Quick Fix Game 39: Corruption in the Senate 2: Allomantic Boogaloo

[DrakeMarshall]

1 hour ago, Furamirionind said:

I was bored.

From my perspective, Elandera and I were the two putting in significant effort, with Drake and Striker not far behind. That is four players out of... was it 17 at the time? Something like that. Anyways, thats really bad activity levels.

In terms of activity, this game was kind of weird. We frequently had well above average levels of content, it was just all from a small number of players.

I felt kind of guilty, later in the game, when I was essentially trying to prevent the village from lynching eliminators too quickly, and also murdering some of the more active players to claim their boxings. I tried to make up for it with my own participation, but things were inexorably slumping in the last few cycles, and I ended up just trying to win in as few cycles as possible. I hope I didn’t detract from your experience of the game.

17 minutes ago, Furamirionind said:

Well, you didnt betray me. We did agree to help each other do this if we ever had the option xD.

I admit, my PM to you last turn had 2 purposes:

    1. Gauging how many boxings you had and how close the game was to ending

    2. Offering you my boxings should you need it.

I didnt think the game was going to last more than another cycle or 2, so I had to offer then, and I was pretty sure you had more than me.

I interpreted your response as having less than 20 though xD

I picked up on your first reason for PMing me. I also figured you were sounding me out to see if I had killed Fifth.

I wasn’t actually aware that you were offering me help, though  At least beyond what we had originally agreed upon (since I have referenced this in thread before, I will clarify for everyone else: we agreed to pass each other our savings if one of us was about to get lynched, with the understanding that we wouldn’t attempt to lynch each other as a way to get the others boxings). I figured you were trying to make sure I wasn’t too close, and acted accordingly.

Edited August 16, 2019 by DrakeMarshmallow

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

21 minutes ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

Not only did you lynch the eliminator that I was planning to keep alive to keep the game running long enough to implement my plan, but you prevented me from bribing my own vote on Devotary and collecting the boxings from killing her.

Considering you set me back once, I felt it was only fair to stab you to facilitate my plan on the following cycle. Regardless, you played exceptionally well in this game.

If Fifth's bribe didn't go through, Venture's might have, which would have caused you to die. Having upwards of thirty boxings suddenly appear in the store could have been quite a game changer, especially as there would still have been three elims still alive had the coin flip favoured us.

How did you know Rae was evil? And did you think I was a villager?

[Furamirionind]

7 minutes ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

I picked up on your first reason for PMing me. I also figured you were sounding me out to see if I had killed Fifth.

I wasn’t actually aware that you were offering me help, though  At least beyond what we had originally agreed upon. I figured you were trying to make sure I wasn’t too close, and acted accordingly.

Hmm... well, I had a dagger, and was considering killing you, but I interpreted our agreement as no stabbing each other as well. (I only rechecked the wording after Joe told me you stabbed me during roleover)

And yeah. Like I said above, I was ready for the game to end. : )

Edit:

@Devotary of Spontaneity I thought you were an elim, but I couldnt bring myself to come to the thread and vote for you... I also never realized you died... lol

Rae also fit being evil the same way Fifth did, and Elandera did in the early game.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Furamirionind

[DrakeMarshall]

19 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

If Fifth's bribe didn't go through, Venture's might have, which would have caused you to die. Having upwards of thirty boxings suddenly appear in the store could have been quite a game changer, especially as there would still have been three elims still alive had the coin flip favoured us.

How did you know Rae was evil? And did you think I was a villager?

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of how close I was to dying.

I had posted a handful of reasons for suspecting Rae, especially after I did that day-by-day analysis. The opposition to her lynch was also noteworthy. I didn’t know for sure but I was increasingly confident. She did a pretty good job of blending in, though, considering only two people seriously suspected her and only one of them was interested in lynching her. That was part of why I felt she was a good candidate for keeping alive.

I wasn’t sure about you. I figured there was a fair chance that you were evil, but my reasons for stabbing you were simply that I calculated you ought to have a good number of boxings, and that it would be a lot less awkward explaining why I had stabbed someone legitimately suspicious as opposed to somebody I had openly trusted.

Edited August 16, 2019 by DrakeMarshmallow

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

Just now, DrakeMarshmallow said:

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of how close I was to dying.

I had a handful of reasons for suspecting Rae, especially after I did that day-by-day analysis. The opposition to her lynch was also noteworthy. I didn’t know for sure but I was increasingly confident. She did a pretty good job of blending in, though, considering only two people seriously suspected her and only one of them was interested in lynching her.

I wasn’t sure about you. I figured there was a fair chance that you were evil, but my reasons for stabbing you were simply that I calculated you ought to have a good number of boxings, and if would be a lot less awkward explaining why I had stabbed someone legitimately suspicious as opposed to somebody I had openly trusted.

If we'd bribed pretty much anyone other than you to vote for Drake, we would have been able to kill you. I don't make very good choices when under time pressure, and I felt it would be better to pretend the elims weren't interested in saving Rae by not moving Fifth's vote. We didn't think there would be any village vote manipulation, having somehow forgotten that Fifth likely wouldn't have seen you retract your vote.

I wouldn't have had any boxings if Joe had let us bribe multiple people in one turn, but as it turned out you would have gotten a mere three boxings for killing me. 

[Fifth Scholar]

12 minutes ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

@Fifth Scholar you posed one of the bigger obstacles to my nefarious plot, by manipulating my vote onto Rae. Not only did you lynch the eliminator that I was planning to keep alive to keep the game running long enough to implement my plan, but you prevented me from bribing my own vote on Devotary and collecting the boxings from killing her.

Considering you set me back once, I felt it was only fair to stab you to facilitate my plan on the following cycle. Regardless, you played exceptionally well in this game.

Thank you?  I will admit that my first reaction to the discovery of your deception was indignation; it’s slightly...jarring...to have been killed by a fellow villager, when, at the time, you likely knew pretty well who the last Elim(s) were, and were even, by your own admission, actively protecting them. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have done the same in your place, if I had the 25 boxings, but ultimately you did choose to actively pursue a win condition that was tangential to your current one, necessitating the slaughter of those on your side and helping the opposing team win, which sat poorly with me, I suppose. I wouldn’t have faulted you for mass execution had the boxings more or less fallen into your lap, or if you’d talked or lynched your way into them, but killing an at least decently active villager to accomplish your goals was...poor form, slightly. But congrats on winning anyway  

In terms of balance, I have a few comments:

-I somewhat to fully disapprove of Drake beginning with three to four times as many boxings as the next highest players. Twenty-five is only fifteen away from victory, which really isn’t that many, and further, it locks down a substantial number of them as long as he’s alive and isn’t lynched; if he’s daggered, then the boxings are either completely removed from the game, or they just transfer to another person who has just as much incentive to keep them out of circulation. The only way to break up that chunk of currency was a lynch, and that would never happen after he was scanned villager. Part of the fun of the game was the continuous flow of bribes and boxings, I feel, and having a good chunk of the available currency locked up in either Drake’s storage or Gaea’s unlynchable person made the game dreary for the average player, who had nothing significant to do on most cycles other than vote in the lynch. Which brings me to my next point:

-The lynch itself actively discouraged participation. Other than sending in actions and bribes (which we’ve already established was limited), the only thing a villager has to maintain engagement in this game is analysis and voting. And both were completely sabotaged from the beginning; no alignment flips on Daggered players, combined with even a lynch which had greater chances of failing at revealing correct alignments the more people voted, all served to disincentivise actual participation in the lynch once the just constables were both dead. And with an Eliminator team comprising a full third of the game, and with a good number of boxings as well to move votes, that outcome was never really in much question. Having Gaea be the corrupt one compounded this problem; without the ability to lynch her, boxings were essentially continually removed from the game, except for what Drake had, which again starved the average player of a meaningful reason to engage. But lack of analysis was worse; I admit my inactivity in the middle cycles, and it was mostly because I had no reason to stay active—I had no items to speak of (except some warrants which didn’t work), no boxings to let me get items, and having little idea whether or not anybody was actually evil, my one point of meaningful contribution was similarly removed. Lacking the time or motivation to follow the claims of those who had been scanning each other with the ledger-chain, I only managed to crawl back to a caricature of my normal activity, and my engagement was dampened. That’s not to say this game wasn’t a lot of fun at times; it certainly was. But the average clueless villager with no items and no faith in the lynch had little reason to continue participating, I feel. 

[+Ed Venture]

Well...that happened. I’m shattered that my friend Drake was stained. I should’ve seen it in out PM! Gaea! I trusted you! Why did you kill me? We’re both corrupt, couldn’t you have let a brother side by? 

Joe, thank you for running my first eliminator game and one of the best games I’ve played. I’m sorry about your spreadsheet and writeup troubles. I hope that I’ll be able to play more SE this year but with school starting I have no idea what will happen.

4 hours ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

Seconded, Butt Ad Venture really did very well.

 Thank you! You did a great job winning too!

5 hours ago, Young Bard said:

And @Butt Ad Venture, was this your first time as an Elim? You did a really good job, considering that your teammates were dropping like flies around you - you weren't even on my radar.

Thanks! It was my first Elim game. But the only reason I wasn’t on your radar was because I wasn’t active  Still, “last of the eliminators” is a pretty good title.

[StrikerEZ]

......good job, @DrakeMarshmallow. I figured most of the boxings were spread out more evenly, considering I started out with like 1.  I didn’t even think to pay attention to how manny boxings people could’ve been accumulating by the lynch. Also, how did you get so many daggers? XD

Anyway, that game was really fun at times. It dragged a little as the game reached it’s end, but that was probably more because we were all just waiting for the game to end eventually.

[Furamirionind]

I too started with 1, but I also had a dagger. I assumed though no one would start with more than 12 though.

[Elandera]

Congrats Drake. Now I at least know why people were adamantly defending you and promoting you for governor. I'm actually kind of glad someone was able to pull off that win-con. I am, however, disappointed it was a villager that ended up actively working against village to get there.

Time for some thoughts, now that I'm at a computer and can type more easily what's likely going to be a wall of text. I apologize in advance. 

First, something that no one else has mentioned yet: QFs are difficult because of the short turns. It means, inevitably, there will be a chunk of people who can't participate in the discussion as well because of time zones. I feel this game was a drastic representation of that problem. People who weren't able to be on at the end of turn didn't have any say, really, on the outcome of the lynch. A lot of the people I noticed falling back in activity were in that group. It's a bit of a fatalistic view, knowing what they contribute early on won't matter much since they aren't on to argue their points in the last 2 hours, or in some cases, last 30 minutes (sorry Joe).

The other part of that would be those of us who were able to be active dominated the discussion, and for a few turns, didn't make much of an effort to expand our focus or invite others to participate. I am sorry for that, and for tunneling so hard on Striker, et al. I didn't have the time to do analysis, and thus, kept going back to my gut reads that you were all corrupt. 

As someone pointed out, the mechanic regarding alignment reveals discouraged me from doing analysis when I did finally have the time. All I could go on was my gut reads, and hope I was right. One thing, in hindsight, that could have resolved that would have been to use a ledger on every person we lynched. It could have been thrown by elims using a ledger and lying about the scan result, but they'd have to at least use a ledger first, risking it going back into circulation. It would have been difficult to coordinate though.

I started out with no boxings and a warrant. I kept using warrants and getting nothing, except when I finally stole the dagger from Snipexe. I was planning to buy a ledger from the store that night and start doing what I said I'd do: kill and scan people in the jail to know their real alignments. I'm disappointed I was jailed before I could go on my killing spree.

Congrats to @Butt Ad Venture. First games as elims are always frightening, and even if you didn't have a high activity level, you were contributing more than some. As Bard said, you did a good job even with your teammates dying/getting jailed so quickly.

Also, congrats to @RayOfSunshine, who, by sheer chance, murdered an elim on the first night. I know you got a lot of flack for that, but turns out it was for the good of the village. 

@Furamirionind, I didn't mean to ignore your suggestions. It's a bad habit of mine on SE to just not address ideas that I only slightly disagree with or have no opinion about. I'm glad you felt I was contributing though, because I didn't. Mostly, I felt like I was running myself into a brick wall over and over again, unable to get past my initial suspicions. It was frustrating.

Thank you, Joe, for running this game. Though we all struggled at some point, it was still fun. You especially had a lot to deal with, between last-second vote changes and problematic spreasheets. Thanks for putting up with our shenanigans. 

[Alvron]

13 hours ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

If I had become governor, I was meaning to PM Alvron and try to strike a deal to make him survivor in exchange for increasing my profit margin.

And I would've offered the same deal I had with El.  And then promptly stabbed you in the back because of course I would.

Quote

 

The nerve of Alv. Wow. I can’t stop laughing. 
“El, in future make sure to include a timeframe in those kind of deals as I was going to do it right before rollover giving you no time to plan a save.” After years of his tutelage, he really thinks it’s plausible I wouldn’t catch that loophole? I’m disappointed.

I'm glad I could entertain you in death.   
To be fair, that part was added to help sell my lie.  Some players know I'm one to use semantics to my advantage so adding that little bit helped convince them I was telling the truth.  And if you're completely honest, there would've been a chance you wouldn't see that loophole.  It would depend on how tired or busy you were but still a chance.

I am glad my Jailhouse RP entertained those that it did.  But I'm more glad that it also helped to sell my lie which I like to think was a rousing success.  If there is one piece of advice everyone should follow: Never trust Alv!  Along with Aman or Burnt or Devotary or Drake or Fifth or ... you know what, just don't trust anyone here.  Safer that way.  

I'm curious as to if Drake would've had enough Boxings to kill everyone if there wasn't some magic Boxings hijinx going on behind the scenes.

---

Day One of my newfound Freedom
I have been left alone in a cell that no living human should ever be subjected to.  But then, I’m no living human. For I am NaVorl of the Collective and I am Kandra!

Constable Altea is firmly with the now Emperor Sheev.  Her recruitment into the Collective will have to be reviewed.  Perhaps she can still be of use in the future but in a lesser capacity than Ratel had planned.  I am unsure if Altea is aware of my survival but given the smirk she wore when she handed me the rope I used to hang myself, I suspect she is.

Senator Alron will remain dead, for twice now this form has failed in the arena of politics.  While it is well versed in backroom deals, when it comes to swaying a crowd or even a small group it seems to be lacking something.

NaVorl of the Collective

[Furamirionind]

2 minutes ago, Alvron said:

I'm curious as to if Drake would've had enough Boxings to kill everyone if there wasn't some magic Boxings hijinx going on behind the scenes.

He started with 25... I participated in... 3? 4 lynches?  Something like that, and gained a total of ~13 boxings.  Drake participated in almost every lynch, and only needed 15.  So he likely would have had enough regardless. Beyond that, he made a deal with me were we would help the other reach the solo win should it become clear that one of us wouldn't be able to reach it.  (which I hinted at in my RP).  Had Drake asked, I would have given him my boxings.

Soooooo... Yep. I'm pretty sure barring a Drake death, he would normally reach this point.

[DrakeMarshall]

33 minutes ago, Alvron said:

And I would've offered the same deal I had with El.  And then promptly stabbed you in the back because of course I would.

Would you really?  I am hurt. And here I thought you viewed the sacred tradition of pact-making in much the same light as I do.

Incidentally, your jail RP was top notch.

 

Quote

Thank you?  I will admit that my first reaction to the discovery of your deception was indignation; it’s slightly...jarring...to have been killed by a fellow villager, when, at the time, you likely knew pretty well who the last Elim(s) were, and were even, by your own admission, actively protecting them.

 

6 hours ago, Elandera said:

I'm actually kind of glad someone was able to pull off that win-con. I am, however, disappointed it was a villager that ended up actively working against village to get there.

Oof. Touche.

To be fair though, I truly don’t think I was throwing out my main win condition. I agree that it is fair to call such behavior poor form (though I disagree with the sentiment that having the special win condition fall into your lap is really the only proper way to achieve it, on the grounds that I doubt it would be included in the game if that were true). I absolutely think it is important for players to generally play to their win conditions, since they are set up to make the game work and be fun, and ignoring them is a good way to break the game.

I realized that without a kill, the threat that the eliminator team posed was directly in proportion to their numbers. I played most of the game as a straight villager, working with the rest of the village to hunt elims, even going so far as to try (and, sadly, fail) to hammer the corrupt constable. I planned for the village to be on the cusp of winning, at which point I would then race the village to reach my special win con.

It certainly wasn’t all by my doing, but this is pretty much exactly what happened. In that last cycle, both the village and me individually would have won, I just beat them in the order of actions (clarifying that the mass-kill bribery happened before the lynch was one of my very first questions to Joe in our PM). I really wasn’t throwing away my win condition, I made pretty sure that one of my two possible win cons was inevitably going to be met. I fully believe that this in the spirit of playing to my win con.

Most of what I did at least partially advanced both of my two possible win conditions. I deliberately lowered the quality of my analysis at the end, but I knew it wasn’t threatening the village win condition, just delaying it. The only purely anti-village action I took was killing Fifth, and that was because I calculated that killing Fifth would put me over 40 boxings and end the game. I wouldn’t have done that otherwise.

Edited August 16, 2019 by DrakeMarshmallow

[Young Bard]

4 hours ago, Alvron said:

I am glad my Jailhouse RP entertained those that it did.  But I'm more glad that it also helped to sell my lie which I like to think was a rousing success.

Well, I was operating under the assumption that when you were lying you had a purpose behind it, as opposed to just lying for the sake of it when it wouldn't matter anyway.  I won't make that mistake again.

[Alvron]

4 hours ago, DrakeMarshmallow said:

Would you really?  I am hurt. And here I thought you viewed the sacred tradition of pact-making in much the same light as I do.

I do.  If I made a deal with someone, I keep it no matter what.  But I also said I would've offered you the same deal I had with El.  I would've said something like 'Same terms as I had with El? You give me Daggers and I give you everything else?"  I had no deal with El so if you accepted then we wouldn't have a deal but you would think we did.   Of course you might've gone for another type of deal which if I agreed to, would've kept.
 

[Haelbarde]

1 hour ago, Alvron said:

I do.  If I made a deal with someone, I keep it no matter what.  But I also said I would've offered you the same deal I had with El.  I would've said something like 'Same terms as I had with El? You give me Daggers and I give you everything else?"  I had no deal with El so if you accepted then we wouldn't have a deal but you would think we did.   Of course you might've gone for another type of deal which if I agreed to, would've kept.
 

Speaking of deals - I believe I owe you a head. Did you decide on which one?

[DrakeMarshall]

59 minutes ago, Alvron said:

I do.  If I made a deal with someone, I keep it no matter what.  But I also said I would've offered you the same deal I had with El.  I would've said something like 'Same terms as I had with El? You give me Daggers and I give you everything else?"  I had no deal with El so if you accepted then we wouldn't have a deal but you would think we did.   Of course you might've gone for another type of deal which if I agreed to, would've kept.

Ah, I see we view the sacred tradition of pact-making in exactly the same light 

I would not have contacted you seeking a bargain without terms already drafted in advance. I very much look forwards to dealing with you in the future 

[Kidpen]

Welp that was an interesting experience. I didn't keep track of the game much after my arrest, so I'll have to go back and try and see if I can figure out what events led up to this happening.

Also who knows what the weird thing I did in the jail doc was. I think I was half asleep when I wrote it.

[Alvron]

14 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

Speaking of deals - I believe I owe you a head. Did you decide on which one?

The one from LG19 will be fine. 

[+Ark1002]

Waiiiiiit

did the serial killer just WIN??

That's literally the first time that's happened in my SE career

[Elbereth]

It's well past time for this game to be closed up. Thanks to Joe for a wonderful rerun of a wonderful game - QF14 is one of my best memories from early in my SE games, and this one did not disappoint either. Congrats to Drake for winning the game completely for himself - not that dissimilar to QF14's ending, in fact.  I had loads of fun in this game, and I would love to see a third run sometime in the future. The setting is so much fun to play with, and Joe's games are always hilarious. See you all in the next one! (no seriously go sign up for MR42 )

As always, if anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get ahold of Wilson, Fifth Scholar, Devotary of Spontaneity, 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 (Amanuensis, Aonar Faileas, Stink, Elandera, or Sart) 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!