The Heart, She Holler

[itsacoaster]

TAKE OVER THE HOLLER GAME

After 100 generations of Heartshe inbreeding, occasional power struggles for control of the holler do not come as a surprise. Realizing that the neverending cycle of attempted murders is a threat to the purity of the bloodline, a new method was developed to determine, at last, who should control the holler. Rather than using poison, extended pregnancy, or nefarious chicken dinners to seize control of the holler, the process has been streamlined into this here board game.

THE BASICS:
In order to find out how many spaces you move, you make a post stating that you want to roll. Each post has a unique 8-digit message ID. Click the spoiler to see how to identify the message ID:

Spoiler

Look at the ones digit (the last digit). If your number is 1-5, move ahead that many spaces. The numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 correspond to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. In the above example, the post's message ID ends in a 7, which means I would move ahead 2 spaces.

Fight amongst yourselves to choose a token representing Hurlan, Hurshe, Hambrosia, or Hoss. To determine the order of play, make a post and look at the message ID. The largest ones digit goes first, and the smallest goes last. In case of a tie, look at the last 2 digits to determine the order. In the rare case of another tie, look at the last 3 digits, and so on.

HOW TO PLAY:
Each token begins above the board. On your first turn, roll, and move forward the specified number of spaces. If you roll a 3, move to space 3. In subsequent turns, your token moves in numerical order.
There are three kinds of spaces you can land on.

• PLOT: Move ahead 6 spaces, or directly down one row.
• THWART: Choose another player and move his or her token backwards 6 spaces, or directly up one row. There is one THWART space on the board that can be used by landing on PLOT first and moving down a row.
• IMMUNE: As long as your token is on an IMMUNE space, you cannot be targeted if an opponent lands on THWART. In addition, you cannot be targeted by THWART if you are on the first row of the board.

The object of the game is to be as cutthroat as possible to be the first to land on Space #30, which holds the town deed and the key to the city.

HOW TO WIN:
You must land exactly on Space #30 to win--it's not trivial to seize control of the holler! If you overshoot #30, continue advancing your token starting with Space #25. For example, a player on Space #28 who rolls a 4 moves to 29, 30, 25, then 26. The danger in overshooting #30 is that if you do not land on an IMMUNE space, another player can THWART your attempt to win the game! Once a player lands on #30, the game is over.

ON TAKING TURNS:
A turn-based board game on a message board can be difficult due to different people's real life schedules. When it becomes your turn, you have 24 hours to roll and take your turn. If the 24 hours expires, you lose your turn, however, you can still take your turn as long as the next player has not rolled. There is no penalty for losing a turn the first two times it happens. If you are on an IMMUNE space, you retain your immunity even if you lose your turn. DANGER: If you lose three turns over the course of the game, you are disqualified! It is recommended that you subscribe to the game thread (go to Topic Options -> Subscribe) so that you receive emails during the course of the game.

That's it! If you have any questions, ask. Have fun!

[itsacoaster]

Did I cover everything?

[itsacoaster]

We'll stick with this board for a while, but there have been a few ideas that have popped into my head for future iterations of the game. It's easy enough to change the board in the middle of the game--I just delete some stuff and type some other stuff. So we could have "Chance" spaces of some kind, where you could move backwards, or lose a turn, or even change the layout of the board, like adding an IMMUNE space, or swapping two spaces, or maybe even moving the finish space elsewhere. Dunno. But that is for later. Just something to keep in mind.

* * *

noobull or Ex or another HELPeR, if there ever comes a time where you want to run a game, you can. First download KompoZer, and we can arrange a way for me to send you the HTML file where I keep the board. KompoZer allows you to move tokens around the board just by dragging them. Because of the automatic line break generation in the HTML editor, you have to use this Remove Line Breaks tool to put all the code in one big blob. But we can work out the details later.

[noobull]

Cool beans sir!

I may have difficulty playing since my hands were chopped off and replaced by two cans of Heartshe beer.

[itsacoaster]

If anyone wants to take a look at the HTML file I used to make the board, click the "A placeholder for my future website" link in my signature, and there you'll find a link to the board.

[itsacoaster]

I'm going to tweak a couple of things for the next board game.

Move THWART from 17 to 18.
Add THWART to 6 and 13.

In effect, this only adds one THWART space, since #11 - PLOT was essentially another THWART space.
Now, it's easier to THWART if you get to a slow start or if you're THWARTed back to the first row.
It also makes the distribution of THWARTs more uniform. Except for Space #1 and the last row of the board, there's a 40% chance to land on THWART, unless you already are on THWART, then there's only a 20% chance.

One more tweak:
I'm not going to disqualify for not being able to play. The only thing I was worried about was sitting on IMMUNE forever, so if you happen to be on an IMMUNE space when you lose your turn, you get moved backwards 1 space.

Here are the new board graphics for the new THWART spaces: