VARSOON'S GUIDE TO MODDING

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Post Post #1 (isolation #0) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:46 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 0, Varsoon wrote:This is something that's pretty unavoidable on the site, as you have to make a first post to even start a thread on-site. That said, your opening post should be informative; list the players alive, list the full playerlist, include the game title, etc. If you take a look at my games, you'll find that I often do an opening crawl with post 0 being the title of the game, a banner for the game, players in the game, players living, players dead (including how and when they died, such as lynch/kill), and modkills. I've also taken to editing this first post with a running list of links to important moments in the game, such as public abilities being used, votecounts, lynches, flips, etc. My second post is a dump of all the rules that will be in place for the game at hand, including public mechanics, game-specific rules, and the sample role PM. After this, I'll have a third post that includes opening flavor if necessary, and then I'll finish with the first votecount of the game.
I wrote a post about this
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Post Post #3 (isolation #1) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:00 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 0, Varsoon wrote:Too often, mods use shorthand that can actually make the game experience altered for some players. For instance, let's say you tell a player they are a 'roleblocker'--what does this even mean? A quick check to the wiki can give some ideas, but a player should not have to go to any external source to figure out what their role in YOUR game does. Simply write out what the role's functionality is. Be clear about exactly what the role does, what its limits are, etc. I've played games where it wasn't clear if I was one use, one shot, or unlimited use. I've played games where I didn't know if I could submit one actions per night or multiple. Be clear about what players can and can't do in your public rules and role PMs. Furthermore, be precise in detailing any mod posts you make in the game--if it's supposed to be a certain player's effect that made something happen, spell that out clearly so everyone understands who did what and when it took effect.
lol beneath the mask.
Also you forgot something thats VERY important and VERY game altering.
In post 11, mastina wrote:This is my thread!

The thing about it is that wording of your role PMs is important. A one-phrase difference CAN in fact make the difference between how a role functions. Roleblockers causing an action to fail should (in my personal view) cause X-shot roles to be expended (it is attempted, but FAILS), and maybe for trackers to still see the blocked player visiting (YMMV on that aspect); roleblockers causing an action to be PREVENTED should (in my personal view) cause X-shot roles to be refunded (because they are prevented from ever having used the shot), and also cause trackers not to see the blocked player visiting.

A bodyguard specifying they will die if their target is attacked will supersede a doctor protecting the same target (thus, BG dies); a bodyguard specifying they will die if their target were to die will have the doctor protection applied first.

A doctor specifying that they will prevent their target from being killed is capable of saving a bodyguard who protects the nightkill; a doctor specifying that they stop a nightkill from going through on their target cannot save a bodyguard who protects the nightkill because the cause of the bodyguard's death is not a nightkill and thus cannot be stopped. (This is a neat little trick I picked up which allows you to write both a Doctor and a Bodyguard into a setup WITHOUT allowing a protection loop to form and WITHOUT the macho modifier.)

An X-shot bulletproof specifying that their vest is used up preventing the nightkill will lose a vest even if protected by a protective PR because they burn the vest before the protection (NOTE: in this case, just in case, best to word the protective PR as specifying they prevent death; see above for why); An X-shot bulletproof specifying that their vest is used up when they would die will keep their vest if protected (NOTE: again, in this case, best to word the protective PR as specifying they prevent the nightkill).

I can think of more examples than that.

In other words.

Wording is not mere semantics. It makes a difference in the fundamental nature of how the role functions. Sometimes, you can run into situations where the wording of roles conflicts. For instance, above I recommended that if you have an X-shot bulletproof, for it to use the opposite wording of the protective (if protective says nightkill, bulletproof says death; if protective says death, bulletproof says nightkill), because if both say the same thing, you run into a conflict: if a doctor says they prevent the nightkill, and the bulletproof also says it activates to prevent a nightkill, which prevention applies?; if a doctor says they prevent death yet the bulletproof says it activates to prevent death, which prevention applies?

In this case, I personally resolve things going into the NAR list.

That being, "what resolves first?" and "what resolves last?". Passives you can make an argument for resolving either absolutely first or absolutely last but must be one of the two. (I lean the latter.) But mostly, you just follow along.
This is something I always consider to a degree in my games since it can help balance out some stuff in a way.
May or may not be relevant, but this was something I heavily considered when designing Jill and her interactions with Dorothy. Not the most well balanced setup, but the wording on Jill's Macho balanced out an interaction between these two roles.
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Post Post #10 (isolation #2) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:42 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 0, Varsoon wrote:Include pictures in role PMs! Link to scenes from the theme or music!
Disagree with including pictures in your role pms.
I mean, if you're cheeky enough, you can get away with not putting pictures in your game.
If you present the text in a way that looks appealing just by how it looks, then thats perfectly acceptable instead of picture.
A game that does this really well is the Chose Your Side games ran by SaintKerrigan and AlmasterGM.
Not to mention, there's also the Dramonic approach to making your role pms where you just make the role pm an image.

tbh I don't link scenes or music or put little quotes in my votecounts (mostly because I don't like the appeal of them) enough. I should probably do it, but then I realize I run out of material LOL.
In post 0, Varsoon wrote:Many players play on phones--don't make anything that can't show up on a phone.
Alternative: Provide something that IS mobile friendly, or test it on your mobile device to see if it works.
In post 0, Varsoon wrote:Don't run multiball setups unless you can actually balance against the swing of a multiball setup.
You can't balance the swing of a multiball setup.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
In post 0, Varsoon wrote:Keep a
moderator PT
going where you can keep track of actions and record them as they are submitted.
I actually disagree with the bolded. The bolded is how I fucked up Beneath The Mask.
Mod PT is fine for normal games or extremely simpler games.
An alternative, that allows you to do more then what a mod pt will ever allow you to do, is the usage of a Spreadsheet, where you have a page for each night, and other pages for like a general overview of the whole game (like who has what role, who is alive, their flavor, etc), but also allows you to have more pages if you absolutely need it. Which for Theme games, you don't really know what you end up designing at the end of the day.
I've seen this done for This game here. And effectively tried out for this game (The spreadsheet wasn't really made to look aestheicly pleasing here) and A game of Regfan's Its an Owner's Market I ran on a different site.

Like for example, a game like Beneath The Mask, where roles have a lot too them, you're going to forget somethings. A setup like that is extremely hard to not fuck up.
But its possible, and what you can do is limit the amount of fuckups you do have.
A spreadsheet helps this.
There's also the alternative of being sane and not designing a game like Beneath The Mask in the first place :P
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Post Post #11 (isolation #3) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:45 pm

Post by Alisae »

Overall,
Good guide.
Would highly recomend.

I would kinda like to see our modfather break down some games that weren't ran by him (or were because our modfather loves himself more then anyone else) that he thinks were well made, as well as some games that weren't well made so others could get a good understanding of some of what our Modfather is saying in practice :)
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Post Post #13 (isolation #4) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:51 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 12, Varsoon wrote:Cabd
-insert snarky comment about Midscummer's and Deathworlders-
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Post Post #18 (isolation #5) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:50 pm

Post by Alisae »

In post 17, Ranmaru wrote:For a game with flavor (especially heavy flavor), I'd think picture plus nice looking text would help to give immersion.
Good luck making that.
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Post Post #22 (isolation #6) » Wed Feb 07, 2018 4:24 pm

Post by Alisae »

What does Varsoon think of Serial Killers
and why does he hate them?
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Post Post #26 (isolation #7) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:12 am

Post by Alisae »

In post 19, Ranmaru wrote:Is it a hard thing to do on Mafia Scum?
To add what Varsoon said.
Say you don't even have photoshop access and you're only limiting yourself to BBCode and maybe ASCII art.
Then yeah good luck.
I would like to see what you come up with :P
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Post Post #27 (isolation #8) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:26 am

Post by Alisae »

Tbf
I actually have an idea of how it would look in my mind.

Row 1 Header - This would be the character you would be
Row 2 (EXTRA) - This can be just like a small quote or something cool
Row 3 - This is where the main flavor of the role pm would be.
Row 4/Cell 1 - Player:
Character:
Role:
Faction:
Row 4/Cell 2 - Image. It would have to be resize accordingly.
Row 4/Cell 3 - Okay now fill in the Player, Character, Role, Faction stuff.
Row 5/Row 6 - Actives/Passives. You can either try to be clever an include them in one row and make it look nice, and/or use two roles. If you want to include a row for Factional Abilities, do that.
Row 7/Header - Win Condition.

I have no idea how to actually make that.
If anyone wants to try, please do it for me. Ty :)
Because while this LOOKS all ez pez with simple table code, I don't actually know off the top of my head how I would make Row 4 look nice without having the whole table be extremely disorganized/discentered or something.
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Post Post #41 (isolation #9) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:02 am

Post by Alisae »

In post 40, Cerberus v666 wrote:For the record, your FFT rolecards are the best I've ever seen. Jaw dropped when I received the first PM. :D

I mean, I got used to the formatting you used in Space Dandy 2/Bloodborne/SU games, but the FFT cards were just so friggin different and brought this massive wellspring of nostalgia. :)

Basically, if you ever do another Final Fantasy based game, and don't do something similar, I'll be really fucking sad. :P
There's no reward for making photoshopped role pms.
Or any photoshopped related artwork for your game.
And I do GFXing as a hobby (See, For Us, Railgun, Beneath The Mask)
It's labor for no reason.

Plus Cerby, I think you're always going to love Varsoon's games :P
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Post Post #46 (isolation #10) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:13 am

Post by Alisae »

Actually I lied.
When you're Cheetory and you do paint drawings for your game as high quality memes, then yeah, there's reward for that because you KNOW your players will love that. In fact, that's the main thing your game has.

But otherwise
No reward.
Ofc, there are decent human beings like say Cerby who will admire a well done photoshopped role pm. And that in of itself is a reward sure.
But otherwise I don't think the time put into making 25 or something photoshopped role pms that are all of FFT tactic quality (This game however I'd assume it would take a lot less time since there's hardly any real change between each pm. I'm not really calling that FFT tactic quality though) is worth it.
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Post Post #49 (isolation #11) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:22 am

Post by Alisae »

I think Varsoon's games are unique experiences in of themself.
I think the way he formats his role pms without photoshop is extremely unique and gives the game a unique experience in of itself since using [tables] especially COLORED tables isn't a trend that most moderators do if any.

Pedit: I wasn't.
I remember Grey/House telling me to join it but I never did.
I am VERY familiar with the role pms though.
I love them as a GFXer.
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Post Post #50 (isolation #12) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:35 am

Post by Alisae »

Also as a side note.
I hate it when my players prod me for a votecount while I am asleep and/or in class.
And like, I understand their needs and I love them.
It's just like, if I am asleep, of course I am not going to be able to bring a votecount. Especially if I have to go through 30 pages. Which, has happened before. Like, I feel bad for FA who had to go through 60 pages in a 32p game just to be fully caught up and do a VC in the rematch of The Real Folk Blues.
But when I wake up, the first thing I try to do if I'm not immediately busy with something, is to do a votecount.
And when I get a ping from someone to do a votecount while I am asleep, it makes me feel like my players don't trust me to provide a vc. And that kind of feeling just hurts me.

Also (I don't really think this has ever happened to me though), I usually have a vc somewhat done before class. So while I'm in class, I should be able to hope that that vc is enough to last my players 3 hours. So it kinda just annoys me if someone were to ping me for a vc while I am in class because I feel powerless to provide one.

Basicly why I hate being prodded for votecounts is
  • It makes me feel like as a mod you don't trust me to deliver a prompt vc whenever I can.
  • I'm not chained to my computer, and as a result, pinging me for a vc when I can't provide one makes me feel powerless as a mod.
  • I may have to read through 30 pages given the current site meta just to provided a vc. So seeing a ping in the middle of those 30 pages just looks like a huge fuck you sign.
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Post Post #53 (isolation #13) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:46 am

Post by Alisae »

Cerby that's actually not a bad idea thank you.
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Post Post #54 (isolation #14) » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:56 am

Post by Alisae »

Also is it just me, or do others hate it when the mod talks about themselves in third person like
"The mod will be V/LA and as such may not be able to provide as frequent vcs"
or
"The mod got addicted to PSO2 and as a result may not be able to provide a vc as frequently because lolmmo stuff."

I only do it with my prods because my c/p for my prods is cute, and even then I say "Alisaes" because its cute.

Like, just be personal with your players and be yourself, because garsh darn it people like you for who you are (hopefully).
Like, if I said "Hey, I'm going on a vacation for 2 weeks and someone will provide vcs for me while I'm gone. I'll try to answer anything I can but I'm only limited to mobile and don't even know if I'll have a stable connection." I feel like that that connects me more to my players if I'm addressing them on that level.
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