iDB Community Forum

I'm cataloging and refining the ideas I've had to use in WW games, some are mechanics, others are variations, others still are only themes...

The List (updated nov 11)

1. Superhero, sidekick, villain:
You have powers and weaknesses, one of the things you know is the name of the player with your sidekick. The bad news is that the villans get bonuses if they use a power on the right hero. Hero's will be powerful, sidekicks under powered, but the villans will be the balance to hero's.

2 Blind wolves: Katya
Wolves do not even know how many they are. In the darkness they strike, the villagers they hide, we will see if blindness takes victory from them.

3 Bloody Mary:
Massive shields, and massive life. If you think your safe and can take your time, think quick, and do not say her name...

4 I'm in the Mood:
Six teams, three of you are innocent today, but will you be innocent tomorrow, or them, or anybody? Shame that your powers only work when the stars are right, or it would be easier to take down those infadels.

5 Abomination: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00523.htm
What if only the innocents could see the danger within your team?

6 Afterlife:
What if death was only the beginning. A hard game to run, for the factions take new powers when dead from those alive. Two games running side by side, groupies seperate from graveyard, and they interact in devious ways.

7 Kingmaker:
Day 1, nobody, simple majority, if you've seen it too often, then let us bring divine right to our little village, if the story is true, there is even something that can help us find the right one to rule forever.

8 Rescue:
Another twist to voting, much done in secret here, even your vote to be mailed in, given another secret to hide, will evil hide within it, will your village fall apart in fear?

9 Alice in wonderland, Through the Looking Glass:
A possible series of games baced on having two play threads that have seperate voting tallies, unlike a house system. You can change between one to the other at the end of each day should you like, but who's to say your powers are the same, or even your team?

10 Shortest Game of WW Ever:
You have a kill, but only one kill. You know it woln't miss, but you also know that once you use it, your name will be tied to the corpse. If yours was the only power like that, you would be safe, but the world is deadly, and everybody can kill.

...

So, what do you think?

I don't know if you want people to comment here.
But just off the top of my head. I think the Blind Wolves option could work very well.
I've seen something very similar to it - run on another forum, where WW is played differently.
But I'm sure it could be adapted very well to here.

It might not be a good idea for every baddie in the game to be blind. You could have just one team. I remember I was once on a baddie team that was formatted like that. We had dreaming powers so we could find each other. Actually I think I've been on at least two baddie teams that I can think of that were set like that... I think they both had some way to identify teammates.
A game where none of the innocents had powers would be very boring, BTW. Personally I don't think there should ever really be plain innocents...

1) Innocents would win, no contest. A role-chain and a supply of powers would end the entire game on Night 1. You'd have to have an enormous number of normal innocents if you were planning on having a lot of superhero and sidekick twosomes.


Unlike Yoshi, I believe there should always be a certain number of normal innocents (anywhere from a fifth to a third of the players). You can give them something extra (like the possibility of joining teams and obtaining items as is present in Boingwolf), but giving everyone a role just makes the role-chains more likely and tips the balance in favor of normal innocents.

(Though I'm not sure how long it's been since a role-chain last occurred. It's possible that they're a distant memory and I'm out of the loop.)


2) Blind wolves... it would really depend on how they kill. If the Spokewol(f/ves) can't kill their teammates, it would probably be fine.


3) 300% life doesn't really do anything in my mind other than extend a game. You'd need to downgrade on dreaming powers, protection, and maybe one or two other things I'm forgetting.


4) I... have no opinion on this one without more information.


I don't really have the time/interest to run another game in the near future, though. Boingwolf's taking a lot more out of me than I expected it to.

(09-30-2008 05:03 PM)Shattered Rift Wrote: [ -> ]Unlike Yoshi, I believe there should always be a certain number of normal innocents (anywhere from a fifth to a third of the players). You can give them something extra (like the possibility of joining teams and obtaining items as is present in Boingwolf), but giving everyone a role just makes the role-chains more likely and tips the balance in favor of normal innocents.

(Though I'm not sure how long it's been since a role-chain last occurred. It's possible that they're a distant memory and I'm out of the loop.)

Did you mean me when you said Yoshi? Anyway, I think role-chaining could only possibly occur when all the roles are revealed before the game starts. Doing that will really result in a broken game. But having everyone have a role definitely does not result in role chaining (how could it?). Baddies simply have to be relatively skilled at making up fake roles (which isn't as hard when you have plenty of abilities which you can incorporate into your fake role). It doesn't really make it that much harder for the baddies in my experience.

All the best games I've been in have had every player given a role. The game has much more depth to it when every player has abilities which they have to consider how to use in some way or another, in addition to their vote. The endgame in advanced (by advanced games, BTW, I mean more than just every player having a role) games can especially great. There's been games I've spent hours planning, thinking, etc. about the game. That's pretty much guaranteed not to happen in a game where a large number of the players only have voting powers.
I don't really see any reason not to give everybody a role. Everyone will have more fun and the game will be better, and it's not really difficult to come up with roles- if there pretty simple that doesn't matter too much. Although if your a first time MC it might be better to put in plain innocents if you absolutely have to for the sake of making sure you don't screw up. But aside from that...
Not to mention, people are more likely to be active if they have more to do in the game and have a more interesting role... Although in the past few years of WW history, for whatever reason, inactivity seems to have become an almost permanent problem that nothing can totally eradicate. I don't know why that's changed... That's another issue though.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 300% life, but it's always possible to include health in your game, instead of just straight dead/alive, like an on/off switch.

Your #4 example doesn't make a lot of sense to me but it sounds like that would be a team game instead of real werewolf. Those are a bad idea...