Running Man

With admin permission, I'm wanting to start a regular, possibly weekly event called Running Man where-in volunteer contestants have the opportunity to earn three levels of cash prizes in a three round contest over the course of three days.

The first round involves 1-5 contestants earning 25,000ch for remaining free from capture for a period of 24 hours while being followed by a live NLM eyepod that the entire dome can view on NLM Channel 69. During this round, a 5,000-10,000ch bounty has been put on each contestant that can be collected by anyone that live captures the contestant and returns him or her to NLM Tower.

The second round involves the remaining contestants eliminating each other and earning 10,000-15,000ch for each elimination they perform, with the last contestant standing earning 50,000ch for staying alive until the end of the round while being followed by an NLM eyepod. Contestants will randomly draw a number tied to a specific weapon and receive that weapon for the duration of the round. Since firearms are illegal in WC, I'm thinking mostly blades, melee weapons, and random junk items with the possibility of not having a weapon at all but something innocuous like armor or a medpak.

The final round involves the last remaining contestant running from dedicated professional hunters who will earn 25,000-50,000ch for eliminating the final contestant. If the contestant survives this round while eliminating all of the hunters, they receive 100,000ch.

At each level of the game, those who move onto the next round will have the opportunity to back out of the next round and take the winnings they've already received.

This sort of ties in Friday Night Firefights with Battle Royale and Running Man, but televises it and makes it a corporate funded concept that can be self perpetuating. Additionally, it's been suggested that maybe we figure a way to actually bet on people using the betting system we have available.

Thoughts, ideas, tweaks, comments? Help me out here.

2CH,

Grim

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 1:30 AM

Thought: It's fun to be the running man :D

By Hunter at Dec 23, 2011 1:30 AM

Your welcome ;)

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 1:35 AM

An added element of the game could be that each contestant will be given a pair of dice that they can roll once every fifteen minutes. If the dice are even or cocked, their bounty is turned off. If their dice roll odds, their bounty is on. If their dice roll lucky 7, their bounty is double for that time period.

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 2:24 AM

I like the dice aspect. I think the players should use dice ICly to determine outcomes of more things. Random is fun!

By Hunter at Dec 23, 2011 2:57 AM

I'll sanction and endeavor to provide what-ever code support is needed for this. (It strikes me as something that to a very large extent can be player run, assuming the show is to be presented by your character I'd leave the rules, content and evil twists of the show largely up to you).

Prize money will probably need to be discussed as it's not really within my power to put a large chunk of chy into the economy on a weekly basis.

(don't know how much I'll be around over the Christmas period, but you can hit me up via the usual channels if you want to discuss it... although I don't think my @sindome.org email forwards works anymore.)

By Rastus2 at Dec 23, 2011 8:37 AM

I agree, though I need a way to actually create pay outs to the contestants that don't require withdrawing huge sums of money from the bank or actually requiring an admin be on hand in order to create pay outs or add contestants. Maybe a Running Man employment terminal of some sort combined with a cash 'n' carrion for the more bloody aspects of the game wherein corpses have to be verified or returned to get prize money. I was considering that the pay outs could be halved or quartered depending on how it goes. Additionally, each contestant and/or hunter would have to register or apply to play the game.

Another aspect I've considered is having a block of channels for the show, rather than one, so each contestant and or hunter has a live feed that people can switch to and make bets on. That can be done with the existing system, but would require someone at the NLM consoles for the duration of the show if we wanted a single feed with multiple inputs that are switched to over time.... unless--we can somehow code a feed to switch between a block of inputs every few minutes. Though I -really- have to wonder how much effort that would take with the existing kludge kode for the current eyepod transmission system. Far simpler just to open up a few channels as part of the "Running Man" block feed and slap an eyepod on each one.

And speaking of, is there a way to ignore or turn off a feed on the monitors in the NLM control room? I was seriously having problems last night when channel 352 popped up on the monitor showing Johnny Seinfeld episodes during the test event with Rei. Maybe a way to focus on specific monitors and ignore others is in order, because it was getting schizophrenic trying to read through all that text, an that was just two feeds.

Anyway, let me know what I can do to help idea-wise and also, oh players, help me tweak this so that it runs smoothly and is fun for everybody involved. I'd love any input, comments, or suggestions provided to make Running Man an interesting part of the Dome experience.

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 11:18 AM

Hrm. This -could- be fully automated. There's a running man terminal. You apply to be a contestant at the terminal, and upon approval you come back to it and request gear, wherein it spits out a disposable running man jumpsuit and attaches a RM Eyepod to you. Maybe the approved contestant requests are emailed in-game to a @nlm.wc email account associated with the gameshow. During round 2, the terminal randomly assigns a player one weapon/junk item/healing item/piece of armor and spits it out at them for use during the round, and also accepts contestant corpses for elimination claims. For round 3, professional hunters can sign up Cash'N'Carrion style to take out the final contestant, or we somehow have a regular group of NLM employed hunters who do the job. I personally like the idea of hunters being people who, right off the street, can apply to hunt and if approved get in on the action.

I think round 1 is more capture the flag or flag football than beat the contestants up and drag them to the Running Man terminal. We don't have to capture the contestant and retrieve them, but instead have to retrieve an item from them, such as their jumpsuit or something, and turn it in at the terminal, though I'd rather the contestant be alive and well and the only guarantee of that is if they're scanned at the terminal. Unsavory characters might just outright kill a player in round one to get the smallish reward for capturing them, take the item that must be scanned to the Running Man terminal, and get the cash, rather than take the time to take the contestant up to the terminal.

Also, there's the issue of retrieving RM eyepods as well throughout the course of the game. If somebody dies, the eyepod won't follow anybody else if they don't have control of it. Also, those pesky eyepods have some issues that I won't discuss publically that may cause problems with the game if they arise.

Finally, I've pondered full automation, wherein the game won't begin until a minimum quota of contestants is reached, say 1-5, and will run each round on a counter of 24 hours before it moves onto the next round with the new objectives. The room in which the Running Man terminal is located should not allow killing, and should be located in the NLM facility in order to discourage hiding and sneak killing nearby. It -will- happen, trust me. Pay outs should happen at anytime during each round, allowing a contestant to back out of the game, and should be allowed as a cashout or possibly a bank transfer depending on how much cash the contestant receives. Back to automation. The game takes three days, requires a minimum quota of contestants, and also requires at least one hunter to continue round 3. A contestant who has lost during the current game cannot register as a hunter and vice versa. You can be either, but not both.

Still thinking of specifics. Help me out here people. This could be fun!

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 11:57 AM

I've seen the Survivor:Wastelands Edition ad running for years and years, but i was never sure if there was actually a way to do it.

I like the idea of having multiple reality 'series' on NLM which you can either watch or become a part of.

By Hunter at Dec 23, 2011 12:42 PM

Well, we're working on it. This'll sort of combine all of the previous ones into a mega game that lasts three days. Maybe every week or every month or every couple of weeks depending on what the admin determine is the best way to not screw up the economy by dumping so much money into it.

By Grim at Dec 23, 2011 12:47 PM

So some more thoughts:

This game loses its edge and enjoyment very rapidly for the person being chased. It was fun when I was actively dodging people and running, and then everyone logged off and we had some nice downtime.

Then, when I got back online I wanted to progress with the challenge and my IC story that had been set before me. I couldn't. The things I needed to do weren't coded, and despite at least 15 requests of admin help with RPing an attempt at disabling the camera, the only response I got for 8 hours was "I'm gonna let you sweat it out a little more".

That's not fun. I was left to wander and RP to myself about trying to swat at this thing that just did a scripted "got out of the way" response every time. Eventually, I got bored and ran some crates to afford a cube. Yay, so entertaining!

If it had been a legit planned show, with some random off the street, fine. That would be cool - that's what they signed up for. I tiered my skills and built my character up to this (and was even issued the challenge in such a way) that I should have been able to capture/take control of the damned thing. But I couldn't. At all. No matter what.

Next time just have Cosmo beat me to death and I'll go do something more useful with my time.

By Hunter at Dec 24, 2011 10:27 AM

Unfortunately, that's not in the nature of roleplay. The quick solution isn't always the best. Sadly there were no admin on who could help you RP removing the device, and that unfortunately is outside of my control. I, too, am a player. I have no present links to the other side of the curtain but, and here's the caveat, you could have been patient, waited for me to get through my real world obligations (I work the graveyard shift), and could have RP'd with me watching you do your tech thing on the eyepod and just let me OOCly take it off of you with you and I agreeing that you successfully did it. Problem solved. NLM job interview in hand. 25,000ch in the bank.

Instead, you ragequit and killed off your character after dying in the Park. You had plenty of options, even up to the point that you decided to take a skydive. People were actively looking for your character and spent time and money and energy trying to keep you from dying and losing everything, but you were not patient enough to allow those events and options to unfold and quit. You ducked out of the opportunity to continue roleplay with a bunch of people who were more than willing to keep you alive and get you where you wanted to be. Just because this is a gameworld doesn't mean it's going to be easy to get exactly what you want right out of the starting gate. You had options and you yourself decided to burn your bridges.

That said, I cannot control NPCs or how other players interact with you. I cannot control your actions. I cannot control the number of people in-game or whether or not we have enough throughput of people in order to make the roleplay that interesting. I cannot control whether or not there are admin in-game. But what you and I and all role players can do in the course of roleplay is work around these and other limitations that are outside of our control and make the best of the situation at hand. I'm sorry your experience wasn't up to your expectations, and while you may indicate now that it would have been easier for NLM corpsec to beat you to death, I did my best with the resources at hand to give you an entertaining way out of a situation that could have been a lot worse and a lot more brutal. Why? Because it would be what Jimmy Babylon would do and because it -wouldn't- be the easy way out, even though it could have been far simpler to invest as little time as possible as a player (not as a character) in terms of time and energy spent on RP in simply calling security or the Judges on Rei. I would much rather you have a fun experience to the best of my capacity to provide it and lose valuable sleep that I can't get back before having to head into work, than have you bored and lurking about.

While I'm sorry to see Rei exit the stage, I'll be more than happy to see your next character into the game. But I must emphasize to you that the game isn't easy in the beginning and more often than not gets more complicated as the life of your character progresses, that RP situations aren't all going to be simple hack/slash/kill the player character situations, that the other characters you run into aren't going to be as one-sided as some NPCs and will have motives and methods contrary to your own character's, that players and admin aren't just going to give you the easy way out, that roleplay is more complicated than an Acme Courier run, and that above all else most roleplay and experience in Withmore City is supposed to be fun.

So, have fun.

And as a final aside, I see that you've lurked on the BgBB since 2002. You are by no means a new player character and should through experience already know these things.

2CH,

Grim

By Grim at Dec 24, 2011 12:30 PM

Rei isn't dead, he's just gone a little nuts from cloning.

I do know what you say about your ability to RP when you're away, and I understand that. I, too, have things in RL that need to pull me away from SD. I had obligations last night that precluded me from being on at the same time as you.

While it may have been better to be patient and act it all out in some senses, that would have ended up putting it well behind the deadline for your challenge. Even if we can't be there, the world goes on, and time ticks away. 24 hours is 24 hours, and while we may not be too involved in the RP when we're away, others were actively looking for and interacting with us because of the widespread coverage of our antics.

About the admin situation: There *WERE* admins on who could help me, and they either ignored me or refused. If there is a reason they won't/can't, that's fine, but I wasn't apprised of why that was. Apparently, it was possible to catch the camera in code and I just had no idea it could be done. After trying 15 times and failing every time, I figured it couldn't be done in code and sought out the admin help I previously mentioned.

I went down to the park to bum around and try to involve some mixer toons who were on, namely Ben. Well...it turns out that a fully grown man gets so exhausted from walking in shadows and hiding behind trash cans that - despite having a several-pound chunk of metal in his hand - when attacked by a wild dog he can't even put up his hands in defense. It's not like my character is a body builder, but come on - a dog? No way.

That provoked a little rage, but was not the reason I quit. I quit because I had to go somewhere, and it wasn't exactly worth watching the 20 minutes of "you float through blah blah blah" and not even being able to chat. While offline, I started writing up a whole new character which would be entirely RP, no code interaction(because let's face it: half the things I wanted to do are broken balance-wise, convoluted, or just plain disabled(can't rob a store, really?) I was going to make him a much more interactive and non-corpie character.

With my mind set on a new toon, I decided to go "clone crazy" and off myself for the last time. Upon doing so, I realized that I had another clone because someone had vat-cloned me instead of letting my clone pick up - hence the second skydive.

Well, someone vat-cloned me -again- so here I am. I'm back alive, despite wanting to build a new toon. But I'm still clone crazy, and that's how I'll stay. How you want to handle my challenge and the televised demise is up to you, but I doubt my character any longer has the mental faculties to work for NLM.

By Hunter at Dec 24, 2011 1:15 PM

Well, we'll find out when we both can RP :) You never know, Rei and his clone-crazy self may end up at NLM after all, but that's up to you and whether or not you're willing to ride it out, crazy character or no. It may even be fun, and in the interim as you decide on what your next char will be, have fun with this one until he really gets the demise he's looking for. That said, I'm off to work and hope things cool down enough for us to all RP some more. I'll be on around 2:00 AM CST tonight if you're up for it. In the mean time, chill, expect things to be borked codewise, work around it, and have fun with the other players. As somebody once said, "You can dooo eeeet!"

By Grim at Dec 24, 2011 1:27 PM

Quote: from Hunter on 3:15 pm on Dec. 24, 2011[br]...There *WERE* admins on who could help me, and they either ignored me or refused.

There was one admin on, who isn't terribly active, and was on/off idle at the time doing other things and trying to keep one eye on the MOO to offer low level assistance for urgent problems.

You're one of several players, all of whom would appreciate some level of admin assistance to do x/y or z and requested things over xhelp, but you're the only one who's decided to be unpleasant about it and seem to have the idea that you have some kind of entitlement to my immediate attention.

It's Christmas, I have other things to do, and I don't much appreciate having to deal with a bombardment of complaints about you and logs of your behaviour.

Rightly or wrongly, for the sake of other players I've taken steps to temporarily prevent you from logging in so people can go about their business without unnecessary grief on OOC-Chat and having to leave the channel to avoid being dragged into your grievances.

In truth, you could easily circumvent the steps I've taken if you're simply interested in disruption as they're fairly minimal measures. I'll make a polite request that you don't do that, and at some point after the holidays you can come back on and discuss your grievances with admin rather than disrupting the game for other players.

I sincerely apologize for what might seem like a rather draconian response, but given the current level of admin activity (ie, minimal) versus the level of disruption and complaint from other players, I feel this is a reasonable temporary measure to prevent any escalating animosity in the absence of admin.

Take a break, enjoy Christmas with your family or who-ever you're going to be spending it with and if you need to vent, direct it my way (although bear in mind I'm unlikely to respond until the New Year).

All the best for Christmas and the New Year!

Ross (Rastus)

(I'm having to log onto SD to act on this and post on the forums at 1.30am on Christmas day having just come in from the pub where I received a number of emails about you, so rest assured, I'm going to great lengths to be civil about this without letting it fuck up my holidays. So, I re-iterate my request that you take this in the good will that it is intended for the best interests of all involved and allow us to resolve it in a few days time).

By Rastus2 at Dec 24, 2011 5:30 PM

Not at all necessary, but whatever makes you happy.

By Hunter at Dec 24, 2011 9:45 PM

So....Running Man right? What I liked about Running Man is it's just one man trying to escape many. I think a show where an actual criminal badass is hunted down by a bunch of hunters would be awesome.
I do like this other twist on it, where it's more multisided. The one thing that's weird to me is when then hunters join, especially if it's just off the street, what really makes them that different from regular contestants. I think it would be cool to have a roster of hunters that are pulled up. Maybe you have 3 or so every game, switching out based on who's available. Possibly even switching at the end of rounds. This could create some regular player jobs. This would also give contestants more of an incentive to play the game smart. If the hunters are professionals, they'll tend to be pretty badass, maybe with some signature sweet gear.

Oh, I was just reminded of a sweet cp sport idea I had. It could be done 2 or more teams, possibly even battle royale. Everyone is on motorcycles. There is a ball and a hoop that levitates around, actively moving away from the ball. So, the teams try to steal the ball from each other as they race around the streets, while trying to get it through the hoop.

Or, even better, motorcycle quidditch.

And now, I will leave you with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g12BaduWjb0

By Hirononbu at Dec 25, 2011 11:51 PM

Well, in a nutshell round one is more capture the flag/capture the runner, where the whole dome can get in on the action, weeding out the people who make bad tactical decisions or who are too sloppy to get caught. Round two is closer to the Battle Royale concept, where the contestants kill each other off until there's only one after being given a random assortment of weapons/armor/items that may or may not be used to their advantage in order to complete the round. And round three is closer to the original Running Man contest, where the final contestant must fight off a selection of brutal, vicious people who are hand picked from those that apply, probably in the number of 1-10 hunters, each with their own repertoire of weapons and skills.

The reason I opened up hunting to the populace with the requirement of registering is that it limits the number of people who can actively hunt the final contestant while allowing the process of employing a set number of hunters to be in the hands of people at NLM. Additionally, there are already quite a few people working for NLM and not all of the players are going to want to be corporate flunkies. Also, initially at least, we won't know who will make good hunters and who are just going to be run of the mill characters who end up getting slaughtered. In the long run, we will probably develop a rotating stable of tried and established hunters who are tough, merciless, and good for the camera as well as fun and entertaining for the contestant to deal with.

At the moment, because we do -not- have an established group of hunters in game, we must either pull from the populace in order to build that group up through hiring or rehiring successful hunters from previous games, or to hire successful finalist contestants who have bested the hunters as hunters themselves. This gives us two inroads into developing a normal stock of hunters who in turn are weeded out as successive games of Running Man play out.

Any thoughts on this?

By Grim at Dec 26, 2011 1:17 AM

I realize it's sort of the 'sindome way' to off people in the name of sport, but wouldn't that be a little beyond what they would sanction for TV within the dome? Tracking someone down and turning them in for a bounty is one thing, but having an all-out sanctioned lynching seems like something the WJF would put an end to.

One idea for the structure of the game is something like 'zombie tag' if you've ever played it. Basically, you start out with a group of people, who are normal people, and one is considered 'infected'. That person has to tag people to infect them, and the infected continue this until only one normal person is left - who becomes the winner.

I guess this would translate to the dome as "You're captured - here's a Taser, go get 'em and we'll let you live."

Just a thought.

By Hunter at Dec 26, 2011 11:51 AM

That could be a flavor of the game and allow for differentiation, Hunter. I like the idea and it could be implemented to vary the game up a little bit during round 1.

As for your first question. Death on TV is a mainstay in Withmore, whether it's televised firefights between the Judges and Mixers, Deathball, who's name implies, well, death, or people doing stupid stunts that kill them. There's a reason I made the first round a non-kill round, so people who don't want to die can try to earn a not so easy bit of cash by playing a game of hide and seek wherein the very details of their televised location could give them away. Additionally, I included options in the game to back out between rounds in order to give people the opportunity -not- to go to the next level. That opportunity -may- be abused if the cash prizes on round 1 are too high, so I'm thinking of lowering them. That said, it'll be a requirement of anybody who plays in rounds 2 and 3 to have a current, updated clone before the round will advance or they face disqualification.

Thoughts?

By Grim at Dec 26, 2011 12:34 PM

As I've never actually 'seen' a game of deathball, I don't know what it entails. I do know about the firefights and such on TV, but I thought that was more incidential than intentional. Like a news report of an ongoing violent action.

If the ones getting offed have to keep a clone and the first rounders don't die, it's all good then. I would think it's ok to abduct/force people to be on the show for the first round, but subsequent rounds should be by signup. It would make for a good challenge and excuse for people to explore the dome more than they normally would as a corpie or mixer. I can see it being fun to organize groups with FreqMans and SIC to keep tabs on the MagLevs and Express Tubes to try and trap people.

The only downside I can see is the name of their location being televised. It says quite plainly where they are, even if a character wouldn't recognize the location by sight alone. For example, I imagine all of the cubes in Hab-X look the same, barring any graffiti. I doubt highly that there's a huge stenciled Hab-X R1-02 on the wall, either - so how do people find the runner? They'd have to go door-to-door knocking and busting them down(or picking them open, or tricking them into opening it).

I would think the same goes for any sewers or streets with no landmarks(shops, wrecked vehicles, graffiti, doors, stairs, etc).

By Hunter at Dec 26, 2011 1:34 PM

I like the Zombie Tag idea, but I think I have a way to make it better. Use real zombies.

By Hirononbu at Dec 29, 2011 5:32 PM

Quote: from Hunter on 11:45 pm on Dec. 24, 2011[br]Not at all necessary, but whatever makes you happy.

Sorry to derail the thread again, but just wanted to note that this has now been passed on to FS, Slither and Johnny for them to consider. (Johnny isn't particularly active, but as you had complaints about his handling of the game/donations I've included him.)

Carry on. o7

By Rastus2 at Jan 1, 2012 9:40 AM

Nuff said.

2CH,
Grim

By Grim at Jan 2, 2012 12:06 PM

Now that is pretty rad.

By Guardian at Jan 2, 2012 12:15 PM

-	PsycoticCone	4m
-	Zulfi	33m
-	BitLittle	55m
-	PoliticalLemon	54s
-	AdamBlue9000	5s	Rolling 526d6 damage against both of us.
-	Ralph	4h
a	Mench	8h	Doing a bit of everything.
And 14 more hiding and/or disguised

Running Man Three rounds, three days, thousands of chyen.

Running Man
Three rounds, three days, thousands of chyen.