Hey Everyone,
So I am working on a game that involves Dwarfs reveling in a tavern and trying to convince others of their glorious quests.
Basically the game has quests and if the player has the sufficient amount of resources they can complete the quests. They will receive that Quest card to keep. The last phase of the round is the Reveling phase and they will draw 3 cards from the reveling deck and choose one in which to brag about.
The Revel Deck and the Quest deck will have identical cards. The trick is that the person reveling can lie about what card they have, or they can make something up completely to throw everyone off. Each Revel card has a Charisma number that is needed to succeed in the revel and gain rewards.
Now, the reveling player will receive dice that they will roll to try to gain the charisma needed. Each die is either fail or succeed with different chances (i.e. d4= 75% of success, d8=50% chance, etc..). The Gambler die will also have a chance to subtract from charisma. The dice are rewarded to the player depending on how well they tell the story they are reveling about as well as how well they are doing in other aspects of the game. Each player starts with 3 dice plus dice for how much legacy they have so far(Victory points) so someone with 3 Legacy will get 6 dice to start with. If they tell a good story, the other players may give them a d4 as well (though this mechanic is more about trying to gain alliances and to boost the storytelling and raucousness of the game).
After telling the story the player announces what charisma they need. They can bluff about this, but they know that their revel card may be known to other players or another play may even have the duplicate quest card. This allows for them to pretend they have a card that is known even though they don't have it.
The active player can now buy drinks for everyone, which will give them a Drink dice, which is a d10 that has a 60% chance of success. So the more drinks they buy the more chance they have of getting the charisma they need to succeed in the revel.
The other players in turn order may challenge the active player and call their bluff. If the player backs out he will receive shame, which will lower his legacy (victory points). The player who made the active player back out will receive pride or intimidation (not sure what term to use yet) that will increase their legacy. If the active player doesn't back down he will gain a gambler dice, which has a 50% chance of lowering his charisma. So this makes it so that the player may be tempted to back out instead of fail the revel. The consequences for failing the revel are severe enough that to back out may be a good choice ( it will determine turn order in other areas of the game, and since they don't revel they will get money because they didn't spend money on drinks etc...)
Some of the revelry card rewards are higher for a higher charisma needed, and keeping in mind that if a card has a required charisma of 15, but the person bluffs and says they need a 5 and they can roll 5, they receive the rewards of the 15 charisma (extra Dwarfs, Gold, resources, etc...)
At the end of buying drinks and the challenging and backing down or confronting the challenge, the active player rolls the dice they have to see if they succeeded in their stated charisma. If they succeed they get the rewards listed on the card as they reveal the card to show if they bluffed or not.
This seems dense, so hopefully it's making sense thus far... What I am having problems with is trying to get the players to be willing to challenge each other as well as trying to maybe work in a betting mechanic maybe to give more consequence to challenge or bluff, or stand your grand when bluffing. I also need to find a way to make the consequences for bluffing even with the rewards for not bluffing. I want there to be a reward for being a stalwart honest dwarf as much as I want there to be rewards for being a tricky lying dwarf.
I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to make it all balance itself out. I have playtested it about half a dozen times trying to switch stuff around and see how players react, but so far it's still rough.
Any suggestions would be great. I appreciate your time. Thanks!
Thanks for responding.
Might be better if I try to explain the game as a whole. It is essentially a worker placement type game where everyone has a clan of dwarfs. You send your clan to gather resources (food, Iron, Wood, etc...) These resources mitigate how happy your dwarfs are and what kind of weapons they can make. One of the action spaces is for quests. The quests have two requirements, Attack and Constitution. Most of the Quests have both requirements, but some focus on one or the other. Your clans Constitution and Attack are determined by their weapons and other factors (mostly to do with how well you use your resources. The Quests will also raise your Con and Attack if you succeed.
The last phase of every round (each round being placing all your Dwarfs on different action spaces and there are 6 total Rounds) is the Reveling section, which is there a lot for the theme, because the dwarfs are going to the tavern to drink and brag about their quests. This will determine certain rewards as well as play order for the beginning of the next round (the dwarf who drinks less is less hungover and will get up earlier and get the better resources and get first choice on actions). The Tavern space will also allow you to gain more followers, thematically, because all the dwarfs hear of your tales and decide they want to join your clan.
Many of the actions in the game determine Legacy points, which is a VP mechanic that determines the winner. You gain Legacy by making weapons building dwellings, and going on quests.
Back to the Tavern problem. I think it has a lot to do with thematic things I want to do. I want to integrate buying drinks, bluffing and betting, along with the quests that are in the game. I know this might cause trouble trying to design theme along with gameplay. The bluffing should make it easier to revel about hard quests and getting resources, but you must be able to be willing to deal with consequences if you fail. Whereas honesty will make it easier to make small gains without any kind of consequence.
Hope that clears it up a bit. Thanks again!