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How to Host a Phalla (mechanics & balance discussion)

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Posts

  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    I just wanted to comment that in Rishiri I split the special powers among 1-3 players who were not aware of eachother. If you were a guardian and there were two other guardians then your power had a 1/3 chance of being successful on any given night. I did this because in earlier games I had noticed that the special powers of the villagers lead to games that became boring because a network would be established very early. The head of the network or the inner ring of the network then did all the thinking and the game became very dull.

    Spliting the powers up caused them to be weaker in the beginning and more powerful later as the others who held your role were killed or you managed to find and coordinate with eachother. This pushed the action later into the mid/late game and kept things more interesting. It also allowed an increased number of players to get special roles, which makes everyone feel pretty good.

    I thought the council idea worked surprisingly well. The dynamic is interesting and it gives the ordinary villagers the chance to have a kind of power. If I had it to do again I would make the members of the council immune to the attacks of the monsters.

    Also, in Rishiri I didn't state all the game mechanics. The essence of this game is the pitting of an informed minority against an uninfomed majority, so I wanted to see if really emphasizing the uninformedness of the majority made things more interesting and opened up all kinds of avenues for lying and pretense. I've since decided that this is a really really aggrevating practice - especially since people like to make very complicated games where the roles are well nigh unguessable. I'm not above sneaking in traitors amid groups of the supposed good guys without saying anything - as in the NY game, but other than that not laying out the game mechanics doesn't seem to promote fun all that much.

    Finally I thought MTV had the best way of assigning roles that has been seen yet. As players sign up they pick a number which has a role associated with it. Speculation about who the narrator would have picked for which role is really uncool. That isn't supposed to be part of the game at all and generally fucks things up.

    Post Script - if you are putting some effort into crafting a story to go with the narration assigning individual villager PMs with a backstory is very helpful. It's a bitch load of work to write them, but having those backstories available allows you to very quickly craft a cool narrative for each night around the players who are dying/making other actions.

    Shinto on
  • Look Out it's Sabs!Look Out it's Sabs! Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Two general comments, Saburbia:

    - When in doubt, your bad guys are probably too weak. Just a general observation based on all the Phalla games I've seen so far. More often than not, the bad guys are sort of nerfed. This gets more true as time goes on and the players get better.

    - With 50-60 people, you're going to want to maintain about 5-6 kills per night. It's tough to maintain interest in a game like this past about a week and a half, especially given that the people who participate the most are the most likely to die.


    Specifically: I think the bomb squad idea is cool, but it's going to be very difficult for those three people to find each other unless your game winds up with an InstaNetwork early on, in which everybody can contact some confirmed innocent fellow. Maybe you could add in some seer-lite ability which only serves to identify whether someone is a fellow bomb squadder or not? You could say they have some sort of bomb-detection gear, or something.

    As to the sniper, is there a limit to how many times he can hide and make himself almost invincible? Because that, coupled with the vigilante ability, is a pretty powerful package. The one nice thing about it is that it nicely avoids the vig/guardian verification strategy that allows for night-one networks. Maybe if you only gave him 2-3 rounds of ammo? It needs to be a little nerfed, I think.

    Well for the hiding ability, if there is more than one order against the sniper, than one of them will go off. So if one of the bad guys used both of their kills on him, or the two monster groups targetted him than he will die, I didn't try to make him invincible. This also includes the scout trying to seer them or the guardians wanting to defend them.

    For bomb squad I might add in a lil seer ability like you suggested, and/or have it so it is only the remaining bombers in play that need to do it. So if theres two guys left it can still work, or if the last bomber is alive. But the dead bombers couldn't of used their one shot defend since the idea behind is that the bomber takes some of their equipment off their body to make the trap.

    My bad guy group ideas so far will be something along these lines.

    A group of 5/6 normal bad guys, they get 2 kills.

    Than a group of 5 mutants, they get one kill, and whenever one of them is voted off they randomly take down someone who voted for them.

    A small group, maybe like 2, who are deserters and trying to get intouch with the main bad guy group (the one with two kills). Since they are normal soldiers they get seered as good guys. But I don't think I would give them kills.

    This way there will be 1 voting, 2 spy kills, 1 mutant kill (with a possible another kill), and a possibly vigilante kill. So it can be 4-6 kills a day.

    Look Out it's Sabs! on
    NNID: Sabuiy
    3DS: 2852-6809-9411
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Saburbia wrote: »
    Well for the hiding ability, if there is more than one order against the sniper, than one of them will go off. So if one of the bad guys used both of their kills on him, or the two monster groups targetted him than he will die, I didn't try to make him invincible. This also includes the scout trying to seer them or the guardians wanting to defend them.

    Ah, if the bad guys can expend two kills to take him out, that's not so bad. As long as he can't make himself immune to death at the hands of the baddies. The odds against multiple groups happening to accidentally target the same person are small, and if the only way to kill him is for two groups to independently want him dead, well, then he's pretty safe.

    I also like the idea of a guardian who can only protect himself. He can't use his ability to protect a vocal mouthpiece, and he can't use his ability to become a mouthpiece himself.
    For bomb squad I might add in a lil seer ability like you suggested, and/or have it so it is only the remaining bombers in play that need to do it. So if theres two guys left it can still work, or if the last bomber is alive. But the dead bombers couldn't of used their one shot defend since the idea behind is that the bomber takes some of their equipment off their body to make the trap.

    That'd be really cool.
    My bad guy group ideas so far will be something along these lines.

    A group of 5/6 normal bad guys, they get 2 kills.

    Than a group of 5 mutants, they get one kill, and whenever one of them is voted off they randomly take down someone who voted for them.

    A small group, maybe like 2, who are deserters and trying to get intouch with the main bad guy group (the one with two kills). Since they are normal soldiers they get seered as good guys. But I don't think I would give them kills.

    This way there will be 1 voting, 2 spy kills, 1 mutant kill (with a possible another kill), and a possibly vigilante kill. So it can be 4-6 kills a day.

    I like that. Combined with the occasional weeding out of non-participants, that would probably make it in under the 1.5-2 week limit that seems to govern interest.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • SmasherSmasher Starting to get dizzy Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Saburbia wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Two general comments, Saburbia:

    - When in doubt, your bad guys are probably too weak. Just a general observation based on all the Phalla games I've seen so far. More often than not, the bad guys are sort of nerfed. This gets more true as time goes on and the players get better.

    - With 50-60 people, you're going to want to maintain about 5-6 kills per night. It's tough to maintain interest in a game like this past about a week and a half, especially given that the people who participate the most are the most likely to die.


    Specifically: I think the bomb squad idea is cool, but it's going to be very difficult for those three people to find each other unless your game winds up with an InstaNetwork early on, in which everybody can contact some confirmed innocent fellow. Maybe you could add in some seer-lite ability which only serves to identify whether someone is a fellow bomb squadder or not? You could say they have some sort of bomb-detection gear, or something.

    As to the sniper, is there a limit to how many times he can hide and make himself almost invincible? Because that, coupled with the vigilante ability, is a pretty powerful package. The one nice thing about it is that it nicely avoids the vig/guardian verification strategy that allows for night-one networks. Maybe if you only gave him 2-3 rounds of ammo? It needs to be a little nerfed, I think.

    Well for the hiding ability, if there is more than one order against the sniper, than one of them will go off. So if one of the bad guys used both of their kills on him, or the two monster groups targetted him than he will die, I didn't try to make him invincible. This also includes the scout trying to seer them or the guardians wanting to defend them.

    For bomb squad I might add in a lil seer ability like you suggested, and/or have it so it is only the remaining bombers in play that need to do it. So if theres two guys left it can still work, or if the last bomber is alive. But the dead bombers couldn't of used their one shot defend since the idea behind is that the bomber takes some of their equipment off their body to make the trap.

    My bad guy group ideas so far will be something along these lines.

    A group of 5/6 normal bad guys, they get 2 kills.

    Than a group of 5 mutants, they get one kill, and whenever one of them is voted off they randomly take down someone who voted for them.

    A small group, maybe like 2, who are deserters and trying to get intouch with the main bad guy group (the one with two kills). Since they are normal soldiers they get seered as good guys. But I don't think I would give them kills.

    This way there will be 1 voting, 2 spy kills, 1 mutant kill (with a possible another kill), and a possibly vigilante kill. So it can be 4-6 kills a day.

    So let's say there's 60 players and 10 bad guys. That makes 50 villagers, effectively 45 once you take the mutant retaliation power into account. Not including the retaliations there'll be 5 kills a night if the vigilante is smart and lives until the end (not including overlapping kills, which will probably only happen once or twice), so the game will last up to 9 days. That means the village has (at most) 18 kills to kill 12 bad guys. To be realistic let's say the bad guys kill 2, maybe 3 of each other off, leaving the village 9 bad guys it has to deal with. So, on average the village or the vigilante has to kill a bad guy every night.

    If the vigilante gets killed early, or doesn't kill, it gets even worse. That's four kills a night, for about an 11 day game. With overlapping monster kills, let's push that to 12. Again assuming 3 monster "friendly" fires, that gives the village 12 votes to kill 9 bad guys.

    Granted, you want the monsters to be pretty strong, so you don't want to nerf them too much. I'd suggest reducing each of the main forces to four, and leaving the deserters as they are.

    Smasher on
  • Look Out it's Sabs!Look Out it's Sabs! Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I have lots of time to make lil tweaks in the game since I probably won't start another one until I have the time to do so, which will be in summer.

    I was also thinking of making a scout novice that has a one shot seering for after the original scout dies. So it doesn't come into plan until the scout dies, and he has only one seering. Just incase the seer dies on like night one or so. But the good guys are porbably good as they are.

    Look Out it's Sabs! on
    NNID: Sabuiy
    3DS: 2852-6809-9411
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Shinto wrote: »
    Also, in Rishiri I didn't state all the game mechanics. The essence of this game is the pitting of an informed minority against an uninfomed majority, so I wanted to see if really emphasizing the uninformedness of the majority made things more interesting and opened up all kinds of avenues for lying and pretense. I've since decided that this is a really really aggrevating practice - especially since people like to make very complicated games where the roles are well nigh unguessable. I'm not above sneaking in traitors amid groups of the supposed good guys without saying anything - as in the NY game, but other than that not laying out the game mechanics doesn't seem to promote fun all that much.

    One of the biggest problems to overcome seems to be preserving that uninformedness, especially since you pioneered the strategy of just outing yourself on day one. The new problem is one of preventing strategies that automatically result in a network of people who are guaranteed to be innocents.

    Some degree of opacity in the rules is one way of addressing this, though I agree that this can get in the way of the fun. I think that the way I handled it in Phalliad, where I explicitly stated exactly what rules were in effect at any one time, but didn't announce all the rules that would eventually come into effect at the outset, handled this balancing act at least okay. All players were on the same footing at all times in terms of knowing how the game worked, and while they may wonder if a mole may be introduced down the line, they at least always knew whether or not it was something to worry about right now.

    The one exception was in the rules governing bad guy kills, which I mostly didn't announce in order to preserve the suspense in the first two days, and to maintain the surprise of having a third the village eat it on day three.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Smasher wrote: »
    So let's say there's 60 players and 10 bad guys. That makes 50 villagers, effectively 45 once you take the mutant retaliation power into account. Not including the retaliations there'll be 5 kills a night if the vigilante is smart and lives until the end (not including overlapping kills, which will probably only happen once or twice), so the game will last up to 9 days. That means the village has (at most) 18 kills to kill 12 bad guys. To be realistic let's say the bad guys kill 2, maybe 3 of each other off, leaving the village 9 bad guys it has to deal with. So, on average the village or the vigilante has to kill a bad guy every night.

    If the vigilante gets killed early, or doesn't kill, it gets even worse. That's four kills a night, for about an 11 day game. With overlapping monster kills, let's push that to 12. Again assuming 3 monster "friendly" fires, that gives the village 12 votes to kill 9 bad guys.

    Granted, you want the monsters to be pretty strong, so you don't want to nerf them too much. I'd suggest reducing each of the main forces to four, and leaving the deserters as they are.

    I have a couple quibbles with your math. First, you discount that the five bonus mutant kills only occur if the mutants die due to a vote. If the village is smart and preserves its vigilante, they can have him take out a couple mutants once they're confirmed via seer. We can also assume that one mutant will be taken out by the other bad guys. Instead of losing 5 people to their vengeance kill, we'll probably lose 2-3. Let's say 3.

    Second, your math about there being 9 days assumes that only civilians will be dying. 60 people, an average of 5 kills a night, that's a maximum of 12 days, not 9. 12 days, 10 bad guys to kill. Assume 2 bad guys die to other bad guys, and we have 12 votes + X vigilante kills to take out 8 bad guys. If the vigilante is smart, he won't kill anyone for the first few days, because those kills are much more likely to result in civilian casualties. Let's say in the end he averages one kill every other day, and lives until mid game, dying on day 8. That gives the village in the neighborhood of 16 shots to take out 8 bad guys. When you figure in the power of the seers and the network, that seems fair.

    In comparison, consider the default case of a 12 man game with 3 monsters and one seer, with 2 kills per night. 6 nights maximum, 3 people to kill. That has the same 2:1 ratio of shots to bad guys, and as we've discovered, our good guys tend to kick ass and chew bubble gum. If anything, I'd say Saburbia's game favors the village.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • Look Out it's Sabs!Look Out it's Sabs! Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Hmm maybe go with having the deserters get a kill, so that's 4 kills a day from bad guys with 12 bad guys intotal.

    Look Out it's Sabs! on
    NNID: Sabuiy
    3DS: 2852-6809-9411
  • SmasherSmasher Starting to get dizzy Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Smasher wrote: »
    So let's say there's 60 players and 10 bad guys. That makes 50 villagers, effectively 45 once you take the mutant retaliation power into account. Not including the retaliations there'll be 5 kills a night if the vigilante is smart and lives until the end (not including overlapping kills, which will probably only happen once or twice), so the game will last up to 9 days. That means the village has (at most) 18 kills to kill 12 bad guys. To be realistic let's say the bad guys kill 2, maybe 3 of each other off, leaving the village 9 bad guys it has to deal with. So, on average the village or the vigilante has to kill a bad guy every night.

    If the vigilante gets killed early, or doesn't kill, it gets even worse. That's four kills a night, for about an 11 day game. With overlapping monster kills, let's push that to 12. Again assuming 3 monster "friendly" fires, that gives the village 12 votes to kill 9 bad guys.

    Granted, you want the monsters to be pretty strong, so you don't want to nerf them too much. I'd suggest reducing each of the main forces to four, and leaving the deserters as they are.

    I have a couple quibbles with your math. First, you discount that the five bonus mutant kills only occur if the mutants die due to a vote. If the village is smart and preserves its vigilante, they can have him take out a couple mutants once they're confirmed via seer. We can also assume that one mutant will be taken out by the other bad guys. Instead of losing 5 people to their vengeance kill, we'll probably lose 2-3. Let's say 3.

    Second, your math about there being 9 days assumes that only civilians will be dying. 60 people, an average of 5 kills a night, that's a maximum of 12 days, not 9. 12 days, 10 bad guys to kill. Assume 2 bad guys die to other bad guys, and we have 12 votes + X vigilante kills to take out 8 bad guys. If the vigilante is smart, he won't kill anyone for the first few days, because those kills are much more likely to result in civilian casualties. Let's say in the end he averages one kill every other day, and lives until mid game, dying on day 8. That gives the village in the neighborhood of 16 shots to take out 8 bad guys. When you figure in the power of the seers and the network, that seems fair.

    In comparison, consider the default case of a 12 man game with 3 monsters and one seer, with 2 kills per night. 6 nights maximum, 3 people to kill. That has the same 2:1 ratio of shots to bad guys, and as we've discovered, our good guys tend to kick ass and chew bubble gum. If anything, I'd say Saburbia's game favors the village.

    The mutant thing is true, though I doubt it'd make more than a day's difference.

    As for your second point, apparently doing math in the morning is not my thing.

    Smasher on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Saburbia wrote: »
    Hmm maybe go with having the deserters get a kill, so that's 4 kills a day from bad guys with 12 bad guys intotal.

    P'raps. In the end, I think it's almost impossible to craft a game in one shot that doesn't favor one side over the other. It'd take playtesting the same ruleset several times to actually balance it so that it was fair, because of all the unknowns and unforseeable side effects of each rule.

    One sort of fast-and-dirty way to approach it might be to look at the past few games, and try to err on the side of giving an advantage to the side that's lost the most. Not saying to give one side an obviously unfair advantage, but if the bad guys keep losing, and you have a mechanism which you think may possibly weight things a little towards the bad guys, go ahead and throw it in.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    P'raps. In the end, I think it's almost impossible to craft a game in one shot that doesn't favor one side over the other. It'd take playtesting the same ruleset several times to actually balance it so that it was fair, because of all the unknowns and unforseeable side effects of each rule.

    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Nerissa on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    No kidding...

    Fortunately, I'm married to someone who enjoys coming up with rules & mechanics for things, and isn't hampered by too many pre-conceived notions of how things are supposed to work. We had a night out without the kids on Saturday, and spent most of it designing my Salem game. :D

    Nerissa on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    Your husband totally rocks.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • Aroused BullAroused Bull Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    How'd I do on that count?

    Aroused Bull on
  • UtsanomikoUtsanomiko Bros before Does Rollin' in the thlayRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I'll need to take notes on this Soviet phalla. Great ideas for public roles and additional executions that I'd like to look over and draft up a 40k Inquisition phalla, at least for someone more experienced to modify and run.

    Utsanomiko on
    hmm.gif
  • AroducAroduc regular
    edited March 2007
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    Poppycock. I've still got a couple tricks in my bag. Nothing that I've thought about enough to be well developed or balanced, but at least as off from the usual mafia/werewolf mold as the threeway one was.

    They're just basically social games. Start with what you think would be an interesting situation or dynamic, and then build the game from there. There's no reason to fall into the "well, there must be a small set of bad guys plus a large set of good guys, and a seer, vigilante, guardian, etc etc etc."

    Aroduc on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    ArrBeeBee wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    How'd I do on that count?

    I like it thus far. I'm really curious to see how the Politburo powers play out.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • tuxkamentuxkamen really took this picture. Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ArrBeeBee wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Nerissa wrote: »
    That's so true... but on the other hand, unless your rules & mechanics are 100% transparent to everyone from the start of the game, you can only run through the thing properly once with a given group of people. As much as I'd love to re-play the Phalliad, for example, it loses something when everyone knows from the beginning how Hades works.

    Yup. Coming up with something cool and original is going to get increasingly difficult.

    How'd I do on that count?

    I am impressed at the moment by the opening day; I like the audience-participation stuff when it's early, or constructive (no offense, but I'm going to post quite a bit about the Mole one after it's over). I am still working on my concept, and I see quite a few ideas I'd like to incorporate, but I don't think my scenario lends well to elections at this moment.

    tuxkamen on

    Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
    Thus, the others all die before tuxkamen dies to the vote. Hence, tuxkamen survives, village victory.
    3DS: 2406-5451-5770
  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I've been thinking one based on Vampire(The Masquerade) would be interesting, but I figure it's a good idea for me to participate in a few more before I try to get one going.

    I'd try to incorporate the different clans and their disciplines as Specials, likely with the Camarilla being good and Sabbat/Anarchs being the evil element.

    cj iwakura on
    wVEsyIc.png
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I've been thinking one based on Vampire(The Masquerade) would be interesting, but I figure it's a good idea for me to participate in a few more before I try to get one going.

    I'd try to incorporate the different clans and their disciplines as Specials, likely with the Camarilla being good and Sabbat/Anarchs being the evil element.

    That sounds like a cool idea... although it might take some work to get a good balance of public / private information.

    I'd go with antitribue (I think that's the word I'm looking for... it's been a while) being the bad guys rather than using standard Sabbat clans, though, for ease in hiding among the clan members.

    Nerissa on
  • AcidSerraAcidSerra Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I just had a thought, what about a game scaleable for any multiple of 11, i.e. 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, etc..

    The way it works is that you have, for 33 players for instance, 30 spies and 3 villagers. The spies are split into 10 groups, and the villagers would all know who each other are. In order to win there would have to be 2 groups or less with one having enough majority to be impossible to vote off. The kills would be every other day for the spies, half 1 day, half the next. This way the onus is not on the villagers to find the spies, but on the spies to find the villagers. As well as eliminate everyone else, while still keeping their group from being wiped out because someone realized they were a group.

    AcidSerra on
  • UtsanomikoUtsanomiko Bros before Does Rollin' in the thlayRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Sounds like a typical game of small starting groups, with the names switched around.
    AcidSerra wrote: »

    The way it works is that you have, for 33 players for instance, 30 villagers and 3 spies. The villagers are split into 10 groups, and the spies would all know who each other are. In order to win there would have to be 2 groups or less with one having enough majority to be impossible to vote off. The kills would be every other day for the villagers, half 1 day, half the next. This way the onus is on the villagers to find the spies. As well as eliminate everyone else, while still keeping their group from being wiped out because someone realized they were a group.

    Utsanomiko on
    hmm.gif
  • AcidSerraAcidSerra Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Utsanomiko wrote: »
    Sounds like a typical game of small starting groups, with the names switched around.
    AcidSerra wrote: »

    The way it works is that you have, for 33 players for instance, 30 villagers and 3 spies. The villagers are split into 10 groups, and the spies would all know who each other are. In order to win there would have to be 2 groups or less with one having enough majority to be impossible to vote off. The kills would be every other day for the villagers, half 1 day, half the next. This way the onus is on the villagers to find the spies. As well as eliminate everyone else, while still keeping their group from being wiped out because someone realized they were a group.

    Cool, I think like everyone else. Still sounds fun.

    AcidSerra on
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Odd question... how important do you think the ability to change your vote over the day is? I find it annoying when people just drop in a vote at the beginning of the day (or right after the previous day's narration) as a placeholder, then change their minds several times throughout the day. I much prefer if they just wait to vote until they are at least somewhat convinced.

    On the other hand, I know people's schedules can be unpredictable, and they might not know for sure they'll be able to stop by and make an informed vote later, for example.

    Now, in my game, I'm using voting blocks (1 vote to each 3-person group) with a cascading responsibility -- if the husband doesn't vote in a particular day, the wife can vote. If neither parent votes, the child can. In a way, that allows the group to be a bit flexible about when they vote -- if the husband knows he might not be able to get the vote in on time, he can ask the wife to make their vote that day. They're supposed to be talking about who they will vote for and coming to an agreement anyway, so as long as they agree, it shouldn't matter which one makes the vote. (And yes, I have a mechanic in place to keep the husband from just voting the way he wants without regard to his family's opinion, but I don't want to reveal it before the game starts. Without getting into too much detail, it deals with how the family reacts to the vote in the public thread.)

    So, is it unfair to the players to completely disallow retractions, and force them to make a single vote (per family) in a day? How does that change the balance & dynamics? In a way, it puts every family on par with the monsters in terms of timing their vote and waiting to see what other people do first.

    Nerissa on
  • GnastyGnasty Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Nerissa wrote: »
    Odd question... how important do you think the ability to change your vote over the day is? I find it annoying when people just drop in a vote at the beginning of the day (or right after the previous day's narration) as a placeholder, then change their minds several times throughout the day. I much prefer if they just wait to vote until they are at least somewhat convinced.

    On the other hand, I know people's schedules can be unpredictable, and they might not know for sure they'll be able to stop by and make an informed vote later, for example.

    Now, in my game, I'm using voting blocks (1 vote to each 3-person group) with a cascading responsibility -- if the husband doesn't vote in a particular day, the wife can vote. If neither parent votes, the child can. In a way, that allows the group to be a bit flexible about when they vote -- if the husband knows he might not be able to get the vote in on time, he can ask the wife to make their vote that day. They're supposed to be talking about who they will vote for and coming to an agreement anyway, so as long as they agree, it shouldn't matter which one makes the vote. (And yes, I have a mechanic in place to keep the husband from just voting the way he wants without regard to his family's opinion, but I don't want to reveal it before the game starts. Without getting into too much detail, it deals with how the family reacts to the vote in the public thread.)

    So, is it unfair to the players to completely disallow retractions, and force them to make a single vote (per family) in a day? How does that change the balance & dynamics? In a way, it puts every family on par with the monsters in terms of timing their vote and waiting to see what other people do first.

    I think that would really weaken the village. Certain votes may cause certain kinds of reactions that players might want to respond to by changing their votes, when someone votes there is always a chances something will happen that will legitimately want make them want to change their vote, towards the end of the day if voting is close some people may change their votes to sway things one way or the other.

    Maybe make it so you can only change your vote once during the day? I think that the ability to change your vote is important for the village.

    Gnasty on
    i just wanna 'be myself'
  • Elbonian ManElbonian Man Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Assuming the family is all in agreement, what's to stop the child from voting in the morning, the mother changing the vote in the afternoon, then the father overriding them all that night if need be, thus giving them 2 retractions?

    Elbonian Man on
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Assuming the family is all in agreement, what's to stop the child from voting in the morning, the mother changing the vote in the afternoon, then the father overriding them all that night if need be, thus giving them 2 retractions?

    Hmm... I hadn't thought of it working that way, I was thinking that once a vote was in place, it was stuck, but that might be a good compromise. I'm trying not to give away some of the related mechanics, but I'll have to consider how that possibility fits into my setup.

    Nerissa on
  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Nerissa wrote: »
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I've been thinking one based on Vampire(The Masquerade) would be interesting, but I figure it's a good idea for me to participate in a few more before I try to get one going.

    I'd try to incorporate the different clans and their disciplines as Specials, likely with the Camarilla being good and Sabbat/Anarchs being the evil element.

    That sounds like a cool idea... although it might take some work to get a good balance of public / private information.

    I'd go with antitribue (I think that's the word I'm looking for... it's been a while) being the bad guys rather than using standard Sabbat clans, though, for ease in hiding among the clan members.

    Yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind. Part of the Venture clan's 'special' would be that they're absolutely loyal and can't be Antitribu.

    But, it's not impossible to impersonate a Ventrue... any other clan could easily be of the Sabbat. Then there could be Assamites as the assassins, and Malkavians/Toreador would be Seers.

    cj iwakura on
    wVEsyIc.png
  • Elbonian ManElbonian Man Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Nerissa wrote: »
    Assuming the family is all in agreement, what's to stop the child from voting in the morning, the mother changing the vote in the afternoon, then the father overriding them all that night if need be, thus giving them 2 retractions?

    Hmm... I hadn't thought of it working that way, I was thinking that once a vote was in place, it was stuck, but that might be a good compromise. I'm trying not to give away some of the related mechanics, but I'll have to consider how that possibility fits into my setup.

    If you're going to be giving us all the rules at the start of the game anyways, it'd be better if we could look over them now to check for other gaps like that. The game you want to run sounds absolutely bitchin' and I'd hate to see it fail because you forgot a few scenarios like what happened to Jeffe with the staff in the Phalliad.

    Elbonian Man on
  • ArdorArdor Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Nerissa wrote: »
    Assuming the family is all in agreement, what's to stop the child from voting in the morning, the mother changing the vote in the afternoon, then the father overriding them all that night if need be, thus giving them 2 retractions?

    Hmm... I hadn't thought of it working that way, I was thinking that once a vote was in place, it was stuck, but that might be a good compromise. I'm trying not to give away some of the related mechanics, but I'll have to consider how that possibility fits into my setup.

    That's not a bad idea though from my thoughts. If everyone has voted, or enough so the vote can't be swayed to another, you could have someone come out and claim to have information that needs to be used immediately, but it would be too late.

    You also potentially punish those who do not have access to a computer throughout most the day and/or cannot be around within an hour or so before voting ends.

    As EM mentioned, you do weaken the village too. If I'm a normal villager, that vote is all I have. Some strategy that I could use would be switching votes during the last minute of the day for example. What little is available to me is now no longer an option.

    Ardor on
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    ok, since this part will be public anyway, here is how it is planned.

    Each family is made up of a husband, wife, and a child (for argument's sake, we'll say only the eldest child is included in the process). The husband has the vote for the family, but on any given day, the wife has the power to nullify her husband's vote, and if he is dead or inactive, she votes in his place. The child's "power" is only tangentially related to the standard vote... they will have the ability (in cooperation with another child) to potentially trigger a yes/no vote on executing someone in addition to the standard execution for the day. In order to do this, though, they need to do some coordination and information passing with the other children via PM.

    The nullification power kinda gets nerfed if the husband can change his vote after the wife had nullified it, which is where my problem comes in. Also, the scenario where the child votes early, the wife in the middle, and the husband last kinda nerfs the husband a bit, because having the vote isn't all that special any more. However, if I restrict the vote to ONLY husbands, then if one of them dies or is inactive, their whole family suffers, which is a bit more realism than I was wanting to introduce.

    Nerissa on
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I haven't followed all the developments in your Phalla Nerissa but have you considered having each "retraction" reduce the power of the vote? Doing it by 1/3rds would take car of the child/mother/father thing. Or halves.

    DevoutlyApathetic on
    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Okay, I gave some thought to how a V:TM Phalla could go... bear in mind, this goes off my limited experience with the standard game mechanics, so bear with me.

    -A city(presumably L.A. with good reason for anyone who's played Bloodlines) in havod: the prince and his seneschal are dead, and the Primogen scattered.
    -The Sabbat, Anarchs, and possibly even the Kuei-Jin are poised to take over without Camarilla order restored, and fast.
    -All the Camarilla in the city are brought together to try and unite the city under Camarilla rule.

    -However, Sabbat and the Anarchs are also aware of the meeting, and infiltrate to cause havoc , and just maybe get rid of Cammy influence in the city once and for all.

    I figure 2/3s of so would be Camarilla, with the other third being a mix of Sabbat and Anarchs(maybe just Sabbat if necessary). The normal players are randomly assigned clans from the 'key' factions of the Camarilla: Ventrue, Gangrel, Toreador, Malkavian, Brujah, Tremere.

    Sabbat can be Lasombra, Tzimisce, or even members of Camarilla clans which sided with the Sabbat for whatever reason. The Anarchs are anyone's guess, but Brujah always have strong Anarch ties.

    Every night, the gathered Kindred vote on a Prince for the evening. The victor becomes Prince and the runner-up, his/her Seneschal. The Prince may execute whomever he/she pleases, though it would be wise for him/her to follow the wishes of the Camarilla. The last thing a Prince wants to be is unpopular.
    (Normal voting: the Prince will choose to execute the one the Kindred decide upon, or may destroy a Kindred of his own choosing one time only. After that, the Prince will almost certainly be removed from office, or more likely, from his unlife. (In this case, the Camarilla can decide to either remove the Prince from office, execute him/her outright, or even allow him to keep office if the Prince manages to suitably defend his actions.) [This is the part that's the sketchiest, since the Prince's word is generally absolute law, but they can usually die just as easy as anyone else.]

    Specials:

    No clan discipline can determine where a Kindred's loyalties lie.
    But there are ways of knowing when one is lying.
    Malkavians and Toreador, once per evening, may use Auspex to determine if a player's last statement was the truth, or a lie.
    The Malkavians may occasionally receive insight about things normally unseen, but due to their complete insanity, in what way they decide to reveal this information, if at all, is anyone's guess.


    (I'm not sure how, if at all, there can be a Special to determine a Kindred's allegiance, but if not, would the Camarilla have a fair enough chance?)

    The Ventrue are the backbone of the Camarilla: the founders of the faction, and unwaveringly loyal. Traitors are destroyed without fail, and do not exist. (A true Ventrue is always on the side of the Camarilla, and they know who each other are.)


    Each faction, Camarilla and Sabbat, has each gained the employ of an Assamite: the elite of Kindred assassins, serving the highest bidder. Once per evening, each Assamite may kill whoever he or she pleases, as long as it isn't another Assamite.

    The Gangrel and Nosferatu clans, due to their respective skills of survival and stealth, may protect a victim from assassination once per evening.

    The game ends whenever either the Camarilla has been wiped out, or the Sabbat/Anarchs have been exposed/destroyed.

    That's the very basics, at least. I'd add plenty more detail for those not familiar with V:TM, but I'd want to make sure the Camarilla have as fair a chance as the good side normally does, while the Sabbat/Anarchs, while having an advantage, don't completely overwhelm the Camarilla with the rules favoring them better.

    cj iwakura on
    wVEsyIc.png
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Normal ratios tend to be around 15-20 percent bad guys, so you've got almost double that.

    However, if you evenly distribute clans among your players, you've also got way more guardians than most games (and if you read some of the most recent discussion in this thread, we've been looking at ways to make guardians weaker, not stronger).

    Also, I'm not sure if a bad guy "vigilante" is a good idea, and I'm not sure making the Assamites vigilantes is quite in-story -- as an assassin, I think they kill whoever they are hired to kill, not who they want to. Also, I don't see any other mechanism for the Sabbat / Anarchs to make a kill -- I assume you'll be using the usual mechanism there?

    Are the Sabbat and Anarchs going to be separate groups, with separate win conditions (I would think this would be the case)?

    I really like the idea of the Prince mechanic, although I think you need to flesh it out a bit and make it more clear exactly how it works.

    And you have to make precisionk a malk... he'd be PERFECT for the role. ;)

    Nerissa on
  • NerissaNerissa Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Oh.. I don't know if this is the best place for this question, but since we have a D&D mod frequenting the thread anyway and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to know, I'll put it here.

    This sub-forum has a rule in place to deal with 2-threads per game (i.e. Hades). I don't know if G&T does, but I'm pretty sure D&D doesn't have anything formal. (I think that covers all of the sub-forums where these games are normally run.) Is it better to keep multi-thread games over here, or are they ok in other sub-forums as well?

    Nerissa on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited March 2007
    I wouldn't have a problem with a 2-thread game in D&D.

    ElJeffe on
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  • tuxkamentuxkamen really took this picture. Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Wow. Things went pear-shaped right quick. -_-

    I know at this point now that preventing guaranteed networks is probably going to be priority number one.

    tuxkamen on

    Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
    Thus, the others all die before tuxkamen dies to the vote. Hence, tuxkamen survives, village victory.
    3DS: 2406-5451-5770
  • ElendilElendil Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    tuxkamen wrote: »
    Wow. Things went pear-shaped right quick. -_-

    I know at this point now that preventing guaranteed networks is probably going to be priority number one.
    The idea I've had in mind for a bit would absolutely cut apart the current style of confirm + network we've got going. I'd post it, but it's meant to be an opaque game.

    Elendil on
  • tuxkamentuxkamen really took this picture. Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Elendil wrote: »
    tuxkamen wrote: »
    Wow. Things went pear-shaped right quick. -_-

    I know at this point now that preventing guaranteed networks is probably going to be priority number one.
    The idea I've had in mind for a bit would absolutely cut apart the current style of confirm + network we've got going. I'd post it, but it's meant to be an opaque game.

    My current concept has fairly limited guardians, but if this is what they result in they will definitely be getting a second look.

    tuxkamen on

    Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
    Thus, the others all die before tuxkamen dies to the vote. Hence, tuxkamen survives, village victory.
    3DS: 2406-5451-5770
This discussion has been closed.