Q&A Werewolf feedback

[vmbrasseur]

I ran it past my game master friends (create mobile & board games for a living; also: very frequent conference speakers). Their full feedback is below, but the points I think are most interesting:

• there is no removal step here that is rule defined, essentially you just need to be a brilliant orator and hope the other players don't want to be jerks and keep talking even after you've made a devastating comeback to their stupid question
• this feels like it started by "hey we could adapt Werewolf to be about crowd control" not "hey can we use a game to teach crowd control?"
• I think something better would be to perhaps have a speaker and then a room full of placeholder jerks…after everyone has had a go at being speaker, everyone can then discuss who did best and why…you also don't need EVERYONE to be a jerk/have a turn as speaker just enough so people can see some different approaches

[20:08:17]  <@GameMasters>  vmbrasseur: so what you've got there is VERY involved with lots of steps
[20:08:52]  <@GameMasters>  you also kinda loose the core aspect of Werewolf which is identifying the baddies so you can remove them
[20:08:57]  <@vmbrasseur>   I'm not sure how best to simplify it.
[20:09:04]  <@vmbrasseur>   Hm. Good point.
[20:09:10]  <@GameMasters>  there is no removal step here that is rule defined, essentially you just need to be a brilliant orator
[20:09:34]  <@GameMasters>  and hope the other players don't want to be jerks and keep talking even after you've made a devastating comeback to their stupid question
[20:10:24]  <@vmbrasseur>   Yeah.
[20:11:37]  <@vmbrasseur>   I may need to study this in depth tomorrow and think it through more than I have.
[20:11:53]  <@vmbrasseur>   Which I confess to be minimal, since I'm a little burned out from slide writing. :)
[20:12:16]  <@GameMasters>  this feels like it started by "hey we could adapt Werewolf to be about crowd control" not "hey can we use a game to teach crowd control?"
[20:12:47]  <@vmbrasseur>   I can't confirm that (I wasn't there when the rules were created), but that sounds right.
[20:14:26]  <@vmbrasseur>   I believe the idea started as, "So if one person is a speaker and some people are the jerks but you don't know who they are…Hey, that sounds kinda like werewolf, doesn't it?"
[20:15:29] vmbrasseur   isn't writing the exercises. :)
[20:15:32]  <@GameMasters>  at a total guess, why not change it so there is one speaker, a few jerks, and everyone else is quiet
[20:15:54]  <@GameMasters>  the jerks have to try and control the flow against the speaker, the speaker has to try and control it back
[20:16:08]  <@GameMasters>  the quiet ones get to try and pick if someone is a jerk or not
[20:16:14]  <@GameMasters>  hmm, no that doesn't work either
[20:16:26]  <@GameMasters>  quiets have no reason to talk
[20:17:14]  <@vmbrasseur>   Right. Kinda against the idea of "quiets." :)
[20:17:34]  <@GameMasters>  yeah I don't think this concept can actually teach room control
[20:18:39]  <@GameMasters>  games rely on rules to structure the flow, bad audience members don't follow the rules of a room
[20:19:02]  <@vmbrasseur>   And this is why I ask game specialists.
[20:19:09]  <@GameMasters>  I think something better would be to perhaps have a speaker and then a room full of placeholder jerks
[20:19:19]  <@vmbrasseur>   That's a great point, but I never would have considered it when reviewing the rules.
[20:19:20]  <@GameMasters>  the jerks ask all jerky
[20:19:34]  <@GameMasters>  and this is essentially just up to the speaker to try and control it
[20:19:40]  <@vmbrasseur>   All the audience are jerks?
[20:19:44]  <@GameMasters>  sure
[20:19:46]  <@vmbrasseur>   That sounds kinda brutal.
[20:19:55]  <@GameMasters>  and it will never be that bad
[20:20:21]  <@GameMasters>  after everyone has had a go at being speaker, everyone can then discuss who did best and why
[20:20:48]  <@vmbrasseur>   Hm
[20:21:14]  <@vmbrasseur>   That may scale better than the original idea.
[20:21:35]  <@GameMasters>  you also don't need EVERYONE to be a jerk/have a turn as speaker
[20:21:44]  <@GameMasters>  just enough so people can see some different approaches
[20:21:45]  <@vmbrasseur>   A problem is we don't have any idea of how many to expect in the tutorial. It could be anywhere from 30 to 200.
[20:22:16]  <@vmbrasseur>   And only 2 of us to walk around & watch/guide.
[20:22:19]  <@GameMasters>  so you can scale it back to say 5 people get to speak and say 10 people have turns at being jerks
[20:22:46]  <@GameMasters>  first thing I think you need to do is list out EVERY bad audience member you can remember
[20:23:09]  <@GameMasters>  that way you can make sure you aren't overly focussed on something that doesn't really happen
[20:24:15]  <@vmbrasseur>   It looks like this commit includes some cards in a .odt file. I didn't see that until now.
[20:24:33]  <@vmbrasseur>   I think I'm too fried to think clearly about this right now. I'm making stupid mistakes.
[20:25:28]  <@vmbrasseur>   I've blocked off 2 hours to work on it tomorrow afternoon.
[20:26:12]  <@vmbrasseur>   Thanks so much for all the info, GameMasters. I'd not have thought of most of it.
[20:27:30]  <@GameMasters>  no worries