7th Games - New and Unique Mechanics

Each retro Games thus far has been a perfect opportunity to bring something new to the table, both in terms of IC and OOC lore, and these Games are going to be no different! For the Seventh, we have a couple of ideas that fall into both categories! But instead of me summarizing them, I'll simply list them below.

TRIBUTE POPULARITY MECHANIC

No, contrary to what the title might say, this isn't a popularity contest - at least not in the literal sense. Rather, this is a mechanic that will be be introduced once the Games begin that will be the Capitol's first attempt at incorporating "sponsorship" into the Games. To start with, tributes will largely be unknowns, having only the get-to-know-you interviews to really get an idea of what they're like. But as the Games go on, certain actions, arena events, and some good old rolling of the dice will quote unquote 'affect the tribute's popularity with the Capitol and the live audience', which will in turn lead to these early (pre-determined) pseudo-sponsorship opportunities.

To keep things fair and unbiased, most of these events will be purely cosmetic in nature, and are intended for developing your tribute and your story first and foremost! The few opportunities and items that could potentially offer different games mechanics (say, a new weapon) will all be equal-opportunity and completely dice-rolled.

Every action a tribute makes will affect their IC popularity in one way, shape, or form, and there's no single linear path to increasing their popularity as well - the Capitol is a fickle mob with a variety of different tastes, and for each Capitolite that loves the brutal 18-year-old killer from District Two, there's another one who just absolutely adores the timid pacifist little 12-year-old from Twelve, or the dark-horse underdog maverick from Eight, and so on, so forth. As this will be largely dice-based and the items will pretty much exclusively be JFF in nature to keep things fair, we encourage you to write, collaborate, and mess around with this new mechanic as much as possible to further your own development, as this will be dynamic and exciting! Feel free to reach out to a Gamemaker if you have any sort of crowd-interaction or otherwise popularity-affecting development ideas!

VICTOR INTENT FORM

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have our sole OOC mechanic to these Games in the form of a sort of "status/mood check-in" with regards to your tributes. As Gamemakers, we can only assume what a tribute's preference is with regards to the Games and their path towards it, and sometimes those assumptions end up being way off mark which results in someone who does not want to win the Games getting closer to the Finale than they would have liked. To help combat this, these Games we're going to trial a quick and easy solution that will hopefully solve this problem and ensure that the Gamemakers and the tributes alike are on the same page with regards to the tributes' objectives for the Games so that the Gamemakers can assist them however possible.

To do so, at certain intervals throughout the Retro Games, the Gamemakers will post a form
on Slack to gauge tributes' current plans with their tributes, including potential plot ideas, whether or not they want to/plan to win or not, and so on. The first posting of this form will be right before the beginning of the Games, and will likewise be shared at certain landmarks/intervals of the Games as they progress so we can stay updated as to your satisfaction level, whether or not your plans have changed (as they often do in the midst of it all) so that both sides can make things easier for the other, respectively, and allow them to reach their full plotting potential and treat them accordingly. Anything shared in these forms, from a simple checking of the boxes to any suggestions or concerns, will remain 100% confidential between the individual tribute and the Gamemakers, and if this goes well, could potentially be implemented in the Games proper at some point as well!