Post by Judge Sam on Aug 12, 2009 15:12:59 GMT -5
I want to talk a little bit about the roles of Spies 6. They weren't as splashy as some of the ones before, and that was partially intended. (Though also three really cool ones didn't really have a chance to "go off" because they got eliminated right away.) There also wasn't as many as Spies 5 which is definitely a good thing. I can't keep up making 5 new roles per game every game that's not sustainable haha.
One of my goals for roles in Spies 6 was a new idea for me. The idea was to have a set of roles that interlock, that all can affect each other, that all can be moved around. This idea is standard in mafia games with roleblockers and bus drivers and that stuff. I hadn't really used anything but roleblockers until Spies 5, where I had a few things like that where you could affect others roles. I really really liked how that turned out, with all the strategies, deception, change-ups, and how everything worked with roleblockers, bus drivers, switchers, etc. It really brought something new to the game.
So for Spies 6 I wanted to expand upon that and the original idea was to make every role part of the big cog-machine, each role having it's part and interlocking sort of.
I started off with:
1) Choose Your Own Role ~ I had known I was going to do this for awhile
2) Citizen Immunity from Exile Maker
3) Some frustrating thing that I spent a bit on the last two games only to be unable to find a way to make it work
4) A few ideas which weren't cool enough
5) A few old ideas which I still couldn't get to work properly
6) What eventually became the Astrologer
7) Eugenicist
8) What would eventually become the Jailer
So here's my theory from my notebook:
Idea: Most roles should have the potential to be stopped, rerouted, or changed by others. Including Spy roles.
Types of roles:
- "DO" roles. These enact something that happens, good or bad, some power. Example: Jenya's Protector, a Doctor. Can include public or private choices. 3-5 of these. (You need DO roles to have stuff to block or move around.)
- Transfer roles. These affect the Do Roles. Example: Copier, Transferer, Switcher.
- Roleblocker at the source.
- 'See'-er roles such as the Watcher.
So then I classified all the roles I had and threw out some really cool-sounding ones that sadly, I couldn't get to work right properly in game. All neat ideas, but they have some issue with them that's dumb and I can't fix. And also I worked a lot on the mechanics of the new roles to get them where I wanted. At this point I'm getting closer to what will appear in the game.
I'll talk shortly about some and then leave others for longer explanation.
1) Choose Your Own Role - I wrote a confessional on this which I will show and add my very few additional thoughts to since this didn't affect anything!
2) Jenya's Immune from Immunity / Exile Protector. This came out of the Protector role from Spies 5 which I liked and wanted to do again.
The problem with just making it always Immunity from Exile was this: I had voting twists every other round. It is for that reason that this game had no roles, including Choose Your Own Role entries, that dealt with people's votes (extra votes, steal votes, nullify vote, etc etc etc.) All of that was cut out from the start because having to factor that into every voting twist would be even more of a massive headache than it already was haha.
Thankfully I could get around this and still have the role by doing an Immunity from Exile during the normal voting rounds, and an Immunity from Imprisonment during voting shift rounds. Worked out great!
Well, one weird thing about it. To do Immunity from Imprisonment, you need to give the Spies at least 24 hours after they see who is Immune from Imprisonment to make a new choice if their first choice is made Immune. 24 hours might not be enough actually, as that happened once during this game to disastrous results. So there was some sort of "pre-Imprisonment" deadline which Jenya had to meet, but then Jason was the Spy Destiny Deflector, so now he had to meet that deadline too if he wanted to deflect Jenya's choice. (otherwise he would just see who was Immune via Spies, then could deflect it away, which is dumb) So that was weird... the only other idea I can think of is to have that person choose who gets Immune the Imprisonment before, then wait 5 days for that Immunity to actually go through... which has it's obvious problems.
3) What became the Astrologer, possibly more on this later, possibly not, as it wasn't used so I'm not sure if I want to talk about it.
4) Transferer aka Jason's Spy Destiny Deflector - Only interesting thing to say about this is that I didn't want it to be like Katie's Soul Searcher role from last game which copied or transfered... some things came up with that that was slightly too powerful. Oh and also I guess that giving it to a Spy was really interesting.
5) What became the Jailer, possibly more on this later, possibly not, as it wasn't really used that much so I'm not sure if I want to talk about it.
6) Watcher - I'll write up something about this as I'd like your advice and it is a big new design space I wanted to explore.
7) Eugenicist - This didn't really happen much last game, and it didn't really happen much this game either. Maybe it would have been better in Spies 1-4 where there were more inactives. This game didn't even have a Citizen inactive themselves out of Exile! <3 I still love the role, though tbh I was still a little scared of the potential investigations William could have had even though there was like 1 or 2 of WEAK ones! I wonder what that says about investigations. On one hand, I do like how some investigations can affect the game, on the other hand, I don't like how investigations can affect the game. I'd be interested in your opinion on them in the game of Spies, because they are quite the normal feature of regular mafia.
With the Eugenicist, I want to make a game that rewards activity and pushes inactivity which should be obvious haha. One way I do this is with self-vote penalties at Exile. If there was any sort of game where the way to win was to be boring, whether it be a sport or a party game or whatever, that game would suck. So I'm always going to try and build aspects into the game to advantage activity and disadvantage crappiness, but perhaps this Eugenicist thing isn't the way to go. Hmm...
So those were the roles which, if anything, I think didn't turn out enough splashiness. How many of you knew these roles during the game, and which points did you know them? Jenya told people about her role episode 2 or 3, and Jason told Jenya like episode 4, but I'm not sure at what point they became public. Probably quite a bit far down the road. The Jailer was going to be juicy but then you kicked out Donald right after. ;_; (Jailer was supposed to be unveiled episode 3 I believe, but Donald didn't submit a choice. -_-)
One of my goals for roles in Spies 6 was a new idea for me. The idea was to have a set of roles that interlock, that all can affect each other, that all can be moved around. This idea is standard in mafia games with roleblockers and bus drivers and that stuff. I hadn't really used anything but roleblockers until Spies 5, where I had a few things like that where you could affect others roles. I really really liked how that turned out, with all the strategies, deception, change-ups, and how everything worked with roleblockers, bus drivers, switchers, etc. It really brought something new to the game.
So for Spies 6 I wanted to expand upon that and the original idea was to make every role part of the big cog-machine, each role having it's part and interlocking sort of.
I started off with:
1) Choose Your Own Role ~ I had known I was going to do this for awhile
2) Citizen Immunity from Exile Maker
3) Some frustrating thing that I spent a bit on the last two games only to be unable to find a way to make it work
4) A few ideas which weren't cool enough
5) A few old ideas which I still couldn't get to work properly
6) What eventually became the Astrologer
7) Eugenicist
8) What would eventually become the Jailer
So here's my theory from my notebook:
Interlocking Role Sets
Idea: Most roles should have the potential to be stopped, rerouted, or changed by others. Including Spy roles.
Types of roles:
- "DO" roles. These enact something that happens, good or bad, some power. Example: Jenya's Protector, a Doctor. Can include public or private choices. 3-5 of these. (You need DO roles to have stuff to block or move around.)
- Transfer roles. These affect the Do Roles. Example: Copier, Transferer, Switcher.
- Roleblocker at the source.
- 'See'-er roles such as the Watcher.
So then I classified all the roles I had and threw out some really cool-sounding ones that sadly, I couldn't get to work right properly in game. All neat ideas, but they have some issue with them that's dumb and I can't fix. And also I worked a lot on the mechanics of the new roles to get them where I wanted. At this point I'm getting closer to what will appear in the game.
I'll talk shortly about some and then leave others for longer explanation.
1) Choose Your Own Role - I wrote a confessional on this which I will show and add my very few additional thoughts to since this didn't affect anything!
2) Jenya's Immune from Immunity / Exile Protector. This came out of the Protector role from Spies 5 which I liked and wanted to do again.
The problem with just making it always Immunity from Exile was this: I had voting twists every other round. It is for that reason that this game had no roles, including Choose Your Own Role entries, that dealt with people's votes (extra votes, steal votes, nullify vote, etc etc etc.) All of that was cut out from the start because having to factor that into every voting twist would be even more of a massive headache than it already was haha.
Thankfully I could get around this and still have the role by doing an Immunity from Exile during the normal voting rounds, and an Immunity from Imprisonment during voting shift rounds. Worked out great!
Well, one weird thing about it. To do Immunity from Imprisonment, you need to give the Spies at least 24 hours after they see who is Immune from Imprisonment to make a new choice if their first choice is made Immune. 24 hours might not be enough actually, as that happened once during this game to disastrous results. So there was some sort of "pre-Imprisonment" deadline which Jenya had to meet, but then Jason was the Spy Destiny Deflector, so now he had to meet that deadline too if he wanted to deflect Jenya's choice. (otherwise he would just see who was Immune via Spies, then could deflect it away, which is dumb) So that was weird... the only other idea I can think of is to have that person choose who gets Immune the Imprisonment before, then wait 5 days for that Immunity to actually go through... which has it's obvious problems.
3) What became the Astrologer, possibly more on this later, possibly not, as it wasn't used so I'm not sure if I want to talk about it.
4) Transferer aka Jason's Spy Destiny Deflector - Only interesting thing to say about this is that I didn't want it to be like Katie's Soul Searcher role from last game which copied or transfered... some things came up with that that was slightly too powerful. Oh and also I guess that giving it to a Spy was really interesting.
5) What became the Jailer, possibly more on this later, possibly not, as it wasn't really used that much so I'm not sure if I want to talk about it.
6) Watcher - I'll write up something about this as I'd like your advice and it is a big new design space I wanted to explore.
7) Eugenicist - This didn't really happen much last game, and it didn't really happen much this game either. Maybe it would have been better in Spies 1-4 where there were more inactives. This game didn't even have a Citizen inactive themselves out of Exile! <3 I still love the role, though tbh I was still a little scared of the potential investigations William could have had even though there was like 1 or 2 of WEAK ones! I wonder what that says about investigations. On one hand, I do like how some investigations can affect the game, on the other hand, I don't like how investigations can affect the game. I'd be interested in your opinion on them in the game of Spies, because they are quite the normal feature of regular mafia.
With the Eugenicist, I want to make a game that rewards activity and pushes inactivity which should be obvious haha. One way I do this is with self-vote penalties at Exile. If there was any sort of game where the way to win was to be boring, whether it be a sport or a party game or whatever, that game would suck. So I'm always going to try and build aspects into the game to advantage activity and disadvantage crappiness, but perhaps this Eugenicist thing isn't the way to go. Hmm...
So those were the roles which, if anything, I think didn't turn out enough splashiness. How many of you knew these roles during the game, and which points did you know them? Jenya told people about her role episode 2 or 3, and Jason told Jenya like episode 4, but I'm not sure at what point they became public. Probably quite a bit far down the road. The Jailer was going to be juicy but then you kicked out Donald right after. ;_; (Jailer was supposed to be unveiled episode 3 I believe, but Donald didn't submit a choice. -_-)