So, strange person that I am, while looking over a site for dice to buy, I came across a miniature roulette wheel. After some thinking, I decided to purchase it for a rather geeky reason - in case I came up with some sort of resolution mechanic. Besides, I got mine for $20 including shipping, so it's a novelty if nothing else. I make weird purchases all the time.

But I digress.

It arrived yesterday. And after looking over the rules of roulette, spinning the wheel, and sleeping on it, I've got the bare bones of a resolution system for it. Will this go any farther? I don't know. I love the idea, but buying a roulette wheel can seem... excessive... for a lot of folk. And 38 (36 numbers plus the zero and the double-zero) doesn't really seem to divide really well into any set of dice I can think of, which makes producing an alternative somewhat difficult. If I can figure out a way to cross that hurdle...

But I digress, once again.

My idea is relatively simple, which is nice. I like simple. Characters have some sort of trait or skill or descriptor, which is ranked entirely in whole numbers. From these attributes, plus perhaps other hobgoblins in the rule system, we are able to derive a number.

That number turns into a number of chips. All involved parties pony up their chips simultaneously, wherever they choose, and must bid every chip they have. They can put all their chips on one position, or they can (more logically) split their chips up into numerous positions. All the standard roulette bets exist.

Once everyone is satisfied with where their chips are, or whenever the GM is ready, he spins the wheel. Eventually, of course, it lands on a number.

Pay-outs are the same as roulette. If you put a chip on red, and it lands on a red number, you get two chips back (if it lands on a black number or one of the zeros, you get none). The best pay-out occurs if you put a chip on a number, and it comes up that number (the payout is 35:1, so you'd get 36 chips back). Nonetheless, the odds still favor the house.

The chips you win (or not) can be spent, somehow, ensuring success. A lot of number crunching, or at the very least a lot more eyeballing, needs to be done before that can be determined (perhaps a task is "rated" in difficulty, and one needs to spend a certain number to beat that difficulty - or perhaps NPCs bid as well, and it turns into a spending war).

They can also, possibly, be carried over to the next action (any that aren't spent on ensuring success, anyways).

So, this is a very basic idea... but what do y'all think?

Hey Alexander,

"Kewl mechanic" discussions are supposed to be off limits for Indie Game Design. But I will say this. I quite like the notion of an entirely resource-based system for ongoing character effectiveness tied to fluctuations (from gambling opportunities) triggered by circumstances within the setting.

Paul

Oh, um, well, oops? Sorry, I guess. I mostly hover around the 2nd half of this site, or reply to threads that have already been created. So I'm not entirely up on what should and shouldn't be here.

That said, I like this notion/mechanic enough that I probably will be following up on it, in one way or another (if I do make it resource-based, with characters based on a pile of chips, then I've got to come up with something to balance out the "house advantage" - otherwise, in the long run, I'd wind up with a bunch of characters without any chips at all, and what's the fun in that?).

I'll wander on back to my dark corner until it turns into something worth posting here, and then I'll return. :)

Well, you could always make the payouts exactly fair, as opposed to house-advantaged like they are in roulette. Seems like the most elegant solution to me.

Hm. Unfortunately, that still wouldn't work, I don't think.

It's like The Pool, in that way. In The Pool, without some outside agency occasionally giving you dice (even just "free GM dice" or "free dice from a Trait"), eventually you may lose enough gambles to empty your pool, and then you'll "thrash at the bottom."

Similarly, even if the pay-out was equal in "the Wheel," as opposed to stacked slightly in the house's favor (the stack is only 5%, by the way - small, and a hard stack to get rid of, at least if I want to use a standard roulette wheel), without some way to get chips that doesn't involve gambling from the current stacks, the odds are likely that eventually, it'll go down to zero, and the player won't be able to do anything at all.

Of course, I could design around that inevitability. "Down to zero? Bummer, man. Roll up a new character." It'd be a very fatalistic game, but I could work with that. Hmmm.

I think that some metagame way to pull chips out of the air is in order here - maybe you can add facts to actions to modify the payout; adding complications increases your potential payout, while adding benefits reduces it. Of course, that's juat another level of gambling...

Huh, I thought I'd posted to this thread, but it doesn't seem to have gotten through.

Problem one. Shreyas' idea won't work, because the ratios for payouts would be odd. To make a red bet even, for instance, you'd have to pay out 9:19. So you'd have to bet in groups of nine, or have fractional chips.

Problem two. Setting targets will be weird. Because a player can nearly garuntee that they'll get back as many chips as they bet by hedging, or, IOW, covering all bets. Think of it this way, I put half on red, and half on black. The only way I don't get the same amount back is if the number comes up green.

So, you have this easy take, but it limits your total potential returns. So, what if I need more than the X chips that I started with back? Well, I have to bet a little less safely. Meaning I increase my chances of busting, in order to obtain what I need. Basically, whatever the player's "target" number of chips is, he has a minimum best betting strategy. If there's no profit to getting more chips than the target, the player has no incentive to get any more result than that minimum. Only a single best strategy for each case means that this does not add anything to play; it's just a very fancy and complicated to understand resolution system. Carry over doesn't help because the best strategy is still, not to play.

What would make sense would be to have some benefit for getting more chips than the minimum required. Success levels or excess chips as Exp or something. That gives the player an incentive to gamble more, and makes things more "fuzzy".

Also, the player can control all the potential payouts. If he bets 5 on red, and 5 on even, he has slightly less than 25% chance of doubling his chips, a slightly less than 50% chance of getting bcak all his chips, and a somewhat better than 25% chance of busting. So, in the end, we know that he'll have 0, 10, or 20 chips when he's done. That's a lot of "accuracy" in player determination of outcome for a randomizer.

It's intriguing, but it needs something else.

Mike

You're right, mike, Shreyas' idea doesn't work without yanking a Roulette wheel apart (though it makes coming up with a dicing mechanic easier, as long as I don't come up with any special rules gimmick involving the zeroes - roll 2d6 "percentile style" to get a # between 1 and 36).

Now, more generally, let's assume the following (ideas culled from, well, all over, though most of them are at least related to what I was thinking at the beginning of the thread):


• Conflict-based resolution (though I suppose you could make it task-based if you really wanted, but roulette wheels are sloooooow).
• Each player has a stack of chips, representing their character's current resources, however they might be defined.
• In any particular conflict, each player may not bid more chips than their character's appropriate statistic/trait value (or combined values, or whatever). He can bid less, however.
• Any bonus chips the GM gives the player for however the reward mechanic is defined, the GM also gets to place as a bet, after all other bets are placed. This ensures players don't have complete control over their winnings.
• In any particular conflict, a player may only spend chips on success from his winnings, not directly from his stack. In other words, you bid nothing, you spend nothing.
• Any chip from winnings can either go back into the stack (possibly increasing the size of the stack) or contribute towards success, with multiple levels of success possible.


In this case, merely "breaking even" would result in a reduction of the stack if you wanted any success at all, or result in no success if you wanted to keep your stack from plummetting. In other words, in this case you would generally (I hesitate to say always) want more than the X chips you started with.

Hmm...

Lxndr wrote: You're right, mike, Shreyas' idea doesn't work without yanking a Roulette wheel apart (though it makes coming up with a dicing mechanic easier, as long as I don't come up with any special rules gimmick involving the zeroes - roll 2d6 "percentile style" to get a # between 1 and 36).

iago wrote: Zero could be "critical success", double zero could be "critical failure", I guess. Or they could figure into some sort of open-ended thing. And rolling (d6 - 1 ) x 6 + d6 does work (requires some math, though, since someone rolling a '3,6' isn't rolling a 36, they're rolling a 18.

That's a cool idea, Fred. Or, if one really didn't want to have the zeros come up, one could (to avoid tearring up the wheel) just put a little modeling clay into the zero slots to make it impossible for the ball to land there. This might affect the distribution, OTOH.

The slowest part of Roulette, BTW, is calculating the payouts, especially for complex bets by lots of players.

Any bonus chips the GM gives the player for however the reward mechanic is defined, the GM also gets to place as a bet, after all other bets are placed. This ensures players don't have complete control over their winnings.

In any particular conflict, a player may only spend chips on success from his winnings, not directly from his stack. In other words, you bid nothing, you spend nothing.

Any chip from winnings can either go back into the stack (possibly increasing the size of the stack) or contribute towards success, with multiple levels of success possible.

In this case, merely "breaking even" would result in a reduction of the stack if you wanted any success at all, or result in no success if you wanted to keep your stack from plummetting. In other words, in this case you would generally (I hesitate to say always) want more than the X chips you started with.

Double post. Delete please.

The zeroes are staying. I just don't want any particular ruley-effects attached to them, so they can be "removed" easily in case people don't want to run out and buy a roulette table.

Mike Holmes wrote: The slowest part of Roulette, BTW, is calculating the payouts, especially for complex bets by lots of players.

Mike Holmes wrote: Cool. The GM has very fine control over the bonus then.

Mike Holmes wrote: Representing the character not even trying, I suppose?

Mike Holmes wrote: That said, the old problem of outcome control is still present. If I know the target, then I can plan my bets to get the exact amount of output that I want.

Mike Holmes wrote: Bonuses in this case are just icing on the cake in most cases, as the real gamble would be to count on the GM giving you enough bonus to make your target.

Mike Holmes wrote: Chips are more difficult in comparison rarely coming in anything but red, white and blue.

Mike Holmes wrote: This difficulty can lead to sucking up for Bonuses at a level that's so high that it's not neccessarily healthy.

Lxndr wrote: Linking it to odds makes sense. So does advice like, "Does it seem like it'll make this action more likely to win? If so, make a complementary bet that overlaps with at least one existing bets, if not more. Does it seem like it'll make a particular success better? Then augment an existing bet instead." Can you think of any other GM pitfalls I should mention/point out?

Also, what do you think of related-bonuses? Item-bets, etc.?

On the other hand, you can always get "lucky" (I'm really liking this lucky-number mechanic).

Mike Holmes wrote: That said, the old problem of outcome control is still present. If I know the target, then I can plan my bets to get the exact amount of output that I want.

So if you're gunning up against, say, a TN of ten, and you want a level 5 success, you're going to want to win 15 chips. But what if you can only bid 3?

Not to mention that you're going to want to siphon off some of the chips you bid to throw back in your bank in the first place.

This seems to suggest, to me, that the chances of finding your theoretical "best bid" in even money isn't very likely (though surely there is a "best bid").

(This seems like it would get even more interesting, imnsho, if the bank's resources were also used for character advancement.)

Using the Method #2 described above (where I think we cross posted), things change significantly.

don't bonuses seem to count for more in Method #1 than Method #2?

Mike Holmes wrote: Chips are more difficult in comparison rarely coming in anything but red, white and blue.

A quick web search came up with a number of sites that sell chips in quantities of fifty for $4 a pop. Colors: White, Red, Blue, Green, Black, Orange, Pink, Gray, Yellow, Purple. They're not as hard to come by as they sound.

While the wheel spins, all involved parties can place bids, change bids, remove bids, et hoc genus omne. When the ball finally stops bouncing, however, no more bidding can be done, and bids on the table cannot changed.

At the same time, I like the idea of cups, especially the idea of "bluffing cups" (empty cups placed on certain spots, to mislead the enemy). But, while the Outside Bet areas can hold multiple cups, I worry they might clutter up the Inside bets (not that too many people are going to try bidding on the same inside numbers).

Mike Holmes wrote: This difficulty can lead to sucking up for Bonuses at a level that's so high that it's not neccessarily healthy.

Perhaps it should be limited to "one GM bonus chip"? That way, the "best" bonus you can suck up for is an even money bet (which will give you two chips back).

This seems like it'd make the brown-nosing less unhealthy (and also would keep bonus chips from flying out of control).

It also would make WHERE the chip is placed more important for bonus purposes than HOW MANY chips you get.

If you use the idea I put forth earlier and tie the bank into character advancement, then the embarrassment of riches could also be less of a problem - that's the time you spend some of your bank on self-improvement.

(Conversely, perhaps if you're down on your luck, you could "burn off" some of your character for extra chips...)

The "average human" statistic is probably only 1 or 2. Similarly, an "average task" probably has a TN of only 1.

Bidding a single chip on even money, plus one's lucky number, gives roughly even odds (50/50). So the "lucky number" mechanic removes the house advantage, as per Shreyas's suggestion.

Apparently there's a "Sixianne", or "Line Bet," which I neglected to include in my table - only certain sites list it. It pays 5:1 (so, you get six chips back total) and is placed on six numbers at a time.

wrote: uote>Mike Holmes wrote: Good stuff. Definitely add, "If the tactic seems to be a hedge, then place the bet so that it doesn't overlap at all."

Aha! I knew I was missing something. Consider that noted or added. (on the other hand, if someone decides to bid black/red, for instance, it's nearly impossible NOT to overlap...)

Mike Holmes wrote:

Lxndr wrote: Also, what do you think of related-bonuses? Item-bets, etc.?

Not sure what you're getting at here.

I do think that bonuses should have multiple chips. So that you can spread them out. If something seems part Hedge, part reinforcing, then you can put chips on both.

Mike Holmes wrote: While I'm on that subject, I meant to mention this before: one of the cool things about this system is that large numbers aren't a big deal. I mean, you're going to be doing double digit multiplication already, so you can have resonably large stats and pools of chips. In fact, I think it's almost a neccessity for things to flow properly. That being the case, you can have some seriously fine granularity. Which is always fun, IMO.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Lxndr wrote: So if you're gunning up against, say, a TN of ten, and you want a level 5 success, you're going to want to win 15 chips. But what if you can only bid 3?

That's one 12:1 Payoff, and one overlapping 3:1 payoff (and a longshot for kicks). There's almost always a way to place your chips so that one of the results is exactly the number of chips you want. In the case of the example about an 8% chance of getting it.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Lxndr wrote:
This seems to suggest, to me, that the chances of finding your theoretical "best bid" in even money isn't very likely (though surely there is a "best bid").

You're suggesting that some players won't understand what they can do? I agree. But that just means that the players who do understand how it works can "work" the system.

Mike Holmes wrote: Better yet, have players take chips from their winnings and put them aside for "EXP". These can then be spent at the end of the setting. This would mean that the player might gamble a little on the long side to try to get some points to spend that way. Any additional options help to "fuzz" things up a bit.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that these are going to require a lot of separate playtesting. Isn't it cool that the dicebot can do a d36?

Mike Holmes wrote: I'd think you'd need about 100 per player, and potential opponent (if you go opposed). For a four-player game, and one extra color for opposition, that would be $40 worth of chips. But, it would look cool as hell. Any chance you can get them to put custom labels on them?

Mike Holmes wrote:

Lxndr wrote: While the wheel spins, all involved parties can place bids, change bids, remove bids, et hoc genus omne. When the ball finally stops bouncing, however, no more bidding can be done, and bids on the table cannot changed.

Oh, that's excellent. Has a lot of feel, and brings an element of strategy into it. Odds calculation becomes a lot more difficult. Hmm. That might be problematic at first, even. Until players learn the effects of the bets, they might play very badly. That's OK by me, tho. :)

Mike Holmes wrote:

Lxndr wrote: Perhaps it should be limited to "one GM bonus chip"? That way, the "best" bonus you can suck up for is an even money bet (which will give you two chips back).

That's not enough to keep up with the chips going out to buy successes. At that rate, people will be broke soon and constantly.

Mike Holmes wrote:

quot;Lxndr"(Conversely, perhaps if you're down on your luck, you could "burn off" some of your character for extra chips...)

Or take off clothes. I mean, give your character a new flaw. Lots of possibilities there. That would help substantially. :-)

The Wheel: A Game System Using Roulette


• Characters



• Have some sort of statistics (need to be defined) ranked by number (what is average? needs to be defined). This number defines the maximum number of chips a character can bet during any single conflict.
• Have a "bank" which is their pile of chips.



• Each PC has his own colour of chips, as in real roulette
• They bid chips out of their bank for conflict resolution (see below)
• They also spend chips out of the bank to improve their characters (costs need to be worked out)



• Have some sort of income-generation system(s)



• Lucky Number: Every character has a lucky number that is automatically bid on every spin. It is a "free" chip, but is otherwise treated as any other bid.
• Some sort of "Flaw" system, where when that flaw comes up and impacts the story, chips flow into the bank. (Still considering)






• The GM



• Has only a bank.



• Does not bid; just spends chips directly, setting a "target number."
• Generates income solely from players losing bids.
• Has no maximum






• The Wheel



• Used for conflict resolution. This is the entire conflict, rather than taking things "blow-by-blow."



• A conflict and its participants are defined.
• Each participant (sas the GM) declares their maximum bid, and removes that number of chips from their bank. Meanwhile, the GM removes a number of chips equal to the target number.
• Any static bids are placed on the board with the proper colours.



• Lucky Numbers
• other conditional chips (as yet undefined)



• The wheel is spun, and the GM reveals his chosen target number. Until the ball stops bouncing, all involved may place or change bids. On my wheel at home, this takes about forty-five seconds.
• After the ball stops bouncing, the number is called.



• Winnings are collected.
• Chips whose bets failed to win are added directly to the GM's bank (including chips like Lucky Number) - these are not winnings
• Chips whose bets were won are payed out using standard roulette rules



• Success is determined.



• Success against the GM is determined by direct-spending.
• Success against another PC is determined auction-style.
• Only one's winnings may be spent; the "bank" is meaningless at this time.
• Chips spent on success, by any individual, are lost, regardless of outcome.
• Cooperating individuals may add their chips together against an opponent.
• Any remaining chips are placed in the appropriate "bank".



• Highest # of chips narrates their victory and the dispensation of everyone else.



• Ties resolve in favor of the first bidder
• Yes, this means if the GM sets a target of 1, you have to spend TWO.











*Although the odds change somewhat, this game is equally useful for an American Wheel (two zeroes, 5.26% house advantage), a European Wheel (one zero, 2.7% house advantage), or a straight die roll (no zeroes, 0% house advantage).

As Mike Holmes said to me a few days ago (and I'm paraphrasing here) there's a "best combination" between a certain # of chips you want, and the # of chips you are able to (or are willing to) commit to your bid.

I'm still wanting this idea to turn into a game, so I spent some time crunching numbers. SIMPLE numbers. Bids between one and six chips, mostly. And I discovered some interesting trends, and made some observations.


• Crunching these numbers is HARD. I brute-forced only one through six and I'm not sure if I managed to find the "best combinations." There are 179 different possible spots to place a bet, per chip, on an American table, broken down as follows:


• 38 straight bets (including 0 and 00) - 1/38 chance, 36 chip payout
• 59 split bets (including 1/0 and 3/00) - 2/38 chance, 18 chip payout
• 13 street bets (including 2/0/00) - 3/38 chance, 12 chip payout
• 46 square bets (no zeroes) - 4/38 chance, 9 chip payout
• 11 sixiannes (no zeroes) - 6/38 chance, 6 chip payout
• 3 different dozen bets - 12/38 chance, 3 chip payout
• 3 different column bets - 12/38 chance, 3 chip payout
• 2 different color bets - 16/38 chance, 2 chip payout
• 2 different high/low bets - 16/38 chance, 2 chip payout
• 2 different odd/even bets - 16/38 chance, 2 chip payout


If anyone has any hints on how to figure out the "best" combination, especially assuming multiple chips (179 turns exponential mighty fast), please let me know.
• Because crunching the numbers is so hard, I'm once again tempted to keep the numbers low. Making the "average" human 2 or 3 seems to speed up handling time, compared to having it be ten. This also keeps difficulty numbers low.
• As long as you have more than one chip on the table, on an American wheel you have a 95% chance of breaking even, if that's your goal. Two chips can usually bring back two chips. Ten chips normally can bring back ten. And so on. But unless the player wants his bank to slowly shrink, or I change my current game framework, the aim will always be HIGHER than what's desired (as the minimum # of chips that needs to be spent to succed is one, regardless of bid).
• Getting only ONE chip higher is interesting, with what little I'm aware of. With one chip on the table, the best bid only has a 47% chance of bringing back two. With two chips on the table, the best bid's chance is 63% to bring three chips home. But (and here's where I find things interesting), with three chips, your best chances of bringing in 4 are smaller (though your choices are "have a higher chance of bringing in SOMETHING" or "instead of 4, I'll bring in six"). This interesting hobgoblin continues up and down the line.
So, looking at it sideways, it's possibly your best decision might be to bid LESS than all the chips in your arsenal, once you're aware of the target number. Then again, bidding more can increase either your chances of success even without breaking even, and/or your total winnings.
• Even knowing what the "best bid" is, a player still has to make a number of choices (do I want to maximize the chances of winning, the chances of breaking even, or both?). So the current plan of "making the target number known before bidding" will remain. This also seems to argue for the "fixed target number" as opposed to making "spins" with the GM opposed.
This, by the way, also has the GM making some difficult choices, since he's got to withdraw from HIS bank to set a target number at all, and he sets it without knowing how many chips they will bid (only how many chips they CAN bid). Does he set it high, or low? Too high, the player might not bid anything at all - he'll probably lose, unless his lucky number comes up, and the GM's bank is now that much smaller. On the other hand, if the GM sets it too low, the player might just cake-walk all over it.
Since the player has to spend one MORE chip than the GM, that means that even if the GM has nothing, the player has to bid and win at least one chip. Most difficulties, I imagine, are going to be like attributes - low, between zero (routine) and five (difficult).
• The "lucky number" seems to be a pretty good equalizer, overall. It ensures that a player can bid at any time, even if he has no chips. It also allows the GM to collect one chip into his bank every time the player DOESN'T win it. I still think the game needs some sort of income system other than the lucky number, though.
• I am, on the other hand, pretty well convinced the game does NOT need any other sort of bonus chip - besides the lucky number, a player will never get any sort of bonus to an action. Although it removes the fine control a GM has over such bonuses, it's seeming more inappropriate all the time - it feels more APPROPRIATE, for some reason, that PCs succeed or fail based on their own luck. Though perhaps narrating the RESOLUTION of an action could generate income? "Dude, that was cool," etc.
• On the other hand, perhaps sometimes bonus chips would make sense?


(Still need to define: Type, and # of statistics; player income system; a possible additional "loss" condition for losing all chips; whether or not there ARE multiple success levels and how they'd work; and chip costs for character advancement)

Any input on these comments, or anything else?

The idea I'm most concerned about, the most insecure about, is giving the GM a bank from which target numbers are SPENT. If the players are lucky in their spins, then the GM might be the one wallowing in the welfare line. But it has its advantages - the bookkeeping for conflicts is much simpler. The biggest issue I can imagine is, well, more than one separate non-PC faction involved in a conflict.

The GM HAVING a bank (which is replenished by lost chips) is at least one reason why I'm not wanting the GM to also give out bonus chips at all - my gut feels like it'd make the GM talk out of both sides of his mouth.

Oh yeah, and Mike> Why did you want to know if I could get chips stamped with a particular logo?

I still have very strong misgivings about all this. We don't seem to be communicating well about it, however, so I'm going to suggest that you playtest the game. I think that if you do so, you'll better be able to see the problems I'm talking about, and better yet, be able to see what might make for good solutions.

Custom logos just seemed like a cool idea. Could market them for the game, or have special kinds of chips, etc. For example, all your chips could be the same color, but you could have some chips that could only be used in certain kinds of conflicts, or something.

Mike

You're right that custom logos are a cool idea. I'm definitely considering marketing them right along with the game (and handing them out at the ends of demonstrations, too - "Keep the character, and keep the chips too."). I'm also considering selling personal-sized roulette wheels from my site, too, once this game is completed.

I'm also still having misgivings, to be honest. I know my numbers aren't quite right (but I don't understand why you think larger stats and banks are a necessity for things to flow properly - you mentioned that in passing in an earlier post), and what little numbers I have crunched seem to be advantaging the GM to quite a drastic extent, in the long haul.

Typing this stuff out helps, which is why I'm still making posts and poking ideas with pointy sticks. And reading other's results helps.

Right now I'm enamored with two ideas in creating this setup, which may or may not be compatible, but certainly seem to be butting up against one another:


• The GM has a bank of chips, which is replenished on a 1:1 basis by a player losing any bid, including the "free" lucky chip
• A character's attributes defines only how much "effort" they can expend, not how much effort they DO expend (which is tracked through chips)

I've considered removing the "reduce the winnings to pay for success" portion - just compare the winnings directly against the target number instead, and then throw the whole wad back in the bank. This slows bank reduction quite a bit.

This could still be interpreted as "effort" - it just seems that, if you have enough chips to secure a success, you don't NEED to worry about effort. Which seems reasonable and fair to me, but makes things less fuzzy. I think I might have fuzzed things up TOO much with that, though.

I'm still not sure exactly how to handle ties, though. Not sure how often they'd come up (probably mostly in PC/PC conflicts).

I still want some sort of player-income system, so that their bank can be replenished, but I'd rather the bids themselves come only out of currently available funds. So I'm hoping to be able to design this system such that the ONLY special chip is the lucky number.

Besides, since the GM gets every chip the player loses, it's of dubious intent if he gives the player a bonus chip, especially if the GM decides where to place it. And tracking bonus chips separately seems... problematic. Since you'd need to keep track of bonus chips separately for each player, I imagine the possibility of twice as many colors on the board. Ouch.

So... without spending for success (but still spending on character improvement), players right now are only breaking even, on average. My current musings for an income mechanic dances along the lines of the Nobilis "Restrictions."

(For those reading this who might be unaware, a Nobilis Restriction is a "Disadvantage" in GURPS terms. Whenever it comes up AND impedes you or inconveniences you in some significant-to-the-story way, the character in Nobilis gets more miracle points. It doesn't seem that much a stretch to apply the same principle to this game.)

Maybe I missed discussion of this somewhere along the line, but there's a major problem when you have people playing against each other on the same turn of the wheel. Whoever places their chips last can choose to cover, or duplicate part or all of the other player's bets, seriously skewing their probable relative results. That is, if I place my chips after you and we have the same number of chips, I could bet in exactly the same way as you, guaranteeing a standoff however the ball rolls. If I have slightly more chips, I can guarantee I will beat you if I place last.

Alternating placing chips doesn't work, because whoever alternates second can still cover the other player's bets. You need to have completely blind bidding, which probably means more than one table with results on each determined from the same roll of the wheel.


Simon Hibbs

We did cover this. That's part of why Alex is going with the GM setting target numbers instead of competing. When we were talking about actual on board competition, I had suggested that the bets be placed under cups so that the amounts would be concealed (for exactly the reasons you state).

Mike

We discussed that (though a lot of that discussion was on indie-netgaming, not here. Right now, a big part of my answer is, "The GM doesn't make any bids himself." So the only worry is player-vs-player action (cooperative actions don't count, for obvious reasons).

My current proposed solution is the following:

Each involved bidder declares how many chips they are able to bid, and the Lucky Number chips are placed on the wheel. When the GM begins the wheel spinning, everybody may simultaneously place chips, move chips around, et cetera, until the ball stops bouncing.

With this, whoever "bids last" is really up to the players (and the "clock"). If I place on red, and YOU place on red, then I can move my chip. And so can you. So bids sort of alternate, but you can move bids after they're placed, and so on, until the ball stops bouncing, at which point you're stuck wherever the chip was. This could become a game of "chase the chips around the table" if someone was resolutely determined to match every bet, guaranteeing a standoff, but it removes the "turn-based" structure entirely.

Another proposed solution involved the use of opaque cups, overturned. Chips would be placed beneath the cups in secret, and the cups themselves would then be placed on the board. In most cases, some of the cups placed on the board would be empty... "bluff cups" if you will. So the person with more chips could only try to cover the other side's bets, but wouldn't know exactly where the cups would be placed (though he'd likely have a good guess).

An idea bouncing around in my head right now is to have different coloured roulette balls, such that player X and player Y would collect on two different numbers. Thus, it's not as simple as covering. I'm also toying with several other numerical solutions, so far without anything promising.

I'd have to playtest before I'm sure, but perhaps the one-spin resolution ideal is flawed? On the other hand, perhaps it's not BAD that the game rewards the higher-ranked so resolutely?

Food for thought, either way.

The 'two balls' solution seems like the most elegent - much better than shuffling chips about. I'd hate that, I'm here to roleplay not play dumb hand-eye co-ordination games.

Lxndr wrote: I'd have to playtest before I'm sure, but perhaps the one-spin resolution ideal is flawed? On the other hand, perhaps it's not BAD that the game rewards the higher-ranked so resolutely?

"Two balls" is rather elegant, I guess. It was easy to come up with because my little roulette wheel came with two balls standard (though they're not different colours, I suppose a marker could clear that little problem up).

But I have to wonder how potentially bizarre it might get in three-cornered or four-cornered competitions (and how long a wheel might be willing to stand that many balls on it). Also, I worry about telling potential players, "sorry, you don't have enough balls to play this game." (Also, I'm not sure how well a cheap roulette wheel could stand up to multiple balls whacking on it at once).

So... I'm hoping to stick with one ball. Perhaps there's a way to get multiple numbers out of one ball...?

Lxndr wrote: So... I'm hoping to stick with one ball. Perhaps there's a way to get multiple numbers out of one ball...?

I've had an afflatus, though whether it is a good one or not remains to be seen:

"Offset."

Before putting down chips, each side secretly writes down, and hands to the GM, an "offset," which can be a positive number, a negative number, or zero. This determines how many steps away from the ball, on the wheel, their "real number" actually is. Positive numbers are clockwise, negative numbers are counterclockwise, zero is (of course) the same number.

Since neither side would KNOW each other's offset while bidding, they could be fighting over the same spot (if their offsets are identical) or different spots (if their offsets are different).

This would allow a potentially infinite quantity of contestants in an action, and is a much easier "secret" to keep track of than actual bids.

Thoughts?

(I'm tempted, sometimes, to go with the method offered in The Pool - "player vs. player conflicts are never resolved with a roll" but that seems to go counter to the "philosophy" that the mechanics themselves seem to express.)

Beat me to it. I read Fred's post, and it occured to me that you could roll a die and add that many spaces for each character. But your method is better, I think (doesn't require a die for one).

In either case, however, players might still shadow each other, on the off chance that the randomized result comes up the same.

How about if the challenging player just has an offset of three? Once the wheel is spinning, there's no way to check what the number in question is for every bet that the non-offset player makes (and in any case, certain bets won't be shadowable in this way). Yes, the red and black bets would still be easy to shadow, but the players will know this and can do odd-even instead.

Mike

Well, as long as players aren't AWARE they're shadowing one another, while bidding, they can't strategize with that as a guarantee. So my "reveal the offset only after the ball stops bouncing" seems to stop the major worry of shadowing (i.e. players purposefully strategizing in the "cover the other player's chips" approach).

I'm tempted to stick with the "randomly and/or player-generated offset" method, in part because it's expandable to three, four, six, twenty-three, etc., while a fixed offset is more difficult to expand beyond "2."

(And, of course, using the optional "dice instead of wheel" rules, you don't have to worry about any of this. Each player would just roll his or her set of dice simultaneously after placing bids.)

Some notes, by the way, taken from a discussion on #indierpgs last night. These are somewhat sloppy:

Statistics! Finally!

• Sobriety - both mental and social seriousness and clear-headedness
• Guile - both physical and social treachery and sneakiness
• Nerve - both physical and mental strength and resilience
• People - connections, "who you know" (and how much they like you)


(There is also "Life," a trait one can take multiple times. Your life can be your job, your family, a hobby, a lover, whatever it is that makes your character say "X is my life." Life is allowed to stack with any attribute, but if your opponent uses it against you, it subtracts what it would normally add.)

Attributes shouldn't be too static - they should move up and down as the story progresses. Thoughts on this (still in progress):

• Whenever your lucky number is spun, the attribute being used goes down by one. Conversely, whenever a zero is spun, the attribute being used goes up by one. (A variation that makes attribute fluctuations much more common: Whenever a contest succeeds using a particular attribute, that attribute goes down by 1. Conversely, every failure increases it by one).
• Players can "sell back" any of his character's attribute values and get back the full chip value invested. On the other hand, they can only raise an attribute value with winnings, before they're returned to the bank.
• Allow players, after failing a bid, to pay down the target number on a 1:1 basis out of the Bank, with the knowledge that EVERY chip used goes to the GM's Bank. If the target number is reduced below the player's winnings (or is reduced to zero if the player had no winnings), the player wins. Yes, this includes selling down attributes to do so.


Another random thought: how much SHOULD attributes cost to raise? 2:1 or 3:1 are my current thoughts. linear attribute improvement!!!

Well, as long as players aren't AWARE they're shadowing one another, while bidding, they can't strategize with that as a guarantee. So my "reveal the offset only after the ball stops bouncing" seems to stop the major worry of shadowing (i.e. players purposefully strategizing in the "cover the other player's chips" approach).

I'm tempted to stick with the "randomly and/or player-generated offset" method, in part because it's expandable to three, four, six, twenty-three, etc., while a fixed offset is more difficult to expand beyond "2."

Mike Holmes wrote:

Well, as long as players aren't AWARE they're shadowing one another, while bidding, they can't strategize with that as a guarantee. So my "reveal the offset only after the ball stops bouncing" seems to stop the major worry of shadowing (i.e. players purposefully strategizing in the "cover the other player's chips" approach).

If I have two options to bet on, each that have the same odds, but one of which shadows you which creates slightly better odds, why wouldn't I go for the shadow?

Mike Holmes wrote:

I'm tempted to stick with the "randomly and/or player-generated offset" method, in part because it's expandable to three, four, six, twenty-three, etc., while a fixed offset is more difficult to expand beyond "2."

??

Player 2 is offset 2, player 3 is offset 3, player 4 is offset 4, etc. How's that any different?

Mike Holmes wrote:
And this way is simpler because it doesn't require the recording. The GM just assigns each player his offset. Also, interestingly, with a garunteed offset, the player can still shadow another player meaning that he's creating an "all or nothing" sort of environment with respect to that player. Which is an interesting gamble itself.

Mike Holmes wrote:
So, I see your stats - what's the action of the game about?

I'd suggest something like the (sadly, cancelled, though brilliant) show on F/X called Lucky, about the life of a professional gambler who is simultaneously battling his addiction to gambling, as your basic seed notion. Caper films (e.g., Ocean's 11) would be a solid and smart way to position this as well. Tarantino-style True Crime stuff may make for a good candidate as a setting as well. Regardless, I see this as an undeniably modern-setting game (though you could go near-future or historical if you found the exactly right gig).

I'd suggest simply calling the game 'Roulette', and then coming up with some extra-lethal rules variants which you can enable so you're playing Russian Roulette.

Lxndr wrote: Well, if you have two options to bet on, each that have the same odds, and you're unaware which one (if either) shadows the other person, which are you going to pick? Am I missing something? ::is puzzled::

Ack. And the simple solution eludes me. I thank you.
(Though I'd say player 1 is offset 0, 2 is offset 1, etc.)

But if you assign each player his offset, then it's easier to strategize around it and shadow someone, if that's their goal, nu? Hm.

I really don't know how to answer that question. It's still a work in progress, plus I'm not sure quite what you're asking (honestly).

I'm imagining the game is "about" romantic, cinematic, free-wheeling, life in the fast lane, where luck is capricious and it's as easy to crash and burn as it is to come out on top.

An American Wheel: http://www.paignio.com/en/ch4/images/image4-7.gif
A European Wheel: http://www.paignio.com/en/ch4/images/image4-2.gif

On both sides, "1" is red. From that, you can figure out which other numbers are red or black. Zero and 00 are always green.

It looks like the displacement and disjointed randomness on either wheel is enough that a straight 1,2,3,4,5,6,etc. offset would work well enough. On the american wheel, someone bids on the row 1,2,3.. move things over one and it's the equivalent of betting on 13,11,15 (or 20,25,26 on the european wheel). The outside bids are the easiest to be "shadowed" on, but that's a given anyway, since they're the largest overlaps.

So, one is counfounding enough, and I can be linear enough to say "Okay, player one, you have no offset; player 2, you have an offset of one" and so on. :) And the whole thing is confounding enough that I don't need to worry about discouraging shadowing through secrecy. Yay!

Mike Holmes wrote: Right, but what kind of characters, and what do they do? What you have is more of a color or, "how they do it" sort of explanation. Is the game generic? Or do you envision coming up with a setting for it?

For some reason I keep seeing Bogart movies.

The risk element and making it non-setting based, make me think of Sorcerer, of course. One of the defining things that makes that game work is that Sorcerers are required to have a reason behond hy they are willing to take on the risks of Sorcery.

Do you see that as a central part of defining characters? Or are all characters just adrenaline junkies, and something else drives thm in play? Goals perhaps? What makes one character different than the next thematically. The stats would do this a little, but not enough to create situations in play out of evolving plots. What's that element for you?

Oh. How about Life in the Fast Lane for a title? :-)

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: The risk element and making it non-setting based, make me think of Sorcerer, of course. One of the defining things that makes that game work is that Sorcerers are required to have a reason behond hy they are willing to take on the risks of Sorcery.

Do you see that as a central part of defining characters? Or are all characters just adrenaline junkies, and something else drives thm in play? Goals perhaps? What makes one character different than the next thematically. The stats would do this a little, but not enough to create situations in play out of evolving plots. What's that element for you?

Mike Holmes wrote:
Oh. How about Life in the Fast Lane for a title? :-)

Some random notes:

1. There are now five "statistics" in my working version, (plus Life and the lucky #), not four:

Assets - both tangible and intangible, wealth and appearance
Guile - physical and social sneakiness, treachery, agility
Nerve - physical and mental fortitude and strength
People - your connections, people you know, names you can drop, and how well THEY like YOU
Sobriety - mental and social clarity and perception

2. I have decided to adopt the following rule:

Whenever a contest succeeds, the associated attribute goes down by one. If the contest fails or ties, the attribute remains the same.

This will ensure that even success has a price, which feels right in a game like this.

3. Players can "sell back" any attribute at any time and get back the full chip value invested. On the other hand, they can only raise an attribute value with winnings, before they're returned to the bank (but they can raise any attribute, not necessarily the one they used). Raising any attribute must be addressed/justified in the narrative monologue.

4. If any one attribute (other than Life) goes down to zero, the character dies or is otherwise taken out of the game. Of course, since this normally only happens after a successful contest, the player can narrate his character's blaze of glory as he succeeds in his task.

5. The dice-based option now has the GM rolling dice as well as the players. IF the GM rolls snake-eyes, then the "wheel" comes up a zero for everyone. Any other roll the GM might make counts as nothing. Also in the dice-based option, everyone rolls their "spin" separately, instead of worrying about an offset.

6. Player can "sell back" any attribute at any time and get back the full chip value invested. On the other hand, they can only raise an attribute value with winnings, before they're returned to the bank (but they can raise any attribute, not necessarily the one they used). Raising any attribute must be addressed/justified in the narrative monologue, and reducing attributes should also have an in-game justification.

7. Players, after failing a bid, may pay down the GM-set target number on a 1:1 basis by cashing in attributes for chips, with the knowledge that EVERY chip used this way goes directly to the GM's bank. If the target number is reduced below the player's winnings (or is reduced to zero if the player had no winnings at all), the player wins (which takes the "winning" attribute down one). If it is reduced exactly to the player's winnings, it is treated as a tie. Either way, this reduction of attributes should be explained in the resulting narrative...

The losing characteristic falling just makes the basic threshold higher. Given that you can buy and sell stats at this point, saying that you lose a stat (but can buy it right back) is merely saying that you need to have that many more chips to break even.

What sort of a conversion rate were you thinking?

As it stands, with no inefficiency in the exchange rate, it makes no sense to keep any chips in your back that would exceed the highest stat. That is, given the ability to cashout stats at any time, it's best to keep the investment there as much as possible. This will lead to stat inflation as player push every spare chip into stats whenever possible.

For example, if the rate of exchange is 3 to 1, and my highest stat is 3, I have 3 chips in my bank, and win 12 more, I'll raise my stats up until I have as many chips as my highest stat. Let's say I want to pump that highest stat up. I put in 9 chips to raise it to 6, and then put my other 3 in my bank with the others. Now I have the 6 chips that I need to bet up to my max. Occasionally, if I'm not a betting man, I'll keep more chips in the pool, but as you note that's only a more sure way to lose them over time (havint to spend chips out of my bank more often because I can't bet as much due to lower stats).

I'd put in some cash out inefficiency to make it a real investment. That is, if it costs 4 to raise a stat by one, it only gets you 3 to lower it by one. Or somesuch. So that the player will have to more closely consider what he's doing. When he's flush, he'll indulge, but when he's not, he'll avoid investing. The greater the inefficiency, the more you'll make this true.

Mike

Hm.

You're right, that does encourage attribute inflation more than I want (I put that in hoping to encourage a yo-yo effect, but it devalued the option of leaving coins in the bank).

I've toyed with the idea of saying you can ONLY "sell-back" statistics when making up a loss (in other words, you'll never see those chips in your bank again; you can only cash them out when trying to win). Thus, once they're out of your bank, they'll get burned up, one way or another, in your winnings.

That method seems, on the surface, to encourage the same thing - have the player more closely consider his choice to raise a statistic, encourage indulging during peak times, and avoidance during lulls. And it also has a symmetry with the "attributes only change during or after a contest" concept that pervades the rest of my rules.

(I'm also tempted to say: "You can't sell down the attribute you used in the contest - you have to sell down OTHER attributes")

And there's even an inefficiency, of sorts, built in. If the cost ratio is 4:1, but I only need to buy that TN down three to win... if I cash in one of my attribute points, I'll be able to buy myself a success, but the GM would get all four chips. How much do I really WANT to win?

(This also solves another worry I had: that of someone jacking up ONE attribute to high levels, then whenever he needed a different attribute, just pissing attribute #1 away, buying up attribute #2, and using it. Wash, rinse, repeat.)

Now I've got this weird economic system:

[code] /+> Player's Bank
/
Player's Bank -> Bid +> Winnings +> Attributes -
\ /
\-> Losses +> GM's Bank<+
\
\->Target Numbers -> Nothingness[/code]

Which I'm not sure if I'm graphing right, but it looks reasonable to me.

What sort of a conversion rate were you thinking?

Life? Don't Talk to Me About Life!

In Fastlane (the current working title for this primordial game), characters have several mechanical descriptors. They have their Lucky Number, a free bet on any spin they make, even if they don't spin anything at all. They have their five attributes: Assets, Guile, Nerve, People and Sobriety.

And they have their Life.

Life is a special trait. It differs from the attributes in several important ways. In my gut, these differences seem important to me. I'll list them first, and then I'll try to spell out the unease I'm feeling about Life.

1. You can have more than one Life.

Unlike the other attributes, Life can be (and should be) taken multiple times, each time representing different things that the individual cares about enough to say "X is my life!" With the other mechanics below, this will hopefully lead to situations where one Life is played against another.

2. Life should not go down when used.

Unlike the other attributes, which are ultimately fluid aspects of character, a character's Life is supposed to represent an anchor, something that grounds him in the otherwise free-wheeling high-stakes world that Fastlane is supposed to represent (regardless of individual setting). So I would rather not see it yo-yo in the way I am encouraging the other attributes to do.

Nonetheless, there should still be some mechanism for its change (both up and down). See below for some musings.

3. Life is never used on its own.

Although it is given a numerical value, like other attributes, Life is never used in a contest by itself. Instead, it either augments an attribute, when their Life is on the line... or it can penalize an attribute, when their Life is used against them. No matter what, a character always gets his Lucky Number bet. When augmenting an attribute, Life simply gives the OPPORTUNITY to bet more... and never actually gives additional chips.

(When choosing a Life for a character, the player should define some situations where the Life is an advantage, and where it can be used agains the poor sap. Btw, even if Life is a person, you don't lose this attribute if that person dies - "She WAS my life" is as poignant a theme as "She IS my life," and can still be used AGAINST a character).

4. Life is a source of income.

Whenever a character's Life is used against them, and they take the penalty, then after the contest is over, they earn a number of chips equal to their Life value regardless of winning vs. losing. This is (and hopefully will remain) the only source of income outside of winnings (which can happen either through risking a bet, or through the Lucky Number).

My Thoughts

Edit: Um, I hit Submit instead of Preview. I'll put my thoughts in a separate post, but feel free to chime in while I continue writing, as long as the cat is out of the bag, since I probably won't finish until after my lunchtime.

Over lunch, I mulled over Life and came up with an acceptable multi-part answer that answered my misgivings. A good thing, since I still don't know how to express what my misgivings really were. Anyway, I submit this just to end this thread - I think it's time to follow the advice Mike gave a page ago - stop, write a first draft, and move into playtesting.

(anyone interested? I'll be posting an "open call" on indie-netgaming in a week or a month or however long it takes, for an IRC playtest since that's going to be more likely than a "real life" playtest for a while)

Anyway:
* To get a new "Life," you have to spend EACH of your attributes down one, and have a scene where you actually "invest" a part of yourself in it. A new Life starts at 1, but can go up and down as described below.

* Whenever you use your Life to get a bonus, and you fail in the attempt, it goes down by one. Using your life to get a bonus "puts it on the line" somehow... and if you fail, you've "betrayed" it. This erodes the connection.

* Whenever someone uses your Life against you, and you still wind up succeeding, it goes up by one. Risking yourself like that, and succeeding, strengthens the connection between your Life and yourself. (Risking and failing doesn't weaken it)

* If your "Life" is reduced to zero, it stays on your character sheet. It can still be "used against you," and if you succeed, it will go back up to one. Since it was at zero before, though, you won't get any points.

Alright, off to write the first, extremely rough draft of Fast Lane. Thank you, everyone, for all your help. I'm not going to "officially" close this thread, but I think the game is ready to move to the next stage.