[haggis] Trying to make some things concrete

[Chris Nash <chris_nash@prodigy.net>]

Well, 91 ended pretty crazily. Turned out that daisy wasn't as powerful after all, even with two
bonus rules. Just blindly going for the sets rule meant I ended up picking up a whole load of
multipliers I didn't know about. When a game ends convinced that you'll lose/win and you end up
winning/losing instead... makes it obvious something is amiss.

Auctions... the 'offers' and 'wants' board ideas. I think I've got something that might work. For
pbem, we certainly have to have some turn-based notion. OK, every turn, everyone must post to the
offers and wants board... let's say "haggis advertise xx crnash xxxxxx 9,luke daisy,jesse,enos" or
whatever. List everything you wouldn't mind giving away, and things you're looking for in a
transaction. Make it like a werewolf day. Everyone must advertise before the game proceeds. You
could change your advertisement many times during the day - just like people change votes in
werewolf. Your judgement as to what cards are good, which are bad, and what special rules are out
there is going to be affected by what's advertised. If you want to bluff, you can bluff.

For the "night" section, you no longer have just the rules you have to base your offers on - you
also have the wishlists. Let's not allow "all" offers, your offer has to be directed to a specific
player. I think the trading can take place as normal - with one major exception. Any rules you
pick up during the night are NOT revealed until the next morning. That makes it fair, since you
won't gain any extra information from a trade (or from the time you performed it). All players (or
all except one, anyway) will have to "conclude" the night's trading. That gives every player time
to gather offers for what they advertised, select the best offer, and so on. If everyone just
concludes with no trading, it's a submit.

Sounds a bit pedestrian, perhaps, but I doubt it would take more than two or three iterations at
most to run a game. I think this approach might reasonably solve a lot of the "goal-less" plays in
the first few trades. (Several people saying they want a daisy is probably a good indicator
there's a big daisy rule out there, so even without the rule you might decide either you want
daisy too... or your just going to hang on to them for a while). You'll at least have some
motivation to make decisions, and more complete information based on all the player's lists.

One more thing while I think about it (this one maybe more contentious). Would it help if the
everyone knew which cards are featured in rules? You can't guess the value of a rule in an offer,
but it might help you assume "relative values" of rules if you know which cards they refer to. The
only way to successfully allow "mixed" transactions is some way to judge the relative values of
rules and cards, I think this might do it, and it makes the "set" rules a lot less attractive,
too.

Sorry, went on too long. Just thinking aloud here.