Break Tank 1: The Auction of Stories

[Amanuensis he/him]

Great work on the clean sweep elims even though you broke my heart with that N1 kill </3

[Elenion he/him]

I agree that the Experience and Ash deaths were out of our control, and that gave the elims basically a free kill each round, but I don't think we need to change the rules to accommodate that. We just need to change our strategies, not giving up free lynches to the elims. Overall this game was really fun and if I have another free Saturday in the future I'd consider joining another!

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Maybe a change would be that if a player dies to having only bid votes, the next highest vote count also dies? That would put a bit more control back in the hands of the village.

Thanks @Elbereth and @Devotary of Spontaneity for running this, it was a lot of fun!

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 minute ago, Araris Valerian said:

Maybe a change would be that if a player dies to having only bid votes, the next highest vote count also dies? That would put a bit more control back in the hands of the village.

Yeah, I think that would work pretty well I think.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I also just realized that I claimed to be roleblocking a nonexistent player. LG on my mind, no doubt.

[Amanuensis he/him]

4 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Maybe a change would be that if a player dies to having only bid votes, the next highest vote count also dies? That would put a bit more control back in the hands of the village.

That or maybe the GM publicly revealing who successfully got items for how many bids without revealing the specifics each cycle, so the Village doesn't get blindsided and the elims don't know who got what power exactly - or, if we want to prevent elims from knowing who got something and who didn't, having failed bids still earn votes anyway. Us knowing from the start of each turn would allow the village to immediately strategize around the minimum threshold. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Stick. she/her]

Apologies to El for going crazy with my vote on C1 lol

I really liked the public vote counter and would love to see it made available in regular games. Making it globally editable might lead to errors so I'd prefer it in the hands of the GMs/IM.

Congrats to the elim team! I couldn't guess Striker for the longest time >> (see dead doc for my struggles ;-;)

And thanks El and Devo for running the game! This was so intense.

[Mat he/him]

Good to be evil again, even if it was only for a few hours  Can't decide if this counts as breaking a streak, but since @Kasimir was my teammate I think it needs to  

You're not allowed to say you're bad at elim ever again  Glad I could see your first e game in a long time from the teammate perspective

Kudos to @StrikerEZ for being a good and resilient teammate and special thanks to @Ashbringer for ensuring Striker's survival

I want to shout out @Elenion as well for making an honest effort to solve the game- Hope you can find a way to play a longer game sometime!

And of course thanks to @Elbereth and @Devotary of Spontaneity for running it!

5 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

• How did the balance between your own votes and the added bid votes feel? The Experience / Ash deaths weren't really under the thread's control at all, and I know that can feel not great.

I mean, the balance wasn't really there xD It felt pretty good, but that had to do with my alignment and nothing else :P.

6 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

• How did 1 hour cycles feel, for a Break Tank? Do you have any general thoughts on the format?

It definitely made me get basically nothing else done today, which I don't entirely mind. Probably has something to do with being evil as well. I think the one hour cycles made it easier for the elims to hide, and the short decision time made for less analysis and snappier choices, which we could influence pretty easily. I think for future 1 hour BT games a smaller than normal elim team might be better, but it really just depends on the game.

8 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

• How was having a public vote counter? Would it still be helpful for longer-form games where the GM wouldn't update so frequently? What if it were publicly editable?

I liked the public vote counter for BT purposes. I think it'd probably be better to not have it publicly editable, but I also don't really think it's necessary for longer games.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Yeah... I'm used to playing games where the first few cycles are more for gathering info and less doing things that matter. I probably shouldn't have gone for 6 C2.

That being said, I do not regret going in for 8 on C1 at all 

 

This was fun! I kind of liked the breakneck pace of it. I do think the vote-bid system could use some modification, but I think so long as people are on the same page on massive votes vs modest votes it'll work pretty well. Speed would also probably be alleviated by actually using my laptop and not a mobile. Thank you @Elbereth and @Devotary of Spontaneity!

Also Faleast has UberTin and a Hazecrusher now 

[Kasimir he/him]

22 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

How's it feel to be evil, Kas?  

Spoiler

 

22 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Just wanna say that I am very glad I got to be an elim with Kas for his first elim game in who knows how long.

>:(

Seven years. I had a lovely, seven years Village streak going on. Then someone came in like a wrecking ball. And then I had a lovely, seven years not-Evil streak. And El said, "Nope." 

>:(

14 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You're not allowed to say you're bad at elim ever again  Glad I could see your first e game in a long time from the teammate perspective

>:(

This game had certain conditions that masked my inability to Elim effectively - namely, the fact the cycles are about an hour long, as well as the fact PMs are default closed. I couldn't have sustained this in a normal QF, MR, or LG, basically. And the fact it was at an unholy hour for me and I had to tap out for a while to take more migraine meds no doubt helped mask some of the tonal inconsistencies and disinterest in solving the game.

Thanks to @Elbereth for GMing this, and @Devotary of Spontaneity for IMing. And thanks to @Matrim's Dice and @StrikerEZ for a fun run; and good game to the Village  

• I admit the public vc sheet was less useful for me: I almost never glanced at it because I need to see progression to do a vote analysis, and so having a frozen vote count was helpful in terms of getting a quick assessment of the vote situation, but I spent most of the game running my own count just to try to analyse properly. Nice to have, but wouldn't rely on it or be upset if a GM didn't use it.
   
• I feel that one way to lessen the control issue might be to reveal how many players start with how many votes on them at the start of the cycle. I'd sort of default assumed this would happen (this is on me) and this was the model I had in mind when proposing this as a QF, which is to say that at least Village isn't blindsided by these votes coming out of nowhere.
   
• One hour cycles is downright kayana. I was forced to adapt my playstyle and I think it got hard at times to track what was going on. Probably just an 'adapt' issue but for a player like me who does analysis, a lot of times I was forced to do trade-offs between thoroughness and speed, as well as what to focus on. As a side-note, when coming in as a Villager, I expected Elims to be more evidently absent or backfooted in the thread because they had to keep up in a doc too. I feel the one hour cycle exacerbates this as a potential tell, but it might be just me. Certainly one reason Stick was on to me was she felt my absence from the thread indicated doc presence.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Kasimir
formatting

[Mat he/him]

9 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Also Faleast has UberTin and a Hazecrusher now 

I definitely got the Hazecrusher with 2 bid votes

Someone please explain this to me xD

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I definitely got the Hazecrusher with 2 bid votes

Someone please explain this to me xD

Quote

Note: Although items have shared pools, if both winners bid on a specific instance of that item, I will tell both of them that they got it (so multiple copies are possible).

El's post here:

There were two roleblocks available. You obtained one, but El issued multiple copies.

[Mat he/him]

3 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

There were two roleblocks available. You obtained one, but El issued multiple copies.

Thanks, I get it now >> I guess I just assumed that El would tell one of us we got the Hazekiller and the other one of us that we got whatever the other thing was.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Matrim's Dice
What a 5,000th post >> Cheers, 17th Shard :P

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Thanks, I get it now >> I guess I just assumed that El would tell one of us we got the Hazekiller and the other one of us that we got whatever the other thing was.

Well I got it with 6 and my blood, so it's mine

No, we can share  There's still one or two 'original' ones out there somewhere anyway.

[Kasimir he/him]

P.S. @Matrim's Dice - What you did not see was the amount of expletives in my GM PM.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

21 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

That or maybe the GM publicly revealing who successfully got items for how many bids without revealing the specifics each cycle, so the Village doesn't get blindsided and the elims don't know who got what power exactly - or, if we want to prevent elims from knowing who got something and who didn't, having failed bids still earn votes anyway. Us knowing from the start of each turn would allow the village to immediately strategize around the minimum threshold. 

I was thinking that it would make sense for who has extra votes to be shown at the start of each cycle. Though I guess that's the same thing as what you said because only players who actually get the items have the extra votes added on them. I definitely thought it was an anyone who bids gets the extra votes, even if they lose the bid.

21 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Congrats to the elim team! I couldn't guess Striker for the longest time >> (see dead doc for my struggles ;-;)

Yay! That's the first time people haven't been able to immediately guess me as an elim in a long time.

21 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Good to be evil again, even if it was only for a few hours  Can't decide if this counts as breaking a streak, but since @Kasimir was my teammate I think it needs to

This definitely counts for both of y'all's streaks, even if it was only like 4 hours

22 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You're not allowed to say you're bad at elim ever again  Glad I could see your first e game in a long time from the teammate perspective

Yeah, Kas, you did great. Maybe it was a combo of the format/tiredness (which I can relate to-about to go crash for a bit), but I felt you played a mean elim game.

23 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Kudos to @StrikerEZ for being a good and resilient teammate and special thanks to @Ashbringer for ensuring Striker's survival

Thank you for being an awesome teammate as well! I think the three of us had a good dynamic. Even if we only had 4 hours to work together. It was fun working with y'all. Anyway, @Ashbringer just wanted to let you know we consider you an honorary elim for this game since you saved me.

27 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

It definitely made me get basically nothing else done today, which I don't entirely mind. Probably has something to do with being evil as well. I think the one hour cycles made it easier for the elims to hide, and the short decision time made for less analysis and snappier choices, which we could influence pretty easily. I think for future 1 hour BT games a smaller than normal elim team might be better, but it really just depends on the game.

I'm conflicted on if BTs should have more or less players. I think if this had been a bigger playerbase, the same ratio of elims would've been more balanced overall. As it was, this game was a little small and we were a small group and didn't get too much pressure so could lay off a bit.

17 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

>:(

Seven years. I had a lovely, seven years Village streak going on. Then someone came in like a wrecking ball. And then I had a lovely, seven years not-Evil streak. And El said, "Nope." 

>:(

>:)

17 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

And thanks to @Matrim's Dice and @StrikerEZ for a fun run

I'm just glad you had fun for your first elim game since whenever that last elim game of yours was.

[Elbereth she/her]

Because I know myself well enough to know I might not come back later f I don't do it now, some thoughts: 

On break tanks in general

• This game was incredibly fast, even though I was expecting that. I would advise future GMs to 1) definitely get a coGM - I absolutely couldn't have run this without Devotary's help, and it was a struggle; and 2) make your rules as simple as you possibly can. Only test what you really need to test. Also, especially if you don't need to run the whole game, maybe consider a slightly longer cycle time
   
• Several people commented that they don't play much anymore but would be happy to come back for Break Tanks occasionally since they're only a day, which makes me very happy - that's part of the intention of this format, and I'm glad it's working.
   
• Issue-handling in a game this fast would be a mess. I'd advise players, if they have an issue, to ping the mod about it and then try to ignore it / don't interact with the player in question / whatever until game end, since we might be able to sort it out but might just not have the time to manage it.
   
• These are going to be elim-leaning. I knew that going in, and might've done a 2-player game if there were only 9 or 10 players, but 12 seemed like too many for just 2 elims. Regardless, it's worth emphasizing that the chaos and speed of BTs will absolutely make it favor elims more, and future GMs need to remember to take that into account.
   
• GMs should also not expect to have much time to do anything else while the game is running, especially during early cycles - later ones were much, much less stressful.
   
• I was worried about only having 12 players (or 9, initially) at first, but... I can't imagine what C1 would have looked like with 20 players. I'm not going to say you should cap BTs at fifteen or anything, but having them be small is probably not a bad thing.

 

This game - balance / rules

• This game felt pretty good to me. I did change it, as the committee members will know, from the initial idea of 'you get a power and have to use it the next cycle' to a more permanent style when I decided to use this particular flavoring with items and all. (By the way, credit goes to @Kasimir for both the flavor idea and the overall game concept.) I don't think it was a major detriment to balance, but I do think that version might've been more intuitive for people - it seemed like it was really hard for people to understand the delay between bidding and having votes added to you.
   
• Having roleblocks use up the roleblocked person's item felt a little unfair to me.
   
• The way I chose item types was by rolling based on a table (below) of probabilities, as many times as half the living players in the game (so C1 had 12/2 = 6 items, etc). I think those probabilities could be changed some without problems, and they reflect my particular preferences for what I wanted this game to look like (e.g. I made the kill % small because I knew the game would go fast with 12 players anyway). Moving the protect % up could be good in particular, partly since people tend not to actually use protects and partly because (as rules currently stand) using them is one-time whether you block a kill or not. I'm not 100% sure about the '# items = half of living players' part, and suspect that in late game the item consolidation might get bad, but there is a convenient mitigating factor in that the people with items are most likely to die to the exe.
   
• For a longer version, I wouldn't be averse to having PM items last until one of the people in it died, rather than a single turn - I did that this game mainly to minimize the amount I'd have to keep tabs on in such short time. The 'you can specify a target when you bid on a PM item' was also a little wonky and made more sense with the you-have-to-use-it-next-turn version. It'd have been less of an issue with longer cycles, though, so me forgetting to set up a PM for 20 minutes wouldn't actually be a whole third of the cycle wasted.
• Having bids able to go so high may or may not be a good idea - definitely part of the problem was differing starting assumptions (in fact I consciously went for that by using as few examples as possible in the initial rules so no one had any numbers to 'anchor' to), but I think lowering the max to half of living players might be helpful.

Probability table for powers:

• PM - 30%
• Bid up - 15%
• Bid down - 15%
• Roleblock - 20%
• Protect - 15%
• Kill - 5%

 

This game - flavor / regrets

• I regret not preparing for this game better. I did have a spreadsheet (partly) set up before today, and a list of lots and lots of items, but I hadn't written descriptions for any of them - which meant I couldn't go into as much detail as I liked, nor add links to the many items with associated excellent past writeups / RP / etc. I'd like to go back and add some, but I think it's unlikely I actually manage that, so just to list - some of the ones with great writeups-or-similar were Discord (MR7), pandamodium (LG6/LG10), the doctor's coat (signups for QF7), Hael's head (LG18 at least, probably also LG19), the lerasium bead (LG19 aftermath), Wilson's Plate (LG20), and the lifeless rabbits (LG25). If anyone wants to find those links, you're welcome to. If anyone wants to rerun this game (and feel welcome to, I don't claim a monopoly on it!),  this is an extremely messy sheet containing all the item suggestions I got (not just the condensed list I posted above).
   
• Along similar lines, I would've liked to pre-write a bit of flavor for the writeups, especially for the first and last, beyond just the item lists. I was kind of visualizing it as a giant auction-house ala the start of Phantom of the Opera, and people were killing each other for items, or being killed by their own items (either literally for something like Slaughter, or just via being 'too powerful' for that person to hold). Maybe in a longer format.
   
• Having the multiple items of a single type share the same pool was kind of weird and didn't work well - I think I'd want them to share the same pool still, balancewise, but might make it so a player can't bid on a specific item (or can state a preference but have some chance not to get it, so you don't get any information about anyone else's bids). Later I'll try and post a list of who ended up getting each item, since it's not specified in the sheet.

 

Overall, it was a really fun game to run, and I'm glad y'all enjoyed it as much as I did.

[Ashbringer he/him]

2 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Thank you for being an awesome teammate as well! I think the three of us had a good dynamic. Even if we only had 4 hours to work together. It was fun working with y'all. Anyway, @Ashbringer just wanted to let you know we consider you an honorary elim for this game since you saved me.

34 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Kudos to @StrikerEZ for being a good and resilient teammate and special thanks to @Ashbringer for ensuring Striker's survival

Wha-

Hang on, if I hadn't wrote a nice poem about Lifeless Rabbits and ravens, then Xino and I would have stayed off Striker and you wouldn't be in danger anyway!

[Elbereth she/her]

53 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Maybe a change would be that if a player dies to having only bid votes, the next highest vote count also dies? That would put a bit more control back in the hands of the village.

Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Or maybe no matter how many bid votes you accrue, you can only die if you have at least 1 player's vote on you? Or would that be too easy to game?

50 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I also just realized that I claimed to be roleblocking a nonexistent player. LG on my mind, no doubt.

You sure did. I was very confused

34 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I feel that one way to lessen the control issue might be to reveal how many players start with how many votes on them at the start of the cycle. I'd sort of default assumed this would happen (this is on me) and this was the model I had in mind when proposing this as a QF, which is to say that at least Village isn't blindsided by these votes coming out of nowhere.

I did deliberately decide not to do it that way, I'm trying to remember why... I think it could stifle discussion, ala 'Exp has 8 votes on them, we're not beating that' or something. Unless you're saying just reveal bid numbers? Like "bids were won for 8, 7, 4, 2, 2, and 1 votes" or something along those lines? I don't think I'd want to say "the Hazecrusher was won for X votes!" etc, since that would basically reveal who got each item at the cycle end.

24 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Thanks, I get it now >> I guess I just assumed that El would tell one of us we got the Hazekiller and the other one of us that we got whatever the other thing was.

Yeah, this was something I didn't realize until midway through the game - telling you 'you didn't get the Hazecrusher, but you did get bloody copper vials!' would have told you that whoever else got a RB bid more than you did, which is potentially valuable information. I'd want to fix this somehow in a future game, but (as noted above) I'm not quite sure how to go about that in a way that preserves both the flavor and makes the mechanics sensible.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Elbereth

[Kasimir he/him]

6 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

I did deliberately decide not to do it that way, I'm trying to remember why... I think it could stifle discussion, ala 'Exp has 8 votes on them, we're not beating that' or something. Unless you're saying just reveal bid numbers? Like "bids were won for 8, 7, 4, 2, 2, and 1 votes" or something along those lines? I don't think I'd want to say "the Hazecrusher was won for X votes!" etc, since that would basically reveal who got each item at the cycle end.

I don't know - it could, but I feel there's a different element of discussion, e.g. why does Exp have 8 votes, what is Exp up to, is this a gambit, and so on that this promotes. Essentially I'm usually of the belief that stifling discussion is on the Village.

Bid numbers would also work, I think - players then have the option to claim if they want to.

[Ashbringer he/him]

5 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

I did deliberately decide not to do it that way, I'm trying to remember why... I think it could stifle discussion, ala 'Exp has 8 votes on them, we're not beating that' or something. Unless you're saying just reveal bid numbers? Like "bids were won for 8, 7, 4, 2, 2, and 1 votes" or something along those lines? I don't think I'd want to say "the Hazecrusher was won for X votes!" etc, since that would basically reveal who got each item at the cycle end.

Revealing it at the beginning of the cycle also has the advantage of learning who has items and who doesn't - that's something that tripped me up a bit, because we learned C3 what the bids from C1 were, where the items could have already been used C2. Tracking that kind of thing is one of the few ways villagers can quickly learn things. Revealing who got which items is a bit too much though.

[Mat he/him]

8 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

Yeah, this was something I didn't realize until midway through the game - telling you 'you didn't get the Hazecrusher, but you did get bloody copper vials!' would have told you that whoever else got a RB bid more than you did, which is potentially valuable information. I'd want to fix this somehow in a future game, but (as noted above) I'm not quite sure how to go about that in a way that preserves both the flavor and makes the mechanics sensible.

I mean, it also came from my assumption that when bidding you had to specify the item- like if I went for the Hazecrusher specifically, I would only get it if Ash went for the vials specifically and if he went for the Hazecrusher then I would fail and he would succeed.

[Elbereth she/her]

46 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I mean, it also came from my assumption that when bidding you had to specify the item- like if I went for the Hazecrusher specifically, I would only get it if Ash went for the vials specifically and if he went for the Hazecrusher then I would fail and he would succeed.

Nope, that was specified in the rules.

In fact, I don't think I got a single question from anyone (excepting Devotary) that asked a question that wasn't already answered in the rules. In the future, especially in a Break Tank, I'd advise y'all to look there first and ask me second?

EDIT: also the elims asking if they won at parity or outnumbering. That was the only other thing I hadn't specified.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Elbereth

[Mat he/him]

17 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

Nope, that was specified in the rules.

In fact, I don't think I got a single question from anyone (excepting Devotary) that asked a question that wasn't already answered in the rules. In the future, especially in a Break Tank, I'd advise y'all to look there first and ask me second?

I read them three times I swear >>

[Archer he/him]

Wish I could have played, this looked like fun. Maybe even worth doing as a regular non-experimenting game format, if you can get a good level of participation. 

I'd just like to remind everyone of the implied asterisk that comes with all comments about Kas' non-elim streak: since this game ended before the LG, we're all definitely assuming that this is the game that would technically end the streak, and no one is providing any OOG insight about their alignment in the LG. 

And a note on the vote tracking process. Is it possible to change your vote on a Shard poll once you've cast it? Using those might be an option. 

Quote

Life decided to throw up on me - Striker

well its your fault you sneezed and knocked her down the stairs, innit :P.