Mid-Range Game 61: Shadows and Dust

[Shining Silhouette]

Truly an enlightening game. Thanks, Kas.

I greatly enjoyed spectating the duel, Fifth and Wiz!

And in the future, analysis > self-defense

 

[Mat]

27 minutes ago, Ookla the Debonair said:

Truly an enlightening game. Thanks, Kas.

I greatly enjoyed spectating the duel, Fifth and Wiz!

And in the future, analysis > self-defense

Sorry for framing you  

[The Wandering Wizard]

That was a really fun game! Thanks for running it and giving me a awesome death Kas!

Also thank you for dueling me Fifth! I had put in a order to duel you the round before the duel. I had lots of fun taking your duel suggestions and trying to turn them to my use.

Lib Wubum/Darth Wizard will come back at some time. He's too fun a character to let die and I had meant the lightsaber coming out, meant it fully came out.

Though I liked the double blades Spear lightsaber, so I went with the way you were flowing with the force.

Ash you were right, many times and I didn't listen. Next time I'll make sure to listen.

[The Bookwyrm]

That was fun! I liked my character. I'm kind of sad he died...he had such a bright future in front of him....

I don't know why I was struggling to read people. Even now, knowing who was who, I'm having a hard time equating words and actions with roles. Ah well. Perhaps I just need more practice. (I can also work on deflecting suspicion!)

Thanks to Kasimir for running the game, and thanks to everyone else for playing!

[Kasimir]

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Perpetual said:

That was fun! I liked my character. I'm kind of sad he died...he had such a bright future in front of him....

I don't know why I was struggling to read people. Even now, knowing who was who, I'm having a hard time equating words and actions with roles. Ah well. Perhaps I just need more practice. (I can also work on deflecting suspicion!)

Thanks to Kasimir for running the game, and thanks to everyone else for playing!

I can finally give you the answer I was suggesting in the dead doc, but didn't want to spoil at that time: you were not that suspicious. Ash and Mat should've known better. They didn't remove votes from you because they were Evil  Some of it is new player teething issues that I wouldn't be too worried about, but players who haven't played you before will get very confused by it, and you are a natural vote as a result.

Also, reading people can be difficult and takes time to develop. I'm weakest at reads so I fully empathise. Glad you enjoyed!

Edited December 8, 2022 by Kasimir

[Shining Silhouette]

12 minutes ago, Ookla the Tall said:

Sorry for framing you  

It was a good play. I can appreciate that

And I have to live with the fact that my two village reads when I died were evil :P.

[Kasimir]

1 minute ago, Ookla the Debonair said:

It was a good play. I can appreciate that

And I have to live with the fact that my two village reads when I died were evil :P.

Welcome to SE, thanks for playing

Spoiler

@Wyrmhero YOU WERE MY BROTHER! I TRUSTED YOU!  

[DrakeMarshall]

Ahahahahaha I was so sure Alv was evil 

We did plan for village!Alvron but I didn’t think it was likely 

I’m glad there are some surprises

Alvron was a true hero in the end

Fifth, you didn’t die!  Good work 

This game was a blast.

And a good way to rehabilitate my village skills 

It pleases me to know my absolutely terrible distancing strategy wrapped around to being good again, just as planned 

I’d tend to agree that giving Force Push a cooldown and/or just allowing cultists to submit kills from the start might make sense as a balancing move. We had a couple of early semi-clears (Ashbringer, Madagascar) that made the PoE in the late game that much more powerful. Which tbf is part of why the strategy appealed to me and Fifth from the start of the game (that, and the fact that a one-apprentice doc enabled certain gambits, including but not limited to the one that happened in this game… I am going to defend the decision of not making very many apprentices as a valid one, I think). But requiring the Jedi to be more tactical in their redirects wouldn’t have been a bad thing for the game at all.

Thanks for running the game, Kas!  Especially with those writeups I mean bro you outdid yourself

GG

[Shining Silhouette]

7 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Thanks for running the game, Kas!  Especially with those writeups I mean bro you outdid yourself

^^^^^ Those were masterful

[Szeth_Pancakes]

Yay!!

Thank you Kas — this was fun, even though I got exed D1.

[Alvron]

First things first,

Quote

If Fifth issued the challenge then he’s an idiot.

I stand by this.  What the Storms were you thinking Fifth?  There was zero advantage for you to challenge anyone.

I was going to respond to all the stuff in the Docs, but there is way too much.  Somehow I had both sides gunning for my death simply for being me.  There was no chance of me surviving this game was there.

Quote

We owe a lot of apologies to Alv.

You may begin groveling for my forgiveness now. Fair warning, I fully expect a statue of Nees Bac to be erected in honour of his sacrifice to save those that wanted him dead. 

Quote

*chuckles in GM*

I have a feeling this happened a lot this game.


If this game doesn't prove the existence of the Gods of Luck and Chance to everyone, then I fear nothing will.  

[Fifth Scholar]

3 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I knew Fifth would be lying about Alv being the other Jedi, I knew it and did nothing about it… and I would have guessed it was Mads anyway so maybe that’s for the best.

Good game everyone, that came down to the wire fast but it was really fun! Holocrons and all 

You win most perceptive Elim, definitely. Good work ferreting out the gambit, even if you didn’t act on it. Mind elaborating why you were thinking Mads over Joe? Drake and I kinda just assumed we were linked with an iron chain and super obvious partners but clearly y’all thought otherwise  

3 hours ago, Ookla the Remembered said:

GG Village! That was a hoot to spectate. Especially Fifth and Wizard's epic showdown. My only regret is that I couldn't participate too

Not that killing innocent villagers is fun, but I almost wonder if we should’ve redirected Mat to someone else so I could have dueled you. That would have been a *blast* to RP. 

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

The Design:

On a design level, I'm not sure how I feel.

I agree with Fifth and Drake that there's a beautiful openness that allows the Jedi to decide how they want to play this game. I do want to preserve that. At the same time, the fact is that the redirect felt a little oppressive. Certainly, there were PoE issues involved, but the Jedi choosing to Pushmax started to cause the Elim team quite a bit of grief in this game, and I'm not sure all of it was under their control.

My model more or less assumed the Jedi would apprentice more freely, but I was working with projections from MR2, so that is on me for making a bad set of assumptions. As a matter of fact, the Jedi only apprenticed Alv, and preferred to Pushmax. It is possible they could have been punished for this, as they were often unprotected. But this did not happen. Force Lightning also saw very little use. I'm not sure why, as it was a fairly potent power on the Elim side. Just as the Jedi can't redirect unless they hit the right target, the roleblock also helps shut down potential shenanigans.

That being said, I think there's a clear asymmetry between abilities: the Jedi pushmaxing got off more softclears than I'd like them to have reached, and had little incentive to apprentice. My take would be the following set of suggestions:

• Add a cooldown lock to every ability: This shares it out, so protection, redirection, and vote manip all have a one Turn cooldown, rather than just protection. This immediately reduces how many pushes the Jedi can use, and encourages them to apprentice in order to get more uses out. It also forces both teams to be more strategic about their abilities.
   
• Remove the cooldown lock from the Disciples of Ragnos: I think this is a potential buff for them. It's harsh to have Force Lightning so restricted, especially if they are one Reborn down. Functionally, the Dark Side team is meant to be stronger: this once again feeds into the incentive to apprentice, in order to 'gang up' on them.
   
• Remove the kill lock: As Mat suggested, it might be better to just remove the kill lock and share it out across the team. I am okay with this, though I do wonder if the alternative is to go back to MR2 - allow both Reborn to kill at once. This would make refusing to apprentice a much more risky play for the Jedi. On the whole, I'm not convinced this is the best solution. Removing the kill lock might be better…

. . .

Thoughts:

• Alv basically submitted an insanely clutch series of orders across the game. The C2 protect on Turtle, the C4 protect on Fifth (which worked well with Fifth protecting Drake), and then the final C6 protect order on Ash which he quickly retracted as he didn't want to accidentally have protected a Cultist. 
   
• I am disturbed by the strength of the Jedi tunnel on Alv. I say this with all due affection: I do not think anything short of a Seeker scan would have gotten you guys to accept he was Village  
   
• To my great relief, Drake got Turtle killed by a deflect. I had Illwei and Aman on tap as pinch-hitters, but it's rough for a pinch-hitter to be told "Hi, yes, er, you're pinch-hitting for this duel, and as you're subbing for a Village player, the Village thing is to lose, but also, have fun?"
   
• @Elandera is an amazing IM. Thank you for listening to me babble or panic because I seem to have forgotten how to GM >>
   
• I believe no exe should be a viable option for this game. It only occurred to me near the end, but there are fair reasons to want to hold off, especially on a cycle like this.
   
• Thank you all for playing!  I hope you all had fun.

Force Pushing getting restricted to every other cycle makes sense. I don’t think removing the restriction on Force Lightning does. It’s too powerful if the Sith have consistent double-access to it, particularly if another cultist is already using the kill. We would have been screwed in any endgame if the Sith had repeatable Force Lightning (doubly so if both were still alive). Lightning also has the wonderful advantage of doubling as vote manip, and being unblockable. That the Sith got unlucky with how they coordinated its use does not negate its undeniable effectiveness. 

Yeah, Alv was clutch.  Also I’m gonna blame Drake for that tunnel, sorry Drake. I’ll accept responsibility for Shining  

1 hour ago, Ookla the Debonair said:

Truly an enlightening game. Thanks, Kas.

I greatly enjoyed spectating the duel, Fifth and Wiz!

And in the future, analysis > self-defense

 

Tbf, as I said, by the end of the cycle you had pretty much changed my mind. I just didn’t see a way back. >> So sorry about that. You nailed Ash at least with your analysis, which we probably would have heeded more if we hadn’t, uh, “cleared” him C1.  Thanks for taking the misexe like a champ, it’s never fun, but you handled it well >>

1 hour ago, Ookla the Myopic said:

That was a really fun game! Thanks for running it and giving me a awesome death Kas!

Also thank you for dueling me Fifth! I had put in a order to duel you the round before the duel. I had lots of fun taking your duel suggestions and trying to turn them to my use.

Lib Wubum/Darth Wizard will come back at some time. He's too fun a character to let die and I had meant the lightsaber coming out, meant it fully came out.

Though I liked the double blades Spear lightsaber, so I went with the way you were flowing with the force.

Ash you were right, many times and I didn't listen. Next time I'll make sure to listen.

Thank you! The duel was too much fun. You played a good Elim game in the sense that you stayed low to the ground enough that Drake and I never suspected you enough to actually want you dead, until there just weren’t enough options left. Sorry for messing up your lightsaber mechanics—it’s difficult trying to match up mental pictures sometimes. In the future do feel free to correct me on what’s going on, your character should be yours  

27 minutes ago, Alvron said:

First things first,

I stand by this.  What the Storms were you thinking Fifth?  There was zero advantage for you to challenge anyone.

I was going to respond to all the stuff in the Docs, but there is way too much.  Somehow I had both sides gunning for my death simply for being me.  There was no chance of me surviving this game was there.

You may begin groveling for my forgiveness now. Fair warning, I fully expect a statue of Nees Bac to be erected in honour of his sacrifice to save those that wanted him dead. 

I have a feeling this happened a lot this game.


If this game doesn't prove the existence of the Gods of Luck and Chance to everyone, then I fear nothing will.  

See, there was no advantage to me challenging anyone, unless you were EVIL!  Yeah we screwed that up >>

Basically, Drake and I’s thinking was, at the end of C5: you/DR!Mat/cultist!Turtle are on a team (can reverse who the DR is or add a Cultist!Ash, if you want). You also have access to Force Lightning because why wouldn’t you, so I’m probably getting roleblocked, and if Drake isn’t right with his redirect, he’s getting killed because we were so closely tied. We also have a chance of dying to elim hammer. The following day, I can do no better than draw if I don’t duel, because even if I rally the village into killing the remaining DR, and I choose correctly, my getting killed was inevitable. The duel was a way of protecting me for a cycle against incoming actions, getting a chance to do in the DR, and most importantly not die. Obviously, you weren’t evil, so this was largely irrelevant, but if you were evil, this was the only way we’d win. You have no idea how enormous our relief was when Drake didn’t die yesterday and no one got hit by Lightning. We were also just baffled.  Still stuck to the paranoia on you though which was an Oof. We’ll get on that statue right away. 

Final remarks - thanks are most obviously due to Kas for running the game and putting up with me and Drake. @DrakeMarshall was the best Jedi partner I could have asked for, and his gut was unfailing on non-Alv personages. I have gained a greater appreciation for gizka. @Devotary of Spontaneity was a readable villager, making me almost die of shock, and @Madagascar was both readable and a ton of fun. (Should use this as an opportunity to thank all the RPers.) Sorry to everyone I misshrekked, thanks to the Elims for putting up a very good fight, and congrats to Devo and @Ookla the Tall for breaking the anagrams. The final eight unscrambled to “Dr Dacken,” though it did indeed fortuitously contain “Drake” inside it. 

[The Wandering Wizard]

1 minute ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Thank you! The duel was too much fun. You played a good Elim game in the sense that you stayed low to the ground enough that Drake and I never suspected you enough to actually want you dead, until there just weren’t enough options left. Sorry for messing up your lightsaber mechanics—it’s difficult trying to match up mental pictures sometimes. In the future do feel free to correct me on what’s going on, your character should be yours  

1 hour ago, Alvron said:

Nah, I liked having the spear lightsaber instead of just a lightsaber.

[Mat]

6 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

You win most perceptive Elim, definitely. Good work ferreting out the gambit, even if you didn’t act on it. Mind elaborating why you were thinking Mads over Joe? Drake and I kinda just assumed we were linked with an iron chain and super obvious partners but clearly y’all thought otherwise  

Who's Joe?

I don't know if Ash was thinking the same as me, but I just fell for your distancing after the reveal hook, line, and sinker :P. I hadn't paid enough attention to you two beforehand, and I also wanted my Fifth/Mads case to accidentally have found the Jedi pairing xD

7 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Not that killing innocent villagers is fun, but I almost wonder if we should’ve redirected Mat to someone else so I could have dueled you. That would have been a *blast* to RP. 

I don't even want to know how much my brain would have hurt had a duel thread opened with you and Alv >>

16 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

and congrats to Devo and @Ookla the Tall for breaking the anagrams. The final eight unscrambled to “Dr Dacken,” though it did indeed fortuitously contain “Drake” inside it. 

Don't congratulate me, I cheated  

[Fifth Scholar]

11 minutes ago, Ookla the Tall said:

Who's Joe?

We are all @A Joe in the Bush 

15 minutes ago, Ookla the Tall said:

I don't even want to know how much my brain would have hurt had a duel thread opened with you and Alv >>

I am also glad we decided against this because I think my Shining guilt would have doubled in the event of me having to kill a v!Alv in a duel. >>

[DrakeMarshall]

Wow Kas has a lot of thoughts in the dead doc

Lots of doc reading to do I see

Should be interesting

Quote

Yay!!

Thank you Kas — this was fun, even though I got exed D1.

Sorry for my part in that

1 hour ago, Alvron said:

First things first,

I stand by this.  What the Storms were you thinking Fifth?  There was zero advantage for you to challenge anyone.

I was going to respond to all the stuff in the Docs, but there is way too much.  Somehow I had both sides gunning for my death simply for being me.  There was no chance of me surviving this game was there.

You may begin groveling for my forgiveness now. Fair warning, I fully expect a statue of Nees Bac to be erected in honour of his sacrifice to save those that wanted him dead. 

I have a feeling this happened a lot this game.


If this game doesn't prove the existence of the Gods of Luck and Chance to everyone, then I fear nothing will.  

Look I didn't want you to die even if I was pretty darn sure you were evil, I didn't really want to give up the "Alvron is the confirmed Jedi" bit

You will get your statue though, Dr. Dacken Humtumb will make sure of it. Somehow.

40 minutes ago, Ookla the Myopic said:

Nah, I liked having the spear lightsaber instead of just a lightsaber.

Good taste

25 minutes ago, Ookla the Tall said:

I don't even want to know how much my brain would have hurt had a duel thread opened with you and Alv >>

Okay I just had the Worst Gambit Idea™ for this game.

1. Have one Jedi challenge the other Jedi to a duel.
2. Whoever wins, pretend to be a normal villager who got incorrectly targeted by the Jedi. Become "cleared" of being a Jedi for life.
3. Somehow avoid getting lynched by the village, who just saw somebody kill one of the Jedi.
4. ???
5. Profit.

Tremble in fear of my brilliant stratagems, and be glad that I did not think of this during the game be especially glad if you're a villager, since this idea is awful

[Channelknight Fadran]

Thanks v much, Kas, for giving me an awesome first SE!

[Haelbarde]

24 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Okay I just had the Worst Gambit Idea™ for this game.

1. Have one Jedi challenge the other Jedi to a duel.
2. Whoever wins, pretend to be a normal villager who got incorrectly targeted by the Jedi. Become "cleared" of being a Jedi for life.
3. Somehow avoid getting lynched by the village, who just saw somebody kill one of the Jedi.
4. ???
5. Profit.

Tremble in fear of my brilliant stratagems, and be glad that I did not think of this during the game be especially glad if you're a villager, since this idea is awful

We should be evil/Jedi together, because I started to consider the same sort of thing myself during the game. 

[Madagascar]

*floats in and pats everyone on the head*

Good game, that was

Alvron, part of why I kept trying to duel and vote for you even after you were revealed to be a “Jedi” was I was trying to use you as bait to see if the cultists might last minute attempt to bum rush the vote to kill you and save Mat, and reveal themselves. If Mat had actually been Desann I figure that would not have been a bad strategy to try to pull the game off. But Also the mental image of a tiny drunk baby Yoda irrationally picking fights with a Jawa was just too much fun to pass up.

apologies to all the Gizka I killed in the making of this episode.

*Moff fades away into a haze of death stick smoke*

Edited December 9, 2022 by Madagascar

[Shining Silhouette]

1 hour ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Tbf, as I said, by the end of the cycle you had pretty much changed my mind. I just didn’t see a way back. >> So sorry about that. You nailed Ash at least with your analysis, which we probably would have heeded more if we hadn’t, uh, “cleared” him C1.  Thanks for taking the misexe like a champ, it’s never fun, but you handled it well >>

Don't be sorry, I feel like if I were playing against myself I'd also be suspicious of my own behavior

I think I'm closer to figuring out which playstyles I like best—if I'm totally different next game I'm testing stuff out watch me be elim next game and have this totally work in my favor

In all seriousness I'm looking to improve my player/post analysis

[Haelbarde]

40 minutes ago, Madagascar said:

*floats in and pats everyone on the head*

Good game, that was

Alvron, part of why I kept trying to duel and vote for you even after you were revealed to be a “Jedi” was I was trying to use you as bait to see if the cultists might last minute attempt to bum rush the vote to kill you and save Mat, and reveal themselves. If Mat had actually been Desann I figure that would not have been a bad strategy to try to pull the game off. But Also the mental image of a tiny drunk baby Yoda irrationally picking fights with a Jawa was just too much fun to pass up.

apologies to all the Gizka I killed in the making of this episode.

*Moff fades away into a haze of death stick smoke*

Gentle Correction: Never apologise for killing Gizka. 

[DrakeMarshall]

If this game ever reruns remind to play as a literal gizka with a blaster

Edit: Who was it who gave guns to the gizka anyway? 

Edited December 9, 2022 by DrakeMarshall

[JNV]

This game was great sorry for kinda dropping off in the middle there but yay I liked this loved watching the duel honestly felt a tad bit disingaged with the game but thats mostly on me but yeah this was great I had fun

In honor of a Jedi victory heres a poorly edited Jedi quokka

Spoiler

@Ookla the Tall I was reading your doc and noticed you said I probably wasnt a Jedi cause of a meta thing um Im kinda curious about what exactly that is you can PM me about it if you dont feel comfortable talking about it in the open but Im kinda curious is there a meta thing going on um yeah if you dont feel like  sharing thats fine just know Ill be curious about it forever

@fifth scholar ok mentions are no longer working no idea why but reading your doc and appreciate the attempt at amnesty its ok really Jev was a terrible smuggler anyway quokkas are better also the hpyothetical world where I got apprenticed like you were kinda considering for a second there instead of Alvron is funny to think about 

@kasimir mentions still not working but youre the best I really appreciate Jevs death it was very nice 

[Szeth_Pancakes]

6 minutes ago, JNV said:

In honor of a Jedi victory heres a poorly edited Jedi quokka

It has the high ground!

[Mat]

19 minutes ago, JNV said:

I was reading your doc and noticed you said I probably wasnt a Jedi cause of a meta thing um Im kinda curious about what exactly that is you can PM me about it if you dont feel comfortable talking about it in the open but Im kinda curious is there a meta thing going on um yeah if you dont feel like  sharing thats fine just know Ill be curious about it forever

It’s not anything like you’re thinking, I explained it more above that in our doc (vaguely) and in the dead doc, but essentially it was just Kas saying in reaction to Hael’s tables that he forgot what doc he was in and momentarily thought ‘wait how do you know JNV is a Settler’.

As it was very early game, the dead doc likely wasn’t making big charts which only left the Jedi as the alternative to which doc Kas thought he was in. Thus, the Jedi don’t know you’re village, and thus, you aren’t a Jedi.

Felt guilty about catching that regardless of whether it was a legitimate Kas slip or me misinterpreting what he said, and tried not to use it throughout the game. I didn’t really need to which was nice for everyone involved  

Edited December 9, 2022 by Ookla the Tall