Mid-Range Game 42: The Auction of Lord Winsting

[Mist]

BR

Archivist

Disperse

Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. Highspren, to me.

[A Joe in the Bush]

High Noon

 

Coda, the constable representing Octant 2, stood amidst a scene of carnage and bloodshed, hands stained with red liquid that flowed inside of all people. He had killed so many people tonight. Seven criminals had been slaughtered by his hands, and he had been complicit in the deaths of two constables. The screams… They would haunt him to his dying breath. 

Hardening his heart and steeling his resolve, he stood up from the corpse of Winsting from where he and Lady Lumen had finally killed him and walked towards the last Criminal that wasn’t fading in and out of consciousness. The guilt was swiftly squashed beneath an icy calm. 

“Your lot did good, I’ll give you that,” he said, staring at Emi. “You took out almost all of us. The straw man was torn apart by the mob because that idiot Flogs outed him. Muriel was killed by some vigilante in the night. The Pyromancer was finally slaughtered, even though he outed himself to the group hours ago.” He chuckled softly, eyes filled with nostalgia. “To be honest, he kind of deserved that. Claiming was a stupid play.” 

The fragments of kindness evaporated, leaving only a furious constable with a loaded gun. “Qwerty was absolutely shredded, just because they were awful at lying and kind of messed up. Lord Silber, the one with the grudge? He fell victim to the Criminals too, though he at least managed to see his nemesis die before he did. Shard was killed on a clever hunch from that Lord Winsting, but I avenged him! The intern left for coffee and never came back. Did your fellows whack ‘em? I bet you did. Just a newbie, and you killed ‘em all the same.” 

He shoved Emi to the floor, anger etched into his face. “They were my colleagues, my friends! It’s all your fault!” He pulled his gun out of his holster, aimed at the filthy criminal’s heart, and fired. The room was left silent, the only remaining criminals having succumbed to their slumber. He smiled honestly for the first time since he had walked into this horrific auction. His friends had been avenged.

 

Lady Lumen walked away from the bar. After nearly twelve hours trapped here in Winsting’s mansion, she no longer looked like a lady. She had removed her dress. It had limited her movement, and no one was paying enough attention to notice the difference. She still mourned the loss, though not as much as she mourned her friends.

She had caused many of the deaths, though not directly. Forcing others to act was her specialty, and the chaos that ensued was sweet. But her expert manipulation hadn’t stopped the criminals from picking off the constables one by one. 

Lumen stepped into the room where the remaining criminals had holed up to sleep and began to speak. They couldn’t hear her, but this was something she needed to say.

“You’ve killed more than half of our number. More than half of the best constables in the city. The Intern has vanished, nowhere to be found. You have killed six of the best constables in Elendel, and countless others have died because of your transgressions. Now, no one can stand in our way. We have enough evidence to arrest most of you, and the rest are already dead. We can free the city from you criminal scum. The Octants have paid a great cost, and corruption must pay. We have not failed Constable General Yosef. We have not failed the constables who have died for the cause. This marks the end of crime."

As the two remaining constables turned their backs on the slumbering criminals, they laughed. “Ask me what time it is,” one said to the other.

“What time is it?” the other asked, a tired smile on her face. 

“It’s high noon,” the two said in unison. They left behind dozens of corpses, some of them dear friends, but they had won. They had won.

 

Credit to Mist and Coda for the final writeup! Please go find one or more of their posts and upvote them into the sun!

 

Archivist was lynched! They were a Criminal Bartender!
Emi was killed! They were a Criminal Stalker!

The God King escaped alive! They were a Criminal Escort!

The village has perished, and the constables have voted to disperse! The Constabulary wins!

 

Congratulations to the 9 Eliminators, you have won the game and maintained Straw’s perfect Eliminator score! My personal thoughts are scattered throughout the Spectator doc, which is linked below, but I’ll do a proper writeup soonish!

For now, enjoy the following:

Master Spreadsheet of Actions

Bleeder’s Coppermind

The Constabulary. (Bonus award to anyone who understands the reference.)

The Dead and Spectator Doc.

 

Player List:

1. Coda ( Coda ) Living Constable Gossip!

2. Lady Lumen ( Mist ) Living Constable Extortionist!

3. TBD ( BrightnessRadiant ) Living Constable Gossip!

4. Lord Malikihal ( The_God_King ) Living Criminal Escort!

5. Archivald ( The_Archivist ) Criminal Bartender

6. Emi ( Emi ) Criminal Stalker

7. Matrim ( Matrim's_Dice ) LORD WINSTING INNATE

8. Lady Zephyr ( Zillah )  Renowned Criminal

9. Xinoehp ( xinoehp512 )  Criminal Gossip/Tycoon

10. Hammond ( Megasif ) Criminal Gossip/Gambling Tycoon

11. Shard ( Experience ) Constable Bodyguard

12. Lady Telina Maladroi ( DeTess ) Criminal Gambling Tycoon

13. Lord Laborn ( Bugsy ) Bleeder Gambling Tycoon

14. a smart guy ( Sart ) Criminal Smuggler

15. ThatTinyStrawMan ( Straw ) Renowned Constable

16. Lord Silberfarben ( Lord_Silberfarben ) 5th Octant Escort

17. To Be Determined ( Elkanah ) Dowser, a Criminal Smuggler

18. Qwerty Meep ( Shard of Reading ) Constable Smuggler

19. Lord Reginald ( Kynedath ) Renowned Criminal

20. Lord Karn ( Karnage ) Flogs, a Criminal Gambling Tycoon

21. Variel ( StrikerEZ ) Bartender/Bodyguard Criminal

22. LenSaar ( Devotary of Spontaneity ) Criminal Stalker

23. The Young Pyromancer ( The Young Pyromancer ) Constable Stalker

24. Locke Tekiel ( Orlok Tsubodai ) Renowned/Gossip Criminal

25. Lady Arielle ( Arraenae ) Criminal Gossip

26. Julius ( TJ Shade ) Criminal Gossip

27. Lord Gavin Verduex ( Hemalurgic Headshot ) Criminal Extortionist

28. mad watcher ( little wilson ) criminal impersonator/gossip

29. Muriel Ladrian ( Furamirionind ) Gossip Constable

30. Lord Hadrian Penrod ( Araris Valerian ) Criminal Gossip

[DeTess]

Alright, let's do some thoughts. First of all, I'd like to thank @A Joe in the Bush for running this great game.

I'd also like to give shoutouts to @TJ Shade and @The Young Pyromancer for playing a great game. TJ got thrown into this game halfway through as a new player, and made some really great contributions. Pyro, meanwhile, got underestimated by a couple of people including myself, but he did a really good job at getting the village distracted and off track.

Likewise, @Mist did a pretty solid job at flying under the radar while not being so quiet that it raised suspicion. @Experience also came out of left field for me as I already had discounted him as an elim based on his voting, so that was some solid distancing right there.

On the village side, @Orlok Tsubodai of course did an absolutely great job, but I think @Matrim's_Dice also deserves a shout-out. Being one of the few actively analyzing villagers at Lylo is a tough position to be in, especially if you're fairly new, and so i think you did really well, all things considered.

Lastly, a quick thought balance-wise. I think the way the game played out, it ended up being really close, which indicates a good balance. That having been said, I don't see how the village could have won in any less than about 10 cycles, so I do wonder if things would have gone more the elims way if everyone had been as bloodthirsty as joe expected them to be (I can't see how this game could have ended in a village win before C8, for example).

edit: also, @Furamirionind, I don't think I tend to die early a lot? The village tends to avoid lynching me early because I'm a good asset to have around if I'm not evil, and the elims tend to not night-kill me early because of...reasons (being a likely protection target is one of them, I suppose)?

Edited June 13, 2020 by DeTess

[|TJ|]

I'll admit I joined because I wanted to get the feel of the game and how it is played before the LG, but the game was so well played I was soon pulled in and forgot all about the LG (even after it started :P). Even though I lasted for a grand total of 2.5 cycles, I had a lot of fun interacting with you guys and thoroughly enjoyed the game. Thank you for making my first game a very memorable one

@The Young Pyromancer, you absolute madman! I cannot believe this was your first game as an elim. You had us in your grips for two whole cycles and that was one of the contributing factors for the elim win. 

@Coda , @Mist and @Experience, great work throughout the game, and especially towards the end. You escaped suspicion very well and did so while attempting to seem helpful. Amazing write-up by Coda and Mist as well!

Coming to the village side of things, @DeTess pretty much carried us throughout the game. You were like the word of reason and everyone would not hesitate to listen to you. Another day you'd have totally won us the game.

@Matrim's_Dice, Winsting was a HUGE responsibility for your very first (I'm assuming?) game, and you handled it very well. You tried your very best to win us the game in the end, and you almost pulled it off. 

@Orlok Tsubodai, I owe a huge thanks to you. Your analysis made it very easy for me to get into the game and get reads on people easily. Even though you were dead, you were like a cognitive shadow in helping me out. 

@Bugsy, you were brilliant as Bleeder. Even though you couldn't perform your actions like you wanted to, you kept us guessing and confused. 

Finally, @A Joe in the Bush, thanks for subbing me in! It was great to be a part of your game, and I hope to be in another one soon. Thanks for running it!

Edit: Ahh ninja'd. Thanks, DeTess!

Edit 2: Heyy I forgot about @little wilson. Thanks for making the game so entertaining!

Edited June 13, 2020 by TJ Shade

[DeTess]

Also, I just discovered something great! Apparently it was HH that had bugsy attack himself, rather than the elim extortionist, which is actually pretty hilarious, because it means that the elims only got bleeder confirmed the same cycle bleeder claimed publicly, rather than three cycles earlier XD

[Guest Coda]

That was amazing. It was an honor to play with all of you. Orlok is obviously an SE god and should be worshipped for the capability to discover most of the elim team at the start. DeTess held the village together. Matrim was an excellent Winsting, and yes, Pyro did immediately copy-paste your PM claim into the elim doc, including the section about please not outing you to the elims. Experience, sorry for ensuring your demise, but in my defence, if the inactives hadn't returned, we would have won the next cycle, so... Bugsy, you were great, even if we completely controlled you for a while. Claiming in thread was a bold move. 

Thank you to everyone for playing. If I don't have specific things to say about you, just assume I have an incredibly verbose speech extolling your virtues. And Joe, great and Mighty Game Master, I bow and grovel at your feet in worship. Your game was marvelous, suspenseful, and spectacular. Thank you for including the writeup Mist and I wrote, and putting High Noon as the title. 

Unrelated sidenote: Does anyone have any advice to skin a game to be Sanderson-related? I'm trying to make a Quantum Werewolf game, but I have no idea what roles/factions/world to do. Also, I would like to hire a person with mad spreadsheeting skills. Maybe @Orlok Tsubodai?

[Straw]

Funny note: this was my first time ever being lynched as an elim. 

I found it very amusing that Fura and I still got to tunnel each other, despite being on the same team. It's too bad that that attempt at distancing never paid off, since we were both outed D2.

Some players also played very well this game:

First of all, @Orlok Tsubodai played very well, and had perfect reads on D1. I will note that I really do disagree with infolynching. 

@The Young Pyromancer did a very good job being an outed elim and derailing the thread. It was quite fun to watch from the dead doc.

@TJ Shade had a very good first game.

@Coda and @Mist won the game for us at the end, and had some awesome discussion in the dead doc. I like how they chose to end the game at noon. 

30 minutes ago, Coda said:

Unrelated sidenote: Does anyone have any advice to skin a game to be Sanderson-related? I'm trying to make a Quantum Werewolf game, but I have no idea what roles/factions/world to do. Also, I would like to hire a person with mad spreadsheeting skills. Maybe @Orlok Tsubodai?

Glad to see someone looking into Quantum Werewolf. 

[Coffeecat]

On 6/13/2020 at 9:59 PM, Coda said:

Joe, great and Mighty Game Master, I bow and grovel at your feet in worship.

You are hereby banned from playing any mafia game.

...

But seriously, Joe, i loved this game, amazing opportunities. you ensured everyone had something important to do, and seriously, keeping track of all 30 players... And same for the IM and everyone who helped get this game here.

 

The bleeder... bugsy

I would have never guessed you were bleeder if i hadn't been redirected to role-block you. i role blocked someone and there was no bleeder kill... but we wanted to be sure, so next cycle we extorted you...

then we were sure, but pyro was dead, so we couldn't tell the village you were bleeder. anyways you claimed by yourself

 

The village...

They were so mixed, i dont have anything concrete to say. you were hellish to play against, you almost had us figured out... if it hadn't been for your assumption about Zillah elim, i think we would have lost.

who came up with that btw?

 

The elim team...

You were fun to play with, although you kind of killed me you still won.

pyro, amazing.

straw, you 21 votes on you, that must be a record.

BR, you were very helpful the middle cycles, and you managed to survive till the end, even while being brought up almost every cycle as a lynch option.

Fura, great activity and ideas.

mist, you managed to survive, that by itself is great, you also were good making our enemies do what we wanted them to do.

Coda, thanks for being there, ik as a gossip you couldn't do much, but you seriously remained out of suspicion for the last cycles, that was why we won.

the others, thank you.

i am too tired to make a full list of the EIGHT OF YOU and thanking you all for everything(a lot) you did to win this game.

 

anyways.

this was fun

i wish i could be elim all games.

[Mat]

Man... what to say... what NOT to say...

What a great game, Joe. Thanks for making my first amazing and memorable. 

Props to @Coda and @Mist for flying 100% under my radar the entire game. 

@The Young Pyromancer confused me on many occasions- the most being making @Devotary of Spontaneity my communication, which in turn making me believe they were elim 100%- apologies for Devotary and Congrats to Pyro. 

I do have a question though- who escorted me so many times? @Lord_Silberfarben, was that you?

Also, I am wishing for tips, specifically from @DeTess and @Orlok Tsubodai on, well, anything really. I think I did okay but still would be nice to plan for the future.

Fun note: Yesterday I died in two consecutive SE games. Not my best day, statistic wise.

@TJ Shade, @Emi, @Shard of Reading, yay for the first game club! (Hope I didn't miss anyone )

Well, if a QF goes up next week I'll probably join that, otherwise I'll be visiting family for all of July so I won't participate in any of those games, so see y'all around.  

(Also, Mist, or possibly Coda I don't remember which, I very much approve of your choosing of 'Highspren to me!' yesterday. Highspren=Skybreakers=Law=Constables. Well played!)

Edit: Oh @Straw, what was that thing in all those spoiler boxes earlier?

Edited June 13, 2020 by Matrim's_Dice

[Straw]

41 minutes ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Edit: Oh @Straw, what was that thing in all those spoiler boxes earlier?

https://bit.ly/LEARNASECRET

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

Amazing game, Joe. There was so much going on. I’m a bit disappointed in my own performance this game—I should have come forward as extortionist earlier, etc.

However, @TJ Shade, @The Young Pyromancer, and others played very well. @Bugsy, I almost had you! Too bad death got in the way.

[Mat]

17 minutes ago, Straw said:

https://bit.ly/LEARNASECRET

Of course, I should've known  

[Experience]

Wow! This game was AMAZING! 

I had a lot of fun, thank's joe for running this game. I think that we were very lucky that our extortionist(mist) stayed alive during the end, and that's probably one of the only reasons we won. I'm kind annoyed that all those inactives came and voted on me, but I guess it was fine. Gtg now, so I'll have more thoughts later.

[StrikerEZ]

Wow, this game was so much fun. @A Joe in the Bush Thank you so much for running this game! It was an absolute blast, and I loved all the fun conversations we all had in the spec doc.

@Furamirionind Sorry for killing you. I guess you got avenged since the other village bartender (can’t remember who that was now) took me out that same turn. I was really looking forward to killing more people.  

[DeTess]

2 hours ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Also, I am wishing for tips, specifically from @DeTess and @Orlok Tsubodai on, well, anything really. I think I did okay but still would be nice to plan for the future.

There's really only one thing that really struck me as a bit of a mistake. Everything else comes down to differences in playstyle. I already mentioned it in the dead-doc, but if you're in the end-game and going through everyone, anyone that looks Neutral-ish to you (like you mentioned about mist) should immediately be put in the 'potential elim' stack and never in the 'village' stack, irrespective of how much analysis they do. Basically, the best elims can look very village, right up until you're near the end of the game, look at what they've done and realize that they haven't really done all that much (maybe even nothing) to actually catch an elim.

[Shard of Reading]

Yay! We won!
Now, I just need to say: @Orlok Tsubodai you are absolutely amazing. How did you figure out half the elim team in 1 cycle? That is just amazing.

[Mat]

1 hour ago, Shard of Reading said:

Yay! We won!
Now, I just need to say: @Orlok Tsubodai you are absolutely amazing. How did you figure out half the elim team in 1 cycle? That is just amazing.

Not to mention the rest of the team 2 more cycles in in the dead doc

[Mist]

Great game! I had so much fun. Redirecting people was fun, especially seeing reactions. 

@Orlok Tsubodai, I am amazed by your analysis. You are amazingly accurate. 

@The Young Pyromancer, amazing job coordinating the village. Slightly sneaky there at the end. I did have fun.

@Coda, my doc buddy! It was great chatting with you. I'll hunt down some campaigners. 

@Lord_Silberfarben, great teammate! Sorry our activity times were so different. Also, "YOUR WORDS ARE ACCEPTED." I saw that.

@Matrim's_Dice, great job as Winsting.

Everyone, thank you. I had an amazing time.

Skybreaker Lumen's quest will be to free Elendel of corruption. 

[Araris Valerian]

Thanks for GMing @A Joe in the Bush! I was sorry to have to step out so soon, but it was fun to watch the rest of the game unfold.

[Mat]

Oh- @Mist and @Coda- Excellent writeup today. It was my favorite for the entirety of the game before I knew you two wrote it!

[Mist]

@Bugsy, I'm sorry you felt like you were being controlled. We were actually going to out you if we discovered that you had a kill. We would have outed you C7. We were just making sure after we RBed you the cycle before. C4 wasn't me.

Thanks, Matrim.

[A Joe in the Bush]

Aftermath and thoughts:

Lots of you have already said better things than I can about the players in this game, so I'll refrain from congratulating all of the wonderful players, and instead talk about the behind the things stuff.

Balance:

I don't know that this game was balanced. It worked out this time, but I don't know statistically if that was likely or not.

Bleeder definetely got the short end of the stick, with only 3 sucessful actions over the course of the game, so I think Bleeder needs to be buffed against manipulation, likely with some sort of one time uber-kill that can't be defended against, prevented, or manipulated.

DeTess pointed out how long it would take the village to win, and I admit i didn't really think about how that would work. Let's say the village organized quickly. Flogs spends two cycles establishing a trust circle, and gets bodyguards to protect him so he can't get double tapped, then they start Finding eliminators. He finds one statitcially on Turn 3, so on Turn 4, Bartenders can start killing and villagers can start analysing. They'll probably find and kill 1 eliminator per turn. The village would have killed on the elims on Turn 13. That's ignoring the fact that Bleeder has killed 5 people and the Constables have killed 10. I don't think the village could have won alone against the Eliminators. I think that is a problem. The village needed more power. Another Escort, Bodgyuard and Stalker all would have been wonderful. But even with that, it's hard to arrange for a tied lynch to take out multiple suspects at once. There needed to be more than 20 villagers. Even just 22 would have severly tipped the scales in their favor. If there had only been 8 eliminators, (Like multiple people said there should have been =P) Then I think the village would have won this game.

But adding roles doesn't really help with the sever number issue. How do I make sure that the village can actually win without having to lynch an eliminator every time? If I add in more bartenders, there's a good chance that there will be more friendly fire incidents then the one there was this game. (Rip Striker) I don't know how to adress this. Maybe less Elims, but give them some tycoons instead of gossips? IDK. I'll let Straw figure that out when he inevitably reruns this game (Love you straw)

Rerunability:

I think this game is extremely rerunnable, but needs a few changes;

Bartenders need to be able to attack on odd cycles, to give Bleeder and eliminators more room to hide, and so that they don't feel forced to kill every time they can if they have another role. This game would have been very different if Striker (The Only Village Bodyguard) had proteced Flogs. But he his Bartender Kill instead. So I would change Bartenders to "cannot kill on consecutive cycles" in future runs of this game.

Extortionists are too powerful. I don't know if you noticed or not, but the two Extortionists in the game kinda caused all the Bleeder shenanigans. HH made Bleeder self target, and Mist used Bleeder like a sword. They need to be nerfed. In reruns of this game, I would have Extortionists changed to only choosing a new target for a person's action. They cannot make their victim take an action if they were not taking an action, and they cannot choose what action they should take if they have options. That would have allowed for Bleeder to still get information via scans while he waited for the Elims to stop redirecting him.

Tycoons should also be altered to only be one layer of protection. Right now Tycoons are immune to double taps. That never came up in the game, though it nearly did since Bleeder tried to kill megasif the same turn they were lynched. But Bleeder and the elims were both thinking about double tapping Flogs together to make sure he died. (They decided not to.) And it would have been annoying for them both to effectively waste a kill since he would have survived.

Finally, the PM restrictions need to be removed. Very few people used PM's for game conversation, partially because there was too much worry about potential waste. Gossips were underutilized because they didn't have anyone to PM. The longest conversation in the game was between Wilson and Orlok, both of them gossips.

All things considered, I'm happy I ran this game, and I'm happy it turned out so well. I hope it does get rerun, and if it does, I hope I get to be bleeder next time. Happy hunting to everyone who played, and I hope to get a chance to kill you in QF45.

[Megasif]

First of all, a big thanks for hosting Joe. It was a really fun game, one of the most enjoyable I've played, though I was low activity. There were some really good discussions and good analysis going on, made it easier for new players to get in and get bloody

Also mistakes were made on my part during and after the game  I should've fought my lynch just to give village that one more village life. 

Spoiler

Joe's already mentioned it above but I think the extortionist was OP!!!! There was just no way to escape them (barring another role targeting them) once they targeted someone. The redirecting with being able to choose a skill to use and forcing the ability is too strong. Kinda think the bleeder should've had it tbh.

But it was extremely enjoyable.

Good game everyone.

 

[Orlok Tsubodai]

What a fantastic game to have returned to SE for - thank you, @A Joe in the Bushand everyone who made it so much fun. 

As has been said before, rightly, many congratulations to @TJ Shade for an exceptional inaugural game.

I've said it before, but if I were to give my own awards, I'd give a medal of honour to @Straw, for driving so much discussion and playing the game absolutely the right way.

I'd also recognise @The Young Pyromancer, who I'd like to reassure I probably won't decide to kill out of spite, for such a brilliant job derailing the thread for so long.

finally, @little wilson. the mad watcher was immense fun to play alongside, and our pm was one of the highlights of my game. i hope everyone takes note of how youve demonstrated it is quite possible to play the game for fun, and yet make a real positive contribution to the village.

[Straw]

@A Joe in the Bush some rerun questions:

-In the dead doc, I believe either you or Elbereth mentioned giving Bleeder a one shot assassination ability that would be immune to extortionists/escorts. How do you feel about this idea? If implemented, should it also bypass bodyguards so they can also use it on Flogs? What should happen if it hits a tycoon?

-The impersonator role was added due to the size of the game. How do you feel this role ended up doing? Should it be included in a rerun?

-Does the current tie system make it so the elims pretty much have to have vote manipulation? How would you feel about making it random on ties?

-This game had some activity issues near the end. In a rerun, would you recommend putting in a two or three cycle filter in addition to the sleep mechanic?

-How well did the minimum of three votes on cycle one end up working, in your opinion? Could it be extended to other cycles (adjusting for player size, of course)?