Hydra Discussion Thread

[Silverclaw]

So after

Barely Survivor

ended, I'd like to have a discussion on hydras in the space of LSGs.

My personal opinion: Good to have, by no means mandatory. I'll go into why later probably, but I want the thread to be up.

[xofelf]

I very much like the idea of them, especially how they were utilized in this past game. I don't know that I'd say having them in every game, but I think allowing them to give people a taste of Survivor with a safety rail is a great idea. Idk, I've always liked them. But i also think they should always be limited to 2 players max.

[Noraa]

I agree with 2 players max definitely

[Skelda]

I've never played with a hydra, but I'm curious to know if we think hydraing is an advantage or a disadvantage for the players in the game? It kind of seems like it's an advantage having someone you know you can trust to talk things over with and not getting as burnt out, but I could see there being some drawbacks as well. But most hydras do tend to have a more dominant hydra head, which can be a nice way for people with busy lives to still get to play, but I would also like to see more hydras which are truly equal partnerships.

Also if our games are going to continue to struggle to fill like this one did, maybe having large numbers of hydras in games is not the way to go, especially when we're talking about 24+ person games

[Iprobablysuck]

I didn't even realize more than two was a thing that sounds fucking horrible

but yeah hydras are a good tool for new players to learn and busy as fuck people to play without dropping immediately. i say save them for the huge games like disney or bs though

[Noraa]

I've never played with a hydra, but I'm curious to know if we think hydraing is an advantage or a disadvantage for the players in the game? It kind of seems like it's an advantage having someone you know you can trust to talk things over with and not getting as burnt out, but I could see there being some drawbacks as well. But most hydras do tend to have a more dominant hydra head, which can be a nice way for people with busy lives to still get to play, but I would also like to see more hydras which are truly equal partnerships.

Also if our games are going to continue to struggle to fill like this one did, maybe having large numbers of hydras in games is not the way to go, especially when we're talking about 24+ person games

its an advantage but some people need it and others just work so well together that I would stan it anyways

[D3f3nd3r]

Ego because I feel very strongly that hydras in games are very bad and don't know how to put that into words yet.

[Silverclaw]

I've never played with a hydra, but I'm curious to know if we think hydraing is an advantage or a disadvantage for the players in the game? It kind of seems like it's an advantage having someone you know you can trust to talk things over with and not getting as burnt out, but I could see there being some drawbacks as well. But most hydras do tend to have a more dominant hydra head, which can be a nice way for people with busy lives to still get to play, but I would also like to see more hydras which are truly equal partnerships.

If you want that, you should probably talk to MURDERCAT & June, because they were roughly equal partners.

[Noraa]

I didn't even realize more than two was a thing that sounds fucking horrible

[Skelda]

I've never played with a hydra, but I'm curious to know if we think hydraing is an advantage or a disadvantage for the players in the game? It kind of seems like it's an advantage having someone you know you can trust to talk things over with and not getting as burnt out, but I could see there being some drawbacks as well. But most hydras do tend to have a more dominant hydra head, which can be a nice way for people with busy lives to still get to play, but I would also like to see more hydras which are truly equal partnerships.

If you want that, you should probably talk to MURDERCAT & June, because they were roughly equal partners.

I agree, and I said that in my torchwalk to them! They were the ideal hydra team to me

[Noraa]

I think equal hydras are scary because you could hit it off with one head and get stabbed and you can't even blame them

[xofelf]

Some mafia hydras have 3 sometimes. And I think 3 is too many.

From what I understand is while the benefit of having someone you can talk stuff over with and getting to take every other challenge off is a huge, I think there's some unique challenges too. Like, you have to make sure you're on the same page with the person. Sometimes using the same account posting can toss up token errors, and you can miss certain PMs by the other person looking at them and it being marked as read where you didn't read them. I also think if you end up paranoid about something and you both are, you end up in a very specific kind of feedback loop. I dont' think playing in a hydra gives a huge advantage over single players or disadvantages them either.

I also don't think having more than 3 hydras total is a good idea unless the whole game is hydras.

[Noraa]

I think in a way hydras are advantageous for two reasons
1) you have one true ally that will never betray you
and
2) you have two chances.

What I mean by number 2 is that if one head fucks up, people will still give the other head a chance.

[Noraa]

I think in a way hydras are advantageous for two reasons
1) you have one true ally that will never betray you
and
2) you have two chances.

What I mean by number 2 is that if one head fucks up, people will still give the other head a chance.

but they are still good imo. Like for someone that doesn't have time/is new, a hydra could make life much better for them!

[Skelda]

Ego because I feel very strongly that hydras in games are very bad and don't know how to put that into words yet.

I honestly have a gut feeling against them too, but I think it might be irrational.

Fun experiment, definitely not a thing for every game or even most games. And I agree that I prefer them in more complex games, so BS was a good place for them.

[Skelda]

I also don't think having more than 3 hydras total is a good idea unless the whole game is hydras.

I would love a whole game of hydras to be run. Like a 12 person Big Brother game with only hydras? Yes please.

[Noraa]

I also don't think having more than 3 hydras total is a good idea unless the whole game is hydras.

I would love a whole game of hydras to be run. Like a 12 person Big Brother game with only hydras? Yes please.

that sounds scary af tbh

[xofelf]

You know how stoked for a full hydra game I would be? Like, yes, very yes.

[xofelf]

It's Eon's Partner Twist, but less gameable!

[Noraa]

a full hydra survivor game sounds scary as fuck.

[D3f3nd3r]

Yeah I will say that I'd love to explore the design space of two-player teams a bit more (in game forms that aren't Endurance and don't come down to rock-paper-scissors games).

[xRECKONERx]

Hydras are bad, do not allow them in Survivor, use twists like pairs/partners if you want to coach newbies on the game

I don't really want to say much more publicly at the risk of offending some people but overall yeah, they're a huge pain in the ass to balance and make everyone feel okay about. If you don't have time to play Survivor without a hydra then you don't have time to play

[Haschel Cedricson]

Right, let's explore this mechanic. Here are the games that have featured hydrae:

Arkham City:

Two-Face

Killing School Semester:

Korekiyo and Toko

Equestria:

Flim and Flam

Barely Survivor:

Tortoise/Hare, Droids, Lindsay Lohan

All four games handled this in very different ways.

Arkham City had it as a surprise hydra; the players were unaware that hydras were a possibility. It was done almost 100% for flavor reasons (mods can correct me if I'm wrong here. Killing School Semester still had them as surprise hydra but treated them like different players; the hydrae were introduced after the game had already started and entered the game late as "transfer students". This gave players an indication that *something* was potentially up with them, and the character choices were hints that more than one player might be behind the wheel. This was always an intended mechanic; it was planned that there would be hydras in the game before KSS went into signups.

Equestria was different; there was no mechanical reason for Flim and Flam to be a hydra. What happened was Malkon and Flum both came to me and said that neither one really wanted to play a full game by themselves but asked if they would be able to hydra. The idea amused me so I agreed on the condition that I got to pick their character, and I gave them Flim and Flam as a clue to the players.

Finally, Barely Survivor allowed hydrae as an afterthought but before signups completed. It was publicly known that hydrae would be in the game and furthermore they were intentionally flagged as such by virtue of having "X and Y" names. This allowed players to know exactly what they were dealing with.

All of these games were either Advanced or Complex on the rating scale. In terms of which games should have them I would say that they should probably never be in a Vanilla game and used extremely sparingly in a Standard. If it IS a standard game then they should be limited in number and also expressly flagged out as such to the players.

[Silverclaw]

Hydras are bad, do not allow them in Survivor, use twists like pairs/partners if you want to coach newbies on the game

Pair/partners and hydras are very different for one particular reason:

You don't have to play with your pair if you don't want to. As the person who did pair twists in Mass Effect, then did them

again

in Eon with the "YOU CAN AUTOMATICALLY WIN" clause, it was fairly common for people to jettison their partner without a second thought and not even try to fight for them. And this was making sure that once we hit the merge everyone was paired via constant reshuffling of unpartnered players

I honestly feel like forced pairs are a total failure because people don't want to be randomly tied to someone for the length of a game (reminder that people expect this to be a solo game!). Whereas with a hydra you know what you're getting into and agreed to do it.

Does this mean that hydras should be an every-game thing? Hell no, it's just simply not doable and is unfair to those that want to play but dislike hydras - as the person who fought to have them in this game, I wouldn't want that.

[xofelf]

Arkham City had it as a surprise hydra; the players were unaware that hydras were a possibility. It was done almost 100% for flavor reasons (mods can correct me if I'm wrong here.

No that's exactly it. Narninian came to me saying he wanted to try playing Two-Face as a hydra, was it possible? And it had never been done before so I thought about whether or not it was possible, and as it was an Arkham bastard game there was no reason to say no. And I said yes, but I would pick his hydra partner. I messaged Monty as he had just modded Narninian and asked if he would be interested in trying out this new concept as Monty was someone I trusted to do this in the fairest way possible and also had some familiarity with him to know what Narninian's specific quirks and pitfalls might be and if anybody could chameleon to someone else's style and balance them out, Monty could. But to limit the power two people in a slot, I instituted them having to have a joint skype(it was ages ago, okay?) chat with us mods and each other and do all communication with each other there, as well as being required to switch off every challenge. They could PM or confessionalize however they wanted, and it was up to them if they wanted to tell anybody they were a hydra in and out of confessional, we mods wouldn't say anything about it. I think that base ruleset is essentially what most people have used since? It sounds like it anyways.