DR6 Disinterest Check

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#1

Good day. This is a disinterest check. In this thread, you will express how disinterested you are in these ideas, such that I don’t feel guilty about not hosting a DR game for a good year for the sake of my own health. With that said, positive feedback will be tolerated. Somewhat. You’re on thin ice.

So, Dangling Grandpas. The old DR. In the post-game of DR5, several problems with the overall formula were brought up, mostly by eevee, in particular about several problems with the game, which I will summarise in three points:

  1. The Mastermind is pointless, and feels either too involved or too disconnected from the rest of the game.
  2. The fact that as there are less and less people there is more and more content makes the game become less active as it goes on due to having less itneractions.
  3. In a simmilar vein, players who are more likely to do outlandish things (usually leading to murder), or in other words the most active players, are more likely to leave the game earlier, exaccerbating the issue.

The problem with the second two can be fixed, but the first problem is quite thorny. The game needs to have some sort of underlying tension; if it just Stops Happening once five murders have taken place the finale becomes a major anticlimax, but it’s fairly clear that the current syestem of Masterminds just simply isn’t working.

How exactly do we solve all these issues? Well, Ladies, Gentlemen, Gentlefolk and other distinct entities of the forum of lies forum mafia forums, I have created an innovative solution.

Introducing TRUE ENDINGS.

Instead of the usual thing of having one singular wincon (usually “You win if you escape and you lose if you die”), players will have a set of three conditions, like such:

BAD ENDING - Die or fail to escape.
GOOD ENDING - Escape at any cost.
TRUE ENDING - [Redacted]

Here’s how the game would function. All players will start the game knowing only their bad and good ending conditions, which will usually be identical to the Participant wincon. However, all players will also have a condition on their classcard, such as this condition:

Unbridled Rage - If [player] dies, you will learn your TRUE ENDING once you discover of their death.

Upon one of these conditions being fulfilled, players may gain new abilities, but most pertinently their wincons will update to include a TRUE ENDING. Let’s see what would happen if this hypothetical card learned their true ending:

BAD ENDING - Die or fail to escape.
GOOD ENDING - Escape at any cost.
TRUE ENDING - Escape after destroying a room on the map.

Now, if you notice, the player has a chance of winning a TRUE ENDING by going against the rest of the players and performing something that has a very real chance of getting someone killed. Players will have an incentive, upon learning their full win condition, to go out of their way to do shocking and potentially dangerous things to potentially get the bragging rights of acheiving a true ending.

What are the benefits of this system? Well:

  • All players are now potentially incentivised to do odd and provocative things other than simply murdering people, making the game overall more exciting as more Things™ happen every phase. You might have to go out of your way to do something dangerous to get your TRUE ENDING condition revealed to you.
  • The problem with the game getting less exciting as it goes on is mitigated by the fact that as the game goes on, more and more players will learn their Wilcard-like conditions for their TRUE ENDING, making the later phases of the game more eventful as it goes on.
  • The tension of the Mastermind (that the seemingly helpful people near you could secretly be working against you) is replicated by the fact that players, driven to extremes by the circumstances, could begin to have more and more selfish motivations to potentially win the game as a TRUE ENDING instead of merely cooperating to get a GOOD ENDING.
  • Lore! The game’s lore will become more important despite the lack of a Mastermind, because conditions based around lore could be used to determine a character’s motivations, and how those would lead to their TRUE ENDING, keeping the incentive to explore the game’s lore.
  • Instead of players becoming Wildcards due to the rand, they become Wildcards due to their own choices, increasing player freedom and agency in the way the game’s story will occur.

The problem with the map size is still extant, of course, but I have certain ideas for fixing that, although I will not publicisie them as I will this system.

So, what are your thoughts? Is there some critical flaw that I’m missing? What is love? Would you play in a game with this sytem (that I will not host until I’m less of a hot mess as a person)?

Please, scream your thoughts into the void in the ceaseless abyss of the thread below! I look forward to hearing your ideas

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#2

To clarify: Under this system, there’d be some objectives that can only be completed in Chapter 6, which would mostly be a an elaborate puzzle chapter where players have to escape on a time limit.

#3

This actually looks really cool

#4

So would this mean that Wildcards would no longer be necessary?

#5

Because that seemed to be the way to Force Wacky and Ostentatious Things to Happen ™️

#6

Rename to neutral ending or something like that so it feels worse to achieve as opposed to true ending.

(my feedback isn’t very valuable because I’m not playing these games but just saying)

#7

genius true ending

you know what

this has just impacted my life greatly

#8

correct! because everyone is now, in some sense, a wildcard.

#9

So basically

Would the game just end :tm: after chapter 5?

#10

no. as I stated, the game would continue in Chapter 6, but instead of it being a final investigation format, it’ll be more a “how do we force our way out of the game” situation

#11

Luna check dms

#12

and to do that players will have a lot of freedom to explore and solve puzzles as they like
but some players might have True Ending conditions that incentivise them to Do Things™ in the final chapter

#13

Okay, so the thing is, there are certain things that I would say are integral to “Danganronpa”
Such as ultimates, such as trials, such as escaping
I would call the Mastermind one of these things
So I would say something more like moderation?

#14

Like, limit the mastermind’s overall involvement rather than just cut it out entirely

#15

the issue is that although the Mastermind is, I will admit, a core elemnent of the DR flavour, game-design wise it’s a problem, since it either has too much influence or too little influence on the flow of the game.

#16

This is true. I had an idea which I eventually ended up scrapping which somewhat addressed this by blowing it out of proportion in an incredibly stupid way but lol gamedesign is my passion

#17

besides if i do end up making the game i intend for there still to be a Timoleon Silverheart-style figure who is outside the game but is masterminding the whole thing

#18

i have Plans™ to keep the spirit of the Mastermind without the specific problems presented by the Mastermind

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#19

This is true, and you could replace the mastermind trial with some sort of different lore-building/world-finishing trial where you figure out the in’s-and-out’s of the game you’re in rather than the mastermind

#20

you see

MM is fine in flavour
MM is not fine in game

1 Like