I listed some theories about semi-cooperative games before. In particular, I listed some 'ideals':
- The "Cooperate/Compete" decision should be a spectrum, not just binary. Sabotuer gets this right. All of the "good" dwarves want to find gold, but they don't want to enable the next player to be the finder (then they get the least gold).
- Parts of the "good" group can win without the full group.
- Players must have strong incentives to act differently. These incentives should not be obvious to other players.
Now, those are my ideals, not a platonic ideal. Unless I've grasped the essence of SCGs. Really an SCG could just be a hidden team game. I've started thinking about an idealized SCG. Based on my thought that The Thing makes a good setting, I've been idly thinking about mechanics. I had another game of Battlestar last night that prompted a new player to comment "This is supposed to be hard, right?" The issue was that no cylon could have done anything for about 45 minutes. Not good.
BSG and Shadows suffer from "attention surplus." When you make an action, it is instantly scrutinized by others looking for deceit. Players see most of your actions. Some characters have special abilities that hide a bit more (like Roslin's picking of two event cards), but even then the outcome is fairly constrained and often immediate. Players can quickly judge you.
BSG's skill checks are a step towards removing that surplus. It arguably doesn't go far enough, since players track what cards you could hold.
What happens in the movie (and in any real-life situation where loyalties are uncertain) is that people can only focus on people sometime. The difficulty (for the 'loyal' team) is that you can't spend too many resources hunting out traitors. The difficulty (for the 'traitors') is that you have to do things that endanger you without getting caught, and you know the loyal team is checking up on you. But do you know when?
To make things concrete, imagine a game where the players are all spies for MI-5. They move around Europe (or just London, say) and do spy things. They all know each other and cooperate on missions. Each spy can win (or lose) as an individual, but it's entirely possible they can all win. Unless there's a mole. A mole will reveal them to the KGB (say) and get them all killed, given enough time. If the players spend too much time hunting for a mole, then they'll fail at the spy stuff (and get killed in a mission).
But if the players are convinced there is a mole, then it's reasonable to drop everything to hunt him down. (I assume real spy agencies work the same way ... normally doing routine stuff, but then seriously escalating to deal with potential traitors).
(Now that I've played a dozen times, BSGs real flaw is that the players know exactly how many cylons to expect. Once teams are revealed, the tension level drops. Shadows does that right).
So, in an ideal SCG:
- Players should not be able to make instant decisions about each other's play.
- However, with the expenditure of resources players should be able to discover past plays. ("Tracking down evidence.")
- Once teams have been 'proven', the game resolves quickly.
To my mind, this suggests:
- Simultaneous play and fast turns, for the most part. (My ideal game would be 60-90 minutes, instead of BSGs 120).
- Limited communication during the early part of the game, and a mechanism to limit communication to specific other players. (I'm thinking of "Gunboat" BSG or SoC).