Dev Blog #2: Betting, Drinking, and Gating

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This is the second blog post discussing the recent changes to Farrago Tavern ruleset (OK.. It’s a little late). In this post we wanted to share how we addressed overall game length and a broken point system.

Game Length

An issue we hadn’t counted on with the original design of the game was just how badly a players train of thought is disrupted when a bet is placed against them or a drink is purchased for them. As the number of interruptions grows the games get exponentially longer. Considering this we’ve decided to gate how much influence players can have over each other and flattening it instead of players with more points being able to drag the game out at their leisure. This change manifests as a set number of tokens each player gets at the start of each round, these tokens are not points but can be used to earn them by placing bets and buying drinks. 

Combine with the rework of the beginning of each player's round from the 5 pick 3 method to the conclusion card model we have now, this drastically reduces the per player turn time. This change has made the game significantly more approachable for novice players by simply reducing the time commitment.

The Point System

As a result of the above change we’ve had to rework the point system a bit as well. This system now functions entirely as reward system for engaging with other players and telling good stories. Previously due to the dual nature of points caused some major engagement issues with the game. Players that wanted to engage with other players would spend points to buy drinks and place bets for the other players. Meanwhile players that were solely concerned with winning by getting the most points were better served hoarding those points and hoping they come out on top by telling the best story.

This second behavior is antithetical to the original design of the game where winning was expected to be the result of both telling the best story and participating in other players stories successfully. Instead of trying to write into the rules ‘please do not do this’, or guilt players into participating more than they’d like to in order to win we’ve elected to rework the system. With the new approach of points only being rewarded for telling stories and participating in other players storytelling. Attempting to horde tokens is both pointless and counterproductive if you are driven to win the game because you will both need to tell a good story and be actively placing bets or buying drinks in order to accumulate enough points to win.

While reworking the point and bet system another small tweak was made, storytellers are still incentivized to use bets they are given as they translate into points. However, you no longer have to take all bets to get the points in question, each bet taken translates to one point you will be rewarded. This puts some onus on the other players to make sure they place bets the storyteller can actually use, if they do not they are out two points and somebody else at the table with a better bet will be rewarded instead.

Together we feel these changes make some much needed improvements to the games play-ability and scoring structures to keep it fun for all players.