Beads are used in the game as a means of boosting one’s ability to detect lies. Everybody starts off with the same number of beads, but they can trade them for other things during the game. They add complexity but don’t do much for gameplay. They’re gone.
That was easy. On to the next question: what motivates an actor to lie about auragon counts? (I’m writing the desirable script for the verb “lie about auragon count”.)
There are two driving factors: ill feeling toward the other actor and fear that the other actor is winning. The first is already available in the esteem custom operator. The second, however, is more problematic. How do we calculate the likelihood that another actor is about to win when we don’t really know the auragon counts for anybody other than ourselves?
Perhaps it should be handled as a running total. The player starts off with a running total of auragons of six. That number remains constant during Day 1. On Day 2, the player knows one of the three auragon counts; that number is added to his running sum. His running sum is increased each time he learns a new auragon count. That running sum comprises the danger level posed by that actor. But do we measure it in absolute terms or relative terms?
Let’s do it in terms of priorities. We have three values for three actors. We rank them to find out who is most dangerous. But is that enough to justify lying?
This is too complicated for now. For the moment, I’m going to proceed without Desirable scripts for the options.