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The name of the game is Criminals, and that was effectively all we played Thursday night. Version after version of of Kory Heath's Criminals.
In some regards, I've started to enjoy playing slight variants of this game each week. It has become comforting to expect a problem to arise during play, or appear in testing between Thursdays and require a fresh round of work-shopping. This is in no small part due to the fact that Criminals is a very enjoyable game now, broken aspects aside.
So, delayed it this time? In last weeks version, if three players are in the game, and each has been accused incorrectly, when the final crime is revealed from the deck, you will not vote to accuse the player who holds your actual crime. Since that player can not vote against himself, this deadlocks the game. To a lesser extent, the game ending with two winners was also seen as a satisfaction problem as well.
There were several fixes this week, but in what order and configuration I can no longer say. Many of the earlier versions of this tried to force the accused to finger someone, which was fun and intense because it gave a real penalty for being falsely accused (eliminate, or be eliminated) and made the game much shorter. However I think all the players agreed that it was too fast. Alibi cards became less relevant, because you were unlikely to survive early accusations and because crimes no longer cycled (because players would be eliminated before the crime would return). There were questions of weather we are designing a short game for Gary Coleman or an eliminated player should reveal their actual crime (unless actually accused or fingered correctly) and It was also very hard for players who were accused earlier in the game, as less information was available. Finally, it didn't resolve the two player co-win element.
The final version to be played:
Each player has a secret crime
There is one more crime than the number of players (Guido's Crime!)
When the group accuses a player correctly, that player is eliminated.
When the group accuses incorrectly, the accused reveals his alibi and may:
a) finger another player or
b) finger Guido or
c) choose to finger no one and place the accusation on the bottom of the deck.
If the accused fingers a player correctly, that player is eliminated.
If the accused fingers a player incorrectly, the accused is eliminated.
If the accused fingers Guido correctly, the accused wins the game.
If the accused fingers Guido incorrectly, the player who actually committed the crime wins.
The game continues through eliminations until one player remains, or a solo victory has been achieved.
When two players remain, the first to accuse (points first) gives the other player the choice to finger or pass.
The two player game is interesting, because you do not always want to accuse first -- if you are too strong with it, the opponent may figure you committed the crime and finger it back at you. if you didn't do the crime, you give the opponent a chance to finger guido (who can not be accused directly)
I may have experienced the most unplayable game of poker that night. In 20 hands, i had 1 face card. in 20 hands i had a card higher than an 8 only four times. in 20 hands i was suited twice (8-6 spades, A-10 hearts) and on both flopped nothing. in 20 hands i got an 8-3 or 6-2 off suit 12 hands in a row. I flopped nothing, nor would i have gotten anything on any rivers seen. When I did actually have a hand (A-10 suited) I had to pay half my stack to even see the flop (which was then total crap) and left the table very unsatisfied. Jake lost three times as much money as i did in half the time. So I wasn't the only luckless player at the table. Dave looked like he tripled up.
Dave: +$5.09 (+4.50?)
me: -$7.77
In some regards, I've started to enjoy playing slight variants of this game each week. It has become comforting to expect a problem to arise during play, or appear in testing between Thursdays and require a fresh round of work-shopping. This is in no small part due to the fact that Criminals is a very enjoyable game now, broken aspects aside.
So, delayed it this time? In last weeks version, if three players are in the game, and each has been accused incorrectly, when the final crime is revealed from the deck, you will not vote to accuse the player who holds your actual crime. Since that player can not vote against himself, this deadlocks the game. To a lesser extent, the game ending with two winners was also seen as a satisfaction problem as well.
There were several fixes this week, but in what order and configuration I can no longer say. Many of the earlier versions of this tried to force the accused to finger someone, which was fun and intense because it gave a real penalty for being falsely accused (eliminate, or be eliminated) and made the game much shorter. However I think all the players agreed that it was too fast. Alibi cards became less relevant, because you were unlikely to survive early accusations and because crimes no longer cycled (because players would be eliminated before the crime would return). There were questions of weather we are designing a short game for Gary Coleman or an eliminated player should reveal their actual crime (unless actually accused or fingered correctly) and It was also very hard for players who were accused earlier in the game, as less information was available. Finally, it didn't resolve the two player co-win element.
The final version to be played:
Each player has a secret crime
There is one more crime than the number of players (Guido's Crime!)
When the group accuses a player correctly, that player is eliminated.
When the group accuses incorrectly, the accused reveals his alibi and may:
a) finger another player or
b) finger Guido or
c) choose to finger no one and place the accusation on the bottom of the deck.
If the accused fingers a player correctly, that player is eliminated.
If the accused fingers a player incorrectly, the accused is eliminated.
If the accused fingers Guido correctly, the accused wins the game.
If the accused fingers Guido incorrectly, the player who actually committed the crime wins.
The game continues through eliminations until one player remains, or a solo victory has been achieved.
When two players remain, the first to accuse (points first) gives the other player the choice to finger or pass.
The two player game is interesting, because you do not always want to accuse first -- if you are too strong with it, the opponent may figure you committed the crime and finger it back at you. if you didn't do the crime, you give the opponent a chance to finger guido (who can not be accused directly)
I may have experienced the most unplayable game of poker that night. In 20 hands, i had 1 face card. in 20 hands i had a card higher than an 8 only four times. in 20 hands i was suited twice (8-6 spades, A-10 hearts) and on both flopped nothing. in 20 hands i got an 8-3 or 6-2 off suit 12 hands in a row. I flopped nothing, nor would i have gotten anything on any rivers seen. When I did actually have a hand (A-10 suited) I had to pay half my stack to even see the flop (which was then total crap) and left the table very unsatisfied. Jake lost three times as much money as i did in half the time. So I wasn't the only luckless player at the table. Dave looked like he tripled up.
Dave: +$5.09 (+4.50?)
me: -$7.77
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THURSDAY, 04/26/2007 AT 5:10 PM
I would prefer a rule-set without the extra crime. But if you remove the extra crime from this rule-set (and don't change anything else), the game no longer functions when all but two players have been eliminated. The "standard" rule we were using was that the game just ends when it gets down to two, but the consensus was that that game didn't feel satisfying enough.
x 57
TUESDAY, 04/24/2007 AT 9:20 PM
i think because Guido is always fingerable, it avoids feeling patchy (where as if you could only finger Guido when it was down to two players, it would feel patchy). I see the logic in both your concerns though, and I do agree that the loose cannon is both a problem but less of a concern than the lock down due to the game's over all length.
I'm trying to spot what is wrong with the current rule set if the additional crime is removed. It would remove the consensus issue (because accusations do not hang around nor require double accusation to trigger fingering) and it would side step the out-of-crimes problem we experienced in earlier versions too (because the crime cards are always cycled back into the deck, regardless of elimination or not). Criminals has gone through so many versions that I am not even sure if we tried this.
Am I missing something?
I'm trying to spot what is wrong with the current rule set if the additional crime is removed. It would remove the consensus issue (because accusations do not hang around nor require double accusation to trigger fingering) and it would side step the out-of-crimes problem we experienced in earlier versions too (because the crime cards are always cycled back into the deck, regardless of elimination or not). Criminals has gone through so many versions that I am not even sure if we tried this.
Am I missing something?
Two shoes are better than one
x 0
TUESDAY, 04/24/2007 AT 5:42 PM
Yeah, Criminals has turned into a bit of a project. Sorry about that!
There are two problems with the above rule-set. The most serious problem is that if (for whatever reason) a majority of the players remaining in the game become convinced that the current crime is Guido's, the game will deadlock. They aren't allowed to accuse Guido directly, and they don't want to accuse anyone else, because the accused can then just finger Guido and win.
The best suggestion on the table so far is to allow the group to accuse Guido of the current crime via unanimous vote. The game then ends, and either they all win (if they're correct), or the actual criminal wins (if they're wrong). Seems like it might work, but I'm a little bit worried that we're adding patches to fix Guido, which I already considered to be a patch.
The second problem is perhaps less serious. I call it the "loose cannon" problem. It's the fact that, when a player gets incorrectly accused, they have the power to end the game for everyone by (perhaps foolishly) fingering Guido. I generally don't like giving one player the power to end a game. Mostly the ideal in game design is to make it so that, if you make a bad move, you only hurt yourself. In this case, if you make a bad move, you take the rest of the group down with you (except for the lucky so-and-so who you've thrown the win to). I haven't heard or come up with a solution that I like for this one.
Anyway, the search continues. I have a rule-set suggestion on the table that doesn't use Guido (there are the same number of crimes as players), and therefore avoids these problems. But I don't know if my suggestion works as a game.
There are two problems with the above rule-set. The most serious problem is that if (for whatever reason) a majority of the players remaining in the game become convinced that the current crime is Guido's, the game will deadlock. They aren't allowed to accuse Guido directly, and they don't want to accuse anyone else, because the accused can then just finger Guido and win.
The best suggestion on the table so far is to allow the group to accuse Guido of the current crime via unanimous vote. The game then ends, and either they all win (if they're correct), or the actual criminal wins (if they're wrong). Seems like it might work, but I'm a little bit worried that we're adding patches to fix Guido, which I already considered to be a patch.
The second problem is perhaps less serious. I call it the "loose cannon" problem. It's the fact that, when a player gets incorrectly accused, they have the power to end the game for everyone by (perhaps foolishly) fingering Guido. I generally don't like giving one player the power to end a game. Mostly the ideal in game design is to make it so that, if you make a bad move, you only hurt yourself. In this case, if you make a bad move, you take the rest of the group down with you (except for the lucky so-and-so who you've thrown the win to). I haven't heard or come up with a solution that I like for this one.
Anyway, the search continues. I have a rule-set suggestion on the table that doesn't use Guido (there are the same number of crimes as players), and therefore avoids these problems. But I don't know if my suggestion works as a game.
x 57
MONDAY, 04/23/2007 AT 11:43 AM
Dave: + $13.19
crap, i have even more catching up to do :P
crap, i have even more catching up to do :P
Two shoes are better than one
x 0
MONDAY, 04/23/2007 AT 11:13 AM
Actually I more than tripled up- I made $8.10 from my $1.55 buyin.
