The Art of Game Creation

[Ashbringer he/him]

F-Nicrosil is a bit like F-Copper, for what we know, in that you don't really get the ability to store over time. I think it's still a bit of a debate whether a Coinshot/Soulbearer Twinborn would store their ability to burn steel until they tap it again, which is mostly useless without some way of unkeying/unsealing the metalmind, or whether they would store the actual burning of steel which could let them tap to do... something. More powerful Steelpushes, or the ability to tap Nicrosil to perform a Steelpush without burning Steel.

Poking around on the Mistborn section of the Shard might yield more clues as to what a Soulbearer can do without access to other Investiture, but I think an only Nicrosil Ferring can't do anything kind of like a Duralumin Gnat.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

14 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

F-Nicrosil is a bit like F-Copper, for what we know, in that you don't really get the ability to store over time. I think it's still a bit of a debate whether a Coinshot/Soulbearer Twinborn would store their ability to burn steel until they tap it again, which is mostly useless without some way of unkeying/unsealing the metalmind, or whether they would store the actual burning of steel which could let them tap to do... something. More powerful Steelpushes, or the ability to tap Nicrosil to perform a Steelpush without burning Steel.

Poking around on the Mistborn section of the Shard might yield more clues as to what a Soulbearer can do without access to other Investiture, but I think an only Nicrosil Ferring can't do anything kind of like a Duralumin Gnat.

I'm just making it affect votes and actions as "Investiture" like remove "Investiture" aka votes and actions when filling and add "Investiture" when tapping.

More ideas would be helpful.

[Gears]

I actually finished the rules for that ardentia game. I would greatly appreciate critiques, name suggestions [alternate names include "Ardentia: Civil War", "Sacrum Bellum", "Splinter Religion"], and other such commentary. [Sidenote: Devotary the player, I apologise, but in my defense, what else could I possibly name my roles in an ardentia game? Devotaries are literally the foundation of Vorinism. Callings? Glories? Maybe... Oh well, I already named them all.]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L1d8JWRZV8BqjygoJHl1usy73MkAB3tjmV6izo2VZ0o/edit

Edited March 9, 2021 by Gears

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

7 hours ago, Gears said:

I actually finished the rules for that ardentia game. I would greatly appreciate critiques, name suggestions [alternate names include "Ardentia: Civil War", "Sacrum Bellum", "Splinter Religion"], and other such commentary. [Sidenote: Devotary the player, I apologise, but in my defense, what else could I possibly name my roles in an ardentia game? Devotaries are literally the foundation of Vorinism. Callings? Glories? Maybe... Oh well, I already named them all.]

For the name, maybe something referring to the War of Loss that the radical ardents want to revisit? All the roles seem fine. If it takes long enough for this game to run you might be able to add a couple more Devotaries if you wanted to fill out the standard Mistborn roles or something since there's 10 Devotaries in total. The Devotary of Spontaneity is functionally equivalent to no Devotary since its members wouldn't plan ahead enough to take an action.

[Gears]

7 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

For the name, maybe something referring to the War of Loss that the radical ardents want to revisit? All the roles seem fine. If it takes long enough for this game to run you might be able to add a couple more Devotaries if you wanted to fill out the standard Mistborn roles or something since there's 10 Devotaries in total. The Devotary of Spontaneity is functionally equivalent to no Devotary since its members wouldn't plan ahead enough to take an action.

Name idea: "The Sun Sets On Empires" or some derivative of that to show that the Sunmaker's empire has fallen, the Hierocracy was arrogant and bad at ruling, and they will not suffer the same mistakes as their imperial predecessors. Or, taking the complete opposite view, "The Sun Never Sets" to show a wish for the return of the days of Empire.

Would I be allowed to use RoW Devotaries if I clearly label that it contains minor irrelevant spoilers for RoW? I could also just make some up which might be easier. 

If you give permission to have the "No Devotary" group named after you, then I will happily use it. I do express concern over confusion, but I suppose that would have happened in any case, what with the roles literally being named "Devotary of X". 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

There's a nine month spoiler policy for RoW so if your game runs before August you'd have to mark it as spoilers. I'm pretty sure you'd still be able to run it so long as you marked those. You do have permission to name roleless players the Devotary of Spontaneity.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

So I've been working on a Feruchemy ruleset, which I'll put lower down, but I have no idea for tapping Aluminum. Any ideas?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jLpk8sDPVpArbl95UUcVuB6jgIHYd0U3vUoSJDKvEcg/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Quintessential she/her]

3 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

So I've been working on a Feruchemy ruleset, which I'll put lower down, but I have no idea for tapping Aluminum. Any ideas?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jLpk8sDPVpArbl95UUcVuB6jgIHYd0U3vUoSJDKvEcg/edit?usp=drivesdk

I think you need to change the settings of the doc so that people it's not shared with can see it  it won't let me in

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

4 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

I think you need to change the settings of the doc so that people it's not shared with can see it  it won't let me in

Should work now.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Well, for those of you who aren't on the discord or who are and just missed this: I've been working on a game called Radiant University. It's based on the KKC games, specifically LG65. I won't be running this game for a long while (I can only run games during summers, and I've already got several other games lined up for this coming summer), but I've been working on this for awhile and finished up the rules earlier tonight. So, at a grand total of just over 10,000 words and 24 pages, here is Radiant University.

Huge thanks to @TJ Shade @Ashbringer @Elbereth @little wilson @Experience and @Haelbarde for helping me out as I was working on these rules, especially TJ. I spent a lot of time spamming him with my thoughts and ideas as I was working on this game, and he was really helpful for getting a lot of this done, especially with helping me figure out some of the surge actions.

It's been a long month and a half, and I'm really glad I'm finally done.  

Also, feel free to give me comments on the rules! I might still make some changes if people point out things that are incredibly broken, plus I need stuff to add to the Clarifications section.

EDIT: Oh, also, @Kasimir listened to me ramble about Radiant University occasionally as well! Thanks man! I know you avoid complex games like the plague, but thanks for listening to me ramble sometimes.

Edited March 14, 2021 by StrikerEZ

[Flyingbooks]

Quote

• Win Condition: Outnumber all of the living, non-hospitalized Students in Honor’s Light. OR become the leader of X orders of Radiants (X = # of living elims - 1)

@StrikerEZ, would this be the number of living elims at any given moment? Because if so, then the elims would automatically win when there is just one left even if they aren't the head of an order of Radiants.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

7 hours ago, Flyingbooks said:

@StrikerEZ, would this be the number of living elims at any given moment? Because if so, then the elims would automatically win when there is just one left even if they aren't the head of an order of Radiants.

Hmm...well, okay, I should make it so it’s at least one elim has to be.

[Quintessential she/her]

Okay, so I sat down and worked out some of the issues/complexities with my Twinborn game. It's still complicated and (to my mind) somewhat inelegant or unwieldy or... idk but this isn't gonna be the final version I don't think  

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wy-b3IHJLCU3_RFTKPimVPjgG5bpeijylQsDvIShJAc/edit?usp=sharing

Yes, the abilities for each metal are the same whether you're a Misting or a Ferring of that metal. Having different abilities for each meant wayyyy too many kinds of abilities, so I sacrificed some accuracy in favor of workability. Most of the abilities are derived from Allomantic powers, some from Ferric powers, and some sort of fit both? but mostly it's one or the other. 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

1 hour ago, Quintessential said:

Okay, so I sat down and worked out some of the issues/complexities with my Twinborn game. It's still complicated and (to my mind) somewhat inelegant or unwieldy or... idk but this isn't gonna be the final version I don't think  

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wy-b3IHJLCU3_RFTKPimVPjgG5bpeijylQsDvIShJAc/edit?usp=sharing

Yes, the abilities for each metal are the same whether you're a Misting or a Ferring of that metal. Having different abilities for each meant wayyyy too many kinds of abilities, so I sacrificed some accuracy in favor of workability. Most of the abilities are derived from Allomantic powers, some from Ferric powers, and some sort of fit both? but mostly it's one or the other. 

Just an idea, maybe you could have all feruchemical metals be enhancers while allomantic are normal abilities. 

[dannnex male]

There really isn’t a good thread for this, but I think this one fits the best. 

So I’m playing Mafia irl with my visiting extended family rn, and I want to see how complicated I can make it. See what SE roles I can add. 

I did a 9 person game earlier. It had 

2 mafia
1 alignment scanner
1 protector
and 6 villagers. 

That went pretty well, but the alignment scanner found both mafias back to back on N1 and N2, so the game ended quickly. I’m thinking if I can find a way to do irl Vote Manip, but that might be a bit complicated. I could probably implement a Joker/Jester/whatever-you-wanna-call-it role pretty easily, so I think I’ll do that. 

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I think we’ll have about 11 players max. Do y’all think that’s enough for a 3 Elim team?

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

I think three elims would be good. A jester would definitely help. For the jester, I would recommend making them come up as evil to the alignment scanner. I would also recommend switching one vanillager to a vigilante. 

@Dannex

Edited March 28, 2021 by The Unknown Order

[dannnex male]

3 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

I think three elims would be good. A jester would definitely help. For the jester, I would recommend making them come up as evil to the alignment scanner. I would also recommend switching one vanillager to a vigilante. 

@Dannex

Oooh, good idea with the jester. A vigilante would be a good idea too.

[Straw he/him]

13 minutes ago, Dannex said:

I did a 9 person game earlier. It had 

2 mafia
1 alignment scanner
1 protector
and 6 villagers.

Was the protection limited in some way? It seems really easy for the village to win by having the alignment scanner claim. Then the protection role just saves them while they get off as many scans as possible. If you run that setup again I'd recommend having a mafia roleblocker at least, so the mafia can shut down any alignment scanner that claims (and also so the mafia has a small chance of blocking a scan or protect).

14 minutes ago, Dannex said:

I’m thinking if I can find a way to do irl Vote Manip, but that might be a bit complicated. I could probably implement a Joker/Jester/whatever-you-wanna-call-it role pretty easily, so I think I’ll do that. 

I probably wouldn't recommend doing vote manip in such a small game size. It's annoying to handle and it can be frustrating if it interferes with the vote (since it's kind of undemocratic ). A Jester role seems like it could be fun if your family is into that.

16 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I think we’ll have about 11 players max. Do y’all think that’s enough for a 3 Elim team?

Three player elim team means that would be 3 vs 8 or roughly 27.27%. So it'd have to be pretty heavily in favor of the elims. For setups, I'd recommend looking at some other sites. For example, the MafiaScum wiki: Lots of smaller setups. Look under the "mini" and "micro" links for setups of the size you're looking for.

[dannnex male]

12 minutes ago, Straw said:

Was the protection limited in some way? It seems really easy for the village to win by having the alignment scanner claim. Then the protection role just saves them while they get off as many scans as possible. If you run that setup again I'd recommend having a mafia roleblocker at least, so the mafia can shut down any alignment scanner that claims (and also so the mafia has a small chance of blocking a scan or protect).

Oof yeah, good point. The protector was nightkilled N1, so luckily that didn’t happen, but that is indeed very gamebreaking. I think adding a Roleblocker would be a good way to counter that. 

Speaking of that, should we start with a Day turn? I’ve been starting with a Night since that’s usually how party mafia works, but I guess we don’t have to. 

17 minutes ago, Straw said:

I probably wouldn't recommend doing vote manip in such a small game size. It's annoying to handle and it can be frustrating if it interferes with the vote (since it's kind of undemocratic ).

Yeah, I couldn’t think of an easy way to do it. I wanted to have some sort of role that takes an action during the Day turn, but if vote manip is off the table I’m not sure what would work. I was thinking about maybe having a role that doesn’t take an action, but they have a passive ability, like their vote counts for two of something. Don’t know if that would really add anything to the game though. 

22 minutes ago, Straw said:

For example, the MafiaScum wiki: Lots of smaller setups. Look under the "mini" and "micro" links for setups of the size you're looking for.

thanks for the resources, I’ll check them out!

[Straw he/him]

19 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Speaking of that, should we start with a Day turn? I’ve been starting with a Night since that’s usually how party mafia works, but I guess we don’t have to. 

IMO starting with a day is better since it means that no one gets killed or scanned before they can say anything.

[dannnex male]

Alright, that was probably one of the funnest things I’ve ever done.  Seriously. It worked so well. I wasn’t really expecting it to work at all, and instead we all had so much fun we played for like 3 hours.

Here’s the exact ruleset I used for our first game, which were probably the best one:

Spoiler

11 People
3 Mafia: 8 Villagers

2 Vanilla Mafia
1 Roleblocker Mafia

1 Village Detective (Alignment Scanner)
1 Vigilante (Has a kill that can be used once for the whole game, kill is taken if they attempted to use and were Roleblocked, has one passive extra hit from Night Kill. (The passive extra life thing never actually came into play for us.))
1 Doctor (Basic protector role. Can protect themselves, and can protect the same person multiple times in a row.)
4 Vanilla Villagers

1 Joker (separate 3rd faction, wins if voted off in a Day Cycle. Everyone who doesn’t vote the Joker the cycle the Joker get voted off gets Roleblocked)

The mafia won that game, but it was VERY close. It got down to the point where there were 4 people left, the Doctor, a Vanilla, The Vigilante and a Mafia. The Vanilla had been proven Village the previous cycle by some shenanigans that happened with the Joker (who also won, despite being openly the Joker the entire game.), and so had the doctor because of an earlier Detective Scan. So they had to choose between the Maf and the Vigil. They voted off the Vigil, and so the Doctor and Vanilla both knew who it was, but they had to survive the night. Which basically meant that the Doctor had to choose the right person to protect. 50/50 chance of winning or losing. It was literally insane. He was stressing so much, and all the dead players were just freaking out. That night cycle lasted quite a while because he couldn’t choose, but eventually he chose to protect the Vanilla, but the Maf had tried to kill him. So the Maf won. It was so hectic, I just couldn’t stop laughing. 

I think I should note the age of some of these players. I was the oldest at 16. The mafia team for that game consisted of a 13 yr old, a 8 yr old, and an 11 yr old. And they won. And they actually played well too. The 11 yr old was the one alive at the end, because she had played dumb the entire game. Almost every statement she made was something like “I’m confused”, but it was 100% an act. I was so impressed.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Dannex
Messed up my own brother’s age smh

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

So, I've been working on that ferring game and have finally gotten to a point that I am happy with. Here's the link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jLpk8sDPVpArbl95UUcVuB6jgIHYd0U3vUoSJDKvEcg/edit?usp=drivesdk

Any suggestions? Comments? Critiques or questions?

[Archer he/him]

I have a suggestion for the breaktank people to consider trying out: a "MR" game with cycles that end at surprising times. Each cycle would be between 24 and 48 hours Before the game, the GM would set out when each rollover would occur but not inform the players. To provide some structure, cycles would only ever end at the top of the hour. An example set-up might be: D1 is 28 hours long, D2 is 37 hours long, D3 is 25 hours long, D4 is 31 hours long etc.

Such a game would incentivize early-cycle activity and reduce end-of-day vote avalanches, which can be frustrating.

Timezone troubles and accidental inactivity are foreseeable difficulties.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

5 hours ago, Archer said:

I have a suggestion for the breaktank people to consider trying out: a "MR" game with cycles that end at surprising times. Each cycle would be between 24 and 48 hours Before the game, the GM would set out when each rollover would occur but not inform the players. To provide some structure, cycles would only ever end at the top of the hour. An example set-up might be: D1 is 28 hours long, D2 is 37 hours long, D3 is 25 hours long, D4 is 31 hours long etc.

Such a game would incentivize early-cycle activity and reduce end-of-day vote avalanches, which can be frustrating.

Timezone troubles and accidental inactivity are foreseeable difficulties.

It'd be tricky if the GM misses the deadline, because normally one of the players announces people need to stop posting in that case, but that wouldn't be doable here.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

On 4/4/2021 at 5:29 PM, The Young Pyromancer said:

It'd be tricky if the GM misses the deadline, because normally one of the players announces people need to stop posting in that case, but that wouldn't be doable here.

Maybe you could get a Co-GM who's in a different time zone, or has a vastly different schedule.