[Dirty Secrets] Liar's Dice as Core Mechanic

[GreatWolf]

I've been putting some work into a noir/detective game that I'm calling Dirty Secrets.  My specific sources of inspiration are the Philip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler (particularly The Long Goodbye) and the Lew Archer novels by Ross MacDonald (particularly The Zebra-Striped Hearse and The Goodbye Look).  Aside:  ever notice how these sorts of stories have "Goodbye", "Big", "Confidential" and "Heat" in the titles more often than is statistically reasonable?

Anyways, in the game, one player will be playing the "investigator", and the other players will be playing all the other characters that end up wandering into the game.  The core mechanic that I'm working with is based on Liar's Dice, and I was hoping for some feedback.  (If you've seen the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the dice game that they were playing is Liar's Dice.)  In these stories, most of the action is comprised of heavily-loaded conversations, where the investigator is trying to gather information from someone who is trying to be reticent without looking reticent.

Here's the outline:

1)  Both the investigator and the player of the interrogated character roll 5d6 and keep them hidden under a dice cup.

2)  These two players, plus one uninvolved player, each take a red d6 and set it to any number desired, keeping the number secret from all other players.  These are the Violence dice.

3)  Starting with the investigator, the two players take turns narrating a bit of the conversation, plus doing one of three things:

a)  bidding a number of dice of a particular kind (e.g. "there are 5 threes among all these dice")  A bid must be a higher face value or a higher number of dice than the previous one.  1's are wild.  (Yes, I'm using the "Ace" bidding rules from Liar's Dice, but I'm simplifying a bit here.)
b)  bidding and then discarding a die to reroll your own pool
c)  calling

4)  Upon calling, the players reveal their dice.  If the bid that was called is higher than the actual number of dice, then the person bidding loses dice from his pool equal to the difference between his bid and the actual amount.  (e.g. if there were only 2 three's and the bid was 5 threes, then the loser would lose three dice).  If the bid was lower than the actual number of dice, then the caller loses dice equal to the difference between his bid and the actual amount.  If the bid that was called is an exact match (e.g. calling a bid of 5 threes when there are 5 threes), then the person calling the bid loses all five of his dice.

5)  The number of Violence dice that match the die number of the bid that was called sets the Violence level of the resolution narration.  (e.g.  if the called bid were 5 threes, each Violence die that is set to a three raises the Violence level by one.)

0--No violence
1--Loser of conflict gets cosmetic injury (e.g. slapped around or forcibly removed from premises)
2--Loser of conflict is injured.
3--If NPC lost, then NPC dies.  If investigator lost, then investigator is incapacitated.

6)  Whoever calls narrates the immediate results of the conflict.

7)  The winner can use the dice as currency to substantiate any statements that were made during the exchange.  (e.g. "That statement about Barbara being secretly married to Todd is true.")

8)  Whoever lost may call for another round of conflict, assuming that he still has remaining dice and the character didn't suffer level 3 Violence.

The goal of this system is to put a lot of player suspicion into the game.  By requiring the players to bluff and counter-bluff in the system, I am hoping to evoke that sense of conversational ducking and weaving, with the threat of sudden bursts of Violence arising as an emergent property.

So, any thoughts or feedback on this?  I know that it's an odd idea, but I think that it has a lot of potential.

[Valamir]

Gonna need an example of play on this one in order to visualize.

Parts I'm not getting. 

Are you basing your bid only on the dice under your cup, or under all cups?  Your "all these dice" remark seems to indicate all cups, but then, I'm not clear what point discarding a die to reroll your own dice has.  I can see where rerolling can help you make it so your bid isn't a lie...or to screw someone else's bid that happened to match your dice...but how is discarding a die a cost?

What does losing dice from the "pool" mean?  What are those dice used for?  You mention something about the winner using them to substantiate statements (I'm assuming like Universalis Coins) but won't the winner always have 5 dice and the loser always have less than 5 dice.  Does the loser get to use the dice in this way too so that the whole liars dice routine is just an elaborate way to randomly generate a number of dice between 0 and 4 for the loser to spend?

The violence dice.  I'm not clear what the purpose of setting the violence die number is.  Since its based on the number of the bid that's called it seems that no matter what number you pick, you have a limited ability to influence the violence level.  Since its secret you can't even intentionally match someone else and then aim for outbidding using that number.  At best you can manipulate whether your die contributes to the violence or not...but the rest is totally random.  Is there a way of manipulating the violence level I'm not seeing.

--Intrigued, but confused.

[GreatWolf]

Are you basing your bid only on the dice under your cup, or under all cups?  Your "all these dice" remark seems to indicate all cups, but then, I'm not clear what point discarding a die to reroll your own dice has.  I can see where rerolling can help you make it so your bid isn't a lie...or to screw someone else's bid that happened to match your dice...but how is discarding a die a cost?

All cups.  Discarding a die essentially means giving up a "point" to your opponent, so that's the cost.  At least in theory.  I've not yet playtested this, except a quick test run once, so I don't know if the cost works.  I do know that the ability to reroll can really screw with your opponent's head.

I also wonder if I need to give the players more dice in the pools to extend the contest length, but I want to do some playtesting first to figure this out.

What does losing dice from the "pool" mean?  What are those dice used for?  You mention something about the winner using them to substantiate statements (I'm assuming like Universalis Coins) but won't the winner always have 5 dice and the loser always have less than 5 dice.  Does the loser get to use the dice in this way too so that the whole liars dice routine is just an elaborate way to randomly generate a number of dice between 0 and 4 for the loser to spend?

Not necessarily.  After each "call" (and after the winner spends any dice that he earns), the loser can decide if he wants to go on or not. 

The violence dice.  I'm not clear what the purpose of setting the violence die number is.  Since its based on the number of the bid that's called it seems that no matter what number you pick, you have a limited ability to influence the violence level.  Since its secret you can't even intentionally match someone else and then aim for outbidding using that number.  At best you can manipulate whether your die contributes to the violence or not...but the rest is totally random.  Is there a way of manipulating the violence level I'm not seeing.

You do have a limited ability to limit the Violence level, and that's okay.  I haven't playtested this bit yet, but here's the theory:

1)  Since you can see your own dice, you can set your Violence die to match whichever dice you have the most of, if you're wanting to bump the Violence level.  That's because you're more likely to get a bid to land on that number.

2)  People aren't really random.  Over time, people will fall into a pattern.  If you observe that, you will have a better chance of matching the Violence level.

3)  This isn't the only way that Violence enters the game.  I'm okay with level 3 Violence being rare through this process.  I do want it to show up from time to time.  One way that I could arrange for this is simply to allow a 1 on a Violence die to be wild.  I don't want to do that yet, though, because it might make it too easy to bump the Violence level.

Gonna need an example of play on this one in order to visualize.

First of all, I do have a chart to sit on the table to keep track of the bid.  That way you don't have to remember.  In my one test of this, I found that this was a big deal.

So, uh, let's see.  Crystal, Gabrielle, you and I are playing.  Crystal is playing the investigator.  We'll call him "Archer".  Archer is currently interviewing Velma.  Let's say that I control Velma.  Archer is pretty sure that Velma knows something about the disappearance of Nancy, and he'd like to establish that fact.

So, Crystal and I both roll our dice.  I get:

2 2 3 3 5

Crystal gets:

1 4 4 5 6

(Remember that 1s are wild and count for anything.)

We appoint you to set the last Violence die.  I decide that I'd like to see a little violence in this scene, so I set my Violence die to a 3.  Crystal wants to avoid Violence, so she sets her Violence die to a 2.  You aren't really sure what you want, so you set your Violence die to a 6.

Crystal is playing the investigator, so she goes first.

Crystal:  Archer says to Velma, "I know that you were the last one to see Nancy.  Crystal then bids 2 fours.
Seth:  Velma tosses back her hair.  "Mr. Archer, please.  There's no need to be rude.  Besides, you're wrong.  Jason gave her a ride home from here.  I then bid 3 twos.
Crystal:  Archer slams his hand on the table.  "Stop playing games with me!  Jason was nowhere near the house.  Now 'fess up!"  Crystal then bids 3 fours.
Seth:  Velma looks Archer in the face.  "I think that you need to leave now, Mr. Archer."  I call.

We reveal the dice.  Lo and behold, Crystal has 3 fours (including the wild "1").  Since her bid matched the dice exactly, I lose all five of my dice.  Crystal uses those dice to pay for a couple of facts, namely "Velma was the last one to see Nancy" and "Jason was nowhere near Velma's house when Nancy disappeared".  None of the Violence dice matched the bid number of four, so there is no violence in the final narration.  I called, so I narrate the result.

Seth:  Archer stares down Velma until she breaks and looks away.  "You're right.  I did give her a ride that night.  I didn't want Jason to know that she had been at the house.  If he found out, he would have been angry with Nancy."

At this point, I can choose to push the conflict, but I decide not to do so.  So, end of conflict.

It's rough, I know, but it has definite potential.  The feel of it at the table is good, and I think that it's pointing in the right direction.

So, does this make sense?

[Valamir]

Cool, almost got it.

So Crystal got 5 dice to spend because when you called the reveal showed she won and you lost 5 dice...the dice she gets is not her 5 dice that she had left, but your 5 dice that you lost?  i.e. lets say Crystal actually had four 4s.  She would have still won because she had at least 3...and you would have lost 1 die.  Crystal would have then got 1 die to spend?  If you had rerolled at some point and spent a die...would that die have gone to Crystal as well?

How are the dice used?  In the example Crystal got 5 dice, but only narrated 2 facts.  Do those cost more than 1 apiece?, did she save the other 3 for some purpose, or were you just being brief and she could have narrated 5 facts?

If you had chosen to push the conflict would it all have started over with 5 dice, or just the dice you have left...which in this example would be 0 for you...

The Violence die thing I'm not seeing yet.  The most you accomplished was maybe getting to a 1 IF you won.  The most Crystal accomplished was maybe avoiding a 3 IF she had won.  For me (in the example) did I get to see your and Crystal's Violence Dice before selecting?  If not than with no dice of my own to match I might as well have just randomly rolled it, right?

What are the limits of what can be narrated with a bid.  I imagine this will run into the same situations as in Capes.  Instead of having Archer slam his hand on the table, could Crystal have said "I rummage through Velma's purse and steal $20"?  Or "I walk across the room and open the hidden safe behind the family portrait?".  or "I reach into my pocket and pull out $1million and try to bribe Velma into leaving the country?"  What are the parameters of the bidding statements and are they "fact" or just "color".

[nystul]

Imagine playing this with the serial numbers on dollar bills in the hallways at conventions : )

[GreatWolf]

Cool, almost got it.

So Crystal got 5 dice to spend because when you called the reveal showed she won and you lost 5 dice...the dice she gets is not her 5 dice that she had left, but your 5 dice that you lost?  i.e. lets say Crystal actually had four 4s.  She would have still won because she had at least 3...and you would have lost 1 die.  Crystal would have then got 1 die to spend?  If you had rerolled at some point and spent a die...would that die have gone to Crystal as well?

Yep.  That's it.

How are the dice used?  In the example Crystal got 5 dice, but only narrated 2 facts.  Do those cost more than 1 apiece?, did she save the other 3 for some purpose, or were you just being brief and she could have narrated 5 facts?

Currently, the idea is that a Fact costs...well, whatever you want, but to override that Fact, someone else will need to pay more than the cost of the Fact.  So, if I have a Fact that cost 2, then it can only be overridden by a Fact that cost at least 3.

Also, you are limited to paying for Facts that were mentioned during the conflict process.  I'm thinking of this as being like Spione, where anything can be said during Maneuvers (up to a certain point), but they don't "stick" unless paid for during Flashpoint.

If you had chosen to push the conflict would it all have started over with 5 dice, or just the dice you have left...which in this example would be 0 for you...

Only the dice that you have left.  So, in the example, I couldn't go on, since I had lost all my dice.

The Violence die thing I'm not seeing yet.  The most you accomplished was maybe getting to a 1 IF you won.  The most Crystal accomplished was maybe avoiding a 3 IF she had won.  For me (in the example) did I get to see your and Crystal's Violence Dice before selecting?  If not than with no dice of my own to match I might as well have just randomly rolled it, right?

No.  All Violence dice are selected blindly.  Again, this may not work, and it's possible that the third die may as well be randomly rolled.  However, the effect that I'm going for is that each player has set a "mine" in the conflict, which it's possible that someone could step on and pop out some Violence.  One route that I could see myself taking is that the third die is open information to the conflicting players after they set their own Violence dice.  Playtest will tell.  The goal remains the same, which is to require the players to juggle information that is hidden and incomplete.  So, finding just the right balance of open information will be important.

What are the limits of what can be narrated with a bid.  I imagine this will run into the same situations as in Capes.  Instead of having Archer slam his hand on the table, could Crystal have said "I rummage through Velma's purse and steal $20"?  Or "I walk across the room and open the hidden safe behind the family portrait?".  or "I reach into my pocket and pull out $1million and try to bribe Velma into leaving the country?"  What are the parameters of the bidding statements and are they "fact" or just "color".

I'll answer the second question first.  Bidding statements are merely "color" until substantiated by paying for them (or through a Violence result).  Another way of looking at it is that each bidding statement is a Fact with a value of 0.  Any Fact that is paid for can override a bidding statement that was not paid for.

One important concept of the game is that it is a "first-person" game.  All the game action happens in the presence of the investigator.  There is no scene where he is not present.  So, bidding statements would need to be about things happening in the scene with him.  Beyond this, I haven't limited what the bidding statements can be.  They will need to be limited, but my guess is that they will be limited by giving directives regarding the purposes of bidding statements (again, like Spione Maneuvers), rather than giving explicit boundaries on the scope of a bidding statement.  That's something that I want to discover during playtest, actually.

So, actually, I could see any of your bidding statements working, given that any of them could be overridden or turned against you with either a Fact that is actually paid for or future narration.  So, Archer steals $20 from Velma, and no one spends dice to override this narration (e.g. "Velma gets her money back from Archer.").  That would be the perfect reason for you to force a scene where Archer is confronted by Jason about the money that he stole.

Right now, my design philosophy is "Explain what to do with the instrument, and trust the players to do it."  I see it like a piano.  There are numerous ways of getting really bad sound out of a piano.  However, the way to safeguard against that is to teach music, not to lock down the nasty combinations of keys on the piano.  In the same way, I want to focus my formal mechanics on supporting player creativity and providing some unexpected twists to keep the players entertained.  I'm content at this point to rely on the other players to call "lame!" on poor input and negotiate at the social level to resolve those issues.

[GreatWolf]

Imagine playing this with the serial numbers on dollar bills in the hallways at conventions : )

Okay, you've piqued my interest.  Can you expand on this?

[Valamir]

Its the same as liars dice, only the numbers are not randomly generated by a die roll, but "randomly" generated from grabbing a handy piece of currency and using the serial numbers.