Oh, and this is Game Design, of course, but I can't edit the post.

Graham

There's a couple of reasoms I really like that Graham:

1. It levels the playing field when creating guards/straights at the start of the game, e.g. nobody knows they are creating an NPC with a specific target number, they are just creating the concept.

2. There's no comparative scales to calculate, e.g. thinking you can give someone a card with a value of 3 which might not be high enough to beat the target. Now, you know whether you are giving someone a card that will enable them to succeed or not.

Of course, that commentary is based on what I recall of the rules from Conception, so I'm not sure how much bearing it has on the current draft, but I still like the idea of reducing all choices to a simple success or failure. Strategising and min-maxing hurts my brain, so I appreciate games that keep it simple. :-)

I think I just managed to move it to Game Design.

Thanks, James, yeah. My watchword, with this game, is to go for the simple option wherever possible.

The rules have changed a bit since we played at Conception. You no longer choose which card you give someone: you just deal the top card from a pile, but you can hold back giving it until you see something you like.

Plus: instead of Ticks and Crosses, I can call them Cocks and Blocks. This makes me deeply happy.

I'd welcome another opinion on this, other than James', even if just to say "Yes, it's fine" or "No, it's crap".

Graham

I prefer it, as it's much more straightforward. The actual odds will be determined by the ratio of Cocks to Blocks in the deck.

Red and Black cards have worked OK for JoE with Contenders as an arbitrary odds generator, which is similar.

So, yeah it's fine from me.

I'm going to be really unhelpful here Graham and say "me too." I don't really think that the difficulty numbers added a whole lot to the game as it was fairly random anyway - you certainly couldn't plan or prepare to get past a hard card (ooh err!) any more than an easy card.

But ... will there be enough of a challenge with the ticks and crosses? I mean, with the old system say you pull a mid difficulty guard, you might first draw a 1, then a 2, then finally a 5 to get past him, making you work for the privilege of drawing more cards.

But with what you're proposing, surely the odds are that you're never really more than a card away from drawing a tick, assuming they're roughly even in number.

Or am I making things needlessly complicated?

Finally - cocks and blocks works for me! Are you going to have little willies drawn on all the cards? I can't decide if that disturbs me or not.

The ratios will be: 8 Cocks, 12 Blocks, 5 Baggage and 1 Ex. At least, I think so: I'll fiddle around with decks of cards until there's the right level of challenge. And Baggage and The Ex fail the challenge automatically, with no possibility of turning another card.

I imagine a Cock will be a picture of a chicken and a Block will be a chicken with a red circle and a line through it, like Ghostbusters. No need for actual phalli.

Thanks very much for that: very useful. I've been thinking about junking Difficulty Numbers for ages.

Graham

Yep, just to add to the chorus of approval, I think it's a much better idea. Not much more I can add to that really, but it seems like a solid way to do things.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Oh, excellent, thanks.

And I get to use rude words, too. Cocks and Blocks are much more fun than Difficulty Numbers.

Graham