How do we prevent the overuse of red herrings in a player’s debate speech?
In my team’s game, we are doing a debate-style argument game about silly topics, where you try to slip in a word, phrase, and/or action to get extra points. This question is really important to answer as it will ultimately balance the game and ensure that players can actually call out other person. So far, my team has thought of two ways to prevent this from occurring– voters can take into consideration the validity of the argument, such that you can’t spam red herrings. Additionally, there will be a house rule that says you can’t overuse red herrings. We want to be able to prototype to see how the game feels with these two implementations such that the game is fun and playable.
How do balance the point system such that players are rewarded or punished based on their performance and accusations?
Players can currently get points in two ways– successfully getting away with sneaking in words or winning their debate. Players could possibly lose points by making false accusations or losing their debate (or they only get rewarded half points from their successful “sneaks”). How many points should we reward players or deduct from players to make the game feel balanced? Balancing the point system will ultimately require trial and error and prototyping to make sure things feel fair and play nicely.
How long should each round go on for?
Currently, my team and I believe the game would run well with 3-7 players. However, we are worried that debates might take up too much time, and the game may drag on for too long or that people might only get one turn at most. We want to be able to balance the time that each speech runs for such that players aren’t rushed, but they have enough time to actually play. Additionally, we need to figure out how long judging/voting should take, as well as account for any other actions that might take time like ideating, drawing cards, spinning the spinner/rolling the die to see who goes next, etc.
