WW Central VII: Important WW information goes here - READ OPENING POSTS!

[Mordokai]

I do too, which is why I thought I'd post the rules early in case I was already stacking the deck to much in the Villagers or Remnants favour. If the Remnants win any more games they'll be closing in on the NFL playoffs won't they?

Recruiting is definitely out, so that's why the bad guys start with four powerful roles, and another one to find. We'll see once the game starts whether I've actually balanced an Advent Children game for once.

I get the feeling Remnats are overpowered, particularly Kadaj. Those abilities of his look nasty, especially with no cooldown. Granted, this may have something to do with the fact that Remnants have won every game so far, but still.

Sephiroth has fifty percent lynch immunity. That isn't on itself a big problem, if he is found early in the game, but if he manages to last for about half a game or more before finally being found, that could pose a problem. And while it may make sense thematically for him to obtain more abilities with him killing Yuna, it buffs him to gills and then some.

The main beef I have with remnants is the fact they are becoming exponentially stronger as the game progresses. If the seer bites it early on(as they've made a tradition of so far in AC games), villagers are in big troubles. Sadly, I don't really have an idea how to fix that, since you can go from over powered to fracked up in a heart beat.

I seriously think villagers need a role that will identify which encounters a certain player can defeat. If not villagers, then maybe neutrals. Or at least how many encounters they can defeat.

I'll get back to you with more bitching once I'm over the roles once again.

[banjo1985]

I look forward to it, that's what's needed.

As a veteran of the three previous games you're in the right position to pick it apart.

[Murska]

ACIII is a fun thread to read if for nothing else, then for the narrations. They were awesome, as all Banjo's narrations have always been.

Looking at things from purely a wolf-player's viewpoint, I don't think the Sephiroth powerup is too big. If the wolves get lucky early, sure, but part of the charm of AC is that several roles actually are extremely important to the side they're on (kinda like the Seer in Classic, but many of them) and if they survive and gain power, they become something to be feared. As long as nobody's powerful enough to utterly break the game if they get a lucky break, I don't think there's anything wrong with stacking the odds on one team's side if they get a lucky first night. That just means the losing team must work all the harder. And both sides do have ways of making up for their losses.

Kadaj looks like a powerful trickster, which is one of my favourite types of roles. Not to mention that I was Kadaj last game, and was pretty much exactly a trickster. I love the abilities, but I think it would be an extremely difficult role to play. Your abilities are certainly powerful, but aimed poorly, they are weak. You need to put a lot of thought into what you do, and even then, without solid information (for example, if Yazoo dies early) you'll be needing luck. However, it's a case of too much to do, too little time. Some players might use it chiefly as a disguiser, since that's the one action that can't go wrong. The other abilities, however, provide interesting strategies.

Yazoo is the devil. Nuff said.

Loz is exactly what he should be - a tank meant to be thrown into the fray at a critical point, absorb a lynch or two if lucky and then beast-kill an enemy. I'd make the remnants immune to his beast ability, though, since to a five-man team who's already facing one beast, losing an extra member to an unlucky roll would be devastating. I'm not too certain on this point, though, since there's always the strategy of how to vote off-wagon on the beast without being noticed.

And poor Kuja. If Sephiroth didn't traditionally scry as a villager until getting the lynchpin, I'd ask for Kuja to scry as a villager before he makes contact with the wolves. As it is, he's the only one without any special role in the wolf team and he starts alone. A big downgrading from his awesome neutral powers last game.

I like the Al-Bhed. They are useful for either side, have the ability to pick their side to some extent unless unlucky in the beginning yet aren't too powerful to be the deciding factor between the teams unless the game is pretty even otherwise. They also have a number of interesting actions.

The villagers - well, they have two potential Beasts, which is quite a lot against a five-wolf team. However, they're only potential Beasts, and good planning may overcome that hurdle on the part of the Remnants, so I like it.

Other than that, there's the Lynchpin, Seer/Fool couple, Masons, Baner and Head Mason, who has some nice special abilities. I'd like to see 1-2 more weak-to-average village powerroles, of course to be used if there are enough players. I like the idea of the villagers having plenty of 'heroes' battling really powerful Remnants. However, care must be taken with this so village networking isn't too easy.

Mordokai's suggestion might work as one - perhaps something like a role that, when it sees a player beat a random encounter, can identify from his fighting style a random number of other encounter types that player can defeat. Either make the random number be from 1 to 3 or make it just always be 1, to avoid it being used as a scrying power. It's the kind of weak-but-power-role I like.

Another idea would be a some sort of a villager or neutral equivalent to Kadaj - a trickster with a small variety of utility moves. Void, item steal, disguise, things like that.

[Mordokai]

I think it's a given that Loz won't be targeting his brothers with this ability. He's scared out of his wits of Sephiroth and Kadaj and while he never shown much respect or fear towards Yazoo, I still think it's fair to say he wouldn't go as far as to kill him. Banjo probably just forgot to write it down, but I just went ahead and assume it.

That said, Loz was never beast before. Why the change? I think it would work well enough without this extra ability. At least if Kuja is in play. If Remnants are playing without Kuja, I'd say this extra boost is good for them, but with Kuja on their side, they don't really need more firepower.

I can see Wakka pulling off some shenanigans with him choosing beast ability, but that depends on specific player. I know that would be my pick. We'll see what his player chooses.

How many players are you counting on anyway?

[banjo1985]

I'm hopelessly optimistic, so therefore hope for 35ish, any less than that and the Kuja role would go. The player base for WW is very unstable at the moment though from what I've seen.

I've tacked the Beast role on to Loz because I've nerfed his encounter levels a bit, he's not as tough to lynch as he used to be. With the Lynchpin now able to help team good every time a Remnant perishes, rather than just helplessly trying to hide, I think each Remnant needs to have some form of party piece. With so few wolves in the game, the death of each one should be an effort, and very saitisfying.

Thanks for the comments. I'll have a close read through and play around with things. Kuja is a bit crap this time around it seems, maybe he needs some fancy playthings too.

[GrlumpTheElder]

Just to say I will be away with no access to the boards from Saturday (28th) to Tuesday (31st). Please don't autolynch me...

[Rules Lawyer #1]

Hello All! I have an idea for my own variant of the game that I think would be cool to play, but I'd like to know what you think about it first.
Here's my idea:

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There are five noble houses feuding in the City of Spires (each noble lives in one of the five spires). This creates five factions (one for each noble). Here's the first interesting twist: the nobles begin play with their role exposed. Everybody in the game knows who the five nobles are!
The way for a noble (and those in his faction) to win is for him to be the only noble at the beginning of a day.
Each noble's faction contains roles (automatic loyal followers):

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Assassin: Each night may assassinate one player.
Bodyguard: the noble cannot be assassinated, or turned as long as his bodyguard lives. The noble can still be lynched.
Healer: Each night can protect one player from being assassinated (but not turned).
Loyal Guards: Pre-determined loyalty to his noble lord. At least one loyal guard for each noble.
Spy: Each night can determine the loyalty (but not the role) of one player.

As long as a noble has at least one loyal follower, it takes a 50% vote to lynch him.

There are also Townsfolk who have no initial loyalty to any of the nobles. These include:

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Cleric: Each day, you may resurrect a player from the dead (but doing so reveals your role to the resurrected player). The player has until the end of the day to accept the resurrection. Undead cannot be resurrected.
Seer: Each night may determine the role (but not the loyalty) of one player.
Vampire Hunter: Each night you may determine whether a player is a Vampire or a Vampire Spawn or not. If the player was a Vampire Spawn, he dies. If the player was the Vampire Master, then the Vampire Master does not die (he is too powerful for you to slay alone).
Villiager: A townsperson without a special role.

Townsfolk may publicly declare their loyalty during the day (in red) to one of the five nobles. If that noble wins, then that Townsfolk wins also. Townsfolk who have not declared loyalty for the winning noble before the end of the game lose. Conversely, if all the townsfolk die, the nobles lose.

Furthermore, there are outsiders bent on destroying the City of Spires.
Outsiders:

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Elf: You do not need to sleep. Hence you are immune to assassinations. You are also not human. So, you cannot be turned. You can still be lynched. You win by surviving until the end of the game.
Foreign Agent: Each night you may determine both the role and loyalty of one player. Also each night you may decide to have your loyalty and role appear as a different choice of loyalty and role. You win if all the nobles die (difficult, I know).

Vampire Master: As an undead, you cannot be assassinated. Each night you must feed on human flesh or die (choose one player to turn). A turned player becomes a Vampire Spawn. Using this power reveals your identity to the Vampire Spawn you created. The order Vampire Spawn are created is important, because when you die, the oldest unliving Vampire Spawn becomes the new Master Vampire. When this happens already created Vampire Spawn do not learn the new Master's identity.
Vampire Spawn: As an undead, you cannot be assassinated. You get to keep any special powers (and victory conditions) you had prior to being turned but lose the title of your previous role. You also enter the queue for becoming the Vampire Master (see Vampire Master). As a Vampire Spawn, you do not need to feed.

The Vampire Master (and Vampire Spawn) win if there are no more living townsfolk to feed on.

Outsiders can make public declarations of loyalty to nobles, but they do not gain the victory conditions of Townsfolk thereby. The loyal followers of a noble may also declare their loyalty in red for another noble, but this does not grant them the victory condition if that other noble wins.

Once any player attains a victory condition, the game is over.

The way I see it, it would take a minimum of 32 players to run this game with at least 40 being preferred.

So what do you think? Any suggestions?

[Reinholdt]

In the current climate, you'll never get thirty two players for an untested game.

[Saposhiente]

*is suspicious of the daily recruitment*
The Assassins are the only thing stopping me from preemptively calling the game. If they die (and they will die because of the Spies, see Mtg: Conflux for example) and the Vampire Hunter dies, it's game over for town no matter how many Vampires they lynch.

[Lex-Kat]

It looks like it could be a fun game, but I have to agree with Reinholdt. It's hard for new narrators, with new game ideas, and complicated rules at that, to get 20 players, much less 32.

[Deathslayer7]

It's hard for me to get 20 players <.<

[Lex-Kat]

I'm sorry. Everyone should know, Deathslayer is one of my favorite narrators.

I'll see if someone can make me an official stamp of hench-pixie approval.

[Rules Lawyer #1]

@Reinholdt
I thought that might be the case.
Which is why I'm not thinking to try and run this right away…
but do you think the rules themselves are solid?
How many players do you think would be reasonable for a first run?

@Saposhiente
So, you think the Vampires have too great an advantage?
I confess I am not familiar with Mtg: Conflux. Enlighten me?

@Lex-Kat
I'd actually probably like to try and narrate or co-narrate a simpler game first, but I wanted to throw this out there because I felt inspired and the rules seemed to write themselves. I was actually inspired after reading Assassins IV: The Return and then reading what's transpired so far in Witch Hunt 4 (narrated by Gray Mage).

@DeathSlayer7
Probably 20 players would be too much for me to shoot for in a first run game. I see you recently started Abhorsen WW III: Shining Night! I'll have to keep an eye on it :=_ Mayhap, I will find some inspiration.

[banjo1985]

I like it, but the inclusion of the Vampire does up the complexity and playerbase needed somewhat. Without that particular aspect, you have what looks like a solid faction-based game that I'd gladly play. The amount of bane or bane type actions going around is quite frightening though, you may find that is both the Bodyguard and Healer survive in each faction until mid-game that it becomes very difficult to night kill anyone. Then again, at that point the day lynch becomes vital, and the team that's managed to garner the biggest villager loyalty base will hold a lot of power, which is an interesting dynamic.

As kitteh already mentioned, getting more than 20 players for an unestablished game and narrator is difficult at the moment. New narrators can have the most awesome game ready to play, but if it needs 30+ players and struggles for sign ups, the narrator can often get disillusioned and not end up running anything. That's a sad thing, because we need new narrators and new game types, and I think we're missing out sometimes when new games don't get enough interest to start.

I think you could run a cut-down version of this at the 20 player level, then run the full version once the games reputation is known. Assassins, Mafia Noir and Classic prove that the player base is still there for big games if they're well known enough. Drop all the villager roles except standard villager, have three/four factions instead of five, combine the Healer and Bodyguard into one role (can choose to cover the noble or bane someone else), and Drop the Loyal Guards (at a smaller game size this role doesn't add anything), and you've got a viable 20ish player game. Each faction starts off with a noble, assassin, bodyguard/healer and spy, with 8 villagers to throw their loyalty around and affect the daily votes.

Just my two pence, as corroded and dirty as they are.

[Saposhiente]

@Saposhiente
So, you think the Vampires have too great an advantage?
I confess I am not familiar with Mtg: Conflux. Enlighten me?

Mtg: Conflux was a game with five factions that all had a killer, a scrier, and three other people with various powers. The expected result was that with 1/5th the players worth of nightkills, the game would end very quickly, but due to the scriers, the killers died first and the game extended quite a while with death by lynching only.
The main thing with the Vampires is the daily recruitment. With daily recruitment and no killer roles, town can't win, because they can kill vampires at most at the same rate as the vampires replenish their numbers.
*ka-notice that vampires can't be assassinated*
Wolves win >95% of the time. The only possible way to stop them is for Town and the Vampire Hunter to wipe them out in the first few days. Meanwhile, they will be recruiting the 5 nightkillers and 6 seers to kill the Vampire Hunter crazy fast.
What needs to happen is that they need to not be able to recruit powerroles (they just die), and their recruitment power needs to be limited somehow.
Ways to limit recruitment power (more than one may be necessary): Make recruitment not every day, make it so that the Vampire Spawn do not turn into Masters (once the Master is dead, they can merely nightkill), limit the size of the group (after which they get nightkills instead of recruitment)(insufficient on its own, works combined with 2). Making them susceptible to assassins would help, but then it simply is an exercise in not dying before Day 4-5-ish.

[Rules Lawyer #1]

Thanks for the interesting feedback. I rewrote the game significantly. What do you think of this?

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There are three noble houses feuding in the City of Spires (each noble lives in one of the five spires). This creates three factions (one for each noble) and two empty spires.
The Nobles:
The nobles begin play with their role and faction exposed to all players. Everybody in the game knows who the three nobles are!
A noble wins if he is the only noble left and there are no ninjas.

Roles of a Noble's Loyal Followers:

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Assassin: Each night may assassinate one player.
Bodyguard: the noble cannot be assassinated as long as his bodyguard lives. The noble can still be lynched.
Spy: Each night can determine the loyalty (but not the role) of one player. Townsfolk read as Townsfolk. Ninjas read as ninjas.

The Loyal Followers of a noble may declare their loyalty (in red blue) for different nobles, but this does not grant them the victory conditions of Townsfolk.

Roles of the Townsfolk:

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Healer: Each night you may choose one player (but not yourself) to be protected from assassination for that night.
Villager: A townsperson without a special role.

Townsfolk may publicly declare their loyalty during the day (in red blue) to one of the five nobles. If that noble wins by morning of the next day, then that Townsfolk wins also. Townsfolk may only declare loyalty to one Noble at a time and may only switch that loyalty during the day. Townsfolk cannot become Loyal Followers.

Furthermore, there are ninjas:

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The Ninja Clan:
When a Loyal Follower's Noble dies, the surviving Loyal Followers do not! Instead, they become part of the ninja clan in order to avenge their noble leader(s) death(s)! They retain their roles, but in addition, participate in nightly votes to assassinate one player. The ninja clan wins if there are no nobles left.

Master Ninja: The Master Ninja cannot be assassinated. Moreover, he may disguise himself to appear to be of any loyalty. The Master Ninja participates in ninja clan votes to assassinate one player and breaks ties. He wins if all the nobles die.

Ninjas may still publicly declare loyalty to a noble (in red blue). This does not grant them additional victory conditions.

Once any player attains a victory condition, the game is over.

The way I see it, it would take a minimum of 15-16 players to run this game but preferably more like 20.

@banjo1985
I removed the vampires and Foreign Agent and replaced them with ninjas!
Moreover, I created a way for defeated Loyal Followers to seek revenge (as ninjas)!
I moved the role of healer into the Town and now there is only one of them!

@Saposhiente
The spies can only determine loyalty, and there are now effectively 4 nightkills and 1 bane on the first night. Moreover, the healer cannot bane himself!
The ninjas can grow in power, but only if a noble dies. This means that an assassin has to target an unprotected noble or the town has to lynch him… which makes the choice all the more interesting. So what do the nobles do now?

I suspect a bloodbath will occur with almost half the players killed by the third day. Then I suspect attrition kicks in and the pace slows down, but without any way to identify the dead, whom do the players trust? Still, if the game lasts more than one week, I'd be surprised, because there really isn't that much bane power going around in this revision and plenty of kill power.

v@Tydude. Yeah, that's a good idea. Declare loyalty in blue instead of red and keep red for kills.

[Tydude]

I suspect a bloodbath will occur with almost half the players killed by the third day. Then I suspect attrition kicks in and the pace slows down, but without any way to identify the dead, whom do the players trust? Still, if the game lasts more than one week, I'd be surprised, because there really isn't that much bane power going around in this revision and plenty of kill power.

That sounds hilariously fun. Question, if townsfolk declare loyalty in red then what color do you vote in? Here, it's normally red though I've seen it be bold in other places. I'd change loyalty declaring color to blue or something instead of red.

[Trixie]

Is anyone else concerned about the low number of games currently planned for the next few months? I know that things have generally dropped off from the mid 2009 levels, when quite honestly there were too many WW's on the go at once, but even so the number of new games being scheduled really seem to have tailed off.

I'd say 'told ya so' but I can' be bothered to find where and what I told (I only remember general sentiment, saying reforms will strangle the WW games scene) so I won't tell you ;P

Maybe the WW scene should inform the rest of the forum we exist? I've talked with people who were on GitP board for years, and had no idea it existed ('Structured Games' being subforum is pretty well hidden).

I'd make one WW game, but it only will make matters worse, so I probably won't, too ;P

[BobTheFerret]

I'd say the people decrying the difficulty of getting players may be optimistic rather than pessimistic – I couldn't even get up to my required number of 18 players for my game.

As a corollary, there seem to be a lot of games whose narrators go missing... In fact, both of the games that I'm in right now seem to have stalled out on account of missing narrator. Perhaps we could arrange big games so that, in case the narrator goes missing, they dump all their players into smaller games?

[billtodamax]

I'd say 'told ya so' but I can' be bothered to find where and what I told (I only remember general sentiment, saying reforms will strangle the WW games scene) so I won't tell you ;P

Maybe the WW scene should inform the rest of the forum we exist? I've talked with people who were on GitP board for years, and had no idea it existed ('Structured Games' being subforum is pretty well hidden).

I'd make one WW game, but it only will make matters worse, so I probably won't, too ;P

Trixie needs to run another game! They're great fun, balanced well, with a variety of interesting roles.

[Saposhiente]

I could make a bunch of Dethy games to pad the schedule.
not a misspelling----------/|\

[Saposhiente]

actually, why not. Dethy V submitted for approval

[Thufir]

I'd say 'told ya so' but I can' be bothered to find where and what I told (I only remember general sentiment, saying reforms will strangle the WW games scene) so I won't tell you ;P

Actually, as I recall, what you said was that restricting the number of small games allowed to be running/recruiting at a time would strangle the WW scene. Which I'm pretty sure is still clearly not the case. If we don't have enough players, the last thing we want is an over-abundance of games causing them to spread out more.

[Mordokai]

I actually don't see big number of games(small or otherwise) as problem. When I started, I signed up for pretty much any game that opened. Times were when I was simoultaneously signed up for five games and managed to pay attention to them all. I imagine not everybody has that amount of time and/or dedication, but it can be done for more than one or two games at the time.

I just think the problem is in the people. Most of us have seen pretty much everything, tried out a lot and simply got bored with it to the point where we see little point in anything at all. Though that may be just me again...

The point I'm trying to get across is this. The WW scene has changed in the past... five years? I believe for worse. Will it ever change for the better again? I hope so. But I don't think it will. I just don't feel the same enthusiasm in the community anymore as I did those five years back. And I'm as guilty of that as the next person.

Or maybe this is just a rambling of an old coot way past his time.

[Castaras]

My £0.02:

I used to be very much a WW person. I'd run games and play zillions at the same time. But I've moved on quite a bit. I still play every now and again, but there's just other things I'm doing instead. Things change, and people change. I'm guessing the majority of the WW players from around my time have gone on to do other stuff. Which'll be part of the current player drop.

Or, you could just assume that its a drop in games because of exams and graduation and such.

[Elder Tsofu]

So, should we promote our activities here to other parts of the forum?
Creating eye-catching but generic signature banners which link to the structured games overview is an option I suppose. I think I've seen quite a few people around here capable of drawing, and we don't really lack in the good narrator and crazy ideas departments.

[banjo1985]

We've got plenty of decent avatarists here, whether any have the time to make some banners is another issue. I know I don't (though I'm not a decent avatarist either ).

Burnout of veteran players seems to be a big issue, along with new players coming in not really getting a proper go at running the games they want to due to the lower player base. Games deadlining is also having an affect, people are less likely to want to sign up and effort into a game if it's not going to run its course. These things go through cycles though, so I sincerely hope something sparks an upsurge in activity soon.

[rakkoon]

Ok, make me a banner and I'll add it to my sig.
Preferably one that is wide rather than high.
Oooh ooh and it should feature a raccoon!
Or a wolf.
You guys decide.

[Szilard]

Is the June 27th slot still open? I'd like to schedule Civilization III for then. Revised rules to come.

[Lex-Kat]

How about one that shows a villager running from a bloody, growling werewolf.

And under it, it says:

"Please help us protect the world from Werewolves.
Play Werewolf games in Structured Games."

Make sure to have the banner linked.