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[Misan]

IGS Post

This idea has been in my head for a little while. Hoping to see some decent interest in it. For PF background you can look at http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mindclash_%28Chronicle%29 and The Burning Life also has mention of it (towards the last 3/4 of the book).

Right now I'm just winging it and seeing how people play without much supervision, but I would like to try to get a framework going for creating fair tournaments. Trying to avoid just doing basic dice roll stuff to determine the winner (because total randomness sucks for competition) and am looking for ideas/suggestions on how to do that. The main criteria I have in mind is that it can be carried out by text alone or with minimal extra stuff and have some element of strategy / player skill. Otherwise I'd probably need to do some combination of coding and design to make it work, and that's far too much :effort: right now.

Might have been rambling a little bit, but appreciate any feedback on any of this stuff.

[Nmaro Makari]

Let the games begin! 

[Altarr Orkot]

Sounds like it might be hard to make a 'fair' tournament out of.  Given it seems to be all about the mental struggle between two people, that sounds like it might be a bit hard to depict in text in a way where a winner can be determined somewhat objectively.  On the other hand if it would be more about the spectator's view of illusions fighting it sounds like you could play something like Magic cards to get a reasonable facsimile of that aspect.

[Alain Colcer]

I have always been interested in mindclash, it always seemed odd that Capsuleers didn't engage in this sport more often, as they are the perfect "mental"-controllers in the first place.

Perhaps the match can be decided by whom has the best description of a given "projection" and how it behaves?

[Misan]

That's a pretty subjective metric isn't it?

Also, the card game idea had occurred to me, but seems a little too clunky in practice. Unless we start requiring everyone to download that MTG game. 

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I've been working on various mini-game styles to represent mind clash for quite some time now, and it really depends on what level of complexity you desire and how much overhead you want in these events. You could go as far as creating a stat-based system (for those that register, i wouldn't recommend using in-game stats), or have a board layout for the environment, or you could make the competitions as easy as a hangman style game or based on cards/dice. I think anything you make is going to have a good blend of strategy and chance involved, otherwise people will lose interest. 

[Altantsetseg Naranbaatar]

You could do matrix-based combat... Which is generally described as Rock, Paper, Scissors on steroids.

So you come up with a list of 'moves' that each player can do.  You can have them sent to a third party, or you could try to have a program that accepts input from each player secretly, and when it has both moves, reveals them both to the players.

Here's an example I've seen done in chatrooms before:
http://www.duelingzone.com/dz/tools/dommatrix.pdf

Basically, a hit is 1 point, and an advantage is 1/2 a point.  Players play until someone is at 5 or greater AND ahead by a full point, OR until 15 rounds are up, in which case, it's a draw.

The interesting thing about these sorts of games is that they are more interesting the less uniform they are.  RPS is 100% uniform, so there's really nothing to think about with it.  But in an unbalanced version of the game, certain moves become popular because they have high success rates.  Then, with time, people start using moves that are weaker themselves, but strong against the popular moves.  Strategies can develop, and the whole thing gets fun and exciting!

...Atleast it does to me <.<

EDIT: I forgot to mention the best part, which is that the moves themselves can be very generic.  In that way, descriptions of the action can be 100% written by the characters.  So a mental blast could have no visual component if a player wanted... or it could be a purple beam, or a green-lantern style glowing boxing glove that punches something.  The possibilities are endless!

[lallara zhuul]

How about one of the oldest games in the world.

The riddlethingie where one comes up with a concept and the other one comes up with a concept that 'wins' it.

Have a timer run out after like ten seconds and the one who can't come up with a riposte in that time loses.

Player versus player, no characters involved.

Unless you want limit the play with the concepts that the characters have.

Which would be awesome.

A more complex version of it with the rules of Ars Magica.

[Louella Dougans]

there's a website, "the surrealist" that has a few word-battle game thingies on it.

including Giant Battle Monsters

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/monster.cgi?att=Verin+Hakatain&def=Aria+Jenneth&a=S

or Battle Robots

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/robot.cgi?att=Verin+Hakatain&def=Aria+Jenneth&a=W

might be useful as a ready-made mechanic thing. Or not.

[Lydia Tishal]

I'm not sure there is a non-subjective way of doing this while remaining true to the original idea.

Bioware is fond of using a mechanic where the player goes back and forth with one or more NPCs, and each time dialog is exchanged the "bystanders" raise hands, torches etc to indicate which argument they're currently buying.

Something like that might work. Ten bystanders who are periodically polled in some manner to indicate who they think is winning. Set it up to be "make it, take it" so the person in the lead has an advantage and if things tip too far in one direction things get settled in quick and dramatic fashion.

Still subjective, but at least the subjectivity is mostly removed from the participants.

[hellgremlin]

Trying to turn Mind Clash into a pen-and-paper game seems to not give it due credit. Look at the name. Mind Clash.

I kinda visualize Mind Clash as two opponents battling it out, trying to find weaknesses in each other's minds. Kinda like Rock'Em-Sock'Em Robots, except each robot is built out of your opponent's traumatic childhood, dark secrets and past regrets. Some overlap of each player's memories and experiences would make this work.

[lallara zhuul]

So... webcams, broken glass covered dildos and who stops first loses?

[Katrina Oniseki]

Trying to turn Mind Clash into a pen-and-paper game seems to not give it due credit. Look at the name. Mind Clash.

I kinda visualize Mind Clash as two opponents battling it out, trying to find weaknesses in each other's minds. Kinda like Rock'Em-Sock'Em Robots, except each robot is built out of your opponent's traumatic childhood, dark secrets and past regrets. Some overlap of each player's memories and experiences would make this work.

I'm pretty sure the vidscreens don't visualize the fact that you just forced your opponent to relive a childhood molestation. They visualize big blue and purple spotted tiger dragons with six heads that breath flaming acid from screaming orifices.

[Bastian Valoron]

Trying to turn Mind Clash into a pen-and-paper game seems to not give it due credit. Look at the name. Mind Clash.

I kinda visualize Mind Clash as two opponents battling it out, trying to find weaknesses in each other's minds. Kinda like Rock'Em-Sock'Em Robots, except each robot is built out of your opponent's traumatic childhood, dark secrets and past regrets. Some overlap of each player's memories and experiences would make this work.

I'm pretty sure the vidscreens don't visualize the fact that you just forced your opponent to relive a childhood molestation. They visualize big blue and purple spotted tiger dragons with six heads that breath flaming acid from screaming orifices.

I'm not so sure about it. New Eden is an unforgiving place, its denizens are constantly faced with misfortune and death, they are cold, cruel and at the same time indifferent. Perhaps realistic, painful revelations, gushing up from the contestant's background, might actually give them much greater sadistic/voyeuristic satisfaction than just symbolic, G-rated visual representations. Most characters have some kind of traumas in their past, maybe those could be utilized in this context?

When it comes to Katrina's example, I've never seen anyone writing that kind of material in their backstory, probably because it'd be in bad taste and not fun. I don't see any obvious reason why the same standards wouldn't apply even if we started playing mind clash with hellgremlin's recipe.

[Louella Dougans]

http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=26899

Unlicensed Mindclash Arena

Mind Clash is one of the most popular sports throughout known space, it is as enthusiastically played in the royal court on Amarr Prime as in the gambling halls of the Caldari. However there are a certain cadre of people who think that the official sport is too tame, so they created a new set of rules, to the death - which was promptly banned from Empire space. However their is much underground hunger for this sport so hidden in space arena's have started to be constructed in which sport enthusiasts can enjoy watching their heroes fight and die without the inteference of the beaurcratic empires.