GAMES & GAME RUNNING

[kyriakosmods]

OVERVIEW

Games are the lifeblood of Kyriakos. It might help to think of them as events within the actual game itself. Teams must compete with each other in order to regain their memories, and there are very few times where a memory will be received outside of an actual game. The genre and style of each game can vary a lot depending on what NPC is running it, and they can range from fluffy design games to games where your character may have to choose to kill another in order to ensure their own survival and victory.

GAME RUNNING GUIDE

THE BASICS There are a few important-- the most important things to keep in mind when planning and running a game. The first is that a game should be above all, fun. Fun for a game runner in planning, fun for a game runner in executing, and fun for the players who participate in it. We're all here to have fun, after all! The second is to remember that Kyriakos offers things for characters to do outside of games, so games themselves are in a manner of speaking, something special. They should have a special flavor that differentiates them from a mingle post or a mini-game post. Thirdly, please keep in mind the kind of Echo you apped. If you apped a fluffy kind Echo who hates violence, they shouldn't be running trauma! Of course, as Echoes can change just like characters, there is always the possibility this could change. But remember the sort of themes and ideas you originally apped for your Echo when planning a game. And lastly, because games reward half of the participating teams, and occasionally certain Cats, plan a game that can be scored and have certain conditions that need to be met by teams in order to do so. From there, there is no other true guideline to run a game, so you can create any kind of game you desire so long as it's done so with the above in mind. CLAIMING & SCHEDULING YOUR GAME Before anything, please remember that games must always be at least two days apart from each other to allow for some breathing room. We will only allow a max of two games a week. Our weekday game period is Monday-Thursday and our weekend game period is Friday-Sunday. For game times, we generally use EST when planning and announcing them, though so long as you state what the timezone is, you should be fine. Finally, not everybody is available evening EST times, where many games tend to be run. When planning a game, please keep our players in European time, Austrailian time, etc in mind, and consider running a game for those players so that we can be sure that people in all timezones will be able to have something to play in themselves! You do not need to contact the mods to run a normal game. However, trauma games may only happen once a month, and in order to claim one you must email us at kyriakosmods@gmail.com. No one is allowed to schedule a trauma game without our permission. Every game is added to our event calendar when scheduled. Please go to your Google Calendar page to create a new event to add it properly - you should have the Kyriakos Event calendar as a dropdown option to use when choosing which calendar to add an event to. If you do not, please contact a mod or fellow player and we can add you to the access list. Announcing your game to kyriakos_ooc with a summary of what to expect is also a common courtesy so fellow players can know a game is approaching, what to expect from it, and can figure out if they can make the date and time listed. This is the place you'll mention what kind of game it is and give appropriate. Is it a trauma game? Bingo game? If it's a non-trauma game but still could have some unfavorable themes for characters, warn for that too! Please always make sure to describe what sort of trauma game you're running if you claim one, as those games can have death, gore, mutilation, and so on, and some players would rather avoid that! GAME TYPE & PLANNING What kind of game do you want to run? Friendly PvP, bingo, a new or original idea you have and want to try to translate a game? Knowing the kind of game and how it works is the foundation for starting a write up for the needed things in advance to prepare for the game, as well as an idea for how scoring will go for it. Do you have the proper Echo to run the game? You can always app an Echo if you've never played one, or check the Echoes & patrons page to see which players are open for their Echoes to be borrowed to run a game. If you've never run a game before, a good idea would be to ask a seasoned game runner to perhaps stay on call to help you out just in case you need them. Many games are pre-prepared and pre-written before they're run! This makes transitions into rounds and other replies quicker and more efficient to keep the game flowing and within the time frame set for it. Of course sometimes game end quicker or slower than planned, so always be prepared for both possibilities! And always give yourself enough time between claiming a game and running a game to prewrite and plan anything you need to! GAME LENGTH The unofficial standard for game length should be no longer than five hours when it comes to games that aren't mingle or days-long. Again, some games will run shorter or longer than planned depending on speed of turn-ins and team actions, and most players try their best to be flexible with times and sticking around. But for games run in a single day/night with a smaller window, try to keep it 5 hours or less to accommodate not only the players', but to accommodate yourself do you don't get burnt out! Remember that actions that seem simple and short in reality can last an hour being threaded out! So games with multiple tasks may end up taking much longer than anticipated. While it's not a bad idea to plan a game with ten tasks, it's a great idea to have a backup plan and scoring math for, say, three tasks if you realize things are moving slow and you need to end a game earlier. A good suggestion when it comes to games with rounds that require team discussion and interaction, is to try to spread 3 - 5 rounds within a 5 hour window. TEAM & CATS SET UP Decide how to you want to split teams. Usually, teams play on their own. Sometimes due to low turnout in sign ups, teams can be paired together for the game (and thus will be rewarded memories together if they win). Figure out if you're up to running a game for all of the teams, or if it'd be easier to set up a game with paired teams to half the attention and replies needed when running. Cats can vary in games, and it's up to you how to deal with them! Cats can play as their own team together. Sometimes, if teams only have one or two people playing, Cats can be split up and assigned to different teams to even out the numbers a bit. Sometimes, Cats can even be part of the game mechanics! Please make it clear how you plan to use Cats when it comes to sign ups. With the above in mind, it's also up to your preference whether or not to allow players to play multiple characters in a game. Some games may be better off allowing one character per player due to its set up and OOC knowledge of things going on in more than one room. Keep this in mind when setting up your sign ups! SCORING & WINNERS How do you set up scoring to figure out winners for your game? It's all in the planning. Set up criteria, something easy to judge by, and have it ready for the end of the game, keeping in mind things like ties and various actions teams can take to change things up. Sometimes games use a simple "most point" system, sometimes depending on the Echo, answers they would ICly deem the best is a way to judge winners for a game. You should give an idea to the players, ICly and OOCly what to aim for in a game. Whether it's "most points," or perhaps "answers that are more in-depth/truthful/funny/serious/etc" so they know what to expect and play for. Sometimes in cases of games that can be tied up easily, setting up secret criteria that rewards more points can be beneficial. You should note there are secret criteria, but don't give them away, obviously! So teams that hit them hit them by accident and make any scoring easier if all of the teams end up coming close in scoring. Roughly half the teams present should win a game - roughly, because of loser tier teams. If teams are paired up, half of the paired teams should be rewarded memories (together! Count them as one team). If Cats are paired up with a team, Cats should also be rewarded if the team they are playing with wins. However, Please check the win records page, as one of the winning teams should be whoever is marked off as loser tier. SETTING UP YOUR POST Unless you have advanced sign ups (which are for games where you want an idea of the number of players set to play so you can pre-plan certain mechanics or otherwise for a game), sign ups are usually posted a half-hour to an hour before the game's start. This gives players time to ready themselves for the actual game and let you know how many players you'll be running for. here is an example of how sign-ups look. A top comment so the sign-ups are all in one easy to reference place, with each team getting their own sub-comment to reply to. Generally, games have a mingle before they start so characters can interact with each other, the Echo and the realm. This gives everybody something to do while the game runner can set up everything needed for the game and make any last minute changes or tweaks if needed. If you're running a game where teams will be separated, using the soulping journal for individual rooms is recommended. Especially if it's a game where you don't want people to OOCly see or be influenced by what other teams are doing! In which case, filters can be set up. Depending on the game, individual team posts do not have to be filtered and locked to each team, it depends on how you set up your game and want it run! If a Cat is playing with a team or there are new members who aren't on a filter, you can edit filters appropriately while using the soulping account. Mingle games tend to happen in the post itself. Mingle-encouraged games with different things to do (such as if you set up a carnival like game) can have top comments for each activity (using the carnival idea again: a top comment for drown the clown, a top comment for bumper cars, a top comment for face painting, etc). Generally, things like instructions, links to team rooms, and winner listing/memories also have their own special top comments. Many game posts tend to link these in the main post for quick access to each section. INSTRUCTIONS Instructions are an important part of your game! You know how your game is set up and what it entails, but your players need to understand what they need to do in your game too. While it's good to be clear, keep in mind that being too rambly and thorough can be confusing, while being too vague and short can leave players at a loss. Clear, concise instructions that are easy to follow are the key. You can always have a fellow player or the mods look over anything if you need opinions and aren't sure about how your description sounds. Another good thing to keep in mind is to space out your game instructions. A few separate sections outlining different parts of the instructions are much better than a single huge block of text. Kind of like how we made a new paragraph to suggest this so it stands out! WINNERS & MEMORIES After you've run your game and figured out the winners, it's time to reward them memories! All registries can be found at the memory registries & stats page! Each registry will have appropriately marked memories so you can figure out what to choose and what players designate as memories to avoid rewarding or now. Please keep in mind hiatused characters DO get rewarded memories, but characters who have not yet intro'd to NOT, even if they were accepted. Memory shards are rewarded to the whole team, even if only one teammate was present for the game. Please remember that while roughly half of the teams should be rewarded, to keep loser tier in mind, as the team designated as loser tier in the win records document should be given memories regardless of how they did in the game. UPDATING WIN RECORDS & LOSER TIER. If you don't have access to the win records page, please contact a fellow player or mod to add you! Taking a look at the win record page should give you an idea how it works. All games are posted, and teams that won each game are marked off. Every 10 games (Wins in ten) are tallied up to make tracking things easier. When you run a game, please at least fill out the basics, including the winners. This includes updating the overall wins tally at the bottom of the page and the loser tier. At the bottom of the document, you'll see a little ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<)･ﾟﾟ･｡ symbol beneath a team (or a couple of teams). This ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<)･ﾟﾟ･｡ indicates which team is considered loser tier, and if they're marked off as such when you run your game, they should be rewarded a win regardless of how they do. How you figure out who gets loser tier after you update the doc with your game relies on the last 10 games and who won them. The team with the least wins should be given the loser tier mark. If there are two or more teams tied for this, go back 15 games and rule it out that way! If somehow 15 still ends in a tie, 20 should be enough.

GAME TYPES

There are many common terms used when referring to what sort of game is being run. Here is a list of them so you can familiarize yourself with them whether you're new to teamnesia, or an Echo player trying to figure out what to run. Please keep in mind that all games are different, so while these terms are made to help familiarize, usually game runners will give specifics and explanations to their games. Please feel free to comment to this post to add anything that might not be mentioned along with a short summary of what it entails! The following is not a limit of types of games there are! Just a reference list for new players and game runners looking for ideas. Games are open to creativity, so never worry about doing your own thing with your own ideas and running the game of your dreams! Board Game: Some games are pre-set up with a board where certain spaces require characters to do things, or they could be status effects! The idea is to use a site such as random.org for your dice rolls and using the honor system to play fairly. Sometimes these are set up with teams playing by themselves, sometimes they're set up with two teams competing against each other to reach the end. Creativity/Design: Games where your team will have to create something! They will be given options, possibly points for each option or actions to take to obtain certain parts. Sometimes there are no options and your team will be free to craft something within a certain subject matter (such as creating a robot with three traits, but it can look however you want, or an entire world with certain characteristics). These games can be flexible and game runners will give you an appropriate subject and/or options to work with! Cry Wolf: Based off of the Mafia party game. Some characters are secretly assigned the role of a "wolf," and must work together (usually in a locked post) to coordinate defeating the "sheep" without letting their role be known. Everyone is assumed to be a sheep as the wolves are acting the part, so it's up to characters who are actually sheep to question everyone, and deduce who they believe is really a wolf (as nobody is OOCly giving anything away, you won't know who is who unless you're a wolf yourself, in which case you have to pretend). Each round of interaction ends with a poll to vote somebody off. The idea is to see which side wins; can the sheep uncover all of the wolves before they're all voted out? Or will the wolves in sheep's clothing be victorious? Empathy Bond: In these games, usually two characters will be linked to each other in a way that allows them to feel everything the other is feeling. Can also have a telepathy twist to them. Exploradora: These games will generally have the game runner set up something where characters will interact with the setting of the game and any potential NPCs in it. Sometimes the point of the game will be to find an item, sometimes it may be more of a storytelling game where these interactions with the setting (touching things, moving things, destroying things) will change things and carve different outcomes depending on what characters do. Heart Games: Heart games are very large, involved games where characters go into another character's heart/soul. We have a page specifically for heart games here, so please check it out for more info! Intimacy Encouraged: These games usually have acts of intimacy (hugs, kisses, secret telling, holding hands, blanket sharing, etc) worth different amounts of points. The more your character does, the more they rack up! Mistletoe also falls under this category (forced kissing, kissing on the lips, cheek, hand, etc). Loveless: Based on the Loveless series, characters pair up into teams of two with a name (usually ending in -less, such as Loveless, Heartless, Dickless, etc) "tattood" on their body somewhere (not permanent, only for the duration of the game). One person is the Sacrifice, who takes all battle damage and performs the attacks. The fighter is the one who creates the attacks and defense for the Sacrifice to perform by speaking. The idea is for the Fighter to explain an attack or a movement as thoroughly as possible - and there is usually no limits on an attack, so the idea is to be creative about it! Usually these games are not trauma games, or the damage obtained is healed at the end of the game, OR there is "imaginary" damage and nobody gets hurt. Mem-Share: These games will entail sharing your characters memories in some way, sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary. While there's no limit on how many memories a character needs for these, as Kyriakos memories can also count for these games, if you're new, maybe introing into a mem-share game isn't the best idea! Mingle: Games where characters are pushed to interact with one another. Commonly mixed with other types of games (such as intimacy encouraged), can also be simple bingo games for points, or games that end in characters ICly filling out surveys in the end. These games are flexible and tend to last longer than more time-restricted games due to their laid-backness. Puzzle: Usually have a brain tease aspect. Games where your character and their team will have to find the right solution to win or advance. Simulation: Sort of like being in virtual reality for characters! While things may feel real at times, nothing will affect your character physically. Trauma: These games basically mean characters can and most likely will be hurt, be maimed, or die in them. Either that, or go through kinds of heavy psychological trauma. PvP trauma also includes having to choose teams to attack or kill. Any sort of game can be tweaked to be a trauma game (trauma exploradora, trauma bingo, trauma boardgame, etc). All trauma games will and must be warned about in advance by a game runner. Ruby Quest: Based on the popular 4chan RPG-esque game, characters suggest actions to take to lead an "NPC" through a story, where the most popular agreed-on choices are prioritized. In Kyriakos, the "NPCs" being led tend to be a character or a teammate, who is in some sort of puppet-like state (previously, they were killed in the first part of the game with their bodies led through a story as a second part in order to revive them). Trauma Prom: This specific term refers to two characters being trapped in a room, and having to offer something worthwhile to both get out alive. If their offer is rejected, one character must agree to die. GM Game: Games where teams have to send punishments to other teams. Usually these games have rules in place where trying to break it will result in everybody dying or simply the choices being made for your team, with the target being randomized. Bonus: If you ever hear the term "bussing" or "self-bussing," just consider it KILLING. Bussing usually means throwing another team under the bus, so to speak. Self-bussing is throwing yourselves under that bus.