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I'll sign up, despite (still) not having read the rules yet. I'll read them tomorrow morning or tonight, I promise. And, uh, I'll be active as long as I'm in the game, too.

 

Signing up as Lin Wa, a guy who's, he can tell, in way over his head. Though he enjoys wordplay (well, more contractions and abbreviations) and studies, he has never gotten his priorities straight for longer than about 50 minutes. Thusly, as he walked up to the wall in the courtyard, the University loomed over him. It was a daunting prospect, studyin' here, especially because of the place's pull in waffles. He had heard there were a lot of waffle experts who had learned at the University. Perhaps, after adjusting to the life there, he could learn it all, in walks, studies, and classes and just generally gain knowledge at a rate he hadn't ever been able to do.

Regardless, there were also...reports, ones of Skindancers, which were appallin'. Waning hours would be more dangerous in the University, even, than in the streets. It should have been a deciding factor in whether he went or not, but--to be honest, his fears of being dwarfed in the presence of much greater minds than his, and studies that encompassed more knowledge than one person could even contain, were overwhelming enough to keep him from really worrying about the Skindancers.

He walked along the wall until he got to the main entrance. There, fearful and hopeful, inward he moved.

 

(If you didn't notice, I tried to put in the string "lin wa" (if you don't count punctuation or spaces) as many times as I could in the paragraph above. Counting, I think I got 5 in there. Good luck, everyone!)

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Knighter Nune applied to KKC University on a bet from a friend that he couldn't get in. When he read the acceptance letter, he was pleasantly surprised. " suppose I will try my hand at the 'Arcane Arts,' he mused. He didn't know what those were. Cracking open some older Nune relatives' textbooks, he learned enough to realize this would be a rich and rewarding university.

Probably, at least. Though reports of Skindancers made his skin crawl, he'd prove himself worthy to be called Master of the Arcane...at least in his own head. He said his goodbyes to family and friends with head hung high, mostly to look at the ginormous sign in front of the school saying "UNIVERSITY--HONOR AND KNOWLEDGE FORTHCOMING" He was fairly sure he was the only one who could see the sign. Hrm. Insanity can't happen that fast at this school. He hoped.

--

I'll sign up as Knighter Nune. I know this will be my second game I've really played in, but these rules look ludicrously fun to play with. 

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I missed the first version of this game because it was *just* before I joined, and I missed the second version because it was during a hiatus of mine - I have no intention of missing the third version.

I'll sign up as Nethwyl Nox, who is definitely not a pyromaniac.

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LG65: Term 1, Month 1 - Blizzards and Bad Omens

It was winter when the Skindancers first came. The ground had just been buried under the first heavy snow, and the last leaves stripped from the branches of the now-naked trees swaying in the cold north wind. The University lay heavily under the silence, the kind that comes when snow has muffled every sound and everyone is inside keeping warm by a fire. 

Master Ivarra could sense it. Danger, somewhere, somehow - but concealing themselves is in a Skindancer’s very nature, and so she could not pick them out among the students who entered the University that turn. Still, the Master Namer watched each with steel-sharp eyes, and kept a hand always at the hilt of her sword of iron. 

***

The term started with a blizzard, because of course it did. And the Master Arithmetist still required them to attend classes, because of course he did. 

Parien sighed, closing the classroom door behind her with a push that may have been slightly harder than necessary. Her face started to burn off its numbness as she hung her coat up, but her toes still felt like frozen blocks of ice and probably would for a while. Stupid circulation. 

She frowned when she noticed the Master Arithmetist wasn’t even in the room yet. If I just wasted my time tramping all the way here from the Windy Tower... He was usually the first to arrive, but maybe the snow was delaying him. 

And then she waited. She settled into her seat, pulled out her notes, even made sure her homework was organized. She was starting to look around at other students and wonder if it was worth waiting around when the door opened and shut with a click. 

The Master Arithmetist was not the one who had opened the door. A woman who seemed much too young for her silver hair stalked to the front of the room instead, dressed in black and silver with a sword buckled at her waist. 

“Ivarra,” someone whispered. The Master Namer. Parien hadn’t even recognized her - she’d been there when tuition was determined, of course, but that had been such a haze of stress that she barely remembered anything from it. 

“I do not usually work with new students,” Ivarra said, silencing the whispers. “It is a waste of my time and yours. But I think it useful, given the circumstances, to deliver a warning.”

One particularly brave student raised his hand. She ignored him and continued, “The University is a place of wonders and great things, but extremes come at both ends. Do not think of this as a safe place or a haven. It is not.”

She paused, watching them coldly. “And if you prove yourself a danger to your fellow students, whether through malice or stupidity, you will be punished and removed. I advise you to avoid doing so.”

And with that, she turned on her heel and walked towards the door, exiting before anyone could even think of anything to say. 


Long Game 65: Dancing Through Life has begun! You should have received your PM by now. It will contain a link to a spreadsheet for you, in which you must submit any and all actions (including lodging, going to Imre, and submitting EP). If you have questions, feel free to ask in your GM PM, but please do not try to break it. 

The cycle will end at noon Pacific time on Friday, May 1. There will then be an 8-hour rollover period, and the new cycle will start at 8pm PDT that evening. 

As a reminder, if you have not read the rules yet I would highly recommend it. Remember that you have two votes to cast if you so desire. If you have any questions, please ask! This is a complicated game and we're here to clarify things.

Good luck! 

Player List
1. @Haelbarde - Seòras (Edema Ruh)
2. @Elandera - Athdara, alchemist (Noble)
3. @Burnt Spaghetti - Bryn Aria (Commoner)
4. @DeTess - Evelyn Bryen (Commoner)
5. @Elkanah (Edema Ruh)
6. @Straw - Straw (Commoner)
7. @xinoehp512 (Commoner)
8. @Lord_Silberfarben - Lord Silberfarben (Commoner)
9. @Coda - Catalan, namer (Noble)
10. @Karnage - Lasko Veitch (Noble)
11. @Hemalurgic Headshot (Noble)
12. @StrikerEZ - Ryykal Ladzo (Edema Ruh)
13. @Lumgol
 - Caia Irèn (Noble)
14. @Experience - Shard (Commoner)
15. @Devotary of Spontaneity - Vol, paranoid alchemist (Noble)
16. @CadCom - Cadaci (Edema Ruh)
17. @Sart - Sagaer Murtoy, accompanied by a child (Commoner)
18. @Furamirionind
 (Edema Ruh)
19. @Zillah (Commoner)
20. @Araris Valerian - Arael Solon (Noble)
21. @Rathmaskal - Rath (Commoner)
22.  @STINK - Ugfal the Three-Handed, with only two hands (Commoner)
23. @Kynedath - Traelynn Weeks, likes beets (Edema Ruh)
24. @Walin - Lin Wa (Commoner)
25. @GreenRover - Knighter Nune (Noble)
26. @Young Bard - Nethwyl Nox, pyromaniac (Commoner)
27. @TheMightyLopen - Leo (Noble)

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:D Thank you! 

Also, to be clear: 1. The player action sheets are where you submit your actions. You can also do it in GM PM, but the player spreadsheet is much preferred and makes our lives much easier. 2. If you have a random sentence in your PM and you're not sure what it's about, that's an indication of your musical ability. I realized after the fact that some of them aren't actually very clear about that. 

If anyone wants the spec doc, PM me or Wilson or both. It's not created yet, because we are both very tired and need to sleep, but it'll be up tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm off. Don't break anything while we're asleep? :P 

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So, I'm not going to do a full breakdown of the rules or anything. The rules for this game are more like that of a fairly crunchy TTRPG, and I'm afraid everyone will have to figure out its optimization techniques for themselves. There is one thing I would like to discuss though, and that's the vote.

Unlike normal games, the vote in this game does not kill directly, and is instead somewhere between an inconvenience or, in the early game, a kind of semi-permanent role-block. Getting voted on increases your tuition, and getting voted on a lot can get you expelled, which means you cannot gain more university based skills.

However, there's still quite a bit to do in Imre, and some of the more dangerous abilities (such as a kill) can be bough there.

There's one other factor to the lynch though, and that is the tuition reduction. The Nobles don't really need it as much, but I expect all commoners and Edema Ruh will be using both their complaints every cycle.

So, what I'm trying to say here is this: the vote doesn't kill, but can inconvenience someone a lot. If you are very suspicious of someone, by all means get them expelled, but remember that you're going to have to follow up with something else to finish the job. If you want to vote but are not suspicious of someone, I'd suggest spreading your votes around, and avoiding voting on Edema Ruh, as they're hit the hardest by the increase in tuition from getting complaints leveled against them.

So yeah, sorry for that rambling set of thoughts.

Also Elandera, Devotary I'm jealous that you get so much more money than I do, so have some baseless complaints leveled against you.

***

Evelyn returned to her room, shivering from the cold. Still,  just because it was cold outside didn’t mean she could stop fighting against inequality. The pamphlets she had made needed to be distributed after all, and there was no way a mere blizzard would stop her.

Her pamphlet, titled ‘By their means and skill’ proposed a radical change to the universities tuition scheme, placing a greater burden on those with the means to carry it, while lessening the burden on the poor. Of course, it would also be balanced based on an individual’s academic skills. The rare nobles that came here to actually learn something, rather than to party their family’s money away, didn’t need to be tithed as harshly, she supposed.

She held her hands in front of the fire as feeling slowly crept back into her fingers. She had been at this for nearly a full term now but she’d yet to see the changes she was campaigning for. Still, once enough people learned of her ideas, change was inevitable. It was the only sensible course of action after all.

And, she mused, it’d be nice if her ideas got enough traction that she could actually start putting her name under these pamphlets, rather than having to keep them anonymous.

Edited by DeTess
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Kendel put his hand down sheepishly. The first day and he was already messing things up. He looked around at the students praying that none of them would make anything of it. Blessedly the strange woman didn't mention it further. The students waited a full fifteen minutes before the master arithmetist arrived.

"You'd have hoped the master arithmetist would be able to keep track of time." Kendel joked, nudging the student sitting to his left. Unfortunately, he may have said it too loudly as he earned a glare from the master.

Great. There's strike two. 

He was hoping to become a great master of some art, not disappoint every master as soon as they walked in. How was he supposed to rise from a lowly edema ruh when he couldn’t even make a decent impression. 

He corrected his posture. Perception is everything. If he was percieved as good or smart or strong, then he was. He must always appear perfect. So he messed up…

Twice. He reminded himself. 

Still he could recover. 

The master began his lesson and Kendel started scribbling notes trying to keep up. He did a really good job at the start, but then something the master said reminded him of a song. Soon the words on the page were notes and lyrics, and there was no more attention left for what was actually being taught. 

I echo that the spreadsheets are dope!

19 minutes ago, DeTess said:

There's one other factor to the lynch though, and that is the tuition reduction. The Nobles don't really need it as much, but I expect all commoners and Edema Ruh will be using both their complaints every cycle.

I agree with all of your post except for this. You only receive a tuition reduction for the first vote. By all means people are welcome to vote twice, but the second vote really only hurts someone. I recommend using it on people you are really suspicious of. As an Edema Ruh I will not be missing an opportunity to reduce my tuition. Rereading the older games, it looks like a big thing that came up was votes for role play motivations. This is fine, but I do suggest just using one of them. In fact, I recommend everyone vote at least once. Not only is that a good way to help us start to gather information in any elimination game, but in this game it has the added effect of barely adding up to a possible roleblock on turn one. 

That said, if you don't have  a solid suspicion of someone, do please spread the votes a little thin. This is going to be an awesome game. It would be a shame for people to lose out on the entire university system too early.

Also make sure to hit two hundred words in your analysis like I am doing right here because I can not afford to even be at this overpriced school :P

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41 minutes ago, Elkanah said:

I agree with all of your post except for this. You only receive a tuition reduction for the first vote. By all means people are welcome to vote twice, but the second vote really only hurts someone. I recommend using it on people you are really suspicious of. As an Edema Ruh I will not be missing an opportunity to reduce my tuition. Rereading the older games, it looks like a big thing that came up was votes for role play motivations. This is fine, but I do suggest just using one of them. In fact, I recommend everyone vote at least once. Not only is that a good way to help us start to gather information in any elimination game, but in this game it has the added effect of barely adding up to a possible roleblock on turn one. 

Are you certain about only one vote counting for reduction? @Elbereth, @little wilson?

If so, I completely agree with you where votes that are mostly based on tuition reduction are concerned.

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1 minute ago, DeTess said:

Are you certain about only one vote counting for reduction? @Elbereth, @little wilson?

If so, I completely agree with you where votes that are mostly based on tuition reduction are concerned.

I think so, but I am absolutely cool with being wrong. Anything to lower tuition:)

Here's an adjusted player list organized by rank instead of chronology

Nobles:

Elandera, Coda, Karnage, Hemalurgic Headshot, Lumgol, Devotary of Spontaneity, Araris, GreenRover,  The Mighty Lopen

Commoners:

Burnt Spaghetti, DeTess, Straw, Xinoehp, Lord Silberfarben,  Experience, Zillah, Rathmaskal, Sart, Stink, Walin, Young Bard

Edema Ruh

Haelbarde, Elkanah, StrikerEZ, CadCom, Furamirionind, Kynedath

That gives us nine nobles, twelve commoners and six Edema Ruh.

I recommend all nobles obtain body guards as quickly as is feasible. You have the greatest amount of freedom because you can handle financial strains the best. I will turn this into a bit of an I know you know, but I predict that one of the nobles dies first before they get the chance to exploit their wealth. 

I further recommend you do not reveal from where you hail as Vintish Noblemen are even more prime targets and  even revealing that you are not one shrinks the pool of who might be one.

Even after all this advice, I would like to emphasize that this is a game, so play however you want. These are just the opinions of an edema ruh who is trying to afford going here. I would love to hear from anyone who disagrees and thinks it would be beneficial to reveal ranks, but you also risk gathering complaints from others in doing so.

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I will absolutely be voting on someone with at least my first vote, also being Edema Ruh. However unless I'm specifically suspicious of someone, I will probably be exclusively voting based on RP. This is because from a Ruh's perspective, I think if I was playing this game optimally, it would involve going after the Nobles as much as possible to narrow the power gap. Just to look at the money of the different roles,

Vintish Nobleman: with a 30 talent stipend and +33% tuition cost, they can afford to spend 13 talents on tuition, 12 talents on the Horse and Four, and still have 5 talents left over for what they like. This is on top of the 20 they start with.

Aturan Nobleman: with a 20 talent Stipend, they can afford the full price of admission (10 talents) as well as either stay in the Golden Pony (9 talents) netting 1 talent/turn, or staying at the Windy Tower (6 talents) netting 4 talents/turn.  While the golden pony has its moments where it's good, I think everyone who can will be staying in the Windy Tower, as I think it is objectively the best lodging location. With the Horse and Four close behind.

Yillish Commoner: with a bit over a 11 talent stipend, they can still pay full price for tuition, though will be severely hurt for doing so.

Cealdish Commoner: with *almost* a 10 talent stipend, they cant pay full tuition. However this will likely serve more as an activity requirement. If worse comes to worse and they forget to post for a cycle, they should be able to hunker down in the Mews.

Edema Ruh: with a bit over a 5.5 talent stipend, I havent worked out how to stay in the university yet. Personally I'll be moving to Mews as there is no way I can survive spending almost all my money on lodging. With Mews that leaves 4.67 talents meaning we need at least a 5.33 talent reduction to just attend the university a single term. There is essentially a free 1.95 reduction for posting, voting, impressing a master, and PMing. This means we only need a 3.38 reduction beyond that coming from RP and posts. This would total at 68 posts mixed between RP and analysis with each being at least 200 words. I'm not sure anyone short of Aman could do this, so I'm going to hazard a guess all Edema Ruh are either going to be taking time not going to the university, or are going to be relying heavily on the noblemen placing black market contracts... or on Devi.

Anyways, due to this, I highly encourage people to first, not try to play optimally. I'm Edema Ruh, and I accept I'm at a disadvantage. Instead of trying to bring others down to my level, I'm going to try to roll with what I was given and have fun, and I wouldnt say no to a wealthy sponsor... just saying... xD

Oh, while I said I'm going to be voting based on RP, if you arent my sponsor, just because you are rich doesnt mean I wont vote on you ; )

Since I'm on mobile, I am not sure how much I've typed, but I think it's enough to get a 0.55 reduction, so I'm going to post now.

31 minutes ago, DeTess said:

Are you certain about only one vote counting for reduction? @Elbereth, @little wilson?

If so, I completely agree with you where votes that are mostly based on tuition reduction are concerned.

I asked this question before the game started in thread. Only the first vote counts, but as we vote every turn, and it counts each turn, the reduction is essentially 6 jots. For each tuition.

14 minutes ago, Elkanah said:

I recommend all nobles obtain body guards as quickly as is feasible. You have the greatest amount of freedom because you can handle financial strains the best. I will turn this into a bit of an I know you know, but I predict that one of the nobles dies first before they get the chance to exploit their wealth. 

But now we have an IKYK. Personally, I wouldnt reccomend doing this, though its definitely a good option. I just happen to think there are other ways for people to spend their money immediately as well :ph34r:

Edit: it's worth noting I didnt factor in the talent pipes. I'm sure all the Ruh will be trying for them, as it's essentially a free chance at having decent money this game with the tuition reduction. However, as not everyone will be getting pipes, it should be assumed for tuition calculations we assume we dont get them.

I'm going to wait to RP for a little bit, as there is a good chance I'm going to have to rethink my character as I dont think being Ruh will allow me to do what I wanted in the university.

Edited by Furamirionind
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Quote

I asked this question before the game started in thread. Only the first vote counts, but as we vote every turn, and it counts each turn, the reduction is essentially 6 jots. For each tuition.

Ah, okay, thanks. In that case...*tosses a coin*... elandera

34 minutes ago, Furamirionind said:

Anyways, due to this, I highly encourage people to first, not try to play optimally. I'm Edema Ruh, and I accept I'm at a disadvantage. Instead of trying to bring others down to my level, I'm going to try to roll with what I was given and have fun, and I wouldnt say no to a wealthy sponsor... just saying... xD

IIRC I've been an Edema Ruh in one of the previous runs, and you can make it work with a lot of activity, and getting some talent pipes generally doesn't hurt much either.

But yeah, if there's one ruleset where focusing on RP reasons and just generally doing what looks fun is a good idea, it's this one. Just don't forget that there are some elims that need hunting down, but since the vote doesn't kill them, that is also going to come down to advancing in the various fields and getting the tools necessary to find and kill them.

Edited by DeTess
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3 minutes ago, DeTess said:

IIRC I've been an Edmea Ruh in one of the previous runs, and you can make it work with a lot of activity, and getting some talent pipes generally doesn't hurt much either.

But yeah, if there's one ruleset where focusing on RP reasons and just generally doing what looks fun is a good idea, it's this one. Just don't forget that there are some elims that need hunting down, but since the vote doesn't kill them, that is also going to come down to advancing in the various fields and getting the tools necessary to find and kill them.

Oh, well if my math is right, 34 posts per turn, or an average of 0.94 posts per hour is doable, though as someone who tends to post a lot anyways, I dont believe I can do that every cycle. Maybe for the first 1 or 2 until I can work out another source of income. I just also have a lot of schoolwork. And as a heavy poster myself, if I'm going to struggle, I personally dont think many others are going to be doing better.

That's true. It is a "traditional" elim/village game. Meaning that analysis of the various fields are going to be important. Since we are sort of talking about money right now (and this let's me post a different post talking about the fields in detail), the fields ranked in monetary abilities, I'd say are:

Arithmatics, Artificary, Sympathy (far behind), Alchemy (far behind Sympathy), all the others.

Naming of course should be mentioned as well, though as a high risk/high reward field with very little known, it is difficult to rank. It's probably both the best and the worst in every aspect.

Due to this, I personally cant imagine any Edema Ruh going into a field other than those 5. Of these, Artificary, I think, is the best at dealing with elims, possibly making this the best field in the game. If I had to guess, I'd say most people struggling for money will try to level up at least once in Artificary.

Due to this, it might make sense for the more wealthy among us to spend time going into fields that others dont have the oportunity to go into, like Linguistics and Logic, which I personally think are the most fun fields.

Also, this no double posting thing is going to be a real pain. lol.

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Well, this is exciting. So many people too!

Re: the recommendation that nobles shouldn't claim if their vint or otherwise. I agree. I feel like that's something that possibly only should be revealed if relevant, especially for the vints, because that's a recipe for a witchhunt. Either they get sabotaged/killed early on for being a higher threat by the skindancers, or they end up coming under heavy fire whenever there's assassins used or perhaps grams being bought or something. Now knowing who can afford those things can be useful for both sides, because if that's a villager buying things, you can bet the skindancers are going to jump on that asap (if they can, remembering that vints will probably have their pockets full of all purchasable protection items from their spare change). If it's obviously a skindancer doing those actions then knowing who could've afforded it is very useful, but then they're a skindancer, and will probably have lied about their class anyways. So in my opinion, this is information that could be very relevant later on, but for now may be more dangerous for those claiming than not, especially while people are likely unprotected at this point of time. I don't think it matters at all for the commoners though, I can't see a reason why it would be risky or otherwise for them to claim. That being said, I don't intend to go claiming right off the bat :P Not unless specifically requested with reasons.

Also, edemas, good luck, I feel for you. I hope you all succeed in gaining talent pipes. As someone who has previously been Edema with pipes, it makes a massive difference. You'll be fine for a couple of cycles, but I'd recommend doing our best to ensure getting those. There's the practicing now which is cool. Though kinda need to do that twice before it makes a difference, and who knows if waiting 2 terms for a +1 is worth it, depends on your base stat i guess. Regardless, you got this!

On that note, I've now been in every band of class! woo!

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