Chatroom Games

Here at the Hollow, we've made sort of a habit of playing various communal, group games in the Game Rooms - the Firepit, Poker Den and the Holorarium. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated, these games are everything from an imposingly-esoteric collection of posts and statements, to a blistering bustercluck of utterly-perplexing impenetrability. To help alleviate this, some of the more popular games, and links to their rules, are included here - as well as a short summary of what the game is about, and the optimal playercounts. 'Average' runtime at various player-levels is included for reference. Currently, games are divided into three main categories - team games, party games, and gambling games.

Team Games

Team Games are games where the players are split into two or more 'teams'. Oftentimes, the objective of these games is to voraciously remove members of the other team from the game, while keeping your own team as full as possible.

Predators & Prey

Predators and Prey, or P&P, is a staple of the chatroom, and the game that launched our fascination with games. It is essentially an adaptation of the popular game Mafia, alternatively called Werewolf, among other things. As per that link, it is a game of knowledge, deception, guile, and cunning - the well-informed minority against an unaware majority. The wolves among the sheep, the foxes in the henhouse. Players are divided into Predators, who - by and large - have knowledge of one another, and are allowed to privately communicate with one another during certain phases of the game, and Prey, who have no knowledge of who among them is a Predator, and who is merely Prey.

During the day-phases, all players will discuss, roleplay, debate on recent events in-game, and then vote one among their number - either the most suspicious, or simply the most unlucky - to be lynched. The lynch is generally carried out voraciously, or, in other words, people get ate. During the night phase, all active Predators in the game agree on a single target to nightkill - and pick one among them to carry the nightkill out. This person, once the GM has verified their target, makes a private post to the target during the night phase, of whatever length, detail and subject matter they can manage during the remainder of the night.

The game ends when there are an equal or lesser number of Prey left as there are living, uneaten Predators, or when all the Predators have been lynched or taken out by any means. There are, however, various special roles to the end of helping either side, that may be in play at any time, and a few that modify the victory conditions themselves! However, in general, whenever one side 'wins', all members of that side, living or devoured, are considered to have won.

P&P is often as exciting as it is stressful, whichever side you're on - sometimes in direct linear correlation! It is challenging, it is difficult, and you will be relying on your luck, skill and wit to get you to the end of the game. As you play, please remember - it's a game about lynching others and in general, removing them from the game, so we all gotta go sometime!

Additional rules, roles, strategies and more can be found at the dedicated Mafia wiki, and many users in the chatroom are often happy to lend advice as to how to maximize your chances of survival and success.

Number of Players: Between 6-9, generally, depending on variant. 12-15 is considered the maximum number that can be safely, sanely balanced and kept track of.
Average Playtime: At 6 players, 1-1 1/2 hours. At 9 players, 2-3 hours. At 12+ players, 3+ hours. However, extreme luck on either side, or other events, may modify play-times up or down.

Party Games

Party Games are games where there are no teams or objectives - no win or loss conditions, just a lot of people being silly and bouncing play off of one another. They are one of the few gametypes on Vulpine Hollow to regularly utilize multiple concurrent GMs, and are played to kill time just as often as they are for any other reason. They're one of the few games where everyone seems to have more fun the more drunk everyone is.

Truth-or-Dare

Truth-or-Dare or T-or-D (also known as TorD) is one of the most basic party games in the world, and generally the second-most-common game played in the chatroom. It is generally extremely easy to understand and play - one player makes a roll using the chatroom's dice numbered at however many people are playing, participating players are numbered based on their order in the room listing, and the roller gets to ask whomever they roll, "Truth or Dare?"

There are several important distinctions between 'real-world' T-or-D and chatroom T-or-D, but all of the distinctions and details are covered in the pertinent article. The game is often laid-back and rules may be bent or broken for the purposes of entertainment and amusement. You are invited to make your questions or dares - asking, or performing - as fun or enticing as you care to, and you may interact freely with other people playing the game - you don't have to wait to be dared to interact with them, but bear in mind how such interactions might affect your ability to take your turns.

Depending on what you are dared to do, a single turn may lead to nothing more than brief amusement, or may instead lead to hours of involved roleplay, as well as everything in-between. If conditions arise such that you are unable to take your turns, there is no shame in temporarily swapping out of the rotation of active players, either to focus on an ongoing RP, or for any other reason whatsoever. Simply announce to the room and GMs that you are doing so, and then, if you drop back in, likewise announce that you are throwing your hat into the ring.

Truth-or-Dare is a fast-paced, hectic game that can be very difficult to keep track of, in totality. The most common variant played on the chat is played with multiple concurrent 'spinners', and thus multiple people taking turns at once, to ensure everyone gets to go in a timely manner. It is often also played with cooldowns and turn-limits. All of these things are explained in the article. T-or-D is essentially the epitome of the 'you don't need to know many of the rules to play' game. Don't be afraid to jump in, if you see it being played!

Number of Players: Between 6-12, generally. Playing with more than 12 players at once is logistically difficult, but not impossible, to manage, and is also tricky to keep track of for participating players. For this reason, certain variants or GMs might limit it to 12 players per 'Round', and simply ask that involved players be judicious in choosing when they are 'involved' enough that they should drop out and focus on their ongoing play, rather than take further turns.
Average Playtime: Because it has no victory or loss conditions, T-or-D has no average time-limit. Games in the chat tend to range from 4-6 hours, but most participating players are not active and involved during this entire span of time. When well-run and properly set up, each 'Round' typically takes about 1-1 1/2 hours, and the game itself typically runs until most participants are either exhausted or sated, or until the GM keels over. The longest game of T-or-D in chat history (featuring a single GM taking no breaks, and even some of the same players throughout most of it) lasted for 26 hours straight, but this is nowhere near the norm.

Spin The Bottle

Spin The Bottle is another basic party game, adapted to the chatroom environment. It is an extremely good icebreaker, and can help newer players or characters get accustomed to others, and show off a bit in the chat. Like in T-or-D, involved players are numbered based on their order in the room listing, and someone rolls a dice numbered with as many sides as there are players. Whoever that person rolls, they have to go up to that person and kiss them!

At least, in the most basic version. Usually, however, 'kiss' can be replaced with everything from a hug, to an alimentary excursion, depending on the interests, moods, and preferences of the players involved. Interaction does not have to end after the kiss, or hug, or anything else, but can instead continue naturally - at least, after the person who got 'kissed' spins the bottle and completes their own turn! Because of its ubiquitous ease of playing, commonly, players will interact with one another in other ways while the proceedings are ongoing.

At present, Spin The Bottle has no 'standardized' ruleset, because it hasn't been played as often as other games.

Number of Players: Any number. There is currently no standardized Round/Turn structure, so in the most basic incarnation, however many people are interested, simply sit down and go to town.
Average Playtime: There is also no average time for the game, as it has been only rarely played thus far. The game has often lasted at least 2 hours, however, and has gone longer, as well. Being as it is as much an icebreaker game as it is anything else, time limits are often secondary to everyone involved having as much fun as they can while they're together.

Gambling Games

Texas Gulp 'Em

Texas Gulp 'Em, or TGE, is Texas Hold 'Em poker with a vorish twist. Rather than try to do this time-worn classic justice, let it just be said that prospective players are best-off reading both the VHWiki article on TGE, and as much of the Wikipedia article on Hold 'Em, as they can, in addition to perhaps reading a poker strategy guide and a listing of winning hands.

The basic structure of the game, however, is that all players are dealt two 'hole' cards, known only to themselves and the dealer, and place bets going in a roundtable-order determined by their position in the room. The game is divided into four major stages - pre-Flop, Flop, Turn, and River, differentiated primarily by how many 'table' cards are down and visible. During the pre-Flop, players have the option of doing any one of several things - folding without placing a bet, placing an initial bet (if there has not yet been a bet placed), 'calling' - which is to bet the same as the current ongoing bet, or 'raising' - which is to bet the current ongoing bet, plus however much more you state.

When all bets at the table from non-folded players are equal, the Flop - three cards dealt upright on the table - is revealed to all players. The objective of the game is to form the best 5-card hand you can out of your two 'hole' cards, the Flop, and eventually, the Turn and the River (the 4th and 5th table cards dealt, respectively.) TGE is played with 'blinds', which are forced bets by two players adjacent to a constantly-moving 'dealer chip'. The Big blind is the minimum bet for that round, and the little blind is half of the Big blind.

Texas Gulp 'Em is a moderately-paced, extremely strategic game, as any variant of poker will be. It relies on your ability to bluff convincingly, to maximize the advantages given to you, and to do your best to keep your chips! Any player who 'cleans out' another - takes their last chip - has the chance to eat that player, or if they should so choose, offering them up to any predators sitting on the sidelines. The game continues until there is only one player left sitting at the table (at times, exceptionally-fattened by their victory.)

Number of Players: Anywhere between 4-10. The more players there are, however, the longer games will generally run. The average game has 6 players.
Average Playtime: Varies depending on luck, blinds, player actions, and number of players. Games of TGE typically run longer than any other game on the chat, however, and can take between 3 hours to even 6 at the outside, for extremely long or large games. However, the 'ideal' run-time is between 3-4 hours, typically.

Liar's Dice

Liar's Dice is a game of deception, trickery, and statistics. Players each start with five 6-sided dice, and at the start of each 'round', these dice are rolled in secret to the GM or Dicemaster. Each involved player only knows the result of his own roll for certain, and players then take bets, in a roundtable manner, on exactly how many dice of a given facing are present on the table.

In the current incarnation of the game, each 'bet' is made up of two elements - the number of dice bet, and the facing of these dice. For instance, if you bet "Two 3's", then you are betting that out of all the dice currently on the table, two or more of them came up 3, this round. Successive bets must either increase the number of dice bet, or change the facing bet on. If "Two 3's" was the initial bet that round, then any bet following that bet must be two or more of any facing. Thus, a legal and allowed bet would be either something like "Three 3's" or "Two 5's" - but not "One 3" or "One 6". The 'number of dice bet can never go down in the same round, it must either increase or stay level if the facing bet is changed.

Betting continues, and grows more statistically improbable, until (in the current incarnation) one player makes a Call. At that pound, the round stops, the GM counts up the bet vs. the total of the dice in that round, and dice are won or lost by the caller and the bettor based on the accuracy of the bet. When a player loses their last die, they are 'out' by the hand of whoever called the last bet, and their fate is determined by that person. The game continues until all but one player is 'out'.

Liar's Dice is currently a very new game in the chat, and is prone to rule-changes and refinements as tweaks are made. Watch the article for info!

Number of Players: Anywhere between 5-10. The more players there are, however, the longer games will generally run. The average game has 6 players.
Average Playtime: Varies depending on several factors. Like TGE, however, games tend to run on the longer side, with 3-4 hours not being uncommon.

Board Games

Games that require a board, and most likely pieces as well. Could be played on roll20.net, or perhaps elsewhere.

Nom!

Nom! is a race game in which players try to reach the objective (a "treasure room" in a temple, in this case) before anyone else, while gathering equipment/power and trying not to get devoured by any other players, or the beasts in the land. Certain factors of the game are still being tweaked, but the games run so far have been decent.

Number of Players: Currently has been capped at 4, but could expand to 4 or shrink to 3. Average Playtime: A few hours, at the moment.

Dine & Dash

Dine and Dash is another race game on a circular board, the objective being to simply make a circuit of the board and leave - with one of the other players as a snack! Ludo with a vorish twist.

In-development Games

Self-explanatory title! These are games that are still being developed, or need playtesting to flesh out any bugs or odd circumstances.

JR System

A D20 system that's mostly based off of D&D, with many alterations that allow for: custom lines of attack, seducing enemies vs. attacking, and other fun things. It's been worked out up to the point of character creation and a walk through how combat would work, but in the future it would ideally be a team game used for dungeon crawls (with traps, enemies, bosses, campaigns even) and possibly 1v1 battles, if people were so inclined. A PDF with rules and such will be out eventually, but for now, the WIP rules are on the wiki here: JR_Rules

Number of Players: Most likely a smaller, dedicated group, 2 to 6 plus the DM running it.
Average Playtime: Sessions would be a few hours long, or longer, scheduled around the times that players can be there. In terms of a full-on campaign, these games could go on for weeks, but for a single dungeon crawl, it could be from a few hours to an afternoon. Hard to judge, since the game hasn't been run through yet.

DEVOURS

A simplified, universal system for quick battles and simple, off-the-cuff games, particularly the less serious ones. This is being worked on by Scree.

Provision is made for various methods of dealing with prey, from simple swallowing up to spiritual combat and absorption. So far it's mostly good for fighting, though mechanics for social interactions and more general purpose roleplaying are in the pipeline.

Future plans include ways to tailor the seriousness of the campaign to particular player groups (particularly the consequences of being eaten) and alternative means of subduing prey.

The WIP of the rules can be found here: DEVOURS