by ATT_Turan
MisterMetroid wrote:
7. To be honest, there isn't truly a purpose to the added mechanics, besides mixing up the gameplay and adding more variables for how people are moved and damaged. This was a rough idea that popped into my head that I wanted to conceptualize.
I think this is the overriding thing. If you read through designer diaries, a recurring concept is their goal to trim out any rules or mechanisms that don't have a purpose. Here, you're doing the opposite, adding a mechanism that adds complication and serves no purpose.
If you love the mind control/body swapping thing, give it a reason. Assign each player a rune token that they win by picking up on their turn, using any of the characters in play. Something to make it a useful choice.
MisterMetroid wrote:
2. The requirement for a weapon card is essentially to avoid it just becoming a quick, "attack everyone and last one standing wins." It added a smaller incentive to discover more rooms to reveal a weapon card and be able to attack everyone, but that also means everyone else has access to the same weapon.
Why is this desirable? The worst haunts I've played in any version of Betrayal are the ones that went on too long. It's bad enough when it's the standard group against the traitor and you need to find a specific room/item, which you may randomly never get before they win.
MisterMetroid wrote:
4. The main strategy idea was to be able to deal damage to other players that was different than using weapons as normal. By forcing dangerous choices upon them like risking going into the Otherworlds and things like that.
What is this in response to? My original post wasn't numbered for me to see any reference, and your haunt doesn't do this.
MisterMetroid wrote:
5. The one thought I had that would avoid that type of bullying, is that even if every player controls somebody to gang up on one hero, that hero at least still has a chance to control the hero closest to him that would maybe pose a threat to them on their next movement, or there's always a chance that moving the hero closest to you can result in them being unable to reach you on their next turn. Again, I have yet to play test this.
That doesn't seem like a great balancing act - the player currently getting repeatedly pounded has a chance to give up his turn in order to move the nearest character away, so the next player can just move him back and resume the beating?
MisterMetroid wrote:
6. The purpose of finding a Jewel was to prevent yourself from taking damage from those house effects and cards I mentioned previously. Sure, you can take damage from being attacked sometimes, but at least you don't have to worry about falling down a hole, taking damage, and ruining your plans for your future moves.
This is also not a great concept. You have a whole set of rules to allow a player to play the haunt defensively, which is just a poor strategic decision.
Anyone who wants to win this will make the obvious choice of controlling the character closest to the easiest-to-kill character and attack. The faster this gets accomplished, the greater your chances to be the last person not dead. Wasting turns on scrounging for Jewels that are not even guaranteed to protect you, but force you to engage in an oddly tacked-on bluffing game, is just a bad strategy that no one should choose.
I don't think the body-swapping is an inherently terrible idea, but when designing a game (or portion thereof) you should have no mechanisms without a purpose, and you've added several. Come up with a reason to control other players and ditch the Jewels. Ditch the ability to control anyone, make the Haunt trade your character and items with the player to your left, and give everyone a concrete goal. Something beyond just "The goal is to beat each other to death but there's a bunch of superfluous stuff you could do or not."
Look at the Haunts that came with the game and analyze how the added actions or ways each modifies the game's built-in actions work together to achieve something.