I have an idea for a Party Room game, but it needs some work to make it playable. It involves starting a bunch of herd out with a certain set population of males, females, elders, and children (the males and females are assumed to be adult and of breeding age.)
Every herd would start out with the same number of dinosaurs, 20 each. This means 5 elders, 5 children, 5 males, and 5 females. Every cycle, a male-female pair lays one egg (arbitrary number for game purposes.) This egg has a 50-50 chance of being either a male or female hatchling, so flip a coin or something to determine the sex of the new child. If the number of adult males and females are equal, lets say, 10 males and 10 females, there will be 10 new hatchlings every cycle.
Each turn takes up one “cycle”, turns pass when each new player posts. Children take 3 cycles to become adults when born (assume that all children are newly hatched at the start of the game), and can breed for 7 cycles, at which time, they become elders, and cannot breed anymore. Elders die at 14 cycles. If there is an oversupply of males or females (one sex is more numerous than the other) than that oversupply population does not multiply until a member of the opposite sex is available to mate with. I was going with years earlier, but that would make the game too complex.
If, at any time, the population of one sex is 50% greater than the other (not including elders and children), the oversupply breaks off from the herd, reducing the herd’s population considerably.
In order to compete, each player is entitled to kill one member of another players’ herd, but can only kill one per herd per turn. This is explained in terms of diseases, predation, natural disasters, etc.
The goal of the game is to go until only one herd is left surviving. As each herd is eliminated, one "round" ends, and the survivors are sent to the next round.
This would be a more complicated Party Room game, and require more thought than “word connection” or “word association.” I might need to simplify the game, as it seems to have a lot of numbers involved… or it might be a good game for a player looking for an in-depth experience.
In addition to each of these, each player may but by no means have to choose a special build for the herd, which creates a set of special conditions which modify the game play. Only one special build may be active at most in a herd, but a game can have multiple herd with the same special build.
- Alpha Male: One male alone leads the herd, and is the only male who is allowed to mate. This build keeps a population growing even with a disparity between males and females, but when an alpha male becomes an elder, he is removed from power by another male and is either exiled or killed, thus leaving the herd with one fewer member. Additionally, every cycle, one male is kicked out of the herd or killed, as a result of a challenge to the alpha male. If there are no non-alpha males left, there are none removed; Elders do not count in these equations, save for when the alpha male becomes an elder. The alpha cannot be removed from power until he is an elder, in which case, his removal is automatic.
- Polygamy: Males or females can have more than one mate, which occurs whenever there is a surplus of males or females. The upside is that even if there is a disparity between the sexes in numbers, there will not be a population which does not contribute to growth. The downside is that competition between polygamous members of the tribe can occur, but only among the polygamous sex. This leads to one death or expulsion from the herd every cycle, among the more numerous sex. A herd that is polygamous should state which sex is more numerous at the start of the game.
- Militant: This herd practices strict standards which are intended to make its members strong and fierce, at the expense of those perceived to be weak. This means that one child is culled every cycle, but the tribe on the whole can resist every other “attack” that the other players launch on it, starting with the first one.
- Anarchic: This herd is less of an organized unit and more of a group of self-interested individuals and families who just happen to be heading in the same direction. Such a fluid structure tends to attract newcomers, but is very violent. For every surplus member of a certain sex, a new member of the herd will be added to even the numbers out two cycles after the surplus is created… but the herd will also lose a member every cycle due to violence; it will lose two members due to violence if the population is over 50. Every lost member due to violence is first a male, then a female, then a child, then an elder, then back to males again.
I know that this game may not be fully well made and that there might be contradictions in the rules, or that the players might not be able to do enough to influence the game play. Bear with me, this is a work in progress.
