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Steph couldn't believe what was happening! Seriously? One of the Masters was DEAD?! She had wanted to go to the University to learn, not get bogged down in sadness. Honestly the meaning of life, she believed, was to be happy. These skindancers would pay for messing with her good and cheery vibes. She was rich, sure, but money couldn't buy happiness. She couldn't let the death of her soon-to-be Master go without justice. "I will avenge you, Master Droughtbringer!!!! I'll do whatever it takes, even if that means spending every last talent, jot, and drab I have!" she exclaimed, mostly to herself. (not by choice or because of insanity, but because she was generally avoided by the rest of the students) 

 

I haven't read king killers so this is going to prob be confusing for a while so any RPs might not be very accurate to the books bc idk about them :P

 

To help ease analyzation (for myself), I grouped the students into their ranks in the order shown so I thought I'd post it for others.

 

Vintish Nobles(3):

Queensteph

Burnt Spaghetti

Magestar

Aturan Nobles(6):

Hemalurgic Headshot

Ornstein

Arinian

Stick (btw, I love your name:D)

Cluny the Scourge

Brightness Radiant

Ylish Commoners(10):

Raduir

Straw

Paranoid King

Jodesu

Assassin in Burgundy

Darkness Ascendant

Amanuensis

Eolhondras

STINK

Joe

Cealdish Commoners(5):

Wilson

Drake Marshall

Orlok

Alvron

Silverblade

Edema Ruth(3):

Aonar

Hael

Sart

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I've got some basic vote and math related observations. If you've already done a thorough read-through of the rules, this is mostly just a summary of the relevant things.

There are 27 of us currently, which means there are 54 votes.

The minimum amount of DP to get someone one the horns is 5 DP, which translates to 10 votes as long as there are only NPC masters.

The minimum amount of votes needed to provide someone with a risk of expulsion is 22, for a total of 11 DP and a 10% risk of expulsion.

To get the chance of Expulsion over 50%, a minimum of 30 votes is needed.

For guaranteed Expulsion, a minimum of 40 votes is needed.

However, Expulsion isn't like a traditional lynch, as it doesn't actually provide any information. The person affected even remains capable of taking actions, so an expulsed skindancer can still target visitors to Imre with sabotages, or hire assassins.

I personally think the 'lashings' result is far more interesting, as it functions as a role-block. Lashes have an over 50% chance of occurring in the 8-14DP range, which translates to 16-28 votes. As there is no limit to how many people can be brought on the horns, this could in the earlier cycles be used on multiple suspected skindancers at once to reduce the actions available to them.

Anyway, the village win condition is to kill all the skindancers. Kills can be made through the following powers/ items:

Rhetoric and Logic: Law of contraposition (hard to pull of, but if you can get one skindancer to sabotage another...)

Sympathy: Upgraded Mommets, Malfeasance to take someone down with you.

Alchemy: Bone-tar (talk about a scorched earth response).

Naming: Fire, Blood and Bone could be used for that, I think.

Imre: an assassin can be hired  to kill someone.

Edited by randuir
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I'm on mobile, right now, and I'm afraid I won't be able to post today (its 01:18pm now, for clarity). I'll definitely post tomorrow, before the end of this turn, and hopefully will get my thoughts through. 

P.S. this post isn't in blue. Sorry. I'll edit it when I have the time

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Oh nice, this game is started!

So what I want to say... hmm... I probably will be inactive for this turn, but I'm not sure :D.

40 minutes ago, randuir said:

Anyway, the village win condition is to kill all the edgedancers.

Also randuir is right we surely should kill all this nasty edgedancers :P. No one likes them.

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Amelia woke with a start. She had just had a terrible dream. Her friends were dying around her on a battlefield, surrounded by traitorous soldiers with glowing eyes. Some of them had even looked like certain students she had seen around on campus. The nightmare was probably brought on by stress. After that address they had just been given by Chancellor Varda, everyone seemed to be in a state of panic. She was too, but for more than one reason. She had been waiting for so long to come to the university. Not because she lacked the money, but because of what had happened here years ago. Her brother, Corrin, had been a student at the time. Now he was a master, and on the board at the school. He had helped convince their family that it was safe enough for her to finally attend. But now? What would happen if her parents found out? They would pull her out of school, without a doubt.    

Amelia chewed,nervously, on her lower lip. What they don't know, won't hurt em, right? Perhaps the school would attempt to keep this quiet. She looked down at her new student packet filled with pamphlets about academics, lodging options, etc. The quicker we find these Skindancers, the less chance there is of my parents finding out, and my dreams being ruined. She had to do this, she decided. But where to start? 

@randuir great book selection Telar :lol:...this could be the start of a great friendship! Even if you are a commoner lol

Also thanks for doing the math for the votes...I hate doing math :P

Edited by BrightnessRadiant
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Chancellor Varda frowned down at him, displeasure obvious in the look of his eyes, frustration blatant in the lines on his face, and resignation inherent in set of his jaw.

“A joke in poor taste, then. Very well, student. You may go. Be more careful in the future.”

The Mage bowed deeply, flourishing a bit at the end, and spun on his heel.  Face forwards, don't look back, almost to the door...

The Mage opened the door quietly, shut it discretely, looked about, and sprinted down the hall.  This was a place he did not want to be.  Not now, not before, nor anytime soon. 

As he began to run out of breath, and was far enough away from that dreadful place that he felt he could stop, The Mage paused.  He shook himself, trying to pull the parts of his shredded ego back together.  Being brought on 'The Horns' was a small matter, no doubt.  It must happen to everyone, now and again.  True, this was his first month, but this was unlikely to set records of any kind.  If it had happened to him, well, it could happen to anyone!

The Mage shook himself one more time, and smiled.  Having firmly reentered the universe about himself, and restored his self confidence through alteration of viewpoint, The Mage was ready to begin.  Now, he just had to figure out what he was supposed to be doing. 


Well.  That is not exactly how I saw that playing out. :P  Being brought on the Horns C1?  Not a great start.

Still, I'm fairly confident that this game will be thoroughly enjoyable. :P 

1 hour ago, randuir said:

I personally think the 'lashings' result is far more interesting, as it functions as a role-block. Lashes have an over 50% chance of occurring in the 8-14DP range, which translates to 16-28 votes. As there is no limit to how many people can be brought on the horns, this could in the earlier cycles be used on multiple suspected skindancers at once to reduce the actions available to them.

Lashings are interesting, I guess.  I'll admit that the first thing I thought when I saw them was that I didn't want it to happen to me. :P  I didn't really think of it as an effective weapon, although I can see how it could be used like that.

What I really like, at least right now, is the 'Formal Apology'.  It looks so amusing to RP that I'm not sure how much I'd mind it happening. :P 

I might have more to say later... Who knows? :P 

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1 hour ago, randuir said:

I've got some basic vote and math related observations. If you've already done a thorough read-through of the rules, this is mostly just a summary of the relevant things.

There are 27 of us currently, which means there are 54 votes.

The minimum amount of DP to get someone one the horns is 5 DP, which translates to 10 votes as long as there are only NPC masters.

The minimum amount of votes needed to provide someone with a risk of expulsion is 22, for a total of 11 DP and a 10% risk of expulsion.

To get the chance of Expulsion over 50%, a minimum of 30 votes is needed.

For guaranteed Expulsion, a minimum of 40 votes is needed.

However, Expulsion isn't like a traditional lynch, as it doesn't actually provide any information. The person affected even remains capable of taking actions, so an expulsed skindancer can still target visitors to Imre with sabotages, or hire assassins.

I personally think the 'lashings' result is far more interesting, as it functions as a role-block. Lashes have an over 50% chance of occurring in the 8-14DP range, which translates to 16-28 votes. As there is no limit to how many people can be brought on the horns, this could in the earlier cycles be used on multiple suspected skindancers at once to reduce the actions available to them.

Anyway, the village win condition is to kill all the skindancers. Kills can be made through the following powers/ items:

Rhetoric and Logic: Law of contraposition (hard to pull of, but if you can get one skindancer to sabotage another...)

Sympathy: Upgraded Mommets, Malfeasance to take someone down with you.

Alchemy: Bone-tar (talk about a scorched earth response).

Naming: Fire, Blood and Bone could be used for that, I think.

Imre: an assassin can be hired  to kill someone.

Drust was confused. Was there already a Master of Rhetoric and Logic among the students? How could that even be possible? 

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Woo boy, I probably should have anticipated the complexity of this game before I joined. But I still would have:P


Noremac sped off to his next class. The Chancellor's words repeated themselves in his head. Skindancers among us. Meaning of life. Skindancers. Life. What is the meaning of life? Master Drought is dead. Skindancers. The words repeated with each step, the rhythm of his footsteps driving on the internal mantra. Step; Life. Step; Skindancers. Step; Dead. Step; ...

His bag, stuffed nearly to breaking with books, notepads, an apple, and a map of the University (because it is easy to get lost, alright?). Above him, the clouds were brilliant. Towering pillars of white that drifted across a blue canvas. Each column of magnificence was bounded by an escort of wispy cirrus. Just beautiful clouds today. Noremac gazed at them. Then, with a jolt, realized that he must be going, or he would be late! And he hated being late.

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Anyways, should probably do a little bit more than the whole ‘Randuir might be a computer’ thing, though that point still stands. (And thanks for the rep)

First, I’m gonna add some milk talk about the rich people (aka anyone above me). Last time this game was played, I was one of the lazy rich people that get all their money from their parents and have great fun, but everyone kinda wanted me dead for that. Was pretty realistic, imo. However, that wasn’t the greatest fun ‘cause it felt like I was being attacked more for being given money rather than my views or whatever, so let’s not do that this game.

Secondly (also ties into the whole money thing because I’m secretly a communist), everyone should be more cautious with their Talent Pipes. Unless you’re giving the Talent Pipe to ol’ Stinko, you should probably just keep it instead. There’s some reasons for this, but this is getting kinda long and you should just read LG18.

But yeah, give all your money to me so I can make fun Black Market contracts please :P

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Just dropping by to say that I'm a rich and selfish Noblestick, so I don't have to worry about much :]

Also, I probably missed it somewhere in the wall of text i.e. the rules, but are our lodging costs covered this term or were the charges reduced from the money we started the game with?

Don't think I'll have quality RP coming in any time soon, so RIP 5 jots that I could've saved.

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Needing a break from the assessment he was working on,  Glavion returned to looking at the skindancer report for more details. One of the poorest skindancers, Pyra, had invoked Sympathy on Marcos Wayweather, who made a gift of his talent pipes shortly before dying under suspicious circumstances. An unfortunate series of events for sure,  but an interesting idea.  Maybe he too could find a sponsor for whom he could offer assistance too.  Maybe he would have to post an advert on a noticeboard or something. He made a note in his journal. 

Another thing to catch his eye was a few of the notes the author of the report had made on the factors leading to the skindancers defeat.  To have destroyed the uni,  they would have been required to master each school in turn, and destroy it from within. But with four individuals and nine schools,  at least one would have been required to master three schools.  As destroying a school would have revealed their identity, achieving this would have been unfeasible. Had they have had more agents,  more schools would have been able to targetted simultaneously, and with six agents,  only three would be required to master a second field.  Further yet, were six skindancers to achieve mastery,  their sheer power would be truly overpowering. It seemed to him that were there six infiltrators,  then the University was already doomed.

With a shake of his head,  he put the report aside.  He needed focus presently,  and report had the potential to stress him out further.  Turning back to his work, he attempted to clear his mind of fears of skindancers.

Edited by Haelbarde
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2 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Also, I probably missed it somewhere in the wall of text i.e. the rules, but are our lodging costs covered this term or were the charges reduced from the money we started the game with?

You don't have to care about lodging until next month, when you're putting it in for Term 2. This month, it was essentially paid before the game started. Your GM PM should include how much you started with. That is after lodging is taken out. 

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Vell looked around the room as she prepared to settle in for her first semester at the University.  She wasn't prepared for this, but her father had been able to secure her a spot despite her low status, and she couldn't let him down.  He'd even managed to buy her some supplies and a text to learn a small amount of Alchemy ahead of time, and she suspected it had cost him a good bit of both money and risk.  Of course, the old book had been too obscure and too obtuse for her to learn much, and practicing was almost impossible, but she'd told him it was helpful, and that she would secure a spot in the University for herself.  She actually wasn't sure she wanted to continue learning alchemy; it had an unfortunate side-effect, in that one tended to lose one's mind. Even that wouldn't worry her too much, except she knew her father would need her to be able to send some money back to him soon, though he'd never admit it. That was a large part of the reason she was here. Their family's business was well-reputed and her father lived comfortably enough, but new competition had settled in, and in a relatively small city, that was bad news.  Even if the competition didn't run them out of town, any lost business could add up quickly.

She quickly stowed her sack of belongings and checked the bed for pests; it seemed clean, which was nicer than some of the inns she'd stayed at on the journey here.  The Yllish people didn't merit much attention from most, so while she hadn't been accosted or abused, she also had been largely ignored and only given the most basic rooms at any inn, regardless of how much she might have been willing to pay.  It was probably better to have saved the money anyways, but she had a rash covering a large portion of her back that was making it difficult to sleep, and she could certainly have done without that.

Taking a small notebook and pen with her, she headed down to the courtyard of the University to see if she could meet someone new, and perhaps learn more about some of the other subjects.  Maybe she could keep her mind a little more intact than she had originally expected…


Alright, there's some RP, and I didn't decide until I started writing this post that Vell would be female. I have read the rules, but I know I don't fully comprehend them, so I may be less effective than I'd prefer.  Also, I will likely be headed out of town sometime this upcoming week or the next, and if so, I will not have access to a computer for about two weeks.  I'll have my iPad and phone, so I can still participate, but that will significantly reduce my ability to analyze, and it will potentially be a busy schedule if so (I'll be at an inpatient headache clinic, hopefully getting some relief, but I would bet my time will be in demand).  I won't abandon the game if at all possible, but I know I won't be able to be as involved as I'd like.

If anyone would like to offer advice to Tell, she'd appreciate that, and if anyone has suggestions for me as a player, I'd like that too (via PM, perhaps, unless it's all generic like the advice I've already seen before D1, which was interesting but sometimes a bit overwhelming).

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Skindancers. Cluny snorted softly. His father had told him of the skindancers, when he was but a child, to frighten him to bed. Cluny snorted again. They had been a myth, in his mind, until he had started doing research. Research that led him to the university. A good Altaran, he disliked the arcane arts. He felt a strange resemblance to Ais, torn between his nationality and his interests. Who the heck was Ais, anyway? He was here anyway. I will find the answers to the question. The question. The one that drove him everywhere. The one that the arcanists could answer. First, he had to become one of them. He shuddered and left the university, heading for his lodging.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I should be mostly active, on a lot, but more like popping in for a few minutes, every few minutes. I'm new at this, and any advice is appreciated. Also, this is going to be tough. I can usually win a bluff, double bluff, triple bluff, or quattornonagintillion'th bluff against people with ordinary intelligence, however these are Sanderfans, and thus obviously of the greater denomination of the intelligent population, as evidenced by their good taste. Also, can an expelled student still be sent to the crockery? Or can a student in the crockery be expelled?

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As The Mage neared the Library, he pondered the meaning of life.  In truth, the meaning of life, or rather in life, is where you find it.  The Mage had always quested for knowledge, for as they say, knowledge is power.  Knowledge is the lever used to move the world...

The Mage entered the Library, and began perusing the shelves for books on each Arcanum Field.  He already knew a good deal about each field, but he wanted to know what he was getting into here. 

Knowledge...

After a moments thought, The Mage added a book on the Fae, and a more specific book about Skindancers to his pile.  These would doubtless be helpful in the coming days.  The ability to find the Skindancers could be invaluable, and anything he could learn about them would help.

Knowledge...

The Mage flipped through each of the books, writing things down as he went.  Always good to keep notes in situations like these.  It would not do to forget key information at a critical point.  

Knowledge...

The Mage spent hours in the library, not only studying for each and every subject, but also learning all he could about the university. It's origins, it's history - fascinating topics, in and of themselves.  Learning about skindancers.  These creatures were dangerous, powerful, frightening - even more so for having infiltrated such a place as this!  The knowledge, the power they must possess.  But the teachers, the students here - The Mage had no doubt that, with those who called the university home working together, the Skindancers could easily be defeated.

Knowledge...

The Mage smiled.  Now all he needed was a place to stand.


The Mage may or may not reflect my personal opinions. :P 

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7 hours ago, randuir said:

There are 27 of us currently, which means there are 54 votes.

The minimum amount of DP to get someone one the horns is 5 DP, which translates to 10 votes as long as there are only NPC masters.

The minimum amount of votes needed to provide someone with a risk of expulsion is 22, for a total of 11 DP and a 10% risk of expulsion.

To get the chance of Expulsion over 50%, a minimum of 30 votes is needed.

For guaranteed Expulsion, a minimum of 40 votes is needed.

One thing to keep in mind: even NPC Masters cast DP. It's just RNG-based on everyone who has DP through the votes. So if only a single complaint is cast the entire day, and that student isn't staying at The Golden Pony (which subtracts a full DP), all the Masters would end up placing their DP on that one student, and that one student would be expelled. However, if 4-5 students have complaints filed against them, the Masters would be split amongst all of them, randomly. There's still a chance someone could get expelled since it's an RNG doing the work, but it's generally a little more difficult.

Basically, the only way to fix the results in terms of punishment is through the guaranteed expulsion. Everything else is chance.

 

2 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

Another thing to catch his eye was a few of the notes the author of the report had made on the factors leading to the skindancers defeat.  To have destroyed the uni,  they would have been required to master each school in turn, and destroy it from within. But with four individuals and nine schools,  at least one would have been required to master three schools.  As destroying a school would have revealed their identity, achieving this would have been unfeasible. Had they have had more agents,  more schools would have been able to targetted simultaneously, and with six agents,  only three would be required to master a second field.  Further yet, were six skindancers to achieve mastery,  their sheer power would be truly overpowering. It seemed to him that were there six infiltrators,  then the University was already doomed.

With a shake of his head,  he put the report aside.  He needed focus presently,  and report had the potential to stress him out further.  Turning back to his work, he attempted to clear his mind of fears of skindancers.

Keep in mind that death is incredibly hard this game for either alignment. You and Burnt were both outed skindancers (Maill might've been as well), and it took the village a bit to finally kill both of you. It actually took the village risking insanity both times (and Wonko did go insane to finally off you). So while I agree that there are certainly more than 4 Skindancers, 6 might be too many, simply because of how hard it is to kill. Yes, that's something that hurts the Skindancers as well, but the Crockery is basically death, given how low the chances of breaking out are. Also, the Bloodless won't be in circulation nearly as much this time around since they cost rather substantially more, so sabotages are much more likely to go through.

 

10 minutes ago, Cluny the Scourge said:

Also, can an expelled student still be sent to the crockery? Or can a student in the crockery be expelled?

I'm not one of the current GMs, but as one of the previous GMs, I know the answer to this as well. The first is yes. The second is no. Those in the Crockery are in a state of limbo where they can do literally nothing besides hope that they roll high on that breakout die. They're technically still players in the game, in that they can be targeted by players outside the Crockery, but they themselves can do nothing unless they breakout.

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7 minutes ago, little wilson said:

One thing to keep in mind: even NPC Masters cast DP. It's just RNG-based on everyone who has DP through the votes. So if only a single complaint is cast the entire day, and that student isn't staying at The Golden Pony (which subtracts a full DP), all the Masters would end up placing their DP on that one student, and that one student would be expelled. However, if 4-5 students have complaints filed against them, the Masters would be split amongst all of them, randomly. There's still a chance someone could get expelled since it's an RNG doing the work, but it's generally a little more difficult.

Basically, the only way to fix the results in terms of punishment is through the guaranteed expulsion. Everything else is chance.

Yes, you seem to be correct. On my initial read-through of the rules I thought that "each vote counts as a complaint lodged against that student, and every two complaints counts as one Discipline Point against the player if they’re taken On the Horns." meant that the NPC masters will distribute 1 DP to someone for every two votes they've gotten, but on a reread, it looks more like the complaints generate additional DP. Good thing you caught that, it has prevented me from making a bad mistake in the name of saving a few jots on my tuition.

Edited by randuir
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