Mid-Range Game 55: Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal

[Elandera]

Sign-ups are closed! Standby while I send out the PMs and get cycle one posted.

[Elandera]

Cycle One: You Can't Take the Sky from Me

"After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying."

I found me a crew, and found me a job. It led me to all sorts of trouble. Now I've got Reavers and the Alliance on my tail. They've burned out everywhere I might have taken my crew to ground. So we're stayin' out in the black. But something is driving us farther than we've been. To the edges of the rim. Beyond the Reaver territory, even. A secret that might dismantle the Alliance once and for all.

I plan to get that secret, and show the people what the Alliance really is. It ain't no unification. It ain't a benevolent leader. It's corruption and control. Somethin' I never much liked. 

---

Welcome, everyone! As a reminder, here are the general rules:

• 48-hour cycles, day/night combined
• One-vote minimum for the execution; tied votes will be decided by RNG
• PMs are limited, but do not take an action to open
  • Two players total per PM
  • One player may open only two PMs per turn. PMs opened by another player that include them do not count towards the total
    • Example: Wilson opens a PM between herself and Elbereth and one between herself and Devotary. Araris can still open a PM with Wilson.
  • All PMs will close at the end of each turn
    • If you choose to reopen a PM with the same player, you may use the same PM thread but not during rollover

This cycle will end Wednesday, December 22 at 12 p.m. (noon) PST.

Player list

Spoiler

1. @Illwei
2. @Ashbringer
3. @Matrim's Dice
4. @Lotus
5. @Szeth_Pancakes
6. @Devotary of Spontaneity
7. @The Unknown Aon
8. @Walin
9. @Dannnex
10. Tiea ( @Ookla the Ginger )
11. @Steeldancer
12. Archer ( @Ookla the Paranormal )

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Elandera

[Archer]

The rules doc really is pretty. It also has a lot of lovely flavor that is completely lost on me! :P.

All we need to do to win is reveal the Secret, so I think spending an action searching is better than most other alternatives, unless you can block a kill, because dragging this game out for as long as possible is our best shot at winning. Put another way, if you’re a village coinshot, kindly hold your fire unless you’re very confident.

Everyone non-Crew can work together, and in fact is incentivized to. It narrows the Operative’s list of candidates, lets the Alliance know who to block, and the Reavers can agree to kill the Crew first (save one), then kill the Alliance, then kill the final Crew member and they all win together. The final Crew member might be able to suicide and make the Alliance win early, which makes the Reavers not win, but that’d be playing against their own wincon. Mass roleclaims can break this game very quickly if they have the 6c:3r:2a:1o distribution that I originally guessed, so I’ll be optimistic and guess we’re looking at 7c:2r:2a:1o, or maybe the former version with a bunch of village protection abilities that will… not at all help when the elims seize control of the exe once PM organization begins. *panic*

Crew, I'd save one PM for later in the round in case they're actually needed.

Village Phychic, if you want to remove a kill from the game, I’ll put it out there that you can reveal your identity and let the Operative shoot you. :D.

Oh, and hi, new people. Thanks for joining, Tiea, Walin! 

[Mat]

Does 4-3-4-1 seem like a reasonable distro guess? I know one of the tags was ‘not a faction game’, but  (That’s Crew/Reavers/Alliance/Operative)

Maybe 4-4-3-1, but I think that’s less likely. I could see 5-3-3–1 as well… hmm that might be my favorite guess.

Lots and roles and fun good things in this game, I’ll reread all those and probably post thoughts about all that later.

Let’s not have the elims unanimously exe me D1 again, hmm?

Dannnex, you’ve been on an elim streak lately. Those tend to stick around. And I wanted an excuse to type the three n’s.

Ninja’d by Archer… hmm. It seems he initially had different distro thoughts than I did. His are probably more credible.

Walin is returning, afaik

Edited December 20, 2021 by Matrim's Dice
I have lots of hmms… hmm

[Szeth_Pancakes]

I didn’t read the rules - might later but right now I’m playing Hollow Knight.

[Archer]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

Walin is returning, afaik

I will amend my greeting to welcome old player, but leave my vote in place. :P. 

Quote

Let’s not have the elims unanimously exe me D1 again, hmm?

that comment felt directed at someone... probably Walin, who we all know is evil. Geez, Walin, why you picking on Mat??

Quote

His are probably more credible.

I'm trying to balance my experience with the TJ game distro against the good odds of the Alliance and Reavers teaming up eventually, which effectively makes an elim team with two kills and a common goal to end things quickly. Unless it's some crazy distro where everyone's a thug... HMM

1 minute ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

I didn’t read the rules - might later but right now I’m playing Hollow Knight.

No, the greeting is Happy Hollow Days, not Knights

[---]

I am still trying to figure out what to get my girlfriend for christmas

uh

chocolate? i was thinking dice. but those wouldn't come in time. maybe I'll get her dice for like...uh. A birthday. or something. That's in like 3 months, so.

hmm.

[Ashbringer]

How non-compatible are the different win cons? The Crew can’t win with the Alliance, but I thought the Reavers could win either way?

I should back soon, in travel right now.

It’s good to be back.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

38 minutes ago, Ookla the Paranormal said:

All we need to do to win is reveal the Secret, so I think spending an action searching is better than most other alternatives, unless you can block a kill, because dragging this game out for as long as possible is our best shot at winning. Put another way, if you’re a village coinshot, kindly hold your fire unless you’re very confident.

Everyone non-Crew can work together, and in fact is incentivized to. It narrows the Operative’s list of candidates, lets the Alliance know who to block, and the Reavers can agree to kill the Crew first (save one), then kill the Alliance, then kill the final Crew member and they all win together.

10% is not very high, so it will probably take 5-7 cycle of searching to put together even four clues unless we're very lucky. The two clue per cycle rule limits the odds of being lucky, and means mechanics probably shouldn't all search on the same cycle if it can be avoided, but it's usually difficult to coordinate things like that. A four clue requirement also means I would bet on more crew than Archer and certainly Matrim are suggesting, or else a bunch of extra lives/protects.

Elandera is apparently not worried about the alliance and reavers teaming up, since the alliance don't know who each other are much less the reavers, and crew can win even if the alliance/reavers control the exe. If the reavers openly claim at low player count to try to team up, the rest of us just have to put on our alliance hats for a little bit and hope for a mercenary kill.

8 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

How non-compatible are the different win cons? The Crew can’t win with the Alliance, but I thought the Reavers could win either way?

The alliance can definitely win with the reavers. I think the crew wins immediately if four clues are uncovered, meaning the reavers lose since there will have to be at least one player who isn't dead or converted. If the crew winning doesn't end the game, it would be pretty easy for the crew and reavers to win together by just not voting (although an alliance companion would ruin this plan) or killing anyone for several cycles.

Ensign Dzma was very good at running away. She’d been running for seven years now, out in the fringes of space moving from job to job, ship to ship. The operative would be disappointed in her if she was still alive. The operative in Dzma’s head certainly was. While she’d never learned her name, and giving her one at random seemed wrong, the flashes of memory Dzma had gleaned over the years showed a deep sense of purpose, a drive to help shape a united galactic society that would grant everyone the opportunity to build the life they wanted for themselves. While the Alliance she’d served was hardly all that, Dzma admired the attempt to make things better. In the seven years since inheriting the muscle memory, basic assassin training, and scattered memories of the operative, not to mention the rudimentary psychic abilities Alliance scientists had granted her, Dzma had contributed nothing of note for the betterment of the galaxy. She often thought that it would have been preferable to be the one who died that day, shot full of holes from behind not ten paces outside of the illicit Alliance laboratory, seconds before the detonation that destroyed the lab and cut off pursuit. Surely if Dzma had been the one to take those bullets, and the operative had lived, the state of the Alliance would not be nearly so harsh. Yet it was Dzma who lived, and Dzma who was a coward right down to her bones, where no training or hormones or even the fabricated personality of the operative demanding action could reach. And so here she was on the Serenity as Sophie Dzma, a real a name as any since she’d never been able to settle on who she wanted to be, running away yet again.

[The Unknown Ajah]

I would just like to announce that I am Crew. 

Also #killwei. Illwei  

@Elandera

Edited December 20, 2021 by The Unknown Aon

[Elandera]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

How non-compatible are the different win cons? The Crew can’t win with the Alliance, but I thought the Reavers could win either way?

I should back soon, in travel right now.

It’s good to be back.

The Crew has to be alive to win, so the Reavers cannot win with the crew. The Alliance can win with the Reavers as they can win if they're dead. Reavers just want everyone dead. And the Operative can win with anyone.

[Mat]

2 hours ago, Illwei said:

I am still trying to figure out what to get my girlfriend for christmas

uh

chocolate? i was thinking dice. but those wouldn't come in time. maybe I'll get her dice for like...uh. A birthday. or something. That's in like 3 months, so.

hmm.

In my non biased opinion, dice is a good idea for the future.

Devo’s probably right, I had forgotten the Crew percentage was so low.

Have also decided I read that TUO post as village.

[Steeldancer]

I need to remember to open the shard every day so I stay active. I have the time, I just need to be responsible. I'm going to invest in spending some time reading the rules before I say or do something dumb. 

Ok it's time to question. So roles can be attached to any alignment, correct? And there's lots of alignments. So it's essentially a faction game. Cool beans. 

Also in terms of Christmas gifts, I got my girlfriend a doomslug. Doomslug is always a win. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Steeldancer

[Archer]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Devo’s probably right, I had forgotten the Crew percentage was so low.

Have also decided I read that TUO post as village.

Low, if there aren't many psychics. I'm hoping we've got at least two, since Elandera has taken care to introduce that possibility. 

And in that case, I'd also like to declare that I'm village. :P. But yeah, if only because I generally believe people as a rule, that's a good read. 

3 hours ago, Illwei said:

chocolate? i was thinking dice. but those wouldn't come in time. maybe I'll get her dice for like...uh. A birthday. or something. That's in like 3 months, so.

I found little glass jars at a thrift store for my dice and I gotta say they look fabulous on display like that. I think we all agree that the one thing you said you can't get for Christmas is the perfect gift idea. :D. Cool looking notebooks are also nice. 

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

The Crew has to be alive to win, so the Reavers cannot win with the crew. The Alliance can win with the Reavers as they can win if they're dead. Reavers just want everyone dead. And the Operative can win with anyone.

What happens if the Alliance fulfill their wincon? Does the game end, or do the Reavers have the chance to kill them off and also win? 

And I forget if this was confirmed somewhere, but when the Operative wins, they're removed from the game, right? 

(PMs are still open if you want to negotiate an alliance with the village, Opey. We can kill everyone else first, then let you kill the psychic for a mutual win...) 

Random other thought. If we get one kill tomorrow, instead of two or three, we're going to have to reevaluate people because of the conversion potential. So that adds credibility to the small Reaver team theory. 

[Elandera]

9 minutes ago, Ookla the Paranormal said:

What happens if the Alliance fulfill their wincon?

Their wincon does not end the game. If all the Crew dies, the game only ends if the Reavers outnumber whoever is left, as their wincon requires everyone else to die.

The Operative would not be removed from the game if they win. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Elandera

[Mat]

43 minutes ago, Ookla the Paranormal said:

Low, if there aren't many psychics. I'm hoping we've got at least two, since Elandera has taken care to introduce that possibility. 

And in that case, I'd also like to declare that I'm village. :P. But yeah, if only because I generally believe people as a rule, that's a good read. 

We know there’s one because the Operative can’t win without one. But what do psychics have to do with the 10% chance?

You know full well that’s not the point of the read :P.

[Szeth_Pancakes]

46 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You know full well that’s not the point of the read :P.

Getting a strong elim read from this, especially ‘cause it’s Mat.

[Archer]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

We know there’s one because the Operative can’t win without one. But what do psychics have to do with the 10% chance?

You know full well that’s not the point of the read :P.

There's two things going on here. One, I struggle to spell psychic and keep confusing it with physic. Two, I confuse psychics and mechanics very easily because they both do things 20% of the time. So I need to stop talking about them so much. 

How about those... companions huh! Wouldn't it be funny if one manips the Operative into voting out a psy- nope I did it again. This is a problem. 

36 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Getting a strong elim read from this, especially ‘cause it’s Mat.

Strong enough to vote on? 

[Mat]

13 minutes ago, Ookla the Paranormal said:

Strong enough to vote on? 

I’m pretty sure Szeth is just joking since he always reads me elim.

[+Lotus]

G'morning everyone. I haven't played a SE game for about six months so forgive me if my skills are a little rusty. 

I'm going to poke vote Archer since they still have their Ookla name on and it is no longer ookla season

[Teia]

Like I said before, I have no idea what the heck I’m doing. I’ve played One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and that’s about the extent of my knowledge in the mafia realm. Any advice would be welcome.

I’ll vote Matrim’s Dice.

 

 

 

[---]

Would getting her a stormlight book be bad? We're planning to do a reread, she has either the second or 3rd book in a hardcover I think. nothing else. hmmmmmmmmm

is that too like. self-centered? hmmmm

Archer

[danex]

5 hours ago, Elandera said:

The Operative would not be removed from the game if they win. 

ahhh so double wins are a thing 

if the operative completes their wincon, they'd then functionally become an alliance, it'd be the same as if they'd failed their wincon. So if the Op and Alliance win, Op wins double!

10 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Let’s not have the elims unanimously exe me D1 again, hmm?

hey, we didn't even know that we were doing that so that doesn't even make sense

10 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Dannnex, you’ve been on an elim streak lately. Those tend to stick around. And I wanted an excuse to type the three n’s.

"the" three n's? my name only contains a three n's. the n's are fluid, shifting with the flow of time. just as people flow and shift in our grand journey through this experience we call life, so do the n's. for the n's represent so much more than merely the 14th letter of the alphabet, or the sound we make when we close off the e vowel by placing our tongue on the roof of our mouths. They represent growth, change, evolution. They are the growing sapling, the rushing river, the shifting stones. they are all, and they are nothing. there are not just three n's in my name. there are n's long past, n's yet to come, and n's that will never be and have never been. n's are all. n's are none. and the n's love you.

10 hours ago, Ookla the Paranormal said:

No, the greeting is Happy Hollow Days, not Knights

that pun is so bad that if you don't die tonight then you must be conf-elim, for any logical person would use any and all methods at their disposal to punish you for this crime upon all humanity. like so. Archer.

[Szeth_Pancakes]

4 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I’m pretty sure Szeth is just joking since he always reads me elim.

Joking…ish

[Archer]

9 hours ago, Lotus said:

I'm going to poke vote Archer since they still have their Ookla name on and it is no longer ookla season

For some reason I thought Brandon's birthday was the 26th, not the 19th and completely missed that. So thank you, now I have a State of the Sanderson I can read after this!

7 hours ago, Teia said:

Like I said before, I have no idea what the heck I’m doing. I’ve played One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and that’s about the extent of my knowledge in the mafia realm. Any advice would be welcome. I’ll vote Matrim’s Dice.

Why'd you pick Mat? 

6 hours ago, Dannnex said:

if the operative completes their wincon, they'd then functionally become an alliance, it'd be the same as if they'd failed their wincon. So if the Op and Alliance win, Op wins double!

l think technically the Op isn't a member of the Alliance until they are, so it'd only be an individual win for killing the psychic, with no credit given for stopping the Secret from being revealed. Speaking of Secrets, I hope everyone has their orders in by now. If you haven't, today is a fine day for doing that. 

6 hours ago, Illwei said:

Archer

This feels like you're filling in for Araris. :P. Although TUA is voting for you right now, which adds pressure. Nnnnn's on the other hand seems opportunistic. It pains me to let that scoundrel Walin off the hook, but my vote must now move to Danex.