New Game Idea - Needs tweaking

[Zurvan]

I posted about this a loooong time ago, and have made some tweaks to it. It's a 9 player game, although it is scalable larger (not smaller). If you want to play, you can express interest here, but this is not the sign-up thread. This is for rule tweaks and discussion. Once I'm happy with the rules, and if there seems to be interest, then I'll post the sign-up thread.

As always, people who contribute to the rules discussions get #1 priority for the game. I can run this at 9, 12, 16 or 20 people. I actually think 16 would be ideal.

Anyway, here's the rules. Tear it apart, kthx.
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<u>Bribery</u>

The game starts with 3 teams of 3 people. Each person starts with 100 coins. The goal of the game is for one team to accumulate three quarters of the total coins. Once a team has three quarters of the total coins in a game, the game is over, and the individual player on that team with the most coins wins the game.

How does a player &amp; a team gain coins? Bribery. Every day, each team will attempt to bribe a player from another team to join them. A player has the option to reject or accept the offer. If a player receives multiple offers, he picks the one that he likes best, or can choose no offers. If he accepts, he gains the number of coins in the offer, minus a commission for his current team, and joins the new team. His coin total is added to the new teams total.

There are 2 phases to the game. Phase 1 is the Negotiation Phase. It is done publicly in the thread. This is where teams try to feel out what players would be willing to join them, and for how much. It is also where players try to get other teams interested in them. The only way to win this game is to switch sides.

Phase 2 is the Bribing Phase. After phase 1 finishes (at a set time), there is no more posting in the thread, as if it were night in Werewolf. Teams can get together privately via AIM or PM to discuss their strategy. They can choose to bribe 1 individual. The 2 things available to offer are coins, and commission. As mentioned above, when a player is bribed to a new team, his old team receives a commission from that bribe.

For example, Team A bribes player 1 from Team B, with 50 coins. The default commission is 10%, so player 1 receives 45 coins, and the remaining 5 coins are distributed among the remaining players of his old team. A player can have a fraction of a coin, if any strange percentages come up.

If there is a commission component to the bribe, the player will earn a percentage of the total commission paid on any bribes to the team, while he is a member. For example - if given a 50% commission bribe, the player gets 50% of the total commission off the top, and then the other 50% is split among all remaining players normally, including the bribed player.

If all teams offer a bribe, and they are all accepted, the players on the team that offered the lowest amount will receive a 20 coin bonus. Only the players who remain on the team, and offered the bribe, will receive the bonus. Example: Green team is players A, B &amp; C. They bribe player D, who accepts. They all receive the bonus. Player C has accepted a bribe from another team, and leaves. Although he pays the bribe to D, only A &amp; B receive the bonus.

If all teams offer a bribe, and NONE are accepted, the team offering the highest amount will receive a 20 coin bonus for each player.

If no teams offer a bribe, the player with the highest total on each team will lose 10 coins to the player with the lowest total.

When calculating bribe amounts for the purposes of comparison, commissions will be calculated as what that commission would be based on an average of the last 10 commissions paid, and added to the dollar amount. &lt;-- I understand this, honest.

When teams decide who they would like to bribe, they will send the game Mod a PM, listing the player, his current team, the bribe amount in coins as well as where the coins are coming from. Coins are not team property - they belong to individual players. When bribing, 1 player could pay the whole bribe, or it could be split evenly among the team. That is a matter for discussion.

If a player switches teams, he still pays any agreed bribes for his old team before switching.

All individual player coin totals will be kept secret. Only myself &amp; the player will know how many coins they currently have.

Is there any interest in this game? Does anybody have any comments on the game play, and how to improve it? Does anybody besides me think it would be fun to play?

I don't know how long it would take, but the time committment should be minimal while it is on-going. You will obviously be expected to participate, but it shouldn't be as time intensive as a werewolf game.

I want to run this game, but I feel like the rules need some tweaking. Let's talk about it in here, and see if we can come up with a better rule set.

[Nicholasp27]

this looks great; i like that it's highest player on highest team that wins, so u not only have to be on richest team, but also richest player on that team

however, how will it work in terms of deciding team bribes? what if some people on the team wanna bribe x and others wanna bribe y? do u take first pm from anyone on team as official? or have vote if multiple? or rand if multiple?

[Zurvan]

[ QUOTE ]

however, how will it work in terms of deciding team bribes? what if some people on the team wanna bribe x and others wanna bribe y? do u take first pm from anyone on team as official? or have vote if multiple? or rand if multiple?

[/ QUOTE ]

I hadn't thought of this.

I have a few thoughts:

1. That team offers no bribe if PM's don't agree
2. If multiple PMs that disagree, everyone on the team takes a penalty
3. I'll randomly select a team captain every day that handles all communications, and his word is binding.
4. If there's multiple PMs, each one received will count as a 'vote', and the person with the most votes gets the bribe.
5. Each day, the players will PM me with who on their team is sending the binding PM for that day.

I'm not 100% happy with any of these. First in is no good, IMO. Rand might end up being the way to go. Need more suggestions on this, as well.

[clowntable]

On a quick readthrough I don't see any major flaws. The biggest problem will be to mak sure players actively participate.
If one player is gone for a while it basically stalls the whole team because he won't be able to agree on his share to pay etc etc
[I think I have also found an interesting team strategy already]

As to the "who PMs", how about the player with the highest commission% overrides lower %s?
Alternatively maybe one player for each team could be declared "franchise" in a vote and not be bribed away that day and get to make decisions?

[Neil S]

I would suggest #2, since that would prevent people from going behind each other's backs and using each other's coins for the bribes. Since it's not mandated that bribes be taken from the team's pools equally.

[Zurvan]

Pogchat has informed me the "bribes for commissions" is a little confusing.

My clarification, with Neil's comment for additional help:

(11:28:30 AM) ZurvanCanada: When a team bribes w/ commission, they're offering a percentage of FUTURE commisions the team would earn, while that player is there
(11:28:45 AM) ZurvanCanada: so if I bribe you at 50%, you get half of all team commissions while you stay on my team
(11:28:48 AM) Neil Stevens: heh
(11:28:53 AM) ZurvanCanada: and the other 50% is distributed normally
(11:28:59 AM) Neil Stevens: so that sets all the more incentive to let your teammates *get* bribed, rather than going out bribing

[Nicholasp27]

i'm mainly thinking of end-game...if one player has tons of money and his team is near that 3/4 mark, he will have diff objectives than the other teammates, who may decide to hurt the team's overall money pot in order to keep it below the 3/4 mark until they can get rid of that player or lower his stash

basically, u don't want ur team to hit that 3/4 mark unless u believe there is a good chance that u could have the highest gold of the players...

[LuckayLuck]

correct me if I'm wrong with any of these statements:


1. Without the 20 coin bonuses, this game would be zero-sum and the total amount of coins in the game would be completely equal.

2. If there were no 20 coin bonuses, offering any bribes would be dumb because it's money out of your own pocket into someone else's.

3. With the 20 coin bonuses, there are two things you want to do:

a. Have the team collectively offer a high amount in hopes that you get the 20 coin bonus. However, this is impossible because all teams need someone to go in order to collect the bonus. Thus, the team member will refuse to leave (since he wouldn't get the 20 coin bonus), so no 20 coin bonus would be accomplished.

b. Offer a 1 coin bribe, in hopes that your team gets the lowest successful offer bonus (and nobody else leaves). I think the equilibrium here is that everyone offers 1 coin bribes and nobody accepts...


I dunno, clearly, I'm missing a critical component here or this game is going to be very slow rolling unless suboptimal play is employed. Walk us through an example round with rational players?

[Zurvan]

We're discussing the game in pogchat. There's obviously holes, which I knew when I posted this.

Anyone with ideas is welcome.

Luckay - you've hit upon the clear flaw in the game. I haven't hit upon the mechanics required for the dynamic I want (mmmmm big words)

[Nicholasp27]

luckay,

#2 is wrong

u would still bribe people to make ur team larger in going toward the goal of ur team having 75% of the gold...u can't win if u aren't on the richest team...so if u don't bribe, ur team will just shrink and not grow and u'll lose