New Illuminati Game Starting From: rkelly@carina.unm.edu (Robert Kelly) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1992 13:58:03 +0000 New PBeM Illuminati running. ^ / \ / FNORD \ / <0> \ / \ \ / / \_____/ \ /_________________\ "Have a Paranoid Day!" Remember, this game belongs to Steve Jackson until the Secret Service decides to confiscate it. Rules Part 1 of 2 Six players , six players only. Advanced gaming... if you have reasonably playtested new groups, not Illuminati, please submit them with your e-mail to play. With consideration, I am willing to enter these new groups. All players will be informed of new cards. This is a general set of rules pertaining to playing PBeM Illuminati. It is the same set up as Ron Blowfish's and he's is one of the players. (Hmm, both gamemasters are at UNM.EDU... could be a conspiracy.) 1. E-MAIL RULES "You mean you can send messages all over the world within an hour? Does Pizza Hut know this?" You should try and contact all the players on your playing list. Even if you never want to speak with them again, make sure that you can at least mail to them. Any problems, let me know ASAP. 2. STRUCTURE "If structure is at the heart of order, and order comes from Chaos, and I am the Goddess of Chaos, the I must be the Heart of Order, too! Flying Baby Shit!" The second subject is how I'll represent things in ASCII and stuff. Cards will be represented like the following example: Pentagon (PENT) No special P: 6 R: 6 I: 2 Government/Violent/Straight In: E Out: N- S- W- The things to note: The title and the abbreviation I am using for the card are on the top line. The second line is any special actions that the card might have. The third line is Power, Resistance and Income The fourth line is the alignments The last (5th!) section is the direction that the in and out arrows point. For all purposes, the TOP of the card is considered NORTH. Standard directions from there. If this confuses you, you probably really shouldn't be playing this game, but I'm sure the other players will be more than delighted to lend assistance to you, just let them know! :) The groups controlled will be represented in two ways, one 'graphically' and one textually. For an example, the UFOs control 2 group, the Boy Sprouts and the IRS. They have 32 MB on their card. The IRS controls the KGB and the Men In Black, and has 50 MB on it. The Men in Black control nobody, and have 5 MB The KGB controls the FBI and has 10 MB on it. The FBI has 23 MB. In the text representation of the groups, the groups will be listed recursively, from north to west. For the above set, the text representation would look like this: UFOS(32): BOYS(0), IRS(50), KGB(10), FBI(23), MIBL(5) The graphic representation would look like this: BOYS UFOS MIBL IRS KGB FBI Between the two representation, it should be pretty clear what the proper layout of a players cards are. When a player is placing a card, it is their responsibility to make sure that the arrows are pointed the correct direction, and all that....I can not make that sort of representation in ASCII without a lot of work, and its just not worth it. 3. MONEY "So YOU'RE saying my paycheck orginially came from a bank in Switzerland, transferred to an Eco-Terrorist group, that was spent on guns from the Contras, guns bought from the CIA... ... and I work for the KGB?" Money will be dealt with as follows: Your fellow players are stupid. They hav no right to know how much money you make, and if they can't keep track of it, well, that's their problem, isn't it :) Of course, its not fair that they should be totally in the dark, so I will institute the following- The money portion will consist of a single digit- on the following basis: 0 : no money on the group 1 : 1 - 9 MBs on group 2 : 10-19 MBs on group 3 : 20-39 MBs on group 4 : 40-59 MBs on group 5 : 60-79 MBs on group 6 : 80-99 MBs on group 7 : 100+ MBs on group This is what will be reported on all public notices. Your private notifications will include the actual amount, of course :) The third section is about the turn order, how I will run turns for the PBM games I am running. 4. EACH TURN "GO ahead, attack. SEE if I care. I'm ONLY the GM, you know." At the start of a players turn, I will update the players information in their personal game file, such as organizing money and stuff. This way the player knows exactly what they have at the beginning of each of their turns. I will also draw a card for them. If it is a special card, I will reveal what that card is only to the player in their file. After a card is drawn, I will mail the entire group, to let them know what the current status of the board is, and what card was drawn. The player then has until 9PM the following evening to send me thier orders. (orders are described below). When I get the orders, I will mail to the group again, revealing what the player has ordered (usually to attack). The group, including the player whos turn it is, has ~48 hours (until 9PM two days past the mailing) to mail me their attack responses, also described below. I will then GM the attack (roll the dice, etc), and mail to the group what the results were, as well as updating and sending the player their file. The player then has another 24 hours (until 9PM the next day) to mail me where they want the group placed, how much money they want transfered to the group as the last part of the attack, and either their next attack or their end-of-turn stuff (money transfers, etc.). If they attack again, the above is repeated. If they take an action, such as moving a group or whatever. If they don't attack, the turn passes to the next player on the list, and the whole thing repeats. 5. PLACING YOUR ORDER "Welcome to McCorporate DeathBurger, which rainforest would you like to destroy today?" When sending in your orders, the main goal is CLARITY. If I can't understand them, I will try and adjudicate to the best interest of the players. If its too confusing, then I'll have to send it back to you to clarify and that slows the whole game down. When doing something simple, like placing a group or transfering money, that should be pretty easy. Please remember the order that things are supposed to be done, though, makes life easier. Your attack orders (not response orders, those are below) should include the following information: How much power you are attacking with. How much you get in bonuses for alignment, specials, etc. The >total< resistance of the group in question. If the attack is privleged. When listing the amount of power, list the power you are attacking with, plus any and all transfereable power. I will not go hunting for your transfereable power, you are required, by the rules, to list it all when you announce your attack. Also please list how much you are getting in bonuses from alignments, special privleges (such as the Discordians +4 for weirds),etc. List all positive AND negative bonuses. List the total amount of resistance the group has. This includes resistance due to proximity to an Illuminati card. If you are making the attack privleged, this is the time to announce it. From there, I can check your numbers and figure out what the base roll you need to roll will be. I'll then send out your intentions to the group as a whole. They (and you) get to then send in your attack responses. This is where you start spending money. Attack responses should list the following information: If you are FOR, AGAINST or NEUTRAL towards the impending attack (explained in more detail below) The base amount of money you intend on spending on the attack. The maximum amount you are willing to spend, if you wish. A list of conditions for spending additional money on the attack. If you are FOR an attack, it means that you are supporting the attack of that group, and that any monies that your are contributing will go towards increasing the probibilities that the attack will succeed. If you are AGAINST an attack, it means that you are against the attack of that group, and that any monies that you're contributing will go towards decreasing the probibilities that the attack will succeed. If you are NEUTRAL towards an attack, it means either you don't care about the outcome and aren't contributing anything for or against the attack, or that you have an ambivelant attitude towards the attack, meaning that you will contribute FOR or AGAINST, depending on the status that other groups take. The base amount of money is how much money you will spend unconditionally on the attack. If there is money left over, it will be returned to you. The maximum amount is your >total< limit, base and conditional spending, that you are willing to spend on an attack. The conditional portion is how you wish to spend money based on the attitudes that your fellow players take. I will allow multiple conditionals with .and., .or. and .not., but keep it as clear as possible, if I get confused by your conditional spending, what I come up with is what you're spending :) For example, Cthulu is responding to an attack: Cthulu is FOR the attack. I will spend up to 15 MBs on the attack. Limit: 30MB If the Gnomes are FOR -5, AGAINST +10. If Discordians are NEUTRAL, +5 If Discordians are AGAINST .and. Gnomes are AGAINST, +15 For every other group against, +5, to limit To discourage NEUTRALS (weenies- take a stand!), I will not allow that group to spend any money on its own: all its money spent must be conditional on the status of the other powers. Any contridictory orders by a set of powers will be simply ignored. If you are FOR or AGAINST an attack, let me know what the maximum/minimum roll you will allow is. If you don't list this, I'll default it to 10/2. (auto fail/auto success). NEUTRALS are automatically 10/2. You cannot change your max/min numbers conditionally. The >basic< way I'll do contributions is like this: I will add together the power base to attack, and subtract the defense base. I'll then pool together all the FOR and all the AGAINST money, and distribute it towards the rolls. I'll then roll my dice and report the result. I'll re-distribute any left over monies to whoever contributed to that pot based on percentages of distributed money. Any rounding errors go in favor of the attacking entity, for FORs or to the highest contributor for AGAINST, or if it can't be split, it'll go back to the bank. 6. INTERACTION What to do with your free time: Send lots of mail to your opponents/fellow players. Make deals with them. Say things like 'I'll tell you what my special card is if you tell me how much money you have on your groups'.... Please note that I will NOT get involved in deals except in the following manner: I will CONFIRM, DENY or NO COMMENT any info you wish to try and confirm with me. If you get a 'confirm' or 'deny' message on info, it means that the power that you are attempting to confirm information about has given its permission for me to reveal that info to you. If a player has NOT given me permission, you will recieve the 'no comment' message. Please note that I will NOT give out information (as in 'tell me how much money the Gnomes have on their main group'), I will only confirm, deny or no comment information. If you want info, you had best get it from good sources :) I will NOT allow 'passed on' information- as in the UFOs gave permission to the Discordians to find out what the UFOs special card is. The Discordians can 'sell' this information to anybody they want, but I will return a 'no comment' to any group that tries to confirm what that card is, unless the UFOs have given me specific permission! In other words, be careful with second hand knowledge. Requesting information is not a matter of public record, btw, and will not be revealed as such. 6. PRIVELEGED ATTACKS If a player is declaring their attack to be privleged, then I will allow 24 hours for any of the other players to use an Interference card. If there are no special cards on the table (or the person making the special attack has the only special cards), then I will simply go ahead with the attack. If the attack involves another player, then I will allow that player the usual 48 hours to respond. If you are planning on making a privleged attack, LET ME KNOW when you declare your attack. If you are making the attack on an uncontrolled group, then go ahead and tell me how much money you're going to spend, etc. This speeds things up. If you are attacking another player, I have to allow them the 48 hours, even if they have no money at all to spend on preventing the attack. 7. CALLING OFF ATTACKS Once an attack has been declared, the player can 'call off' that attack. The way this is handled in a regular game is that a player can call off the attack at any time before money is spent. That will be allowed here. The player in question must mail me before the time set is up. Note that once you've called off an attack, you have called off that attack for good. It counts as an action. A player can call off an attack conditionally with the following rules: 1) the player cannot have spent any money supporting the attack (see base support), 2) the conditionals for calling off is NEUTRAL only. You cannot call off an attack conditionally based on if a group is FOR or AGAINST. 3) Regular conditionals for spending money still apply as above, in case the attack cannot be called off. Note, though, that you still can't have spent any base money on the attack! TRADES You must keep me informed when a trade agreement has been reached. All players involved in the trade must independently confirm the trade with me. I will not go out trying to confirm trades. If I don't recieve confirmation from all parties, the trade will be cancelled. You have to let me know about them, because I am the one who controls your money and groups! GIFTS If you plan on making a gift of something, special card, money, group, whatever to another player, let me know as well, and I will activate the gift, and inform the player. Just for amusement in the PBM environment, I will allow you to make gifts anonymous! LATE MAIL The object of the game is to play, not wait on late mail. I am pretty relaxed about about the very occassional late (by hours) mail. I understand that my players exist in the real world to, and that sometimes gaming takes second string to life. Late mail (by days) is a bit more severe, though. All late mail is a Bad Thing, and if its even a little chronic, I will replace you. If you're planning on going away on vacation or something, let me know in advance. If I don't hear from a player during an attack response, that player will be NEUTRAL for that attack, spending no money either way. If I don't hear from a player when its her/his turn, then they 'pass' their turn at that point. If its their second attack, and I don't hear from them, then that player will pass their turn to the next player. Robert Kelly rkelly@triton.unm.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Subtle Plans Are Here Again'." Black Adder Up