H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited August 2019
It feels like kind of an interlocking pair of catch-22's. 38th wants everyone to have fun abilities, but in order to avoid that making the village massively overpowered there needs to be a lot of contingencies on their abilities, but that effectively means a lot of those abilities don't actually get used productively. Meanwhile, ability usage is often part of how villagers validate claims in order to begin coordinating, but when the abilities require coordination to activate because of contingencies, how is the village supposed to get things rolling? I'm not really sure how you cut that Gordian knot outside of making the game a battle royale or an equal factions game like the disgaea themed Netherball Game II.
As an aside, I think stuns should either have cooldown periods, or a built in requirement that they can't be used on the same player for successive days, or maybe just not more than 2 in a row? Getting stunlocked in a social game is the worst, but stuns make for an interesting game mechanic because not only do they stop the player for a day but it can also throw a wrench in their networking since others don't know if they were stunned or not.
It feels like kind of an interlocking pair of catch-22's. 38th wants everyone to have fun abilities, but in order to avoid that making the village massively overpowered there needs to be a lot of contingencies on their abilities, but that effectively means a lot of those abilities don't actually get used productively. Meanwhile, ability usage is often part of how villagers validate claims in order to begin coordinating, but when the abilities require coordination to activate because of contingencies, how is the village supposed to get things rolling? I'm not really sure how you cut that Gordian knot outside of making the game a battle royale or an equal factions game like the disgaea themed Netherball Game II.
As an aside, I think stuns should either have cooldown periods, or a built in requirement that they can't be used on the same player for successive days, or maybe just not more than 2 in a row? Getting stunlocked in a social game is the worst, but stuns make for an interesting game mechanic because not only do they stop the player for a day but it can also throw a wrench in their networking since others don't know if they were stunned or not.
I've been mafia before with abilities that had this caveat and it is the perfect "monkey wrench in the works" that is fun to try and play around. I've played with some guards that had that caveat and it was a little less fun, but on offensive abilities i think it can really work.
At least in conventional gameplay, negative powers (anything completely removing player agency) are generally bad. That's not to say they don't have their purpose or can't be useful but by their nature they are causing a player to reduce their enjoyment and involvement in a game. I was actually really surprised stun removed a players vote AND ability, at that point the player might be rather tempted to skip that day of play. And if this happens multiple days in a row, they become just a spectator till killed off. A bus driver/redirect or something that limits a power, all can function similar to a stun but still bring the player in, there is new information there that can be sussed out and they are still doing something even if it wasn't what they intended. The vote is the core gameplay in phalla and eliminating a players involvement in it reduces the game's activity. Losing a power is annoying but several games have vanillagers so its clearly not a requirement for a good game.
Bus driving a vote also has the added benefit of allowing mafia cover to lie about their vote, which they could not fake with stun (since they would get an inactive mark at the end of the night). This might be more of a personal preference though, since I find games with a more active in thread mafia to be more entertaining.
A small caveat, if a player unknowingly loses their vote it will have the same mechanical effect (a denied targeted vote), but will still drive gameplay since the player will still provide their opinions and argue for or against to convince people. That said, the loss of vote needs to become apparent later to (at least) the player so that the community has faith the vote is still a valid feature of the game if odd things happen because of the deceptive vote totals. This can be dangerous and if overused might cause the same issues that it was supposed to solve.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
It feels like kind of an interlocking pair of catch-22's. 38th wants everyone to have fun abilities, but in order to avoid that making the village massively overpowered there needs to be a lot of contingencies on their abilities, but that effectively means a lot of those abilities don't actually get used productively. Meanwhile, ability usage is often part of how villagers validate claims in order to begin coordinating, but when the abilities require coordination to activate because of contingencies, how is the village supposed to get things rolling? I'm not really sure how you cut that Gordian knot outside of making the game a battle royale or an equal factions game like the disgaea themed Netherball Game II.
As an aside, I think stuns should either have cooldown periods, or a built in requirement that they can't be used on the same player for successive days, or maybe just not more than 2 in a row? Getting stunlocked in a social game is the worst, but stuns make for an interesting game mechanic because not only do they stop the player for a day but it can also throw a wrench in their networking since others don't know if they were stunned or not.
Hmm. Yes I agree and that was supposed to be something I learned from the linked Netherball game II but apparently I forgot at some point in between the two games. How embarrassing.
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As an aside, I think stuns should either have cooldown periods, or a built in requirement that they can't be used on the same player for successive days, or maybe just not more than 2 in a row? Getting stunlocked in a social game is the worst, but stuns make for an interesting game mechanic because not only do they stop the player for a day but it can also throw a wrench in their networking since others don't know if they were stunned or not.
I've been mafia before with abilities that had this caveat and it is the perfect "monkey wrench in the works" that is fun to try and play around. I've played with some guards that had that caveat and it was a little less fun, but on offensive abilities i think it can really work.
The Warmech was village?
Bus driving a vote also has the added benefit of allowing mafia cover to lie about their vote, which they could not fake with stun (since they would get an inactive mark at the end of the night). This might be more of a personal preference though, since I find games with a more active in thread mafia to be more entertaining.
A small caveat, if a player unknowingly loses their vote it will have the same mechanical effect (a denied targeted vote), but will still drive gameplay since the player will still provide their opinions and argue for or against to convince people. That said, the loss of vote needs to become apparent later to (at least) the player so that the community has faith the vote is still a valid feature of the game if odd things happen because of the deceptive vote totals. This can be dangerous and if overused might cause the same issues that it was supposed to solve.
Hmm. Yes I agree and that was supposed to be something I learned from the linked Netherball game II but apparently I forgot at some point in between the two games. How embarrassing.
Warmech had the win condition to kill everyone.