Questions our prototype might answer:
1. How does the game play if it is a single witch-burning story, meant to be played once? This is an important question to answer because it helps decides between mechanics that rely on story revelation vs. more constrained mechanics that lend themselves to multiple playthroughs. I’d prototype this by quickly drafting a few characters besides the witch who each have a secret they want revealed, and a simple script for what actually happened on the day/week the players are discussing. From this “full knowledge” script, I’d write story bullet points for each character, including the bullet points that they have to make up to avoid giving away their secret. My guess is this will turn out too complicated unless we can find a sweet spot length story, or maybe a way to configure a random story (e.g. from event cards).
2. What abilities should the characters have? We know the witch is trying to survive, and the other characters are trying to burn the witch, but we need to know the game mechanics by which this will happen. The core idea is similar to games like A Fake Artist Goes to New York, where at any given point one person is making things up. Prototype: use Mafia/Werewolf gameplay and roles, but the day is more formalized where each person reads their version of events. As with Mafia/Werewolf, players vote, and some characters can do things at night if their roles allow. Tune this to get a set of roles that interact in cool ways assuming each character has a secret and there’s just one witch. I think this will tell us that, with simple roles, it will be either way too easy or way too hard to find the witch. More powers/roles can balance that.
3. How many players? This is related to both the previous questions. With more players, the witch will naturally be able to blend in with the crowd, which must be balanced. I would design versions of the above mafia prototype with small (3-5), medium (6-10), and large (10+) groups and see which set of mechanics makes sense when combined with the idea that each person must tell their version of the story. I’m guessing that, regardless of the mechanics, the idea that each person will need to recount their version of the story will not scale past 8ish people, unless the stories are very short.
