Mid-Range Game 7: Eighty Splendid Suns

[A Joe in the Bush]

Well. Didn't see that coming.

KWAAAAIIIIIII!!!!

Edit: Just finished some RP in the last thread, right after it was ended, so can I move it here so more people can see it? Thanks. It's just a way to introduce my character.

I saw it, so othets will as well. Also, since we're revealing who left factions, I got bribed away.

[Herowannabe]

When Hreo heard the news about the Emperor's death, he spat on the floor. "Arrrr! That be no way ta have a mutiny! Assassins? Daggers in the night?" He spat again. "Aye, the last time I did start a mutiny we did have the guts to do it to the cur's face! Give him an honest fight!"

---

I got on too late to post before the cycle, but I can confirm the list that Eowyn posted was accurate

[Bort]

I saw it, so othets will as well. Also, since we're revealing who left factions, I got bribed away.

 

Thanks for sharing Joe. It helps

[A Joe in the Bush]

At my old faction, Araris's statement has been confirmed.

[Kipper]

Do we have any Discoverer discoveries?

[Adamir]

Could everyone tell me what their factions were last turn? I was Glory.

[Clanky]

The members lists for all three factions were posted last cycle. They have all been confirmed by multiple people. You should be able to trust those lists.

[Emerald101]

I think he's wondering who's on which faction. It matters because of faction-specific roles

[little wilson]

Since we have to work together to find the Discoverers, and if we don't help the other faction's diplomats know who to scan, they'll just be scanning blindly, I'd like to request that either the Moderation or Heritage diplomats scan Adamir. He's my biggest suspect for a Discoverer in the Glory faction.

 

I think he's wondering who's on which faction. It matters because of faction-specific roles

 

Which isn't something we should really be sharing, but it's not like it really matters anyway, since we'll be able to work out who started on which faction anyway. All we need to know is the original faction of the person we bribed.

Edited July 1, 2015 by little wilson

[Adamir]

I think he's wondering who's on which faction. It matters because of faction-specific roles

As my role is now officially useless, time to come clean. I am a diplomat. I scanned Orlok last cycle, and was told he was on one faction, then someone corrected me and told me he was on another. I am the Svordish diplomat. 

[Emerald101]

Hey, at least you can hang on for a cycle and send a PM after someone tries to kill you. That's better than the regulars get. 

 

Edit: captilization

Edited July 1, 2015 by Emerald101

[A Joe in the Bush]

Kas, can the rememberer give a player the role of emperor or arbiter from yesterday's kills?

[Kasimir]

Kas, can the rememberer give a player the role of emperor or arbiter from yesterday's kills?

No. They are not 'actual' roles. I've addressed this in the clarificatory questions compilation post above.

 

Edit: The issue of the bribe mechanic has turned a bit ugly on one of the docs. I've posted a clarification in the doc, and at their request, will copy it to the thread.

"Sigh. I suspected this would come up because the issue turned a bit ugly in this doc. I can’t really force anyone as a GM. I can set guidelines for how the win cons work, but ultimately, the stupidest thing to do is to make players do what they don’t want to do. As you can see from [REDACTED]’s attempt at sophistry.

So, what are my guidelines to converts/bribees? 1. Treat it as though you were playing a regular conversion SE game and someone converted you into the Eliminators. Do you have to tell them everything? No, not necessarily. 2. I would prefer an attempt to keep to the spirit of the rules. Yes, there are reasons that you might want to withhold information. I would prefer to leave it to the player’s discretion because it’s just stupid to require all converts to immediately tell their new Factions everything they know. But I would temper that with the caution that you shouldn’t be looking for an excuse to be as uncooperative as possible, and that ideally, you should regard it as how you would be playing if you’d been with that Faction from Day 1. If you wouldn’t reveal your role then, don’t do it now. If you wouldn’t have been forthcoming then, don’t do it now."

Edited July 1, 2015 by Kasimir

[Lightsworn Panda]

Jain ate bamboo. He ate some more bamboo. He ate even more bamboo. He ran out of bamboo. He rolled. He slept.

 

*

"Hey, 小熊 has run out of bamboo again."

 

"Seriously? He's already gone through the entire palace garden today, and he still wants more!?"

[Herowannabe]

As my role is now officially useless, time to come clean. I am a diplomat. I scanned Orlok last cycle, and was told he was on one faction, then someone corrected me and told me he was on another. I am the Svordish diplomat.

Are you SURE that you are a svordish diplomat? The odds of discovering you are a svordish diplomat on the first cycle are only 1 in 3. I don't know who you scanned, but their are 3 possible outcomes, 2 of which could be valid:

Say you are svordish, in the glory faction, and you scanned Harry, who is in the Heritage faction. Your result is randomly determined to be one of the following:

1. Harry scans as heritage, which is what you were expecting. As far as you know you are jindoese.

2. Harry scans as discovery- this could be true as well, since the whole point of the scans is to find discovery factioners.

3. Harry scans as Moderation. This is false, and in this case you would know that you were svordish.

There is one other possibility too. Remember that scans happen after bribes. So if you scanned one of the players who was bribed last faction (Joe, Pixie, or Shallan), then you would have scanned them as belonging to their new faction.

Now, all that being said, are you still sure you are svordish?

[Alvron]

Are you SURE that you are a svordish diplomat? The odds of discovering you are a svordish diplomat on the first cycle are only 1 in 3. I don't know who you scanned, but their are 3 possible outcomes, 2 of which could be valid:

He claimed to have scanned Orlok.  So it wasn't any of the ones bribed.

[Herowannabe]

He claimed to have scanned Orlok. So it wasn't any of the ones bribed.

Oh, I missed that. Thanks.

[Herowannabe]

Okay, so I've been doing some thinking and running some numbers and what I've found troubles me. TL/DR version is this: unless all 3 of the main factions band together, the Discoverers will control the lynch votes.

---

Okay, here's how I came to that conclusion. Disclaimer: this is based on a LOT of assumptions. However, I honestly feel that all the assumptions are plausible, if not probable.

Point 1:

We started with 27 players, 9 per main faction. It's reasonable to assume that there are 6 Discoverers- 2 per faction. This in of itself is kind of frightening to think about. If this is true, it means the breakdown is as follows:

7 true Heritagers

7 true Moderationers

7 true Gloryers

6 Discoverers.

That would mean that Discovery started with only 1 less member than the other factions.

Point 2:

Right now, our player distribution is as follows, give or take 1 for each number listed in parentheses:

Moderation: 10 members (8 true members, 2 discoverers)

Glory: 9 members (7 true members, 2 discoverers)

Heritage: 8 members (6 true members, 2 discoverers)

Point 3:

Take the scenario where all three main factions go for their own self interests and vote independently of each other. Assume for the sake of simplicity that everybody casts a vote, and everybody votes for their faction's chosen lynchee (I know that in reality you will have players who are inactive or who simply don't vote every cycle. But theoretically they should be randomly distributed among all the factions.

Also, I don't know which factions have which vote manipulating and/or action blocking powers available, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that these more or less cancel each other out.)

Moderation casts 8 votes for player A

Glory casts 7 votes for player B

Heritage casts 6 votes for player C

Discovery has 6 votes to add to whichever player out of A, B, or C that they want to lynch.

Because of the PM-vote nature of this game, there is no reason for Discovery to try to conceal who they're voting for. In this hypothetical situation, with only a 2-vote spread between the first and last place lynchees, Discovery easily controls the vote. Not good.

Point 4:

Say that Glory faction and Heritage faction team up to try to lynch one of the Moderationers, in an attempt to balance out the factions once again.

Glory and Heritage pool together 13 votes on Moderationer Molly.

Moderation casts 8 votes for player B

Once again, Discovery has 6 votes to play around with. There is a 5-vote spread between Molly and player B, so Discovery still has a lot of control over the vote, but there it's close enough that it is not a sure bet either way, thanks to things like arbiters, inactives, and action-blockers.

If Molly is a true Moderationer, the Discoverers will probably just let the lynch go through on her. If we get lucky and Molly is actually a hidden Discoverer, then the Discoverers will probably throw their votes in and try to save Molly, because what do they have to lose?

Conclusion: so, unless we ALL band together and try to lynch Discoverers as a group, the discoverers are going to control the vote. As the game progresses and more and more non-Discoverers die off, Discovery will gain even a bigger hold over the vote, and in the end it will be difficult if not impossible to stop them.

---

Here is what I propose- feel free to debate it or propose alternatives if you wish to:

Moderation Faction, you have the most members right now. Pick one of your own members who you suspect the most and let us know in the thread. Glory and Heritage factions, let's add our votes to Moderation's target in the hopes that we can eliminate a Discoverer. Next cycle, whichever faction has the most members does the same, and we repeat until we eliminate Discovery.

Thoughts?

[Araris Valerian]

Hmm. I suspect that there are only five or even four in the discovery faction, because of what you outlined there. Basically, for them, this game is like a normal game with the additional option to play factions against each other. So I don't see why the 1/5 rule would be rounded up in this case. However, your plan is still a good one. I am fairly confused about what is going on right now. I thought of something, and I don't really have time right this moment to consider its implications, but couldn't we use the thread like in a normal SE game, and do lynch votes in red and green and such? Then if discovery tried to be sneaky and group on a single person every turn we could work wih what people claimed to have voted and try and find discovery that way.

[Haelbarde]

Would that tell us much though? 

 

Heh. Starts thinking about factions posting their internal vote tallies the round after, which is almost the same thing. I dunno. Pending more discussion, I don't think I'd be against that sort of idea.

 

Also, you happen to be an Arbiter, a fitting rank for this game. Anyone else got setting relevant ranks? (I know that I become a bloodsealer if I get to 300, I think)

[Wyrmhero]

Cang Lu sighed as he stared at today's tea. It was not the tea his faction drank, but a gift from a friend. He waited for the Red Robe tea to diffuse into the water fully, then closed his eyes and took a sip. Kaleva's favourite. They were... friends... of a sort. One did not often have friends in the game played at court, but he had been around so long he had picked up... Well, if not friends, then people who didn't actively want him dead. This cup was dedicated to his remembrance.

 

He placed it back down on the table before him, and opened his eyes again. He waited until the taste had entirely deserted him, and only then did he put Kaleva's passing, his murder, out of his mind. It did not do one good to dwell on the past that long. It made you blind to the present, and that got you killed in short order. But he would take this minute to remember. With the Emperor's death, he was perhaps the only one who would mourn Kaleva's passing.

 

Yes. He looked outside, at the streets. They were empty, as would be expected at such an event. People were at home. It was a day of mourning, but also one of rage. The fact that the Emperor was dying - and that such a murder was in truth a kindness - did not quell the fury the people had, not just at his murder, but at the Strikers for failing so terribly to protect him.

 

And, of course, now they were overcompensating, as they always did when failing to protect their charge. His home had been searched twice already before midday, though in deference to his age and frailty, they did not search him too roughly. He was glad of that, and he would not have suffered the indignation quietly if he had been.

 

But now his mind turned to future events. The world would move on rapidly from the Emperor's death. A few tears, some offerings burnt to ease his passing from this world, and then the daggers, real or metaphorical, would be out. The foreseeable future would be a bloody catastrophe, as the rearrangement of government took place. People would be made to retire, possibly alive if they were lucky, allies elevated, enemies cast down, while always having in mind that it would be very nice if their clueless candidate who needed advice from old friends sat in the Emperor's chair, rather than someone else's.

 

Cang Lu sighed and drained his cup. He looked at the leaves left within, and hesitated. No, he would not forecast the future using a dead man's leaves. It would simply be another way to see an omen of darkness and death. He lowered the cup down to the table, and called for someone to bring him one of his usual tea. Sighing to himself, he closed the box of Red Robe, stood up, and placed it on a shelf alongside other boxes of various flavours. All of them were from people he had outlived, and had commanded at least a measure of respect and possibly friendship from. But he was old, and as he grew older still, his allies were starting to succumb to age, or were murdered in the political war. Who was left now that he could give his own box of tea to?

 

---

 

Edit: Spent so long writing the RP, I forgot I was actually going to respond to Araris when I posted this >>.

 

I would be very surprised if there were only four or five Discoverers in this game. Not only does it not allow an equal number in each doc (though that is an assumption we are making, it is likely to be correct), but it's lower than the number we had in MR1. I know I shouldn't be referring too much to a previous game, but that is what Kas based this on (and it's well worth a read if you haven't already). Plus, if we consider them Eliminators (though they technically aren't as they don't have a kill), then 1/5th would be the right amount. So I think it's more-or-less guaranteed we have six, split 2/2/2.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Wyrmhero

[Adamir]

Also, you happen to be an Arbiter, a fitting rank for this game. Anyone else got setting relevant ranks? (I know that I become a bloodsealer if I get to 300, I think)

I'm an arbiter at the moment - in rank, not in game. By the way, there is a small chance I might have made a mistake in assuming I am the Svordish diplomat - could I have a resealer, please? Thanks.

[Adamir]

Currently feeling like a 200% idiot. My investigation told me Orlok was Moderation, and someone else told me he was Heritage. Now, I have it confirmed that he was Moderation. I am Jindoeese, and I am requesting protection from your Resealers. The diplomat, if attacked without protection, suffers a delayed death - meaning a resealer cannot save me if I am not protected tonight.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Adamir

[Kasimir]

Okay, announcement time! I have just gotten back from work plus a visit to my GP for stitches. Y'all are lucky I'm right-handed! I have dealt with the batch of actions and rule clarifications. If you haven't gotten a reply, ping me again because I'll have missed you. Otherwise, I am getting that painkiller and a cuppa.
 
I have one main thing that needs to be dealt with separately:
 
I have been asked a few times about the Discovery Faction, so I want to lay it out for once and for all. I can neither confirm nor deny if the Discovery Faction exists. The Discovery Faction comprises nothing but Blasphemous Scholars. Only Scholars have the ability to infiltrate Faction docs. If there were members of the Discovery Faction that weren't Scholars, they wouldn't be in the docs of other Factions. And if they weren't in the docs of other Factions, then A. I would never have allowed y'all to share Faction lists like that as you would've immediately revealed their identities by doing so, and B. your sharing Faction lists would've outed them. Unless, of course, one of the List-sharers is lying
 
But to settle the issue for once and for all: they are all Blasphemous Scholars, they are not secret Teullu Warriors, they do not have Rememberers or Arbiters, they do not have a secret Weapon of Doom, they do not have a kill ability, and by the Eighty Suns, they are not Eliminators. I'd put that in size 20 font if I could This is a Faction game. That is all.*

*This isn't a suspiciously specific denial, by the way. I should note I do not believe in pulling hidden-surprise rules on players like this. When I say there is no Weapon of Doom, I mean it.
 
Otherwise, the rule clarifications have been edited--they're the second post of the cycle, and you can check there for any queries and for the latest update on the answers to the #stuffplayersask. In particular, I would like to flag that I have just clarified important things about the Arbiter, the Resealer, and the Bloodsealer, so I would recommend that players take a look at it. Thanks!

[Gamma Fiend]

As per request of the GM, just popping in here for the friendly reminder on Fair Play policy and etiquette! There haven't been any real issues yet, just more of a preemptive reminder! Also, as in regards to the clarification of purposely Sabotaging your Team, while we don't have anything officially in the Fair Play Rules -- and most of you are already aware of my reputation and shenanigans of the sorts in previous games -- I can say from firsthand experience, that most players don't tend to enjoy that particular play-style. >.> And besides, this game is already bloody enough and full of backstabbings and betrayals as it is!

Edited July 2, 2015 by Gamma Fiend