Boardgame Idea

I want to design and make a great boardgame.
I have an idea, but it’s in its infancy.

The concept is widely used already, I guess. It’s a dungeoncrawl of sorts.
You (and your opponents) are a merchant who has heard that the great dragon’s lair has finally been discovered. As far as you have discerned, nobody has successfully traversed the labyrinth to make it out with the lion’s share of the hoard.

You want that loot, so you set about hiring a party of adventurers to achieve this for you.

The board would be the labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels that all wind up approaching the central dragon hoard from each of the four compass points. You must get as many of your team into the hoard to collect some artifact of some kind, and get out with it alive. The more you collect, the better you score.
However, the dragon has other ideas about this.

The dragon is very protective of his hoard, but with so many adventurers approaching from all directions, there’s only so much he can do.
Mind you, what he *can* do is kill as many of these mortal morsels as possible. Fortunately for us, adventurers are in supply, so if one dies, we can just hire another. Or perhaps more!

To begin the game, each player would be allowed to compile his adventuring party semi randomly. My idea is that I have three or four decks of cards of adventurer types – warriors, magicians, rogues, and possibly priests (unless I think of something better.)
You take three cards, but you can choose which deck to draw from (no more than two from any single deck may be in your party at any time.)
You pay their agreed price from your starting cash and each adventurer has a multitude of strengths and weaknesses. For example, a particularly successful warrior might be more likely to succeed in stealing a great amount of treasure, however he demands half of it as payment. He might have excellent strength, combat, and perception, but terrible stealth – and be unable to give up or drop anything he has collected.

I want the game to be an eternal struggle of choices, without too much chance involved. Split the party up? Involve them equally to keep them all relatively even in skill, or neglect one character and risk starting from scratch if your other two die? Do I use one to steal from the hoard, and two to harass the enemy, or reverse?
Should I recruit a balanced party – one of each class – or will two warriors and a rogue be better? Or two rogues and a magician?

One idea I have is that each player may only take two character actions each turn. If they have three characters, then they must choose which characters are more important to activate when they do so. They will want to do more, but can’t do everything at once.

Originally, I was thinking about having modes, or stances, that each character could be in to modify their stats, so that combat or encounters can have great variety. A defensive stance would increase your armour rating and decrease your attack strength, for example. I think now, that while this might still be a viable option, I could include a very simple levelling system so that a player can improve their characters’ stats by achievements within the labyrinth. After three encounters, they can increase one stat by one point – or similar.

I also want to have player versus player interaction be very highly sought. Rogues, for example might be able to successfully steal artifacts from players who are returning from the hoard. Combat will be viable because it’s all about the treasure. I also want spells to be effective, and not just a warrior in different flavour.

So there needs to be a lot going into the game, and a lot of work to do to make it all work.

Today I had an inspired idea.
When a player has their turn, they choose which character to activate, and any character that does not activate gets a ‘ready’ token, which is a round cardboard disc with “+1″ on it. When that character takes their next action, whatever it is, they perform it with better than normal accuracy (as determined by the number of ready tokens on it.) Of course, every character will be limited in how many of these they can hold. This limit can be increased when you improve the character’s level. So something that would not normally work, could work if you prepare yourself. (It is akin to taking an aim, or preparing to ambush, or searching longer, concentrating harder, or anything you can conceive.) However, there will still be things that no matter how hard you try, you still cannot achieve.

So the game will be one of perfect timing, while at the same time being a race to the treasure hoard.

One more thing on player turns – since I started this idea, one factor has been ever present. I want the turn action to alternate, and the way I would do so is as follows:
Player 1 – take two character actions.
Player 2 – take two actions.
Player 3 – take two actions.
Player 4 – take two actions.
Player 1 – activate the dragon.
Player 2 – take two actions.
Player 3 – take two actions.
Player 4 – take two actions.
Player 1 – take two actions
Player 2 – activate the dragon

Using this method, no player MISSES a turn, but at the same time, they do, because their characters’ actions are replaced by a dragon’s. However, this still is useful to them – hopefully!
When the player activates the dragon, he is allowed to perform one of a multitude of maneuvres – usually a form of attack against characters (not his own) that are approaching the hoard. Similarly, the best time to approach the hoard is when your dragon move is nearing.
However, otherwise, when it’s your dragon play, your characters are not activating and might be easily ambushed or otherwise thwarted.

I have advanced this idea somewhat, but not yet sure how this might work – if it indeed works at all.
I am considering having each player hold a hand of cards, which allow certain actions, and so the choices for each player are limited by their hands. Dragon combat cards and Dragon Maneuvre cards would be included in these cards.
My idea here is that if a player uses a card to perform a character action he can redraw, but if he plays a dragon card (or more than one?) then they remain at a reduced handsize. Once they run out of cards, the characters must take a rest action.

Perhaps dragon card actions can be redrawn, and player character actions do not – as if they were getting tired, when performing their actions. A hand size of eight but be enough then, to rest after four full rounds.

I’m not sure if that mechanic will detract too much of the game yet, but if it’s the only way to heal, it might become a valuable idea.
Who knows.

Anyway, one deck of cards will be the treasure hoard – artifacts of variable value. I’m thinking of having a score track that calculates how much you have accumulated, minus the cost of the adventurers you have hired (and likely, killed.)

The game will end when the deck of treasure has expired. Also, I have decided that if at any time a player is required to take a dragon’s turn, and either cannot or does not act/attack (whatever the final ruling is) then one card will be discarded from the hoard. Just to speed the game along. But perhaps a player who has amassed a treasure trove can use this to his advantage.

And perhaps the game will end if any deck of adventurer cards exhausts and one is required. For example, if the warrior deck exhausts, that’s no problem because each team can take two magicians and a rogue, or two rogues and a magician.
But if the rogue deck now exhausts, and a player needs to rebuy a rogue because he has two magicians, then that triggers the game end.

When the game ends, players continue until their character either dies (dropping any treasure they have) or escape the labyrinth to get their final tally.

Anyway, that’s the game idea. I guess it might have a talisman meets world of warcraft:the boardgame feel.
At some stage I’ll make comments to add to this, but probably with character ideas, spell ideas, personality strengths and weaknesses, adventurer types (for example, the warrior deck will have archers, armoured warriors, barbarians, perhaps a monk, and anything else I can come up with.)

WW: Dark Moon

I have an idea for an online game of werewolf.

I think it will be the next game that I moderate.

The first thing is that this template can use any roleset for standard or multi team werewolf. The roles are dealt randomly.

The concept and difference though, is that there are four moons and the four moons have differing cycles.
Every player is influenced by one of these moons, based on the sphere of influence of each moon.
The four moons are coloured orange, red, white and black.
Red influences passion, love and anger.
Orange influences dream and art
White influences logic and rationality
Black influences destiny and fate

There are two things important for the way moons will influence the game.
Firstly, any moon that is full will give a bonus to the role ability of all players under influence of said moon.
Moons that are new will have a role-based penalty or weakness.

Secondly, any two moons that are in eclipse will affect vote strengths of affected players. They will be double strength on any player of the opposite moon.

Before the game, I will run a simple questionaire which will calculate which moons are more influential for players and choose which moon rules them. They will not understand the moons’ spheres of influence, or which moon I decide rules which player. That is for them to discuss if they like.
Each day, I will advise which moon is full, and which is new, so they can see effects in the game, and make appropriate correlations.
However, the black moon – known as the dark moon – is invisible. It also has a non-standard cycle, which is variable in either the wax or the wane.

The tricky part is deciding – once I choose a roleset for the players signed up – how each role will be influenced – either improved or reversed.

Wolves – I have three ideas, for stronger and weaker, in case I have three wolves.
I have a different power for each wolf, and because they are the evil team, they understand their avilities and their moon of influence. Lucky them!!
One wolf will affect the night kill. When his moon is full, the wolves get two kills. When it is new, they get no kill.
One gets brutal when full, the other tough when full, but when their moons are new, their votes count for nothing, and they automatically begin the day with a hidden vote on them.

Seer is easy. Two views when full (one by choice, the bonus will be random) and a failed view on new.
And I don’t see why the sorcerer would be any different.
These two will quickly learn their moon of influence, unless it is dark.

I have an interesting idea for the hunter.
In the new moon, he doesn’t count as the hunter. He’s just a normal villager. But when his moon is full, if he gets nightkilled, he takes a wolf with him.
It won’t happen often, but it doesn’t need to.

Villager – I think a bonus to vote power, negated by zero vote power.
This ties in to make wolves very similar to villagers, allowing a cover story for evil.

Bodyguard – he can protect two players when his moon is full, or perhaps he learns that his target was attacked if the moon was full. When his moon is new, he dies instead of his custodian, as a martyr.

As for the moon cycles, I have drawn them as if they were a sine wave, with different curves, and where they cross will be eclipses.

I think it will provide an entertaining, interesting twist to the game.

Ace King – All in

I take a lot of bad beats in poker. It used to frustrate me, a lot.
I soon realised that the reason I do so is because I only go all in, or call all in, when I know – or feel – that I am winning, or have a great chance to win the hand.

Sure, sometimes I call all in with pocket Kings, to be faced with pocket Aces. That’s gonna happen. And that’s not a bad beat.

But *usually*, when I call all in, I’m ahead when I do it. And then the river destroys me.

I don’t really want to give examples of this, although I could because it just happened to me in a hand online, in the most ridiculous of circumstances. (How many people push all in on the turn, on an Up and Down Straight Draw – really!?!?)

Like I said, that really annoys me. But not as much as the number of times I hear people say stupid things about Ace-King in the hole.

“I hate Ace King. They never win.”
“I never play em. Just fold.” <– this coming from a player who just played J7 off suit and called off half his stack to do so.

I think it’s the most misplayed hand in the game, along with Ace-Queen.
I’m not saying I’m an expert at poker – by far I am not.

But people expect them to win, and then get disturbed when they don’t and then declare the hand sucks.

The hand doesn’t suck. It’s how you’ve played it.

No single hand has one single correct way to play it, but there’s one or two optimal plays, and several sub optimal ways.
The fact is, you still have to play the hand. If you can’t play it post flop, don’t overplay it preflop. That’s my opinion.

I want to address a hand I had in an 18 player sit’n'go.

The reason for this, is because a) I won, b) I won – all in, and c) I took the hand to a forum, where the only two people to respond told me the opponent played it bad but I played it far worse.

OK, here goes. The situation is that we’re still in the first blind increment, and we’re down to 14 players.
I’m on table 2, with 7 remaining. Start stack was 1500. In fact, this is maybe the third or fourth hand of the game.

Seat 1: (1,710)
Seat 3: (1,330)
Seat 4: (1,655)
Seat 5: (2,415)
Seat 6: bluebehir (1,460)
Seat 7: (2,305)
Seat 9: (1,365)

Seat 5 posts the small blind of 30
Seat 6 (ME) posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #4

I am dealt [Ks Ac]

Seat 7 calls 60
Seat 9 folds
Seat 1 calls 60
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 raises to 330
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 calls 270
Seat 7 calls 270
Seat 1 thinks, and folds.

Now normally, I’ll raise with Ace King to eliminate half the opposition. But I didn’t see the need to re-raise. Enough people were already out of the action. The raise in the cutoff didn’t feel like a steal. I didn’t see the point of pot committing myself before I even saw the flop.

However, both comments I got from forum-posters told me this was extremely bad play.
All in, they say. Stacks are too small. Ace-king? Gotta re-raise, but half your stack is bad, so all in.
That sort of thing.

Also, to just call tells the opponent that I have a speculative hand. I might be able to bluff at any pot that he might fold to. If I raise now, it defines my hand. He will know where he stands, relatively.
Further, it increases my expected value, if I win with a third player in the hand.

*** FLOP ***
2c 4d 5s

Not a great flop. I have a rainbow, so no flush can come.
I have the gutshot straight draw, but if he has pocket 6’s, the 3 is my doom.
I have two over cards, which is great news, because if he has an over pair, I can catch him to win.
If he has pocket 2s, pocket 4s, or pocket 5s, I am in bad shape, and he can’t afford to slow play them.
However, his raise in the face of many callers would not indicate he had such a hand. (And he played it badly if he did!)

I check.
Seat 7 checks
Seat 4 bets 460 into the pot of 1080.

In my moment of time that you get online, I miscalculated that to be “nearly 3:1″ – and I had 10 outs, so 20%
I see now, that I had just over 2:1 pot odds, which dictates a fold. I thought that I was getting 25% value, with 20% to win.
I was almost getting the 20% I needed though.

So I agree I played this wrong – technically – because I called, and seat 7 folded.
But I called for the right REASONS – I just miscalculated the odds I was getting.
I was chasing an Ace, King, or Three. I knew my outs. I just didn’t expect my Ace King to win because it was an Ace-King.

The turn came, the Ace of hearts.
I push all in for 670, feeling strongly that I have top pair.
Seat 4 calls 670

bluebehir shows [Ks Ac]
(Seat 4) shows [Th Td]

*** RIVER *** [2c 4d 5s Ah] [2d]
bluebehir (seat 6) shows two pair, Aces and Twos
(seat 4) shows two pair, Tens and Twos
bluebehir wins the pot (3,340) with two pair, Aces and Twos

The comments I got were akin to:
“I think he played the hand bad and you played it worse…”
“No reraise with these stack sizes holding AK? Calling off almost half your chips on the flop… both are such spewy moves.”
“As it is play money… instacall but I get it all in preflop”
“Shove pre-flop.”
“But if you do make a call and villain leads for 460, I’d 90% fold, 10% reraise all-in.”

These are such ridiculous plays. To go all in preflop is a desperation play. It means that I’m ready to make my last stand and I’ve finally got a hand to do it on. Or it means that my hand is so unsurpassable that I’m prepared to bet my entire stake on it.
No hand is that good, preflop.

Anybody who tells me to shove all in on Ace King is telling me that they don’t know how to play the game post flop.
(And sure, I made a calculation error, but I could still have folded on the turn if it came out a 9, and have 690 to push with another hand.)
Anybody who tells me to shove all in has just told me that I should call their bet and never raise them. Because I can out play them later in the hand, and steal or earn the victory.

It’s these people who shove all in who come away a loser saying “I pushed with Ace King but it didn’t hold up” and their mate says “yeah it never does.”

I always win when I am dealt Ace King, because when I’m not winning, I can still fold.

Kittens are hard work

Did I tell you Rachel and I have kittens?
Some short while ago, Rachel brought home two ginger kittens from work. They were orphaned there, and too adorable to let bad things happen to.

One was clearly the runt of the litter, being approximately 30% smaller than the other.
Until we found names for them (very laborious task!) we called them “Big kitty” and “Little Kitty”.

Big Kitty was very cautious of us originally. It seems that something had caused him to be frightened of the human hand reaching for him, he would never let you get close in this fashion. But if you got close, then reached out to him from out of his sight he didn’t mind so much.

Little Kitty, by contrast, didn’t mind at all being reached for, patted, or picked up. In fact he seemed to like it.

Big Kitty’s fur is soft and fluffy, almost long hair, it feels like rabbit fur. If you’ve never felt rabbit fur, picture a soft fluffy kitty whose hair is so fine it actually feels like it sooths your hand as you stroke it.
Little Kitty’s fur is short and course. They both have “cute” written all over them, but it’s hard to imagine someone believing Little Kitty to be more cute than Big Kitty – the fur and the face shape just make it so.

Over the course of two weeks, Big Kitty warmed to Rachel and I. He certainly didn’t like being picked up -not even to sit in the lap – but thoroughly enjoyed pats. As long as he was able to escape if he needed to.

We introduced them to the cat cage, got them some toys, took notes on whether they liked Friskies better than Whiskas. They seemed to train themselves to use kitty litter from day 1. No training was required, and that was a huge sigh of relief.

Originally, while they were unfamiliar with our home, we contained them to our three way bathroom. The washroom held their food tray, and a towel for their bed, with the kitty litter tray in the bath room, and the toilet seat always closed.

Two large planks of wood (picture very broad shelves) were stacked atop each other, and blocked off with some older stereo speakers, to form a waist high blockade to the hallway. It worked well.

As they got used to us, we introduced them to our living room (two computer desks, the stereo, all our CDs, with an open connection to the kitchen). From there they had access to the whole house – we only have doors on the bedrooms – but they seemed to be cautious, and only venture forth if they were following Rachel or myself.
Which meant they were tearing around the lounge only when we wanted to watch a DVD.

I’m not sure if this was the cause of the trouble, but (in days long past) we used to have a visitor cat – it must be one of our neighbours – named Lucky. Lucky was quite young, but enjoyed the attention of Rachel and I, and we used to let it inside after a while. It would explore, and then leave after only a short while. In the end, she’d only come in to look for food and became more trouble than it was worth

But this one day, Lucky came outside our back screen door while the kittens were in the living room.
Big Kitty was locked in a defensive but frightened stance, and Lucky, outside the door, was growling intensely.

Lucky stood down, but proudly walked over to our garden and squirted before leaving.

Soon after this, Big Kitty squirted (or peed) inside a green shopping bag in our storage room. (Normally supposed to be a dining room – don’t ask.)
From that day on, they stopped using the kitty litter, and chose to pee or pooh inside bags. Plastic bags, shopping bags, storage bags, you name it.
We of course did what we could to prevent this behaviour, but they merely adjusted. One day while I was in the shower, Big Kitty poohed on the doona. YUK!
I cleaned it up, we washed the doona, the sheets, the doona cover, and rolled the mattress over. I even got rid of a pillow that smelled slightly of urine.

Two days later, Big Kitty poohed in the bean bag.
Now, the bean bag served a purpose. I mean, sure, you sit in it. But some time through all of this, we had a scratching problem.
The kittens had learned to climb through the use of the old speakers holding up their gate – and Big Kitty was able to get back in, if ever we let him out. Very clever kitty! It obviously felt good to him, because eventually he requested to claw upon my cloth covered speakers in the living room. I tried to refuse the request, but wasn’t always able to respond quickly. So I removed the covers (with some trepidation, the speakers themselves are now exposed!) and purchased a cat scratching post.
When I say scratching post, I mean… castle.
I wanted to solve two problems at once. One – scratching on anything made of cloth – curtains, speakers, and the lounge.
The second problem was the fact that they used the lounge as an adventure ground. Chasing each other over, under, around, upon, and through the lounge’s space of existance, with claws constantly exposed.
One of their favourite tricks was to lie on their backs, and pull themselves along the carpet by clawing the bottom edges of the lounge. And they did so racing each other. If not that, then they were climbing up the back of the lounge.

So the climbing post – castle – was to be their adventure ground. I didn’t want to buy one and then six months later need another one, so I bought the biggest one I could find.

There’s a base plate covered in carpet. Upon that is a cat house – a large box with a circular entry. They briefly explored there, but don’t really go in. I tried putting their bed towel in, they still ignore it. Ah well. Then on that another base, and in diametrically opposite corners are the columns. In the other corners are spring loaded play toys.
On the columns, another base, with the columns continuing, with a fourth base upon them.
Hanging from the underside of that is a carpeted tube.
Finally, on the top a single column in one corner, with a small platform atop.

It’s a four tier cat castle. They explored it slowly, the smell of the carpet required getting used to. And the new heights also.
But soon they were chasing each other up it. But only one of them worked out how to get back down.
Little kitty was able to jump (barely!!) from the second level, which is about waste high, but he loved third level, neck high, and couldn’t climb back down to second level.
He would cry and cry and cry that he couldn’t get back down. I tried to teach him to climb down to level 2, and he did it once or twice, but not by choice.
Never by choice.

So… I got out the bean bag, and put it against the castle. Then, when he was crying, I picked him up, and from slightly lower than third tier, I dropped him into the bag.

He sank deep into the bag, so deep I couldn’t see him. Had he hit the ground? He was stock still.
Then, after about 9 or ten seconds, he leaped out of the cat shaped hole, and ran off to the food bowl.

Later on, he was back up there, crying to come down again. I tried to coax him to jump… but he wouldn’t. So I pushed him off. You could see and feel the fright in his half second journey of “plummet”.
But he lived, and ran off to his food bowl.

I think I had to “encourage” him once or twice more, before he worked out that he wasn’t hurting when he landed in the bean bag.
The first few times he jumped of his own will were such comical, magical moments. He would perch at the edge of the tier, adjust his position eight or ten times, until he gathered his confidence, and almost surprisingly, lower himself and leap – a cute little falling furball. Rachel kept looking away and the last second and missing the “moment” so it was a bit of a game even for us.
Soon, it was just common occurance. Every day occasion, nothing to report upon.

He became quite good at it, in fact. He would jump specifically onto the EDGE of the bean bag, so it would roll with his impact and he could just walk off to get his food or water.

But Big Kitty changed all this. One pooh, and I’m no longer happy. I couldn’t wipe it all off, of course, and I have no idea how to get the beans out to wash the damn thing.
Plus how do I teach him that “the kitty litter is for pooh” when I didn’t teach him that in the first place?
I “rubbed his nose in it”, like you do a dog. I didn’t actually make contact with his nose and the pooh, but he resisted so strongly, we both knew he didn’t want his nose rubbed in it. I had also done this when he poohed on the bed.
(Ooh wait. No, it was little kitty on the bed! I recall correctly now!)
When I cleaned the bed, I put the pooh INTO the litter tray, with little kitty watching, and little kitty buried it. I think that worked.
But Big Kitties effort was a mess, he clearly wasn’t 100% well.
Half a roll of paper towelling later, I still didn’t know what to do.

I “rubbed” his nose in it, probably three or four times, to get the message through that I wasn’t happy with him, and he sulked. He tried seeking comfort later when I was at my desk. He jumped onto my chair. I put him back down. He jumped up and rubbed against me. I put him back down. He jumped up, and then quickly double jumped onto my desk, and tried to give me kissies.
How can I resist that bloody cat! He’s so damn cute. I compromised. I could be cranky at him, and he could stay on the desk.

Anyway, there’s a new problem.
Little Kitty – we have names for them now, by the way.
Big Kitty is extremely agile. Our favourite game is with a soft ball – I throw it against the wall, and it bounces on the ground, and he jumps up and catches or swats it. If he misses, I get another throw. If he hits, he chases it til it stops, and then he leaves it there, and I have to go get it or the game ends.
Anyway, we call Big Kitty “Ginger Ninja”.
Little Kitty is called “Thundercat”. He purrs a lot. He meows a lot. And he is at least twice as loud as the ninja in both. More, with meows. Well, it’s now half way between the squeak it once was and a proper demanding meow. He has several words too. Ninja has a limited vocabulary. Makes it easier to understand Ninja, sadly. I never *really* know what Thundercat wants – except “food” or “outside”. I think I get those two.

Anyway, now Thundercat – who lives and sleeps on third tier, or even fourth tier from occasion, now that he can wrestle Ninja a little better – can’t jump into the beanbag.
It isn’t there.

He cries. Actually, I know that call. I don’t know what he’s saying exactly but I know it’s something like “I can’t get down and I really want to get down.”
I am trying to teach him to do the acrobatic climb-down that ninja does, but he won’t. He’s a little clumsier at it, and he knows it. It involves a downward facing twist flip, hooking the front claws onto the column or side of tunnel.

And I have seen – in desperation – Thundercat just JUMP. He reaches down as far as he can, holding on intensely with back feet, until he thinks he can reach (with a small leap) the edge of the second tier. Then he rebounds to jump the rest of the way. But he hates it.

I have even used food to lure him. And he *really* wants the food. It makes him anxious. I put it on second tier, tap near it and repeat “down” and “Thundercat down” and he seems to know what I want, and wants to get it, but refuses to make the trip.

So why is this a problem?
Because he is clever and innovative.
We have put the cat castle in the centre of the living area. It’s more than a metre away from any wall. But we stash the ironing board against one of those walls, and the ironing board ajoins the benchtop (which forms the kitchen’s edge.)

So he makes the most daring of leaps a metre across, and from half a metre higher, to land precariously on a 15 cm unstable landing platform, with obstacles (iron, etc) upon it. Then he realises that he has opened the gateway to a new exploration adventure. The kitchen bench.

This is exactly the one thing I don’t want him to do. So I catch him, tell him loudly “NO!” and dump him unceremoniously upon the floor. Then two minutes later (I’m not angry at him) I call him over to my desk to give me kissie. But he hasn’t learned yet.

Today was the first day he did it, and I ended up having to catch him from the ironing board (NO!!) and put him back on third tier, to repeat the process maybe seven or eight times.

I can see an uphill battle approaching, and I still have to sort out my bean bag.
Right now they’re sleeping on my desktop. How can I stay mad at them?

NEW TO BLOGS

I’ve never blogged before, but have always thought that sometimes my internal thought processes might amuse someone, so….

Let’s give this a go.

Today’s blog is gonna be a bit lame though, as I warm up to all this.

Yesterday was my first attempt at gambling for cash on Full Tilt Poker.
I invested $5.00 in my skill and talents as a “professional” poker player. Gotta start small!

I tried some 9 player sit’n'goes at $1.25 entry, winner gets about $5, 2nd gets $2.70 and 3rd gets the difference (with $9 being the total prize pool.)

Well, my first three games I got busted. The first two in fourth place too (the bubble!) in hands that statistically I should have won.
My next two games I came second in each, and had almost earned back my original $5.

But I got busted trying to steal a pot with AQ in the next game, and that left me too broken to recover.

I have enough for one more, but am being cautious. Maybe this afternoon I’ll try again.
Some professional, heh! There’s still room left in this dream.

In other news, I’ve wandered back over to the werewolf forums that I frequent, where I often live or die by my word.
I also like to moderate games for other players to be challenged by.
I am very ambitious in game design for werewolf, sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, if you’ll excuse the pun.

I have four games I could run, but they all need work before they’re ready.
1. Village of the Damned
2. Ingulf The Mad
3. The Dark Moon
4. Hunters of the Red Moon

1. This game has been one of my favourites for a long time. What is different in *this* game of werewolf, is that everyone has a physical location on a map, and it takes time to travel to other players’ huts. So if you’re not home when the wolf comes knocking you might just survive. But then, someone might be setting up to ambush you on your return. Also, there’s gold pieces with which you can purchase potions. You can drink them yourself, or trick others into drinking them (if they’re harmful!) or can be tricked yourself into drinking something undesirable. And every player has a role, with strong abilities, and a somewhat misaligned agenda to fulfil.

It’s just a big job to mod this game, and I know for a fact I’ll be the only one to ever try. That’s kinda satisfying in some respects.
I have nailed the balance issues in the large games (20+) but I was having trouble in small games (I think I was running 11-13?) so I need to extend it slightly. But the more people, by far the more work. There are just more interactions, people visiting your huts, or paths crossing during the night – more potions to keep track of, more actions to resolve. With six people, I might have an interaction between every player – 36 interactions. But with 7 players that can become 49. And so forth.

To moderate this game, I actually make a map of the village for each night, and draw the paths taken by every player, and see where they cross, and keep track of how long it takes to get to the destination. Pretty intense. But the reward is the story that evolves (every game is drastically different!) and watching each player’s role come to life – and then a very sudden and unexpected end. I get more out of resolving it than any player gets from their single side of the story.

2. Ingulf The Mad. If the last one was big this is massive. 50 players massive. Complicated lynch resolution, tricky roles with changing states as small as “free slave” or “captured slave” or others that change the game for every role – such as if Ingulf gets captured by evil. When this happens, agendas change, abilities change, and more.
Plus the text is conceptually required to come from the novel, which means I have to find and type every passage as I require it. And I must find at least two a day. A lot of work. Not to mention delivering 50 night results (this number decreases daily, though.)
I would run either of these games as 24 hours day and 24 hours (plus, if required) night. Very slowly.

3. The Dark Moon, I can make as tricky or as simple as I require. Player’s role and ability is influenced by one of the four moons as they come into and out of cycle.
I’ve been toying with lunar cycles based loosely on what I remember of biorhythms. The trick I can employ though, is a fluctuating cycle for the dark moon, which can’t be seen. And this is based on the story too – if you need justification for my tricksy ways.
I need to work out what happens when moon cycles cross (or hit peaks or troughs), to make this game interesting, and design a game long enough to make the most of at least a three moon cycle I guess. So maybe a two week game. Not to mention how different roles can actually BE affected by lunar cycles.

Ideas so far:
All players = their vote is worth nothing in trough. Their vote is worth double in full moon.
OR = your vote is worth double if your moon is crossing the moon of the moon of the player you vote for. Your vote is double at full moon.
(Not entirely sure how to do this, yet.  Biorhythms are real time, but votes in real time, while correctly recorded, would be hard to correctly calculate.)
Hunter – at trough acts as normal villager. In normal moon, acts as normal hunter. On full moon, if he is killed, he gets brutal (and as a night target automatically succeeds in killing the wolf that killed him.)
Seer – at trough gets reversed view. Normal days get normal view results. At full moon gets full role result.
Sorcerer – similar.
Wolf – At full moon gets “tough” can’t be lynched ability. At trough votes against him are doubled.
Bodyguard – at trough fails to protect and dies also. At full, also acts as a witness? Or perhaps learns the number of wolves attacking?

4. I had already designed this game, and came real close to running it, but I kind of forgot a thing or two I originally intended, and incorporated slight variances which, I feel, don’t make the game suspenseful or exciting. I dropped it, until I can fix it up.
It’s close, though.
Hidden roles here, can’t tell you much.

But there are some cool roles here such as unexpected wolf roles.
Also, I’m considering having involved level of interaction between players – such as a seer who looks not for the wolves, but their trusted companion to gain mason abilities, or unlock powers.
Also, there is more than one kill method and some players will be susceptible or immune to various attack types. This will make it a true hunting game for evil – they must seek out their prey and strike appropriately.
Oh, did I forget to mention sacred ground?

On any night, any ‘hunted’ player (ie not evil) may take refuge in the sacred ground, where they may not be attacked at night.
Why, oh why would I include such a game breaking mechanic?

Wow, this was a long blog.
Don’t get bored, check back often.