Announcing a new variant or X-game: TRINITY
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:48 am
Hi folks. If it works and gets repeated, it's a variant; if not, it's an interesting one-off X-game!
Yondallus suggested it, and we're both working on the details and rules. Godexus has given his approval, so will sort out all problems
I'm GM'ing it, Yond is playing it, we want two more volunteers to play/test the first go at it, preferably people with some WOK experience, for their input.
Basically it is a 3-human-player version of Duel. The first try at the rules:
1) Three humans take two colours each, the other 4 colours are Robos. [It might work differently, perhaps better, if it was ONE colour each and 7 Robos, but we'll try this way first].
2) The 4 Robos act automatically and predictably, exactly as in Full Duel and Duel-Lite; so nothing new to learn or remember there.
3) The Victory Condition is: victory goes to the human player who first rips any 3 colours excluding his own. So, this can be 3 Robos, or 2 human colours and 1 Robo, or any combination of three. [We might find we need to make it FOUR rips, but we'll try it with three first]. RIPs are defined exactly as in Duel-Lite, ie the rip goes to the player, human or Robo, that ENDS the turn owning the last-to-be-lost province of the ripped player, ie it is possible to "steal" a rip from the first player to finish off a colour, later in the same turn. (It feels great when you do it!). If 2 humans achieve this at the end of the SAME turn, then the VC switches to first-to-four-rips, etc. This element of ANY mix of ripping Robos or humans should mean, IMHO, that one human is less tempted to just leave the other two humans fighting ... because the winner between the other two would then already have a rip under his belt towards his target of three rips ...
4) Same values as in Duels. Robos do the same as in Duels. No attacking or spy-ops on any player's START-prov for the first TWO turns. Whenever a prov is captured, its Def goes up by 0.2; each time; helps balance aggressive and defensive play, as in Duels. And means fewer/no differences to remember versus Duels.
5) Keeping it simple, as concerns naps, it will be like Duel-Lite rather than Full Duel; ie. there will be no automatic naps between opposing humans (as in Lite, unlike in Full). So, there are no automatic naps between YondA, KorA and CalA, YondB, KorB and CalB, etc. [We might find the variant would benefit from that, to reduce your tactical options to consider from about 40 to about 15, because of naps, but we'll try it without these gradually-expiring aotomatic naps first] The Robos are, as usual, semi-allied and will prefer attacking a neutral or human over attacking a fellow-Robo, unless no choice; just as in Full Duel and Duel-Lite.
6) But, unlike in Duels, there are THREE human players ... Hmm. So, in Trinity, there are the issues of diplomacy, naps and ganging-up. Hmm. Tricky to legislate for all possibilities. Let's try this:
a) GM's avoid any Trinity games having 2 from one clan and one other. Must be 3 from different clans; or 3 from same clan. We won't apply that to this first try at it, that's just for the future.
b) We COULD say "No diplomacy". But that would be a pity, and no way to police. Let's say that diplomacy is fine, public or private. But the 3 humans are ultimately against each other (no shared wins). Let's say that any NAP is, as usual, inviolate, not to be broken. But any other stuff and suggestions and agreements are a matter of diplomatic skill, bluff, and can be lies. Eg: "I'll go at RoboGreen and RoboRed with you, we'll grab one rip each ..."; or "Let's both take out the third human"; these are ALLOWED to be bluffs, tricks, lies, with no complaint of cheating, OK? Only NAPS are straight and MUST be stuck to. And only the elements of the nap that relate to non-aggression and dividing-up provs you will leave to each other to take; any additions to the nap, such as attacking X in return, are purely diplomacy, and might be a bluff, no complaints please. I hope you realise that this helps even up the threesome: two of them might have a binding non-aggression pact for a set number of turns, but the third player is comforted by the fact that any other arrangements, such as taking out colour X together, are non-binding and can be reneged on!
7) Start-map. Those of us who have GM'ed Duels have seen how hard it can be to generate and accept a start-up (start-provs, what the Robos will do, and OOP) that looks fair and equal between the two humans. (It typically takes me 10 restarts before I accept a start-map that looks interesting and even, and press Publish). It would be even harder to only accept a map that looked fair and even between THREE human players. Yond and I have agreed that, for the poor GM, and for players not to feel they got a raw deal, the only option is BIDDING. See the BIDDING rules at the end of the WOK Duel Rules. Yond and I agree that we need bidding to equalise start-positions in a 3-player game.
STOP PRESS!! Change: Bidding for start-positions is entirely an option for the GM. The following only applies if the GM institutes Bidding.
8. BIDDING FOR STARTING-POSITIONS. So, the start-map will be generated with 3 humans having 2 colours each. But then the 3 humans BID for swapping with each other. If all 3 spot/conclude that, say, Yond's two colours are much better placed, can help each other, are close to the Robos and Robo-collisions, and were lucky in the OOP ..... then the other two can bid to swap over who takes that position, and Yond can bid to keep it. Each human decides whether they would rather start where Yond does, or the second player, or his own start. Each sends in, secretly to the GM, a "bid" for their first choice, and a bid for their second choice. The bid is in terms of how many of their start-pop, in BOTH the provs they end up starting with, that they will sacrifice in order to win the bid for that starting-position. And a second bid, between the two starts they didn't bid for as first choice, again in terms of Pop from BOTH start-provs.
Confused? OK: The start-map is published, with Yond having Grey and Lt Blue, both near to an imminent Robo-collision he can exploit, and also lucky in the OOP.
This doesn't mean that Yond ends up with that start-position! All 3 players consider who got the better start-position after Turn 0 runs, and bid as they like. Secret bids to the GM.
Say, Yond hopes to end up with the pair generated for him (Grey and Lt Blue), so bids 28 Pop for first choice Grey/Lt Blue; AND, just in case he loses out on that pair of colours, he bids 14 Pop for Violet/Yellow as his second choice, if he misses out on his first choice. Say, Kor really hates his Lt Green/Orange start, so is desperate to switch; so he bids 68 Pop first choice to claim Grey/Lt Blue, and fully 89 Pop bid for Violet/Yellow - which will only apply if he fails to get his first choice ... Cal thinks his Violet/Yellow are middling, and the other two options not massively better or worse; so he'd prefer not to sacrifice lots of Pop; so he bids 16 Pop for first choice, Grey and Lt Blue, ansd also only 16 Pop for second choice, his "own" Violet/Yellow ...
The GM crunches the secret bids: Highest bid for first choice gets it; Kor gets the coveted Grey/Lt Green, and his second bid, of 89 Pop for Violet/Yellow is therefore voided.
GM crunches: Any other first-choice bids for either of the 2 remaining pairs of colours? In this case, no, they all had Grey/Lt Green as their first choice, and Kor won that bid and IS now Grey/Lt Blue.
So, it's a matter of who out of Yond and Cal gets Lt Green/Orange and who gets Violet/Yellow. GM looks at second choice bids. He ignores Kor's bid of 89 Pop second-choice for Violet/YYellow, because Kor is already sorted with winning his first choice, Grey/Lt Green. The GM compares Yond's and Cal's second-choice bids: Yond bid 14 Pop for Violet/Yellow as second choice, but Cal bid 16 Pop for it, so Cal gets it.
The GM announces who won which pair of start-colours, and what all the bids were (they're intrigued to know). Then swaps over the start-provs to match. And applies the penalties bid. Ie, in this case, Kor gets his preferred Grey/Lt Blue, and the GM manually edits the POP in those two start-provs downwards by his bid of 68 Pop in EACH of his two start-provs. The GM assigns Cal to Violet/Yellow, which Cal won as second choice, and removes the bid 16 Pop from EACH of Cal's start-provs Violet and Yellow. Yond gets the left-over Lt Green/Orange, but loses no start-Pop. You only lose start-pop on your SUCCESSFUL bids. It theoretically evens up the start-positions. If you couldn't care less which colour-pair you start with, then just bid zero/zero, and see what you end up with. If you are too busy in RL to consider the map and make a considered bid, then just bid zero/zero, and hope that the others have bid and are paying Pop-penalties for pairs that are better than what you will get by settling for whatever is left. In the event of ties, it is the EARLIER bid that gets it. If 2 or 3 bid zero/zero, then the GM decides the tie between zero/zeroes, by dice if necesssary.
Clear? Confused? Interested? Anyway, we need two of you to sign up to this playtest alongside Yondallus.
It's a new invention. Comments welcome.
edit: ONE TWEAK TO RULES:
If you rip the SECOND colour of another human, it does NOT count as a Rip for Victory Conditions. This is to make it less attractive for 2 humans to gang up on the third - they can't get one rip each from it. They can't get round this by ripping the third player's two colours on the SAME turn; only the colour wiped out earlier in the turn counts as a rip towards VC's, although the rip is awarded to the player who ENDS the turn owning that last prov of the human's first colour to get ripped.
NB: This tweak applies to GM Han's Trinity game; probably not to GM Chris's.
Hannibal
Yondallus suggested it, and we're both working on the details and rules. Godexus has given his approval, so will sort out all problems
I'm GM'ing it, Yond is playing it, we want two more volunteers to play/test the first go at it, preferably people with some WOK experience, for their input.
Basically it is a 3-human-player version of Duel. The first try at the rules:
1) Three humans take two colours each, the other 4 colours are Robos. [It might work differently, perhaps better, if it was ONE colour each and 7 Robos, but we'll try this way first].
2) The 4 Robos act automatically and predictably, exactly as in Full Duel and Duel-Lite; so nothing new to learn or remember there.
3) The Victory Condition is: victory goes to the human player who first rips any 3 colours excluding his own. So, this can be 3 Robos, or 2 human colours and 1 Robo, or any combination of three. [We might find we need to make it FOUR rips, but we'll try it with three first]. RIPs are defined exactly as in Duel-Lite, ie the rip goes to the player, human or Robo, that ENDS the turn owning the last-to-be-lost province of the ripped player, ie it is possible to "steal" a rip from the first player to finish off a colour, later in the same turn. (It feels great when you do it!). If 2 humans achieve this at the end of the SAME turn, then the VC switches to first-to-four-rips, etc. This element of ANY mix of ripping Robos or humans should mean, IMHO, that one human is less tempted to just leave the other two humans fighting ... because the winner between the other two would then already have a rip under his belt towards his target of three rips ...
4) Same values as in Duels. Robos do the same as in Duels. No attacking or spy-ops on any player's START-prov for the first TWO turns. Whenever a prov is captured, its Def goes up by 0.2; each time; helps balance aggressive and defensive play, as in Duels. And means fewer/no differences to remember versus Duels.
5) Keeping it simple, as concerns naps, it will be like Duel-Lite rather than Full Duel; ie. there will be no automatic naps between opposing humans (as in Lite, unlike in Full). So, there are no automatic naps between YondA, KorA and CalA, YondB, KorB and CalB, etc. [We might find the variant would benefit from that, to reduce your tactical options to consider from about 40 to about 15, because of naps, but we'll try it without these gradually-expiring aotomatic naps first] The Robos are, as usual, semi-allied and will prefer attacking a neutral or human over attacking a fellow-Robo, unless no choice; just as in Full Duel and Duel-Lite.
6) But, unlike in Duels, there are THREE human players ... Hmm. So, in Trinity, there are the issues of diplomacy, naps and ganging-up. Hmm. Tricky to legislate for all possibilities. Let's try this:
a) GM's avoid any Trinity games having 2 from one clan and one other. Must be 3 from different clans; or 3 from same clan. We won't apply that to this first try at it, that's just for the future.
b) We COULD say "No diplomacy". But that would be a pity, and no way to police. Let's say that diplomacy is fine, public or private. But the 3 humans are ultimately against each other (no shared wins). Let's say that any NAP is, as usual, inviolate, not to be broken. But any other stuff and suggestions and agreements are a matter of diplomatic skill, bluff, and can be lies. Eg: "I'll go at RoboGreen and RoboRed with you, we'll grab one rip each ..."; or "Let's both take out the third human"; these are ALLOWED to be bluffs, tricks, lies, with no complaint of cheating, OK? Only NAPS are straight and MUST be stuck to. And only the elements of the nap that relate to non-aggression and dividing-up provs you will leave to each other to take; any additions to the nap, such as attacking X in return, are purely diplomacy, and might be a bluff, no complaints please. I hope you realise that this helps even up the threesome: two of them might have a binding non-aggression pact for a set number of turns, but the third player is comforted by the fact that any other arrangements, such as taking out colour X together, are non-binding and can be reneged on!
7) Start-map. Those of us who have GM'ed Duels have seen how hard it can be to generate and accept a start-up (start-provs, what the Robos will do, and OOP) that looks fair and equal between the two humans. (It typically takes me 10 restarts before I accept a start-map that looks interesting and even, and press Publish). It would be even harder to only accept a map that looked fair and even between THREE human players. Yond and I have agreed that, for the poor GM, and for players not to feel they got a raw deal, the only option is BIDDING. See the BIDDING rules at the end of the WOK Duel Rules. Yond and I agree that we need bidding to equalise start-positions in a 3-player game.
STOP PRESS!! Change: Bidding for start-positions is entirely an option for the GM. The following only applies if the GM institutes Bidding.
8. BIDDING FOR STARTING-POSITIONS. So, the start-map will be generated with 3 humans having 2 colours each. But then the 3 humans BID for swapping with each other. If all 3 spot/conclude that, say, Yond's two colours are much better placed, can help each other, are close to the Robos and Robo-collisions, and were lucky in the OOP ..... then the other two can bid to swap over who takes that position, and Yond can bid to keep it. Each human decides whether they would rather start where Yond does, or the second player, or his own start. Each sends in, secretly to the GM, a "bid" for their first choice, and a bid for their second choice. The bid is in terms of how many of their start-pop, in BOTH the provs they end up starting with, that they will sacrifice in order to win the bid for that starting-position. And a second bid, between the two starts they didn't bid for as first choice, again in terms of Pop from BOTH start-provs.
Confused? OK: The start-map is published, with Yond having Grey and Lt Blue, both near to an imminent Robo-collision he can exploit, and also lucky in the OOP.
This doesn't mean that Yond ends up with that start-position! All 3 players consider who got the better start-position after Turn 0 runs, and bid as they like. Secret bids to the GM.
Say, Yond hopes to end up with the pair generated for him (Grey and Lt Blue), so bids 28 Pop for first choice Grey/Lt Blue; AND, just in case he loses out on that pair of colours, he bids 14 Pop for Violet/Yellow as his second choice, if he misses out on his first choice. Say, Kor really hates his Lt Green/Orange start, so is desperate to switch; so he bids 68 Pop first choice to claim Grey/Lt Blue, and fully 89 Pop bid for Violet/Yellow - which will only apply if he fails to get his first choice ... Cal thinks his Violet/Yellow are middling, and the other two options not massively better or worse; so he'd prefer not to sacrifice lots of Pop; so he bids 16 Pop for first choice, Grey and Lt Blue, ansd also only 16 Pop for second choice, his "own" Violet/Yellow ...
The GM crunches the secret bids: Highest bid for first choice gets it; Kor gets the coveted Grey/Lt Green, and his second bid, of 89 Pop for Violet/Yellow is therefore voided.
GM crunches: Any other first-choice bids for either of the 2 remaining pairs of colours? In this case, no, they all had Grey/Lt Green as their first choice, and Kor won that bid and IS now Grey/Lt Blue.
So, it's a matter of who out of Yond and Cal gets Lt Green/Orange and who gets Violet/Yellow. GM looks at second choice bids. He ignores Kor's bid of 89 Pop second-choice for Violet/YYellow, because Kor is already sorted with winning his first choice, Grey/Lt Green. The GM compares Yond's and Cal's second-choice bids: Yond bid 14 Pop for Violet/Yellow as second choice, but Cal bid 16 Pop for it, so Cal gets it.
The GM announces who won which pair of start-colours, and what all the bids were (they're intrigued to know). Then swaps over the start-provs to match. And applies the penalties bid. Ie, in this case, Kor gets his preferred Grey/Lt Blue, and the GM manually edits the POP in those two start-provs downwards by his bid of 68 Pop in EACH of his two start-provs. The GM assigns Cal to Violet/Yellow, which Cal won as second choice, and removes the bid 16 Pop from EACH of Cal's start-provs Violet and Yellow. Yond gets the left-over Lt Green/Orange, but loses no start-Pop. You only lose start-pop on your SUCCESSFUL bids. It theoretically evens up the start-positions. If you couldn't care less which colour-pair you start with, then just bid zero/zero, and see what you end up with. If you are too busy in RL to consider the map and make a considered bid, then just bid zero/zero, and hope that the others have bid and are paying Pop-penalties for pairs that are better than what you will get by settling for whatever is left. In the event of ties, it is the EARLIER bid that gets it. If 2 or 3 bid zero/zero, then the GM decides the tie between zero/zeroes, by dice if necesssary.
Clear? Confused? Interested? Anyway, we need two of you to sign up to this playtest alongside Yondallus.
It's a new invention. Comments welcome.
edit: ONE TWEAK TO RULES:
If you rip the SECOND colour of another human, it does NOT count as a Rip for Victory Conditions. This is to make it less attractive for 2 humans to gang up on the third - they can't get one rip each from it. They can't get round this by ripping the third player's two colours on the SAME turn; only the colour wiped out earlier in the turn counts as a rip towards VC's, although the rip is awarded to the player who ENDS the turn owning that last prov of the human's first colour to get ripped.
NB: This tweak applies to GM Han's Trinity game; probably not to GM Chris's.
Hannibal