Elements 2.0 (canned due to incuriosity)

Please follow all Forum game rules and global rules.


Game based on Elements, hosted and created by also me.

Goal of the game:
(If player count is:)
6+ Be the last one alive.
15+ Be one of the last two alive.
23+ Be one of the last three alive.

Each round lasts 24 hours, and each action needs to be submitted at least 2 hours before the round ends.


How the game works:

  • There are six towers each representing an element. (Fire, water, earth, air, wood, metal.) Each tower has multiple floors, those floors either has nothing (empty tier) or an effect. (Most of the time, it is giving out abilities.)
  • In each round, each player has to choose one of the six elements to bid on. Not complying with this rule gives you a prod (and you gain no benefits from bidding). The players who receive two prods will be removed from the game.
  • At the end of the round, each player gets x tier in the element they bidded on, where x is the number of how many players bidded on the same element as the player (including the player itself as well.)
about amount/tier

(The player’s element amount and element tier are the same number. Amount is used to activate abilities, and tier is used for tower activation. If from any reason a player loses/gain any from either, they will lose/gain the same amount from the other as well)

  • Each round after bidding, each tower is activated one by one and the player(s) with the highest tier in the tower’s element will activate the tower according to the floor of the tier of their element. If the floor is empty, they gain the highest effect possible below their tier.

  • Compound abilities with multiple element cost need only one part of their cost to be activated, but the one who activates the power needs at least the same amount or higher tier in the other towers as the ability cost otherwise the activation will skip this ability.

  • Everyone who is eligible for the activated ability will gain the ability as well. (Even if they aren’t on the highest tier in the tower.)

  • The highest floor’s effect in each tower reads as follows: “your y element becomes zero, and you can freely design a new ability” where y is the corresponding element of the tower.
    Each tower may or may not have a different starting height, and those can change during the game.

  • After each round the host will announce which player activated which tower (only those players, even if others also gained the effect of the tower), on which tier, but they won’t tell which effect they got. (They will get this information in private.)

After activation, the host will tell everyone in private the following statistics: how much Hitpoint they gained/lost in the round, how many elements they gained/lost in the round, if any of their abilities have run out of time, and what effects/abilities they gained (if any.)


The players:

  • Each player starts with 50 hp, and without any attacking power. (You need to gain attacking methods during tower activation.) If your hp reaches zero, you are eliminated from the game immediately. Only those abilities can overheal the starting hp, where it is directly mentioned in their description.

  • Each player starts with four elements of their choice, but none of their elements can be higher than the second tier. (A second tier element counts as two elements. With 6 towers, there are more than 80 possible permutations, so it’s unlikely people will submit the same distribution, but the game will start as normal even if that happens.)

  • Everybody can freely whisper other alive players, provided them themselves are alive. It does not have to be announced, all that is required is a forum message dm between you and themselves, with the hosts included to keep watch on the game.


about powers

The powers:

The powers people gain from towers can have multiple forms.
Instant effects happen instantly.
If an ability requires targeting/choosing from multiple choices in a limited time, players can decide, while they are bidding until the time limit lasts. If they don’t do it, the power either won’t activate, or the host will choose the most disadvantageous option for them. (If that’s not possible, their choice will be randomized.)
‘Time limit: 1’ means you have to decide during the next bidding phase.
‘Time limit: 0’ and ‘no time limit’ both mean you aren’t forced to use your ability. (There are some mechanical differences between the two expressions.)
Passive abilities are activated automatically, if their requirements are met.
Towers can have negative effects. (and some starting tiers already on the tower are definitely in this category.)
Abilities can additional activation cost on top of their effects, this can be almost anything, but it always be told, when the ability is gained.


Ability design.
Each participant can freely design one ability during the game. But the host will decide which tower and which floor they put the ability on, if multiple people design very similar abilities, they will be counted as the same ability. Each person will be told where their designed ability is put on.

Each element can do basic damage, so anyone designing a simple do x damage can choose which element their ability belongs to. (The tier is still decided by the host.)

The following are the basic guidelines on what each element can do. (These are only suggestions, no one is limited for only these effects, when they design their power.)

Fire : prolonged damage.
Water : healing / stopping prolonged damage
Air : redirection / information related abilities.
Wood : absorb damage / absorb healing
Earth : creating / destroying things
Metal : buying / selling things.
(If an ability does none of the above, the host can assign those to the element, they think it describe the ability the best. If an ability does multiple of these effects, they are considered compound abilities automatically.)

If a player doesn’t gain any effect from towers in a round, they gain a design point. (DP) At any point a living player can use DP equal with the current living player count, to design a new ability (after they used up their free designs). Eliminated players will lose all of their DP.

Abilities designed during the game will be added to the towers after tower activation. (As a rule of thumb, stronger effects need higher tiers, and the host won’t replace any player designed ability, until it wasn’t activated at least once.)

If anyone using their free design before the game starts (during signup) those abilities will be added at the start of round 1. (Before any bidding happened.)

(No VT benefits this time. Let’s see first how the game debuts before I add more complicated mechanics in later variations.)
(Also no surprise visitors this time, only those players/characters will be able to participate, who join the game during signup.)
Host has the privilege to veto any design, if they think it would result as an unfair ability. (This category is for abilities like but not limited to: abilities which are person-specific/dependent on real-life skill/would break forum rules and so fort)


After you signup, please send me a pm, which four you choose as your starting elements.

Playercount:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
+

Signups will be open, until 2025-01-07T18:30:00Z

Game starts 24 hours after that, if we have at least 6 participants.

1 Like

Commencing the literacy boss battle.

holy shit

1 Like

is this including the tower thing

No, the ones from the towers are extra.

1 Like

whats the deadlines/phases/whatever

nvm found it

@Daeron consider: we make terrible designs like lair of evil again

1 Like

(if marluna lets us hydra ofc)

1 Like

Sadly to busy to play hope this gets people was super fun last time

how the fuck did the person who had that ability from the start of the game end up winning lmfao

“never let your opponent know your next move” except they literally know your next move permenantly and you win anyway

1 Like

almost everyone was afraid of retrubotion…

4 Likes

Marshal was perhaps the perfect player to get that role.

1 Like

“Appear strong when you are weak, and strong when you are strong”

-Sun Tzu

4 Likes

game is canceled…
Will be revived and put back on queue, if others give curiosity later and there is a demand for it.
Otherwhise it will just be scrapped.

@Arete
(i don’t know who else I shoud ping here.)

3 Likes

TL:DR (if someone was scared because of the long OP, or a better host wants to pick it up)

Each round each player bids on one of the elements (*). Everyone gain the amount based on how many player bidded the same element as them.

At the end of each round each element gives an ability to the player, who has the most of the said element. Everyone else who can gain the same bonus as that player, will get it as well. (**)

Each player can design one ability in the game, but host will decide where they put the ability on the bidding table. ( *** )

Abilities can have almost any effect (but host can veto a design if they think it would break game integrity.) and abilities can have additional cost(s), besides their acquire requirement. ( **** )

Last (x) player(s) win (depending on playercount).

[Anything else is suspectible to change]

notes

(*) I chose six elements, cause it gives enough diversity, but isn’t too much diversity, but it really can be any number a host is comfortable with.
(**) so, the game has a basic flaw, that if multiple people are always bidding on the same element, they will always gain the same ability, that’s why I chose to give players four starting elements, it doesn’t eliminate the flaw, but it lessens it a bit. To avoid randomness, I gave the players the choice to pick those, but it can be RNGed. Also this step can be changed, if someone finds a better option to eliminate this design flaw.
( *** ) I used towers to better visulize, that the abilities can target the bidding table as well, but it is basically still a bidding table.
( **** ) I think most abilities should be one-use-and-gone kind of abilities, so people can gain multiple stack/use from the same ability on the bidding table. I used time limit trying to stimulate that.

2 Likes