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1 hour ago, MonsterMetroid said:

What I was trying to say that if we went exactly by Devotary's plan we would have only proved that both Drought and SHqueeves had access to the doc and then he wanted to push back the lynch until we knew that much using lopens PM's. This felt like a delay tactic immediately to me especially when we could just ask lopen which one he thought was the elim in code. In short it felt like a decent plan but not a great plan with the purpose of delaying a decision on the lynch.

 Your plan, while it would have worked if you are a villager, is limited because you are the only one who receives confirmation. While I don't know exactly how your plan worked, from the PM you sent me a few cycles ago it seemed that it relied on a list of words indicating that a particular player was a villager and a set of words indicating that a particular player was an eliminator. The exact nature of the list is transmitted between you and Lopen through Shqueeves, possibly distorted had Shqueeves been an eliminator. You have Shqueeves ask Lopen for a row and column number and Lopen either lies or tells the truth, though since Shqueeves was good Lopen would have told the truth. Shqueeves reports back to you, you check that Shqueeves is telling the truth and now you have confirmed his innocence. Hooray! Except, the only person who has learned anything is you.

My plan, while it wasn't thought through all the way, had the potential to confirm to the entire thread which one of them was evil. As I posted in thread:

" I propose that Lopen post a list of words for both Shqueeves and Drought to post in thread. These words would ideally be unguessable and come from PMs that Lopen has sent to currently living players that he believes are villagers. When Shqueeves and Drought post their list along with the associated player, in the form Player-PM#-Word Number-Word, the players would then confirm the word."

Here a similar thing happens as goes on in your plan. Since Drought was the evil one, and here's the part I didn't think of at the time, Lopen would have composed Drought's list of words with phrases that didn't actually appear in any of his PMs. When Drought posts his list to the thread, it becomes obvious to everyone that he's lying when none of his words can be found in Lopen's PMs. Even if Drought knew he was being lied to, he would only been able to guess correctly for players that were evil. We could then have spent the rest of the cycle getting as much information from the dead through Shqueeves as we could. Instead, you took my plan, removed the public aspect from it, and posted it before I could finish thinking through my idea. As a result, Shqueeves died before he could be fully trusted. 

1 hour ago, MonsterMetroid said:

If there are two elims left then lynching me eitehr provides no additional data or ends in a village loss.

If you are one of the two elims left, then lynching you will provide a good deal of information. Namely, it will mean that the players you've gone after most aggressively are less likely to be evil. In that case, I would say that your most likely teammate is Ecthelion. Since I spent far too long thinking about this PM plan, I will take a break before looking through his posts.

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10 hours ago, MonsterMetroid said:

Tell me Radiant why do you think there was only 3 elims originally? Why? like I stated last cycle. (the "last cycle" in the quote was referring to cycles 6's tag)

Why not? Why are you so convinced there are 4? "Close to the end" doesn't necessarily mean "this is the last cycle". Plus, why would the elims have been sooo careful with their kill until that cycle if their wasn't a fewer number of them? If you're an elim than it would've been easy to put in the kill on Ripple since you could clearly tell that no one really suspected her. Honestly everyone but Arinian and Ecth was on at the end of the cycle so a kill on Ripple makes sense to me.

9 hours ago, MonsterMetroid said:

@BrightnessRadiantI would like to know why you voted on devotary and just because he voted on joe after 3 people already voted on him you think he is cleared now. You didnt finalize your vote on joe until the final hour and only after I placed a vote on devotary. To me this situation reads as you using the bandwagon of joe as an opportunity to distance yourself from a teammate, but when the votes were close enough to flip by one swing vote you knew that the risk of lynching someone with decent village rep was a greater risk so you switched to ensure joe died.

Uhh are you saying Devotary had better village rep? Joe was already dead before I brought Devotary up for discussion and after you and Joe both posted saying that you "agreed with my posts" and voted with me then I knew it felt wrong. I never moved off Joe as a definite...I merely brought them up as an alternate lynch so I could look closer at Joe. I did look back at more stuff and I also didn't like Joe's quick "Brightness' analysis seems sound" vote. Also, you say I trust Devotary just because they voted Joe last cycle and that's not what I said. I said because they voted Joe on cycle 2(when he wasn't even in the spotlight before that) and then voted Drought and Joe later.

Also, you say that you weren't confident in and were even suspicios of Devo's plan about confirming the elim awakener, but you specifically posted in thread saying how great of a plan it was that cycle. Were you faking? And why would you as a villager act favorably towards the plan only to call it suspicious and not good later?

Sorry for the late replies everyone. Had a full day. Went to the doctor, then work, then ate dinner in like 10 minutes, and left immediately for church Bible study. Just got home and started this post.

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I unfortunately have lost too much sleep to this game waiting up for rollover... only getting 5 hours or less the last two nights. In a vain attempt to be an adult for once I will vote Ecth to give myself a chance at not being lynched. If the Hallandren win this turn it has been fun, if not then I ask you to please lynch devotary next cycle. Until next time my friends.

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9 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

And that is the game!

I am going to take a little longer on the finale, which will be online tomorrow.

The game was decently close, and well played on both sides. It's been an honor.

Any chance we can see the dead doc and elim doc while we wait?

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finale4.jpg

"Everyone is either happy or dead."
-Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

 

Elien watched over the camp by night. A light, powdery snow drifted around him. The rest of the division were sleeping. Many were sleeping forever.

Despite his vigilance, Eilen had never caught one of the murderers. They were like ghosts in the night... An entirely too fitting description, given the nature of the lifeless. What remained of the creatures still kept their distance around the camp, refusing to enter.

Eilen heard footsteps, and turned around, spotting a figure approaching from inside the camp. Of coarse, he thought, ironically. This is the only time I see the killer coming. When I'm the target. He squinted through the darkness and weather, trying to discern the identity of his would-be killer.

"Eärendil. Good evening."

"Eilen," Eärendil responded, fingers curling around the grip of a knife at his belt. "A good evening indeed... For one of us."

Doesn't mind alerting me: confident that I cannot escape, Eilen noted. "So, you show your true colors."

"Terribly sorry about this," Eärendil said, drawing the knife. "But when I'm through, there will only be one color in this vicinity." Eärendil lunged, knife seeking Eilen's throat.

A body fell to the ground with barely a sound, impact cushioned by snow that was swiftly staining red.

. . .

The fingers did the pointing at Roid. Roid was the one to die without battle, without honor this time... NO Roid would die killing!

Roid let loose a bloodthirsty cry as he lunged for Fahmexa ready to crush her head with his bare hands. But even as he lunged forward he felt his legs collapse beneath him before he made it two paces. The pain! As he looked down he could see two neat gouges hamstringing him. The Marshal's sword dripped red with blood from the tip, even now he looked at Roid with a calm unsurprised look. Of course he would know that Roid would not give up easily. He had commanded him in too many battles.

"Let Roid die on feet?" The Marshal nodded, helped him up with one hand and then stabbed him through the heart and lungs with his other hand. Roid smiled at how quick and unceremonious it was... just like a battle. "Roid thank" rattled out with his last breath.

Roid toppled to the ground, blood coating his grinning dead lips.

. . .

When Roid had finally breathed his last, Ivy turned to the waiting Fahmexa. "Did we get them all? Is it over now?"

"It is. But not in the way you think. Eärendil?"

The reclusive mariner ambled over from Eilen's campsite, his knife dripping with the lifeblood of the doomed sentry. Ivy tried to strike, but Eärendil was faster, blocking her unarmed blow and ramming his blade against her throat. Ivy snarled at Fahmexa. "I trusted you! I was the one who helped you survive when the others turned against you."

Fahmexa smiled broadly. "Indeed you were. For that, I am going to give you the opportunity to live through this. All you need to do is say eight little words. I believe you know what they are?"

"I will not give you my Breath, colors-cursed woman. I will die with what Austre has given me, no more and no less."

Fahmexa sighed heavily. "A pity. Come Eärendil. Allow her to join the rest of these rebels in death."

The two survivors abandoned the ruined town before Ivy's blood had even stopped flowing, leaving the corpses where they lay.

 

As pure, clean snow began to blanket and obscure the bloodshed that had taken place in this forgotten, nameless town, the two agents traveled back to Hallandren, their task completed. Whether delayed or disposed of, the Idrian reinforcements would not be arriving.

 


 

Props to MonsterMetroid for writing their death scene! Go upvote them!

Props to Devotary of Spontaneity for writing Ivy's murder scene! Go upvote them!

 

MonsterMetroid has been lynched! Identity of the deceased:

SE_Idrian_Loyalist_small.pngvanilla_small.png

Arinian has been murdered! Identity of the deceased:

SE_Idrian_Loyalist_small.pngsentry_small.png

The game has concluded! Hallandren Agents win!

This was a very interesting game to run, especially as my first time running a game. I am composing a rather lengthy post of closing thoughts that should address everything much more fully. But for now, suffice to say: well played, everybody!!!

 

Final Player List

1. A Joe in the Bush as Jeo the Yellow Hallandren
2. Elenion as Gormund Oscarson Idrian
3. Randuir as commander Jaaver Idrian Captain
4. Livinglegend as Lucky Idrian Sentry
5. Shqueeves as Shu Idrian Awakener
6. Bort as Bort the Brute Idrian Captain
7. BrightnessRadiant as Ivy Idrian
8. Straw as Straw Idrian
9. TheMightyLopen as Vaati Idrian
10. MacThorstenson as Mac Idrian
11. Devotary of Spontaneity as Fahmexa Hallandren
12. Ecthelion as Eärendil Hallandren
13. Coop772 as Salthis Idrian
14. MonsterMetroid as Roid Idrian
15. Droughtbringer as Zaffer Hallandren Awakener
16. RippleGylf as Sarcoline Idrian
17. Arinian as Elien Idrian Sentry

 

Game Documents

Eliminator Doc

Lifeless Doc

Spectator Doc

Master Spreadsheet

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Weeell played everyone! :D Can't say that I paid attention as this game deserved but I undoubtedly enjoyed playing this game, thx to Drake ;)

Also special WELL PLAYED to Devotary only elim whom I not suspected. And some BAD PLAY for Joe :P who almost lost game for elimteam.

And... hmm... Oh, yes I liked write ups in this game thx Drake again :D

Edited by Arinian
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Well done elim team, especially to Devotary who only just registered on my radar, and Ecth, who managed to remain well below it. Also well done to Drought, for his fantastic manipulation and trolling over in the dead doc, and Joe managed to sound very village in the end (especially because it had been a communication goof-up that had outed him, ad not actual elim-intent).

I also wanted to give a shout-out to Len, who managed to figure Drought out just in time (or 2 cycles to late. One of those two).

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Good game elims! Although I found Drought out and suspected Ecth for the last few cycles, I was completely fooled by Joe and Devotary. I was freaking out "No! Don't mislynch Joe!" and suddenly he turns out elim, and I was happy that everyone was backing up my suspicions of Monster and suddenly he flipped village and the game was over, so it was a rough pair of cycles for me at the end.:lol:

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Well darn xD

Well played elims and also thanks @Drake Marshall for running such a great game!(:

I hated having 3 out of 4 players that I suspected at the end and simply couldn't figure it out who was who xD I should've gone ahead with lynching Ecth like Arinian suggested xD

I was sure it was either Monster or Devotary and Ecth worked as an elim with either so I should've gone with that xD *shrugs* 

I have to say well done to @Devotary of Spontaneity for throwing me back and forth so many times. *claps for your annoying me to death* :lol:

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Running this was fun. Wasn't always sure of what I was doing, but now I've learned more about how this is done :) It was also more work than I expected with 24hr cycles, and in retrospect there are some things I could have done in advance to make it easier. Now that I have a taste for how all of this works I think I can go through with some of the other games I am in the queue to run.

Anyways, some things to address with the closing of this game:

First order of business: Some acknowledgements are in order.

Shout-out to the Hallandren Agents, for attempting to undertake a pacifist conduct. And then nearly succeeding at it. While they ultimately broke from pacifism, they still held to Lex Talionis.

Also, while I did not mention it in signups, I was tracking a handful of awards for this game. There are 6 of them, and they were inspired by the paper-plate awards that apparently once existed on this forum. This isn't an exhaustive list of things worth acknowledging; these awards were aimed specifically at recognizing a handful factors that might otherwise be overlooked:

For putting up with dying first: @randuir, who by the way also had the makings of a great RP character
For sending the most PMs: @TheMightyLopen and @Coop772 both sent more than I can count
For surviving the most votes: @Arinian, and @Shqueeves as a close second
For the most audacious gambit: @Droughtbringer, who caused everybody else to share their skepticism of the rules
For the best RP character: @MonsterMetroid (Roid), and @A Joe in the Bush (Jeo the Yellow) as a very close second
For most contribution after death: @Elenion, whose post-mortem analysis gave the village a fighting chance

 

Second order of business: some reflection upon the workings of this game.

On the activity policy:

In general, I was pretty happy with the kind of participation the activity policy encouraged. Especially at the beginning of the game, but even later on as well, everyone was participating in a meaningful way. It is very likely that I am going to use a modified version of this policy in future games.

It could be said that this policy makes analysis difficult, as some votes are cast to prevent death by filter, but I would counter that people voting to avoid death are still making contribution that I think ought to be present in the game. In a normal game, there is actually some incentive not to share your thoughts unless you feel they are sufficiently well articulated, and I want to do away with that.

The three deaths to the activity policy were unfortunate, particularly as they all hit the Loyalist faction (though it was probably offset by the Hallandren bid to not use kills). What bothers me most about these deaths is that the three people who were killed were for the most part genuinely participating in the game, despite a single day of inactivity. I believe MacThorstenson's suggestion (third bullet point) might be a fix for this.

Some takeaways for future games:

  • I don't think I communicated it well in this game, but if you PM me with forewarning that you will be busy on a certain day, I will gladly make allowances.
  • This policy will probably work better on longer games, where the window to vote is that much longer. Which is well and good, because incidentally the next game I will be incorporating this policy into will have longer cycles.
  • Following his death-via-filter, @MacThorstenson shared shared an idea in PM with me that I quite liked. Instead of allowing no-vote on the first day, just give all players a one-cycle safety net that can be used on any cycle. This doesn't significantly undermine the purpose of the filter, but it gives a little more grace to players who really are engaged but are simply having a busy day.
  • This filter does slightly change the strategy of the game. The places you would want to look to find people flying under the radar in this game are not quite the same places you would look in another game. Ultimately, this does not change the balance of the game, because people can adapt. However, the next couple times this policy is implemented, it may be sensible to treat it as a very slight advantage to the eliminator team balance-wise, until people can adapt their analysis strategies.
  • I'm sure there are other tweaks and ways to refine the policy. I don't want to make it too complicated, but I also want to make sure it is maximally fair and conducive to a fun game. I am hopeful about future outcomes for this.

 

On game distribution:

As an experiment, I leaned heavily on my simulator script to give this game a balanced set of numbers. Personally, I actually think it turned out pretty okay. The eliminators won, but I believe this had more to do with quite skillful playing and leveraging an unorthodox strategy than anything else. It also helped that literally every instance of RNG in this game produced the most favorable results possible for the eliminator team (and there were quite a few lynches decided by RNG).

I was rather pleased with how the awakener role played out. The good/evil awakeners in the dead doc was a fun dynamic. When the eliminators had the upper hand, the awakener role acted almost like an automatic stabilizer, becoming more useful to the village awakener because more villagers were dead. This game might have had a gamebreaking strategy (village sentry self-targets, and tells a friendly awakener the identity of their killer if they die), but the fact that the eliminator awakener could roleblock prevented this interaction from destabilizing the game (I'll admit, I'm pretty sure I did not anticipate this potential game-break when I was designing the game, but I'm glad the danger was basically averted).

Neither the sentry role nor the captain role ended up making a significant difference in this game. Some of that was just bad luck, though. I would consider adding another captain if I made a rerun of this, but I'm not sure about that.

Seventeen players is an awkward number, balance-wise. Three eliminators isn't quite enough, and four is a bit too much, and the numbers really showed it in my simulations. To make a balanced setup, I had to either create three eliminators with powerful roles and give the village the bare minimum of roles, or create four eliminators with the bare minimum of roles and give the village a more generous spread. I went with the latter option. In retrospect, I should have gone with the former. This is because the power concentrated in a role is removed from the game when a player dies by activity filter, and this is less likely to be a consideration for eliminator teams, which as a rule tend to be a bit more active. This does not really change game balance, but it does change the swingy-ness of the game.

 

I'd very much love to hear anybody's thoughts or comments on the activity policy or the game's balance. I'm new to this, and input of any sort would be great.

Edited by Drake Marshall
typo
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  • 4 weeks later...

It's now time to close this up. Thanks to Drake for running it, and to everyone for playing what turned out to be a very active game. I very much enjoyed seeing the effects of the inactivity filter, and the consequent increases in voting and engagement - I'd love to see similar mechanics in a great many more games. Whilst three inactivity deaths in seventeen players isn't ideal, the deaths were some distance into the game, indicating that we had full activity for an impressive amount of time.

As always, if anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, just get a hold of SeonidAlvron, Wilson or myself. Not only will we get you added to the list (and the GM PM group), but we'll be more than willing to help out in any way we can. 

You can also post game ideas, ask questions, and get feedback from everyone over in our Art of Game Creation thread too. 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 working on.

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

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