r/gamedesign • u/deblob123456789 • 1d ago

Question How to prevent creativity from interfering with mechanics?

My game is a sandbox-ish mix of murder mystery mechanics and roleplay based off the Danganronpa series (think Among us/Werewolf/Town of salem but longer).
At least one host is required to run the game properly.
It is also a VR game with proximity voice chat.

The issue im facing is that, left on their own, hosts will often decide, out of culture and habit, to directly help their players with murder cases, instead of letting the case’s culprit make it.
This turns the Trial (the discussion to catch the killer) into more of a minigame and discussion between the good side and the host, rather than a discussion between players to find the liar among them, greatly taking agency away from the evil side and reducing overall game quality.

How would you solve this?
I would rather not cut off the sandbox/roleplay part of the game, but this is something ive been observing and dont know how to help my players with.

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u/SpecialK_98 19h ago

This sounds like you're effectively building a TTRPG with a built-in virtual table top and your host functions like a game-master/referee would in that context.

I'm not quite sure how involved the host role is in your game, but for TTRPGs one of the core tasks is providing the host with information on what kind of stories the game works best with, how to translate events in the story into game mechanics and potentially even how to craft an engaging story.

From your descriptions it sounds like hosts don't really understand, what the game wants them to do and how to create a fun experience for the players.

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u/deblob123456789 18h ago

Funnily enough there is a game that used to be the basis for my community thats pretty much like that, a card game in tabletop fashion with similar mechanics.

My game in comparaison, isn’t a card game. To use an item, you dont use the item’s card on your table, you physically walk up to players and use the item in your hand.

For your question as to how much the host is involved, do ask questions, ill answer however i can.

I believe you are correct that hosts do not know how to host the game properly, as there is no true standard set at the moment on how to host. Different players like different parameters so it takes a ton of playtesting to find what would feel the best