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Northern Isles Ideas


*i

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The new Machrone idea is interesting, but while it might make it more challenging for Machrone to win, I don't think it actually improves the game. It reduces the incentive for Machrone to talk to everyone and root out obscure bits of information: all he really needs to do is find out three roles from different factions by Day 3 (a trivial task most of the time), and keep the targets from knowing his role or keep himself protected somehow for one day each. It actually seems like it risks making Machrone a more passive role.

 

Also, it means that Machrone can't win if all the members of a faction die before he gets around to investigating that faction, and Stareye has expressed a dislike for win conditions that can become impossible to fulfil. So there'd at least need to be a backup condition.

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Or here's a thought: why not just have all the questions the moderator asks Machrone made public as soon as they're asked? That way, if somebody doesn't want an answer published, they have the option of killing Machrone that day. It's probably not the best option, but it at least puts Machrone in some danger.

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that's not a problem with the roles. You were a great gladwell, and a very apt player, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, I just felt that game was pretty unfair.


Okay. I get the point. There really is no need to rub it in any further.

A lot of interesting ideas. I'll have to look through them later because I need to get to work.
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Interesting game. A couple of points: Grouping people together knowing each other's identities has a serious drawback where one careless person can screw over their teammate as well as themselves. This lead to Marlenny virtually learning my identity before I did. I'm actually inclined to wonder if this isn't a minor factor in the poor performance of the Anama/DLs.

 

The DLs need to be changed. They take way too long to find their friends. Domont is lame. Here's my suggestion for fixing them.

 

Mage and Blademaster are unchanged. Domont now has the ability where he gets a dedicated account that he can use to post in the main thread to give the Blademaster and Mage orders and information publicly without any of them being aware of each other's identity. This would make Domont a very unique and interesting role to play, and add a lot of intrigue, I think.

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If the DLs are capable of communication, even one-way communication, they should be able to find each other quickly. All it takes is a message to all DLs with a keyword to use and it can be worked out. There's risk, but it's possible.

 

—Alorael, who isn't sure the large Anama alliance was productive. As he's said elsewhere, it would have worked if the Anama buckled down, met its own requirements, and ignored everyone else's. It ended up trying to balance too many things and didn't get a win for anyone. This game maybe could and should have been an Anama win at some point, but by the end of day 3, or maybe even day 2, it clearly wasn't going to happen. More people is not more victory.

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Somehow I misunderstood Ash's post to say that Domont would have blind one-way PMs. As actually written, it's definitely an interesting ability.

 

—Alorael, who sees more potential in using keywords in PMs to every player than in the main thread. Or even in other posts elsewhere on Spiderweb!

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Originally Posted By: Et in Arcadia Alorael


—Alorael, who isn't sure the large Anama alliance was productive. As he's said elsewhere, it would have worked if the Anama buckled down, met its own requirements, and ignored everyone else's. It ended up trying to balance too many things and didn't get a win for anyone. This game maybe could and should have been an Anama win at some point, but by the end of day 3, or maybe even day 2, it clearly wasn't going to happen. More people is not more victory.


I think I disagree with you, Alorael. Our only problem was not inviting /more/ people to the alliance, by means of a group PM. Had Excalibur been invited to work with all of us and not just Marlenny, it's not apparent to me that he would have killed Andraste. Then, despite us being tangled up with her commands, Thuryl would have been wand of deathed and I can only imagine the game would've ended in short order. He killed her right after all of our coin trades had gone through, so not only did she die, but we lost all of our coins. We were at such a huge advantage before that point in the game, that we almost nearly pulled it back together anyway through the combined efforts of doom warrior resurrecting marlenny, marl resurrecting andraste, and just about everyone other than thuryl working to get the items necessary to kill him. It was a simple misunderstanding of the two-trade rule that caused me to idiotically stop someone (doom warrior I think?) from wand of deathing him and instead let andraste attack on the final day. I think it was his anxiety about andraste's allegiance that cost us the game, and I never even talked to him once.

I think our alliance was utterly overpowered, and I'm going to stray further away from them in the future.

Originally Posted By: *I
Okay. I get the point. There really is no need to rub it in any further.


I was just irritated with people saying there was anything wrong with the anama, or how silly it was for people to join when they didn't absolutely need to. I felt like you did an amazing job changing how their roles/faction worked this game. I apologize for coming off as mean -- from my disappointment with how the game turned out it should be clear how much effort I put into it. I feel really bad for the 4 or 5 people I had been working with who did not win, even when we had a 6 on 1 at the end.

So I'd really like to take the opportunity to thank you for all your hard work on the game, *I. I can say without a doubt that Northern Isles has been more fun than most games with a 40-50 dollar price tag. I still don't know how you have managed them as well as you do.

Thank you for running them *I smile
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Originally Posted By: Ash Lael
Mage and Blademaster are unchanged. Domont now has the ability where he gets a dedicated account that he can use to post in the main thread to give the Blademaster and Mage orders and information publicly without any of them being aware of each other's identity. This would make Domont a very unique and interesting role to play, and add a lot of intrigue, I think.
Or he could submit orders to the moderator for either of those roles, which could potentially be posted in the main thread.
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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
On a similar note, I observed in this game in particular that the Pure Spirit had nothing to gain from joining the Anama, but he doesn't gain much in general either. He's already immune to magic, so in exchange for more enemies and more victory conditions he gets access to the Anama shop and the fairly weak "solicit donations" ability. Is this really a fair deal?


Allies, for one thing, can be very useful. And since I had an easy role, thought the anama were doing okay at the point I first wanted to join, I thought that I might as well.


Oh, and sporefrog, you stopped me from sending some money to Excalibur for him to buy the wand of death. He was planning on doing it before, but not if Marlenny came back, I think. Also, if I did give him the money and he did kill Thuryl, even though the rest of the anama would have one, you would have still lost, and so would have Tarson, since I wouldn't have been able to give him back the Holy symbol.
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Originally Posted By: Ash Lael
Mage and Blademaster are unchanged. Domont now has the ability where he gets a dedicated account that he can use to post in the main thread to give the Blademaster and Mage orders and information publicly without any of them being aware of each other's identity. This would make Domont a very unique and interesting role to play, and add a lot of intrigue, I think.


Problem: what's to stop Domont from saying "Mage and Blademaster, PM our target list to this account?" Once they did that, they'd all find each other and Domont's public-posting ability would be redundant.

Apart from that, the concept is interesting.
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That's fixed by CM's suggestion. If PMs are routed through the moderator there's no way to have anyone PM without revealing yourself as Domont.

 

—Alorael, who of course can see having the DLs PM a new account that just acts as a buffer. Fortunately, that's obvious cheating and can be treated accordingly.

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I think it would be too hard for the DLs to coordinate in such a way. If all they have is one-way communication from Domont to the two others, the Blademaster (say) can't reply to an order with "I can't do that because X knows who I am and anyway I've already acted". Also, the DLs wouldn't be able to trade items.

 

Gladwell starts off knowing the Bound Servant, the Anama Priest and Micklebur start off knowing each other; I think the DLs should start off knowing each other too. By the time we managed to get in contact with each other, other alliances were further along. I'm not sure how to rework Domont's role in light of this.

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There seems to be hesitance to make DL communication and identification too easy. A lot of that is probably based on the fact that they, unlike Gladwell and the Anama, aren't based on recruitment. Once they've found each other they have their little alliance, and they're fairly well-suited to killing everyone they need dead.

 

—Alorael, who considers Micklebur roughly equivalent to the Blademaster. With the mage, though, the DLs can use both physical and magic attacks reliably. Domont's role needs to be equally productive, and coordination of those two is a step.

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No. The Blademaster is the Anama power-hitter just like Micklebur is the the Anama's brute squad. The Anama are uniquely unsuited to providing magical attacks pretty much ever, though, while the DL team comes with magic built in. There's no one immune to the entire group the way anyone immune to physical has a good chance of holding off the Anama.

 

—Alorael, who isn't arguing that the Darkside Mage is strong. He just thinks that the Mage and Blademaster together make a more useful combination than Micklebur and just about anyone likely to work with him.

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Originally Posted By: Doom Warrior


Oh, and sporefrog, you stopped me from sending some money to Excalibur for him to buy the wand of death. He was planning on doing it before, but not if Marlenny came back, I think. Also, if I did give him the money and he did kill Thuryl, even though the rest of the anama would have one, you would have still lost, and so would have Tarson, since I wouldn't have been able to give him back the Holy symbol.


There was enough money floating around to buy an artifact, keep the holy symbol, and buy the wand of death. I calculated it. Andraste just had to be the one to use the wand of death since it would give her 40 coins.
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Role idea. Complex, and difficult for the player handling it, but I think it could add an interesting dynamic:

 

Unspecified Services Operative

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immunity: None

 

Ability: In return for an item or 15 coins, can be hired by one player to investigate another player's skill, immunities, nationality, or attack. For 30 coins or an item of equal (or greater) value, can be hired to investigate a player's role. Both the Operative and the person who hired him will learn the chosen information.

 

Such an exchange counts as a trade, and the operative can perform an unlimited number of these per day. However, the Operative cannot actively use this ability.

 

The Operative can only receive coins and items; he cannot give or trade them.

 

Goal: Ensure three selected players win by the end of the game. Of these players, one is guaranteed to be a/an Anama/Darksider/Gladwell, and one will be an enemy. For each target player who dies, you must correctly identify the roles of three random players to the moderator instead.

 

The three players' goals will not have unresolvable conflict, nor will their victory conditions mandate your death. You are automatically enemies with anyone who is an enemy with your target players. If you attack one of your target players, they will always win first strike against you.

 

The odds of you being a Darksider and/or Gladwell random target are three times greater than normal (3/13 and 3/16, respectively).

 

Notes: Is a target of the Empire Spy and Adventurer.

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An idea

 

Hrickis

Nationality : Avernum

Skill : Standard

Attack : Magical

Immunity : None

 

Ability : Can target a dead person and raise them as

 

Ghoul

Skill :Standard

Attack :Physical

Immunity:None

 

Shade

Skill :Standard

Attack :Magical

Immunity:None

 

Hrickis can only raise one shade or skeleton at time

 

Goal:Necromancer and random magic user must dead

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With respect to new roles in general, I've been holding off on doing that because we have plenty of existing roles that probably need to be balanced and tested.

 

With US operative, the victory condition alternate is simply too easy and players will just default to the identifying. While it's interesting to need to be hired, I think 30 coins is a bargain for outright learning someone's role. You may have noticed that there are very few things that actually outright tell a role these days. I think a lot of this could be actually merged with the Empire Spy.

 

With Hrickis, I'm not sure what he adds to the game dynamic. So you raise people. Then what? The role is ill defined at this point. Further, the victory condition seems rather easy.

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Just some comments on the DLs.

 

The DLs need to be able to find eachother quickly to have a chance. It's extremely hard for the DLs to form an alliance with anyone else, they start off with at least a third of the players as enemies, and there's really not any benefit for others to work with them.

 

The Keyword idea could work well, it just seems a little too slow, especially since people can be on at entirely different times. This last game, wz. As and I happened to bump into eachother near the end of day 1, and even though I got the keyword to Ash, it took nearly a day for him to get a hold of me(highlighting the availability issue, no way to work around that though), and by that time, the three of us were dead it seemed.

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Also, we all knew who you were as soon as you said 'Panic Cake'...which is the real problem with the keyword; no-one's ever been able to pull it off without giving themselves away (I know this was my first game, but I've looked through previous games and the keyword post is always really obvious).

 

-E-

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What about taking the coin theft from the Adventurer, and maybe giving him a murder for hire ability?

 

Any other role, could, as an alternate ability, contract the Adventurer, something like: Contract Adventurer-20 coins-Target Micklebur. The Adventurer would of course have to accept the contract, Accept Contract from Machrone, for instance. Then while attacking the target of the contract he has the Power ability, then gets the coins if successful.

 

The down right thievery gave me this idea.

 

Highwayman

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day, you steal either one random item or all of the targets coins.

 

Victory condition: Have at least 150 coins by end of game.

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Originally Posted By: *i
With respect to new roles in general, I've been holding off on doing that because we have plenty of existing roles that probably need to be balanced and tested.

True. However, seeing a few entirely new roles in the game would be nice, and it's doubtful that the original roles will ever be totally balanced.

Quote:
With US operative, the victory condition alternate is simply too easy and players will just default to the identifying.

They can't just default to the identifying; they can only do the identifying when one of the players they protect dies.

Here's an alternative alternative, though: If the player dies, you receive the dead player's victory conditions, AND have to take out the person who killed him. So even if the player dies, you're still on the hook for netting what would have been a win for that player, and avenging his death.

Quote:
While it's interesting to need to be hired, I think 30 coins is a bargain for outright learning someone's role. You may have noticed that there are very few things that actually outright tell a role these days.

60 coins, then? Or just remove it outright?
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Sorry for the double post, but I figured this warranted a separate post. An item idea:

 

Null Crystal (Base Value: 30) - Creates a nullifying field around the user. Any item used on, around, or by the user will fail.

 

To elaborate:

  • If someone targeted the null player with an item (Fury Crossbow, Wand of Death, Poison Potion, etc.), that item would fail.
  • If the null player attacks or is attacked by someone who has an item's effects active (Box of Traps, Heroic Brew, Ironskin Balm, Warding Crystal, Skribbane), that item's effects are canceled out and removed.
  • If an item activates defensively during an attack, that item will fail.
  • If the Flaming Sword, Fury Crossbow, or Assassin's Leather are used/active during a battle with the null player, its effects will be nullified. The wielder will default to a normal attack, even if the artifact is used defensively. The Assassin's Leather will not protect a player from poison in the presence of a null player.
  • If the null player uses an item, that item will fail, even if it's targeted on someone else.
  • If a player uses Chitrach Eggs, the null player is immune to its effects so long as the field is active.
  • Clover Boots, the Holy Symbol, and Null Crystals are completely exempt from the null effects.
  • Ability-bestowed statuses, attacks, and effects are not affected.

 

The idea here is to counterbalance the numerous items that enter play. Probably a bit overkill, but it could easily be scaled back to just items that activate around the player.

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