Post by Snaq ◢ ◤ on Mar 13, 2023 20:40:44 GMT
By ForgotToFlush
The Origins of the Bus Driver Elliptical: A word on Action Resolution
Written by ForgotToFlush
Background
On the 28th of October, 2017, Snaquaza elected to host a game of No Setup (X) . For those unfamiliar with the theme, every player in the game, regardless of faction, could choose a role to use from a pre-established list to use each night. This list included many strong roles, including the Tallier, Suicide Bomber, and the game-breaking Compatibility Checker. These roles were all relevant during the actual game, but one role stood out to me at the time: The Bus Driver.
Day 1 of the game was dominated by mechanical discussion. Town worked frantically to solve the game from the outset using the listed roles. My opinion at the time, was that this diluted the game quality due to the lack of focus on the actual players within the game (this was phrased much more crudely at the time.) In order to circumvent this and get the game back on track, I suggested what would end up living on in infamy as the Bus Driver Elliptical:
BUT I GOT THE ANSWER TO IT ALL
FTF HAS BROKEN THE GAME
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
MY CIRCLE PLAN
BUS DRIVER ELLIPTICAL::::::
OW
AS YOU CAN SEE BY THIS DIAGRAM THAT I SHOULD HAVE LOWERED MY DPI TO DRAW AND PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE SPENT MORE THAN 2 MINUTES DRAWING
The plan is to bus driver in the shape of an ellipse because circles are for squares.
NOW YOU MAY BE ASKING
FTF, what will this braindead plan accomplish
I DONT KNOW, I DONT THINK HOST KNOWS EITHER
WHAT THE FUCK WOULD EVEN HAPPEN
WE'LL FIND OUT
The answer to the question, "What would happen?" was answered almost immediately by the host, with a late addendum to the FAQ section:
What if two people Bus Drive the same target with two different people?
Because the Bus Driving has the same priority, they get redirected to each other, which means that they will both Bus Drive the two different people. A double bus drive on the same players means nothing happens (besides the targeting). Due to otherwise impossible conflicts, Bus Drivers won't affect other Bus Drivers this game.
Well, so much for that. Ironically enough for Night 1 I ended up commuting anyways. Also ironically enough, all this did was raise more mechanical discussion, just now it was about my stupidly pointless idea. We were never able to figure out what actually happens. So let's take a look now!
Interpretations
With Action Resolution, for situations like these, I'd always advise the host having a clear plan for how to resolve the situations beforehand. As part of the Game Approval process, I'd look through submissions for interactions like these, with no clear-cut conventional answer, and ask what the host would do in this situation. For Twenty Year Time Heist, with the nature of the experimental roles, I'd ask myself this question a lot throughout the design process and this meant many creative solutions were needed. Often enough, I don't need to a prospective host to immediately have the answer, but they should have one by the time they're actually hosting. So, let's pretend we're going through that process now:
Natural Action Resolution (NAR) (X)
NAR is as close to conventional as we can get. Simply put, NAR states that actions resolve after the actions that modify them. It plays into our intuition: if a Roleblocker is targeting a Doctor, then the Doctor can't resolve their action because they're first being blocked by the Roleblocker. However, in the case of the BDE, NAR doesn't really hold up. How do we choose where to start when every action is being modified by another? Well, when NAR breaks down, a priority list is used. Actions are categorized, and that's used to decide which actions resolve first. This list should be established beforehand, and should be public knowledge for those playing the game. This safety net works well in setups like GI, where there are many complex role interactions in a given night. However, this again doesn't work for the BDE because all the actions in the theoretical loop would exist in the same category of action.
So convention has failed us and we need to get creative, what now? Well:
Action Duplication
This is an incredibly outlandish solution, that should not be immediately considered when resolving similar situations. The gist of it, is that multiple bus drivers acting at the same time, cause the targeted action to exist in multiple simultaneous points. Therefore, a single action can theoretically reach multiple targets. This is problematic for game balance, but can be a potentially interesting implementation for setups explicitly based around Bus Drivers and other Redirects.
Action Nullification
A more practical alternative is to consider that the targeted action does not resolve due to the failure of the Bus Drivers to resolve in a meaningful way. Simply put, a target cannot be determined for the targeted action, as opposed to considering all hypothetical targets, and it does not resolve. This solution is much more useful for the average game, is mechanically simple, and should be easily digestible for players.
Modifier Nullification
The third potential solution, is simply stating that the redirects cancel each other out, and the action happens as intended. This is akin to the solution in the No Setup game. It is also practical and simple, and saves the headache of trying to figure out multiple redirects.
Takeaways
These are but a handful of potential workarounds to an evergeen issue. There are a multitude of ways to approach this problem. For example, adding modifiers to certain roles within a setup, such as Strong-Willed, take the frustration out of the problem and create cleaner mechanical interactions. Alternatively, the setup can be modified to eliminate the interacting roles altogether. While there are many angles from which to approach this, the important bit to keep in mind is finding a solution that works for whatever your game is trying to achieve. Keeping this in mind will allow you to go further with setup design and hosting.
The Origins of the Bus Driver Elliptical: A word on Action Resolution
Written by ForgotToFlush
Background
On the 28th of October, 2017, Snaquaza elected to host a game of No Setup (X) . For those unfamiliar with the theme, every player in the game, regardless of faction, could choose a role to use from a pre-established list to use each night. This list included many strong roles, including the Tallier, Suicide Bomber, and the game-breaking Compatibility Checker. These roles were all relevant during the actual game, but one role stood out to me at the time: The Bus Driver.
Day 1 of the game was dominated by mechanical discussion. Town worked frantically to solve the game from the outset using the listed roles. My opinion at the time, was that this diluted the game quality due to the lack of focus on the actual players within the game (this was phrased much more crudely at the time.) In order to circumvent this and get the game back on track, I suggested what would end up living on in infamy as the Bus Driver Elliptical:
BUT I GOT THE ANSWER TO IT ALL
FTF HAS BROKEN THE GAME
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
MY CIRCLE PLAN
BUS DRIVER ELLIPTICAL::::::
OWAS YOU CAN SEE BY THIS DIAGRAM THAT I SHOULD HAVE LOWERED MY DPI TO DRAW AND PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE SPENT MORE THAN 2 MINUTES DRAWING
The plan is to bus driver in the shape of an ellipse because circles are for squares.
NOW YOU MAY BE ASKING
FTF, what will this braindead plan accomplish
I DONT KNOW, I DONT THINK HOST KNOWS EITHER
WHAT THE FUCK WOULD EVEN HAPPEN
WE'LL FIND OUT
The answer to the question, "What would happen?" was answered almost immediately by the host, with a late addendum to the FAQ section:
What if two people Bus Drive the same target with two different people?
Well, so much for that. Ironically enough for Night 1 I ended up commuting anyways. Also ironically enough, all this did was raise more mechanical discussion, just now it was about my stupidly pointless idea. We were never able to figure out what actually happens. So let's take a look now!
Interpretations
With Action Resolution, for situations like these, I'd always advise the host having a clear plan for how to resolve the situations beforehand. As part of the Game Approval process, I'd look through submissions for interactions like these, with no clear-cut conventional answer, and ask what the host would do in this situation. For Twenty Year Time Heist, with the nature of the experimental roles, I'd ask myself this question a lot throughout the design process and this meant many creative solutions were needed. Often enough, I don't need to a prospective host to immediately have the answer, but they should have one by the time they're actually hosting. So, let's pretend we're going through that process now:
Natural Action Resolution (NAR) (X)
NAR is as close to conventional as we can get. Simply put, NAR states that actions resolve after the actions that modify them. It plays into our intuition: if a Roleblocker is targeting a Doctor, then the Doctor can't resolve their action because they're first being blocked by the Roleblocker. However, in the case of the BDE, NAR doesn't really hold up. How do we choose where to start when every action is being modified by another? Well, when NAR breaks down, a priority list is used. Actions are categorized, and that's used to decide which actions resolve first. This list should be established beforehand, and should be public knowledge for those playing the game. This safety net works well in setups like GI, where there are many complex role interactions in a given night. However, this again doesn't work for the BDE because all the actions in the theoretical loop would exist in the same category of action.
So convention has failed us and we need to get creative, what now? Well:
Action Duplication
This is an incredibly outlandish solution, that should not be immediately considered when resolving similar situations. The gist of it, is that multiple bus drivers acting at the same time, cause the targeted action to exist in multiple simultaneous points. Therefore, a single action can theoretically reach multiple targets. This is problematic for game balance, but can be a potentially interesting implementation for setups explicitly based around Bus Drivers and other Redirects.
Action Nullification
A more practical alternative is to consider that the targeted action does not resolve due to the failure of the Bus Drivers to resolve in a meaningful way. Simply put, a target cannot be determined for the targeted action, as opposed to considering all hypothetical targets, and it does not resolve. This solution is much more useful for the average game, is mechanically simple, and should be easily digestible for players.
Modifier Nullification
The third potential solution, is simply stating that the redirects cancel each other out, and the action happens as intended. This is akin to the solution in the No Setup game. It is also practical and simple, and saves the headache of trying to figure out multiple redirects.
Takeaways
These are but a handful of potential workarounds to an evergeen issue. There are a multitude of ways to approach this problem. For example, adding modifiers to certain roles within a setup, such as Strong-Willed, take the frustration out of the problem and create cleaner mechanical interactions. Alternatively, the setup can be modified to eliminate the interacting roles altogether. While there are many angles from which to approach this, the important bit to keep in mind is finding a solution that works for whatever your game is trying to achieve. Keeping this in mind will allow you to go further with setup design and hosting.