Ideas for future TWGs

[evilbutterfly]

How about a blind game? By blind I mean we have no idea what roles there are unless we have one. It couldn't be anything too different from the normal setup, but people wouldn't know if there was a seer or not, or if there were masons or any special roles. This would make any kind of trickery very effective. Wolves could pretend to be special roles, humans could lie about what special roles existed, and people could lie about how they're the seer just to save themselves, even if there is no seer. This isn't something a jTWG group could handle, but I think the smarter TWG players would do quite well in this sort of game.

Oh, and the only PM that would be shown would be the human one. All other roles and names of roles would be unknown.

[Tasselfoot]

EB, that idea gives the wolves more of an advantage.... and, truthfully, the wolves have the edge right now, having won the past 2, and 4/7 overall... and, i'd wager that they'll continue to win more than the humans. with that, we should have games that give more of the edge to the humans, not the wolves.

[blahblah18]

Its a good idea, but Tass the way oyu counter it is to add 1 more human role then normally exists in our standard game setup.. LD as chardish said, 50 % has always been the number of special roles or thereabouts for all the games.

[Laharl]

I haven't played in any of these games yet, so I'm not exactly sure how they work. I've sent a number of privaate messages to try and get the rules and none have been returned yet.

What if there were 3 competing factions? I don't know how it'd work, but you'd have the "good guys", the "bad guys" and then something entirely different, which for the point of working this into a sentance shall be called team Bob.. Work it on a triangle of power type system, where you can only kill members of one of the other teams. Like, the wolves can only kill humans, the humans can only kill bobs, and the bobs are what kill the wolves. If the people on team human all vote for someone on the wolves, their lynch attack fails, but they can still accidentally lynch members on their own team. This game, no one would know who was what. Perhaps you have a seer on each team which can tell how many of their mortal enemies remain.

I think it could get interesting. I'm just throwing ideas out there.

[Tasselfoot]

Laharl... check out the princeton link posted here... and, the 3-team system is exactly what Cypher is planning on doing when he gets the opportunity to host.

[evilbutterfly]

You're right, kinda. If we did the standard TWG by the book (seer, guardian, psycic, 3 wolves) then the wolves would have the advantage because they know each other. However, nobody would know what the exact roles were. You could add a couple special roles that greatly help the humans but nobody would know that they exist. For example, you could have 2 pairs of masons, so there'd be 2 human alliances from the start, or you could lower the number of wolves to 2 and not tell anybody. If a moderator had the foresight enough to make it balanced while keeping it blind, it could be a very fun and interesting game.

[zildjian133]

An idea just came to mind. How about to win you have to claim victory. Like if the Humans win, someone would declare a victory but if they didn't kill all the wolves they'd lose or maybe lose a human and same with the wolves. I don't quite no how it would work but it's just an idea.

[Tasselfoot]

except for that one little problem of the wolves KNOWING when they win by simple mathematics. so this just hurts the humans.... alot. and, what happens if the humans kill all the wolves and don't claim victory? everyone loses?

yea... work on those ideas.

[blahblah18]

i much rather this thread got less cluttered so what I'm going to ask to do is this is a warmup rant thread and really isn't crit thinking, so much as TWG crap... so i'm starting to think there shoudl be a TWG forum category... or at least let me get a stickied version that you can only post in if your idea is fully fleshed out, youv'e done the math to check if its balanced, and if it isn't retarded.

[zildjian133]

I thought they didn't want a forum for TWG at all... Oh yeah and after reading what Tass said it gave me another idea. Since that the wolves would win purely on mathetics if they kill(or are dead) all the special roles and claim victory they win... Doubtful that anyone would use this idea. I guess it would be of a desperation act of supreme luck to win if it were out of desperation. But I think if you did that it would require a little more thinking on everyone's behalf.... But I guess it would be pretty obvious for humans if they were no longer getting wolfed... If someone cares about this idea, take it. Isn't there any other cool games we can play over the forums?

This is long, but it's a big idea.

I wanted to do something different for the sequel to my Metal Gear TWG, which I think definitely warrants a sequel in terms of its unresolved storyline and I hope everyone else agrees with me. However, I don't think that the story could work again under normal circumstances. It was odd enough having 16 members of FOXHOUND all voting each other to death (something the "real" FOXHOUND would never do), but after the incident at the Chinese base there's no way Campbell would let his men do something like that again. Also, as far as Campbell knows, the operation went off without a hitch and Flypie and Guido were normal members of FOXHOUND all along, and continue to be. So if people started dying again in the reformed FOXHOUND he would know immediately who to blame it on. Bang goes that idea.

I'll reveal the first shells of my plot. I don't want FOXHOUND's mission to be "vote off the wolves" and have the plotline direct itself based on how well you are succeeding at that mission. I want you to actually have a mission to accomplish. I want a little roleplaying, I want your actions to directly involve yourself with your surroundings and your environments, and most importantly, I want you to dictate how the game (and story) plays out. I want you to feel the same sense of conspiracy as the FOXHOUND members, and I want you to be able to have a bit of espionage fun yourselves. This cannot be done within the context of the current game (which is nothing more than a game of Mafia with a frame story.)

I want FOXHOUND to infiltrate one of the Patriots' laboratories where GHOST is held and try to take it out. I want you guys (the players) to be able to move from room to room finding out clues, investigating, while at the same time finding information on your buddies. I also want a blueless game for this. Basically, what I'm doing is adding movement to TWG, and this is significant enough of a change that it warrants a lot of explanation as to what I'm doing.

The base will be set up in 50 rooms. I'm thinking of labeling them A through E, 0 through 9. So A-0, A-1, A-2, A-3......A-9, B-0, B-1......E-9. You get the idea. The base starts out unexplored. Instead of Day and Night, the game has 2 renamed phases - Movement and Decision-Making. During the Movement phase, each player privately informs me which room they want to go to on the base - it can be any room - movement is unrestricted. Think of it like opening a box. Inside the rooms are all sorts of different things of use - terminals that allow information on other rooms, terminals that allow information on other players, terminals that inform people how many wolves are left in the game, terminals that inform people where the other players are, etc. It's all about information. You gather as much information as you can.

Discussion is allowed during the movement period. Now here's the catch. Wolves can only kill someone they're in the same room as! This creates something that TWG has never seen before - defensive lying. That is, humans telling the crowd they're going someplace they're not just to keep wolves off their tail.

During the movement period, humans decide who to lynch. Big catch number 2. There no longer has to be a lynch every day! Players can select "No lynch" as a vote - if "no lynch" wins, no one is lynched. This is to prevent humans from lynching unless they've gathered enough information to be confident.

After the movement period, every player is considered to have "entered a room." Now comes the Decision Making period - that is, what do you do with the room you're in? Who do you seer (if you've entered a seering room?) There are other types of rooms, but I'll get to those in a bit. Big catch #3 - humans can kill now, too. Everyone can be a vigilante as long as they're in the same room as the person they want to kill. You choose whether you want to attempt to kill the other person or not. If both players want to kill each other, neither dies. If one does but not the other, the unlucky one dies - but don't use killing as a means of self-defense, lest you kill your fellow humans who don't think you deserve killing. The one rule is: wolves take precedence over humans. Wolf and human try to kill each other, wolf wins. Unless the human is a Warrior (described further down), in which case the Warrior wins.

You also decide what you want to do with the terminal in the room. Examples of rooms I've thought up (note that all of these might not be included in the final version of the game, and some of these might show up only in small numbers. The more powerful ones, of course, are rarer. I have a LOT of thinking to do):

Seer terminal. Simple enough. Enter a name, it tells you if the target is wolf or not. In addition, it also tells you if the target has seered you. This is the alliance machine.

Psychic terminal. Tells you how many wolves are left.

Locator terminal. Pick a player. Tells you where that player is.

History terminal. Pick a room. Tells you who's been in that room, and when.

Map data terminal. Pick 5 rooms. Tells you what's inside those rooms.

Superlocator terminal. Tells you where everyone is.

Anonymous messaging terminal. Allows you to send a message anonymously to everyone.

Gas terminal. Pick a room. Whoever's in that room dies.

Guard terminal. Tells you where all enemy guards will go on their next move. This is explained below.

Now, you might think that all this seems too powerful for the humans. This is why the wolves have a few tricks up their sleeve.
First off, the wolves know at all times which rooms are occupied, though they don't know who's in them or what they're doing. (Thus, if you keep sticking around in the seer room, you're asking for it.)

Second, the wolves can also take action when they're inside a room.
Destroy - wolves can destroy a terminal if they find it.
Hacking - wolves can also hack a terminal. This makes the terminal generate random false information instead of real information.
Scramble - wolves can change the terminal itself to another type randomly. Meaning that a seer terminal might become an anonymous messaging terminal.

Finally, there are 10 enemy guards that wander around the base. During the movement phase, the destinations of these guards are randomized. If any player enters a room where there's an enemy guard, he is spotted the entire guard goes into Alert Mode - meaning for that Decision-Making phase, all terminals are rendered useless.

Also, humans get a choice between one of 3 roles at the beginning of the game. Players can either keep this secret or make it public.

WARRIOR - if the player finds an enemy guard, the player kills him. The guard still goes into Alert Mode, but on the plus side, that's one less guard to deal with now. Also, in player-to-player combat, the Warrior gets "first strike." Meaning if he chooses to kill the other person in the room, the other person dies, even if he also chooses to kill: unless he, too, is a warrior.

HACKER - can detect if a terminal has been hacked into and restore it. Also can detect if a terminal has been scrambled, in which case he can leave it as is or restore it to its original state. Cannot restore destroyed terminals.

SNEAKER - will never send the guards into Alert Mode, even if he's in the same room as one of them. Also, the Sneaker can use terminals even when the guard is in Alert Mode.

I'm thinking for this game, players will have to register alternate accounts for the game. This shouldn't be a problem for the TWG-obsessed. The reason for this is that the big supertrap for the wolves is the Science Lab - where they keep the nanomachines that turn you into a host body for a Patriot agent. If a human and a wolf both end up in that room together (by a cleverly laid trap by the wolves), the human's body is stolen and that human's password is given to the wolves, allowing them to post as that human at any time, send him to rooms, etc.

The object of the game is to destroy Metal Gear GHOST. To do that, the humans must:
1) Find the Weapons Storage room and obtain 2 Stinger missile launchers from inside. - 1 for 2 different humans.
2) Find the Commander's Room and obtain the code to the mechanical lock outside GHOST's door. Since it's a code, anyone who knows it can get in.
3) Disable the electronic lock on GHOST's door by sending two men to two different power generator rooms. Meanwhile, the 2 humans with Stingers must enter the door to GHOST at the same time. If this is done, the humans win. If the wolves manage to prevent the humans from doing this, they win.

The odds of the humans entering the correct 4 rooms on the first try are 00.001536 %. Thus, research and information sharing are necessary to succeed. But with all the information sharing, there's so much room for lying...both to protect yourself and hurt the enemy. This also allows so much role-playing in a completely different way...will you go solo? Will you help with reconnaisance? Help lead strikes? Will you be organized? Form sub-teams? Set traps? Avoid traps? Share information, or hoard it yourselves?

This seems complicated for a forum game, but I want to create an environment where the two teams can try to outwit each other as best they can. I want to create a sort of "playground" where the two teams, being smart enough and using the full resources of the information at their disposal as best they can, can utterly outwit each other.

I'm working out the logistics of this game because obviously a lot of balancing issues will have to come into play.

All comments are welcomed and encouraged.

[HansSky]

OMG.

I LOVE YOU CHARDISH.


Seriously, that sounds like the greatest idea yet. HUGE change, completely different than the regular TWGs. Having the game go with the PLOT, not the plot go with the GAME. It's original, fresh...I like it a lot. No sarcasm at all.

Of course there are going to be a few small things that need to be worked out, but you really have it very well done right now.

Fantastic.

[Tps222]

Wow, that's a great idea, but how many people are going to play, 50 rooms is a lot, so you might not be in the sane room with a person for a while. Also, how many days would this take, it looks long.

[Afrobean]

I love this idea, Chardish. I especially love the whole "wolves get the password" thing. That connects it to the story so well. I just think that the map should be shrunken a little. That many rooms would make the game last an obscene amount of time.

[flypie743]

That's awesome, Chardish. It's like a REVOLUTIONARY TWG.

[blahblah18]

great idea, math and logistics need to be worked out...
A) I'm almost positive this right now is too easay for the WOVES .. .10 guards, 16 players , probability leads to 14 different rooms, 10 covered by guards... its a high probability that we'l lbe in alert mode almost every single day. So those numbers need to be tweaked.

B) There will be stupid people that join, pick warrior and kill someoen every single time just so they don't die, and that owuld ruin the game. I'm not sure hwo to fix it, but I believe its definately a potential problem

C) what happens if say i'm holding a missile and am then killed? / what happens if 3 people are in a room at the same time?

D) there are a couple of others, but I need to think more on it. Great idea chardish, and I almost feel we could play that while playing a real TWG because this is basically like a completely different game.

[Squeek]

My super awesome idea that I mentioned in the postgame thread is as follows.

Play an FFR TWG game as if we were playing the at-home version. I.E. - Revealing the role upon death.

I'd probably have 3 wolves and 16 players. One would be a seer, one a guardian. Just like always. No Master Wolf.

~Squeek

[GuidoHunter]

chardish is win.

Of course, there are some issues that need to be dealt with, specifically the ones blah brought up. Another possible problem is the importance of AIM alliances in this. What would be discussed in the forums? It sounds to me like it'll just be "B-7 is a seer terminal" "Hmm...is he lying or telling the truth?". I foresee many small alliances starting, with the information being shared over AIM. I don't really see why you'd want to put everything you know on the forefront by posting to the forum.

But yeah, this sounds awesome, even though little like a TWG. I know I'll be all up for it.

Anyway, I'm off to OKC.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[evilbutterfly]

That deserves a whole new forum section. It also ought to have a different name, because it's so much different from TWG. Great idea and I love it, but it needs some details hammered out. I'd like to try the 3-team TWG first, and then get in on this; I hope it's all ready by then .

And blah, you forget about sneakers. They will lower the chance of alerting. Honestly, I'd be the sneaker, just so I could use the terminal. Also, to other people who think 50 rooms is too many: blah points out that if anything, it's too few. Maybe make it 64 (8 by 8) and a couple more people? I'm not sure. I suck with probability, so I'll leave the figuring of that up to you guys. Also, I like being able to pick class and having everybody be equal. I hated being stuck with guardian, but I would love to be able to know where the seer room is and go in occasionally.

Also, maybe more classes should be made? Also, the guards should only move 1 space at a time, rather than skipping around. That's more realistic, and it would help keep alert mode away. May be also make it so humans can sense guards around them in a 1-block radius, so if they move slowly through the rooms they can avoid them. Or maybe that skill could just be for one character class.

Oh, and is there a time when talking is not allowed, such as night in TWG? And will there be a different thing when a human kills and a wolf kills? That would require that the killer's name is not revealed, though. If it didn't give any indication whether the killer was human or wolf, that would make it hard to tell what may be going on. Then again, I know that if I ever entered a room with somebody in it I would immediately IM a friend in the game and say "this guy is in the room with me, if I die by wolfing it was him!!" That may make it too easy for humans, though. =\

It will take some balancing, but I'd love to serve in test games .

[Tasselfoot]

also, you say the wolves will know the location of every human... you sort of implied that they would know the contents of the room as well... that seems to be too unbalanced towards the wolves, to know what goodies lie in each room... the wolves could just hoard the best rooms and kill any humans who stumble in.

also, how will everyone know where everyone else is? will that be posted at the end of each movement phase? everyone's nanites should allow them to know the location of everyone else... which isn't THAT helpful.

also, in response to the mentioning of AIM would be the sole communication of everything... if we use anonymous usernames, it makes it very difficult to factor AIM in. in fact, it could be stated as a rule that AIM is 100% out of service for this game. all communication must be done over the forums or PMs. something like that.

if the wolves hack a humans account, is the human then dead and out of the game? and, would the newly hacked wolf count towards the wolves win at the end of the game, as the wolves would control their vote. that seems to be very powerful.