Game Running

[ze_arteests]

Rules of Game Running

You may not lie about a game’s goals.

If characters are told to do ‘x’ to win, you must actually plan on rewarding x. To tell them to do ‘x’ to win and then actually reward actions ‘y’ and ‘z’ leaves team ‘x’ wondering why they put so much effort into following the rules when they’re not going to be rewarded for it, especially when rules are unpleasant. It also makes it harder on future game runners, so avoid this.

No “loopholes”.

A game cannot be designed with the intention of having characters win by refusing to play.

Games cannot ask, require, or encourage characters to harm or betray their own teammates or their partners in partnered games.

Characters need to be able to trust that they can always protect members of their own team. Betraying that trust can result in accelerated burnout and refusal to even participate in games (because why bother if they have to hurt not only other teams, but their closest comrades?) which is not conducive to the longevity of the game.

This rule extends to any game mechanic that may result in a team being in any way encouraged to harm other members of their team. Even if the portrait isn't outright asking for a team to harm teammates, if they could have an easier time winning the game by hurting each other that too is unacceptable. Teams must be able to trust each other.

You are not allowed to reward characters for self-sacrifice or self-sabotage.

Decollage is a game based upon competition and being willing to do anything to achieve the wish or desire that brought a character here. Awarding them for what is essentially self-sabotage, however noble or well-intentioned the act is, goes against Decollage's setting. Similarly, a team actually attempting to sabotage themselves may not be rewarded. If Team Rainbow is trying to lose, then they lose. It's unfair for Team Snowflake who was trying super hard to win to miss out on getting memories and skills because Rainbow doesn't know how to lose right. :(

You are not allowed to punish characters for winning.

Again, the game is based upon being willing to do anything to achieve one's wish or desire. It is against the spirit and setting of the game to punish characters for doing so.

Warn ahead for games with maiming or death.

This allows players to try and plan ahead for them, to clear their schedule and try and join in on the fun, or if their character has hit critical trauma peak, to avoid it.

Only competitively based games award memories.

Free-form creation games and other similar games are allowed, but instead reward things like food, weapons, or additional things for the dorms.

Clarification on competitive games: If a game could hypothetically be run even if just one team showed up, it is not competitive. So most creation games which give teams things and expect them to make something do not count, and neither do exploration games, which also don’t require the presence of other teams. Since the increased power and reacquisition of memories and skills in Decollage is powered by taking power from other team’s frustrated hopes, if the teams aren’t set up to compete, memories/skills cannot be distributed.

Examples of games of both types!

Locked room set-ups, with each team in their own private locked room should be reserved for games that require them, IE: War room games, Cry Wolf, ect. Games that do not require secrecy will be held in public.

No Healing Quests

Damage done by games cannot be quested to be removed. Which isn’t to say game damage must be permanent: revivals, characters healing/fixing each other, time limiting effects, ect. are all fair game. The only thing not allowed is for the painting in question to make the offer of doing a task, and undoing the game effect upon completion.

Rules on Rewarding Memories:

How many can win?

Depending on the turnout for your game, anywhere from 2-6 teams can win. Winners shouldn't exceed more than half of the teams that were present for the game, though exceptions may be made if you are awarding partner wins and still need to select a final single team for a pity win.

Pity Wins

For choosing winners, choose the top one-five winner(s) according to whatever scoring rubric you have in place. But once you are done with that, for the last winner look at the win record document and please choose a team that has gone a month or more without winning a game. If all teams have won recently, then choose whichever of the bottom tier teams performed the best. Bottom tier teams of the last five non-supply games will be highlighted. Additionalle, please label pity wins. We want to be sure people continue to remember to give these wins out, and keeping them visible in this manner will help avoid them being forgotten in the future.

Loser Games

Loser games are games in which only the teams highlighted on the win record document may be awarded memories. Since this is in addition to the pity win system, memories may not be awarded to every eligible team. Aim for selecting roughly half of eligible teams as winners in a loser game.

If someone has set a memory or ability to priority, give them it.

Try and choose memories from whichever category they’ve received the fewest of so far!

If they’ve gotten a whole slew of trivials, give them a significant, if it’s nothing but neutrals and positives, go for a negative!

Rules on Rewarding Supplies

As in memory/skill games, at least 2 teams must win supplies, and a maximum of six may win.

You may choose to either select rewards from the supply game requests or to choose your own items to give out.

Items are to be rewarded within reason. Characters should not be receiving libraries of books or entire racks of weapons. All of the following rules also apply to quests taken by teams in portraits out of games. As an additional note, rewards should be about equal to difficulty of quest or game. Specific rules include:

-Ammunition must be rewarded in limited supply. No excessive amounts of ammo.

-Plants should be rewarded infrequently. Plants gained from supply games are able to grow within the dorms (and therefore require no weeding) and are unique from any plant-life found on level 3. It's also preferred that plants be given out as seeds initially to give mods time to design a new plant for the team that won it, though rare exceptions may be made. (But please alert a mod so a new plant can be created.)

-Somewhat related: trees cannot be given out. There's just not enough room for a tree to grow (no room for a root system to develop).

-In general, avoid giving out any items that will make the setting easy to handwave. The goal of the setting is to give characters something to interact with and overcome, so if they all get things that render the setting a non-threat, that's defeating the purpose. If you are ever unsure on any item feel free to ask a mod for an opinion.

-Regarding food, instead of rewarding with items that can be found in the environment (animals and raw animal products, fully matured plants, poisons/drugs found in Decollage's plantlife) keep to convenient or special food items like instant ramen, cookies, soda, instant rations, etc. Things that can't be acquired directly from the environment. Seeds to be grown into edible plants are also acceptable, however any seeds given out should only be natives to Decollage. A list of plants available for farming can be found here. We do ask that any rewards of this nature be infrequent to prevent teams from beginning to take them for granted.