Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[Magestar]

12 hours ago, little wilson said:

Mage is less than 10%. He's only survived one game, out of 15. That's kind of insane.

Thanks.  Now I feel justified in complaining a bit.  

Interestingly enough, Wilson, it was your game that I survived.

Ecth, if you ever get down, just look at my survival rate.  

5 hours ago, Jondesu said:

My first game, ME17 I think, had an awesome activity rewards system, loved it.

Agreed.  MR17 had a very, very nice system.  I'd like to see some more stuff like that.  I feel like a Nalthis game run with Breaths could do a similar thing, if you could get the Flavor to work.

[Jondesu]

Question for some of the analytical players: how do you keep track of everything? I tried making a doc for myself (a spreadsheet in the last one, with color coding and everything), but keeping it updated is more work than it's worth. Is there an easier way? I just have a very hard time remembering things like who voted for whom, and what arguments/claims people make.

[little wilson]

Back when I was analyzing things closely, I used a spreadsheet. My first game spreadsheet was for LG6. Some of my other spreadsheets are for AG1, LG12, and LG14. I no longer do spreadsheets though, because I'm trying not to get so intensely involved in the games and spend so much time on each one. But the LG14 one in particular worked for me, since I dropped the post count for each player and started paying attention to how frequently people were online, which was something I used more than post count.

[A Joe in the Bush]

8 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Question for some of the analytical players: how do you keep track of everything? I tried making a doc for myself (a spreadsheet in the last one, with color coding and everything), but keeping it updated is more work than it's worth. Is there an easier way? I just have a very hard time remembering things like who voted for whom, and what arguments/claims people make.

I use play-by-plays and record mentions. For every post, i make a one sentence summary, and write down who they mentioned, defended, RP'd with, ignored, and voted on. 

[Aonar]

I take a different tack from Joe, and my advice would be that if you have trouble keeping track of everything, don't bother trying. I only record votes, claims, and known role/action info. Sometimes I don't even bother with votes. (Unless i have a ton of time, and want to do a network analysis.) However, each turn, or at least each cycle, I make sure record my current thoughts and impressions of the state of the game, optimal strategy, and the alignments of/connections between various players. Then, whenever new evidence is available, I go back, reinterperet and reassess my thought process, looking to see what logic is sound and what is flimsy, trying to interpret plans and actions from as many angles as possible, comparing to see how and why my thoughts have changed over time, and look for inconsistensies. Little if any of this thought process tends to make its way into the thread. (Although parts of it often end up in docs/PMs, as I work best with another player(s) as a sounding board.) I find that the best way to keep track of everything though is to simply keep your thoughts clear and organized. While detailed record keeping helps some people, I find that just being aware of what is going on, and what your thoughts are and why is far more useful. (And don't be afraid to use the forum search or user content functions if you need to dig back for specific info. They're useful. :P)

[Haelbarde]

Is there an easy way of seeing who has posted, and how many times, in a given thread since the update?

As far as keeping track of voting, have you seen the vote tallies with the vote history that Kas and I use? That's easy enough to make, and record. I often keep track of if someone has posted, so I have data on how active players are.

[Magestar]

2 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

Is there an easy way of seeing who has posted, and how many times, in a given thread since the update?

If I want to know how many times one person has posted in the thread, I go to their profile an check the number of posts under the title of the cycle.  This only works for cycle by cycle stuff, and I'm not sure if there is an easier way.  I think if I wanted a post tally and wanted to know how many times people had posted I would just go through the thread adding ticks to a player list.

[Haelbarde]

14 hours ago, Magestar said:

If I want to know how many times one person has posted in the thread, I go to their profile an check the number of posts under the title of the cycle.  This only works for cycle by cycle stuff, and I'm not sure if there is an easier way.  I think if I wanted a post tally and wanted to know how many times people had posted I would just go through the thread adding ticks to a player list.

I said an easy way

Pre-update, you could click on where it says the number of posts in the thread, and it would display a breakdown of who had posted in the thread, and how many times they'd posted. Don't think that works any more :'(

[little wilson]

I asked Eric/Chaos about that a while ago, and he said it's not possible with the update, unfortunately. 

[Magestar]

8 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

I said an easy way

Pre-update, you could click on where it says the number of posts in the thread, and it would display a breakdown of who had posted in the thread, and how many times they'd posted. Don't think that works any more :'(

It is easy!  It;s just time consuming.  

Huh.  I didn't know that.  The other way does sort of pale in comparison.

[DeTess]

Anyone any idea when the next Long Game starts? I'd really like to participate in one of these (I know there's a signup for a quick-fix game up right now, but I'd like to participate in one of the cosmere ones).

[Aonar]

2 hours ago, randuir said:

Anyone any idea when the next Long Game starts? I'd really like to participate in one of these (I know there's a signup for a quick-fix game up right now, but I'd like to participate in one of the cosmere ones).

Sign ups for the next one should go up sometime mid next week, when the AG hits cycle 5/6. (Should be a Roshar based one run by @Amanuensis, if I remember correctly.)

[Amanuensis]

On 1/17/2017 at 6:48 AM, randuir said:

 

 

 

Anyone any idea when the next Long Game starts? I'd really like to participate in one of these (I know there's a signup for a quick-fix game up right now, but I'd like to participate in one of the cosmere ones).

 

On 1/17/2017 at 9:11 AM, Aonar Faileas said:

 

 

Sign ups for the next one should go up sometime mid next week, when the AG hits cycle 5/6. (Should be a Roshar based one run by @Amanuensis, if I remember correctly.)

 

I will post Sign Ups on Wednesday, January 25th, and the game will begin on February 1st. The exact start time is still pending, but will be decided once the thread is up.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Amanuensis

[Jondesu]

43 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

 

 

I will post Sign Ups on Wednesday, January 25th, and the game will begin on February 1st. The exact start time is still pending, but will be decided once the thread is up.

Awesome, I probably won't survive all the way through the current LG, so hopefully I'll feel like I can sign up. :-)

[Amanuensis]

8 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Awesome, I probably won't survive all the way through the current LG, so hopefully I'll feel like I can sign up. :-)

I hope you do  like MR17, it's going to use a system to help promote activity and roleplay, and you'd be a great addition.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Amanuensis

[Elbereth]

Couple notes from finally reading through this thread - One, Hero, that game you're referencing was QF2, not MR2. 

Regarding note-taking, I've done a lot of different things, requiring different amounts of time. I've taken notes in a notebook, before. During MR16 I used just blank pieces of paper (one for each cycle; listing my best guess at what each player had done, plus a couple for future cycles - I still have those notes, and they were really useful for that game). I've used a personal doc to record thoughts before (which is particularly useful when I'm doing some serious RP). 

Most often I use spreadsheets, with varying degrees of complexity. They tend to be something like this, which is the notes I took while reading through LG4. A Relationships tab and a Suspicions tab, essentially. Relationships is how lokely two players are to be evil together (greener is less likely, redder is more). Suspicions is their stated views: the players in the column suspect/trust the players in the row, again on a green-red scale. The other tab in that spreadsheet is essentially a post-by-post recounting of my suspicions. I look at each post and try to see whether that player would be more likely to say it as a villager or an eliminator, and give it a point value based on that. 

Here are my LG24 notes, in which I actually took commentary-notes as well (though didn't get particularly far). Earlier iterations from LG22 (which was also interesting in that I had to account for being suspicious differently with multiple factions in play), LG20, and notably QF16, which is the most thorough and most useful spreadsheet I've done so far. Each post had a summary, my comments, and a point value assigned, plus links to particularly important ones. It took a long time, but I did catch Joe with it, essentially. 

 

Oh, also. Other thing, regarding time commitments: Yes. It's a huge time commitment. I went through and calculated the wordcount for (nearly all of; there are a few posts I'm missing) D1 of AG3. That alone was about 19,000 words. Which is almost half of, say, Emperor's Soul. It's a lot to read through. I'm not sure people realize quite how much, sometimes. 

[Jondesu]

@STINK had a good point about the RP/non-RP coloring in AG3, btw, and tags being impossible to read.  Several of us have started adopting purple text for non-RP posts, but can we switch that and everyone use either purple or perhaps brown for RP, and leave discussion black?  That will help a lot.  I'll adjust for myself from now on.

[Elenion]

Quote

 Okay, got a random quote box I can't delete.  Nice!

@Jondesu The problem with that is that some players prefer to use their RP to make  game-related comments, instead of doing them separately. You'd either have to mark those as RP, where they could be missed, or mark them as game talk and defeat the purpose of an RP color.

  

[Jondesu]

That's fair, @Elenion, but if I'm doing game discussion in an RP segment, it's pretty clear, or I'll often sum it up separately too. Won't work for everyone, but I don't think it'll hurt anyone for some or many of us to adopt it.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Jondesu

[Elenion]

34 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

That's fair, @Elenion, but if I'm doing game discussion in an RP segment, it's pretty clear, or I'll often sum it up separately too. Won't work for everyone, but I don't think it'll hurt anyone for some or many of us to adopt it.

Good point; sounds good. If I remember then I'll start doing that.

[Elbereth]

As I commented in LG30, I don't see the point of a different color for RP. There isn't always a clear boundary between game talk and RP, and I don't like the precedent it sets of encouraging people not to read RP. If you really don't want to, you don't have to. But SE is a roleplay forum as much as for gameplay. It's just as important, and making it a different color makes it seem like it's less important than the game discussion, which is the 'main' part of the game. I don't think that should be the case. 

We have blue text because we need something specifically to denote what is absolutely, unquestionably true. But RP isn't any less or more truthful than gameplay discussion. What distinguishes it, really?I'm not sure there's a firm line, and I don't see the point in trying to draw one. 

Edited February 10, 2017 by Elbereth

[Straw]

Hey, @Metacognition. Could I sign up for a LG?

Edited February 12, 2017 by Straw

[Alvron]

Quote

INVITATION TO THE MAFIA CHAMPIONSHIP (SEASON 4)

Hello everyone!

I would very much like to invite your community to take part in Season 4 of the Mafia Championship.

The Mafia Championship is an annual online tournament series that pits representatives from various forum Mafia (aka Werewolf) communities against one another as they compete to determine the Internet’s greatest forum Mafia player. Each participating community democratically elects one person to represent them and become their “Champion”.

Season 1 ran in 2013-2014, while Season 2 and Season 3 ran in 2015 and 2016, respectively. As of Season 3, a total of 160 communities have been represented in the Mafia Championship, making it the largest cross-forum event on the Internet.

I hope that all this sounds very exciting to you guys

1. Do you accept the invite?

If your community wishes to participate, please confirm your participation to me before April 13 to ensure yourselves a spot. If you need more time than this to think about whether you wish to participate, let me know and I can extend the deadline.

If you agree to participate, the deadline for selecting your representative is April 22. If this is too soon for you, again, just let me know

The games will take place on Mafia Universe. If it’s okay, I can link directly to the general discussion thread regarding this topic on Mafia Universe.

Important notes

• You may decide yourselves how you want to elect your representative, but we highly recommend some sort of democratic process (public nominations followed by a poll usually works out well).
• In addition to electing a representative, you should also name an alternate who will be asked to step in if the first choice needs to back out.
• Your representative should be prepared for having to read upwards of 500 posts per 24 hours during the early stages of the game. Additionally, there’s a requirement that each player must make at least 10 posts per Game Day. Only active players should apply/participate. I repeat: Your chosen player needs to be able to promise a good amount of activity on a daily basis.
• Relevant only to communities that participated last season: Season 3 Finalists are not eligible to play again this season.

2. Season 4 Format

The tournament structure

• 135 communities will participate, each sending one representative.
• 9 Qualifying Games will be played consisting of 15 players each. I.e. every representative plays in one Qualifying Game. 1 player will advance directly to the Finale Game from each Qualifying Game. The players themselves vote post-game to determine who is deserving of advancement. I.e. 9 of the 15 finalists will be found this way.
• A Jury consisting of finalists from Season 3 will along with me discuss and vote to determine a group of 30 wildcard players who will play in 2 Semi Final Wildcard Games. From each of these two games, three players will directly advance to the Finale Game.
• The Finale Game is played. Once it has completed, the players vote to determine who shall hold the title of Season 4 Champion.

The setup

MOUNTAINOUS:
12 Vanilla Townies
3 Mafia Goons

We’re going back to basics for Season 4. Each season we’re changing it up, and for this season it’s finally time to play without any power roles or abilities at all. Pure mafia. You have only yourself and your reading/bluffing abilities to count on.

Relevant mechanics info

• Day start.
• Deadline Lynch w/ Option for Majority starting Day 2. I.e. when day timer runs out, person with most votes will be lynched. However, day can also be ended early (starting Day 2) if there is ever a majority of votes on one person.
• If there is a tied lynch, one of the tied players will be randomly lynched.
• No outside communication. I.e. you may not contact the other players outside of the thread (unless you are Mafia and wish to speak with your teammates).
• Phase Lengths and Deadlines will be up to the players themselves (I’ll organize them into games with deadlines that suit their preferences).
• Thread is locked during Night Phases.

3. Season 4 Timeline

The first Qualifying Game is currently set to start April 24th. Additional games will take place in the 1-3 months following. I will create a Doodle and find out the best times to start the various games so that preferably everyone gets to play during a time that suits them well.

Kind regards,
Thingyman

If you want to get in contact with me ASAP, you can find me on Skype (thingyman) or Discord (Thingyman#6075).

As you can see we have received an invite to this years Mafia Championship.  Last year we were represented by Haelbarde and while he died early, he learnt a good deal from the experience.

So, first things first.  Do we wish to send someone to represent Sanderson Elimination in the Mafia Championships?

[Darkness Ascendant]

40 minutes ago, Alvron said:

As you can see we have received an invite to this years Mafia Championship.  Last year we were represented by Haelbarde and while he died early, he learnt a good deal from the experience.

So, first things first.  Do we wish to send someone to represent Sanderson Elimination in the Mafia Championships?

ooh this sounds awesome  

[DeTess]

2 hours ago, Alvron said:

As you can see we have received an invite to this years Mafia Championship.  Last year we were represented by Haelbarde and while he died early, he learnt a good deal from the experience.

So, first things first.  Do we wish to send someone to represent Sanderson Elimination in the Mafia Championships?

This does look really cool. Whoever will participate will probably need a free week starting the 24th if I'm looking at the rules here.