figure out how many kills you're going to have, and then assume every kill goes through every night, how long is the game going to take? (should be roughly 8 or 9)
from there you can figure out odds for with X kills, what is the chance a bad guy gets hit and figure out how many bad guys
figure out how many kills you're going to have, and then assume every kill goes through every night, how long is the game going to take? (should be roughly 8 or 9)
I actually think the number of days should be closer to 6 or 7 if every kill goes through, unless you're intending your game to run 10 days minimum, which I personally think should be closer to the maximum. Because unless you're running a basic game, you know there will be successful guards, inattentive (or dead) vigilantes, or overlapping kills.
Sorry yeah, I'm trying to post quickly at work and meant to say that the game should be balanced for like 9 days, but you want to assume much less if every kill goes through.
I balanced Belarus for 4 days and it went 5, so yeah.
Just to increase awareness and hopefully participation, MrBlarney, Plutonium and I got permission to run Phalla Royale 2 the SE++ version in SE++.
We may start as early as next week or wait until after the holidays here, but we will post a link to the sign-up thread in here because we aren't proud. Well, I'm not, but you all know that.
I think adding mechanics like gambling that encourage(and reward) participation can only be a good thing.
As for the film stuff(my memory's kind of vague on the movie, but):
Would Slevin(Josh Hartnett's character?)'s objective be to kill the two mob bosses, and maybe get more kills if he does? Something like that.
I see Goodkat as being a rogue vigilante. Having the two mobs as separate factions around that cause mayhem should be fun, too.
I definitely plan on doing the gambling, since it was something of a (minor) theme in the movie.
Slevin (yeah, he was played by Hartnett) and Goodkat both wanted to kill the Mob Bosses in the movie. Goodkat for unstated reasons, but maybe he got soft in his old age and wanted to get the kid some justice.
Having Slevin and Goodkat not on the same team would make things interesting, though. If the Phalla had, say 60 people, 1 Slevin, 1 Goodkat, 1 The Boss, 1 The Rabbi, 1 Head Detective leaves 55 to "normal" roles. I don't think I'd have any village, so that'd be 55 roles split 3 ways, with the cops being slightly smaller but maybe a guardian or two to make up for it? Kills/"jailings" for the mobs/cops based on population.
Make the Head Detective a seer/vig combo. Make the mob bosses unkillable until Day 2 or 3 (or a double kill before then). Give Slevin extra kills when the bosses are dead. Make Goodkat elusive, or role-obscure his kills? There isn't much on him.
Give mobs some power to swipe money or rig the bets slightly.
Oats on
0
thorgotthere is special providencein the fall of a sparrowRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
Helpful Tips for Creating Your Game
Numbers
Unfortunately, there are no hard numbers, especially with complicated games with multiple power roles. Here are some numbers which will help a little in making your game balanced.
In a single-family game, the mafia should be 15%-25% of the players.
If you add opposed mafia factions, keep in mind that there will be lots and lots of crossfire. Making 25%-35% of players mafia is a good idea.
There should be roughly one power role per one mafia.
Try to aim for a minimum of 6-7 (or 3-4 for a mini) days, assuming every kill works perfectly. Since some kills will undoubtedly overlap or be stopped, the game will end up taking more time.
Make sure the game won't take longer than 12 days, unless you're absolutely sure players will still be interested.
General tips
Do simple simulations, only paying attention to kills, to make sure the game won't last more than a week or two.
Avoid guardians in small games. Avoid guardians who can guard themselves to perfection.
Search your game for game-breaking strategies. If you don't find them, someone playing will.
Experimentation is all well and good, but with the year-long waitlist, you should probably try out your more radical ideas in a mini.
Make it fun and reasonable for everybody.
General tips
Do simple simulations, only paying attention to kills, to make sure the game won't last more than a week or two.
Try new angles on old roles, or new roles altogether.
Search your game for game-breaking strategies. If you don't find them, someone playing will.
Experimentation is all well and good, but with the year-long waitlist, you should probably try out your more radical ideas in a mini.
Make it fun and reasonable for everybody.
Mechanics tips
Guardian
Avoid guardians in small games.
Avoid guardians who can guard themselves to perfection, because that leads to an invincible network mouthpiece.
Conversion
Conversion can be frustrating for the converted, because it forces them to betray people they have been working with.
Conversion can be a powerful tool to deter networks, though, even if it only exists in tiny quantities.
Random Number Generator
Randomness adds unpredictability. If you want your players to know that x will happen if they do y, and they don't have to worry about some silly random number, don't use it.
On the other hand, it can create more excitement by <INSERT REASON HERE>
Thanks for ideas from robothero and Ardor. If you have anything to add or disagree with, feel free. I don't want this to be my opinions, I want it to be something people can go to when they are getting started with creating their first game.
thorgot, do you think you can add links to games that did one thing or another particularly well or poorly?
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
I'm shameless, but I wanted to note that sign ups for Phalla Royale II will go up sometime on Saturday in SE++. For those who don't go there much or at all, I'll make sure to link the thread to here.
Ardor on
0
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
thorgot, do you think you can add links to games that did one thing or another particularly well or poorly?
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
That seems like a good idea. Do you have any other examples?
Meat Shields vs. Kills worked out very much in the Meat Shield's favor in Phallopolis.
PsychoLarry1 on
0
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
The experimental 'boredom' mechanics in TPoHS wound up not being used at all, since the evils turned out being way underpowered(and early crossfire cut them back by a third).
cj iwakura on
0
SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
thorgot, do you think you can add links to games that did one thing or another particularly well or poorly?
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
I'm curious, what happened in the Star Trek game briefly?
thorgot, do you think you can add links to games that did one thing or another particularly well or poorly?
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
I'm curious, what happened in the Star Trek game briefly?
The game had two votes per day: the red vote, which did what you expect it to do, and the lime vote, which protected someone (even from the red vote). Someone was protected every night with the vote, but your chance of being protected was proportional to the number of votes you got. If you had 66% of the lime vote, you had a 66% chance of being protected.
Around day three or so the two dominant factions, the Ferengi and the Romulans, both had a general idea of who was on what team. As a result, the protection each night basically came down to a 50/50 chance for one member of each team, both of whom was also being red-voted. Essentially, the game was decided by the RNG.
thorgot, do you think you can add links to games that did one thing or another particularly well or poorly?
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
I'm curious, what happened in the Star Trek game briefly?
The game had two votes per day: the red vote, which did what you expect it to do, and the lime vote, which protected someone (even from the red vote). Someone was protected every night with the vote, but your chance of being protected was proportional to the number of votes you got. If you had 66% of the lime vote, you had a 66% chance of being protected.
Around day three or so the two dominant factions, the Ferengi and the Romulans, both had a general idea of who was on what team. As a result, the protection each night basically came down to a 50/50 chance for one member of each team, both of whom was also being red-voted. Essentially, the game was decided by the RNG.
Pretty much. I horribly underestimated the power of the green vote in that circumstance. It possibly would have worked better if the teams had not known each other from the get go, but that was definitely a situation where RNG was taken way out of hand.
Also, the greatest thing about running a phalla is being terrified every time you send a PM out because you're worried you might have just sent it to the wrong person.
The worst part is that this is true even if you double or triple check things. And that there is no good way to correct one of these mistakes if you make one.
Also, the greatest thing about running a phalla is being terrified every time you send a PM out because you're worried you might have just sent it to the wrong person.
The worst part is that this is true even if you double or triple check things. And that there is no good way to correct one of these mistakes if you make one.
The worst part is when you check it about eight or nine times, and yet still send it to the wrong person.
Also, the greatest thing about running a phalla is being terrified every time you send a PM out because you're worried you might have just sent it to the wrong person.
The worst part is that this is true even if you double or triple check things. And that there is no good way to correct one of these mistakes if you make one.
The worst part is when you check it about eight or nine times, and yet still send it to the wrong person.
Hold me.
Yeah, working as a host is way worse in this regard than being a bad guy. Bad guys can use boards for just about everything, and it's the first thing I do when I have allies good or bad, set up a board. As a host you have to use PMs and lots of em, and somehow they're so easy to flub.
Not as stressful or easy to do but "oops, revealed a bad guy in the narration when he didn't die"
And everyone thought being host was glamourous! ;-)
'Drunk Phalla: what the GM sends you may not actually be your role.'
I like the idea of that kind of mechanic. PM the host with a target player. Who knows what it'll do?
Yeah, PMs are tricky business when you're host. With Set Phalla, I had to be careful about making sure the seers got the right information and no more information than they were supposed to have. And Phalla Royale... that was an incredible mess of actions, items, locations. Ardor and I messed up a few times in that game.
Posts
Helpful as always.
from there you can figure out odds for with X kills, what is the chance a bad guy gets hit and figure out how many bad guys
do the same for neutrals
do the same for deciding how many specials
I balanced Belarus for 4 days and it went 5, so yeah.
We may start as early as next week or wait until after the holidays here, but we will post a link to the sign-up thread in here because we aren't proud. Well, I'm not, but you all know that.
As for the film stuff(my memory's kind of vague on the movie, but):
I see Goodkat as being a rogue vigilante. Having the two mobs as separate factions around that cause mayhem should be fun, too.
I definitely plan on doing the gambling, since it was something of a (minor) theme in the movie.
Having Slevin and Goodkat not on the same team would make things interesting, though. If the Phalla had, say 60 people, 1 Slevin, 1 Goodkat, 1 The Boss, 1 The Rabbi, 1 Head Detective leaves 55 to "normal" roles. I don't think I'd have any village, so that'd be 55 roles split 3 ways, with the cops being slightly smaller but maybe a guardian or two to make up for it? Kills/"jailings" for the mobs/cops based on population.
Make the Head Detective a seer/vig combo. Make the mob bosses unkillable until Day 2 or 3 (or a double kill before then). Give Slevin extra kills when the bosses are dead. Make Goodkat elusive, or role-obscure his kills? There isn't much on him.
Give mobs some power to swipe money or rig the bets slightly.
Numbers
Unfortunately, there are no hard numbers, especially with complicated games with multiple power roles. Here are some numbers which will help a little in making your game balanced.
General tips
General tips
Mechanics tips
Thanks for ideas from robothero and Ardor. If you have anything to add or disagree with, feel free. I don't want this to be my opinions, I want it to be something people can go to when they are getting started with creating their first game.
You are welcome to your opinion.
For example, Rend's Star Trek mini could be used as an example of RNG gone horribly awry, while Hylianbunny's Eternal Darkness phalla could be a good example of proper balance.
I'm not entirely sure I have enough sanity to handle it. You should ask MrBlarney.
That seems like a good idea. Do you have any other examples?
I'm curious, what happened in the Star Trek game briefly?
Around day three or so the two dominant factions, the Ferengi and the Romulans, both had a general idea of who was on what team. As a result, the protection each night basically came down to a 50/50 chance for one member of each team, both of whom was also being red-voted. Essentially, the game was decided by the RNG.
Pretty much. I horribly underestimated the power of the green vote in that circumstance. It possibly would have worked better if the teams had not known each other from the get go, but that was definitely a situation where RNG was taken way out of hand.
Sorry about that...
Never gamble with the Ferengi. 8-)
But yeah, I suggested that mechanic was fail.
But, i mean, the whole faction ally/enemy thing was pretty cool, eh? Right, guys...?
The worst part is that this is true even if you double or triple check things. And that there is no good way to correct one of these mistakes if you make one.
The worst part is when you check it about eight or nine times, and yet still send it to the wrong person.
Hold me.
Yeah, working as a host is way worse in this regard than being a bad guy. Bad guys can use boards for just about everything, and it's the first thing I do when I have allies good or bad, set up a board. As a host you have to use PMs and lots of em, and somehow they're so easy to flub.
Not as stressful or easy to do but "oops, revealed a bad guy in the narration when he didn't die"
And everyone thought being host was glamourous! ;-)
Whatever you do, DONT send out role PMs.
This is advice from one who has run a game before.
2. I have apparently revealed a central truth about running phallas without realizing it.
3. One of the more computer savvy members of the board should design a macro to avoid bad PMs.
I like the idea of that kind of mechanic. PM the host with a target player. Who knows what it'll do?
Yeah, PMs are tricky business when you're host. With Set Phalla, I had to be careful about making sure the seers got the right information and no more information than they were supposed to have. And Phalla Royale... that was an incredible mess of actions, items, locations. Ardor and I messed up a few times in that game.
Oh man, Phalla Royale II is not gonna be pretty.