Truly excellent idea!
5 Likes
Specializations
I hear that! This is precisely why I wanted to do a postmortem to see the player reaction to new wrinkles. I wanted specialization to feel special - that they opened doors and made it so your specialization could âsee things no one else can see, do things no one else can do!â The flip side of that coin is âOh, this mission is best for my specialization. No reason to take any other mission.â In BDSV, did specializations feel like a special opportunity? Like being railroaded? Or a half baked addition that could have been more fully baked?
Classes were intended to be available in the beginning, but I ran out of time with the development cycle and really wanted to meet my self-imposed deadline of starting by mid January. I would have left it out, but then @bizmail_public raised the idea of specialization in Round 3 and I wanted to respond to that and see where things went.
I tried to add class-specific automation during the âeasy weekâ I gave myself with Round 5, but just couldnât quite finish it. I do want to add it.
I thought about mission bonuses for having a full complement of specializations (which was introduced in the final round) but I kept coming back to the âkeep it simple, donât require coordination among multiple players because that puts people with less time at a disadvantageâ. A lot happens in a life in 12 weeks, and we had any number of players moving, starting new jobs, and otherwise grappling with the many-headed Beast of Real Life.
The initial inspiration came from BDW: how would vehicle classes be modeled in a game like this? Everyone would have access to a special skill, TRAVEL, that burned fuel (mana) according to their class, and then the idea felt like it had general-purpose potential.
I toyed with the idea of having BLUE provide âmanaâ and that each class would have different skills that could be deployed: DEFEND, HEAL, BUFF, etc - but I didnât have time to fully flesh that out prior to start. On top of that, folks seemed to be struggling a bit with the new USE order and I felt like adding an additional mechanic would only make that worse.
6 Likes
Classes from the outset would be fun. Could be assigned based on character descriptions, or let players choose.
The class change mid way is fun too, or maybe even open up new classes/hybrids.
Really appreciate all the story development that everyone does. Q1 is always âdeath pullâ time at work for me, so these two BDS games have been great to participate in, even if I donât get make the more elaborate contributions that some players do.
yeah - I am a doorgame guy, not a narrative guy, lol.
8 Likes
Nope. Just make PVP the final round.
And the PVP doesnât even have to be GM-designed, so long as you can convince the GM to let you whack someone.
For example, from The Guide:
Extended space travel presents unique challenges for fluid-based life forms. H20 is vital to all of them, but in differing amounts, formulations, and concentrations.
Space Cacti require occasional immersion of their rump into some damp nutrient-rich mud, Space Lizards require frequent administrations of high-pressure water to flush their cloaca (which, often gets used in place of mud. The Cacti donât seem to be able to distinguish). Space Mammals need to drink fresh water, while Space Lobsters need to breath salt water. Even the most petulant of space travelers need water for their potato gardens.
The trouble is, water is an encumbrance on a starship: Itâs heavy and it takes up a lot of space. Doubly so when youâve got the fresh-water tank over there, the monsanto tank over here, and the corrosive salty brine in the middle. Which is why (hold your ears Dottie) the earliest space travelers had to drink their own pee, Moose Grylls style.
So, present-day potable portage providers provoked their proudest to produce practical and pragmatic products. Most notable of this is the Walmart-Yutani Sir-Mixolotogistâ˘.
The Sir-Mixolotogist was an Spacenet-of-Things, environmentally aware, Alexa-speaking, AI agent, able to combine purest H20 with the required additives: Miracle-Grow, Viagra-Grow, bleach (again, for those cloacas), salt, et cetera. The Sir-Mixolotogist currently enjoys a 68% market share hold as a key component in the re-breather, re-hydration, sea-breather, and power flusher product spaces.
Had Seelo lived, and not found excuse to try shenanigans earlier, in the final round heâd have sent a PM to the GM, citing this Guide entry, poisoning a target, and then hopping in an escape pod.
The GM, then, could decide whether I was successful, or whether I failed and the crew airlocked me for mutiny. Either way, itâs a great and memorable twist, and the deceased doesnât get their game cut short.
âŚ
This type of âno pvp till final roundâ trope would work well for a Reservoir Dogs or Hateful 8 style game. It would also work well for a BDSV type finale with a GM that was aiming for cooperation. If the GM doesnât state whether itâs a PVP or PVE game up front⌠from now forward we will have an extra bit of tension going into that last roundâŚEspecially given TexAsssses admission that he contemplated cutting-and-scuttling on yâall.
PS: Donât worry, lobsters. Iâd never put poison in my meals.
8 Likes
Iâm drawing a blank- was there a digger specific mission? Mostly I felt shut out by the class specific ones.
1 Like
You meese may be laconic, but you know when to hoist a pint (or liter or four)
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My word, youâre right - I didnât have a digger-only mission in the lot. The eye-gouging mission was certainly weighted towards diggers, but not exclusively limited to them. Several missions granted significant bonuses to specific classes, and generally speaking only those classes chose them.
2 Likes
Digger is digger does, nobody thinks of us till something needs the POW! POW!
I did feel like I didnât concentrate on buffing my stats as a digger just because missions kept favoring other classes.
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So, um, what do I do this weekend?
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I have to say, as a Warden, it felt like we got more buffs than others. Especially in the Added HP and defending using our full DEF.
But, theoretically, we needed it.
So one big slab of Moose Muscle here at the expense of most other stats.
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And yet Iâm the meatshield!
(Another victory for the bbs! My phone auto predicts âmeatshieldâ)
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Iâm pretty sure I got a request from the Philosilobster to take a Digger specific mission. Iâll try to go look that up againâŚ
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Mark Watney relaxed in the comfortable bosom of the chair on his escape pod. Finally, free of the obligations and off the Coleridge, Mark had definite plans to visit the space beaches of Arkturon IV, which were reportedly teeming with newly found forms of algae which were said to have interesting temporal growth patterns. Perfect for a relaxing educational spin instead of waiting in the terror of the cafeteria. He punched in the destination, locked it in and shut up the mini-Kassandra that started to get talkative.
He could use the quiet, Tex had spent the past few days acting as a glorious savior instead of the obvious bait heâd really been. Only blind luck had brought him back. Well, that and the fluorometer that Watney had loaned him. Tex had still managed to scratch up the lenses somehow.
Lizards.
Well, at the very least heâd have time to catch up on the latest biological periodicals. Getting on opportunity to chat with Professor Omnicron had been pleasant, discussing research techniques and bouncing some theory around with.
Relaxing. Time to oneself. Quiet. Freedom.
He absentmindedly dialed up some ABBA and skimmed Biologist Today! He had a snack and glanced at the clock to see if it was naptime yet. It slowly pulsed the time remaining until his destination, indicating there would be no deviations, since heâd confirmed it twice with mini-Kass.
550 sols.
âFuck.â
12 Likes
It makes me so happy to see this evolve and grow and carry on. Thank you. 
12 Likes
See how much happiness your brainchild hath given unto us?
6 Likes
Great, Great post, Chris.
There is a lot to unpack here. Too much for me to process while travelling, but I want to engage and contribute, so below are some fragmentary thoughts.
Donât allow co-operation
This is far harder than it sounds. There are three mathematical properties that, if present, mean co-operation is an âemergent propertyâ â that is, itâll happen even if no one intended it or is even aware itâs happening. Slime molds are amazing co-operators, for example.
Crudely, these three properties are:
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âiterated game.â That is, youâll be meeting the same players again in later rounds. Kind of a given for a door game. ( I am glossing over a key detail here. If you know exactly when the game will end, then the mathematical formalism that supports cooperation fails. But that rabbit hole is a distraction for our purposes until the final few rounds).
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âidentified players.â That is, you know which player you are working with and how they treated you in the past. Again, kind of a given for a door game.
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âpositive sum game.â That is, co-operation actually pays. Non-positive sum games quickly become boring â they are just some version of âking of the hillâ or "candy land " (a race to the finish). Since the GM almost has to have positive sum elements to keep the game interesting, all three conditions are likely to be met, especially in early rounds, so co-operation of some sort is likely to emerge.
But oh, the complexity that hides in âco-operation of some sort.â Here there is a richness. Co-operation can happen at many levels and scales, and foster competition.
For example, the nuclear reactor is unstable. If no-one fixes it, everyone takes a lot damage. Fixing the reactor requires a ârepair crewâ of several players acting in a coordinated manner But the repair crew has a maximum size - space is tight in the core â and different crews compete to be the âsuccessfulâ repair crew. Why compete? because the successful repair crew has a choice in how to fix the reactor. One choice is to reduce damage for everyone, but another choice is to reduce damage for some people by redirecting that damage onto others. And the repair crews can compete. or collude. or sabotage.
Mathematically, those are all potentially âcooperativeâ behaviors. But would make for a hella interesting round.
The best suggestion Iâve seen so far to complicate, and therefore enrich, co-operative behavior is to screw with â2. identified playersâ. Someone above suggested each player would be assigned a âstrawâ account. In the current version, we would have gotten, say, a randomly assigned âplayer_Nâ account. When folks see a post from bizmail_public, they correctly make certain strong assumptions about that player. After all, Iâve heavily invested in building a reputation for that account. But what would I do if I controlled another account not immediately traceable to bizmail_public? Moreover, if Seelio would have had a âplayer_Nâ account he would have claimed to be bizmail just to jack with folks. It would have been⌠complex.
Bending the Narrative
We should probably have a pow-wow ahead of time about this. In the first BSD, I intentionally tried to hijack the narrative on several occasions. I failed with the Taliionis, but may have succeeded when we handily defeated both the ICUP advance team and the Badass Space Dragon in the same round.
Since then, I have come to respect how incredibly much work these door games are for the GM, so I really shy away from screwing with the vital narratives our various GMs pour so much sweat into. But Messana has now posted twice that posts I made suggesting we try to bend the narrative ( a mutiny, and building our own specializations) were appreciated. This is a surprise to me. Had I known this kind of fuckery could have been viewed as positive contribution, I absolutely would have pushed to organize a mutiny. ( the mutiny I was contemplating would have been a big FU to the GM: share the juice so that everyone can survive one round of no mission, we all stayed in the mess for that round and then Dare the GM to kill us all in the subsequent round)
So a general indication ahead of time would have a huge impact on me and several other players.
Concealed Orders.
Concealed orders, which were allowed in BSD1, is an effective short term corrosive for cooperation, making it particularly effective narrative subversion tool for the last few rounds. Concealed orders are a lesser problem if (1) there are at least several more rounds to play and (2) cooperation may become useful in the future. Basically, if reputation matters. It was precisely the concealed order problem that I was addressing in BSD1 with âEndogenous Escrow.â I donât think Patrace understood what a powerful tool I was unleashing when he let me declare those âescrowâ accounts. Hidden orders will have a modest effect so long as (1) some coterie of players can credibly threaten ostracization and (2) being ostracized was potentially painful. That said, they could be useful for developing certain character arcs, and therefore make the game more interesting. Image how the game would have careened if Hans Landau had pulled this sort of stunt about Round 6.
Forcing Conflict
Forcing conflict is certainly a fine idea. I am fine with PvP, but lethal PvP needs to be restricted to the last few rounds. Hence my idea of âtheft.â I like the idea that someone else suggested (?Petersen?) that theft be a risky proposition.
In the current game, I fully expected there to be a round where some crucial resource to be in too short of supply. Perhaps an air leak, with only enough oxygen in the emergency supply to keep 12 scavengers alive; the remainder would âpass outâ for one round. That would have made for some interesting crew dynamics.
incentives
As for the incentives: the key incentive is to keep folks alive so we can merrily joke along. That will dominate all other game mechanics. This is why from Falkayn to Landau, bizmail_public constantly pleads with people to keep up their HP. That wonât change, even if bizmail_public were to be banned from BoingBoing.
But there is still a lot that could be done. In the current game, the GM could have sent an PM to the first player to score, say 5 GLO. This would be the âinâ club, with special access. Maybe tips about future rounds, or just the Drinks Menu from the TarDISS. Word would get out. Others would strive to get 5 GLO to be able to âjoin the club.â
Also, there could special abilities that didnât affect game play. You could be called to the bridge to get your âemployee of the monthâ certificate. Maybe your account was used to post a special mission. Does discourse support colored fonts? Low glo players could have their results posted in hard-to-read font colors.
I suspect we were building towards something like this with âbuying out our contracts,â but we never quite got there.
Dang this is an over long post
I am up past my bed time, and I need to be up early to support my travel obligations, so Iâm going to pause here.
I apologize that my thoughts are so scattered and poorly constructed. I wanted to engage before the conversation moved on. If anyone sees any value in any of the above comments, please let me know what is interesting so that I can return to that point in more coherent, comprehensible, and constructive manner.
I deeply respect everything our community puts into this â especially our hardworking gamemasters â and want to do my part to make this even better.
âFalkaynâs ghost/ Bubba Zanetti / Hans âphilosolobsterâ Landau.
10 Likes
Specialization is primal. It will emerge, one way or another, as soon as free exchange is allowed. A certain Scotsman published a crucial book about this in 1776. So one may as well build it into the game play.
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Next edition: Badass Space Turkey
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Still have a few comments pending on this one and am already working on the next one. Shhhhh, donât tell @monkeyoh
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