Death March of Happiness

[TonyLB]

So I corralled some people on FoundryMUSH to playtest my new warmup mini-game, Death March of Happiness.  It was a hoot, but I am having trouble getting the right balance on the Tantrum rules.

Overview:  Players take on the roles of kids and adults spending the day at Wuffy-World, the Wuffiest Place on Earth.  In the playtest we had one adult (me) and batches of kids.  I started with a batch of twelve dice, and those dice could be rolled in one of three ways:

• A kid throws a tantrum:  I must roll a die and take that value as stress.  Kid gets nothing, except grim satisfaction.
• Trying to ride a ride, v. 1:  Kid defines ride (e.g. "Rocket Ninja Sword Mountain!") and difficulty ("5!")  I may roll a die ... if it's the difficulty or above (5 or 6) then the kid in question gets Happiness equal to the difficulty (5 ... even if a 6 was rolled) and gets to rave (walking away from the ride) about how great it was.  If it's below the difficulty then I take the die value as stress (damn those lines!) and the kid insists that I promised and that I should roll another die, because I promised and he'll throw a tantrum if I don't.
• Trying to ride a ride, v. 2:  Kid defines ride, then I define a bail-out ride (e.g. "Mr. Drippy's Jelly Adventure! Difficulty 2")  If kid agrees then I may roll a die ... if it's the kids-ride difficulty or above then the kid gets that difficulty as a reward, if it's less than that but not less than the bail-out ride then he gets the bail-out ride's difficulty and describes riding Mr. Drippy's Jelly Adventure.  Tantrums have been known to result.  If it's less than even the bail-out ride then I take the value as stress, as above.

So it quickly becomes a game of wheedling, tantrum-brinksmanship and the universal claim that daddy is unfair and never keeps his promises.  Which is, y'know, great!  That's half the fun.  But ...

• Rules v.1:  (played with 3 kids) Any kid can tantrum at any time.  Folks noticed that, really, there is no incentive for a kid not to take the lead and immediately tantrum all remaining dice away in one long, rolling behemoth of bad behavior.  Which, y'know, maybe that's faithful to the genre but it's not very much fun as a game.  Playing under these rules I accumulated 26 stress going through 12 dice (yes, it was stressful) and the game was dominated by tantrums ... it balanced out around where I would like it, except that people felt that they had to be holding back on tantrumming in order to have it at that balance.
• Rules v.2:  (played with 2 kids) I added a rule that no kid can tantrum twice in a row.  It swung the pendulum too far the other way (exaggerated by the 2 kids player pool).  Dave tantrummed early, and Smerf used that advantage to control the game completely from there on in ... Dave no longer had a weapon in his arsenal, and so Smerf could brutalize him by way of me.  Still a very fun game, but not as stress-filled and not as fun as the previous.

So I'm trying to find the Tantrum rule that will apply the right restraint, so that people feel that they are free to do anything within the realm of the rules, without ruining the game.  Thoughts?

[Dave Cleaver]

Rules v.2:  (played with 2 kids) I added a rule that no kid can tantrum twice in a row.  It swung the pendulum too far the other way (exaggerated by the 2 kids player pool).  Dave tantrummed early, and Smerf used that advantage to control the game completely from there on in ... Dave no longer had a weapon in his arsenal, and so Smerf could brutalize him by way of me.  Still a very fun game, but not as stress-filled and not as fun as the previous.

I totally screwed that up tactically speaking, but you had just denied me a ride for being a brat, so it seemed appropriate.

So I'm trying to find the Tantrum rule that will apply the right restraint, so that people feel that they are free to do anything within the realm of the rules, without ruining the game.  Thoughts?

I think a cooldown period might work. Say 3 or 4 dice? It would keep the tantrums minimized but not eliminate them. It would also stay pretty true to the genre.

[TonyLB]

Another possibility is to say that once you tantrum you can't do it again until another kid (not yours) has successfully had a ride.

Which would disproportionately encourage kids to tantrum in line for lame (low-difficulty) rides that other kids want (since they're likely to get their tantrum-stick right back).  Hrm....

[Bryan Hansel]

You could give each child a limited number of sugar cubes, which they could then use to throw tantrums.  And then reward them with cotton candy, which converts to tantrums when the kid has to ride the "Mr. Drippy's Jelly Adventure!" style ride.

Are these play sessions logged and posted online somewhere? I'd love to read them.

[TonyLB]

Are these play sessions logged and posted online somewhere? I'd love to read them.

I did log the first one, yes.  Not the second, I'm afraid.  Lazy me.

I sorta don't want to add very much in the way of complexity to this.  Simple warm-ups, y'know.  Sugar Cubes and Cotton Candy are fine color, but I think it's a bit more than I want to be keeping track of.

[Josh Roby]

Tony, you need something to let Brand pick the Jason Ride and so Brand and Christian get Fun points because Christian wanted to go on the Jason Ride.

Also, I think it'd be amusing to have a score card at the end for the parent: escaping with 1-10 Stress, you are a Model Parent.  11-20 Stress, you go back to the hotel  and collapse.  21-30 Stress, your family never makes it back to the plane home; they never find the bodies.

[TonyLB]

Tony, you need something to let Brand pick the Jason Ride and so Brand and Christian get Fun points because Christian wanted to go on the Jason Ride.

Yeah, but ... see, that's a different game.  I really do like the report-card idea, though ... both for parents and for kids.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Tony,

Perhaps each Tantrum increases the risk of a Spanking? No mechanical ideas on what that means, but it seems to be thematically appropriate.

[Bryan Hansel]

I was thinking about this game a little bit after I read the play log --pretty funny btw-- and it occurred to me why not allow the kids to throw a tantrum only if they have to ride the crummy ride. Then they can save the tantrum until they wish to use it. Gained tantrums are not cumulative.

[contracycle]

Perhaps I have missed an earlier thread, as I don't understand what effect accumulating stress has.  Anyway, a spanking, or daddy throwing a tantrum, might be a counter to one kid hammering the tantrum again and again.  But having a tantrum yourself in public is embarrassing so daddy's stress might still accumulate.

[TonyLB]

Stress is just the inverse of daddy's final score.  The goal of the game, for him, is to avoid it.

It doesn't have an effect, it's just ... y'know ... the goal.

[Dave Cleaver]

What if throwing a tantrum cost the kid happiness?

It would be easy to track.

[Bill Masek]

TonyLB,

What if instead of giving the father dice, you gave the dice to the kids?  If a kid decides to use a dice to tantrum that kid looses the dice rolled and the dad gains stress.  If the kid gets in line for a ride and fails the roll, dad gets stress but the kid retains the dice.  If the rolls succeeds then the kid looses the dice and gains the points.  Give dad the option to offer another ride even if he has not failed a previous roll.  ?I?m sorry Tommy, you are to young to go on Dr. Willie?s Wacky Funhouse.  How about the Sleepy Mongoose instead.?  If dad does this, the kid may either tantrum or take the boring ride.  (This creates an equilibrium where the dad will not always offer an easier ride but has an honest incentive to.  It also gives children a reason not to tantrum.)

If you want the child-to-child competition, give dad dice as well.  Perhaps you have 4 dice for each child and the father gets 2 dice per child playing.  Dad can either uses his dice when rolling rides or roll the dice of the child who requested the ride.  (Using a child's dice would be akin to saying ?Ok Sussie, now its your turn.?  Using his own would be more along the lines of ?We are going on the Splashy Space Robot-coaster.?  If you go with this method, decisions would work like this:  The kids argue over which ride to go on.  Dad chooses which ride to go on and who to take the dice from and the kid declares the difficulty of the ride.  Any of the kids may tantrum.  If they do, roll tantrum and begin again.  If they don?t, dad may ?look at the line? and recommend a new ride with a lower difficulty or decide to go on the ride and roll.  If he recommends a new ride the kid may tantrum and begin again.  If dad does not offer a new ride or he does and the kid accepts the new ride roll the rides difficulty.  If it succeeds kid gets points and the dice is lost.  If it fails the dice remains, dad gains stress, the dice remains and you repeat the process from where dad chooses whether to roll the ride or recommend a new ride at a lower value.

This creates an upper limit to the amount of tantruming (twice as much as riding) while keeping the kid to kid and kid to dad competition.

This game looks like a blast to play and I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Best,
        Bill