Long Game 30: Journey Before Destination

[Ecthelion III]

The words of the Bondsmith echoed across the broken land. "Man lost honor? If that were true, then what do you call this?"

Honor, Ceol thought. Funny word to describe the 'Unjust'.

Funny, you say? Vis had appeared. Not so, for what is justice without honor?

Ceol pondered for a moment, then smiled--a full, glorious smile. "We just fought off a mighty demon lord, Vis. Now's not the time to bother ourselves with your deep philosophical questions,"

So unserious. As you always were...

"Are you talking out the time...before?" As he said this, he picked up the claymore, the weapon of his youth. "Before PRIME? Back when I knew my father?"

Yes, little one. Ceol objected at being addressed this, but the spren continued. Back in that peaceful time. I was always there, you know. Watching over you even as a lad. I knew your family well. Your parents were admirable and honorable people.

"You wouldn't still happen to know where they are?" Ceol asked hopefully.

How much do you remember?

That's not an answer! "Bits and pieces, mostly. Training with my father, exploring the canyon near our house..." He frowned. "Why?"

Nothing. I'm afraid I don't know much more about where they are than you do.

Highspren, apparently, were terrible liars.

-

PRIME.

This is a warning.

You have been allowed to run free throughout the cosmere for far too long. Now it is time for your reign of terror to come to an end at the hands of one you previously called your own.

You may have known me as the Fifth Nameless. You may have known me as your slave.

But I am Ceol the Hunter. I am Ceol the Vengeful.

And be warned: the tides have turned, and I will not rest until one of us is dead.

END OF TRANSMISSION

Ceol set the pen down and stood from the chair in his room. "First things first, Vis. Time to intercept Third's ring."

[TheMightyLopen]

Thanks for the game Aman. It was really amazing. The mechanics were very interesting, and I had a ton of fun trying to work out who had which spren. And of course, those write-ups were extremely impressive, so thank you very much for putting that much effort into the game.  I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Unjust, well played. I think we'd have caught at least 1 or 2 of you if the village had been a little more active, but a couple of you had managed to work your way into a number of villagers trusts, so definitely a job well done. Kudos especially to Randuir, for it being his first game and doing so well in fooling pretty much everyone.

[Elbereth]

Right. I’ve a lot of things to say. (I should note that this was written on Thursday March 16th, shortly after LG31 ended, as we don’t know when the writeup will be up.) I spent several hours over the past few days reading the thirteen pages of thread that I missed. So first, a few comments about the game: 

0. (added later) By the way, the elim doc is relatively average, if perhaps a bit on the high side, for a LG. It's in the top fifteen games.  So that's something, but I wouldn't call it one of the largest. 

1. RP. The amount of RP in this game was wonderful, even in later quiet cycles. I’d call out Jondesu, Mage, Ecthelion, Drake, and Doc in particular for continuing to consistently RP up until the end of the game/their lynches. (And sorry if I missed anyone. That’s just who stood out to me in particular.) I’d also highlight Jonly and Hithon as being my absolute favorite characters to watch this game - I always smiled when I got to either’s RP. This amount of RP is something that I think needs to be kept going in future games, because it’s absolutely amazing. Makes threads long, but is well worth it. 

2. Just a general note I realized during cycle 8 - I thought this was about the simplest LG we’ve ever had, and it is the lowest number of roles, but it’s definitely not the simplest. Honor counts and delayed role gains, plus the lynch/execution mechanics, make it significantly more complicated than I initially thought. 

3. Lopen. Props to Lopen in general, because I think he did really well this game. Particularly cycle 8: and I don’t know the full makeup of the evil team (Randuir, Ecthelion, Doc, and…? I was skimming by the end of my reading, and it was a while ago, so may be foregetting), but how was it not blatantly obvious that Ecth was lying? I was only skimming the numbers Lopen posted and could see that his had substance, and Ecth’s didn’t. And yes, that’s with the benefit of hindsight, so take it with a grain of salt. But.. gah. I apologize for not being there. 

And speaking of which… Let’s talk about me. 

I went inactive this game. I have, in fact, gone inactive in every game I’ve played since LG27. 
LG27 was mainly because of disillusionment with the game, and I was online most cycles. I can, barely, forgive myself for that. 
But LG28 proved that there was more of a problem than simply dislike of the game: I went inactive again, despite it actually being an excellent game, and even literally lost my team the game because I didn’t send in an order. (I was not pleased with myself. I’m still displeased, actually.) Again, part of this was in-game reasons: when DA threw our team (from my perspective) from the ability to work with Hael into damage control, I lost steam and interest in the game. 
AG3 was better. Ish. I was in and out for a few cycles in the beginning, then came back cycle 7 or 8 and remained active for a cycle or two until… things happened, and I died shortly afterwards. So, improvement. 
And then this game I went completely inactive again. Despite assuming I’d be better than I was in AG3, I was worse. 

Regarding this particular game more specifically: the particular reason I went inactive this time was because I moved to a new house one weekend. That same weekend I also had tech day for the play we were doing on Saturday (and, of course, there were rehearsals and then performances eating up my time for that next week), plus a concert on Sunday. So I was busy, and I never managed to pick it back up. 
I’d note also that part of the reason I signed up to play was to RP Jonly and Tintallë. So after that (which I believe was my last post in the game), I had less incentive to be involved. (That doesn’t excuse it.)

There are a number of things I’ve gathered from all this. 

First off, causes: Part of it is that real life is taking up more of my attention, given senior year and the fact that I am actually prioritizing homework now (which I had not been, in the past >>). Part of it is that I gained a significant other, and so spend more free time talking and less posting/reading. Part is likely lack of connection with the newer players, and so less reason to stay invested. 

Secondly, that I have two modes: active, or not active. I will never be (or rather, have never been) semi-active. Because when I fall behind, I want to read through everything I’ve missed and respond to it all. Which I do, if I have time, and remain active, but if I don’t for long enough, the backlog becomes daunting enough that I never manage to come back into the game, or it takes a long time (as in AG3). If I could learn to read posts as they came and follow each new thread even if I wasn’t posting (which I don’t do mostly because it’ll make me look suspicious, even though few people really check for activity anyway), I’d probably a lot better in general about being active. 

Thirdly, I’d like to mention Lopen again. He PMed me (multiple times, I believe), asking me to get more invested in the game again and at at least one point, specifically telling me what I needed to do that cycle. Just because I didn’t respond doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop doing that, Lopen. That’s a fantastic idea. Please keep doing so. 
Thing with me is - I saw the messages, or at least briefly. I saw Lopen’s and Jondesu’s @’s in thread. I just… didn’t respond, because of the point above this - I would have to read through everything first - and out of shame. I hate being inactive. It’s one of my least favorite things. For better or worse, I’m an experienced player in the community, and I hold myself to certain standards even if no one else does. I’m becoming the person that you can no longer trust to be active and reliable. I hate that. Which, among other things, makes coming back more difficult, because it’s admitting to everyone that I did go inactive. (And yes, it’s irrational, and people will think better of me if I come back than otherwise. I’m aware of that. Doesn’t change the feeling.) 

I have expectations for myself, and I am not meeting them right now. That’s not acceptable. My behavior, as a member of this community who knows how things are supposed to be and what level of activity is expected, is unacceptable. To me, if not to anyone else. 

So I’m going to stop playing for a while - likely until summer. QF22 will be my last game until at the very least after LG33 finishes, and QF22 only because I’ll be on Spring Break for a fair amount of it. (I’ll be GMing LG33. And GMing, I have no issue with. Because I prioritize that over schoolwork. I can GM just fine, if I’m sensible about it. I won’t be running my QF until summer because I want to be completely free for that. But LG33 I’ll have at least one, and likely two co-GMs for that, and will be careful.) As far as I’m aware, the only game that might make me break that promise is MR23, depending on when that goes, and I’ll have less problem staying active in it. 

Anyway. This was probably overly lengthy, but it’s been due for a while.

EDIT: 

Quote

Like El who is active on forums but not in game.  I’m very disappointed in you El. :(

Me too. >> 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Elbereth

[Elenion]

3 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

I have expectations for myself, and I am not meeting them right now. That’s not acceptable. My behavior, as a member of this community who knows how things are supposed to be and what level of activity is expected, is unacceptable. To me, if not to anyone else. 

So I’m going to stop playing for a while - likely until summer.

El, you don't have to put yourself on hiatus just for a few dropped games. Many of us, if not most of us or all of us, have done things that have negatively-affected gameplay. There have been senseless bandwagons, accidental alignment reveals, inactivity on many more fronts than yours, broken game mechanics, betrayals in poor strategy... the list goes on. One inactive doesn't make or break a game, and I'm sure that the rest of the SE populace would join me in saying that you're welcome in any game that you sign up for, regardless of your projected activity level. So if you feel like putting yourself on hiatus, that's your choice. But whether or not it is your choice, it's not your only choice.

[Elbereth]

Just because it'd be (somewhat) accepted in the community doesn't make it right.  I'm aware that it's not like I'm going to be ostracised for going inactive a few times. It is, however, unacceptable to me personally. So I'm going to fix that. 

Also, at this point it's somewhat moot - the games for which that applied were mostly MR21 and LG32. Now that LG33 will be starting soon, I cannot play another game. Not with that and APs. There is absolutely no way that's going to happen. That'd be sheer lunacy. 

[Ecthelion III]

@Elbereth Yeah, I really messed up cycle 8 as I hadn't intended to tell anyone I had scanned Lopen in PM, but I was tired and ended up forgetting Fortunately we mostly had voting majority by then, and I had gained Drought's trust and Rand (?) had gained Jon's trust.

We love you, good luck on the APs

[DeTess]

4 hours ago, Ecthelion III said:

Fortunately we mostly had voting majority by then, and I had gained Drought's trust and Rand (?) had gained Jon's trust.

I think it was more a case of Lopen having Jondesu's mistrust.

[TheMightyLopen]

2 hours ago, randuir said:

I think it was more a case of Lopen having Jondesu's mistrust.

Yeah. Might have been caused by my tunneling pretty hard on him.  To be honest, I was extremely frustrated at that lynch, because I felt I'd proven myself, but most of the active players at that point were eliminators, and I'm not sure Drought really read all of my long explanations for my innocence. And like I just said, I was going after Jon pretty hard for a while, so I can understand why he chose to believe Ecth over me.

Another thing I was frustrated with was not only the inactivity, but players constantly pushing to lynch the inactives Cycle after Cycle. I'm all for banishing inactivity, but lynching inactives over and over isn't going to get us anywhere. I'm aware that a fairly large percentage of those going after inactives were eliminators(Doc, Rand, and Alv), but the fact that people seemed to still trust Doc and Rand even after they were very passive with their votes/lynches means the villagers viewed what they were doing as a viable strategy. It's really not. The core of these games is the lynch, and I feel like people overlook that at times. I guess that's all.  /rant

[Metacognition]

It's well past time we locked this game up. Thanks to Aman for running it and for basically writing a novel for the write ups!  The amount of effort he put into making this game story driven is incredibly impressive. 

If anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get a hold of Gamma, Wilson, Metacognition or myself. Not only will we get you added to the list, but we'd also be more than willing to help out in any way we can.

You can also ask questions and get some hints and feedback from everyone over here in our Art of Game Creation thread as well. With all the games that we've run so far, we have plenty of experienced GMs that can help you refine any game you're thinking about!

Thanks again to everyone that played and we look forward to killing seeing you in future games!