Stranger Gambits: A surreal horror party game

Endless_Serpents

Hey everyone, I've made a kind of quick party game, called Stranger Gambits.
It is a homage to Twin Peaks, Silent Hill and other works of surreal horror.
It is really close to being a mafia/werewolf game, but everyone is on their own unless they choose to help each other.
I don't know if I can post this here, but I don't frequent many online forums, so this seemed like the nearest place to slot it in to debate it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hnls4SVDzhcjGF_fZNZIIKoaoVMixo0j9h-hDidX7B0/edit

It won't take you long to read, so please do and give me any feedback you can.

Oh, and if I eventually get down to finishing this up and making the cards look nice, it'll be a free to download and cut out deal. I'm no salesman.

Capfalcon

Well, one major thing I see is that you only win if you survive to the end. So, why do people have the ability to sacrifice themselves?

Endless_Serpents

Hello, thanks for commenting, sorry about the wait.

The rules need to be better written, but basically everyone but the murderer wins if the murderer is stopped. Its everyone vs. the murderer. Its just that everyone gets in everyone's way before the final few turns. A wise player might sacrifice themselves to keep someone in play who has the means to beat them, like an agent who can arrest or someone who has a chance card with a kill move. Of course, this really all boils down to whether a player is willing to "die" in order to win by someone else's hand, rather than hope they can pull the right chance card before the murderer wins.

I've had my friends play this with me twice today, looks really bad printed off and cut out, but it did the job. At the moment the game can last between 5 and 20 minutes, depending on reveals and whether they risk using chance cards. It is fun though- might have been the company though.

However, now that you mention it, any thoughts on other win conditions? I'm open to anything.

Endless_Serpents

Hmm, the game also as the Thrall, who "loves" the Murderer- thats just a prompt, not a rule to act on and the Demon, who is evil and has tricky moves. They're still part of the winning side at the moment if the Murderer wins, but I really need to work on other forms of winning...

Perhaps there should be a "town win", where the mysterious forces beat all the ordinary people.

Anyway, this update is just to say I am keeping this up until it is playable. Might update with some artwork if I get chance to make any!

Endless_Serpents

Okay, scouts' honour, last fake update. You won't hear from me 'til I have time to change things. I'm thinking of adding a points system, a little more "gamey" than I'd like, but it would offer a sort of sub-win system that'll make everyone compete against each other as well as stop/help the murderer.

So you could finish the game and it could look like this: The Murderer has been stopped, Good wins, the Honest scored the highest etc.

You get points from chance cards, using your moves, stealing them from others, [redacted] and [redacted].

Sounds good to me.