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Cylons on board the Artemis! (They look like us now.)

posted May 22, 2012 00:25:03 by Tiberius
My crew is new to Artemis, but we've loved the Battlestar Galactica board game for a long time. For those unfamiliar, that game has players cooperatively crewing the Galactica, but there are secretly one or two cylons among them, who are trying to sabotage the mission and destroy the ship. It's an excellent board game and very well themed to the TV show. We especially like the paranoia it engenders as accusations begin to fly and distrust sky rockets.

We're thinking about bringing this treachery into Artemis. Our initial thought is that it would work as follows.

1) Some crew (not the captain) would be secretly chosen to be cylons. This might be done through mission scripting, but even in Invasion mode it also might just be done with a deck of standard playing cards being dealt out: (a) Each player gets maybe five cards in a stack. All the cards are from black suits, except a small number (exact count to be determined) are from red suits. (b) At the start of the mission, everybody looks at their top card in the stack. If it's red, you're a cylon. (c) Every so many minutes (5?) players look at the next card in their stack. If you were a cylon, you remain cylon, but if you were a human, and you draw red, you become cylon.
2) At any point the Captain may accuse a player of being a Cylon. They are immediately "replaced" with a fresh officer (The player just continues playing, but as a new character), who looks at the next card in their stack to determine if they are now human/cylon. (Previously being a cylon has no impact now.)
3) If the Captain accused a human of being a Cylon, the humans lose a morale point. If they lose X morale points (3?) the game ends and the Cylons win.
4) If the Artemis is destroyed, the Cylons win.

This will probably all need some tweaking. Not sure that Comms or Science can really bring about Artemis's destruction, but they could certainly do unhelpful things. We would probably also have to tell the Captain he can't look at other stations. Being able to misinform is key. The idea of course as a Cylon player would be to remain under cover until you have a chance to do something really detrimental, and then make excuses for it. ("Crap! I really really didn't mean to launch that nuke at the space station! I thought I had a lock on the enemy! Please don't airlock me!")

We're pretty new to Artemis, so I'd appreciate any feedback as to how this sounds. And if you try it, please let me know how it goes. Play testing to fine tune will be essential.
[Last edited May 22, 2012 00:36:48]
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3 replies
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DwayneShaffer said May 22, 2012 02:16:55
Here is the link to the BSG Mod

http://www.artemis.eochu.com/?page_id=28#/20120308/bsg-mod-1354879/page3/
Dwayne Shaffer C.O.
Vidar GSR 3701
C.D.F. 7th Fleet
http://vidar-gsr-3701.webs.com/
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Tiberius said May 22, 2012 07:07:58
Thanks, I've already started playing around with that mod and it looks great. We'll no doubt end up using that mod with these new rules for Cylon agents on the bridge to create the full experience!
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Cmdr.Brandr said May 22, 2012 13:02:57
I like the concept. The idea of saboteurs on board could be extended to any genre too. If you got the GM station setup then you could also run the version where no one on the ship is a cyclon but everyone thinks there is. Might make for some interesting drama for the play.
Commander Brandr
Commanding Officer of the ship Calamitous Intent

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