Quick Fix Game 41: The Lord Mistborn's School for Gifted Allomancers

[Elkanah]

While I'd still like to hear more from @Coda, I'll vote for Lemonelon. That vote for darkness came from left field, and Wonko is right, we get a lot of information from whether she turns up student or thug.

[Guest Coda]

Hi I'm back from school. I will vote on Lemon for information. I trust Elkanah, Wonko, and Elandera because of their expert analysis.

[Abstrusity]

Mundric hung his head. What use were principles in a den of liars and cheaters who’d do anything to take what was not theirs? They hadn’t even bought a hat. The great torment filled him. It wrapped his mind like a shroud of nettles, piercing him with the deepest fear a man could feel - the torment of uncertainty. He stepped out from his improvised shop, and drew a small aluminum top hat from his case. The edges were sharp. He was going to find the one who’d orchestrated this, and make them pay. Not the soulless thugs, no. Whatever demented schoolmaster that could lie to so many, about the purpose of the very school and set them at each other’s throats... He was the one to go after.

——

Right from the get-go, the lack of resistance to a vote on Lemonelon is worrying. My suspicions are all over the place. Every suspicion seems to be wrong, but I’m more worried about Coda than Lemon. It’s all so unclear.

 

[Lemonelon]

I have forgotten how bad I am at this game! I have the strongest village read so far on DeTess and scanned them as village in C1 so I'm inclined to believe them- but they are voting on me  

My other scans have been Devotary coming up as village and Wonko coming up as village. 

I can understand wanting to vote on me for information, but I'll have to vote for Coda as they have seemed most suspicious out of the players we have left.

[Guest Coda]

If you want to lynch me, go ahead. I'm not really contributing to this game much and I could really use the time.

[Sart]

Vote Count:
Lemonelon (5): De Tess, Wonko, Elandera, Elkanah, Coda
Coda (2): Abstrusity, Lemonelon

Well, guess my vote doesn't matter. Elandera is my only suspicion at present, so I'll put a vote on them.

 

[Wonko the Sane]

Well, I promised I'd post before rollover.

Lemonelon. Coda.

Good game, guys. 

[Elkanah]

 

1 hour ago, Coda said:

If you want to lynch me, go ahead. I'm not really contributing to this game much and I could really use the time.

I guess that's fair Lemonelon Coda

 

Edit: Good game well played

Edited December 6, 2019 by Elkanah

[Young Bard]

And that's the cycle, and the game! The epilogue will be up shortly.

[Young Bard]

They had time. They had to have time.

“Lemonelon is clearly guilty here,” DeTess said. “We should expel them, and then we can figure out what to do from there.”

“Yeah, that sounds great. Let’s lynch Lemonelon.” Wonko said. DeTess glanced at Wonko. There seemed to be something slightly… off about him. He tried to use his Tineye abilities to figure it out… no, DeTess must have just been paranoid.

One by one, they agreed Lemonelon had to be expelled, despite his protestations.

Finally, they reached Abstrusity. They looked torn, looking at Lemonelon. "You're sure you're not one of the Thugs?"

"Yes. Would I lie to you?" Lemonelon talked slowly, as if any sudden movements might spook Abstrusity into calling for his expulsion.

Abstrusity looked around, indecision clear on their face. "What do the rest of you all think?"

DeTess opened his mouth to make his case, to remind Abstrusity of why Lemonelon was suspicious, but he never got the chance.

"You have to vote according to what you think is right." Elkanah said.

"Yeah. It's your choice, at the end of the day." Wonko added, smiling. "Don't let any of the rest of us sway who you want to vote for."

Abstrusity paused. "OK. I think we should expel Coda."

Wonko's smile widened. "You know, that's a good choice. Let's expel Coda."

Coda looked around. "Wait, what? Lemonelon's clearly the guilty one here, why are we -"

Elkanah grabbed Coda by the nape of his clothing. "I've heard enough from this Thug. Let's get rid of him."

With that, he physically picked up Coda from the back of his clothing, and, despite Coda's flailing attempts to get free, easily walked with him out the front door of the school, returning a moment later wiping his hands clean. "Now, I think there's one more thing to get to."

---

There was a stillness in the room as Wonko walked up to DeTess. Elkanah slowly walked around the edge of the room, watching DeTess like a cat watches a mouse. Sart and Abstrusity stood still, seemingly frozen by the sudden change in fortune.

"You've caused a lot of trouble for us, you know." Wonko said. This entire time, the smile had never slipped from his face.

"You nearly had us, right there at the end. You nearly took from us that which we rightfully deserved."

Wonko kept talking, and Elkanah kept walking around the room - it was getting harder and harder for DeTess to keep an eye on both of them at once. "It was you, then? You murdered El, and Straw, and all those others?"

Wonko smiled. "Of course not. You did. Or at least, that's the story that the headmaster will hear. We're simply doing our civic duty in making sure that you couldn't hurt any more of us poor students."

"But, you don't have any actual ability as a Tineye, do you? That's why you needed to cheat your way in."

Wonko smiled. "Not yet. But on behalf of my comrades, I'd like to thank you for your sacrifice."

DeTess looked confused at him for a moment. Wait... where was Elkanah? Even as she had the thought, she felt the dagger go straight through her chest. No, not quite a dagger... a spike, of some kind. As she slowly collapsed, she felt it... draining her, as her abilities as a Tineye seemed to get absorbed into the Spike.

"A steel spike, for absorbing Tineye abilities. You should be honoured. So far as we know, you may be the one of the first people since the Ascendance to have had this ritual performed on you. Just know that your powers, your beautiful abilities, will not go to waste. I'll be sure to use them very well."

That's all DeTess saw before she lost consciousness.

Wonko pulled out the Spike and ramming it through his own chest. Throughout the process, he had never stopped smiling.

---

Coda was expelled! They were a Tineye Student.

Vote Count:
Lemonelon(3): DeTess, Elandera, Coda
Coda(4): Abstrusity, Lemonelon, Wonko, Elkanah
Elandera(1): Sart

With that, the Elims have won the game! It's three on three, which means they could force a draw next cycle, meaning a villager and an Elim would die in the lynch and a villager would be killed the same day, leading to an Elim victory.

GM thoughts to come in a day or so.

GM Spreadsheet
Thug's Lair (Elim Doc)
The Almost Students (Dead Doc)
Worried Parents (Spec Doc)

Role Types:
Boring Tineye: They scan correctly every cycle. If it’s a Student, they scan the player as a Student. If it’s a Determined Thug, they scan the player as a Determined Thug.
Tinlie: If it’s a Student, they scan the player as a Determined Thug. If it’s a Determined Thug, they scan the player as a Student. (Sidenote: These were originally called Anti-Tineyes, but Abstrusity came up with a better name for them, so I'm using that. )
Confused Tineye: The result of the scan will be either Student or Determined Thug at random with equal probability.
Naive Tineye: The result of the scan will always be a Student.
Cynical Tineye: The result of the scan will always be a Determined Thug.
Dawdling Tineye: The first cycle's scan is random. Every subsequent cycle, the result of the scan is the alignment of the player you scanned the previous cycle.

Player List:

Snipexe - Student Tinlie
Coda - Student Boring Tineye
Lumgol - Student Confused Tineye
Straw - Student Confused Tineye
Wonko the Sane - Cynical Tineye Determined Thug
StrikerEZ - Variel - Determined Thug Tineye
Darkness Ascendant - Dr. Steinman
Abstrusity - Mundric - Student Dawdling Tineye
Lemonelon - Determined Thug Naive Tineye
Elandera - Emeril - Student Boring Tineye
Devotary of Spontaneity - Danjen - Confused Student Tineye
Sart - Student Cynical Tineye
DeTess - Student Tinlie
Elkanah - Elias - Determined Thug Confused Tineye

[Elandera]

Well played Thugs. I wish I'd picked up on the suspicion of Lemonelon and Wonko earlier, but didn't have time to look at the past turns. I also wish I'd scanned the right people! Elims, you killed everyone I scanned (aside from DA. That was a poor decision on my part). 

Bard, I loved the mechanics. I laughed so hard when we figured out everyone was a tineye. Unfortunately, that became much of my focus, rather than finding elims. Sorry. I think I just underestimated how quickly this low player count + QF would move.

Very good game, everyone.

[Young Bard]

1 minute ago, Elandera said:

Sorry. I think I just underestimated how quickly this low player count + QF would move.

You weren't the only one - I was kind of blindsided by how quickly everything moved, and if I'd realised that ahead of time, I'd probably have balanced the game fairly differently. But I'll talk more about that when the GM thoughts comes out.

[Lumgol]

 

[StrikerEZ]

That game was really fun. I’m glad we managed to get the elim win.

Also, this is the first time that I’ve been lynched C1 where I was actually an elim.

Edited December 6, 2019 by StrikerEZ

[Guest Coda]

This is funny. I said it was fine to lynch me, and the game ends. Wow.

[StrikerEZ]

Oh, @Young Bard what type of Tineye was I? I couldn’t have been a Tinlie or a cynical Tineye since I scanned Lum as village. 

[Abstrusity]

Ahhh... GG everyone! Sorry if my inexperience made it difficult. Lots of fun though! Glad I could at least come up with a creative term. 

Mundric hurried out into the rain, the water beating down on his precious hat, crumpled beyond repair. His business was in ruins, his life more so. He wished for a simpler time. A time long ago, when his ancestor, Mundric, had been the chief hat merchant of House Hasting. He remembered that time, and the way it had ended, in a story passed down through generations...

[DeTess]

This was a nice one! I had had a gut feeling on Wonko since C2 or so, but their lynch position made them look very village. In hindsight, I should have pushed for a Lemonelon lynch sooner because I was making a rather dangerous assumption.

Anyway, well played to the elims here, and thanks to bard for the ridiculous but fun game setup.

[Lemonelon]

Good Game everyone, really enjoyed that!!

[DeTess]

6 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, this is the first time that I’ve been lynched C1 where I was actually an elim.

I mean, even a broken clock has the right time twice a day, so a D1 lynch of you while you where actually an elim was bound to happen one day  

[StrikerEZ]

5 hours ago, DeTess said:

I mean, even a broken clock has the right time twice a day, so a D1 lynch of you while you where actually an elim was bound to happen one day  

That’s certainly true, but doesn’t make me feel any better.

Of course, which how much chaos I caused by getting tied with one of my teammates, I think my lynch was worth it this time.

[Young Bard]

OK, I've procrastinated on this long enough - sorry for the delay.

Overall, I think I'm quite happy with this games. There's definitely a bunch of things I'd do differently if I could redo it all over again, but . There was definitely an Elim bias in this game - having 4 Elims was a mistake - but I'm not sure it was as bad as you might believe it was based on the result of the game. For one thing, all of the Elims were under some amount of suspicion by the end, and if there'd been one fewer Elim, then Lemon would have been lynched, and it's quite possible Rand would have figured out she was a Tinlie the next cycle and lynched Wonko the next cycle, with Elandera following on soon after whenever they scanned an Elim. So, in some sense, the annoying balance to this game is that the Elims effectively won on the last cycle they were still able to win. Which is... unbalanced in itself* , and something that would have been a problem in a normal game, but I was OK with running a slightly broken game, thinking that the sheer humour of the game would make it worth it. And overall, I think that's true.

That said, I was surprised by the psychological impact that Devotary flipping random would be - I expected it to be amusing, and for people to be forced to rethink some of their assumptions about the game up to that point, and some people definitely took it that way, but I didn't expect the resignation or fatalism that occurred from it? It's one of those things that seems obvious in retrospect, but I didn't realize ahead of time, which was definitely an error on my part.

I actually had a few different possibilities for this game beyond just blackout - I considered releasing all or most of the rules, which would have changed the balance, but the idea of the game would still have worked just fine. On the other hand, a particularly sadistic part of me considered having it look like a regular signups game with standard Scadrial rules and no indication there was anything different, but that was never under any serious consideration. If I'd had open rules, that would likely have counteracted the fatalism once they realised scans weren't reliable, since people would have known that going in, but it also would have been less trollish, and this game was all about being as trollish as possible.  So, overall, I think I'm still glad that I decided to make it a blackout game.

In terms of specific role types, I was slightly annoyed that my personal favourite role type - the Dawdling Tineye - barely saw any action - the game went by too quickly for that role to be anything more than another glorified random roll (there were a couple other roles that were more 'out there' that didn't make it into the game either on account of how short the game was going to be, as well.) Ultimately, I don't think roles like that can work without a longer game, which means a higher playercount. (Oh, and Striker, you were a Dawdling Tineye, by the way - I don't know why I accidentally skipped that when putting in all the roles. But you died Cycle 1, which just meant that you were effectively a Confused Tineye.)

And before I forget, there's several players that I want to shout out in particular:
- Congratulations @Sart for being the first to reveal the "Everyone's a Tineye" 
- Congratulations to @Abstrusity for being the first to figure out what the Types were about - also, I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say I was impressed by how you played for your first game, and I hope to see you in more games in the future.
- Congratulations to the Elim team - @Wonko the Sane, @Elkanah, @Lemonelon, and @StrikerEZ - for your victory this game.
- And finally, thanks to everyone else for playing.

---

*I've talked about this before, but I think of 'balance' as being in two parts, which I call mean and variance - the mean is whether it's biased to one side over the other, and the variance is how easy it is it for one side to make a comeback after falling behind. So, I'd say this game was slightly Elim biased, but very unbalanced in the variance of the game, since the early game is very Elim biased, and that flips so the late game is very Village biased.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Young Bard

[Elbereth]

It's well past time for this game to be closed up. Many thanks to Bard for running such a fun game - I laughed so hard when I first saw the ruleset. An all-Tineye game with different types of Tineyes is honestly hilarious, and it'd be interesting to see it in a non-blackout format someday, perhaps. Congrats to the elims for winning, and see you all next game! 

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, Araris Valerian, 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!  

Edited May 23, 2020 by Elbereth