Tales out of Anchor – take 2

Our usual Monday night RPG was cancelled due to holiday – but we did do our characters performance development reviews (PDR’s) since we are playing a game of Laundry. The PDR’s meant that we did not have enough time to play Giant Stone Head – so we played love letter with excessive amounts of politeness (which is the best way to play it) and had a poke at a new version of “tales out of anchor”.

I’d not had time to make new cards – so what I did was use the last set of cards with new rules.  This version takes it bluffing from cockroach poker – push a card at somebody – name a card – and they need to decide if you are telling the truth or a lie about the card.  Get it right and you get to play the card – get it wrong and they get to play the card – or you can pick it up – look at it and pass it on. But before long you’ve run out of people to pass it to.

Game ended very quickly – as opposed to the first one which went on – so the very random end sequence I’m not 100% sure about.  Maybe you play until the tokens have run out – but it is still might be worth being at the top during the general play.

Since I was using the same cards as before – they were not correct for the game and different cards are needed – but I had to feel how the bluffing worked.  And it was good more interaction between players – and more ability to drag somebody down – but there was a problem in that one person was ignored – the cards just passed over her.  But I think I can solve that – at the moment the cards are positive.  If the cards are negative cards however – moving people down – anybody doing badly will be pushed upwards – thus making them a target.

So the bluffing rules and the three part track worked ok together – needs to be tried with a fixed length game and cards with different effects.  Fortunately I have Monday off to recover from Odyssey (ancient world larp) so I should be able to bash out new cards before the next Monday and give the new game a try.

Tale from Anchor

So a little while back I was chatting to a friend about the LARP they are creating and they said it would good if there was a suitable, unique game for people in the world to play.  Fun, easy to learn, and not something you had to give all your attention to so people could talk in character over it.

We got chatting – and I find that  limitations actually help the creative process as they remove options allowing you focus on those remaining – and so I’ve started work something which got it’s first play test last night.

The game has to feel appropriate to the world  and needs to reflect certain themes that the larp is about and since everything that follows comes from those I’d best outline what those are.

·         It’s about driving your opponent down – not killing them. 

o   So game mechanic wise - no eliminations it’s about status relative to other people.

·         It’s a world with bureaucracy.

o   So game mechanic wise – card or role choosing limitations on what you can do are in (it’s also a society with paper – so cards fit in).

·         It’s ok to cheat – to a certain point but no further.

o   So game mechanic wise – cheating/lieing are in within the game rules.

·         Trading is an important part of the background (even if not something the players will do as part of their game as it’s not got enough players to support that activity).

o   So a theme around trading makes sense.

Now we’d been playing Coup that night – which I love – and is a very simple game based around lying.  You have a couple of cards which give you actions – but you can play any action in the game and if you are not challenged you get to do that action irrespective of what cards your holding in your hand.  But if somebody challenges you - show the card you have claimed to have and they lose a card, fail to show that card and you lose a card. Or say you have the card that blocks the card that has been played – you’ll get away with it unless called.  If your called on it – the same comparison happens.  Lose both cards and you are out – winner is the last one standing…….

This gives use -  bureaucracy, and this gives us cheating – but it utterly fails to give us “no elimination”.  So I made a version in which it was about moving people up and down a single track.  However a solo play of that showed that it did not seem to work.  So I created another version with three tracks – to give people something to prioritise – each one representing a valuable commodity in the world (themed around trading).  Which seemed to go ok in solo play so it got dragged out for a play test last night.

It went ok – but lacked a certain something.  The actions seemed a little anaemic – one person got to the top of track and just stayed there.  Currently we don’t have the blocker actions – and that was something that was lacking.  Part of the trouble is I’m having difficulty thinking up good actions for moving up the track – we’ve got up track 1, up track 2, up track 3, up one track and down another, up one track and also somebody else up a track.  It was suggested that “move somebody else down” was needed but that’s the same as “move yourself up just in another way”.

I like the three tracks – I totally like the three tracks – but I’m not sure that coups lieing works for what we want to do.  But what about the lying in kakerlaken poker – pass a card – claim what it is – and you have to decide if reject it, accept it as true, or pass it on……….. Hmmmm

Say an action – pass as card.  

Player can accept that card - at which point if it is the action stated they get to target the action - otherwise the person playing the card gets to target the action.

Player can reject the car - at which if it is the action stated the person playing the card gets to target the action otherwise they get to play the action.

The player can pass a card – they look at it and claim an action (does not have to be the same action as before) – and pass the card to a player of there choice.  Starting the same action

Might well work – and hits most of the same themes.  hmmmmmm

Since this game is only intend to be played at a larp I'm more willing to lift a wholesale mechanic - although copying game mechanics is actually considered totally acceptable in board game design circles. 

Version 4.mumble

So this was a three person play test and the first three person play test in a while.  

Overall - pretty damn good.  It's not perfect and as in a lot of 3 person war games two people fighting opens an opportunity for the 3rd person but I can live with 'works for 3 - better for 4'.  Came in at about two hours - which would be 90 minutes if you know what you are doing.  Which is good.

The feedback at the end of the game was positive (from one newbie and one person who played some time ago and thought it much improved) – and I agreed with them.  In particular the person who played before said it now felt like a good length - not dragging on a little like it had before. Much more like a finished game and a good one at that.

There was still a little bit of “not sure going first is worth it” – but a lot less - and the person who held that belief decided they might be wrong.  So the new build cards do what they are meant to - or at least in the right direction.    The actual values need to be determined a bit better.  But that might require some in depth play to decided. 

This rather neatly throws up just how interrelated everything is - there is no way of working out what the build card values should be unless the action cards are fixed.  But how good the action cards are depends heavily on everything else......  

There was also a request for some sort of combat track to help keep track of peoples strength – seems reasonable and easy to do.  We’ve been holding up hands recently to track - so it’s clearly needed these days. 

Four ideas for action cards to get the combat more invovled - thinking that these can replace the standard "one attack or one defence card" as they are a bit bland.

Remove enemy big man

Add your own big man

Draw 3(?) cards when attacked

Counter a taboo card and get some sort of bonus (cards?) for having done so. 

That is the change for this time round – test that and then hopefully fix the action card.  I've already decided that what is on the board is fixed – so then it’s just tweak the build card values to get them right.

It’s coming together I think – the regular Wednesday play tests are coming together - and as always if anybody is interested let me know.

More Play Testing.....

So another good play test – 4 people this time. 

The positive – the people new to version 4.0 felt that it zipped along at a much better speed, and the change to RongaRonga to allow you to flip one of your heads rewarded attacking a bit more.  And the quarry having a unique power did make it more of a focus – very attractive to the person with a 4 stone heads for example.  The combat seems to be working well – people trying to work out when to fight –and when to just take it.  Often looking at what is likely to be coming down the line.  The attacker winning mutual wipe outs does lead to a tendency for mutual wipe outs – since in a draw the attacker gets to flip there stone heads and play a RongaRonga.  That might need looking at…….

One good suggestion was a counter ‘totally taboo’ card – since currently the only counter is another ‘totally taboo card’.  Possible effects include allowing the original card to go ahead with a bonus – or blocking the player of the totally taboo card from playing any more cards……  Other funky cards that might be worth adding “remove enemy big man” and the flip “add your big man to a conflict”.  Not too sure about the ‘add a big man’ card as it actually saves you having to spend a food to put somebody on the board…..…  So it’s a two point swing plus.  It could just be remove a warrior a put a big man on the board.  This makes it less flexible but would still allow you to turn a wipe out into situation where you have got your big man left.  Which I think makes it more of a value with other cards (a two point swing in the right circumstances).

One oddity was that the game went on one turn longer than expected because at the end of one turn there were only three hexes with resources – so there a bit of an unexpected turn.  And I was the only person who realised that space to build in that final turn was the most precious resource in the game. Despite that it was still nicely tight – apart from for one player who was staggeringly far behind – in fact so far behind I wonder if they were not taking the VP’s when they placed there stone heads.

The interesting thing was that they went first for most of the game – and it is certainly why they think it’s why they did so badly. 

It’s certainly something I’ve been worried about – it’s why I hesitated about switching move order to being based of resource for so very long – so I’m inclined to believe them.  That said – I’m much happier with the secret VP’s and the flow of the game so it’s a case of making it work rather then going back to what we had.

Now at least part of that player doing so badly is based on decision they made.  They had first pick of the build cards – they could have taken the card that gave them a lot of Giant Stone Heads and hence VP’s but they chose not to.  That left them physically stronger but weak in VP’s which win you the game.  However while they controlled lots of space in the mid game when it has limited value – they lost it lost control of that space in the last turn when it was at its most valuable.

Another thing that happened was that the ‘steal a VP’ card only works on people with more resources then you (so higher in the turn order) – which meant he was always a target for that and could not use the card to claw back at all.  So easy fix there – allow that card to be used anywhere and hope the players us it to pick on what they consider the ‘correct’ opponent is.

This player did however manage to explain why going first is so disadvantageous – it’s because while you get slightly more cards and men then everybody else (and get a better fit to whatever you currently have so your discarding less cards) – when you go first your operating against every other player who is at full strength having just topped out on cards and men.  Even if you do nothing and defend (a dull option at best) then the player coming after you has one less player to worry about…

So some possible fixes…….

Give the player going first some sort of bonus in cards or men.  That’s basically the route the briefly lived shaman cards worked being powerful cards that the person picking first got.  Shaman cards are clumsy and I’m not sold on them – but just a general bonus “first person gets an extra two men, second person gets an extra man” could also work.  Still a bit clumsy in my opinion.

Make the build cards more diverse – at the moment the gap between the best card and the worst card is pretty narrow – widen that and the person going first has a significantly better choice.  A big problem with this (and also the first solution) is that the risk of a positive feedback linked to winning can develop.  I have more resources – so I have more men – so I have more resources…

Another option would be to radically change the game – so players take there build card, place giant stone heads but don’t get there cards and men until there actual turn.  Bit of a radical change – might work – would involve a lot of changes.

A fourth option would be to decouple the number of giant stone heads you get from the men/cards you get.  At the moment each build card has a budget – which works out how many men, cards and giant stone heads that card will have.  Well some cards have a slightly higher budget – a card with lots of giant stone heads will be weaker elsewhere to compensate.   However that link could be removed – either by allowing good all round cards or by making the number of giant stone heads not depend on the card but just on your turn position (so in a 4 player game you get 4 heads if you are going first).

Of them all – I quite like the idea of decoupling the value of giant stone heads.  So, for example,  there will be multiple cards that give you 4 men and 5 cards just with different amounts of stone heads on.  The actual difference in the number of cards and men can stay about the same – but with the existence of those if the person going first is not getting a lot of stone heads then it really is there own fault…..     

Another way of achieving this would be to just increase the budget of the build cards–while just making sure all the budget gets spent on giant stone heads.  I’ll hammer out values at some point – but I doubt I’ll have this ready for a trip to Coventry this weekend – which is where GSH got a lot of it’s early play testing.  Bless ‘em.  

FORE!

So last night I play tested the new version of Giant Stone Head – number 4.0 due to the large amount of changes.  And it was good.  No really - it ended and I was quite pleased.

The two main changes certainly fixed what they were meant to fix.  Using just resources for build and turn order made the book keeping much quicker and easier (the whole game was about 2 hours for 5 players which makes the holy grail of 90 minutes look much more achievable) – while hidden victory points made the end game less anaemic as you did not have the sense of ‘the end result is obvious’. 

A lesson in ‘don’t change to much at once’ however the addition of shaman cards has complicated the game and I’m not sure it’s actually needed.  Perhaps just slightly wider diversity in the build would have been enough to make first spot a good enough option to be worth taking…..  That one really needs a game breaker to test it out....

I described it as “the first time in a long time I’d not had any nagging doubts”.  The core game mechanics now seem more solid even if I’m not sure about the Shaman cards.   And the book I’m reading at the moment repeats the following quote a lot “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” (apparently that is from  Antoine de Saint-Exuper ) and the Shaman cards certainly look like something bolted on to be smoothed away.  So lets keep that in mind.

Once people had gone home – I started thinking about how the game was at it’s best when your spotting and exploiting opportunities and how the current cards (specifically the RongaRonga and Pimp Your Moai cards) don’t support that very well.  RongaRonga simply don’t drive your planning  because they are not a big enough while playing a pimp my Moai is actually an excuse to defend and do nothing. Equally the quarry – which is meant to be a place of exciting violence and high drama- has been grabbed by one player who has held onto it all game and not done very well out of it…..

Things I like – and are working – stone heads give you two VP’s when you build them –and one vp when you kick over other peoples.  I like that – it drives conflict – makes building stone heads the key sourve of VP’s (which it has to be in a game about building stone heads) and makes you a target by the very act of gaining VP’s.  It’s neat.

I’m less sure about how players gain additional VP’s from their own giant Stone heads (The pimp my Moai card or possession of the quarry which replicate each other effects).  So what I want to do – change the value of the quarry and the card – so the quarry is better in some way then the card not the same.  So possession of the quarry carries a greater premium and is not simply invalidated by randomly drawing a card (or likewise just drawing that card is not the stroke of great fortune). 

I also want to ensure people are active and doing rather than sitting defensively.  It would also be good to have a stronger reason to attack hexes that don’t hold a giant stone head.

So let’s keep the quarry as it is – at the end of the turn you can turn all of your giant stone heads to unwhorshiped for one VP each.

Lets change the ‘pimp my moai’ card so that if you win a victory against anybody you can flip one of your giant stone heads for 1 VP.  It’s still only 1 VP – but it also removes a reason to attack you which is good….

The later in the turn a player goes – the better the quarry is (less chance to lose it and more knowledge of the number of stone heads you'll have at the end) where as the earlier in the turn the better the pimp my moai card is (because it removes more peoples incentive to attack you).  Which is balanced – and you might well need more than one of these a turn so having a number in the deck is less of a problem. 

This rather fills the slot currently taken by RongaRonga cards (win fight – get 1VP) even if by a different mechanism – so I think this will replace the attack a person in a particular seat around the table.  So what happen to the “steal a VP” card? Well I think nothing.  We keep it as is – a Ronga Ronga card that’s used for hitting people further up the resource track then you – although I want to call it ‘Rob from the Rich!’. 

That feels a solid set of changes – and I’m unsure enough about how that will affect play that I’m going to withdraw the Shaman cards for the next play test.  They exist to make a tactic I don’t even know would work from looking appealing – avoiding resources and hanging around at the back – and last night people mainly used being at the back in order to grab being at the front next turn.  With even less stone heads on the board as people flip them mid turn being at the back to hovering up VP’s looks less likely.

All rather hopeful - i really should see if I can get a version ready to drag to bristol.

So turns out.....

....coming up with ideas for nine powerful but hopefully not over powerful cards was pretty easy.

Now if they are actually balanced or if there game breaking - that will have to wait till a play test to find out

The cards are....

Declare peace with one person for one turn - this is basically adding back the recently removed 'Invite your neighbor' card - which always seemed a little over powered.
End a conflict and retreat attackers bits without resolving. 
Remove enemy big man - and gain 1 attack or defense. Not sure if this should be +1 or +2 a 3 point swing is good but not that much better then a standard card, well a 4 point swing seem pretty damn good.
Cancel card just played - and take into your hand.  Improved version of totally taboo
Get a card out of the discard pile or search through the deck for it - a classic gaming power that's not in the game.  While not powerful it does mean you can pretty much get the card you need.
Steal 3 cards from an opponent - which is going to ruin somebody's day.
Score an extra one for each head you flip - does not allow you to flip heads.  Could yield about an extra 4/5 VPs if played right - but you do still need a way of flipping them. 
Put your big man into this fight from off the board.  Seems like just a 2 point swing - which it is - but provide they live - saves you the cost of bringing them on next turn which is also plus 1 person.
Take an extra man, an extra card, and an extra giant stone head. Not a game changer - but a nice boost.

So questions to be answered - who gets these bonus cards and when do they get them?

I think that on turn 2 and turn 3 - everybody but the last two players in the turn gets a card (so in a 3 player game the 1st player gets on, in a 4 player game players 1 and 2 get them, and in a 5 player game players 1 to 3 get them).  The first player draws as many cards are going to be given out - keeps 1 - and pass the remaining cards to the next player - who keeps one.  So 3 players - draw 1 get that.  5 players - draw three - keep 1 and pass 2 on.  Not sure about the user interface for this to make sure it happens and does not get forgotten.....

So onto the next bit - RongaRonga cards - creating opportunities to gain VP's and hurt people who are doing well.  These have to be changed because

i ain't dead

Sorry about the extended radio silence – after deciding that I was not going to push for Bristol Comic Con – the drive went out of me – which combined with a trip to Japan rather pushed GSH to the back burner.  As for Japan – well curry donoughts are ace and I’ll say no more. About it.

A play test!  I think this was the first time with the new card mix.  Took about 2 and half hours – reasonable length of time – but still feels overly long to me for the amount of game you get.  It’s only  4/5 turns in total – with a chunk of book keeping and with more down time in there then I’m happy about.   

5 players – 3 of which were in a tight group at the front – and two of which languished at the back.  One of those people got kicked at the start – and then made the mistake of grabbing and holding the quarry for multiple turns – while losing everything outside of it.  And the other had the problem that we went for a big burst of violence – that ran straight into a horrible defensive card combo that killed him stone dead – and left him a bit broken.  I also think they did not use the advice that going last is generally best – and let other people take that advantages spot in the turn order.

The feedback was good – they all got and understood the game – and seemed to enjoy themselves. 

There was a decent discussion about changes and how to cut down the book keeping - and the idea was raised that there might not be major rules problems rather it might be a peoples interaction with the game that’s the problem (user interface seems a good term).  Counting resources is a pretty minor bit of booking keeping – but it seems to slow things down a lot as we work out peoples build order.   Turn order – which has fundamentally the same mechanic – is much smother.  So the suggestion was that we create a track for resources – and see if that helps smooth it out.

Feels very sticking plaster to me – and it also feels very much like this issue is the elephant in the room that I’m not addressing.  The niggling doubt that won’t got away no matter how much I tweak.  I have had this before – were I ignored that feeling about a major issue the drive to attack – and kept tweaking and tweaking until I finally gave in and accepted that I was just wrong and a major change was needed.  I postponed the game production in order to have the time to get things right – so lets get things right.

There is a very big trap I need to avoid – earlier version actually did not actually have proper incentives for attacking but people did it anyway because that’s what the game was telling them to do.  And I need to avoid that from happening again.

I think there are two unrelated problems with game play – I should point out that when I’m writing this sort of post I’m often working out what I think as I go along.  So sorry if it’s a bit of a ramble. 

The first is the entire building and placing portion of the game – and without doubt it’s the best it’s been – but it still takes up way to much of the game time and breaks up the flow of the game something rotten – with almost no interaction between the players.  It’s not helped that the turn order jumps around every turn preventing people getting into any kind of flow – but I think that’s really important.

The second is that the end of game is a bit flaccid.  People know the scores and there are no major surprises at the end of the game.

I think the second problem has a simple fix - make victory points secret.  That injects an element of uncertainty into the last turn but in doing so it utterly breaks the current way of deciding turn order – and removes what is meant to be an important negative feedback mechanism to stop people who are winning from just keep on winning by giving them last choice in turn order – which is hopefully the least advantageous one. 

Good job I’m thinking about reworking that portion of the game then. 

Assuming we want to keep the “winner picks turn order last” if victory points are secret then we have to pick up another characteristic to count as ‘winning’ for determining the turn order – some examples are examples are how many stone heads you control, number of hexes you control, the number of men you have, the amount of cards you have, the number of resources you have.

Number of stone heads you control is tempting – it’s got a connection to VP’s after all.  But the ultimate goal of this is to smooth out and speed up this entire section – and there seem no better way of doing this then using a number you were going to work out anyway.  So the amount of resources it is….

The simplest way of doing this is to take the build cards in the order highest to lower and then use the same order for movement.  So the person who gets the best build card – also gets the first movement (which is generally the worst). 

 This is an idea I’ve been thinking about for ages – but I’ve always avoided before (I don’t think I’ve ever brought it in before – sometimes I forget – the versions blur together if I’m honest.)

I’m rather uncertain about this because it could well introduce a perverse incentive – where players try and maintain a low resource total (and thus not attacking or taking territory removing a key part of the game) in order to move last because it’s a bigger advantage then taking the first pick of build cards.  Fix that by making the gap between the build cards bigger and you end up with a positive feedback mechanism where players with the most resources get the best cards and they keep on staying at the top because they have more men and more cards.

Resources actually provide two things - superior access to build cards but they also provide the space to build the giant stone heads that win you the game.  At the end of the game that space is at a premium and highly valuable – but in the beginning space has little value because there is so much of it.  This means that at the end of the game the need for space will mean that players will be fighting over resources – if not for access to the build card then access to the space to build a giant stone head for the vps. 

So we need to make the earlier picks high picks of build cards more valuable then just cards on general – but I think not the first pick because that's just based on placement – rather then having emerged from play.

So what sort of bonus could they get?

It could be bonus victory points – but that feels rather bland.

It could be ongoing additional resources – extra men/cards/giant stone heads – which sounds like it might be a bit of an overly positive feedback mechanism.

It could be a one off chunk of people/cards/giant stone heads – but that is both a little bland and also positive feedback.

The idea I think would work would be a powerful one off card. This does present a couple of problems – not least of which is coming up with a roughly 6/9 new cards with interesting effects that over powered but not to overpowered.......

So.....

Secret VP's

Special one off cards if you take a build card higher in the sequence at the start of the 2^nd/3^rd turn.

Needs to rework the rongaronga card – and in general I need to think about the entire portion of the game which is how the cards open up opportunities for you – because I think the game is at it's best when it's about spotting opportunities for mischief and going for it......