Thursday, April 10, 2025

Proposal: Worth The Trouble

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 11 Apr 2025 18:38:08 UTC

Create a new rule, called “Challenges”:

Challenges are publicly tracked in an alphabetically ordered list called “Challenge Locations”, which contains the name of each Challenge along with it’s currently assigned Challenge Spot. Each Point of Ingress, along with the spots E, I, and T, are Challenge Spots. Each Challenge must have a name, which is Flavor Text, and a Threshold, which is a positive integer greater than 4.
The list of Challenges is as follows:
**Guard Dog**
*Threshold: 18
**Keypad**
*Threshold: 12
**Stuck Door**
*Threshold: 8
**Tough Lock**
*Threshold: 6

Create a subrule “Restructuring” of the rule “Challenges”:

After a Break In has occurred, the Concierge may perform the atomic action “Restructuring”, which is as follows:
*Clear all Challenge Spots of Challenges.
*Randomly order all Challenges, and assign each a number according to their order.
*Roll an N-sided dice for each Challenge Spot, with N being the number of Challenges.
*Assign each Challenge Spot to the Challenge represented by the dice’s result.
*Update the list of Challenge Locations.

Create a subrule “Activation” of the rule “Challenges”:

A Challenge is Activated if both of the following statements are true:
*Two or more Agents have a Location equal to the Challenge’s assigned Challenge Spot during a Break In.
*One or more of the above Agents is a Burglar.
*One or more of the above Agents has Committed to the Challenge.
When a Challenge is Activated and all involved Agents are Burglars, then it is Shared.
*If the Threshold is exceeded, then each involved Burglar gains 1 Loot, and is not considered to have the same Location as any Camera Traps during the current Minute.
*If the Threshold is not met, each involved Burglar cannot gain any more Loot for the remainder of the current Break In.
*If the Challenge’s state cannot be set to Success or Failure, or the Threshold is met exactly, then the Challenge is no longer Active.
When a Challenge is Activated and the involved Agents are on different teams, then it is Fought.
*If the Threshold is met or exceeded, and more than half of the Committed points were provided by the Guards, then each of the involved Guards are considered to have Encountered 2 unique Burglars for each Burglar they Encounter this Minute.
*If the Threshold is met or exceeded, and more than half of the Committed points were provided by the Burglars, then none of the involved Burglars are considered to have the same Location as any of the involved Guards, or any Camera Traps, during the current Minute.
*If the Challenge’s state cannot be set to Success or Failure, or the Committed points are evenly split between the involved Guards and Burglars, then the Challenge is no longer Active.

At the end of the sentence

An Agent may change their Route to any complete Route, or to a blank string, as a virtual action.

add the text

If any of the Spots in their new Route contain a Challenge, they may choose to Commit a whole number of their current Fame or Infamy points to the Challenge. If the Agent Commits to multiple Challenges in the same Route, the total number of points they Commit may not exceed their current number of Fame or Infamy points.”

in the same paragraph.

Possible changes, either for Revision, or for future proposals: Changing Challenge Locations to no longer be publicly visible, adding more options for the effects of Challenges, adding more Challenges, adding a Guard-specific Shared option for Challenges, and changing the Threshold numbers based on how many Fame and Infamy points are actually gained after the first Break In.
I thought this would be interesting, as it adds ways to mitigate Guards completely locking down the Hotel while still adding rewards for the Guards if they win a Challenge. It also allows potential Burglar backstabbing, and a method of spending Fame and Infamy. I did not specify anything as requiring only Fame or only Infamy, as due to the team-swapping mechanic, some Guards will have Infamy and some Burglars will have Fame due to having played on a different team last Break In.

Comments

SingularByte: he/him

11-04-2025 07:57:39 UTC

This is a little confusing to me as an in-universe concept. It’s like, you go up to the house and find it’s guarded by a guard dog or locked by a keypad lock, then you can just walk past it without any issues whatsoever. Do these represent side-rooms with loot in them? If so, why are they at the entrance?

Also the “encountered 2 unique burglars” part is a little ambigious - is this in addition to the burglars already there?

The terminology is also inconsistent. It talks about whether it can ever be set to Success or Failure but those are never states it’s set to, so it will always become no longer active. This appears to let you then try again over and over by staying in the same spot for 12 minutes, racking up score for one team or the other.

Some of the bullet points aren’t led into, so it looks like they can be interpreted as always being checked rather than being gated behind circumstances. e.g. the ones about if the threshold is exceeded for different combos of burglars and guards.

Also, you might need to clarify what counts as involved. Do you win loot from just standing there without engaging in the challenge?

arrow

Darknight: he/him

11-04-2025 14:31:29 UTC

against

Kevan: Concierge he/him

11-04-2025 16:02:31 UTC

against The idea of random, public terrain changes is decent one, but the “Challenges” process seems a bit complex and has some issues (you’ve also got “both of the following statements are true” being followed by three bullet points).

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

11-04-2025 17:15:24 UTC

against

DoomedIdeas: he/him

11-04-2025 17:36:37 UTC

Lesson learned- I need to do quite a bit more editing before I submit. Thank you for the feedback- I’ll make sure the next proposal is better!
against Withdrawing.