They called me mad at the university!

[Michael S. Miller]

Did you ever have an idea that was meant for someone else's brain? Y'know, the Muse got too tired to complete the delivery to the right person, and just dropped it off in the nearest gray matter? Here's one that has been sitting on my hard drive for months. It came to me in a flash as part of an all-Mad-Scientist sort of game, and I still think it's a neat idea. However, I know I will likely never write an all-Mad-Scientist game, so I think it's a shame to go to waste. I'm posting it here in the hopes that the intended recipient (or anyone else, for that matter) can make use of it.

When building a device, you must name it. You get more bonuses, the longer and more convoluted the name is. (Each word in the name grants an extra die, or more points toward the title.) In order to activate the device, the player must state the full, correct name. "Never fear, I'll use my Trans-phasic Tesla-coil spring gun on him!"

Players may keep notes of their devices' names, but must follow these rules:

maximum of one word (or X dice worth of words) per sheet

no more than half of one's notes can be the same size, shape, or color.

This should cause players to get into the proper Mad Scientist mood by searching through their notes with shouts of "Where is it? I must find it!" and finally, "Eureka!"

Perhaps during a Mishap, the GM can change the order of name, and the bonuses don?t come back until they figure out the new name (kinda like Mastermind). This reflects jury-rigging.

To add a competitive element, words (probably nouns) could be unique, i.e., only one player could have the word "gun" or "scanner" or "submersible" in play at any one time.

While my ego certainly would like feedback and/or discussion, this is primarily here for other people to use. If this post is out of line for the forum, I apologize.

[rafael]

i love it.  but what about square-jawed, intrepid adventurers who try to foil your diabolical schemes to take over the world?  there has to be someone to dangle over a pit of rabid mechanogators while you extol the virtues of your unspeakably brilliant plan, after all.

also: what if there's an extra die for each adjective over three syllables?  two dice if it can be construed as a pejorative?

"your ignominious meddling can't save you from the ineffable agonies you'll soon endure, you muscle-bound swine!"  (three bonus dice!)

[Ferry Bazelmans]

How about this:

A partygame where each player takes the part of a member of the Society for Mad Science and Mayhem (SMSM). Each mad scientist is trying to build the ultimate doomsday device and dispose of his colleagues.

Rules:

The object of the game is to assemble the parts (words) to your machine and keep others from assembling theirs.

Before play:

- Each player decides on a name (not essential, but adds to the fun)
- Each player writes down a name for his machine, consisting of 6 interesting sounding (pseudo-scientific) words, on a piece of paper and keeps this hidden from everyone else[/list:u]

Play then starts with the eldest player present (seniority counts among scientists).

During your turn, you may take two of the following actions:



- Scrounge for a part (word) of your machine
- Send a spy to steal part of another scientist's plans
- Tip off a dashing young hero about another scientist's plans to foil them
[/list:u]

Scrounging for parts

If you decide to scrounge for parts, you may roll a d6. If you roll equal to or over your current amount of working parts, you may underline the first of your words to show that you have complete this part of your machine.
This means that scrounging for the first and second part is automatically succesfull.

Sending spies

To see what others are cooking up, you can send them a spy. You do this by betting your last word (don't reveal it yet) and rolling a d6. Your target does the same. Whoever rolls the highest wins. The winner gets the other's word (if the active player loses, that means the spy is caught and squeals about his boss' plans). The word is then de-underlined (keep an eraser handy).

If you have the sixth word in a player's machine, you may call out his machine's name and announce that you have stolen his plans and assembled his machine yourself. This means instant social death in mad scientist circles. :)

Tipping off a dashing hero

To tip off a dashing hero you need at last one word in another mad scientist's plans. Both mad scientists roll a d6. Whoever gets the highest result wins. If the active player (the one who tipped off the hero) wins, the other player loses the word he most recently underlined. If the defending player wins, he intercepts the hero and nothing happens.

Ending the game

By shouting Eureka! at the top of your lungs and announcing the full name of your machine, you have won the game. Of course, you need to have all the words underlined (which can be a bitch with everyone trying to accomplish the same and sending those pesky spies and heroes to sabotage your precious machine.

Does this sound good?

Ferry

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ferry,

Sounds like a cross between Bedlam (by Matt Machell) and Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond (Cheapass Games). That would be a neat combination.

Best,
Ron

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Quick update. I have http://www.crayne.nl/nutznboltz.shtml" target="_blank">Nutz'n'Boltz up on the site now.

If anyone has any comments, feel free to dump them here or by PM (or by email).

Thanks again to Michael for inspiring it (you have been properly credited of course).

Ferry

[Matt Machell]

Hey that's cool, can't beat a group of rambling mad scientists ranting at each other.

Matt

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ferry,

I have some questions about the game.

The main one is that you refer several times to "stealing" someone else's word. This puzzles me repeatedly. Other, similar words ("the winner gets the loser's word," "writing it down for himself") are also confusing me for the same reason.

1) I grasp that when you have your word "stolen," you remove its underline. I also grasp that when you have "stolen" someone else's word, you may send a dashing hero, and also you may eventually get all the person's words.

How, exactly, is the word "stolen"? The person who had it still has it; the person who "stole" it does not use it (unless he gets all 6 of them from that player). Perhaps another word would confuse me less.

2) Am I to understand that a successful dashing hero and a successful spy have the same effect - the defender de-underlines a word and the offender now knows it? (I understand that these two things differ if they fail.)

Other issues include ...

Can you cackle insanely twice on your turn, thus gaining a +4 for your next roll? Or is that +2 for each of your next two rolls?

In "Scrounging for parts," you refer to "the first of your words," which I take to mean, "the first of your remaining non-underlined words." Is that correct?

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I think he means stealing as in stealing someone's idea. If you do so, the person doesn't lose their idea, you just have access to it now. I see this as a sort of corpotate espionage sort of thing. You "steal" plans and technologies that formerly only your opponent had access to.

After all, you don't expact someone to sneak in to a mad scientist's lab and just walk out with his 4 ton prototype boson-destabilizer, an important part of his overall scheme to rule te world, do you?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Ferry,

We played Nutz'n'Boltz last night at the campus club, and a few things cropped up that are worth mentioning here.

To clarify, I assumed some things regarding my questions posted above - "stealing" was interpreted as Mike suggested, ties were resolved by rolling again, and simultaneous bonuses were treated sequentially (e.g., next two rolls at +2 each) instead of stacking.

The good news is that the game works pretty well, very much in the vein of Cheapass' Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond. Spies and agents work differently enough to be something of a tactical challenge, as one must send spies before one sends agents. The luck of the dice kept our numbers of monologues low, so we didn't see a lot of +1 bonuses.

One concern is that winning by completing your own machine far outweighs the possibility of learning all six words from a single other player. Thus ultimately, spies/agents are used only for keeping others back, rather than revealing things; similarly, if you concentrate on that, then you're not building up your own words. More play will reveal the relationships between (1) building up your own machine, (2) learning the machines of others, and (3) preventing others from finishing their machines. However, I'm pretty sure that #2 ends up being not worth the risks, so that people will send spies only once to each other player, and then concentrate on agents. Then, with #2 out of there, people who concentrate on #1 will beat out people who try to combine both #1 and #3.

Ultimately, the winner in our game was the person who did exactly this when we were all at 4-5 words completed, and it seems like an unbeatable strategy. [Qualification: this was just one session of play, and things might be different depending on the number of players involved. More playtesting is called for because I can be sure about this effect.]

The suggestion we thought of during play was as follows. As written, a player can win by learning all six words from a single other player, thus duplicating their machine. I suggest instead that any six words acquired from other players will also permit a win - thus a wholly novel machine might be built. This occurred to me when I had acquired "nuclear," "demon," and "death" from the three other players. It's pretty hard to get six words at all (agents are risky!), so I think this puts more potential to win into #2 above, and thus creates multiple valid tactics of play - hence, more interesting.

One sort of disappointing element is that the technobabble words do not actually enter the dialogue of play, as they are secrets - this is central to the game, so it's not anything that can be "fixed," but it's kind of a bummer, at least in comparison to the free-flyin' words in Bedlam.

My final take is that the game needs one more twist of the dial toward some structural element that reinforces the whacky-villain context of lay. One of the players described the play experience as "this drab little game," and none of us could really disagree. I'm not sure what that element might be - it might be a larger-scale situation (better than the SWDUMS, which is kind of boring), it might be some aspect of role-playing added to the mix, or it might be some resolution mechanic beyond d6 vs. d6 all the time, or whatever - as long as it's actually structural and not just a gimmick.

Best,
Ron
thwarted inventor of the Quantum Ersatz Morphogenetic Laminae-Defibrillating Osculator

[Ferry Bazelmans]

The suggestion we thought of during play was as follows. As written, a player can win by learning all six words from a single other player, thus duplicating their machine. I suggest instead that any six words acquired from other players will also permit a win - thus a wholly novel machine might be built. This occurred to me when I had acquired "nuclear," "demon," and "death" from the three other players. It's pretty hard to get six words at all (agents are risky!), so I think this puts more potential to win into #2 above, and thus creates multiple valid tactics of play - hence, more interesting.
[/b]

That is a good point. Perhaps this is an idea:

Before the game each player writes down a word. If there are less than six players, repeat this process until there are six words on the piece of paper. These are the parts that need to be assembled into the Doomsday device.

One sort of disappointing element is that the technobabble words do not actually enter the dialogue of play, as they are secrets - this is central to the game, so it's not anything that can be "fixed," but it's kind of a bummer, at least in comparison to the free-flyin' words in Bedlam.
[/b]

I don't know if it is completely unchangable. Nothing usually is, even if it means everything needs to be rewritten.

My final take is that the game needs one more twist of the dial toward some structural element that reinforces the whacky-villain context of lay. One of the players described the play experience as "this drab little game," and none of us could really disagree. I'm not sure what that element might be - it might be a larger-scale situation (better than the SWDUMS, which is kind of boring), it might be some aspect of role-playing added to the mix, or it might be some resolution mechanic beyond d6 vs. d6 all the time, or whatever - as long as it's actually structural and not just a gimmick.
[/b]

I'll get back to it soon. I just slapped it on the page because I was all excited about the idea behind it (silly little games seem to have my interest) and I'd designed a cute banner.

Just as SOAP needed (and needs) te be tested further, so will I invest more energy and thought into this game. :)

Thanks for playing it and letting me know where the problem areas lie.

Fer

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Hi Ferry,
The main one is that you refer several times to "stealing" someone else's word. This puzzles me repeatedly. Other, similar words ("the winner gets the loser's word," "writing it down for himself") are also confusing me for the same reason.

1) I grasp that when you have your word "stolen," you remove its underline. I also grasp that when you have "stolen" someone else's word, you may send a dashing hero, and also you may eventually get all the person's words.

How, exactly, is the word "stolen"? The person who had it still has it; the person who "stole" it does not use it (unless he gets all 6 of them from that player). Perhaps another word would confuse me less.
[/b]

Mike indeed has the answers. I'll try to clarify the wording some more.

2) Am I to understand that a successful dashing hero and a successful spy have the same effect - the defender de-underlines a word and the offender now knows it? (I understand that these two things differ if they fail.)
[/b]

No, when sending a spy, the scientist is trying to steal the blueprints for a part. When tipping off a dashing hero, the scientist is merely trying to obstruct a rival. If the active player wins the roll, he sets the defender back one word.

Can you cackle insanely twice on your turn, thus gaining a +4 for your next roll? Or is that +2 for each of your next two rolls?
[/b]

I'd say no.

In "Scrounging for parts," you refer to "the first of your words," which I take to mean, "the first of your remaining non-underlined words." Is that correct?
[/b]

Yup. :)

Fer

[Mike Holmes]

What we really need to know is if you can do any action tice in a turn? And can you see the results before declaring the second?

I like Ron's idea for using other player's stuff. What you could do is just allow any six words to make for a successful machine. Or even better, divide up all machines into five Assisting Parts and one Main Device. Represented by the five adjectives, and single noun used to write up your machine. A player needs five APs and one MD to be able to shout Eureka.

Another idea is that perhaps the machine's don't always work like they're supposed to and blow up on activation. When shouting Eureka, roll a die. On a 1-5 it blows up. Add one to the roll for each extra adjective that you have on hand, and, of course, two if you were able to Cackle before the roll. If the machine blows up, you lose a number of parts equal to the number that you rolled (including bonuses).

Madness Points: gain a +1 whenever you want, and accumulate a madness point. When you shout Eureka and roll to see if the machine blows up, you must roll one higher (do not subtract from the roll!) for every two madness points that you have accumulated, or part thereof. So, if Joe's scientist has five Madness points, he needs to roll an 8 to avoid having his machine blow up.

Try this all on for size. Put asterisks next to parts in the start of the game. Actual Parts equal underlines, and Plans equal the asterix next to the word. Losing a part means losing your underline, and losing the plans means losing the asterix. Deliver means that one player loses a thing, and the other player gets it. Destroy means that the defeated player merely loses the thing. Copy means that you get the thing, but the opponent does not lose it.

Code Select Expand

Type I Actions (No repercussions if you fail)
Plan----------Recall the plan to a part for which you once had the plan (succeeds on a 1-3).
Build---------Create a part for which you have the plans (succeeds on a roll higher than the number of parts that you currently have).
Beef Security-Gain a +1 to defend against the next roll made against you (can accumulate). Goes away after the next attack as all the guards are killed in attempting to stop it.

Type II Actions (The minor minions involved in these operations cannot be turned on you)
Plagerist-----Copies plan.
Plant---------Copies part.
Arsonist------Destroys plan.
Hero----------Destroys part.
Mole----------Gain a permenant +1 against that player.

Type III Actions (If you fail, the same happens to you)
Thief---------Delivers part.
Spy-----------Delivers plan.
Sabateur------Destroys part, Destroys plan.
Espionage-----Copies part, Copies plan.
Provacateur---the target's next action must be against the player using this.

Type IV Actions (Can each only be used once a game each)
Assault Team--Delivers part, Delivers plan.
Commando Raid-Delivers part, Destroys plan, or the opposite
Secret Agent--Copies part, Delivers plan, or the opposite.
Henchman------Copies part, Destroys plan or the opposite.


OK, so I got a little carried away.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, and another thing, what happens on ties? I am assuming that nothing happens, either way. Is that correct?

Mike