summoning spell and 1 necromancy spell.

Adept: You start with two spells in two random types. Example: 2 attack spells and 2 aether spells.

Scribe: You start with no spells but you know 10 spells that are not in the Spellbook.

Mage Lord: You start with 4 spells of a random type and 1 ultra spell. Example: 3 transmution, 1 necromancy spell, and The Binding of The Doomed Souls.

Master: You start with 8 spells in 1 random type. Example: 8 necromancy spells.

Master of Banned Knowledge: You start with 3 ultra spells. Example: The Sphere of Temporal Confinement, The Mirror of Aggressive Spells, and The Binding of The Doomed Souls.

Ultra spells:

Ultra spells are extremely powerful spells. There are 5 ultra spells that are common knowledge.

The Hunter of Many Realms: Obliterates a player. Cannot participate in the game.

The Mirror of Aggressive Spells: Reverses every attack spell cast on you.

The Sphere of Temporal Confinement: Permanently roleblocks a player.

The Binding of The Doomed Souls: Creates a character that is controlled by every dead player.

Magical Flashback: 2 Players cast the spells they cast last turn.

Actions:

Discover new spell. 1/16 chance of finding a ultra spell.

Combine spells. Combine 2 spells to make a new spell.

Use spell.

[AliasSheep]

I understand what you're trying to do with the Black Ajah communication, but it sounds to me like it will be really, really clunky in practice. Communicating through the GM will mean that the ability for them to communicate will be strongly dependent on the activity of the GM. if the GM is away, they can't communicate. That'll put a lot of pressure on you, and it would be frustrating to players who fail to communicate something important in time. The conversion mechanic is combined with an optional town kill, so if the town is lucky, they will be able to kill one per turn, while the Black Ajah are creating one player per turn. That means, in order to outpace the eliminators, the town has to successfully block or protect, along with successfully killing an eliminator every turn.

Having all the roles be public would also change the game significantly, but if that's what you're going for, I guess it works? It does mean that a Red Ajah darkfriend can protect whomever they want AND prevent a town protection by redirecting a Yellow, which is pretty strong.

Yeah, that one is by far the one that needs more work. And yeah, having roles revealed is the goal, though it needs more balancing of course.

Regarding communicating via GM, I'm usually online for a lot of the day, excluding the time for lessons, though I think asking someone if they wanted to co-GM and be in a different timezone to me would help (open invitation, people!).

At the moment, I'm trying to figure out some kind of platform to do the Night turn Black Ajah communication on, since using a Google doc risks people logging in and revealing their identity. I could even facilitate the one on one communication through this as well, if I use the platform I'm thinking of (Slack).

Regarding the Red Ajah point, the darkfriend would have to convince the other members of the Ajah to redirect their target, as the actions are tied to Ajahs rather than individual players. This makes that a little less powerful, I hope. Also adds a lot more places for paranoia.

The obvious solution to the darkfriend advantage there is to make the conversion have a one cycle cooldown to it. Might require a bit more balancing though.

Edited May 22, 2016 by AliasSheep

[Nyali she/her]

Oh! I totally missed that the Ajahs have ONE action each and have to vote on it. That's interesting. I somehow missed that part and thought each member of the Ajah had that power individually. That's fine then, I think.

 

For anonymizing communication, here are a few suggestions:

• Limit the members to one or two messages per cycle, which they send to you and you send out to all the other members individually. That is complete GM gatekeeping for the communication, but it limits the amount you have to take care of and makes them think more about what they want to say before sending it.
• I don't know if this somehow violates the rules of this forum, but if allowed, what about creating fake accounts for each member, giving them the password, and having a group PM between them, along with the rules about if they reveal who they are with any measure of certainty, something very bad happens to them.

By the way, if you're worried at all about the Black Ajah claiming to each other who they are and that ruining the idea you had for the game of having anonymous eliminators who could still communicate, what about having a non-eliminator role that can listen in on all the eliminator conversations? Give them a vig kill that, if their target is Black Ajah, they kill, but if they are wrong, they are attacked once by each member of the Black Ajah (or just unblockably attacked and killed - you just want it worded such that they can't be protected by the Yellow, unless you want them to be able to be protected by the Yellow). Then, also give the eliminators a second night kill that, if it targets the double agent, attacks them, but if it targets anyone else, the Black Ajah performing the attack takes the hit instead. If they succeed in killing the double agent, they can freely reveal to each other, which gives the double agent strong incentive not to be very careful about what they say. Basically, you give both sides a check against the other. You can give the double agent role its own win condition if you'd like too.

 

But, the double agent thing doesn't work great in a game that has PMs. I don't like dynamic PMs, they break many good ideas xD

 

 

 

Regarding the conversion, your game idea is an attempt to implement a bunch of what I believe are new ideas (I haven't read through many of the old games here yet, so I could be wrong). You may want to limit how many new ideas you try in a single game. The conversion, which adds someone to a cell connected to two others and such, is the clunkiest part of the game idea, in my opinion. The game might be interesting enough with just the Ajah coordination, open roles, and semi-anonymous eliminators without trying to balance the conversion and instead giving the eliminators a standard night kill. But, that's up to you.

[AliasSheep]

Oh! I totally missed that the Ajahs have ONE action each and have to vote on it. That's interesting. I somehow missed that part and thought each member of the Ajah had that power individually. That's fine then, I think.

 

For anonymizing communication, here are a few suggestions:

• Limit the members to one or two messages per cycle, which they send to you and you send out to all the other members individually. That is complete GM gatekeeping for the communication, but it limits the amount you have to take care of and makes them think more about what they want to say before sending it.
• I don't know if this somehow violates the rules of this forum, but if allowed, what about creating fake accounts for each member, giving them the password, and having a group PM between them, along with the rules about if they reveal who they are with any measure of certainty, something very bad happens to them.

By the way, if you're worried at all about the Black Ajah claiming to each other who they are and that ruining the idea you had for the game of having anonymous eliminators who could still communicate, what about having a non-eliminator role that can listen in on all the eliminator conversations? Give them a vig kill that, if their target is Black Ajah, they kill, but if they are wrong, they are attacked once by each member of the Black Ajah (or just unblockably attacked and killed - you just want it worded such that they can't be protected by the Yellow, unless you want them to be able to be protected by the Yellow). Then, also give the eliminators a second night kill that, if it targets the double agent, attacks them, but if it targets anyone else, the Black Ajah performing the attack takes the hit instead. If they succeed in killing the double agent, they can freely reveal to each other, which gives the double agent strong incentive not to be very careful about what they say. Basically, you give both sides a check against the other. You can give the double agent role its own win condition if you'd like too.

 

But, the double agent thing doesn't work great in a game that has PMs. I don't like dynamic PMs, they break many good ideas xD

 

 

 

Regarding the conversion, your game idea is an attempt to implement a bunch of what I believe are new ideas (I haven't read through many of the old games here yet, so I could be wrong). You may want to limit how many new ideas you try in a single game. The conversion, which adds someone to a cell connected to two others and such, is the clunkiest part of the game idea, in my opinion. The game might be interesting enough with just the Ajah coordination, open roles, and semi-anonymous eliminators without trying to balance the conversion and instead giving the eliminators a standard night kill. But, that's up to you.

I was thinking last night, to prevent being too obvious about identities, to ask, at the end of the game, every Black Ajah member who they thought the others were.  If enough people managed to guess a person's identity (thus showing it was because of tells and not sheer luck (still possible but very unlikely)) then that person wouldn't share in the win with the rest of the eliminators and they'd be "killed by the Chosen" or something.

 

I went for the conversion more for thematic reasons than game reasons, though the kill would still work.  I'm still wondering about whether to keep the exile mechanic as well, or just remove it and use only the execution.

[Haelbarde he/him]

• I don't know if this somehow violates the rules of this forum, but if allowed, what about creating fake accounts for each member, giving them the password, and having a group PM between them, along with the rules about if they reveal who they are with any measure of certainty, something very bad happens to them.

This is a thing which has been suggested before, and that the Mods have asked the Admins about. At the moment, it's a no - it's against the site policy, but the mods are trying to see if we can get an exception to the rule for the SE subform. So it's a maybe, but not one to hold your breath over. (If they ever do get approved, I'd like to play a rerun of the game with Kandra body-snatching)

[Nyali she/her]

I'm pretty sure that you can make a google account, give everyone the password, and have everyone log in to the same account and write on a single shared google doc. I'm fairly sure that works just fine, as long as no one is a jerk and changes the password. Everyone will come up as the same person, so it'll help with the anonymizing.

[Arraenae]

Minimalist game idea: no roles whatsoever. Only eliminators, villagers, and ghosts.

Eliminators: have a doc to conspire in, along with a group kill or group silencing of two ghosts for x cycles. Win by outnumbering surviving villagers.

Villagers: win by killing all of the eliminators.

Ghosts: all dead people become ghosts. Every turn/cycle, ghosts may send an anonymous message of 150 characters to be posted in the writeup. Ghosts have a doc to talk in, and are removed from win conditions.

Everybody can make PMs, addressed to as many people as they want. Ghosts can't be included in PMs, so if someone in a group PM dies, a new one is made.

Alignments are revealed on death.

For obvious reasons, information about alignments won't be revealed in the dead doc. Ghosts have to use their brains if they want to know alignments.

Flavor names to come later. I'm thinking something along the lines of a skaa thieving crew, but I'd like suggestions.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Arraenae

[Seonid he/him]

I'm pretty sure that you can make a google account, give everyone the password, and have everyone log in to the same account and write on a single shared google doc. I'm fairly sure that works just fine, as long as no one is a jerk and changes the password. Everyone will come up as the same person, so it'll help with the anonymizing.

My upcoming MR game will feature a similar mechanic, except for everyone