The Art of Game Creation

[Elenion he/him]

Bodyswapping game sounds exciting, but I think I'd prefer the shard game.

[DeTess she/her]

9 hours ago, Seonid said:

So - got a question for the community.  I'm going to be GMing a game in the near future.

However,  I'm up for both an MR and an LG, and they look like they'll overlap. So, i wanted to know which sounded more interesting to play next.

The LG would be another Shard game, a sequel to LG29, incorporating a number of new insights about the nature of the shards.

The MR is an anonymous game involving kandra and bodyswapping.

I'm taking suggestions as to which one I should run and which one I should delay.

Aren't the Anonymous games once per quarter? Or am I mistaken? Anyway, they both sound interesting. I believe I volunteered to co-GM the shard game a while back, though (don't know if you already have someone else instead).

[Jondesu he/him]

My vote would be for the Kandra game, personally.  That sounds fascinating.

[little wilson she/her]

On 2/12/2018 at 3:18 AM, randuir said:

Aren't the Anonymous games once per quarter? Or am I mistaken? Anyway, they both sound interesting. I believe I volunteered to co-GM the shard game a while back, though (don't know if you already have someone else instead).

The general tone/atmosphere of the current anonymous game has had the mod team thinking that slightly increasing the number of anonymous games per year from 4 to 6 might be a good idea. However, if we were to do that, there would be a cap on how many anonymous games can be LG's (hard cap at 4, preferred at 3).

[MonsterMetroid]

Both!!!! shardic body swapping   Oh man on a more realistic note though... I guess shards. But wouldn't that limit the player count rather low? or do you have a plan around that?

Edited February 13, 2018 by MonsterMetroid
grammer

[Steeldancer he/him]

The shard games are insane, so I'm going to vote Shards. I remembered I had a particular RP I need for that

[Seonid he/him]

58 minutes ago, MonsterMetroid said:

Both!!!! shardic body swapping   Oh man on a more realistic note though... I guess shards. But wouldn't that limit the player count rather low? or do you have a plan around that?

This shard game would be a sequel to LG29. No limited player counts - there's room for regular worldhoppers alongside the power players

Take a look at the earlier game - it will provide a decent outline as to how this one will go.

[Alvron he/him]

4 hours ago, Seonid said:

This shard game would be a sequel to LG29. No limited player counts - there's room for regular worldhoppers alongside the power players

In fact the Shard games are a long series of sequels starting from QF4 run by Joe.  LG10 was the first LG of the Shardic format followed by LG14 which was the last one Joe ran.  But thankfully Seonid took over and gave us LG21 and LG29.  Nyali ran a similar type in LG26 but isn't part of the series.  If you want a Shard of your very own, these are the games to play.

Personally, I'm more for a Kandra game.  We haven't had one of those since LG8 and with the Anonymous accounts, it will be that much better.  (This has nothing to do with NaVorl being bored.  Nope.  Nothing at all)

[A Joe in the Bush]

3 hours ago, Alvron said:

In fact the Shard games are a long series of sequels starting from QF4 run by Joe.  LG10 was the first LG of the Shardic format followed by LG14 which was the last one Joe ran.  But thankfully Seonid took over and gave us LG21 and LG29.  Nyali ran a similar type in LG26 but isn't part of the series.  If you want a Shard of your very own, these are the games to play.

Personally, I'm more for a Kandra game.  We haven't had one of those since LG8 and with the Anonymous accounts, it will be that much better.  (This has nothing to do with NaVorl being bored.  Nope.  Nothing at all)

I ha e one in the works, but it's giving me difficulty. Trying to figure out a complicated new mechanic.

[Jondesu he/him]

I want to run a game mechanic I’m considering adding to my LotR game by everyone. It’s somewhat inspired by the gun I put into my first game, but with an interesting twist that I like.

The basic idea is that every player will start the game with a bottle of antidote. A select number (either random, or all the Elims, or a specific role, I haven’t decided) will also start with a vial of poison. They can put that poison into the drink of any player they like during a day cycle. That person will die during the night if they don’t use their antidote that same night. However, antidote is a single use item, so they can only take it one time the entire game. Poison is otherwise an unblockable kill, able to equally affect any other roles despite other abilities, although I may have a wary role who would be informed if they were poisoned and could thus take the antidote, but if they didn’t have it (say if they were poisoned twice), they could instead at least tell someone via pm or the thread. 

I’m worried that if I make it an Elim-specific, it either makes them too powerful or too limited (I can’t give them only poison kills unless they have an unlimited amount, and that would thoroughly break it), but if I make it random or village-only, it endangers the Elim team unfairly, or could do the reverse with a bad RNG roll.

[Seonid he/him]

3 hours ago, Jondesu said:

I want to run a game mechanic I’m considering adding to my LotR game by everyone. It’s somewhat inspired by the gun I put into my first game, but with an interesting twist that I like.

The basic idea is that every player will start the game with a bottle of antidote. A select number (either random, or all the Elims, or a specific role, I haven’t decided) will also start with a vial of poison. They can put that poison into the drink of any player they like during a day cycle. That person will die during the night if they don’t use their antidote that same night. However, antidote is a single use item, so they can only take it one time the entire game. Poison is otherwise an unblockable kill, able to equally affect any other roles despite other abilities, although I may have a wary role who would be informed if they were poisoned and could thus take the antidote, but if they didn’t have it (say if they were poisoned twice), they could instead at least tell someone via pm or the thread. 

I’m worried that if I make it an Elim-specific, it either makes them too powerful or too limited (I can’t give them only poison kills unless they have an unlimited amount, and that would thoroughly break it), but if I make it random or village-only, it endangers the Elim team unfairly, or could do the reverse with a bad RNG roll.

Reminds me of a setup I played once on another site. 3 vanilla eliminators and the rest of the players were 1 shot paranoid gun operators (kill any player who targets them the night they trigger).

It was... chaos

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

4 hours ago, Seonid said:

Reminds me of a setup I played once on another site. 3 vanilla eliminators and the rest of the players were 1 shot paranoid gun operators (kill any player who targets them the night they trigger).

It was... chaos

Hmmm what about something like the cytonics game mechanic in the Saving Elysium QF a little while back?

Basically everybody could target somebody with cytonics as an action. If the person you targeted targets you back with any action that cycle, their action fails and they die (if two people targeted each other with cytonics, pretty sure both of them were supposed to die, but I don't think that ever happened).

It was an interesting game mechanic. As I recall, it didn't see very much action, because the game was over so quickly (I was on the elim team and we pretty much got annihiliated) but this mechanic reminds me a little of the poison/antidote thing.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Don’t mean to distract from Jondesu’s mechanic, and you’re still free to talk about it, but I have a Feruchemy LG! I was trying to get up some thematic justifications (which do exist), but I simply didn’t have the time. I can add them later though.

So this LG is set during Mistborn Era 1 at the Terris hideout where the Synod live. The Lord Ruler has heard rumors of its location, and sends several Spiked Feruchemists to infiltrate the hideout and bring him details. However, before the Spiked can leave to report back, the Synod catches wind of the infiltration. The hideout is locked down, and the search for the Spiked begins. But the Spiked won’t simply let themselves be caught. Desperate, they begin to kill the real Feruchemists searching for them. The Synod must find and kill these Infiltrators, or be themselves destroyed. And so our game begins...

Here’s the ruleset:

---

Factions:
Terris people/villagers: Standard village faction. You win when all the Spiked Infiltrators are dead.
Spiked Infiltrators: Standard Eliminator faction. Have a doc and a night kill. The night kill counts as an action.

Roles:
Feruchemists: PM the GM before posting, PMing or doing anything else during the cycle if you wish to fill a metalmind. Tapping a metalmind can be done at any point during the Day turn, just try to get in tap orders sooner rather than later. Metalminds, except for Bronze, are tapped/filled during the day. 
Filling a metalmind stores one Feruchemical charge, unless stated otherwise. 
Metalminds may begin the game with up to 2 Feruchemical charges.
Metalminds cannot be filled and tapped simultaneously. 
Storing and tapping metalminds does NOT count as an action.

Iron Ferrings: While storing, a random vote on you is negated. This can negate a previously negated vote.
While tapping one Feruchemical charge, your vote cannot be changed or negated.
Tapping two charges lets you target another player and make that player’s vote immune to change or negation, in addition to your own vote.

Steel Ferrings: While storing, the Ferring cannot post outside the thread.
Tapping two charges lets the Ferring make 2 GM-created PMs of any player count. These PMs are permanent. The Ferring does not have to be in these PMs. 
Tapping five charges lets the Ferring create up to 25 PMs, of any player count.

Tin Ferring: While storing, a Tin Ferring has their vote negated and cannot take an action, unless they have received a PM from another player that cycle. 
By tapping one Feruchemical charge, a Ferring can discover which metalminds a player is tapping/filling.
By tapping 3 charges, a Ferring can also discover their scan target’s alignment and PM contacts. 

Pewter Ferring: While storing, a Pewter Ferring cannot vote or take an action the following Night. 
Tapping one charge can be used to either give the Ferring an extra life for the rest of the cycle, or to protect a player from attacks the following Night. The first use of the ability will guard against the Lynch; the second will not. A Ferring cannot use his temporary extra life to escape the lynch more than once.
Tapping four charges grants the Ferring a permanent extra life. This cannot stack with itself.

Zinc Ferring: While storing, your vote is negated. You still must vote in order to fill your metalmind. This ability can negate a vote already negated by another effect (for instance, that of an Iron Ferring). 
Tapping one charge lets a Ferring move a no-vote to any player, or negate a player’s vote. This can negate a previously negated vote.
Tapping 3 charges lets a Ferring also move the vote of another player that voted, in addition to their regular vote manipulation. 

Brass Ferring: While storing, a Brass Ferring must change their vote at least twice during the cycle. 
Tapping one charge protects themselves and another player from regular Tin scans.
Tapping two charges protects a Ferring and a player of their choice from full-blast Tin scans. 

Bronze Ferring: Metalminds are tapped/filled at Night.
While storing, a Ferring cannot take an action or PM at Night. They show up as not tapping/filling to Day Tin scans.
While tapping one charge, a Ferring can take an additional Night action.
Tapping 3 charges lets a Ferring take up to 5 night actions. These actions have the same chance of occurring as normal actions. 

Copper Ferring: While storing, a Copper Ferring’s vote is randomly redirected. They cannot quote, link, copy-paste, or put the exact words of any previous posts into theirs through any means they could think of. 
Tapping two Feruchemical charges lets a Ferring know the number of people with a certain role. (For example, there are 3 Iron Ferrings.) 
Tapping five Feruchemical charges lets a Ferring know the role distribution of the Eliminator team. 

Full Feruchemists: Have access to the abilities of each Ferring. Can fill/tap up to 2 metalminds each cycle. Cannot fill/tap metalminds simultaneously that have contradictory filling requirements, or fill the same metalmind twice.

Synod: In addition to a regular Feruchemical power, a player may also be a member of the Synod.
Not a safe role.
Have a doc to talk in. They are completely anonymous in this doc. 
One time unblockable kill on any player, if a majority of living Synod players vote for it. 

Generic Actions:
Each night, a player may take one of these generic actions, unless the fill condition for their metalmind specifies otherwise, or they’re a Spiked putting in a group kill. 

Kill- Kills target player. Has a 5% chance of success. Will be listed in writeup as “person x was killed!” Will be differentiated from Elim kill.
Roleblock- Prevents target player from taking an action, or filling/tapping metalminds the next cycle. Has a 10% chance of success. Will not be listed in writeup. 
Open PM- Opens a PM with one other player. Has a 10% chance of success. Will be listed in writeup as “a PM was opened!”
Double fill- Fills your metalmind with 2 Feruchemical charges the following day turn. Fill conditions of the metalmind still must be met. Has a 15% chance of success. Will not be listed in writeup.
Protect- Protects another player from any Night attacks, including the Elim kill. Has a 20% chance of success. Will only be mentioned in writeup if successful. Will not be differentiated from a Pewter Ferring protection.

Housekeeping:
Day turns are 48 hours, Night turns are every 24 hours. 
Lynch every day cycle. Two vote minimum to lynch a player. No Lynch can only die once. Tied lynches result in a random death.
Inactivity filter of two full cycles unless prior warning is given.
Violating the fill conditions of your metalmind will result in it not being filled. 
Vote counts will only give the number of votes each player received, not the names of the players who voted. This will allow Ferrings to remain more anonymous.
Metalminds have a maximum capacity equal to the maximum number of charges you can remove from it at once. For instance, a Tin metalmind would hold a maximum of 3 Feruchemical charges.

---

Whew. Those are the rules. Thank you copy-pasting. So if any of you have any feedback to offer or questions about rules, please post in here and I will do my best to address them. 

Also, I have recently acquired a non-Sanderson game pass, and it’s just burning a hole in my pocket . So I’m extending an offer to give it to anyone, so long as it’s an LG or MR that has something to do with Tolkien (Silmarillion is fair game), and that I can have a hand in designing the mechanics and theme of the game. If you have a game you’d like to share, just PM it to me and I’d be thrilled to look over it. Thanks!

[DeTess she/her]

Allright, I've got a couple of comments right away.

1 hour ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Steel Ferrings: While storing, the Ferring cannot post outside the thread.
Tapping two charges lets the Ferring make 2 GM-created PMs of any player count. These PMs are permanent. The Ferring does not have to be in these PMs. 
Tapping five charges lets the Ferring create up to 25 PMs, of any player count.

Two comments. First, I assume you meant that the player can't post in Pm's and whatever? Forbidding them from posting anywhere else on the site seems kinda harsh .

Secondly, this ability as it is now seems to require a lot of GM intervention to make all of those PM's. It also means that you need a very active GM to get these PM's made in a timely manner.

What I'd do instead is to make the 2-charge tap allow the Ferring himself to make 2 PM's, and the 5-charge tap will open PM's for a single cycle, with any PM's made in the cycle being permanent. That way you aren't dependent on the GM to make the PM's, and the GM has less work to do.

Quote

Tin Ferring: While storing, a Tin Ferring has their vote negated and cannot take an action, unless they have received a PM from another player that cycle. 
By tapping one Feruchemical charge, a Ferring can discover which metalminds a player is tapping/filling.
By tapping 3 charges, a Ferring can also discover their scan target’s alignment and PM contacts. 

I'm not sure I understand this ones tapping condition. I mean, the text seems rather straightforward, it just seems somewhat random to me.

Quote

Pewter Ferring: While storing, a Pewter Ferring cannot vote or take an action the following Night. 
Tapping one charge can be used to either give the Ferring an extra life for the rest of the cycle, or to protect a player from attacks the following Night. The first use of the ability will guard against the Lynch; the second will not. A Ferring cannot use his temporary extra life to escape the lynch more than once.
Tapping four charges grants the Ferring a permanent extra life. This cannot stack with itself.

That permanent extra life, can it be replaced after it has been lost?

Quote

Brass Ferring: While storing, a Brass Ferring must change their vote at least twice during the cycle. 
Tapping one charge protects themselves and another player from regular Tin scans.
Tapping two charges protects a Ferring and a player of their choice from full-blast Tin scans. 

This is a fluffy thing: Brass stores body-heat. This rule doesn't use that at all. That's not to say the mechanic is bad, it just doesn't seem to match the fluff.

Quote

Copper Ferring: While storing, a Copper Ferring’s vote is randomly redirected. They cannot quote, link, copy-paste, or put the exact words of any previous posts into theirs through any means they could think of. 
Tapping two Feruchemical charges lets a Ferring know the number of people with a certain role. (For example, there are 3 Iron Ferrings.) 
Tapping five Feruchemical charges lets a Ferring know the role distribution of the Eliminator team. 

That elim-team role distribution thing is really pretty powerful. I'm not sure if it's too powerful.

Quote

Generic Actions:
Each night, a player may take one of these generic actions, unless the fill condition for their metalmind specifies otherwise, or they’re a Spiked putting in a group kill. 

Kill- Kills target player. Has a 5% chance of success. Will be listed in writeup as “person x was killed!” Will be differentiated from Elim kill.
Roleblock- Prevents target player from taking an action, or filling/tapping metalminds the next cycle. Has a 10% chance of success. Will not be listed in writeup. 
Open PM- Opens a PM with one other player. Has a 10% chance of success. Will be listed in writeup as “a PM was opened!”
Double fill- Fills your metalmind with 2 Feruchemical charges the following day turn. Fill conditions of the metalmind still must be met. Has a 15% chance of success. Will not be listed in writeup.
Protect- Protects another player from any Night attacks, including the Elim kill. Has a 20% chance of success. Will only be mentioned in writeup if successful. Will not be differentiated from a Pewter Ferring protection.

You're going to be rolling a lot of dice. I'm honestly not too sure about these, maybe add a second role that everyone has in addition to being a feruchemist that covers these (so a kill-role, a block-role, a PM-role, etc.)? It's easier to balance and makes the game less swingy.

Overall it looks quite an interesting game.

Edited March 3, 2018 by randuir

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Thanks for looking over it, @randuir! Sorry I couldn’t get to this sooner, I had a track meet. A response to a few of your points: 

Steel Ferrings: The PMs are GM-created because the Steel Ferring would likely want to keep their identity a secret, and even making PMs with higher player counts still makes them a target. Especially since high count PMs tend to contain Elims. It used to be that full-tapping Steel let you make unlimited PMs, which we quickly realized would be an unmitigated disaster. As for your suggestion that full-tap simply open PMs to all for a round, I still want the Ferrings to decide. It will make for interesting interactions in-thread, as people request PMs with other people and the Ferring gets to decide which requests to uphold. It also empowers a potential Elim Ferring/FF. 

Tin does have strange wording, sorry. It’s basically a role scanner that only works if the person is using the role. It could be misleading on a FF if they were only tapping/filling one metalmind, but other than that it should be consistently accurate.

Permanent pewter lives can be replaced if lost. They just can’t stack (you can’t have 3 or more lives). 

Brass was really hard to justify thematically and turn into a good game mechanic at the same time. I ended up going for a good game mechanic, but if you have a more thematic suggestion it’d certainly be appreciated. 

The copper thing seems powerful, but it’s only usable on the fourth turn at the earliest (two charges to start (33% chance) and get lucky on a double fill action). And that’s three rounds of being unable to quote posts, and your vote being randomly redirected. And by the end of the fourth day, there’ll probably have been 7 deaths already, so it’d be more difficult to use the information gathered. Not saying it’s useless- it is very powerful- but there are limitations on how it works and how soon it can occur.

I like the game a little bit unpredictable . It’s more fun when there’s a bit of potential for random actions to throw a wrench into the works, and having the kill and roleblock actions become set in stone would essentially make them into roles and eliminate this element of unpredictability. And I already have roles for some of the actions. The idea is, if you’re really desperate for a PM that a Steel Ferring just won’t give you, you can try to use the action instead. If you only have 1 charge in your Tin metalmind but you just have to find this one player’s alignment, you can try the double fill. It adds a fun element of surprise. As for the number of dice rolls, it’ll be fine if people send in their actions earlier, and since non-Bronze metalminds happen during the day there’s not much more to do at night other than monitor the Elim kill. The actions are in there because I don’t want a vig kill or a roleblocker that works every single turn, since that might imbalance this game, but I recognize the necessity of the village having access to some of these actions, so they’re generic and anyone can do them! They just have a really low chance of happening.

Thanks for all the feedback! 

Edited March 4, 2018 by Fifth Scholar
Clarified

[DeTess she/her]

38 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Tin does have strange wording, sorry. It’s basically a role scanner that only works if the person is using the role. It could be misleading on a FF if they were only tapping/filling one metalmind, but other than that it should be consistently accurate.

I accidentally mis-spoke there. I understand the tapping, it was the filling condition that wasn't completely clear to me.

As for Brass, I do understand your point, and I can't really think of anything that matches the fluff myself.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Oh, the fill condition. Probably could have worded this better, but essentially there’s two things that happen to a Ferring storing senses:

1) their vote is negated, but they still must vote 

2) they can’t take an action the following Night.

This represents the effects of losing your senses (you can’t see/hear what’s going on, so you can’t do anything about it). However, if the Ferring receives a non-GM PM the cycle they are filling, neither fill condition activates. This represents a friend telling you what is going on, allowing you to make informed decisions despite your bodily senses’ inability to help you. Hope that clarifies. 

[A Joe in the Bush]

22 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Huh. I logged on to glance over the shard at the very moment you posted this.

If we were to make it work like it is implied in the mistborn trilogy, it could be an action that requires two shards working together to make a new planet.

(Replying here to not derail the thread)

In order for that to work, there would need to be motivation for multiple shards to want to make planets. Easiest way is to tie it to win cons, where multiple shards need to have made planets to achieve their win condition. Either that or there are no PM's allowed, except the Planetary ones, so if you want to talk in private, you need to make a planet together. Then you have at least a turn of privacy before players can hop to it.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

6 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

(Replying here to not derail the thread)

In order for that to work, there would need to be motivation for multiple shards to want to make planets. Easiest way is to tie it to win cons, where multiple shards need to have made planets to achieve their win condition. Either that or there are no PM's allowed, except the Planetary ones, so if you want to talk in private, you need to make a planet together. Then you have at least a turn of privacy before players can hop to it.

What if the game only started out with one or a few planets? (which makes sense after Ruin's rampage last game) That would be one minor incentive to make more.

One example of tying planet creation to a win condition: if Ruin's objective was to destroy X planets, then it would be completely fair game to create a planet just for the sake of destroying it (ie, exactly what Ruin was trying to do with Scadrial).

Planets would also possibly be worth creating for the sake of private communication, as you say. It might also be said that they might be useful as a means to avoid all but the most powerful of actions.

Also. In the last game, each planet offered its inhabitants a unique power. If planets could be created, this couldn't really remain inherent to the planet... So what if, similar to a shard's investment role (and also similar to Khriss' power to invest shards into planets), each shard could bestow certain effects on the planet they are currently situated on?

Not sure if this is a good idea in the scope of the game as a whole, but it was fun to examine the different facets of the idea.

[A Joe in the Bush]

10 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

What if the game only started out with one or a few planets? (which makes sense after Ruin's rampage last game) That would be one minor incentive to make more.

Huh, Now i want to make a Shattering game. Only Yolen starts out, but as more planets are made/discovered, more powers enter the game. The shards would scatter, and their powers would be useable on the worlds they are on. Ruin's win condition would be to destroy any planet that Preservation made.

[Herowannabe he/him]

So I saw Ready Player One the other day (I highly recommend both the movie-on Imax and/or 3D- and the book), and now I'm thinking it would make for a fun setting for a SE game. I'm still brainstorming ideas, but right now I'm thinking of incorporating some or all of the following components:

• The contest/hunt for the egg, of course. I would have to structure it in such a way that it wouldn't be possible to just fly though the clues/puzzles and win on day 1 or 2. I'd probably do 1 puzzle for each key, and then have each key open one gate, but the gates only become available on certain cycles. 
• Instead of an overt 80's / video game theme to the puzzles and challenges, I would tweak it and make it Sanderson/Cosmere themed.
• 2 factions, with the village being 'Gunters and the Eliminators being Sixers
• Anonymous, but not in the normal Anonymous Game sense. Players would sign up as themselves, but secretly PM their Avatar's name and description to the GM. The scoreboard would only show the Avatars' names, and there would not be any public connection between Avatars and Players. Players would vote to lynch based on Avatar names, not knowing which player was associated with it. Wait, no, that wouldn't work because everyone would just lynch the Sixer Avatars. Hmm... Maybe let the Sixers come up with normal avatar names rather than numbers, or maybe have people vote for players. Yeah, voting for players makes more sense. (Like I said, still brainstorming)
• I'd probably run it as a QF, seeing as I'm at the top of the QF GM list right now and I'm not happy with my current QF game I have there- It's too complicated. 
• The winner would be the player who found the Egg first, but there would also be faction win-conditions, too (eliminate the other team and/or beat them to the egg). 
• Edit: I might incorporate a basic sort of money system, and let people bid on and buy rare artifacts that do things in the game. 

 

I would need permission from one of the contest winners since it technically wouldn't be a Sanderson-themed game, though it sort of would be with the Cosmere-themed challenges. But before I get to any of that, would people be interested in playing such a game?

Edited April 5, 2018 by Herowannabe

[DeTess she/her]

This looks pretty interesting, Hero. I haven't seen that film, but if I remember a review of the book correctly then the goal of both factions would be to decipher a series of clues to find an object first, right?

Anyway, I do have a pass sitting around. If there's interest and you post a more fleshed out set of rules, it'll likely be yours.

[Herowannabe he/him]

7 hours ago, randuir said:

This looks pretty interesting, Hero. I haven't seen that film, but if I remember a review of the book correctly then the goal of both factions would be to decipher a series of clues to find an object first, right?

Anyway, I do have a pass sitting around. If there's interest and you post a more fleshed out set of rules, it'll likely be yours.

Yes, something like that. I haven't figured out quite how I would translate the contest into the game. 

The premise of Ready Player One (not really spoiling anything, since all of this is revealed in the opening 5 minutes of the book/movie) is that you have this thing called the OASIS: which is basically World of Warcraft + the Internet + Virtually Reality all in one and then given a massive shot of steroids. Everybody in the world pretty much spends all of their time in the OASIS- for work, play, etc. The creator of the OASIS, a guy named Jim Halliday, dies without any heir to his 1/2 trillion dollar fortune. Upon his death a video that Halliday created pops up on everybody's OASIS consoles, informing the whole world that he has hidden an Easter Egg somewhere inside the OASIS, and the first person to find it will inherit his entire fortune as well as gain a controlling share in Halliday's company and full control over the OASIS. 

Thus begins the hunt for Halliday's Easter Egg. 

Edited April 6, 2018 by Herowannabe

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

This game has been crystalizing in the back of my mind for a while now.

This started with Straw's "limited god" role idea, Randuir's suggested modification to it, and my intent to turn it into a Cthaeh role. Elbereth understandably said that her KKC game was complex enough as it is, but that this could dwell in a different KKC game, so here we are. I've fleshed things out significantly, and this game is definitely not only about the Cthaeh anymore.

It is still in the process of being refined, but I am ready to share draft one.

MRXX: A Midsummer Night with No Moon
"A clever mortal fears the night without a hint of sweet moonlight. On such a night, each step you take might catch you in the dark moon’s wake, and pull you all unwitting into fae. Where you will have no choice but stay."

A troupe of Edema Ruh performers have travelled by night through a forest, and have been caught on a night with no moon. Now, the realms of the Four Corners and Fae are meshed together, and nobody can quite tell one from the other. Time is uncertain, as the forest has remained in a state of evening since the troupe's arrival. Strangers walk among the troupe, clothed in glammourie. Some may be relatively benign, as fae go. Others are quite literally the demons out of folklore. In the distance, there looms a gargantuan tree, lush with dense foliage and brightly colored flowers, wreathed in a warm, welcoming light. Beckoning you to come take refuge in its branches and sustenance from its flowers...

 

Ground Rules

Spoiler

• Forty eight hour cycles. No division of day/night. Rollover at midnight pacific time.
• One vote per person per cycle. One action per person per cycle.
• Standard lynch by plurality, minimum two votes to lynch. Vote in red, retract in green.
• On the first cycle, tied votes result in no-lynch. After that, tied votes are decided randomly.
• On the third time a player casts no vote, they are killed.
• Open PMs between individual players, no group PMs.

Some More Rules

Spoiler

• There are two sorts of ability, "action" and "intrinsic". Intrinsic abilities do not require an action to use.
• Actions with a limited number of charges will not lose charges if the action fails.
• Official vote tallies will list who voted on whom prior to vote manipulation, and the voting totals after vote manipulation. Whose vote in particular was altered and how will not be disclosed, however.
• Kills will not distinguished from each other in the writeup. The majority of protective powers will be distinguished from each other, however.
• Some role traits are secret, as humans do not have complete understanding of the Fae. However each role with secret traits is explicitly listed as possessing secret traits. Certain secret traits could likely be guessed. Certain roles start out knowing about certain secret traits.
• Beyond the aforementioned secret traits, there are no other secret game mechanics.

Alignments

Spoiler

Good: Win if the Evil players are wiped out. Consists of Troupe Members and The Sithe.
Evil: Win if the Good players are wiped out. Has a doc and a faction kill. Since they already have doc communications, evil players may not PM each other.
Cthaeh: Win by becoming a kingmaker, with only one Good and one Evil player remaining.

Lovers

Spoiler

Some players are paired as lovers at the beginning of the game. This is not a role or an alignment.

Their bond, be it romantic, or between close friends, or between child and parent, is such that if one dies, the other will die too. This death cannot be prevented by any form of protection.
Additionally, lovers have a PM with each other. Lovers will not be informed of each other's role or alignment, but at the start of the game, lover pairs are guaranteed to possess the same alignment.

If lovers are of opposite alignment, they gain the win condition of the Cthaeh, and additionally must be the last two players standing. Players revert to their original win condition if this pairing is dissolved.

Role List

Spoiler

Singer
    "Sit and listen all, for I will sing a story, wrought and forgotten in a time old and gone."

Intrinsic: A singer's vote counts as double towards the vote totals.
Action: Once in the game, may sing a song about the Chandrian to redirect the Evil faction kill to oneself.

Storyteller
"All stories are true. But this one really happened, if that's what you mean."

Action: Use extensive knowledge of the troupe and of fae tales to identify the role of a target (warning, not infallible).

Actor
"We all become what we pretend to be."

Action: May spend a cycle studying one of the following troupe roles: Singer, Acrobat, Juggler, Jester, or Lutist.
Intrinsic: On the following cycle, has access to the powers of that role, and appears as that role to scanning.

Acrobat
"In the course of the fight Trip managed to break his sword, hide under a lady's dress, fence with a sausage, and perform such fantastical feats of acrobatics that it's a miracle he didn't seriously injure himself."

Action: Three times in the game, may leverage their practiced agility and speed to become untargetable.

Juggler
"Did you learn to juggle all at once? Five balls at a time? Knives too?"

Action: Three times in the game, may select two other players and oneself. Juggles the positions the players are in, transporting them with each other. Whatever order the list is submitted in, the players each move down one on the list, looping back around.

Jester
"Wearing his green and grey jester's motley, Trip could say just about anything and get away with it."

Action: A jester may choose to cast a vote with a weight of one, zero, or negative one. If not specified, the vote will have a weight of one.
Intrinsic: Once in the game, if a jester is lynched, and there are more living troupe members than fae at the time, and the jester cast a positively weighted vote, the lynch will be redirected to whomever they voted upon.

Lutist
"I raised my hands to the strings and drew their attention back to me. The room stilled, and I began to play."

Action: A lutist may draw attention from elsewhere onto themselves, redirecting a single vote from another player onto themselves.

Flutist
"It has always been that way with me. Offstage I worry and sweat. Onstage I am calm as a windless winter night."

Action: A flutist may capitalize on the attention of others, redirecting a single vote from themselves onto another player.

Tinker
"A tinker's debt is always paid: Once for any simple trade. Twice for freely-given aid. Thrice for any insult made."

Action: Can give items away to other players. Each item grants a single-use action to the holder, and may be passed to another player as an action. Each item has a cooldown of four cycles before it can be given again.
        Lodestone- A valuable, ferrous stone that can be used to roleblock one of the fae.
        Ramston Steel Knife- An uncommonly sharp blade that can be used to attack another player.
        Strawberry Wine- Inebriate the recipient, setting the weight of their vote to zero.
        Sympathy Lamp- Illuminate the way, tracking a target and discovering their target.
        Shoe Waterproofing Wax- Keeps your shoes dry. Has no in-game effect.

Tehlin Monk
"Demons fear three things: cold iron, clean fire, and the holy name of God."

Action: Use holly and iron to block a player's action and passive immunities, if they are one of the fae, or Skindancer possessed.
Intrinsic: Immune to both Scraeling powers.

Arcanist
"The law of synpathy is one of the most basic parts of magic. It states that the more similar two objects are, the greater the sympathetic link. The greater the link, the more easily they influence each other."

Action: Sympathetically link two players. For that cycle, all that affects one, affects the other.
Intrinsic: By the power of Alar, an Arcanist's vote weight may not be altered (the vote may still be nullified however).

Namer
"For he knew the name of the wind, and so the wind obeyed him."

Intrinsic: May call on the wind to send anonymous messages (send message and recipient(s) in GM PM and the recipient(s) will see the message at the beginning of next cycle).
Action: May protect (blocks an arbitrary number of attacks) or roleblock a single target each night. The wind is capricious however, and cannot be used to target the same person twice in a row.

Minor
"It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one."

Intrinsic: Each child is the child of a certain role (they will be informed which one), and if everybody with that role is killed, the child gains that role.

Ruler of the Sithe
"Wore they fresh and supple boughs, red and green upon their brows."

Intrinsic: A crown of holly grants passive immunity to Skindancer possession.
Intrinsic: The Sithe start out with a little more knowledge on the capacities of other Fae.
Action: May specify the current role of a troupe member and use grammarie to permanently alter their role to another troupe role. May be used twice.
Action: May guard a single other player from a single attack. If there are multiple attack actions, will randomly choose which to block.

Archer of the Sithe
"Rode they horses white as snow. Silver blade and white horn bow."

Intrinsic: A crown of holly grants passive immunity to Skindancer possession.
Intrinsic: The Sithe start out with a little more knowledge on the capacities of other Fae.
Action: May shoot another player with arrows of copper, killing them. Is stripped of this power if they attack another member of the Sithe, or if they fell three humans.

Hunter of the Sithe
"I am that merry wanderer of the night."

Intrinsic: A crown of holly grants passive immunity to Skindancer possession.
Intrinsic: The Sithe start out with a little more knowledge on the capacities of other Fae.
Action: May use glammourie to become difficult to see and track another player, learning their target.
Possesses secret traits.

Encanis
"Last there is the lord of the seven: Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane. Alaxel bears the shadow's hame."

Possesses secret traits.

Cinder
"You'd think a man with coal-black eyes would make an impression when he stops to buy a drink."

Action: May use glammourie to appear as any role. Glammourie takes an action to apply or change, but remains active indefinitely.
Intrinsic: If targeted while making a faction kill, will reflexively attack a random player who targeted them, instead of their original target.

Elder Skindancer
"He knew that there were demons that looked like men, or wore their skins like costumes, the way a man might hide beneath a sheepskin."

Action: Can possess a target, forcing them to take an action, and redirecting said action. Target will be informed that a skindancer possessed them. While possessing a target, appears as the role of the possessed. This power does not inform the skindancer of what role they assumed, however.

Scraeling Master
"More of the black things were scuttling out of the dark, their feet beating a quick staccato rhythm against roots and rocks and leaves."

Action: Send a horde of Scrael to pursue a target, nullifying their vote. This may be prevented by any power capable of protecting against an attack. However, this does count towards the inactivity filter, since the vote is actually nullified instead of having its weight set to zero. The target is informed they were chased by Scrael.
Action: Send a horde of Scrael to protect a target against attack. Warning: If the target survives an attack in this way, it will be distinguished from other forms of protection.

Cthaeh
"Maybe the soft creaking of your tendons as you clench your fists is like a sweet symphony to me."

Intrinsic: Omniscient. Has read access to the master spreadsheet and evil doc. May spy on up to three PM conversations at a time.
Intrinsic: Attack-Immune. As a tree-stump of doom, the Cthaeh cannot be killed by conventional means. Attacks targeting the Cthaeh will fail, as if they were roleblocked or avoided. The Cthaeh may only be killed via the lynch.
Possesses secret traits.

 

Edited April 9, 2018 by Drake Marshall
Revised Cthaeh's immortality.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Lovers will not be informed of each other's role or alignment, but at the start of the game, lover pairs are guaranteed to possess the same alignment.

If lovers are of opposite alignment, they gain the win condition of the Cthaeh, and additionally must be the last two players standing. Players revert to their original win condition if this pairing is dissolved.

None of the public rules indicate that alignment changes are possible, so I'm presuming that this is part of a secret trait. More importantly, how would the lovers end up being the last two players when the Cthaeh cannot die?

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

May spend a cycle studying one of the following troupe roles: Singer, Acrobat, Juggler, Jester, Lutist, or Magician.

Is this last role supposed to be Arcanist instead of magician?

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Three times in the game, may select two other players and oneself. Juggles the positions the players are in, transporting them with each other. Whatever order the list is submitted in, the players each move down one on the list, looping back around.

Is this a redirecting action? If players A, B, and C were selected, would this cause actions that target A to affect B, B to affect C, and C to affect A?

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Actions with a limited number of charges will not lose charges if the action fails.

Does this apply to items as well?

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

By the power of Alar, an Arcanist's vote weight may not be altered (the vote may still be nullified however).

This doesn't appear to accomplish anything, unless there are secret vote manipulation abilities or if it protects from the lutist/flutist abilities.

What is the order of actions?

All the yellow and blue roles are confirmed good, correct? The only exceptions are potential secret traits and that Cinder(s) will appear as a different role after the first cycle.