Difference between revisions of "Ponzi!"

From Ludocity
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Sequence of each round:
 
Sequence of each round:
  
[1. The Invisible Hand indicates PART of its next desired bead set. For example, it may indicate that the next set includes a yellow bead.] As suggested in discussion, perhaps having this step is overcomplicated...
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[1. The Invisible Hand indicates PART of its next desired bead set. For example, it may indicate that the next set includes a yellow bead.] As suggested in discussion, perhaps this step is unnecessary.
  
 
2. The players may trade beads among themselves, including as many IOUs, options, Calls for Difference etc. as the moderator will tolerate.
 
2. The players may trade beads among themselves, including as many IOUs, options, Calls for Difference etc. as the moderator will tolerate.

Revision as of 12:46, 30 March 2009

An allegorical game of high finance; players strive to trade beads advantageously. But one of them is a fraudster secretly trying to dump worthless beads.

Ponzi!
Designer: Ben Henley
Year: unknown
Players: 4-6 (also, spectators can predict the fraudster)
Stuff required: A large number of beads, one colour per player
Crew required: One.
Preparation: ??
Time required: ??
Place required: ??
Activities: Trading, bluffing
Exclamation.png
This is an unfinished game. It is still in the design stage, and is not playable.
Cc-by-nc.png
This game is made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons licence. (What does this mean?)


Overview and theme

The players represent financiers (hedge fund managers, investment bankers and the like). They must increase their assets (total number of beads) as much as possible before the inevitable market crash.

One of the players is secretly a fraudster, whose starting beads are all worthless.

Any spectators represent market analysts, who must try to work out who is the fraudster, based on their trading patterns.

Preparation

The game requires a large number of beads, available in as many colours as there are players.

A turn counter is used to keep track of the number of elapsed rounds. It consists of a stock chart showing a declining market, with vertical interval markers representing rounds, and a pointer showing which round the game is currently at. It should be poster-sized and placed so that the audience can affix stickers to it.

Assign each player a unique colour. Give each player 50 (??) beads of their colour.

Communicate secretly to one player that they are the fraudster, in a manner which doesn't tip off the other players (TBC).

Provide stickers in the same colours as the beads, for use by spectators to make their predictions about who the fraudster is.

Prepare the Invisible Hand, a mechanism which randomly indicates the Will of the Market, ie which combinations of beads can be traded for other beads (details hazy).

Have chocolate coins on hand for rewards: 5 x number of players, + 1.

What is the Will of the Market, exactly?

Each round, the moderator of the game, representing the Will of the Market, will exchange a particular combination of bead colours for a SUBSTANTIAL NUMBER of beads of a particular colour.

For example, the Market might desire two yellows and a blue, and in exchange return 10 reds.

Gameplay

Sequence of each round:

[1. The Invisible Hand indicates PART of its next desired bead set. For example, it may indicate that the next set includes a yellow bead.] As suggested in discussion, perhaps this step is unnecessary.

2. The players may trade beads among themselves, including as many IOUs, options, Calls for Difference etc. as the moderator will tolerate.

3. The Invisible Hand indicates the FULL WILL OF THE MARKET: the set of beads, and what they can be traded for.

4. The moderator swaps sets for beads according to the will of the Market.

Repeat until there are no more beads left or a certain number of turns has elapsed. At this point, the Market crashes: see Endgame below.

At any time, a spectator can predict who the fraudster is. To do this, the spectator writes his/her initials on a sticker and affixes it to the turn counter on the current turn. Each spectator can make only one prediction.

Endgame

Reveal the worthless bead colour and make every player discard all the worthless beads.

The player with the most beads remaining is the winner.

The spectator who FIRST correctly predicted which player was the fraudster gets a chocolate coin.

Every player is rewarded with five chocolate coins, regardless of whether they won or not. They are blameless victims of an unforeseeable crisis, and it would be illegal to give them anything less than the five chocolate coins specified in their contracts.

Possible chrome

The moderator could wear traditional city garb. Maybe a bowler hat for each player, with a sticker of the appropriate colour?

The turn counter could be projected on a big screen, with some high-tech way of adding spectator predictions.

I'm scared

This is probably way too elaborate for my first game.

How exactly does the Invisible Hand work?

1. Perhaps a set of cards, with one side showing the part triplet, and the other side the full triplet plus the colour the Market will give for it, then a dice multiplier is applied? The trouble there is that you need to create a card set for an exact number of players.

2. Get a bingo set, use it with painted ping-pong balls to select the colours (idea suggested by Natalie Catchpole).

3. Some device that scoops beads out of a bucket?