Anniversary Game 5/Anonymous Game 4: One Final Blaze of Light

[CadCom]

2 hours ago, randuir said:

This was a pretty awesome game. I still think it's a shame the coalition victory didn't happen. For those wondering, we where serious about that. If the Stewards had spoken up and pledged to delay, we'd have done the same. It seems that it'd have also been possible for all surviving factions but the Joe cloud to win on the next cycle.

Anyway, I did learn something interesting this game: Apparently it's really easy to weave a coherent story out of a spread of Tarot cards. Well, either that or this stuff actually works, but I doubt it . 

Anyway, I'd really like to thank everyone, including of course Seonid and Joe, for a great and memorable game that had me on the edge of my seat at the end.

It actually was possible that we would have won as well, it just would have meant that the stewards couldn't win. We needed 3 returned to die in one cycle, a voidbringer to kill someone, someone to target a mistborn, and a dakhor monk to kill someone. As well as a successful lynch, and another odium kill, and a returned kill. Plus we would have had to make a shade out of someone who wasn't already a shade(and wasn't becoming a returned), the current shades couldn't have used any of their actions that turn them back to the cognitive realm. 

So yes, it was possible. Unlikely yes, but possible. 

I'm curious what everyone thought about the collaborating to reach everyone's wincons idea? I know that Randuir seemed and still seems to be. But those of the other winning factions/and the losing factions, did you like the idea? If so, what prevented you from more actively trying to pursue it?

[Stick.]

3 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

As for gameplay, honestly my faction picked a terrible win condition. We had no chance of finishing it, we should have done the Odium one. Or the kill the kill roles one. Would have been much more doable.

I mean, yeah, we had pretty much no chance of finishing the wincon we chose after a while, but would it have been any different had we chosen those other wincons? The odium one relied too much on, well, odium, and the kill and kills one required a certain amount of kills from our side too so...eh

 

37 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Also, oops.  I would never have guessed that Maill was Axolotl.    I was so sure that you were someone else... 

I guessed this one. I've never played with Maill but I knew they were playing as they'd signed up publicly and at some point they went like 'SE has changed'. Dead giveaway

Oh and I guessed your identity correctly too, Mage.:D I'm proud of myself.

Edited February 8, 2019 by _Stick_

[DeTess]

3 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

As for gameplay, honestly my faction picked a terrible win condition. We had no chance of finishing it, we should have done the Odium one. Or the kill the kill roles one. Would have been much more doable. Or if Hoid had contacted US instead. Well, whatever. I'm happy I finished my RP, even if I didn't win.

I don't think your chosen wincon was impossible, but you'd have needed to either become Hoid's faction, or do some hardcore diplomacy. If you could have formed a win-together coalition early with two other factions you could have been a very useful partner early on, while only needing minimal aid from them on the final cycle to win.

[Stick.]

14 minutes ago, randuir said:

I don't think your chosen wincon was impossible, but you'd have needed to either become Hoid's faction, or do some hardcore diplomacy. If you could have formed a win-together coalition early with two other factions you could have been a very useful partner early on, while only needing minimal aid from them on the final cycle to win.

Yeah, we hoped to ally with as many factions as we safely could. One of the reasons we chose this wincon over the others was because the other two would have made us the 'evil' faction and obviously not many factions would agree to ally with the evil faction.

I guess luck just wasn't on our side xD 

Also, just skimmed through the all hail the joe cloud faction. I didn't realise c/p'ing from one doc to another was a thing. AMBITION went all out quoting me in my throwing-a-tantrum phase...

Edited February 8, 2019 by _Stick_

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

By Domi, this was a great game! It especially got tense towards the end, when we had a glimmer of hope that we could win. 

Seonid, this is the proper way to go out. A magnificent game, and from my limited view, very well excecuted. Joe, great co-GMing. Bravo. 

Congrats to the victors, who were just barely ahead of us. Well played. And everyone else, thanks for playing!

[Magestar]

57 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Oh and I guessed your identity correctly too, Mage.:D I'm proud of myself.

I signed up anonymously and didn't really reveal anything special... I admit I wasn't hiding, but I'm proud of you too.    How'd you guess?

[Stick.]

5 minutes ago, Magestar said:

I signed up anonymously and didn't really reveal anything special... I admit I wasn't hiding, but I'm proud of you too.    How'd you guess?

I don't know...just got a general "mage" vibe i guess

[Magestar]

5 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

I don't know...just got a general "mage" vibe i guess

Lol.  It's been a while since I've played or even been around so color me impressed.    Congrats.

[Elandera]

This was a great game, Joe and Seonid! Thanks to my faction mates who put up with my confusion when I first joined. I was the first pinch hitter. Out of curiosity, whom did I replace?

I was so paranoid at the end that I changed my action a few times. Young Bard, had you planned to suicide last turn? And GMs, would it have made any difference if I'd stayed with protecting Rhino?

Thanks everyone for making this such a fun game!

[Stick.]

5 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Lol.  It's been a while since I've played or even been around so color me impressed.    Congrats.

It's been a while since I've played or even been around too so it makes sense. XD 

[Rathmaskal]

Well dang.  That was a fun game.  I find it quite entertaining when you have a group of players like that who you KNOW are on your team.

I figured Mauve had to be someone quite experienced...fun playing with you Alvron.  (and Cadcom, Mr Mafia, and Itiah)

Also, for those of you who were dead and haven't looked at the ALL HAIL THE JOE CLOUD doc, I was Ambition 2.0.  (since it wasn't noted in the write up) I had quite a lot of fun in that role...it was like a double disguise... anonymous account anonymized by the additional role.

I'm assuming either Hoid or Khriss were Returned for the wincon?

Oh, and out of curiosity, who was the original Scorpion?  I know they weren't around too long, just curious.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Rathmaskal

[Stick.]

4 minutes ago, Rathmaskal said:

Oh, and out of curiosity, who was the original Scorpion?  I know they weren't around too long, just curious.

Probably Straw - he signed up publicly but his name doesn't seem to be on the list now. 

[Seonid]

5 hours ago, randuir said:

This was a pretty awesome game. I still think it's a shame the coalition victory didn't happen. For those wondering, we where serious about that. If the Stewards had spoken up and pledged to delay, we'd have done the same. It seems that it'd have also been possible for all surviving factions but the Joe cloud to win on the next cycle.

Actually, given a cycle of delay, it would have been possible to get every single faction to win, if everyone was willing to get the Joe Cloud the Adonalsium Reborn condition. It was almost possible to do so as of Day 8, without a delay, but Survival had ended up alone on Taldain, and therefore couldn't pass their Shard to anyone. The delay would have been required to get players into the correct constellation of world positions for shard passing.

A mismatch between day actions and night actions would have posed an interesting challenge, but things cold have been set up such that a single player could be killed during the night turn, simultaneously leaving the Utility Company in dominion over 3 worlds and passing the last shard to Joe Cloud (assuming appropriate investments had been made).

I...may have thought that out in a little too much detail.

Regardless, well played to everyone. From a GMs perspective, this has been the most fun of all the Shard games I've run. I enjoyed watching the asymmetric win conditions, and really enjoyed watching the politicking going on between different factions.

In retrospect, I don't know that i would have made many changes. Probably would be a good idea to check win conditions only at the end of the night, to avoid the severe complexity of trying to match day actions and night actions.

Hoid's kerfluffle with the Shard stealing was likely the biggest problem point. Because so many of the win conditions relied completely on the actions provided by a single shard, the ability to steal shards was much more of a negative play experience than it might otherwise have been. I don't have any good ideas to balance that at the moment - maybe it's best to leave Hoid to his diplomatic devices.

To the Stewards: if you hadn't already been set on Power over Death by the time we does the grand reshuffling, Joe and I would have edited Endowed and Oathbound - your commentary on that was on point.

Finally, thank you so much to @A Joe in the Bush! This game would not have been possible without him. Seriously, by the end, he was doing the lion's share of the work. Give him all of the upvotes and kudos you can find. He still probably deserves more than that.

[Mailliw73]

7 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Thanks are due to Steeldancer, Rathmaskal, Young Bard, and Elandera for not committing suicide. We were only able to ensure that two of you survived, so we're grateful that all four of you decided to continue living. Please excuse the blatant dishonesty we used throughout the game. We also apologize to Aman, who likely would have won if we hadn't randomly killed him, and Maill, who we betrayed and allowed to die. However, Maill did bet me two Shards that half of all factions would be dead by the beginning of cycle 3, a bet I won. I'm not sure what Shards you have, though.

Yeah... ah well. I just want to publicly state that, as far as I remember, I only lied about my own role and win cons. The rest were fabricated by other factions.

6 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

As for gameplay, honestly my faction picked a terrible win condition. We had no chance of finishing it, we should have done the Odium one. Or the kill the kill roles one. Would have been much more doable. Or if Hoid had contacted US instead. Well, whatever. I'm happy I finished my RP, even if I didn't win.
As for RP, I forsee the next few months will be different RP kind, especially with what I've been learning in my creative writing class. If, you know, I actually have time to do RP and all that. 
Seonid, we're going to miss you. (And I'm going to be driven insane that we never ran a shard game with all 16 shards). 
Um, Mailliw, sorry for getting a bit stabby stabby on you. I tend to get a bit stabby stabby when I get mad. Or am having too much fun. 
And I'll try not to hold grudges against literally everyone who lied to me. Right up until the next time I'm a SK 

No worries, Steel. I got stabby stabby back.  

also, it was sheer luck that I contacted Alv instead of Stick. I switched the order multiple times since I knew one was Odium. I ended up on Croc and that was just luck. I was actually really trying to get a hold of Odium but then we made this great plan of reforming adonalsium so I had to stick with it. 

3 hours ago, Magestar said:

 

Also, oops.  I would never have guessed that Maill was Axolotl.    I was so sure that you were someone else... 

Final words; sorry Maill for pushing your lynch so hard.  I don't really know exactly why I was so intent on killing you... I think it's honestly because I just really wanted Odium back.  I wasn't really so much worried about your affect on the game, or your danger to us, as I was on getting Odium.    Which, in retrospect, likely made little to no sense.  I should have guessed that you would pas it away... too bad we couldn't have worked together.   

Anyway good game everyone.  I suppose I'll see you all at the next anon game that catches my interest.

Huh. Really? I tried to hide my identity for the first day or so but that’s it. Sorry to all those who I blatantly c/p posts from previous games for. Everything I said in D1 I think was plagiarized.  

I just wanted Odium and Survival again.  

2 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

 

I guessed this one. I've never played with Maill but I knew they were playing as they'd signed up publicly and at some point they went like 'SE has changed'. Dead giveaway

Oh and I guessed your identity correctly too, Mage.:D I'm proud of myself.

Yeah, after a couple days, I stopped most of what I was doing to obscure my identity. Especially once I died. 

Alv, you were Croc this whole time? Of course I ended up picking you.  Good working with you again. And Aman was my enemy in this game? Man, I’m glad ruin randomly took him out.  

Thanks Seonid, you’ll be sorely missed! Joe, a huge thanks to you too! 

I’ll post more thoughts and final RP later. 

[CadCom]

@The Young Pyromancer, I found it very humorous when you threatened to kill me, with the line "My name is indigo montoya, you killed my factionmate, prepare to die." Because I was the original Indigo Montoya from the Princess Bride game. 

[Lumgol]

Whoa, so many responses!

First of all, thank you to Joe and Seonid - I'm so glad to have arrived just in time to join the last Shard game!

And I was INCREDIBLY lucky to end up in my faction - @Fifth Scholar, @Devotary of Spontaneity, @Jondesu, @Sart, and @Mark IV - you guys are such amazing players, and thanks especially to Fifth and Devotary for all of the plotting that I would have absolutely never pulled off on my own.

Also? This was my first ever win. I think that's pretty exciting. Regardless, this was such a fun game to be a part of and congrats to GLaDOS, Survival, and everyone else for making it through this complex and exciting game!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

3 hours ago, Magestar said:

You filthy liars, you.    Of all the factions that could have won...  

We were very specifically not lying about this. Our claim that our win condition wasn't to Return people from five different factions was true, as we also had to ensure that all five stayed alive.

3 hours ago, randuir said:

I thought it was rather funny to see [Fifth] speculating about Ruin blowing up Scadrial at the end, as 1) that was where our entire faction was and 2) Scadrial has been invaluable to achieving our win-con.

We wanted you to blow up Scadrial, and tried to encourage you to do so, as that would have ensured that three of the four Returned couldn't commit suicide.

1 hour ago, Rathmaskal said:

I'm assuming either Hoid or Khriss were Returned for the wincon?

We Returned Khriss, so that we could end the game having not permanently killed anyone. We Returned both the people we killed, which means we ended up with zero murders.

26 minutes ago, Seonid said:

A mismatch between day actions and night actions would have posed an interesting challenge, but things cold have been set up such that a single player could be killed during the night turn, simultaneously leaving the Utility Company in dominion over 3 worlds and passing the last shard to Joe Cloud (assuming appropriate investments had been made).

Did the Adonalsium Reborn win condition exclude Shards that had been Shattered? I don't think Joe Cloud could have ended up with Devotion.

[Lumgol]

Also

I killed Penguin ( @Steeldancer)

I'm sorry

Edited February 8, 2019 by Lumgol

[Seonid]

2 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Did the Adonalsium Reborn win condition exclude Shards that had been Shattered? I don't think Joe Cloud could have ended up with Devotion.

No. Was there a prohibition on passing shattered shards? If that had been brought to my attention, I would have reversed the ruling (at least, as of a few days into the game). Passing shattered shards is essential to make Adonalsium Reborn even remotely possible.

[Magestar]

4 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

We were very specifically not lying about this. Our claim that our win condition wasn't to Return people from five different factions was true, as we also had to ensure that all five stayed alive.

Lol.  Grats on that then.  I figured that your win-con was to have returned in five factions, so I guess I misread your claim via that bias.

Also grats to the Stewards for saying my name the most times of any faction.

And saying the most things of any faction, apparently.  O.o  You guys were so active lol.

[Stick.]

Reading Khriss-and-Nazh conversations is very amusing, considering that it's really just Aman talking to himself xD 

"I’m[REDACTED]... As for me, I’m [REDACTED]"

Ha xD

And I'm pleased you appreciate the cuteness of opal lion

[Furamirionind]

4 hours ago, Magestar said:

And saying the most things of any faction, apparently.  O.o  You guys were so active lol.

Well, to be blunt, it does help when no one dies. Our faction doc was at 60k characters after 2 cycles. We just started dropping in activity once we started dying, and even more once we realized that we wouldn't be able to recover Odium. *starts on rant* Okay, done for now.

3 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Reading Khriss-and-Nazh conversations is very amusing, considering that it's really just Aman talking to himself xD 

I was so confused when Aman died and was revealed as Khriss. I was pretty sure Maill/Ax was Hoid by that point, and was fairly confident I knew several of their powers. But comparing Hoid's powers to what I knew of Khriss made Hoid seem completely overpowered. (I am still curious as to what Khriss's actual abilities are if someone wants to elaborate ) Which is why I was so certain there were 2 of them.
It was great looking through... I don't remember which faction it was, but I had already 1 on 1 PMed most factions, but I was trying to pass myself off as Nazh, and apperantly I did make 1 faction think I was likely a neutral. : ) (See Steel? : P )

"I think Iguana is just a good guesser and their interactions with Khriss have clued them in. " Thanks Maill : ). learning about Khriss did definitely help, but it was a combination of a lot of things, and I am really proud of my faction for being able to infer so much from so little information. We did this with Hoid+abilities, Player/Faction alignments, and Shard/Faction alignments. I think by the end of the game we had the fewest unknown player allignments, and were confident we had all the Shard ones (though we had the Shards pretty much since I failed to PM Alv)

I also want to congratulate @Mr Mafia. I never would have guessed you were charcoal. You played a great first game, and I hope to see you in future ones!

Also Aman, I was in fact telling the truth about "someone" staying up all night D2 on Sel, and do not live in Europe. 
Also Mark, "Also, do you live near South East Asia or Australia? Your time zone is weird" Nope! US West Coast! I was just too much into this game, and between 11pm and 5am is when I have the most time to devote to it. xD

Edited February 8, 2019 by Furamirionind

[Shqueeves]

This game was a blast, though I wasn't as active as I should have been

[A Joe in the Bush]

Khriss and Hoid had opposite powers.

Khriss started with 1 charge of every world role possible. But also no extra actions.

Hoid started with no role, but could use an action to gain any world role, which would then be permanent. In addition, while he could only use each role once per cycle, world roles did not require actions. He also knew what shards were on the world with him, which is how he knew Survival was real on day 1.

[DeTess]

5 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

He also knew what shards were on the world with him, which is how he knew Survival was real on day 1.

And how he knew Devotion hadn't moved. I'd wondered about the specifics of the ability that allowed him to know that.