Quick Fix Game 23: You don't want to Play this Game.

[Herowannabe]

Up in Dinosaur Heaven, Herbert rampaged through streets made of clouds, gobbling up everyone and anyone in sight. Except for Rand, of course. Rand rode in the saddle on Herbert's back, because, unsurprisingly, Human Heaven consisted of riding around on Dinosaurs' backs. It all worked out. 

---

Wow, close game! REALLY close, as in if we (the last few remaining Freelanders) had done almost anything else with our actions the last cycle we would have won.  Congrats to the Hushlanders, and well played! 

Thanks to our esteemed GM, @A Joe in the Bush,the game was fun and well-balanced (which given the marriage mechanic was an incredibly feat in of itself), and the writeups were fantastic- they really captured the Alcatraz feel. 

Good game everyone!

Edited May 17, 2017 by Herowannabe
Typo

[ImpossibleBowler]

Well we Lost.

 

I've learned That I hate QF though. It goes too fast for me to make Gut reads. The only one i was able to make was on Bridge Boy, and he died (though i did try to save him with my talent). 

[Yitzi2]

2 hours ago, Ornstein said:

Well we Lost.

 

I've learned That I hate QF though. It goes too fast for me to make Gut reads. The only one i was able to make was on Bridge Boy, and he died (though i did try to save him with my talent). 

Why were you so resistant in PMs to trust me?  That was the main reason that I suspected you of being an elim...

[DeTess]

29 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

Why were you so resistant in PMs to trust me?  That was the main reason that I suspected you of being an elim...

If I had to take a guess, then I'd say Ornstein might not have been following along that closely, and without the "this guy hunted down half the elim team" background info, someone pushing hard for getting your power would look just a tad bit suspicious  . Even with that info, it might look a tad shady.

Edit: I haven't seen your PM with Ornstein, of course, but a similar incident was only just averted in our earlier PM's. If you look back, you'll see that you pushed quite hard after we agreed to trade roles, and the only reason I didn't cut that off/lie was because I guessed you where probably the other knight based on the information you where pushing for.

Edited May 17, 2017 by randuir

[Jedal]

Thanks for the game, Joe! I've learned quite a bit. I know I didn't do a lot but I was mostly watching and learning how to play.

[Elbereth]

15 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

I actually wanted you to know that I was more supicious of Ornstein, as I was hoping that you would therefore expect us to trip you or Ornstein and therefore have Orlok send in the kill...and Orlok was the trip target.

How did the knowledge of whom I was more suspicious of win you the game?

Also, what was the real reason you asked me my favorite color?

Well, two things. If Orlok had actually been awake at the time you revealed that (he'd gone to sleep literally twenty minutes before that), I would probably have had him send in the kill, because you couldn't knightkill him and trip him at the same time. (I might have realised at a later point that tripping one suspect and killing the other made more sense, but I didn't at the time - probably would've had both of us put in the kill, and left it up to fate and Joe. ) What I did realise was that if you were more suspicious of Ornstein, you would be knightkilling him. I was assuming you'd be knightkilling Orlok and tripping me, and so there was nothing I could do to win. But if you killed Ornstein, so long as the elim kill went through, we had won. 

For entertainment.  

[TheMightyLopen]

Great game everyone! It was incredibly close, and there were times that I was sure one side or the other would win... That was an especially exciting end to the game.  I was having some serious flashbacks to QF14, and I even got to do a multi-lynch! (Sure, it was only a double one, but it was still fun. )

Thanks for running the game Joe, and the write-ups were hilarious!  

I also thought it was hilarious about all of the marriages having a "Lopen clan" member involved and an eliminator until the last Cycle or so. That was a strange turn of events.

[Yitzi2]

8 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Well, two things. If Orlok had actually been awake at the time you revealed that (he'd gone to sleep literally twenty minutes before that), I would probably have had him send in the kill, because you couldn't knightkill him and trip him at the same time. (I might have realised at a later point that tripping one suspect and killing the other made more sense, but I didn't at the time - probably would've had both of us put in the kill, and left it up to fate and Joe. ) What I did realise was that if you were more suspicious of Ornstein, you would be knightkilling him. I was assuming you'd be knightkilling Orlok and tripping me, and so there was nothing I could do to win. But if you killed Ornstein, so long as the elim kill went through, we had won. 

For entertainment.  

So if I had just done my ploy a bit earlier, we would have won.

Really close game there, then.

Also, I still would like to know why you asked my favorite color.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Yitzi2

[A Joe in the Bush]

Alright! Post Game thoughts from Sabaneta Smedry!

First off, anyone remember the thing about Evil Librarians naming Prisons after famous Smedries? La Sabaneta Prison in Venezuela is one of the worst. Just a ‘fun fact’. Incidentally, Every writeup had a reference to Sabaneta looking for a Marriage. She was Mariable, and had the Talent of “Being Insulted.” Any PM that had her name in it, or any paragraph in a google doc, would be over heard by her. Only Aonar figured that out in time, and he wasn’t playing

Now, on to actual Thoughts.

Balance: Hushlander Roles vs. Freeworlder Roles

The Eliminators started with no smedries, 3 librarians, and a Knight, vs the Villagers 5 smedries, 2 librarians and 2 knights. The Elims had mostly experienced players (Lopen, El, and Drought) and a Newer player (Brightness Radiant). This was mostly because It amused me to have all of the LG33 GMs as Eliminators, and partially because i knew i couldn’t start any of them as Smedries.

There were two ways I saw Smedry marriages going down. The Players would lynch everyone who got married, just in case, which would stop anyone else from getting married, or everyone would ignore the couples entirely. Neither of those happened. In fact, nearly all of the marriages were Free Worlders proposing to Hushlanders. Which was not exactly what I had expected. Still, it worked out. The Hushlanders only ever got access to one Smedry ability, and they never actually used it. (Actually they did, Drought tripped Sabaneta, and she beat the crap out of him for it)

The Eliminators were given Brightness Radiant because 1) she was lopen’s sister, and I don’t like having RL relations on opposite teams, as it tends to lead to problems, and 2) The Elims needed a Knight, and the Knights were all returning, new, or inexperienced players. I realized early on that while it would be fun to have players like Alvron or El i n the Knight doc, they would be able to hide too easily, kill their doc mates, and take over. New or inexperienced player would be more likely to accidentally reveal themselves. Brightness Radiant pegged Yitzi as a Knight early on. Yitzi and Rand, when Rand arrived, figured out Brightness because of her verbal tics, and because she defended her husband.

Librarians were the one role that went completely against how I expected, namely, the Hushlanders accidently killed all the village Librarians by Cycle 3. The only revealed Librarian was Drought, and nothing really came of that. There was a lot of discussion, but it didn’t come to much. I was hoping for shenanigans.

:Things I would change:

Not much. This game was probably one of my smoothest run games. Nothing went wrong, or revealed itself to be horribly unbalanced. I would like to change a few of the knight mechanics, as i found it weird, flavor wise, that 2 knights were killed by knights. (3 almost were, but Cloud got lynched instead) I would probably change it to knights being stripped of their rank instead.

I was also playing around with The conversion. Thinking that maybe only a player that was married to a Hushlander could be converted. I’ve decided against that, since it would force the conversion to being a late game move, and it would severely limit the suspect pool. It wouldn’t be worthwhile to convert, unless it was a move that would win the game.

More on Mariages:

I absolutely loved the Marriage Mechanic. It introduced so many fun things! Bridge Boy, Unodus, and Ecthelion all proposed within the first 2 cycles, (BB proposed within half an hour of receiving his game PM) Randuir and Hero only proposed to share powers, but had fun with it, and of course, El proposed to Orlok at the very end, when she had given up all hope, and decided to replay Romeo and Juliet.

I will definitely be keeping this mechanic, and adapting it to all my other games, somehow. A way to share powers with an RP partner. Kudos to Ecthelion, Brightness Radiant, and Unodus for really going the extra mile in their Romance RP.

And Poor Sabaneta, forever alone.

 

Players:

@Sart, you poor man, your internet was out for the first cycle, so Yitzi and Brightness killed you in the name of the Contribution Crusade. Thank you for playing anyway, and I hope to see you next game.

@Bridge Boy, You equally poor man. First Brightness Radiant didn’t accept your proposal, then she ran off with another man! Thank you for all the chaos you caused the first cycle, and thank you for keeping the dead doc Active. I hope to see you in future games.

@cloudjumper, you were also inactive, and were lynched for it. I remember you from past games, and hope that when you have more time, you can come back and keep playing.

@Cluny the Scourge, This was my first real game with you in it. We were both in LG33, but I’m not allowed to comment on that, so thank you for playing here. You were also killed by knights, but the little time you had here made me smile. (Also, i like your name) I hope to see you back as well!

@_Stick_, the first kill by the Hushlanders, and the first Librarian to die. You didn’t get to do much with your role, as you never scanned a Librarian, but you at least maintained activity and got your thoughts out there. Hopefully you keep playing until you’re in the ranks of Experienced players that the Elims don’t want to kill.

@Magestar, you hate QF’s because they go too fast. But I’m going to keep tagging you in them to trick you into signing up anyway. =P Thanks for playing!

@Seonid, I was hoping you would make until the end, because as i saw it, you had the best chances of figuring out the Eliminator team. You’re one of the best at pattern recognition after all. But you should have said more about why you were so certain that there were non librarians in the game. Your lack  or clarification tricked the Elims into killing you, because they didn’t want to kill anymore librarians. Thanks for playing though!

@Ecthelion III, you survived past C1! In fact, you survived for 4 cycles! That’s amazing! And then your wife lynched you, but you two went down together. You especially have my thanks for driving one of the best RP’s in the game, even changing your profile icon. I hope to see Aaron again in future game.

@Unodus, you proposed to a Hushlander because you forgot that marriage was an actual mechanic, but you went along with it anyway. Your RP was hilarious, and your death most untimely, because the Trio forgot that librarians were a thing. Please, please play in more of my games.

@randuir, you were hilarious and awesome, especially when you killed Unodus. You worked really hard, analysed correctly, and with Yitzi and Hero, nearly brought down the entire Elim team in a single cycle. You’re a scary player. If you die on C1 next game, it’s because i fear killed you. Thanks for playing!

@Jedal, the newest player, You joined this game to learn how to actually play, and I hope you learned a lot, and I hope you come back for subsequent games.

@Herowannabe, the Dancing Dinosaur. Congratulations on kill stealing, and congratulations on your marriage. Your father-in-law is a bit confused as to the explanation of your lineage, but he’ll proudly accept you anyway. I look forward to your MLP Game, and hope to see you in future games!

@Ornstein, hopefully this game will teach you that Gut reads are influenced more by what you’ve eaten then actually logic. While you were right about Bridge Boy, there were many things you were wrong about. Still, I hope you keep playing, and keep learning, and eventually surpass even Meta as the best player of SE.

@queensteph, the only member of the Lopen clan on the Free World side, and the only Smedry to marry a Hushlander. You started off at a disadvantage, but you successfully used your talent better than any other smedry. (Especially Randuir) Thank you so much for playing, And thank you for sticking to your character and defending Drought, even when the world (and a Dino) was against him.

@Yitzi2, man Yitzi, you were incredibly impressive this game. You were the L to Elbereth’s Kira. The sheer amount of planning and analysing you posted in the knight doc. I fully believe you could have beaten the Elims if Orlok had been more active, giving you more info. I simultaneously want to be on a team with you, and want to go up against you to see if I can trick you. Either way, you better keep playing.

@BrightnessRadiant, the first Hushlander to die, but also the most sought after Girl in the game. Props to you for figuring out the identities of your fellow knights, and for convincing them to put Lopen at the top of the recruit list. You had a really good game, and I hope you can come back again. (make sure to kill Lopen)

@DroughtBringer, you were killed prematurely, which is especially sad, as you had a writeup for your lynch prepared. I hope you can adapt it for a future game, so that we can see more of your writing. You did excellent as a Eliminator, despite also running LG33 (BTW, can i break out of the crockery pls? =P) Thanks for playing, and for convincing El to sign up.

@TheMightyLopen, Patriarch of the Lopen Clan, and the only Eliminator to think I wouldn’t put all 3 of the LG33 GM’s on the Elim team. You got tripped a whole bunch, but you eventually got your dress cleaned up. Thank you for all the planning you did, and I hope to see you in another game.

@Elbereth. You almost had a perfect sweep, until Rand, Hero and Yitzi cam along and slaughtered your whole team in the blink of an eye. But you went on anyway, even when you were revealed, you played the village like a three stringed Lute, and barely won the game.

@OrlokTsubodai, you got converted day 1, had medical problems the rest of the game, and were unable to play, which was very sad. I hope you get better soon, so that next time you can play at your fullest capacity.

Thank you everyone for playing! I hope to see you all when I run my next LG: Abusing the Past! Bye!

[Yitzi2]

Ok, some things that surprised me there:

-Orlok was the convert.

-I was not expecting the elim/village decision to be done intentionally.

-I was ID'd be BR as a knight; if she'd let DB know that, the game would probably not have been nearly so close.

-The elims killing all the village librarians was accidental; I was sure it was on purpose.

-BR was credited with persuading us to put Lopen at the top of the recruitness list; I did that based on Randuir's recommendation at the beginning of cycle 3.  (Or was that paragraph written by BR pretending to be Randuir?)

[Unodus]

"19 dead. 15 injured. 30 jobs. $13,000 worth of marmalade. This week reverberated in my mind like a broken wind-up jigsaw puzzle going down the rainpipe, similar to the majority of my paychecks.
I'm currently writing from a bar off the coast of Watakotse with Ben Franklin, sharing a pot noodle. I've been on the run ever since I'd woke up, but from who I can't say. All in all, my plan had worked- though not as I'd hoped. Proposing to that college dame had been a gamble, part of an elaborate contingency plan to save the city from an epidemic of demon weasel flu- but it wasn't enough in the end.
She played a dangerous game: insulting my hat. 
I didn't solve the case in the end. When it came down to it, the cost of revenge was one I couldn't pay.
I guess I might have terrible choice in women.
Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe all that matters is justice.
I don't know.
I think I'm still in the coma."

 

gg ya'll. Thanks Joe for putting up with my shenanigans.  x3

I'm glad people found my rp entertaining, detective deuce was fun to write- and this setting allows for a lot of randomness. The marriage mechanic definitely put a cool spin on things- and I would definitely like to take part in this future LG (someone pm me if I don't see the signups D:)

also, if you put all the monologues together- it forms an almost cohesive detective novel...?https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T685IAR12DVfLKJ8e9kg037p5dBhfmcykeDRZnLxt0c/edit?usp=sharing 

this doodle is actually something I've had on my phone for a few years for some reason. Figured I'd share it in memory of Deuce, ace detective

 

Edited May 18, 2017 by Unodus

[DeTess]

1 hour ago, Yitzi2 said:

-BR was credited with persuading us to put Lopen at the top of the recruitness list; I did that based on Randuir's recommendation at the beginning of cycle 3.  (Or was that paragraph written by BR pretending to be Randuir?)

That was written by me, though I think BR opened that discussion?

I now understand a lot better why people kept saying things like "Randuir looks helpful, but LG30..." in LG33, as I'll be saying "DB/Lopen looks helpful, but QF23..." a lot in the future, if only to myself.

[Yitzi2]

6 minutes ago, randuir said:

That was written by me, though I think BR opened that discussion?

I now understand a lot better why people kept saying things like "Randuir looks helpful, but LG30..." in LG33, as I'll be saying "DB/Lopen looks helpful, but QF23..." a lot in the future, if only to myself.

Never mind DB/Lopen...Elbereth was the real example of that.

[Elbereth]

13 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

So if I had just done my ploy a bit earlier, we would have won.

Really close game there, then.

Also, I still would like to know why you asked my favorite color.

Correct. Well... if you'd done the ploy a bit earlier, I might have realised eventually that you'd trip one and kill the other, and put in the kill myself as well. Which would've basically left it up to Joe to decide the game, because he stated at the beginning that if there were multiple kills he'd basically accept whichever amused him more.

I already told you. Entertainment.  

3 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

Ok, some things that surprised me there:

-Orlok was the convert.

-I was not expecting the elim/village decision to be done intentionally.

-I was ID'd be BR as a knight; if she'd let DB know that, the game would probably not have been nearly so close.

I wasn't expecting Orlok to be the convert either, really: I expected my team would be against that, but everyone just didn't have an opinion so it ended up being the case. I'm kind of sad that it happened and then he couldn't play, though. 

Elim/village decision is usually done by RNG but not always - not enough that the GMs are predictable about it, but enough that they can be trolls.  

That mistake was a little irritating to me. >> Without it, we might've had a perfect game. 

1 hour ago, Yitzi2 said:

Never mind DB/Lopen...Elbereth was the real example of that.

Hah. Thank you, though I don't think I played terribly well.  I was at the end of school, so I didn't quite have the time I'd have liked. I might have married Rand, for instance, had I actually noticed that PM. (Which would've been great, though sad that I couldn't marry Orlok.) And several things I said were debatably logical, particularly that not-voting is likely to generate more discussion. I did tell the truth, though, and put forth my true opinions outside the game, pretty consistently. And I had fun.  Particularly being an outed eliminator. Haven't done that in ages. 

[Yitzi2]

Just now, Elbereth said:

Hah. Thank you, though I don't think I played terribly well.  I was at the end of school, so I didn't quite have the time I'd have liked. I might have married Rand, for instance, had I actually noticed that PM. (Which would've been great, though sad that I couldn't marry Orlok.) And several things I said were debatably logical, particularly that not-voting is likely to generate more discussion. I did tell the truth, though, and put forth my true opinions outside the game, pretty consistently. And I had fun.  Particularly being an outed eliminator. Haven't done that in ages. 

Even if you didn't play terribly well, you did an excellent job of appearing helpful while being an elim, which was the point under discussion.

[BrightnessRadiant]

@Yitzi2 yeah I actually told all the elims that I thought you were the knight kaladin on cycle one lolz and I also told them I thought cloud jumper was a possibility for swift.....but then the village lynched him and I was like ok don't have to worry about that knight lol...I was annoyed that I let Randuir get in the knights doc. 

 @randuir I was freaking out when cloud jumper died cuz we had just moved you up on the recruits list and I was crying lol

It was a fun game though! Also you're right yitzi I didn't get lopen to become a knight I just didn't object when you suggested him and I was like well that worked out haha

[Elbereth]

2 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

Even if you didn't play terribly well, you did an excellent job of appearing helpful while being an elim, which was the point under discussion.

Mm. If you look closer, my posts aren't actually helpful. This is something I did in LG22, too, though I wasn't evil that game. I was travelling, so I wrote posts in a notebook during the day and transcribed them at night, about conversions and D1 lynches and other such advice. This was good advice, certainly, but it applied to every game. It wasn't alignment-indicative at all, and yet it garnered me enormous amounts of trust. (From the new players. Older players distrusted me for it, because they saw exactly what I was actually doing.) 

So I gave lots of good advice.  But the number of opinions I put forward is a handful at best. Which are far more actually helpful to the village, generally. It's just that no one thinks about that. (This isn't to say that I do this particular tactic less as a villager. I'm quite fond of it from both alignments. Tends to help keep me alive. >>)

[A Joe in the Bush]

7 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

Ok, some things that surprised me there:

-I was not expecting the elim/village decision to be done intentionally.

-BR was credited with persuading us to put Lopen at the top of the recruitness list; I did that based on Randuir's recommendation at the beginning of cycle 3.  (Or was that paragraph written by BR pretending to be Randuir?)

Usually I don't straight up choose the Elim team, but I always manipulate the odds to some degree. I'm not going to let complete random chance decide that. 

Hmm, you might be right? I was going off of memory when I posted that.

 

[Droughtbringer]

Wow, I was doing really well (or so I think) until I made a mistake, that I thought was going to cost us elims the game, but thanks to my amazing cohorts @Elbereth @TheMightyLopen @BrightnessRadiant @OrlokTsubodai we were able to win. Seriously go upvote something, anything that these guys have posted. At any point, they deserve it.

More thoughts will come when I'm not as tired.

[ImpossibleBowler]

21 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

hopefully this game will teach you that Gut reads are influenced more by what you’ve eaten then actually logic. 

NEVER!!!

[Alvron]

Well this was certainly a fun game to watch.  I love seeing games go down to the wire like this.  Watching as both sides try and sway the undecided over to them is always a blast.

Congratulations to the Hushlanders.  The Freeworlders don't stand a chance against you.

Many thanks to Joe for once again running another of his games.  You sir are a wellspring of fantastic games that keeps us all on our toes.

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!