The Art of Game Creation

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

6th Heightening, you know how many Awakened objects Exist.

 

Holy Austere, this game will be awesome.

[Aonar he/him]

Perhaps at the Sixth Heightening you can make it so they can use some of the higher abilities for a certain amount of Breath or something? For Eighth you can give them a passive chance to not be affected by Awakening or something like that on top of what you already have, to make it a little more useful.

Edited March 28, 2014 by AonarFaileas

[Herowannabe he/him]

@TheOnlyJoe: Interesting twist on the game, I like it.

 

@Claincy: Also, very interesting and well thought out. The rest of my comments should be in spoiler tags...

 

 

 

3^rd Heightening [perfect colour recognition]

As your night action you can send a pm to the Narrator asking what heightening a specific player is at between: drab, normal, 1-3, 4-6, 7-10.

I would go ahead and let the player know exactly what level the other player is at. Why not? Scratch that. Since this power overlaps the 1st heightening so much, what about switching it up a little? As your night action you can send a pm to the Narrator asking which players are in a specific heightening range: *drab-normal, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 (*On second thought, finding out who is in the lower levels is too much of an advantage, as most players will be in that range).

 

ie: Narrator, which players are currently at the 4th or 5th heightening?

Narrator replies: Lightsong, Vasher, and Vivenna

 

 

 

6^th Heightening [instinctive awakening]

Could do with some input here.

Can Awaken and return the Breath to themselves in the same night? Awakening costs are reduced by 1?

Or perhaps you could have 3 or so secret Awakening commands, that nobody knows at the beginning of the game. A player at the 6th Heightening can use their action to learn one of the commands (at random). They may then use that command on the same night if they wish. They may also teach the command to others if they desire. (Awakening Steel could start out as one of the unknown commands).

 

 

8^th Heightening [Command breaking]

The first time you are attacked by the lifeless the attack fails. Could do with input.

Can use your night action to learn the Lifeless command (or relearn it, if someone has changed it). May not learn the command and change it in the same night.

 

 

Awakening

I would lower all the Awakening costs by one, except for maybe the sword-awakening. As it stands now, with the high cost in Breath AND it essentially requiring 2 actions to awaken something (one action to awaken it, and another to return the Breath), I don't foresee a lot of awakening happening. Lowering the cost in Breath would help with that a little.

 

 

 

Create an awakened sword. If you kill someone with an awakened sword it will go in the writeup that that person was killed that way. Every time you use the sword it consumes a breath, if you become drab from this you die. If someone kills you they take the sword. A Pahn Kahl using the sword does not get the option to steal the targets persons breath, like when using lifeless.

I would also say that attacks from an Awakened sword can not be prevented or healed in any way, EXCEPT by a Returned giving up his/her divine Breath. The Mercenary's power is also negated.

 

The cost of Awakening a sword is so high (and rightly so) that it is very possible that nobody will ever get the chance to awaken a sword, and even if someone does make it to the 9th heightening, they may not wish to spend that many Breaths. An Awakened sword ought to be awesome enough to be desirable. Plus, it fits in with the books. 

 

 

Returned.

I like how you have the Returned set up. Perhaps we should work some sort of future-telling into their role as well? I'm not sure how to do it though...

When revealed they have all the normal benefits of someone with the 5^th heightening and register as such. They still have their save action, but everyone knows they are returned. Their votes also count for double.

You should also clarify that Returned cannot use their divine Breath for Awakening. They may only Awaken if they receive extra Breath from someone else.

 

 

 

Idrian Agent. 

Hallendren Agent. 

LOVE this idea. 

 

Lastly, You neglected to post the win conditions for Hallandrens, Idrians, and Pahn Kahl. 

 

 

Whew! Needless to say I got a little excited about this one. Claincy, you'll probably succeed in bringing me out of retirement to play again when you start this game. 

[Metacognition he/him]

Retirement, Hero? You've only been out one game so far. That's not retirement, that's a vacation! (Oh, and in case you didn't notice, sign ups for his game are already up, since he'll be gone over the weekend)

 

A few questions and thoughts for you Claincy:

 

Depending on how many players you get, it's entirely possible that people are going to run out of breath. There's just too many ways for the breaths to be lost. From the killings of the Kahls (see below for questions about their stealing of breaths), to the 2 breath Awakening, to the Returned, you could easily run into situations that make it so that, by the end of the game, almost everyone is drab! Not to mention that any breaths that are taken by the Kahls will be entirely lost when they're killed. That is the hardest part of this game to balance well. You don't want a ton of people running around with Nightbloods, but you'll also not want to run out of breaths either. I hope you have some back up plans for that, just in case. 

 

I'd like some clarification about the Kahl's ability to steal breath. Would that require two of them? Would one steal the breath and the other do the killing? Would each be considered an action, thus using up two of the Kahls for the night? What happens if the attack is countered (like with a Divine Breath)? Do they still get to steal the breaths? In other words, could you make that part a bit clearer?

 

Can Awakened objects be used multiple nights in a row or do you have to recover the breath the next night and then wait a night before using it again? How long do you have to recover your breaths? Could I, for example, awaken a rope and never use it and just let it hold my breaths to be recovered at another time? Are we allowed to have multiple awakened objects? Also, I assume that any breaths held within an object can't be stolen if you're killed. Is that a correct assumption? 

 

I don't think the players will get much use out of the 3 breath awaken rope "Hold Things," considering that you have to make the action the night prior. Until you knew how a certain person would vote, there'd be no need to stop them from voting. Perhaps make people declare during the night cycle that they are creating the rope during the night and then they can pick the target during the day? If that is how you planned on working it, that's not the way it sounds. 

 

Some ideas for the Heightenings you don't have:

 

The 6th could make it so that any Awakening that costs less than 5 breaths costs one less. I think that wouldn't be too overpowered, since they'd have to recover the breath to make the power work again, which would take up another night. 

 

For the 8th, you could also make it so that they can't be affected by any Awakening that requires a command (the 3 and 5 breath Awakenings). After all, you can break the commands and those are still technically commands; they're just not as elaborate as the commands for the Lifeless. 

 

 

One final thing, and I don't have any ideas yet, but I'd give the Idrians one more role. As it stands, they don't have a lot of breath, so they can't use Awakenings initially and they only have 3 roles that are specific to them. On the other hand, the Hallendren have their own Agent, the Lifeless Commands and the ability to Awaken right away. It's been awhile since I've read Warbreaker, so I'm at a loss for an idea at the moment, but by giving them another role, it evens things out a bit more, IMO. If I recall correctly, they are a hardy people, so maybe something similar to the Thug-type roles or a Lurcher-style role? That's all I got for now. Hopefully some of this will help. 

[Herowannabe he/him]

On my phone, so I can't do multiple quotes easily. But in response to Meta:

Re: Retirement

It's retirement because I wasn't planning on playing anymore. But now...

Re: running out of Breath

That's a good point. How about implementing the following rule:

Purchasing Breath

Any player may use their night action to attempt to purchase Breath. The GM randomly determines if they succeed by rolling 1D6. If the result is equal to or lower than the player's current number of Breaths then they succeed in obtaining 1 more Breath.

I dunno, it probably needs some tweaking, because otherwise nobody would remain a drab for more than 1 night.

Re: Idrian Role

What about this as a role?

Royal Locks (Heir to the throne)

Your votes do not count. However, whenever another Idrian votes for the same person you do their vote counts as double. This ability is lost if you ever gain more Breaths or become a Drab.

EDIT: Oh, I didn't realize all the Idrian and Hellandran people would be publicly known. This role as I have suggested it would really only work if it isn't public knowledge who is Idrian or not.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Herowannabe

[Claincy he/him]

You guys have some very good thoughts here. A couple of the points you raised I had been thinking about mysekf abd was unsatisfied with but was yet to find a good solution. Here goes:

I would go ahead and let the player know exactly what level the other player is at. Why not? Scratch that. Since this power overlaps the 1st heightening so much, what about switching it up a little? As your night action you can send a pm to the Narrator asking which players are in a specific heightening range: *drab-normal, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 (*On second thought, finding out who is in the lower levels is too much of an advantage, as most players will be in that range).

 

ie: Narrator, which players are currently at the 4th or 5th heightening?

Narrator replies: Lightsong, Vasher, and Vivenna

Not a bad idea, however I wonder if it might be a touch too powerful. It effectively eliminates any guesswork regarding who has a lot of breath which I personally think is an interesting aspect of the setting. Instead of having to figure out who has large quantities of breath the spiked could easily use this ability and systematically eliminate all the powerful awakeners.

 

Can use your night action to learn the Lifeless command (or relearn it, if someone has changed it). May not learn the command and change it in the same night.

That would kind of make the powerful more powerful while weakening the less powerful. I don't really want the powerful awakeners to necessarily be the ones who are controlling the lifeless. Powerful awakeners already have plenty of options for actions during the night.  A further point to consider is that this might make it very easy for the spiked to obtain the lifeless commands in the midgame as they steal enough breath. I also think it would detract a little from the existing dynamic where those who hold the commands need to carefully consider who to trust. Finally perhaps the biggest problem is that a returned could very very easily achieve the 8th heightening and learn and change the commands.

 

I would lower all the Awakening costs by one, except for maybe the sword-awakening. As it stands now, with the high cost in Breath AND it essentially requiring 2 actions to awaken something (one action to awaken it, and another to return the Breath), I don't foresee a lot of awakening happening. Lowering the cost in Breath would help with that a little.

 

I would also say that attacks from an Awakened sword can not be prevented or healed in any way, EXCEPT by a Returned giving up his/her divine Breath. The Mercenary's power is also negated.

 

The cost of Awakening a sword is so high (and rightly so) that it is very possible that nobody will ever get the chance to awaken a sword, and even if someone does make it to the 9th heightening, they may not wish to spend that many Breaths. An Awakened sword ought to be awesome enough to be desirable. Plus, it fits in with the books. 

 

Hmm, I agree that it might be a good move to reduce the cost of awakening for most things though not the sword and it will have to be carefully balanced with the availability of more breath if we add that. I am also undecided on reducing the cost of creating a lifeless as I don't want people protected all over the place. I puzzled over it for a while and I don't think reducing it below 2 would be wise.

 

I think that you are right, the sword should kill regardless, even the divine breath is generous from a canonicity standpoint but as a game mechanic it should stay. I'm not certain if someone who has the 5th heightening and is yet to be injured should survive an attack from an awakened sword or not though. What do you think?

 

I like how you have the Returned set up. Perhaps we should work some sort of future-telling into their role as well? I'm not sure how to do it though...

Yeah I never came up with a good way to make that work.
 

You should also clarify that Returned cannot use their divine Breath for Awakening. They may only Awaken if they receive extra Breath from someone else.

I'll clarify that.

 

Lastly, You neglected to post the win conditions for Hallandrens, Idrians, and Pahn Kahl. 

 

And that, didn't realize it wasn't clear.

 

 

Whew! Needless to say I got a little excited about this one. Claincy, you'll probably succeed in bringing me out of retirement to play again when you start this game. 

Recruitment is up, it'll be starting in a few days.

 

Retirement, Hero? You've only been out one game so far. That's not retirement, that's a vacation! (Oh, and in case you didn't notice, sign ups for his game are already up, since he'll be gone over the weekend)

 

A few questions and thoughts for you Claincy:

 

Depending on how many players you get, it's entirely possible that people are going to run out of breath. There's just too many ways for the breaths to be lost. From the killings of the Kahls (see below for questions about their stealing of breaths), to the 2 breath Awakening, to the Returned, you could easily run into situations that make it so that, by the end of the game, almost everyone is drab! Not to mention that any breaths that are taken by the Kahls will be entirely lost when they're killed. That is the hardest part of this game to balance well. You don't want a ton of people running around with Nightbloods, but you'll also not want to run out of breaths either. I hope you have some back up plans for that, just in case. 

Balancing the number of breaths will be very difficult as we have never tried something like this before

Hero's later post regarding purchasing breaths might be a good idea. One option would be to not have it available at the start but make the option available a few rounds in if the breath levels seemed low.

 

I'd like some clarification about the Kahl's ability to steal breath. Would that require two of them? Would one steal the breath and the other do the killing? Would each be considered an action, thus using up two of the Kahls for the night? What happens if the attack is countered (like with a Divine Breath)? Do they still get to steal the breaths? In other words, could you make that part a bit clearer?

 

What I had been considering was that the person who was doing the killing could choose to attempt to steal the breath with a 50% chance of success. This creates a dynamic where they may want to make one of their awakeners especially powerful, to awaken a sword for instance, so they may keep using them to do the attacks. But in doing so they run the risk of attacking someone whom the Mercenary is protecting and losing their most powerful player. Of course at the same time they risk discovery by making one of their own exceptionally powerful due to how many players are able to gain insight into others heightenings.

 

I was thinking of the saving through divine breath as coming after as otherwise the Pahn Kahl would just kill them again So it would be a 50% chance for them to steal the breath as per normal but if they failed the player would retain their breath.

 

Can Awakened objects be used multiple nights in a row or do you have to recover the breath the next night and then wait a night before using it again? How long do you have to recover your breaths? Could I, for example, awaken a rope and never use it and just let it hold my breaths to be recovered at another time? Are we allowed to have multiple awakened objects? Also, I assume that any breaths held within an object can't be stolen if you're killed. Is that a correct assumption? 

 

Strawman can be used again and again as naturally can awakened swords. Lifeless are expressly one-use and the breath is lost. The others you need to recover the breath before reusing but there is no time limit on how long you can wait before doing so.

 

I don't think the players will get much use out of the 3 breath awaken rope "Hold Things," considering that you have to make the action the night prior. Until you knew how a certain person would vote, there'd be no need to stop them from voting. Perhaps make people declare during the night cycle that they are creating the rope during the night and then they can pick the target during the day? If that is how you planned on working it, that's not the way it sounds. 

 

You are absolutely right, that needs adjusting. I think I will switch the names of the commands and adjust that one so that you prepare it during the night, then use it during the day (as suggested) and you also do not have to use it that day. That should rectify that problem.

 

One final thing, and I don't have any ideas yet, but I'd give the Idrians one more role. As it stands, they don't have a lot of breath, so they can't use Awakenings initially and they only have 3 roles that are specific to them. On the other hand, the Hallendren have their own Agent, the Lifeless Commands and the ability to Awaken right away. It's been awhile since I've read Warbreaker, so I'm at a loss for an idea at the moment, but by giving them another role, it evens things out a bit more, IMO. If I recall correctly, they are a hardy people, so maybe something similar to the Thug-type roles or a Lurcher-style role? That's all I got for now. Hopefully some of this will help.

Yeah they need another one, I know it but I hadn't come up with a good one yet. I feel like the thug role is already covered with the 5th Heightening and the lurcher is somewhat replaced by the mercenary.

 

Re: Idrian Role
What about this as a role?
Royal Locks (Heir to the throne)
Your votes do not count. However, whenever another Idrian votes for the same person you do their vote counts as double. This ability is lost if you ever gain more Breaths or become a Drab.
EDIT: Oh, I didn't realize all the Idrian and Hellandran people would be publicly known. This role as I have suggested it would really only work if it isn't public knowledge who is Idrian or not.

It might well have the potential for a role though with a bit of adjustment. I like the concept

 

Regarding 6th & 8th Heightening ideas:

 

Can Awaken and return the Breath to themselves in the same night? Awakening costs are reduced by 1?

Or perhaps you could have 3 or so secret Awakening commands, that nobody knows at the beginning of the game. A player at the 6th Heightening can use their action to learn one of the commands (at random). They may then use that command on the same night if they wish. They may also teach the command to others if they desire. (Awakening Steel could start out as one of the unknown commands).

 

6th Heightening, you know how many Awakened objects Exist.

 

Holy Austere, this game will be awesome.

 

Perhaps at the Sixth Heightening you can make it so they can use some of the higher abilities for a certain amount of Breath or something? For Eighth you can give them a passive chance to not be affected by Awakening or something like that on top of what you already have, to make it a little more useful.

 

The 6th could make it so that any Awakening that costs less than 5 breaths costs one less. I think that wouldn't be too overpowered, since they'd have to recover the breath to make the power work again, which would take up another night.
 

For the 8th, you could also make it so that they can't be affected by any Awakening that requires a command (the 3 and 5 breath Awakenings). After all, you can break the commands and those are still technically commands; they're just not as elaborate as the commands for the Lifeless. 

 

Good ideas here

I particularly like the ideas of the 6th allowing you to research new forms of awakening or to decrease the cost of awakenings.

 

The 8th protecting them from the rope commands could work, they are still plenty vulnerable to death afterall

 

Thankyou for all the input guys =D

 

2 heads (or more) are much better than 1!

Edited March 31, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[Herowannabe he/him]

On phone again.

Re: Lifeless. Just me personally, but if I had to use an action and permanently lose 2 breaths to get protection for one and only one night I would never do it. Even at a cost of 1 breath I would only ever do it if I was confident that I knew who the bad guys were going to target. Permanently losing a breath is a steep enough cost already, and protecting a player for 1 night isn't really a game-changing action.

Re: awakened sword vs 5th heightening. I would say the sword should win out and the kill would get through.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Herowannabe

[Metacognition he/him]

Hero has a point. That was kind of my fear as well. The lose of one or even two breaths is difficult to balance against just a random chance. The ones who benefit the most for the way it is set up right now is the Phan Kahl. They can replenish their breaths while the rest of us cannot (personally, I like the idea of it taking two of them to steal breath, but that does eliminate the need for them to put their player with the biggest breath at risk, so it could go either way).

I've got two ideas for how to possibly balance it:

• Keep it at two, but make it so that if you don't redraw the breath the next night, the Lifeless is considered lost and you can't get it back. This way, the people who are effectively 'Lurchering' are different every night. It will keep the Phan Kahl on their toes and it won't be highly effective until the other players start to form some alliances that they can trust. 
• Increase the cost to 4 and drop everything else down a notch from that point. The negate vote becomes 2, and the strawman 3. At that point, it functions like the rest, where you can invest it, but you don't have to use it right away. This keeps it from being used by a lot of people early on, thus making it harder to come by. 

That's all I can come up with off hand, but I'll try to think on it a bit and we'll see. You've still got some time to decide and modify things, so feel free to tinker around! The biggest thing to be careful of is that the PKs can use each of these abilities as well, so you could be giving them Lurching abilities and multiple kills a night if they get the Lifeless Commands. This game feels like it's going to be hard mode, like my Inquisitor game was! I like it. 

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Here's some revised(ish) roles I've thought up for WoT Elimination. With enough people, and the right balanced number of Roles, I think this could work.

Chaneller: During the night you can chose to cast the Mask of Mirrors on yourself or a target, hiding your Role and Alignment from Thief-takers and Viewers, and you can not be influenced by Ta'vereen voting powers. Or during the night you can chose to make somebody your Warder. They are notified, but not of your Alignment. Nor do you find out their role or alignment.You are both allowed to PM as long as both of you live, even if the Dreamwalker is killed. If the chaneller dies then the Warder goes into a frenzy and can chose a target to kill during the next Night Cycle. If the Warder doesn't get bonded by a new person within Two Cycles, then they also die.
Kind of our Smoker role blended with an inverted Bodyguard Role. This is the one I'm most worried about balance wise. I don't think I'll put in many Chanellers.

Thief-Taker: You can target somebody during the Night and find out who (if anybody) they targeted. You don't find out their Role or Alignment.
Based off of a Tracker

Viewer: You can target somebody once per night and find out their Alignment
Cop/Seeker

Dreamwalker: You can leave anonymous messages for the GM to post with the write-up, and villagers are allowed to send Pms while you're alive.
Our Tineye. PM groups have been working fine so far on the forum, I think. They can be a big help or hinderance, so I'll keep them.

Aiel: You can survive one lynching or night attack. Alignment not revealed in write-up.
Thug.

Wisdom: You can target somebody to save from potential death at night.
Lurcher/Doctor

Wolfbrother: You can target somebody to kill at night
Coinshot/Vigilante

Fox-Medallion Weilder: You can chose somebody to target somebody at Night and prevent their Night Action from going through (if they have a Night action)
Roleblocker

Lord: During the Day, a Lord can be elected for their vote to count twice. Stays Lord until somebody else is elected or killed.
Mayor

Whitecloaks: A small group of villagers who all know each others identities. Have their own Doc.
Mason. I wanted to add them in to add some balance to the Padan Fain Role. Because as it stood, Fain could convert a Spiked and gain a bunch of their identities right away, so I wanted to give a similar chance happening to some Villagers as well.

Forsaken: You are the leader of the Darkfriends. During the night your action can be to Mask yourself, making you appear as a Villager with any Scanning results, or you can perform an additional Night Kill with the Darkfriends, making your role/alignment readable until the next night cycle.
Godfather

Padan Fain: You carry the taint of Shadar Logath. You can convert somebody during the Night Cycle, and when you and your converts outnumber all other players, you win. When you convert somebody there might be a chance of that person losing their Role. (Balance? What do you guys think? Some way to balance out the Role so this faction doesn't get too over-powered)
Cthulu/Cultist Role

Edit: Some tweaking and balancing, I hope. And not all of these roles will guaranteed be used, just possible ideas.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Gamma Fiend

[Wyrmhero he/him]

With regards to the Nalthis Elimination game, I'm not too sure how useful the Awakened Sword would be at 8 Breaths a pop. This leaves you with 1 Breath, assuming you do it immediately when you get to 9th Heightening, and so you can only make one attack before you become drab and can no longer use it without dying yourself. If you wait until you have more breaths, and get to 10th Heightening, then everyone knows you're a threat. Couple that with the lack of a simple way to get new Breaths, and I think it falls into the category of Awesome but Impractical.

 

Not that such a thing shouldn't cost a lot, of course - 8 Breaths is quite a bargain down from 1000! But combined with the fact that it implies a very late game ability, unless some people start with a lot of breaths, I don't think it will have much of an effect. You might have other things to do late-game for a start, like creating Lifeless to save yourself. Maybe it could protect you at night, like a Lifeless/Mercenary, but steal Breaths away each time it does? But then, that might give it too many abilities...

 

As I said, the concept is awesome, but all I can see is someone at 9th Heightening making it and then never using it because they don't want to become drab, or getting to 10th, making it, and then being killed because everyone knew who they were, and the sword stolen from you.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Wyrmhero

[Metacognition he/him]

The cultist style roles are very difficult to balance fairly because if you don't kill the Cult Leader, it doesn't really matter how many of them you kill. You effectively have the same situation as Game 2, except you're adding in other factions as well, so yeah, Fain is a bit overpowered!  

My solution to this is to limit the number of conversions they can do. If you can balance out the three factions as far as numbers go, you would have a benchmark to limit Fain's conversions. For example: Let's say you have 25 players. Typically, ~5 should be darkfriends, but you're also adding in another group. So you cut the number of darkfriends down to 4 and add in Fain with at most 3 conversions. That way, he can't just take over the darkfriends if he hits one right away. This would still be a little unfair to the Villagers, so I'd try to boost their ranks with Roles, but I think this would still be fairly balanced, especially if you don't give Fain and/or his followers a night kill. 

 

@Wyrnhero: By the time someone gets to the point where they can afford the sword, there should be a few groups and alliances formed. Nightblood wasn't created by just one person, it was a group effort. In the same way, I suspect that whomever creates one of these swords would have others around that could help provide additional breaths. Of course, the ones who have the easiest time of this is the Pahn Kahl, but due to the alliances, it'll be more available than you think, IMO. 

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

What if I add in if the Cult Leader dies, so do the rest of them? And I probably will set a cap on how many people can be converted. Should I throw in the chance of people retaining their powers or losing them? So that way it's basically the same as Inquisitor vs Mafia vs Town.

Also, what do you think of the Channeler role? I'm not sure of the Warder bond, because people getting Bonded against their will would probably really suck for them.

[Metacognition he/him]

It's still the same situation of the rest of the group having to hunt down the Cult Leader and I think that's a bit unfair to those that have been converted. Then again, it adds a lot of tension and importance to any situation where the Cult Leader comes under suspicion. 

 

After some thought, I'd probably make it so that Fain can only convert so many people and from there, their only goal is to survive. They get to retain their powers, but they don't get a night kill and their numbers should be less than that of the starting Darkfriends count. That way, there's only so much damage Fain could do and after converted, they need to try to hide in the shadows and try to get others lynched, as that's their only way to kill off other players. It almost makes them a secondary villager faction that can't be too blatant without getting themselves killed. 

[Wyrmhero he/him]

@Wyrnhero: By the time someone gets to the point where they can afford the sword, there should be a few groups and alliances formed. Nightblood wasn't created by just one person, it was a group effort. In the same way, I suspect that whomever creates one of these swords would have others around that could help provide additional breaths. Of course, the ones who have the easiest time of this is the Pahn Kahl, but due to the alliances, it'll be more available than you think, IMO. 

 

Ah, I hadn't considered the fact that you could work together to make one. That's a very interesting idea... You still need someone of Eighth Heightening though. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Wyrmhero

[Claincy he/him]

Ok, some updated rules and ideas, let me know what you guys think.

 

Creating lifeless

Creating lifeless will cost one breath but it requires the body of a dead player to do. The first person to pm me during the night saying they are making a lifeless out of a particular dead player will get to make them as their night action. Anyone who pm's me later will be informed that the body is already gone and can spend the night doing something else.

 

The Idrians do not like lifeless, so as a diplomatic gesture all lifeless must be kept in a barracks, any lifeless found outside the barracks must be immediately surrendered to it and they join the other lifeless that the people with the lifeless commands control.

 

After you have made a lifeless you can use it on any following night to protect one person, it will defend them from the Pah Kahl or from other lifeless but not from awakened swords (but will defend them from awakened ropes during the night cycle?). Using a lifeless like that reveals them and they join the barracks and cannot be used again. (Though they may well appear in writeups when the lifeless commands are used.)

 

Every night where you choose not to use your lifeless there is a 20% chance (or a 10% chance?) that someone will stumble on them by accident and you will lose them anyway.

 

8th heightening

I'm thinking of going with that you cannot be effected by awakened ropes. OR that if a strawman is used against you you can choose to spend the next night breaking it's commands and making it work for you instead. You cannot recover their breath from it, but neither can they.

 

6th heightening

Still considering alternatives.

 

Idrian Monk

Twice during the game the Idrian monk may declare someone to be innocent and no Idrians can vote for that person during that day. This includes the Idrian agent, but not Pahn Kahl or the Hallendren agent, though they would want to be very careful about revealing themselves. To do this the monk has to declare it publicly in the thread, revealing themselves to Pahn Kahl and Hallendrens who may want them out of the way.

 

Purchasing breath

I think we will go with Hero's suggestion:

 

Purchasing Breath
Any player may use their night action to attempt to purchase Breath. The GM randomly determines if they succeed by rolling 1D6. If the result is equal to or lower than the player's current number of Breaths then they succeed in obtaining 1 more Breath.

BUT. The option to purchase breath is only available every second night. (So 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc.)

 

As always, feedback is much appreciated =)

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

I don't think the chance of losing a Lifeless is necessary. You already have to waste a Breath, and then specifically predict the day you'll be attacked.

@buying breath

Personally, I'd do it on a case by case basis instead of every other night. After all, if everyone's hoarding breath and at the Fifth Heightening, there's no point to giving them more unless you want a lot of Nightbloods being waved around. But if everyone's Drab, then you desperately need to boost up the Breaths even if it means allowing buying two days in a row.

[bartbug he/him]

I feel like breath buying should be something tangible: A vote or a night action. As in, you give it up to another party. So it goes something like this:

 

1.Hallandren fellow has lifeless, decides he wants more breath. Tells Clancy.

2. Clancy says "okay", if someone else has already told Clancy they are in the market for lifeless. Hallandren fellow gets his breath, random dude gets lifeless, neither know about each other.

 

Or: You don't get to vote, so you get a breath. Or you roll the dice. Either way, I feel like there should be a cost that is the same for everyone.

[Metacognition he/him]

I agree with Porridge about the risk. You're already losing breath. If the Lifeless protects you until it's used, then I could see it involving some risk to keep it hidden (I kept the UnSnapped at 10% and we all saw how many of them finally Snapped in Game 2, so 10% should be fine). Besides, if you allow the Lifeless to protect you against a wide variety to things, then someone might wind up wasting their breath on a Lifeless that only protects them against say, buying more breath or retrieving breath that you could retrieve the next night. 

 

This system also favors those who are capable of being on during the time of write ups, which I think is unfair. At one breath, the second someone dies, someone will scoop up the body and make it a lifeless for two reasons: 

1. Because it could come in handy and it gives you a bargaining chip.
2. To deny other players the use of the Lifeless. 

The Pahn Kahl could just make sure that the second that the write up goes live, they send in a PM (they even knew the targets of night kills ahead of time) and create the Lifeless so that no one else could. 

 

I think you're going to have a difficult time balancing this one. I like the idea of needing a body before it can be done. Definitely keep that, IMO, but we need to find another alternative to first come, first serve. 

 

How about this: A Lifeless costs at least 1 breath to make and you need a body before you can do so. Each night that someone dies, players can bid breath on a body. The player with the highest bid invests that number of breaths into the Lifeless and has command of it. Everyone else keeps their breaths, but loses their action for the night. In the event of a tie, no one gets the body and they may try again another night. The creation of a Lifeless will be revealed within the write up, but it will not reveal who made the Lifeless. 

The Lifeless will protect you and only you from any action taken against you, but if used, it is revealed as a Lifeless and joins the other Lifeless in the barracks. There is a 10% chance every night that it is not used that someone will stumble across the Lifeless and reveal it anyways. 

 

This way, the Pahn Kahl can't just pick it up to keep others from being able to use it, it costs more if you really feel like you need it, and there is always the possibility that you could waste your night action for no gain as well. And if the final option happens, then there will still be the body there to be picked up the next night (and likely another as well), so the chances of someone getting a winning bid with a lower cost increase with time, but keeps the number of them down as well. 

 

Everything else seems pretty good. I like the Idrian Monk, but I'd let them keep it private. If they have to make it public, then the Hallendren just have to pile onto the chosen target and the one of them who doesn't is the Idrian Spy. Maybe send out a PM telling all Idrians whenever the Monk uses their ability and if they don't switch their vote, their vote automatically doesn't count and shows up that way in the write up? 

 

Bartbug, purchasing breath would take a night action, so they're already losing their action to possibly increase their breath and if enough people are going drab, we'll notice well ahead of time, so personally, I think every other night is fine. If everyone is trying to get more breaths every second night, then we're effectively giving the Pahn Kahl a free night to waltz in and kill whomever they want anyways. I am a bit confused by the D6 and equal or lower than bit. How could a drab get any back, considering the die doesn't have a 0 face? I think it means equal or higher, but then the Idrians could easily gain another breath or two fairly quickly. 

Edited April 2, 2014 by Metacognition

[Herowannabe he/him]

Lots of interesting ideas being tossed about, let me add one more, to cover both creating lifeless and buying breath (because now I actually don't like my die-roll suggestion from earlier):

Lottery style.

When somebody dies, their body becomes available to be made into a lifeless the next night. During the night phase, anyone can spend their action to try to claim the body. The "winner" is chosen at random. If nobody tries to make a lifeless, the body remains until the next night. If there are multiple bodies available, there will be multiple "winners" for the night. The winner(s) are informed privately.

Same thing for buying breath. Each night one or more Breaths become available on the market. Players are told about the availability of Breaths at the end of each day. No matter how many Breaths are available, a player may only purchase 1 breath per night.

Advantages of the lottery system:

It's simple, easy to use and understand, and easy to keep balanced. Plus I really like that it- along with the System that Claincy has set up in general- gives ALL players options for different actions to take during the night. I think it will help hold people's interest in the game, particularly those without any special role, because they will still have things to do.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Herowannabe

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

@Meta, On the Purchasing Breaths Bit, You say you want to, Clan roles a D6, if you have 1 breath, You automaticcly get a Breath, because the Die has to be equal to or higher than your breaths, so if you have 6 breaths, you have to roll a 6 to get a breath. That way, people of the 7th hightening and Higher can't buy Breaths.

 

EDIT: I'm assuming Hero acidently hit post befor finishing his Post.

Edited April 2, 2014 by The Only Joe

[Herowannabe he/him]

That's exactly what happened.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

142 of my 186 Posts are in Sanderson Elimination. 76.344%

9 of my 10 PM Conversations are about this game.

My rep was at 30 Before the Third game.

 

I play this game too much.

[Metacognition he/him]

Absolutely no such thing, Joe. I am your dealer and I tell you that there is no such thing as an addict to this game. You can trust me, right?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Don't Worry, I'm sure I'm not addict-

 

Wait, I'f I'm addicted, That means I'm a Sanderson Savant!!!

Edited April 2, 2014 by The Only Joe

[Swimmingly he/him]

Getting a whole breath economy going might require a second GM.