So I'm starting to experiment with games of chance. Building a little game of craps in fact. (With hindsight, I should have started with fan tan which should be much easier. Isn't hindsight wonderful?)

Anyway. My problem is this. What happens when your guest loses badly and runs out of money? If they can't get any more, then that means that they can't play your games ever again, which is not really what you want. If they can easily get hold of more, then what's the point of playing?

I've got some possible ideas for a way out of this dilema, but if anybody else has some suggestions then I'd like to hear them.

My mind may be not so good (I don't think we have one of these yet though), but if there were a contraption linked to a newday starting that could help. I assume you're working in our 'places' even though this is a 'non-programming' problem.

Another option is that you could grant people a memory number as they enter your gamespace, then as they play it could subtract from that memory. Then maybe the next time they leave and return it resets to the original?

I'm still learning a lot about all this stuff, but that seems like the most likely response?



-Rose

Or maybe...the host of the game does something after they lose, and then the guest can wheedle their way back into grace by doing something ridiculous like drinking an entire skronky pot? All through pages or somesuch of course. They can opt out or do the 'nasty' thing, whatever it is...

In general, you'll want them to have to do something to get more money. What exactly that "something" is will depend on the theme of your Place. Begging on the streets? Running an errand for an NPC? Threading a maze that only sometimes has a path through it? Solving a puzzle? Stealing from an NPC who has money? -- and maybe they'll get caught stealing and thrown out on their ear and have to sneak back in, which may or may not work.

Look at it this way: losing all their money is a hook. It's the beginning of a new story-segment!

Sessine's idea of them having to run an errand has a lot of merit. I'm assuming you have access to multiple places? You could have them collect a memento from an NPC, take it to a different place to swap it for a different memento, then bring the new item back. When they talk to the NPC again, he trades the memento for house currency. Only problem is having to ferry the items back and fourth every so often.

Anything you keep 'in house' will have to require a good many clicks and either be random or require a lot more clicks. If it's just random but requires few clicks, it becomes spammable - and therefore easy; keep going until you get the outcome you want. If it isn't random, people will quickly 'crack' it, and then where's the fun?

Making people traipse across the island inevitably combines both lots of clicks and randomness with a guaranteed successful outcome first time. For maximum fun, you could have a variety of possible errands that the house selects from randomly.

That's brilliant, Wongo! Multi-Place errands could have so many applications.

Thinking about how to make such a scheme self-maintaining... An enhancement to the Take Memento contraption to let it stash the memento into the inventory of a different placeid would help. Or, come to think of it... such an enhanced version would be a great Lodge item, because you wouldn't absolutely need it to do this, but it would be a lovely convenience.*

(There'd be memento losses over time to player inventories, whenever a player stopped without completing the errand, so eventually supplies would still have to be replenished, but it wouldn't be such a constant chore.)

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* I'm going to run over to that thread and add this idea to the list.