The Art of Game Creation

[Sparkrunner he/him]

Spoiler

Bestarin can survive an attack, Ferrous can sacrifice themselves to give some kind of boost, verdant can roleblock, illuminous can save one other person, night can save themselves, but have a chance of conversion? I am just putting down ideas here.

 

[Steeldancer he/him]

4 minutes ago, Roadwalker said:

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Bestarin can survive an attack, Ferrous can sacrifice themselves to give some kind of boost, verdant can roleblock, illuminous can save one other person, night can save themselves, but have a chance of conversion? I am just putting down ideas here.

 

Hey do you want to work on it together? 

[Ecthelion III he/him]

@Flash I meant to put the thing you quoted about the

Spoiler

Vo-Dari

in spoiler tags.

[Sparkrunner he/him]

1 minute ago, Flash said:

Hey do you want to work on it together? 

Sure! My quorum is going on a campout so I will be away for the rest of this week, but that sounds fun.

[Steeldancer he/him]

1 minute ago, Ecthelion III said:

@Flash I meant to put the thing you quoted about the

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Vo-Dari

in spoiler tags.

Riiiiighhht. Thanks lol forgot about that. 

[Elbereth she/her]

I have a great number of quotes sitting in here from ages ago, so here come a few more. 

On 5/30/2017 at 0:14 PM, Paranoid King said:

Not sure if I'll be running this game, but after reading secret history, I had an idea and I wanted to write it out. If anyone else wants to take my idea and run with it, just send me a message.

 

MR #: Mistborn: Secret Obligation

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST PART OF MISTBORN: SECRET HISTORY

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Overview:

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The entire town of Berkanan has been wiped off the map by a collapsing ashmount. Among those in the destruction are Obligators and Allomancers. To win, the Allomancers need to kill all the Obligators. The Obligators need all of their members to reach the well, or all of the Allomancers dead. If any Obligators die, they may no longer reach their first win condition.

Game Basics:

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Cycles are 48 hours long.

The Obligators have a group Doc, and may jointly kill one player each cycle.

In any cycle, players may either Vote or Travel to the Well, as well as one role-based action they have.

Voting works as normal. Players need 2 votes to be lynched. In case of a tie, neither player is slain.

If a player Travels to the Well, they may not vote. Instead, they make 1 step of PROGRESS towards the well. All players will be informed who has done this in the write-up.

If a player PROGRESSES 3 times, they reach the well. If a Misting reaches the well, they receive another allomantic ability. If a Metallurgist reaches the well, they receive a metal vial. If all Obligators reach the well, they win the game. If Hoid reaches the well, nothing special happens. Anyone who travels to the well has their TIME stat increased by 5, then their PROGRESS is reset to 0.

You may travel to the well multiple times.

Your TIME stat starts at 12 and decreases by 1 each turn. If you run out of TIME, you are eliminated.

You may create any number of PMs, as long as you include the GM(s).

Special Roles:

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Other rules/Order of actions:

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First off, I love the setting. It's excellent. 

Questions and Notes: 
1. If you burn Pewter and run, does it get announced that you've progressed once or twice?
2. The mechanic is fascinating and you shouldn't get rid of it, but do be aware that it discourages voting. Be careful of that.  
3. Brass is entertaining.  Not very powerful, but fun.
4. Will this be a role madness game?
5. If you have Lerasium, do you have to choose which metals you're giving out, or does the person automatically get what they need?
6. I would suggest on the making metals front that lerasium can be found at the Well? 
7. Careful with giving the killer all the items in play - that could make for a lot of accumulation of items in the end game, with the eliminators in particular (since they kill every turn rather than just when they can get vials/coins) gaining significantly more power than the village. 

I really, really like this game, and I hope it does play at some point. It's fascinating. 

On 6/2/2017 at 7:44 PM, Sart said:

The Gimmick: In this game, getting voted on is a good thing. The player who has the most votes at the end of a cycle leaves the ship. After a certain number of cycles (determined by number of players) the ship will explode, and anyone left on the ship will die. If there is a tie, no one leaves the ship.

Win conditions:

• Loyal soldiers: Have as many loyal soldiers as possible leave the ship. A straight victory is having half or more of the people who leave be Loyal Soldiers.
• Saboteur: Leave the ship. When you do, you blow up all the remaining passengers. Down with the Empire!
• Coward: Leave the ship. It may be the coward's way out, but that's good enough for you.

I like this. My LotR game is something similar - you vote on who joins the Fellowship. I'd love to see this as a QF, though. 

Are there multiple saboteurs, or just one? 

Note that generally, finding people to trust is easier than finding people to suspect, so the elims would have a slight advantage. Particularly if there's only one saboteur. Is alignment revealed upon leaving? 

I have a feeling this game would come down more to luck than anything else. But it would be a fun game. Please run it. 

On 6/5/2017 at 4:58 PM, Cluny the Scourge said:

Redwall Game Template Draft 1:

Basics:

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- Read Marlfox and/or Long Patrol before this, or just look it up on the Redwall Wiki

-There is one cycle of 24 hours, with a twelve hour rollover.
-Lynch does not kill, it imprisons.

-Make votes in red, retract votes in green.
-Votes are cast during the day.
-Actions are put in during the night.

Factions:

Long Patrol:

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Marlfoxes:

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Village:

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Roles:

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Militia:

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_______________________

My thanks to Straw, I used his recent plan as a template.

@Hemalurgic_Headshot @Straw @The Flash I have rat powers. HAHAHHAHAHHAHSHHSHSHHA CACKLE CACKLE 

Any help working out problems will be greatIy appreciated.

I probably won't GM this game, I plan for it to be a short LG.

A few notes: 
1. Not sure why you need a 12 hour rollover or think that's a good idea. That'd make 36-hour cycles, with when rollover ends switching off between the two times. That sounds horrible as a GM. I do not suggest it at all. Also, this feels to me like a MR/LG, but 24 hour cycles are something for QFs. You'd need longer than that, I think. 
2. If it's a combined 24 hour cycle, then how is there also a day and a night? 
3. I don't suggest making a full roleblock include posting and PMing. 
4. I like the Fight! mechanic for the Long Patrol. That'd be hard to balance, though, with the multiple kill of the Marlfoxes. Fascinating idea, though. Also, note that the LP are similar to a Highprince protect and are very powerful. The multiple kills helps the Marlfoxes, but... gah. Again, that'd be a really difficult game to balance properly.
5.  When the militia is formed, can the Marlfoxes still kill?

This is honestly a fascinating game. It would be horrid to balance, but if you're not planning on running it I will most certainly steal mechanics from it at some point, because there are a lot of very different ones in here. 

On 6/7/2017 at 0:23 PM, randuir said:

Hmmm, an idea for a win-condition for the limited god would be that he/she wants to be a king-maker. That is, you want to have the game end with yourself, 1 villager and 1 elim left. This in and of itself is tricky enough that you could probably drop all other restrictions. Suddenly, the god wants to keep his identity a secret,a s neither faction wants him to get close to achieving his goal. He also wants to be very careful with his knowledge, as he doesn't want either side to win too early.

Ooh! Ooh! I like that, a ridiculous amount. 

On 6/7/2017 at 6:19 PM, Drake Marshall said:

If we ever do another kingkiller game... This should totally be the basis for a Cthaeh role. It would be so epic...

It makes sense lore-wise too, because a kingmaker scenario is about as close as you can get to everybody losing. And the Cthaeh would approve of that. It could be an endgame condition where everybody loses but the Cthaeh.

Another idea, to build on that... This role could get one other power, where every cycle they can choose to heal any person that they PMed that cycle. Not only does this fit the lore of taking the Cthaeh's counsel, but it gives them another little tool to give them a chance at actually becoming a kingmaker. This is obviously a two-edged sword, because using that ability risks outing yourself as the Cthaeh.

I'll need to think about this a bit... But I quite like the concept.

We're not doing it in the LG18/33 rerun. Please. >> That game is complex enough as is. But in a different KKC game, yes. 

Can they PM themselves?  

On 6/10/2017 at 0:18 PM, Elenion said:

Terror in Minas Tirith

The year is 2756 in the Third Age. The land of Gondor lies dark and silent, menaced by an ever-growing shadow on its eastern frontier. Minas Ithil has fallen to the Enemy, and it will not be many years until Osgiliath suffers the same fate. But the plans of Sauron wait for no man. Even now, when the forces of Gondor are watching the expansion of Mordor, a few of Sauron's most cunning servants are ready to strike a blow at the heart of Gondor itself.

Ground Rules:

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• The game is divided into cycles that are 24 hours long each.
• The Mordor team get a kill every cycle, submitted as an active action by one of their players, and win if they outnumber the remaining Gondor players. The Mordor team also gets their own doc to scheme in.
• Each cycle, the players as a group chose one player to lynch. Lynch votes in the active thread must be listed in Red, with retractions in Green. The player will be lynched who has the most votes on them at the end of the cycle. There is no minimum number of votes required for a lynch. A tied lynch will result in the lynch being made at random among the players tied for the lead.
• The Gondor players win if all Mordor characters are killed.
• The dead doc will be the same as the spec doc.
• Actions will be triggered by sending a PM to the GM. Actions that must be triggered this way are marked as "active" in the roles list. The Mordor kill is considered an active action. A player may only trigger one active action per round.
• A player will be notified if their action was successful or not. A kill targeting a protected player counts as a successful performing of the action. A kill targeting an Outlaw using their ability will be unsuccessful.
• The write-up will contain a list of all successful kills and kills blocked by the Guard of the Citadel, but not kills blocked by the Outlaw. If a kills is blocked by both the Guard and the Outlaw, it will appear in the write-up. All dead players' roles, alignments, and items (if secret items exist) will appear in the write-up.
• Players are not allowed to PM other players for game purposes. Out-of-game PMs are allowed.
• Players must post at least every other cycle. Players who go two complete cycles without posting will die of inactivity, unless they have PM-ed the GM in advance that they will be inactive.
• Turnover will be at 2:00 PM MST
• Secret roles/items/alignments are possible.

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Been a while since I've seen this game. 

Regarding the Ground Rules - I see no need to specify that the dead and spec docs are the same. I still rather strongly disagree with the 'out-of-game PMs are allowed' statement - it implies that it's within the GM's power to ban them. It's most definitely not. I'm literally in a romantic relationship with another player. I am not stopping talking to him because of a game, and don't like the implication that it's possible for me to be able to. I'd recommend taking that out. 

So, the village-side scanner can only scan role but the elim-side scanner can scan alignment? Why would they need to scan alignment?

Also, can there be more than one Steward? 

Can a Politician secretly choose not to vote at all, or must their secret vote be on someone?

I'm still not sure about the Noble mechanic. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out, but I don't know that it'll go well. Also, depending on its size, the members could choose to lynch every person in the doc because at least a significant percentage are almost guaranteed to be evil.

[Sparkrunner he/him]

2 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

A few notes: 
1. Not sure why you need a 12 hour rollover or think that's a good idea. That'd make 36-hour cycles, with when rollover ends switching off between the two times. That sounds horrible as a GM. I do not suggest it at all. Also, this feels to me like a MR/LG, but 24 hour cycles are something for QFs. You'd need longer than that, I think. 
2. If it's a combined 24 hour cycle, then how is there also a day and a night? 
3. I don't suggest making a full roleblock include posting and PMing. 
4. I like the Fight! mechanic for the Long Patrol. That'd be hard to balance, though, with the multiple kill of the Marlfoxes. Fascinating idea, though. Also, note that the LP are similar to a Highprince protect and are very powerful. The multiple kills helps the Marlfoxes, but... gah. Again, that'd be a really difficult game to balance properly.
5.  When the militia is formed, can the Marlfoxes still kill?

This is honestly a fascinating game. It would be horrid to balance, but if you're not planning on running it I will most certainly steal mechanics from it at some point, because there are a lot of very different ones in here. 

Honestly, I probably will not be running it. Feel free to take from it. I really just wanted to get the Fight mechanic out.

[Straw he/him]

I was thinking about running an role madness, free-for-all Reckoners game as a QF. Thoughts on whether this would work?

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

27 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

We're not doing it in the LG18/33 rerun. Please. >> That game is complex enough as is. But in a different KKC game, yes. 

Can they PM themselves?  

I understand why you wouldn't want to add complexity in the LG33 rerun.

But seriously, this has to be a thing sometime.

And no, they can't PM themselves. The PM mechanic is meant to mirror how the flowers surrounding the Cthaeh can heal any ailment, and I'm not sure that the Cthaeh even eats, so it may have a hard time making use of those flowers except as a means to manipulate people.

[Aonar he/him]

1 hour ago, Straw said:

I was thinking about running an role madness, free-for-all Reckoners game as a QF. Thoughts on whether this would work?

No reason why it wouldn't. Hunger Games and Pokemon did. You'd just have to make sure the roles were balanced so no one had an excessive advantage over anyone else. Either do that or find some way to encourage/facilitate weaker roles banding together to take down stronger ones. Likewise, you're going to have to make sure every role has some means of working towards being the last one alive; every role should at least have a means of attacking, defending or redirecting. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

So I'm debating whether to share the fun little activity filter I've developed for A Land War in Asia... it makes me laugh so much. 

Suffice it for now that it involves Fashion and the Privy. 

I'm sort of taking the whole Meta discussion into account with this game. It's just going to be fun. My goal is to make it so people are having enough fun to not want it to end  an ambitious goal I know. 

And @A Joe in the Bush I've got some ideas that will make you proud. 

I also fixed Miracle Max's win condition (I figured wanting to have an elim dead was too villager for a neutral win condition). I added some new character abilities to make the game more balanced, and some character interactions to make it more robust. 

Finally I'm debating whether to add a priest character. But I'm hoping to see many W's weplacing r's anyway so I pwobably won't. 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Flash

[Straw he/him]

My idea for QF??: Annihilation:

Basics:

 

-Each cycle ends at 9:00 PM GMT, and the new cycle is posted at 10:00 PM GMT.
-Each cycle is 23 hours long.
-This game is role madness.
-This game is a free-for-all!
-PMs are allowed.
-Everyone has one action.
-Make votes in red (Example without the asterisk), retract votes in green (Example without the asterisk).

Mechanics:

 

Factions:

There is only one faction! The Epics each have to kill every other Epic in order to win the game. Every Epic has a set of powers, which is divided into two categories: Active powers and Passive powers, Active powers can be used by expending an action, and Passive powers are always on.

Weaknesses:
Every Epic has a weakness, and the more powerful their powers are, the easier it is to find their weakness. Anyone can spend an action to research the weakness of another Epic. Depending on the power level of the targeted Epic, finding the Epic’s weakness can take 1-3 research actions. If you find the weakness of an Epic, you are immune to all of their abilities.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Straw

[Steeldancer he/him]

Just now, winter devotion said:

Jeez, who's going through and upvoting my posts from MR6? 

I might have upvoted a few things earlier today  I was going back and looking at some of Joe's work. And some things really deserved upvotes darn it. 

[A Joe in the Bush]

LG40(?): Instability

Setting: Luthadel, just prior to the Siege

Factions:

Elend’s Loyalists: The Village faction. They want to kill all of Cett’s Infiltrators and the Mistborn

Cett’s Infiltrators: The Eliminator Faction. They want to kill Elend.

The Unstable Mistborn: The Serial Killer. S/He wants to kill Cett’s Infiltrators.

Roles:

Elend Venture: Village Safe role played by the GM. Due to being protected by Vin, Elend cannot be killed by anything except a lynch. He cannot be targeted by any roles except the Mistborn.

Mistborn: Each Night, you may use Coinshot 1 to kill a player and either Smoker 2 or Seeker 2. Each Day, you may use either Soother 1 or Rioter 1. You have access to Thug 2.

Assassin: In addition to any other role this Infiltrator might have, he can make a one time unblockable kill. (Goes through all extra lives, all layers of defenses. Cannot be roleblocked or redirected.) (Cannot attack Elend Venture)

Note: For Allomantic roles players have only one variant. Example, a Thug does not have both the extra life and the bodyguard ability.

Thug 1 (Active): Each Cycle, you may guard a player. If that player is killed, you will attack the killer.

Thug 2 (Passive): You may survive 1 Attack, including the Lynch

Tineye 1 (Passive): As long as you are alive, PM’s are open at night.

Tineye 2 (Passive): Each day, you learn the alignment of the player you voted on

Lurcher 1 (Passive): You are immune to night kills.

Lurcher 2 (Active): You can protect a player from one attack.

Coinshot 1 (Active): Each Night, you may kill a player. Note that only the Mistborn will have this role.

Coinshot 2 (Active): Each Night, you may Jump around the city, hiding yourself from most roles. the Assassin, will still be able to target you though.

Seeker 1 (Active): At Night, you may target someone to learn what Allomantic metals they burned that Cycle.

Seeker 2 (Active): At Night, you may target a player to learn what Allomantic abilities were burned in their vicinity that night. (If they have a night role, you might learn it, but you will also learn what night roles visited them, with no proof of which one was burned by the player you visited)

Smoker 1 (Passive): During the day, any votes on the player you voted on cannot be affected.

Smoker 2 (Active):During the night, you may protect one player from Seekers, Soothers, and rioters.

Soother 1 (Active): During the day, you may cancel a player’s vote.

Soother 2 (Active) During the Night, you may cancel a player’s action.

Rioter 1 (Active): During the day, you may move a player’s vote. You cannot make it a No Vote.

Rioter 2 (Active): During the Night, you may redirect a player’s action. They will not know they were redirected.

---

There are 2 other LG's i have prepared (Almost) for LG40 as well. You can view them through the link in my signature. If you want me to run one of those for LG40 instead, Mention it here.

[Aonar he/him]

Lurcher 1 + Tineye 2 seems really OP, especially if Mistings get both powers, not just one. (This wasn't made clear, I'm assuming just one, since two feels broken.) 

Likewise, Thug 1 + Rioter 2  could be very OP'd with the right village coordination, since the only kill roles are held by non-village players. I do like a lot of the role variations there, but it feels kind of like if the village can get any coordination going at all (Which shouldn't be too hard with Tineye 1+2) it's going to break really, really quickly... Then again, this is one of your games, so there's probably about a dozen secret roles intended to make things balance out...  

[A Joe in the Bush]

Other than the mistborn and the assassin, No one starts with more than one role.

11 minutes ago, Aonar Faileas said:

Then again, this is one of your games, so there's probably about a dozen secret roles intended to make things balance out...

EDIT: @Aonar Faileas

11 minutes ago, Aonar Faileas said:

especially if Mistings get both powers, not just one. (This wasn't made clear, I'm assuming just one, since two feels broken.) 

I did make it clear

25 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Note: For Allomantic roles players have only one variant. Example, a Thug does not have both the extra life and the bodyguard ability.

Edited August 4, 2017 by A Joe in the Bush
avoiding Double Posting

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

I'm assuming there's a secret reason that the mistborn isn't totally village-aligned? Because from what I can see they have the exact same win condition as the village...

[A Joe in the Bush]

5 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I'm assuming there's a secret reason that the mistborn isn't totally village-aligned? Because from what I can see they have the exact same win condition as the village...

No, if you read the win conditions, the Mistborn wins when the Eliminators are dead. The village wins when the Eliminators and the Mistborn are dead. So the Mistborn is the village's only kill role, but they have to kill him before he kills all the eliminators, otherwise they lose and he wins. (Flavor wise it's Zane, and if he lives, he'll seduce Vin away from the cause, leaving Luthadel undefended against straff and the Koloss.)

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Hmmm... So the unstable mistborn is kept from claiming or winning with the village.

Didn't see that bit.

That creates an interesting dynamic. Well done.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Oooh I've never actually played a Joe game. This should be fun. 

[Alvron he/him]

3 hours ago, Flash said:

Oooh I've never actually played a Joe game. This should be fun. 

You're in for quite the treat.  Joe's games always keep players on their toes.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Dang it, this Joe game looks awesome. Anyone have any idea when it will be run? I really don't want to miss it, and I want to start planning how I'm gonna organize school and band so that I can get on a little every day for it. 

[Jondesu he/him]

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

Dang it, this Joe game looks awesome. Anyone have any idea when it will be run? I really don't want to miss it, and I want to start planning how I'm gonna organize school and band so that I can get on a little every day for it. 

LG37 is about to start, and Joe's is slated for at least LG40 unless other GMs pass on their games. Probably before the end of the year.

[A Joe in the Bush]

My game will start in about 75 days. So around the end of october.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Ok so roadwalker and I are working on creating an aether game. Major aether spoilers: 

Spoiler

Idea 1- Senate setting, faction game. Faction games are hard, so we're disinclined towards that. 

Idea 2- Rebellion setting. Vo-Dari are in open revolt, are elims. 

Idea 3- Senate setting, with Verdant line as eliminators, conspiring to take over the empire. Could also be done as various conspirators from various lines, trying to take the throne. 

We are also considering a neutral shateen(?) Role, with a convert and the goal of having one of his race survive the game. 

Advice would be greatly appreciated.