I’m thinking of drawing up a gameboard (ambitious for someone who is only up to EP 4, I know) so I drafted out a set of rules.
I seek critique, to see if someone can spot any issues with the rules. Also I’m kind of posting them here in case anyone decides they want to use them before I finish drawing up my gameboard.
Not all of the colors used here are used in Umineko (to my knowledge anyway), so I’d say this thread is spoiler free up to EP 2, but until Aspi gives me the go ahead, I’ll say don’t read unless you’ve finished Ep 4, alright? (In case I accidentally put a spoiler in without noticing, I’m defaulting to the epsiode I’ve read up to.)
Rule 1: The game will (mostly) be written ahead of time by the game master, and the story will gradually be released in the thread, scene by scene. The players must aim to defeat the gamemaster, by answering all mysteries the gamemaster presents them with.
Rule 2: All of the players have been collectively assigned one piece on the gameboard. Anything they see, the players will see, therefore any account from their POV can be 100% trusted. This piece will hereafter be referred to as “The Main Piece”
Rule 3: If a scene is described from a character’s POV then they would agree with that presentation of the scene. However, this person could be lying, or they could be being deceived.
Rule 4: If something is said in red text, then it is true.
Rule 5: The players’ aim in this game is to get to the end of the gameboard with none of the gamemaster’s lime questions unanswered. Answering a lime question with magic is an invalid move. Lime questions must be mysteries whose answers are not immediately obvious, and pertain to the killings that are occurring.
Rule 6: Proper form for answering lime questions is to use blue text to propose a theory that answers the question. The blue should only be used to state theories that answer lime questions. A blue is struck down and made invalid if it contradicts any pre-existing reds, and the game master will note whenever a blue is struck down. A blue can be struck down by a red after the blue is first put forward, (obviously). A blue is valid as long as it is not struck down by a red, it does not necessarily have to be correct, it just needs to be valid.
Rule 7: At various points in the game, usually when a mystery presents itself we will have a round table battle of Lime, Red and Blue. These Battles help give the game a bit of spice, but I reserve the right to keep cards up my sleeve until later. They will end at an arbitrary point, as determined by myself, the gamemaster.
Rule 8: The gamemaster reserves the right to end the gameboard at any time. The Main Piece’s death is usually where the gameboard ends, but this does not necessarily have to be the case.
Rule 9: When the gameboard ends, the game will move into the final showdown. In the final showdown, the players must attempt to answer any remaining relevant lime questions while the gamemaster tries to come up with as many unanswered limes as they can, until the gamemaster loses.
Rule 10: If the players cannot succeed in the final showdown, then the gamemaster must disclose the solution to the board to at least one trusted person (like a Moderator). This trusted person must then announce (in the red) if the solution “checks out”, or not. This trusted person may no longer participate in the game, and may not disclose the solution unless the gamemaster says they can. If they say the solution does not "check out* due to it being contradictory to one of the reds or a similar issue, then the gamemaster must privately ask the trusted person why it doesn’t work. If the gamemaster cannot provide a counter argument in private telling the trusted person why it makes sense, then the game is null and void. If this occurs, the bogus solution may be revealed.
Those cover the mechanics, finally, some housekeeping rules:
Rule 11: The gamemaster may elect to fuse two blues together if they say the same thing. This makes his planning sheets easier to organize and should be announced in the thread. If a player feels they do not mean the same thing, they may voice their objections in the thread.
Rule 12: You do not have to get the right answer to answer a lime question. You just have to give a valid answer, which is not contradicted by the reds. This means that the final solution proposed by the Players that wins the game may not be the exact solution the gamemaster had in mind, and it may differ on small matters that the gamemaster did not bother to argue back on.
To use an Umineko example for Rule 12, if the players give a wrong answer to the lime question How did the marked rose vanish? but the gamemaster decides to not waste time on debating the matter, then by the end of the game, the Player’s theory might state that Gohda plucked it as a cooking ingredient, and he told no-one because he feared a punishment for using such a wilted rose, while the truth at the end may turn out to be that it was plucked by Kinzo because he lost the rose in his study.
Rule 13: Keeping the games short would make them easier to write, but someone could make a REALLY LONG STORY with these rules. If they do so, noting that the story will be REALLY LONG in the first post would be a good idea so players know what kind of commitment they’re getting themselves into, though story length can be guessed somewhat by the number of pieces.
Rule 14: Character actions should make a certain degree of internal sense, according to their prior actions. You can’t have some giant wimp secretly be the killer unless you can justify why he was pretending(?) to be a wimp.