RE: Re: RE: Ideas for future TWGs
This is long, but it's a big idea.
I wanted to do something different for the sequel to my Metal Gear TWG, which I think definitely warrants a sequel in terms of its unresolved storyline and I hope everyone else agrees with me. However, I don't think that the story could work again under normal circumstances. It was odd enough having 16 members of FOXHOUND all voting each other to death (something the "real" FOXHOUND would never do), but after the incident at the Chinese base there's no way Campbell would let his men do something like that again. Also, as far as Campbell knows, the operation went off without a hitch and Flypie and Guido were normal members of FOXHOUND all along, and continue to be. So if people started dying again in the reformed FOXHOUND he would know immediately who to blame it on. Bang goes that idea.
I'll reveal the first shells of my plot. I don't want FOXHOUND's mission to be "vote off the wolves" and have the plotline direct itself based on how well you are succeeding at that mission. I want you to actually have a mission to accomplish. I want a little roleplaying, I want your actions to directly involve yourself with your surroundings and your environments, and most importantly, I want you to dictate how the game (and story) plays out. I want you to feel the same sense of conspiracy as the FOXHOUND members, and I want you to be able to have a bit of espionage fun yourselves. This cannot be done within the context of the current game (which is nothing more than a game of Mafia with a frame story.)
I want FOXHOUND to infiltrate one of the Patriots' laboratories where GHOST is held and try to take it out. I want you guys (the players) to be able to move from room to room finding out clues, investigating, while at the same time finding information on your buddies. I also want a blueless game for this. Basically, what I'm doing is adding movement to TWG, and this is significant enough of a change that it warrants a lot of explanation as to what I'm doing.
The base will be set up in 50 rooms. I'm thinking of labeling them A through E, 0 through 9. So A-0, A-1, A-2, A-3......A-9, B-0, B-1......E-9. You get the idea. The base starts out unexplored. Instead of Day and Night, the game has 2 renamed phases - Movement and Decision-Making. During the Movement phase, each player privately informs me which room they want to go to on the base - it can be any room - movement is unrestricted. Think of it like opening a box. Inside the rooms are all sorts of different things of use - terminals that allow information on other rooms, terminals that allow information on other players, terminals that inform people how many wolves are left in the game, terminals that inform people where the other players are, etc. It's all about information. You gather as much information as you can.
Discussion is allowed during the movement period. Now here's the catch. Wolves can only kill someone they're in the same room as! This creates something that TWG has never seen before - defensive lying. That is, humans telling the crowd they're going someplace they're not just to keep wolves off their tail.
During the movement period, humans decide who to lynch. Big catch number 2. There no longer has to be a lynch every day! Players can select "No lynch" as a vote - if "no lynch" wins, no one is lynched. This is to prevent humans from lynching unless they've gathered enough information to be confident.
After the movement period, every player is considered to have "entered a room." Now comes the Decision Making period - that is, what do you do with the room you're in? Who do you seer (if you've entered a seering room?) There are other types of rooms, but I'll get to those in a bit. Big catch #3 - humans can kill now, too. Everyone can be a vigilante as long as they're in the same room as the person they want to kill. You choose whether you want to attempt to kill the other person or not. If both players want to kill each other, neither dies. If one does but not the other, the unlucky one dies - but don't use killing as a means of self-defense, lest you kill your fellow humans who don't think you deserve killing. The one rule is: wolves take precedence over humans. Wolf and human try to kill each other, wolf wins. Unless the human is a Warrior (described further down), in which case the Warrior wins.
You also decide what you want to do with the terminal in the room. Examples of rooms I've thought up (note that all of these might not be included in the final version of the game, and some of these might show up only in small numbers. The more powerful ones, of course, are rarer. I have a LOT of thinking to do):
Seer terminal. Simple enough. Enter a name, it tells you if the target is wolf or not. In addition, it also tells you if the target has seered you. This is the alliance machine.
Psychic terminal. Tells you how many wolves are left.
Locator terminal. Pick a player. Tells you where that player is.
History terminal. Pick a room. Tells you who's been in that room, and when.
Map data terminal. Pick 5 rooms. Tells you what's inside those rooms.
Superlocator terminal. Tells you where everyone is.
Anonymous messaging terminal. Allows you to send a message anonymously to everyone.
Gas terminal. Pick a room. Whoever's in that room dies.
Guard terminal. Tells you where all enemy guards will go on their next move. This is explained below.
Now, you might think that all this seems too powerful for the humans. This is why the wolves have a few tricks up their sleeve.
First off, the wolves know at all times which rooms are occupied, though they don't know who's in them or what they're doing. (Thus, if you keep sticking around in the seer room, you're asking for it.)
Second, the wolves can also take action when they're inside a room.
Destroy - wolves can destroy a terminal if they find it.
Hacking - wolves can also hack a terminal. This makes the terminal generate random false information instead of real information.
Scramble - wolves can change the terminal itself to another type randomly. Meaning that a seer terminal might become an anonymous messaging terminal.
Finally, there are 10 enemy guards that wander around the base. During the movement phase, the destinations of these guards are randomized. If any player enters a room where there's an enemy guard, he is spotted the entire guard goes into Alert Mode - meaning for that Decision-Making phase, all terminals are rendered useless.
Also, humans get a choice between one of 3 roles at the beginning of the game. Players can either keep this secret or make it public.
WARRIOR - if the player finds an enemy guard, the player kills him. The guard still goes into Alert Mode, but on the plus side, that's one less guard to deal with now. Also, in player-to-player combat, the Warrior gets "first strike." Meaning if he chooses to kill the other person in the room, the other person dies, even if he also chooses to kill: unless he, too, is a warrior.
HACKER - can detect if a terminal has been hacked into and restore it. Also can detect if a terminal has been scrambled, in which case he can leave it as is or restore it to its original state. Cannot restore destroyed terminals.
SNEAKER - will never send the guards into Alert Mode, even if he's in the same room as one of them. Also, the Sneaker can use terminals even when the guard is in Alert Mode.
I'm thinking for this game, players will have to register alternate accounts for the game. This shouldn't be a problem for the TWG-obsessed. The reason for this is that the big supertrap for the wolves is the Science Lab - where they keep the nanomachines that turn you into a host body for a Patriot agent. If a human and a wolf both end up in that room together (by a cleverly laid trap by the wolves), the human's body is stolen and that human's password is given to the wolves, allowing them to post as that human at any time, send him to rooms, etc.
The object of the game is to destroy Metal Gear GHOST. To do that, the humans must:
1) Find the Weapons Storage room and obtain 2 Stinger missile launchers from inside. - 1 for 2 different humans.
2) Find the Commander's Room and obtain the code to the mechanical lock outside GHOST's door. Since it's a code, anyone who knows it can get in.
3) Disable the electronic lock on GHOST's door by sending two men to two different power generator rooms. Meanwhile, the 2 humans with Stingers must enter the door to GHOST at the same time. If this is done, the humans win. If the wolves manage to prevent the humans from doing this, they win.
The odds of the humans entering the correct 4 rooms on the first try are 00.001536 %. Thus, research and information sharing are necessary to succeed. But with all the information sharing, there's so much room for lying...both to protect yourself and hurt the enemy. This also allows so much role-playing in a completely different way...will you go solo? Will you help with reconnaisance? Help lead strikes? Will you be organized? Form sub-teams? Set traps? Avoid traps? Share information, or hoard it yourselves?
This seems complicated for a forum game, but I want to create an environment where the two teams can try to outwit each other as best they can. I want to create a sort of "playground" where the two teams, being smart enough and using the full resources of the information at their disposal as best they can, can utterly outwit each other.
I'm working out the logistics of this game because obviously a lot of balancing issues will have to come into play.
All comments are welcomed and encouraged.
This is long, but it's a big idea.
I wanted to do something different for the sequel to my Metal Gear TWG, which I think definitely warrants a sequel in terms of its unresolved storyline and I hope everyone else agrees with me. However, I don't think that the story could work again under normal circumstances. It was odd enough having 16 members of FOXHOUND all voting each other to death (something the "real" FOXHOUND would never do), but after the incident at the Chinese base there's no way Campbell would let his men do something like that again. Also, as far as Campbell knows, the operation went off without a hitch and Flypie and Guido were normal members of FOXHOUND all along, and continue to be. So if people started dying again in the reformed FOXHOUND he would know immediately who to blame it on. Bang goes that idea.
I'll reveal the first shells of my plot. I don't want FOXHOUND's mission to be "vote off the wolves" and have the plotline direct itself based on how well you are succeeding at that mission. I want you to actually have a mission to accomplish. I want a little roleplaying, I want your actions to directly involve yourself with your surroundings and your environments, and most importantly, I want you to dictate how the game (and story) plays out. I want you to feel the same sense of conspiracy as the FOXHOUND members, and I want you to be able to have a bit of espionage fun yourselves. This cannot be done within the context of the current game (which is nothing more than a game of Mafia with a frame story.)
I want FOXHOUND to infiltrate one of the Patriots' laboratories where GHOST is held and try to take it out. I want you guys (the players) to be able to move from room to room finding out clues, investigating, while at the same time finding information on your buddies. I also want a blueless game for this. Basically, what I'm doing is adding movement to TWG, and this is significant enough of a change that it warrants a lot of explanation as to what I'm doing.
The base will be set up in 50 rooms. I'm thinking of labeling them A through E, 0 through 9. So A-0, A-1, A-2, A-3......A-9, B-0, B-1......E-9. You get the idea. The base starts out unexplored. Instead of Day and Night, the game has 2 renamed phases - Movement and Decision-Making. During the Movement phase, each player privately informs me which room they want to go to on the base - it can be any room - movement is unrestricted. Think of it like opening a box. Inside the rooms are all sorts of different things of use - terminals that allow information on other rooms, terminals that allow information on other players, terminals that inform people how many wolves are left in the game, terminals that inform people where the other players are, etc. It's all about information. You gather as much information as you can.
Discussion is allowed during the movement period. Now here's the catch. Wolves can only kill someone they're in the same room as! This creates something that TWG has never seen before - defensive lying. That is, humans telling the crowd they're going someplace they're not just to keep wolves off their tail.
During the movement period, humans decide who to lynch. Big catch number 2. There no longer has to be a lynch every day! Players can select "No lynch" as a vote - if "no lynch" wins, no one is lynched. This is to prevent humans from lynching unless they've gathered enough information to be confident.
After the movement period, every player is considered to have "entered a room." Now comes the Decision Making period - that is, what do you do with the room you're in? Who do you seer (if you've entered a seering room?) There are other types of rooms, but I'll get to those in a bit. Big catch #3 - humans can kill now, too. Everyone can be a vigilante as long as they're in the same room as the person they want to kill. You choose whether you want to attempt to kill the other person or not. If both players want to kill each other, neither dies. If one does but not the other, the unlucky one dies - but don't use killing as a means of self-defense, lest you kill your fellow humans who don't think you deserve killing. The one rule is: wolves take precedence over humans. Wolf and human try to kill each other, wolf wins. Unless the human is a Warrior (described further down), in which case the Warrior wins.
You also decide what you want to do with the terminal in the room. Examples of rooms I've thought up (note that all of these might not be included in the final version of the game, and some of these might show up only in small numbers. The more powerful ones, of course, are rarer. I have a LOT of thinking to do):
Seer terminal. Simple enough. Enter a name, it tells you if the target is wolf or not. In addition, it also tells you if the target has seered you. This is the alliance machine.
Psychic terminal. Tells you how many wolves are left.
Locator terminal. Pick a player. Tells you where that player is.
History terminal. Pick a room. Tells you who's been in that room, and when.
Map data terminal. Pick 5 rooms. Tells you what's inside those rooms.
Superlocator terminal. Tells you where everyone is.
Anonymous messaging terminal. Allows you to send a message anonymously to everyone.
Gas terminal. Pick a room. Whoever's in that room dies.
Guard terminal. Tells you where all enemy guards will go on their next move. This is explained below.
Now, you might think that all this seems too powerful for the humans. This is why the wolves have a few tricks up their sleeve.
First off, the wolves know at all times which rooms are occupied, though they don't know who's in them or what they're doing. (Thus, if you keep sticking around in the seer room, you're asking for it.)
Second, the wolves can also take action when they're inside a room.
Destroy - wolves can destroy a terminal if they find it.
Hacking - wolves can also hack a terminal. This makes the terminal generate random false information instead of real information.
Scramble - wolves can change the terminal itself to another type randomly. Meaning that a seer terminal might become an anonymous messaging terminal.
Finally, there are 10 enemy guards that wander around the base. During the movement phase, the destinations of these guards are randomized. If any player enters a room where there's an enemy guard, he is spotted the entire guard goes into Alert Mode - meaning for that Decision-Making phase, all terminals are rendered useless.
Also, humans get a choice between one of 3 roles at the beginning of the game. Players can either keep this secret or make it public.
WARRIOR - if the player finds an enemy guard, the player kills him. The guard still goes into Alert Mode, but on the plus side, that's one less guard to deal with now. Also, in player-to-player combat, the Warrior gets "first strike." Meaning if he chooses to kill the other person in the room, the other person dies, even if he also chooses to kill: unless he, too, is a warrior.
HACKER - can detect if a terminal has been hacked into and restore it. Also can detect if a terminal has been scrambled, in which case he can leave it as is or restore it to its original state. Cannot restore destroyed terminals.
SNEAKER - will never send the guards into Alert Mode, even if he's in the same room as one of them. Also, the Sneaker can use terminals even when the guard is in Alert Mode.
I'm thinking for this game, players will have to register alternate accounts for the game. This shouldn't be a problem for the TWG-obsessed. The reason for this is that the big supertrap for the wolves is the Science Lab - where they keep the nanomachines that turn you into a host body for a Patriot agent. If a human and a wolf both end up in that room together (by a cleverly laid trap by the wolves), the human's body is stolen and that human's password is given to the wolves, allowing them to post as that human at any time, send him to rooms, etc.
The object of the game is to destroy Metal Gear GHOST. To do that, the humans must:
1) Find the Weapons Storage room and obtain 2 Stinger missile launchers from inside. - 1 for 2 different humans.
2) Find the Commander's Room and obtain the code to the mechanical lock outside GHOST's door. Since it's a code, anyone who knows it can get in.
3) Disable the electronic lock on GHOST's door by sending two men to two different power generator rooms. Meanwhile, the 2 humans with Stingers must enter the door to GHOST at the same time. If this is done, the humans win. If the wolves manage to prevent the humans from doing this, they win.
The odds of the humans entering the correct 4 rooms on the first try are 00.001536 %. Thus, research and information sharing are necessary to succeed. But with all the information sharing, there's so much room for lying...both to protect yourself and hurt the enemy. This also allows so much role-playing in a completely different way...will you go solo? Will you help with reconnaisance? Help lead strikes? Will you be organized? Form sub-teams? Set traps? Avoid traps? Share information, or hoard it yourselves?
This seems complicated for a forum game, but I want to create an environment where the two teams can try to outwit each other as best they can. I want to create a sort of "playground" where the two teams, being smart enough and using the full resources of the information at their disposal as best they can, can utterly outwit each other.
I'm working out the logistics of this game because obviously a lot of balancing issues will have to come into play.
All comments are welcomed and encouraged.
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