User talk:Ghostwheel/Glyph/Social Combat

Potential Issues

Token Tie Breakers

It is unclear what happens after 3 rounds if both sides are tied for token count. This needs to be spelled out somewhere.

1-on-1 Combat

In a 1 on 1 combat, if someone is 2 levels higher they always win (this may also be the case with 1 level higher depending on tie breakers). Assume P1 is level X, and P2 is level X+2. At the start of each phase P1 gets 10 tokens and P2 gets 14 tokens. Both players ante 1 token. P2 folds immediately, regardless of roll result, and P1 recovers their ante and gains 1 token. New count is P1 @ 11, P2 @ 13. New tokens are handed out, but as long as P2 folds immediately they never lose enough to let P1 take the lead. At the end of 3 rounds, P1 has 33 tokens and P2 has 39, so P2 wins despite folding every single time. If P2 was only level X+1, this strategy leaves him at 33 tokens, tying P1. Hence the need for a tie breaker.

Suggested Solution: Don't give out bonus tokens for being higher level. Even if you only do it in the first round there is a point at which they can just fold away everything from round 1 on (it's level X+4). If you want higher level people to be harder opponents, have participants add their level to their totals. It reduces success odds somewhat to do this, but that just makes proper selection of quips and tactics more important, which may be a feature rather than a bug.

Your recent up-the-ante changes don't actually fix this, it just pushes it back a few levels. You still always lose against opponents with 4 or more levels than you. I don't know if that's acceptable or not.

Made it more open-ended; what do you think?

More when I come up with them. - Tarkisflux 18:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

Meant to add this earlier. What does this even mean?

"Party with most wins wins the argument. Highest total is taken, and each extra person who won contributes another 2 tokens on top."

Do you win for having the most tokens, or the most "wins"? What is a "win" anyway? And if the combat goes to the person with the highest token count, how can each other people who won contribute more tokens on top? They didn't win, and even if they did in some weird way their tokens don't help you win more. I don't understand how any of this is supposed to work, or what it's supposed to do. At all. - Tarkisflux 19:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed--the person without any tokens loses. I'm still not sure how to do a group thing though... --Ghostwheel 23:10, 30 May 2011 (UTC)