The next game

[iggymatrixcounter]

Since the current twg is so dead, I want you all to look at the game I want to host next. I'm making this thread because I expect a lot of initial questions and do not want to clog up the next potential host thread with questions about my game, ask them all here and let's work it out. It has a lot of complex rules so I need lots of people to criticize it to see if there's any major issues with it. I have done a lot of work on it, but if it's deemed too unbalanced, I want to find that out now before I think it's ready.

I was thinking about running this as a speed game: (24 hour nights and days) It seems like, with the except of day1, there is little to no activity the first 24 hours of a day. And I do not want this game to DRAG on, I want to keep everyone interested.

ANY comments or opinions are welcome.... rip it to shreds if you want XD.

TWG ####: FINAL FANTASY VII


I have been sitting on this for a long time, it implements a lot of ideas I've had for twg but never sat down to balance them very well... until now.


Behold!!! The HARDEST, most COMPLEX twg game.


20 players:


4 wolves
5 blues
11 humans


WOLVES:
sephiroth- (master wolf) Infused with Jenova cells, Sephiroth is able to hide from the seer and can use his sword to make an independent kill twice during the game (but not on the same nights) Has the option of using any of his items privately by telling the host (however they will not take effect until the host posts the effects) .
rufus- (normal wolf) corporate leader, wants to stop AVALANCHE (the human/blue team).
professor hojo- performs experiments on humans. Once per game, he may 'experiment' on a dead person and if that person comes back alive, they come back as a wolf and win with the wolves.
vincent- (undead lonewolf seer) sends a PM to the host and finds out if they are wolf/human/blue. Does not know who the other wolves are and does not send in a wolf kill unless he's the last wolf alive. (He will know if he's the last wolf alive).


- Each night the wolf team (excluding vincent) will get to pick up to 3 players and see what items those players currently have.


BLUES:
cloud- mason, knows tifa and barret. Has the option of using any of his items privately by telling the host (however, they will not take effect until the host posts the effects.) Once in the game can use his sword to kill one player during the night.
tifa- mason, knows cloud and barret, can choose to use her limit (see LIMITS below) at any level but cannot level up after she uses this power.
barret- mason, knows cloud and tifa and is able to make one extra private attack vote each day.
aeris- At the beginning of day 5 she will be “sacrificed” (killed instantly) and will revive 3 players of her choice. (She MUST pick 3 players).
cait sith- 'modified' seer (gets a red/green result), gets 3 seer picks to be used on non consecutive nights, after those 3 he must “give” an item to the host for every other pick he wants to make. Can “gamble away” his powers to instantly kill any wolf he has seer'd and become a psychic for the rest of the game.


- Each night the mason team will get to pick up to 4 players and see what items they currently have.


I will answer any questions you have about the roles during the game, but I want activity so unless you are that role, you will have to ask questions IN THE THREAD and I will answer them publicly. If you're confused about your own role, you can ask me privately if you want. Too many games are played behind the scenes and I want to see more public posting.


VOTING:


Voting will be very unique in this game. You can use your vote one of two ways:


1) LEVEL UP: During the first half of the day, you can vote for yourself and you will level up the next day. If you do not level up in the first half of the day, you cannot level up for that day. You use your vote to level up by voting for yourself AND UNDERLINING your name. (But I'll accept level up votes that ask to be leveled up I guess.... but it has to be bolded or I'll probably miss it.) (see PLAYER LEVELS below to see the benefits of each level)


2) ATTACK: (When you vote for someone, it cannot be changed.) You will cause an “attack” on that person. Each person has 3 'hit points' to start and if all your HP is gone, you are dead. (So it is possible to have multiple lynches in one day, but there will be at least one lynch a day so highest number of votes will be lynched as in a normal game) At the end of the day, anyone who does not have any hit points will be “lynched.” This means that there are no insta lynches. If you have no hit points then you are still alive for the rest of the day and can continue talking and using items etc but at the end of the day, you are no longer alive and cannot participate.


For this game only, if you get a phantom, you will level down. If you are at level 1 and get a phantom, you will be at level 0 and your vote will not count, (you must level up back to level 1). If you are deemed too inactive, I will replace you without asking you if you are still playing.




ITEMS (MATERIA):


These items will be around for anyone to pick up. You can hold 2 items but you can only pick up 1 item per day. If you die with them unused they are lost forever (no corpse looting). You cannot pick up an item unless your level is equal to or greater than the item's level. You cannot give items to other players. At the beginning of each day, a list of available items will be posted by the host. Some items are specific as to how you can use them, but as a general rule, you can use them pubicly (posting on the thread that you're using it), or privately (telling the host to use it for you.)


The items: (they are all one time use unless otherwise stated)
LEVEL 1: (20 total)
(10) ice --stops a player from using 1 attack vote
(5) restore --reduces a vote on any player, needs to be used before their death
(2) poison --negates the effects of a restore item
(3) steal – takes a lvl 1 or 2 item from a player (when you use this item, you may pick up to 3 players and see what items they have and may steal from any one of them, even if your current level cannot use it. But you must steal from one of those 3 players).




LEVEL 2: (10 total)
(5) earth –stops a player from making ANY public votes AND cannot level up
(3) revive – if you die, you come back with your life restored (used automatically and is immune to hojo's experiments)
(2) destruct – counts your attack vote as 2 votes (must be used publicly when you make your vote. EX: “I use my destruct item and vote, player X” Player X gets two votes on him.)




LEVEL 3: (5 total)
(1) HP absorb – kills a player instantly (must be used publicly and you cannot vote or level up for the day) and steals their current hit points (effect wears off at the end of the day)
(2) barrier – it's effect is immediate and stops any items from being used against you for the day.
(2) counter – any new votes on you creates a vote for the player who voted for you. (must be activated by the player, can be used during the night and will serve as a guard and the player will not die during that night and will kill whoever attacked him)




LEVEL MAX: (3 total)
(1)KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND!!!!! - kills up to 4 players of your choice (cannot be used to autowin the game if it's used by the wolves and this item is nullified if it kills all the wolves)

(1)PHOENIX - You cannot be killed for the day and you can resurrect up to 2 people (a wolf can only resurrect one of his teammates. If a wolf is resurrected, their role powers will be neutralized and will be a normal wolf. I.E. If you resurrect Sephiroth, he will not be a MW, cannot make anymore independent kills, etc. He is just a normal wolf.)


(1)ENEMY AWAY- You cannot be killed for the day and you get 6 more votes. They can be either public OR private (but you cannot use any of your votes to “kill” a player that day)


PLAYER LEVELS:


level 0: you cannot use your vote to attack, only to level up
level 1 (starting lvl): you are like any normal player
level 2: you gain 1 extra HP
level 3: your “attack vote” counts as 2 votes.
level MAX: you can hold 3 items, can use your LIMIT, and are immune to being instantly killed for the day.


LIMITS:


limits are special powers, in the FFVII game you used them as a super attack and each player had a unique limit attack. A player can use his limit when he reaches the max level.


Human limit: instant seer pick (use it whenever you want!! get the results ASAP!!! comes back as either red/green, MW rule applies)
barrit limit: may instantly kill 1 person and learn what role they were
tifa: ultimate instant seer pick (just like a human's report but will see the MW as red)
cloud: kills hojo and his minion (if applicable), cannot be used to win the game, will fail otherwise. OR receives 3 extra public or private attack votes (private votes will not take effect until the host posts them.)
aeris: Can choose up to 2 more people to revive when she is “sacrificed.”
cait sith: may become a normal seer without any restrictions OR get 2 free picks (can be used at the same time but are given normally and are not instant).
Sephiroth: kills cloud instantly. OR kills barret instantly. OR kills tifa instantly. (these kills are immune to any effects/items they may have on) OR gives you 3 extra public or private attack votes (private votes will not take effect until the host posts them).
Rufus: revives hojo. OR makes Rufus immune to death for the day it's used.
Professor hojo: may experiment on another dead human. (Only one wolf 'minion' can be raised up in the game however. There will be no way to get two minions)
Vincent: (automatically used) the host gives him sephiroth's name.


(hojo's minion has no limit no matter what role they used to be)




ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:


Due to the EXTREME complexities of the game, there will be no default win conditions for the wolves. The humans have to kill ALL wolves to win, and the wolves have to kill ALL humans to win. It may seem unfair for the wolves, but I think they have enough gun power to make anything happen, as do the humans. (However, default win conditions are taken into consideration for the use of some items, so they will still have some application to this game. i.e. 'the knights of the round' item kills 4 people instantly but has restrictions based on what the default win conditions would be for that player.)


Some things are referred to as either public or private. Public means just that, it's something you do on the thread itself. Private actions work by sending a PM to the host, and the host posts them whenever he gets a chance. There are advantages to both; public events have instant effects while private ones only take effect when the host posts them.


The host will be posting at various times through out the day and will update the player and voting list. People CAN die midday and at any time, votes can come from no where, and the game can (and probably will) change rapidly, so be sure to keep checking the thread to see who's dead, who's alive, and who has votes on them.


A lot of what happens is real time and not dependent on the end or start of a day. Example: you privately ask to use a steal item, during the course of the day, someone publicly uses an HP absorb on you (which kills you instantly), since the host did not put your steal item into effect, you did not steal any items, even if you technically used it before you died.


I realize that it's going to be SUPER hard to even balance this game. I've tried as much as I could to make it as fair as possible but there's always something that comes up that the host did nt plan on. If that's the case I will attempt to rebalance the game with the following random events if one team found a loophole in my game that got them an unfair advantage:


Human helps: 1) Each mason alive will be able to use their limit.OR
2) the effects of an aeris' sacrifice will occur even if aeris is dead. (she will pick who to raise up even if she's dead)


Wolf helps: 1) Each wolf alive will be able to use their limit. OR
2) A wolf chosen by the wolf team will become another “sephiroth” and have all his powers. OR
3) The wolves can pick up to 3 players to become millers. (millers are humans that are seered red)


I reserve the right to use any of these events in the game to help a team out that was dealt a raw deal in case I missed something that gave one team a huge advantage. I may use one or two depending on what I feel is fair to everyone. However if the wolves all get voted on day1 and die off fast, I will not help them out, that's just how the game goes sometimes XD. But if the humans find a way to cripple the wolves that was not planning, I will help the wolves to bring the game back into balance.


INITIAL STRATEGY: (you do not have to read this if you don't want to)


I have hosted and tested enough games to know that the theoretical and actual strategies usually vary. However since this game can have many people not knowing what to do at all, here are a few hints:


Humans: your goal is still to kill the wolves, but now you also have the power to make yourself stronger by voting for yourself to level up. It makes you harder to kill and allows you to get more powerful items. The mason team will probably do a lot of the heavy work but they cannot do it all since they only know so much. The seer does not have as much power as usual and will probably not lead any alliances since there is no guardian in this game. Aeris' power helps out A LOT by bringing back potential humans by the truck load, but watch out for hojo's ability to turn a dead player resurrected into a wolf!


Wolves: as always, you must kill ALL the humans, it may be easy to dodge kills early on but you may want to save your instant kills towards the end so you can break through the rest of the humans without any surprises. Be careful about instances where you could potentially give yourself away by item use. If you instantly kill someone who is regarded as human, would there be any way that it could come back to you and used against you later?


To all: Make sure you know the voting chart well because after all the hit points on a player are gone, there is no reason to vote for them as they are technically dead. Since you cannot change your vote, you will have wasted it. (unless you just want to overkill them lol).


You better be active, I don't care what you know about twg or how good you think you are, if you're not checking the thread then you are going to miss a lot. If you don't stay around to pick up items, your power in the game will be limited. There is unlimited potential and anything can happen so there's no way you can say to yourself, “we it looks like the humans have this game in the bag, I'll just wait it out.” EVERY player is valuable, EVERY player is needed, and NO ONE will be doing the thinking for you.

[AC1speakerbox]

I like this.

You really shouldn't be looking ahead though, even if the current twg is dead. =/

[A2P]

i feel sorry for anyone who plays as Vincent

[Afrobean]

How about this:

If you want to play a roleplaying game, play a roleplaying game. Mafia is NOT dungeons and dragons. If you want something like that, don't try to BS and claim it as TWG. And hey, you could always run a RPG alongside TWG as a completely separate thing.

Because that's what it is: a completely separate thing.

[jugglinguy]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

How about this:

If you want to play a roleplaying game, play a roleplaying game. Mafia is NOT dungeons and dragons. If you want something like that, don't try to BS and claim it as TWG. And hey, you could always run a RPG alongside TWG as a completely separate thing.

Because that's what it is: a completely separate thing.

This times a billion.


People can't even play normal games well... what makes you think anyone could handle all this bull**** added to it?

[iggymatrixcounter]

I do realize that I am taking a completely different approach to this. However, my concern with twgs is that they have two flaws when done on an internet forum: 1) alliances break the game 2) activity always hurts.

IRL mafia is quite fun because you can see faces, EVERYONE participates, and the game lasts only minutes. When you stretch a game out over the course of days and weeks, it's only fun and interesting for a few game days then it ends up being dead because most people lose interest.

Yes, maybe it's no longer mafia by doing these rules, but I think the core ideas are still there, after all mafia is role playing. I would not define it as an RPG per say but you have a role that you "act" out.

And if the players of the game really do not want to play it, they will not vote for it. I'm sure there will be other, more conventional ideas that want to be run and if people want to play those rules, then that's fine.

twg has changed a lot in two years. When I played, people talked, they brought up weird ideas, crazy thoughts, there was angry yelling both on and off the thread. But it was part of the game. You didn't think someone was a wolf because they were an idiot, you just thought they were an idiot and moved on. Nowadays it's a 'mob' mentality of if you do not fit in, you're a wolf. So that KILLS activity because no one wants to post anything for fear of being lynched. twg now is played through alliances hunting wolves and talking with multiple people over AIM when it used to be a more open forum type style. I want to play games that not only encourage individual thinking and deducting, but also keeps things interesting for the whole game, not ones that create alliances with a dictator running everything and calling all the shots. (Now don't get me wrong, I'll play any style that's best for my team, I'll be the dictator if I can, but if you CAN'T set it up, then that's the best way to stop people from doing it)

If anyone can achieve this in their game ideas, that is the true essence of twg IMO (at least on a forum, IRL is totally different).

[AC1speakerbox]

Good point

[clarinet89]

I feel like I need TWG lessons. If there's some way you vets can make that happen, go for it cuz I'd be willing to learn.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by clarinet89

I feel like I need TWG lessons. If there's some way you vets can make that happen, go for it cuz I'd be willing to learn.

Pay close attention to games, particularly ones where posters have very lengthy discussions in the thread. Reading and thoroughly understanding long posts is the best way to get a feel for the sort of thing that should be going on here as well as the sort of mindset that veteran players get into during the game.

However, most people these days won't do big posts and would rather have all days filled with empty discussion and safety votes. But really, the best way to learn is by doing.

And Iggy, what I meant is that if you want to run a game so off-center from Mafia, you should just go wild with the format and run it as an independent and unrelated forum game. Chardish did this with Infiltration and I think it might have happened with a few other games. If you think people would rather play this sort of game than TWG, don't try to claim that it's still TWG. Just call it something else and do it separate apart from traditional games.

[iggymatrixcounter]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

And Iggy, what I meant is that if you want to run a game so off-center from Mafia, you should just go wild with the format and run it as an independent and unrelated forum game.

Point taken. But if there are still any problems with it, might as well continue to work on it here rather than reposting it in a separate forum.

[AC1speakerbox]

I'd love to.

[Bolth mannn]

wouldnt it be obvious who professor hojo revived, in which case the revived would be instantly killed?

[iggymatrixcounter]

Originally Posted by Bolth mannn

wouldnt it be obvious who professor hojo revived, in which case the revived would be instantly killed?

Not necessarily. Hojo does not revive this person himself. Someone/something else has to revive the minion. (But the player reviving would not know he was a minion).

Ex: say player X is dead, and hojo "experiments" on player X. This player does not come back to life automatically. Now say aeris is sacrificed and now some people come back to life, she would probably pick people who were wolfed since they are most likely humans, but player X was wolfed and is now revived. Instead of coming back as a human, he comes back as a wolf.

Now there are ways to tell he would be a minion, because the minion does not have any powers, so if the minion that came back was a blue, it could be obvious that he is a minion.

[Litodude]

IN

oh wait this is the discussion thread? **** that, tl;dr