Lying about cutlery
Okay! I have a new version of this game about lying ready to test. It's dropped, as I felt like it might, the core conceit - the idea of making a game focused entirely around a lie when there is no choice whether to, where the impact of a lie is exactly the same as the truth, where the only distinction is how you personally feel about saying something that is not strictly true. It's interesting but you can't take it too far beyond where it was already. And there's something about the triple duality of the system that was breaking my brain.
Wait - triple duality? What am I talking about?
Well, it's these:
Red / Black - what I say the card is
Truth / Lie - whether the card actually is or not
Correct / False - whether you got it right or not
And the thing is, every combination of these states is possible. So you have 8 states possible for each round, and yet these three categories feel very similar to each other. And yet they're stacked on top of each other, you have to draw a clear conceptual divide between them. It melts the brain just a little, holding it clear when playing. Or, even more so, when designing. Halima was round and we were playing/riffing and I was just sitting there failing to hold all the states in my head. She was like "it's very impressive to watch someone designing a game, I forgot what it was like" but I just felt stupid.
Anyway! what's the new version?
Knife Fork Spoon
This is a gambling game - each player starts with a pile of chips, and the game continues until someone has all of them. Or other players withdraw, if the chips represent actual money.
Each player has three spaces in front of them - one for Knife, one for Fork, one for Spoon. Well, I guess they have four, as they also have their reserve of chips.
Players take it in turns to play. On your turn:
- you draw a card from the draw pile in the center of the table
- it's either a Knife, a Fork, a Spoon. Or a Knife And Fork, or a Fork And Spoon. (it can't be a Knife and Spoon. that's a weird combination. what would you eat with that?)
- you can say whatever you like about the card you've just drawn
- everyone places a chip from their reserves onto one of their Knife, Fork or Spoon spaces. They can also rearrange any chips they already have down across those spaces. So can you!
- when you've all finished talking & rearranging, then you reveal the card you picked up. You collect all the chips on the spaces corresponding to the card you've drawn.
- now it's the next person's turn
I think for this playtest I'll make up 16 cards:
4 Knife
4 Fork
4 Spoon
2 Knife & Fork
2 Fork & Spoon
Initial notes on the game
I mean, I haven't played this yet. So I will know a lot more once it has been played even once. But I feel like it might work?
The dynamics I'm hoping for:
- chips gradually accumulate, as on average 1¼ spaces are picked up from each turn, and there are 3 spaces possible
- so on your turn you want to pick up the chips on your spaces, which you have control over
- but to bluff successfully you probably have to make the costly signal of placing your chips in accordance with what you're saying.
- but with three possibilities, you're making a statement about what it is but there's two places it couldn't be
- but you could also claim that it's a double card, to force to a particular location
- but such a claim is unlikely
- and you want to be thought of as honest, to make your bluffs better in future rounds
- and in any case, there's a little niggling asymmetry in that you can't force to Fork by claiming you've drawn Knife & Spoon. Which maybe gives the different cards a different flavour.
- also hopefully it'll be funny if people bluff Knife & Spoon, having forgotten that it doesn't exist
Questions I have:
- I mean, does it work, do those dynamics happen at all, is it too overwhelming to make a call as to what you've drawn, does it just feel random?
- Maybe it should be 3 Knife & Fork and 1 Fork & Spoon? Even more asymmetry?
- Maybe there's rules about raising? A single chip each round feels a bit grinding. Can you raise past the most poorest player's chip reserve count? Probably not. Would anyone but the player whose turn it is choose to raise? I worry they're too powerful already, even if the role does move rapidly.
- Also would be nice to be able to bluff through a round without having to reveal what you've drawn. Information is precious, and it's nice to make it something that can be paid for. (but then what chips get taken? chips remaining on the table between rounds is kinda core to this)
- How do you decide when to shuffle the cards? I don't want this to be a game about card counting. Especially with the double cards... maybe those also trigger a reshuffle?
- How good am I at drawing cutlery (the theme had pets, initially, but I shied away from drawing a bunch of recognisable dogs/cats/rabbits. also the double cards make sense for cutlery, they didn't exist at the start)
Okay, actually writing that suggests this tweak:
- 3 Knife & Fork. 1 Fork & Spoon. Fork & Spoon also causes the deck to be shuffled. Card count away.
So let's try that at boardgames tomorrow. Once I've drawn some cards. And I'll bring the original version, too. Or the three in a row adaptation, anyway.
Anyway, curious to see how it goes! And curious to see if it keeps some of the dynamics I was scratching at with the earlier version.
Oh, and for "looking at bits of paper" sickos:
Here's the pic I took of my notes to remind me of what I'd designed when writing this up
