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Quick Fix Game 28: Minimalist Elimination


Wyrmhero

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@Drake Marshall I agree that banning is an extreme measure, and only mentioned it because it seems like we might need to start considering extreme measures based on this and other games. I also like both of your suggestions, although since I've never GMed I don't know how the first one would change role distributions. Both of those sound like good approaches that encourage activity within the spirit of the game.

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3 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Drake Marshall I agree that banning is an extreme measure, and only mentioned it because it seems like we might need to start considering extreme measures based on this and other games. I also like both of your suggestions, although since I've never GMed I don't know how the first one would change role distributions. Both of those sound like good approaches that encourage activity within the spirit of the game.

You raise a good point about role distributions. At least tentatively, what I had in mind is that this measure wouldn’t change role distribution at all, at least not directly. If it’s an all-vanilla game or a role-madness game, this measure wouldn’t change anything. If there are more probationary players than there are slots for vanilla roles, then some probationary players would still get power roles. But in the average game, a player in this position would recieve a vanilla role until they played an active game.

Something like the hazekiller role from LG34 would probably count as vanilla for the purposes of this, though I envision this being a matter of GM discretion.

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In normal games, people say not to roleclaim even if you're vanilla, because it helps the eliminators narrow down who the power roles are. With that suggestion, Drake, what you could end up having is a team of eliminators able to narrow down practically from game start who the power roles are, if there are enough players that they can reasonably count on as being on probation. That creates a major problem with game balance.

Honestly, I don't think Araris' idea is that bad. He's saying a temporary ban for the next one or two games (which most players who go inactive don't sign up for anyway), and if you have real life stuff and alert the GM for it, it doesn't apply to you anyway. Most normally active players who go inactive in a game do so due to real life and PM the GM about it, apologizing for it. They wouldn't be temporarily banned because what they're doing is very different from players who just drop off with no explanation whatsoever for the entire game. We've had many, many players who sign up for games regularly and then never do a single thing in those games. But they'll sign up for a later game anyway and do the same thing. That's a problem. Inactivity has been getting progressively worse, and it really doesn't matter how much apologizing you do for contributing to it if you don't actually recognize it for the problem that it is and actively do something to fix your behavior.

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17 hours ago, Ookla the Itinerant said:

In normal games, people say not to roleclaim even if you're vanilla, because it helps the eliminators narrow down who the power roles are. With that suggestion, Drake, what you could end up having is a team of eliminators able to narrow down practically from game start who the power roles are, if there are enough players that they can reasonably count on as being on probation. That creates a major problem with game balance.

Honestly, I don't think Araris' idea is that bad. He's saying a temporary ban for the next one or two games (which most players who go inactive don't sign up for anyway), and if you have real life stuff and alert the GM for it, it doesn't apply to you anyway. Most normally active players who go inactive in a game do so due to real life and PM the GM about it, apologizing for it. They wouldn't be temporarily banned because what they're doing is very different from players who just drop off with no explanation whatsoever for the entire game. We've had many, many players who sign up for games regularly and then never do a single thing in those games. But they'll sign up for a later game anyway and do the same thing. That's a problem. Inactivity has been getting progressively worse, and it really doesn't matter how much apologizing you do for contributing to it if you don't actually recognize it for the problem that it is and actively do something to fix your behavior.

Hmmmmm the roleclaiming thing would be a problem yeah.

Temporary bans is an acceptable solution, but I can’t shake the feeling that there should be a better way.

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I forget if the guidelines got changed, but all games are meant to have inactivity filters.

Also, bans are very necessary. There are no consequences for inactivity currently, so there's no incentive to change. The reality is, a lot of the time, you could probably look ahead and work out that yeah, I've got lots of homework in the next 3 weeks, I won't sign up. But often people don't give it any thought, or if they do, they know there's no consequences if they go inactive so sign up anyway. We've been talking about "nice" ways to discourage inactivity for the last 2 years, to no real effect. An actual hard rule that is enforced, like a ban, is very much what we need.

And yeah. You don't want to mess with distribution. Honestly, I'm sure that more often than not, GMs will naturally shy away from giving power roles to people who go inactive anyway, and giving them village vanilla roles is not going to stop them joining games and then going inactive.

Edit:

It's been awhile since I've complained about inactivity and measures against it. Feels good :P


The other thought I had was yeah, the 48 hours threw me as I had assumed that the game, both as a quick fix, and due to the nature of the rules (having no ability to explain votes or make arguments) would have only 24 hour cycles. Wonders if that would have helped with peoples attention span.

Edited by Haelbarde
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I just had a hard time staying invested due to lack of communication. I talk first, analyse second. Without the ability to talk and form trust, i had no investment in the game, and no reason to remember it. When i did remember it, and looked at the spreadsheet, i couldn't't find anything to vote on.

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5 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

And yeah. You don't want to mess with distribution. Honestly, I'm sure that more often than not, GMs will naturally shy away from giving power roles to people who go inactive anyway, and giving them village vanilla roles is not going to stop them joining games and then going inactive.

That's a good point, but it's a double-edged one. By the same reasoning, it wouldn't functionally mess with distributions very much if a rule made this effect official, since it's already unofficially in play.

Especially considering the fact that eliminators don't typically target inactives in the first place.

Also considering the fact that some setups explicitly give abilities to players who are active in-game, to encourage activity.

I agree that this would alter the balance of games, but the change is small and I believe that if a game was designed with this factor in mind, it would not be an issue.

 

Alternately, what if an inactive player was restricted from playing LGs, until they were active in a smaller-scale game? I realize that this game is a QF, and it suffered from significant inactivity. But, in general, I would say LGs are much more at risk to inactivity, and that it is probably hurt the most by inactivity.

In this case, the door would be left wide open for an inactive to start being active again, with no delay involved. But there would still be enough of a penalty that inactivity would be discouraged.

What I'm basically going for is a way to limit inactive players, without straight-up banning them (albeit a temporary ban). I believe the former will foster participation, where the latter, even in a temporary form, runs the risk of pushing some people away. And while pragmatically speaking, that may be acceptable, it isn't desirable.

Edited by Drake Marshall
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21 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

And yeah. You don't want to mess with distribution. Honestly, I'm sure that more often than not, GMs will naturally shy away from giving power roles to people who go inactive anyway, and giving them village vanilla roles is not going to stop them joining games and then going inactive.

If an Eliminator or Coinshot/Lurcher goes inactive, that ruins any semblance of balance in the game. Most roles in a game are not too important, but there are certain ones which are rather important. If a player dies during the game with one of these roles, that's fine as it's either a reward or punishment depending on what was taken out. If someone just goes inactive, that's impossible to plan for unless the player does it repeatedly, and neither side should be punished or rewarded for a player going inactive.

Which means, from a GM-perspective, there are certain players that I do not want to give a power role or make an Eliminator, because the game gets thrown completely out of balance if they go inactive. And if a player cannot be made an Eliminator, then I really have to consider them being banned from my games, because we run into the problem of people being soft-confirmed, not because of any game rules, but because the GM is scared to give them any responsibility.

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