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Death looked down at the streets of Ankh-Morpork, unblinking.* From where they were, he saw the shattered remains of the Monarch, beside the lifeless form of Luckat. They saw the burnt out room of the Patrician, and Pestis, plunged into a sleep he’d never return from. They saw blood run the streets as fires burned, and people fought and died, and cowered in fear. And they saw the people causing it all laugh in their victory.

Once more, he descended into the fray, slowly collecting the souls of the dead.

To his side, he heard a voice. “Did we win?”

Death turned, looking at the figure. WIN?

“The War between the Guilds? We reign supreme now. We won, didn’t we.”

AND IF YOU WON. WHAT WOULD THAT MEAN?

“Power. Wealth. Prestige.” The person looked like he was about to continue, but he stopped, recieving a sudden premonition that continuing might not be good for his immediate health.

Death spoke very quietly.

YOU PLAY YOUR PETTY GAMES, AND PEOPLE DIE. AND WHEN THE DAY IS OVER, NOTHING IS CHANGED. EXCEPT MY REALM GROWS THAT MUCH LARGER. YOU MIGHT KEEP STRIVING AND MANIPULATING AND GROWING IN POWER, BUT NO SILVER TONGUE CAN STOP YOU FROM GROWING OLD, STOP YOU GROWING OLD, STOP YOU FROM MEETING YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH ME. AND, IN DEATH, ALL YOUR PETTY GAMES, YOUR LITTLE WARS AND FEUDS AND PETTY SPATS WON’T COUNT FOR ANYTHING. THOSE PEOPLE? WHAT DID THEY DIE FOR? DID THEY DIE FOR SOME NOBLE CAUSE? DID THEY DIE IN ORDER TO MAKE A CHANGE? NO. THEY DIED BECAUSE OF YOUR PETTY GAMES. THEY DIED BECAUSE IT SUITED YOU.

Death shook his head grimly, and walked away.

 

This is the Discworld, where people die for any reason, or no reason at all. The rich, the poor, the men, the women, the old, the young, it doesn’t matter when the end comes. All will be greeted by Death. Most will be remembered fondly. Some will live to a ripe old age of 96, have 14 grandchildren, and die peacefully in their beds one summer morning. Others are taken before their time, harshly pulled from their world before their time, leaving only a shallow imprint of their former selves on the planet in what they left behind them, hoping to stretch that last moment out before they are forgotten forever. Some even succeed, for a time. All the great men will meet Death one day, same as any other, and they’re voice will be silenced, their pen stilled, as they fade from this earth. All that is left for us is to remember them, to read their words, to relive their memories, until, at last, our time arrives too, and we follow in their footsteps, as the world, flat or otherwise, continues to spin without us.

 

*This was probably, in part, due to the fact that he had no eyelids. Or eyes, for that matter.


On that high note, I'd like to congratulate the Night Watch and the Thieves Guild for their win. I'm glad I ran this game, broken as it was, because it gives me experience as a GM for the future, and I thank you all for abiding with my alarmingly frequent mistakes, both in mechanics and in enforcing them. My full GM thoughts will come later, but I have a bunch more things I know to do now (or, more precisely, not to do). The full list of player roles is in the GM spreadsheet below, along with all the docs. 


GM Spreadsheet (Apologies, the GM spreadsheet of actions is not entirely complete, unfortunately, though most of it is there. It was used as a reminder to me, more than anything else. Also, it looks like I deleted 3 columns from Cycle 1 accidentally, so I'll probably get around to fixing that up sometime.)

Assassins Guild Doc

Thieves Guild Doc

Night Watch Doc

Unseen University Doc

Guilds Doc

Waste Paper Basket

Spec Doc

Dead Doc

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24 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Sorry about that, Mage. If you read my doc, you'll see where I was about to change my order off you because I felt bad, but missed the turnover by like 5 minutes.

No problem. :P  

I'm just confused as to why people thought I was a neutral.  And then there was a freak coincidence where I was redirected to you the night you were CMOTD'ed, because they thought I was a neutral...  Yeah, that was amusing to read over.  

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15 hours ago, Nyali said:

What killed me? I didn't see it in the action sheet.

You were killed by... a poorly thought out mechanic on my part and some poor luck on the RNG. There was one item, the Gonne, it would compel you to kill someone randomly if an order wasn't sent in (including, potentially, a team-mate). Darkness recieved it after Aman passed it on when he thought the Thieves were going to steal from him, and then didn't send in orders, first killing Luckat, his teammate, and then nearly killing Aman, another team-mate (in fact, I had, briefly, accidentally killed him in the write-up, before resurrecting him, because I didn't notice he jailed himself that night.) And then you, one of the only people left who's death wasn't actually useful to the Watch. But... yeah, that was a poorly thought out mechanic on my part. I failed to distinguish between a 'punishment' on the individual for not sending in orders to punishing the team as a whole, or other players in the game, which was a stupid move on my part.

Edited by The Young Bard
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On November 18, 2016 at 4:34 AM, JUQ said:

The Watch Seriously, Prodded Buttock.

This is a Discworld reference.  I personally found that extremely humourous over the course of the Watch books. :D 

9 hours ago, Elenion said:

*laughing* I've never heard it described quite like that before.

3 hours ago, JUQ said:

You haven't read Discworld then?

Len.  Read.  Now.

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13 hours ago, JUQ said:

You haven't read Discworld then?

10 hours ago, Magestar said:

Len.  Read.  Now.

I still haven't read Emperor's Soul, SH, or Mistborn Era 2 yet; so Discworld might have to wait for a while. But I will add it to my reading list.

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So, I decided to post my final thoughts about the game. 

@The Young Bard Thanks for running this game. You did a great job of keeping it going, despite the problems that came up. I'm glad you have the attitude of learning from this. I hope any future games you run turn out better, and I really think they will. Also, thanks for putting up with me in the dead doc. 

@Doctor12 Thanks for helping run the game too. You did great at making sure it kept going. 

 

@Darkness Ascendant I am really angry with how you played this game. Between not sending in actions, not checking the doc, and lynching a teammate of your own accord at the end, you really harmed your team and the game as a whole. If you have difficulty accessing or using the doc then you should mention it and workarounds can be found, but if you're just not getting on because you don't feel like it then you need to change that. SE is a team game, and you need to be a team player, especially when you know who your teammates are. People are willing to work with you, but only if you make it possible for them. Aman gave you a lot of trust by giving you his weapon, and you utterly failed to live up to it. If you're not going to work as part of a team and you're not going to send in actions or participate in any docs you are part of, then you shouldn't be playing. 

 

@Everyone I didn't really enjoy playing this game. JUQ's reveal of me in the doc made me feel forced into playing both sides from the beginning more than I would have liked. Inactivity was rampant, both on my team and on other teams. And there were numerous problems with the mechanics that made it difficult to communicate effectively or use resources well and that ultimately got me killed unfairly. I'm not going to enumerate those problems because I think most people are aware of what they were. 

Inactivity has been a huge problem in SE. Too many people sign up but stop playing partway through. There is nothing the active players can do about the harm done to their team, and yet the same people do it again and again. 

Unbalanced and broken games have also been a big problem. Part of it is that there's too high a concentration of complicated games--GMs tend more toward running their game with all their ideas than running a standard SE game with their flavor. Part of it is that GMs sometimes don't adequately think through all of their mechanics or get enough feedback on them before the game starts, especially when there are hidden mechanics. Part of it is that the games, especially LGs, take so long that a significant problem in one affects a lot of people for a long time. Part of it is just that occasional problems are inevitable, but it's not only that because honestly it seems like problems are the rule rather than the exception. 

I've been trying to play and participate in the community despite all this, hoping the problems would get a bit better. But really, they haven't. It is so frustrating to put weeks of free time and energy into a game only for the result to have more to do with how well the game was put together in the first place or who decided to actually participate than any effort on my part. 

I said this in the dead doc, but SE has become more frustrating than enjoyable for me. I can't keep participating if it's just going to keep getting me worked up without me having any fun. I've had some good times, but at this point it seems like there's been more bad. So I'm going to have to stop playing.

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@luckat It is a pity you feel like this. I would like to apologize for revealing you, as I see now that it was disrespectful for a new player to do this. I was considering saying that someone else was a monarchist, and then PMing you about it. This might have caused a win for the monarchists, because as the Commander of the Watch I had access to the guilds doc where Dalinar was talking to the Assassin leader about monarchists. However, I cannot complain, especially because I won. In hindsight, however, my actions were mean, and I shouldn't have done it.

Edited by JUQ
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  • 1 month later...

Well, it's that time again.  Time to close another of our games.  Many thanks to Young Bard for creating and running a Discworld game.  While it had some problems, I felt that for a first time GM you did a very good job.  I look forward to seeing it run again once some of the kinks are worked out.

Sadly, this game is the last for one of our long time players.  Luckat.  You will be missed.  Hopefully the community can get together as a whole to help solve the problems you brought up and we can make these games something that you might wish to rejoin.  I for one would love to see you return but fully understand if you choose not to.


If anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get a hold of GammaWilson, 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!

For those who are interested in learning about the joys of stabbing the backs of fellow Sharders, Mid-Range Game 19: Return to Urithiru is open for sign ups so feel free to join in the fun.


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

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