Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Proposal: I Feel It In My Bones

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Sep 2011 12:34:00 UTC

Add a new rule, called “The Doom” as follows:

Any Insane Survivor may, as a Daily Action, create a post with the title “The Doom Approaches!”. This post is known as a Portent, and should announce that the Survivor in question predicts the approach of The Doom, the nature of which they may speculate upon as they wish. During the 48 hours following this post, no further Portents may be posted.

Any comment on that post which begins “Doom!” is taken as the commenting Survivor agreeing that the Doom is impending. The Survivor who made the post is automatically considered to have agreed in this way.

After 48 hours, any Survivor may resolve the Portent as follows: If fewer than four Survivors have agreed that the Doom is impending then each Survivor who agreed loses 1 Sanity. If four or more Survivors agreed then all Survivors who did not agree lose 1 Sanity each (whether or not they commented). If all Survivors commented and all agreed that the Doom is impending then the Doom Arrives!

If the Doom Arrives then the lifeboat temporarily capsizes and before it can be righted each Survivor loses all but one of their Items (they may choose which) and each Sane Survivor loses 3 Sanity, to a minimum of 7.

Two motivations for this one. First, Sanity seems to have become a Good Thing within the Nomic. This is a shame, since retaining Sanity is very grindy. This proposal lets the mad dudes have some fun. Second and more importantly, more hints at Cthuloid nastiness! :-D

posted by bateleur at 14 Sep 2011 13:52:59 UTC Comments (6)

Comments

Prince Anduril:

14-09-2011 15:03:37 UTC

imperial

Like the dynamic, but I’m a bit uneasy about the “fewer than 4” category. What if there are 4 or less living Survivors? Couldn’t this just be used to kill off the less sane ones at the end? I’m thinking that perhaps using a number relative to Quorum might be more appropriate.

Also, what is the point of the “minimum of 7” qualification? Surely the boat capsizing could tip those remaining sane survivors over the edge?

However, I especially like the idea of giving Insane survivors something to do, because I noticed there isn’t much for them now apart from annoying others, or trying to get sane with a dwindling food supply.

bateleur:

14-09-2011 15:12:29 UTC

No, this can’t be used to kill off anyone if there are four or fewer remaining Survivors… at least not without their cooperation.

The point of “minimum of 7” is that this mechanic is supposed to broadly favour the Insane (which it otherwise wouldn’t). The Insane already know in their hearts that the Doom is inevitable!

Kevan: he/him

14-09-2011 16:08:09 UTC

“loses all but one of their Items (they may choose which)” is problematic - fine in a tabletop game where we can make sure that everyone’s decided before moving on, but it doesn’t work in a medium where someone might not even read the blog for three or four days.

against

bateleur:

14-09-2011 16:15:28 UTC

Fair point, but we already have at least one mechanic like that in the form of the “abandoned passenger ship” rule. Indeed, that rule is in some sense worse because the diversity of possible items in each Survivor’s possession is far greater. (Although it’s also better in that the Item’s flags are limited, so at least people won’t be trying to eat them!)

Kevan: he/him

14-09-2011 16:26:02 UTC

Not quite. The passenger ship effect is “within 24 hours of the Sighting being resolved, each Survivor may select any Item” - if a few people fail to get around to it, it’s not a problem. In this case, though, Doom Arriving puts the game into a bit of a limbo state - we can’t continue playing until we’ve finished processing “each Survivor loses all but one of their Items”, which means waiting for everyone to choose the Item they want to keep. Certain actions (like stealing, or ticking the desk clock) could be illegal, depending on which items players chose to lose during the capsizing.

bateleur:

14-09-2011 16:30:18 UTC

OK, if it’s just the open-endedness that’s a problem that’s easily fixed.

against Self-kill… reproposal coming up!