Long Game 51: A Traitor in the Obligators

[Mailliw73]

3 minutes ago, Rathmaskal said:

Well played folks.

I was close to figuring Mail out I think...  Karn, in the mid game at least, was a much tougher nut to crack.

Was a big fan of the fact that Snipexe accidentally created a great situation to lynch Itiah.

Unfortunate that we had so many die to the filter...alas, such is life.

Great job elims.  Mail and Karn are getting a lot of credit, but I think Itiah should get a bit more credit for the fact that the only real pattern you can find with the conversions is the fact that they were both active.  Curious if he had a third conversion planned (and if so, who it would have been) or was just going to hold onto the last bead of atium for survival purposes.

I believe Devotary was originally going to be our next convert. They were at least one of the discussed ones. Though, once they died, we didn’t really need another smoker  Granted, most of the abilities that would’ve been useful were inactive. 

[Mailliw73]

Sorry for the double post, here’s the RP. 

With Palessi’s death, Teraval knew what came next. The fear and hurt in her eyes pierced Matarn. She’d been so innocent, so trusting. But she’d have to go. The Final Empire didn’t breed mercy, it brought justice. She was part of this false organization and she’d have to be removed. 

 

“Do it. Finish me,” she whispered in the dark. Matarn nodded to Lord Bessum and the Obligator drew a knife. Teraval‘s tin would only enhance the pain now; there was no escape for her. In the dusk, in the now-lonely entrance to the Canton of Inquisition, Teraval died with Tend Bessum’s knife buried in her chest. 

 

“Prelan, we’ve done it! The Ministry is ours,” Lord Bessum exclaimed. Matarn gave him a wan smile. 

 

“Yes, but command of the Ministry was never my goal. I could’ve gained that without all this deception and murder. I was on track to become a High Prelan in a year or two, maybe even the Lord Prelan one day. No, this was about decimation, destroying the lie that infests this nation. We are taught that the Lord Ruler is God. We’re told he saved us, that he holds all power. Lies. He is not God.”

 

Matarn turned to the setting sun outside and walked through the door, Lord Bessum trailing him. At the top of the steps, he ceased his motion and bowed his head. He whispered out a prayer, “Oh God, how dirty I’ve become. But my robes are stained with less crimson than yours. You filthy deity.” He grimaced and whipped out a knife of his own. He spun and yanked Tend Bessum’s neck forward, slashing it with his knife. The Obligator slumped to the ground, life leaking out. 

“You were a monster. But even with the death you caused, you still don’t compare to the blood on the hands of this church. That is why you must die: this Ministry must be abolished.” 

 

Matarn walked down the stairs, removing his cloak, hanging it on a statue of the Lord Ruler himself. In Lord Bessum’s blood, he traced letters on its back. Lies, he spelled. He piled the atium Guacless had collected, along with the other valuables they’d gathered from the Canton’s treasury. Under the pink light of a fading sun, Prelan Matarn Wachtrot looped rope around the statue and the other around his neck. Cloakless, shirtless, his tattoos shone off his shaved head in the dim light as he swung in slow circles under the God he had once worshipped. It was over, Luthadel’s Steel Ministry was no more. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by Mailliw73

[Lumgol]

^ Why is that post still almost making me cry, in a good way

[Mailliw73]

Alright, time for some of my thoughts. 

First off, I’m very disappointed in the activity levels of the game. This was really fun and it picked up here and there, but with a slew of people who were only names on the player list, it totally affected the game. I feel that we did a good job as traitors, but that we definitely owe a portion of our win to the fact that there were so many inactive villagers, which should never be a contributing factor to a win. Straw put in the time to balance a game with the people who signed up and when that changes significantly a day into the game, it throws off everything he’s balanced. I’d rather have been struggling to survive and even die because people were actively analyzing me than survive because five people didn’t check in. 

I don’t know how much of the inactivity was due to strategy or trying to lay low as a tactic, but I’m definitely opposed to that. The SE Sparta initiative was started a while back with the ideal of promoting a culture in the games where we all play to have fun, not to survive. I’d like to re-encourage that mentality; when we sign up, we play and have fun, even if that means death. The dead doc is always a fun place as well! 

A second meta game thing that I noticed, but wasn’t a problem yet, is that some players get really focused on winning and ignore the fun aspect of the game. These are always about having fun and winning, while part of that, is not all of it. I think this game went well this way, but it was a focus I noticed near the beginning of the game. 

I loved the simplicity to the rule set and the flexibility that allowed both teams in their gambits and tactics. For myself, my two favorite gambits were making up a Seeker and voting on myself to swing votes away. Snipe’s ploy to pretend to be a Soother rather than a Rioter was a good initial play and it took me a couple cycles before I suspected it. 

The 3 beads of atium was a bit low, I felt, but with the amount of inactives, I think it balanced out number-wise. If we’d had a full game, one more bead would’ve been a bit more balanced, in my opinion, but it all worked out well. The opportunity to use it to survive or to convert was an interesting one as well. 

Overall, I had an absolute blast playing this game and was very impressed by all who participated! I thought for sure a few times that we’d be caught and the game would end early on. 

[Mailliw73]

Sorry for the double post but no one’s posting. 

@Araris Valerian I just remembered, what we’re the secrets in your messages?

[Araris Valerian]

The first one unscrambled to "botherav", which was supposed to reference my username and usage of the word bother. I did that so that nobody could just look up how it unscrambles. The second message unscrambled to heffalumpwoozle, a reference to my profile picture.

I mostly agree with your assessment of the game, Mailliw, although I'm not entirely sold that you needed another team member. I think Itiah getting caught early gave the village a deserved advantage. Without that, there would have been a total of 4 elims, which is decent for a game with 19 players. As it turned out though the inactives plus the early Itiah lynch made for a pretty suspenseful and enjoyable endgame. You and Karn have joined Wilson on the list of people that have won a close endgame against me when I had all the pieces I needed to solve the puzzle.

[Mailliw73]

3 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

The first one unscrambled to "botherav", which was supposed to reference my username and usage of the word bother. I did that so that nobody could just look up how it unscrambles. The second message unscrambled to heffalumpwoozle, a reference to my profile picture.

I mostly agree with your assessment of the game, Mailliw, although I'm not entirely sold that you needed another team member. I think Itiah getting caught early gave the village a deserved advantage. Without that, there would have been a total of 4 elims, which is decent for a game with 19 players. As it turned out though the inactives plus the early Itiah lynch made for a pretty suspenseful and enjoyable endgame. You and Karn have joined Wilson on the list of people that have won a close endgame against me when I had all the pieces I needed to solve the puzzle.

Nice, I like those a lot. 

You're right, with inactives, I think it was balanced well. I was speaking as if all 19 had been active, I’m not sure we would’ve had much of a chance just number wise. I learned that you have very valuable analysis and I need to remember that. I purposely kept downplaying you through the game for that reason. I was worried a few times about you, and almost let you survive just to give you the honor of it, but we ended up deciding not to risk it. 

[Araris Valerian]

I would have certainly figured it out if you hadn't killed me, but then it would take 2 coin flips for that to matter. There was no way that there was only Cadcom as a convert. Thanks for the compliment :D. I've learned that you haven't lost your touch despite being gone for a while.

[Fifth Scholar]

Though more recent, this game has gone silent long enough to be closed up. Thanks to Straw for a well-run repeat of LG39; the simplicity of the conversion ruleset lent itself to an engaging game, and Itiah, Maill and Karnatheon are to be credited for their win. It was interesting watching both the very oldest and most recent SE players unite to overcome the village, despite the inactivity sadly present within the game. Thank you to all who gave this game a try; we couldn’t do any of SE without all of your support.

As always, if anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get ahold of Wilson, Orlok, Alvron 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 in our Art of Game Creation thread. 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. If you would rather keep some detail secret, or are self-conscious about posting in thread (there's really no need to be; while we do slaughter each other, we are very polite about it), then I'm sure one of our fantastic committee members (Elbereth, Amanuensis, Aonar Faileas, A Joe in the Bush, or Stink) would be more than willing to help you out in private.

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