How do we make the roles/objective/win conditions clear enough so that players are self sufficient and there is no need for a narrator/moderator?
This is an important question to answer because we want a game in the realm of mafia in which people are assigned roles which gives them different abilities, objectives, and win conditions, however it is important to us that there is no moderator as that requires one person to not be able to play. A prototype we ca test out is to play mafia, but without a narrator, and examine what pieces of information is crucial that it be presented by a moderator. Then we can look at that information and see if there is an alternative way of getting it across without a third person (i.e. make cards and if you kill someone you take their card, this way with waking up if you don’t have a card you are dead). I actually think the first round playing mafia without a narrator would be hard since it would be difficult to tell who is dead, but once we create cards with roles and implement either a take someones card away or cover it with another card, than we will see if it operates in the same way as traditional mafia.
What is the minimum number of players required to ensure the game is still exciting to play?
This is an important question to offer because it is always unfortunate when you pull out a game that says 2+ players, however when you play with 2 it doesn’t really work. We want to ensure we can figure out the optimal way to play that is still fun and enticing, and make that the minimum or suggested number of players. To prototype this, we can start of playing one night ultimate werewolf with 3 players and work our way up. I predict with 3 players it will not be as exciting since it might be pretty easy to detect through conversation who is trying to frame someone else, and/or trying to sacrifice themselves. However, once we reach 6 players I predict the game will start actually introducing some strategy and be a lot more engaging overall. However if we were to try it with perhaps 12 players i think it woudl satrt getting really complicated and hard to figure out who is what role.
If everyone is assigned a different role, objective, and win condition, how can we make it similar enough so that it is not clear immediately what role everyone is?
This is an important question to answer because we want to make sure the game is enjoyable and there is some strategy involved, if it’s easy to tell off the bat that this person is intentionally sabotaging etc. it’s not as fun of a game to play. A prototype that we can test is play a round of coup, however tell the assassin their job is to kill everyone, the contessa is to prevent anyone from being killed, the captian is to get as rich as possible, etc, and play a round in that way. We take turns just like in coup and as we play along see if people can guess which card everyone pulled and if anyone is able to get away with it, note what strategies they used. My guess is that players will be a lot more strategic and at least 2 people will be able to successfully hide their true objectives.
