Long Game 95: The Fire of Ado's Light

[Ashbringer he/him]

I might have more GM Thoughts, but these are the main ones from what I've seen.

One - just the general start of the game. For those who don't know, the first turn did not go as expected. Hoid (The Wandering Wizard) attempted to convert Khriss (Matrim's Dice) and failed, while Khriss (Matrim's Dice) attempted to convert Bavadin (DrakeMarshall) and also failed. Once Shards Breach (yeah right), failed conversions become easier to explain away, but Night Zero? The only ways that that can happen are both factions trying to convert the same target, that target being warded by Frost, or them being one of Frost/Bavadin/the other Converting Elim role. So the factions (particularly Standard of Unity) figured out information about the game state quickly, at the cost of major tempo.

Then of course, only 2 Shards Breached the entire game, one of them being Odium which randomly went to Drake. Which... yeah. That resulted in many cascading things due to lack of Shards and abundance of Investiture (including, but not limited to, both major attempts of the Standard of Unity acting against Drake resulting in a swift NK heading their way).

Two - inactivity. We hit the 20-player threshold, but as predicted it came with a pretty big cost. 4 players ended up needing pinch hitters or inactivity kills (5 including Kasimir), and 3 of those needed the kill option. And even besides those 4 there were a lot of players who didn't put actions in through being on Shardworlds or just being generally less active.

A lot of people suggested I lower the threshold for Breaching Shards back to 3. The truth is, it really wouldn't... matter. Still only Ruin and Odium would Breach N0 and N1. Then instead Ambition would Breach N2 and Invention and Endowment would successfully Breach during the N4/N7 Heist attempts. But even if the players who tried to Siphon those Shards later instead Siphoned the "right" Shards, that would only add a Mercy Breach N4. Definitely a lot to change the game up, but still, only 6-7 Shards in a 16 Shard game.

This had other ripples too. The Adonalsium's Chosen faction was just generally inactive (Wiz and Walin were around and sometimes putting actions in, but only rarely, while Fadran died to inactivity and Archer was AC for a single turn), and while the Village had some of the more active players they didn't have many of the most active. And even when they did, they couldn't coordinate enough to get much to happen (say, 4 Siphons to the same Shard, or an exe on Drake).

Three - Intent Conversion.

So, this cropped up a few times, and I don't know really were the conversations ended on, so I'm not going to go into detail here. But Intent Conversion is a pretty big part of this game. That lets anyone not one of the Power Four who gets a Shard, find an alternative Win Con to go for. So that means, for an individual player - they can still win even if they act against the wincon they currently have. So compared to any game, that should be happening more, if anything.

Is that a good thing? Maybe. Probably not the best, but it is an option. 

Four - Rerun?

I don't think this game is broken. I think if anything it was more broken by inactivity, and then how the cards fell. I do think, if I rerun this game in this same ruleset there's a few things I'd change. Changing the Siphoning rules somewhat (perhaps being an aggregate Siphoning, so once 7 Charges total across Cycles are Siphoned then a Breach occurs), changing Intent Conversions so that 17th Sharders keep their 17th Shard wincon and can win with either that or the Independent (like how it works for AC or SoU), and perhaps changing Bavadin a bit (some special abilities in exchange for not potentially gaining the Power of Hatred... maybe). Maybe maybe add those Dawnshards I was thinking about.

I'm more looking into running a similar ruleset as a more traditional Shard Game, with the Shardic Coalition facing down Odium's Champions alongside an Autonomy faction and perhaps some Neutrals. There would be... a lot of changes to that, like ensuring the Elim kill isn't tied to Odium the Shard and perhaps doing away with Investment Roles altogether. And perhaps some Cognitive Shadow rules I want to work on.

(Oh! Another thing I'd change. A spoiled dead doc. I would make one of those >>)

Would either of those happen soon? Probably not. I have too many games to run and also too much work to do to have steady rollover times, apparently.

 

Also, I have thirteen Shards now. Gonna have to figure out what to do with those. I officially have Ambition for my Lamentation, which is nice. And still the only copy of Mercy.

The rest might be used for something else 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

@DrakeMarshall, are we the same person?

You used quite nearly the exact color after receiving Odium that I switched to after receiving Autonomy. 

Edit:

Quote

Gut says tbb is village

Thank you.

Edited July 4, 2023 by The Known Novel

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

So, this cropped up a few times, and I don't know really were the conversations ended on, so I'm not going to go into detail here. But Intent Conversion is a pretty big part of this game. That lets anyone not one of the Power Four who gets a Shard, find an alternative Win Con to go for. So that means, for an individual player - they can still win even if they act against the wincon they currently have. So compared to any game, that should be happening more, if anything.

Is that a good thing? Maybe. Probably not the best, but it is an option. 

Feel that a lot more needs to be said about whether it is a good/bad thing. As a player, fundamentally it means going into a game where you have to recognise you shouldn't take your wincon seriously because half your teammates will mug about for the chance to stab you in the back given the opportunity. Probably more reason to have trusted Drake. Oh well. I highlight that statement in particular because it feels a bit handwavey. And maybe that's fair as I shouldn't expect you to open a conversation about the ethics of self-chosen conversion and Devo and Aman and you certainly struggled to deal with me struggling about that.

But I highlight this particularly because this is just an exchange I recently had with Archer over approval of a particular game. Which is that Archer notes that social disapproval can be something that stops players from screwing other players too much. And this is true. But when GMs design a feature into a game, then players may also infer that it's acceptable to do those things. And then problems can arise anyway. (Hi Len.) It feels like something that in game design, the GM really needs to think about, and that players need to consider their views on before signing up for such games to moderate expectations.

Anyway:

Last doc:

I was locked out of the CR Dead Doc for quite a bit due to being neither really dead nor alive and had to brief Stick and wanted her to do an excellent job, so I turned my old notes doc into a Stick briefing doc, and then we forked it so I existed in one fork that became my Exile Dead Doc for a while until finally I was let in through the red tape to the dead doc.

Screw Endowment and Ambition, worst Shards >:P

Quote

• Bootleg Rave Doc

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

4 hours ago, The Known Novel said:

@DrakeMarshall, are we the same person?

You used quite nearly the exact color after receiving Odium that I switched to after receiving Autonomy. 

Edit:

Thank you.

Yeah I laughed when I saw you going from red to orange in the Roshar doc, when I went from yellow to orange in mine Well, orange is the color I've been using lately, so it was too perfect to combine Odium and Autonomy's colors. If you read further you will see that it gradually becomes a redder shade of orange, though.

Anyways, there are various later points in my doc where I zig zag between thinking that you are V or E, I wouldn't worry too much about it I uh, may have not been entirely confident in your alignment until after I flipped the last elim.

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Screw Endowment

Edit: Btw I would like to note that my Join The Circus parody from N1 was oddly prophetic about specific things

Edit2: Also just so u know the Taldain doc has no access.

Edit3: btw let the record show -- the conversion attempt on me was kind of rotten luck for both of us in this particular game, but just in general I could see a world where I would have enjoyed raising hell in the SoU my general take on conversions is to fight for whatever win con i happen to have at the moment and not worry about the future too much but well it was a non-issue for me in this game lol

Edited July 4, 2023 by DrakeMarshall

[Kasimir he/him]

37 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Edit2: Also just so u know the Taldain doc has no access.

Scadrial D3 is missing as well.

[Archer he/him]

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Feel that a lot more needs to be said about whether it is a good/bad thing. As a player, fundamentally it means going into a game where you have to recognise you shouldn't take your wincon seriously because half your teammates will mug about for the chance to stab you in the back given the opportunity. Probably more reason to have trusted Drake. Oh well. I highlight that statement in particular because it feels a bit handwavey. And maybe that's fair as I shouldn't expect you to open a conversation about the ethics of self-chosen conversion and Devo and Aman and you certainly struggled to deal with me struggling about that.

But I highlight this particularly because this is just an exchange I recently had with Archer over approval of a particular game. Which is that Archer notes that social disapproval can be something that stops players from screwing other players too much. And this is true. But when GMs design a feature into a game, then players may also infer that it's acceptable to do those things. And then problems can arise anyway. (Hi Len.) It feels like something that in game design, the GM really needs to think about, and that players need to consider their views on before signing up for such games to moderate expectations.

Anyway:

Last doc:

I was locked out of the CR Dead Doc for quite a bit due to being neither really dead nor alive and had to brief Stick and wanted her to do an excellent job, so I turned my old notes doc into a Stick briefing doc, and then we forked it so I existed in one fork that became my Exile Dead Doc for a while until finally I was let in through the red tape to the dead doc.

Screw Endowment and Ambition, worst Shards >:P

 

What I liked about this game is that there was a case to be made that the loss of you as a village team member could be justified by the benefit of the action you took to cause your conversion. I believe Drake killed a baddie on his way out the door, for example.

Edit: forgot Drake was Auto. Pretend he wasn't for that example. 

I get that the existence of the mechanic implies permission to use it, but it's weird that the core contract of the game is broken so vaguely.
If I was assigned villager but worked the entire game towards positioning myself to convert, at the expense of cooperative village play, is that acceptable?
If I was an elim who intent converted and sold out my former teammates in exchange for a brokered mutual win, would that be acceptable?
I'd rather rulesets explicitly say that some people are expected to convert and provide even a flimsy excuse for why it makes sense to a villager to do so because otherwise I think it meets the technical definition of game throwing.
I'm personally okay with the mechanic, I just wish it made logical sense to engage with it. The best solution I have to offer is requiring that someone convert eventually, making it a sanctioned and admirable choice to take one for the team. 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Archer

[Kasimir he/him]

35 minutes ago, Archer said:

What I liked about this game is that there was a case to be made that the loss of you as a village team member could be justified by the benefit of the action you took to cause your conversion. I believe Drake killed a baddie on his way out the door, for example.

Agreed, but I don't think that's always so, e.g. depending on how a player who intends to Intent Convert plays with the other Shards.

35 minutes ago, Archer said:

I get that the existence of the mechanic implies permission to use it, but it's weird that the core contract of the game is broken so vaguely.

I will be fairly honest I believe it's a knave's argument. And there's a case to be made that "just because you can doesn't mean you should" though I certainly gloried in the ability to actually threaten the Elims with conversion, given that most conversion games I am curled up in a fetal ball crying at the thought of being forced to convert out. I think that's another way of saying on two levels: just because the mechanic is there doesn't mean it should be used, and second, that I think a GM really needs to be mindful of why the mechanic is there and the potential impacts on the game.

I'm not saying I don't think Ash didn't think it through, for the record. I am saying though that the edginess of that mechanic definitely showed up in this game because in all cases, compared to being converted against your will, Intent Conversion effectively requires you to say yes three times: Yes, Yes I'm Sure, Yes I Absolutely Want A New Wincon And To Screw My Team Over (keeping in mind that Villagers in particular lose their old wincon when they convert out.) 

Edited to add: Sorry, just to be clear: I've made that argument, do feel it's a knave's argument, but do feel on a game design level that players will make that inference so it's imperative to ask as a designer if that's something I want to be expressly giving permission to.

35 minutes ago, Archer said:

I'm personally okay with the mechanic, I just wish it made logical sense to engage with it. The best solution I have to offer is requiring that someone convert eventually, making it a sanctioned and admirable choice to take one for the team. 

I'm okay with the mechanic as you are, but I think it puts players in a very awkward/odd position because it's hard to justify it from the attitude of a player taking your own wincon seriously. Which means its existence fundamentally entails a basic attitude of "ok I guess my wincon isn't that important to me tbh." Which is fine, at least that's the position I took on entering the game, but I feel that it has serious gameplay consequences that need to be considered. I'd say it requires you to be soft anti-wincon, even if not hard-anti-wincon. The fact that no Intent Wincon is supposed to lock you out of playing with a particular team is helpful here as it makes it only soft anti-Village at best, but knowingly and willfully putting yourself in a position where the gamestate may require you to be anti-Village to fulfill your wincon is still an interesting choice.

FWIW I worry about the requiring someone convert choice - similar to requiring a sacrifice, my concern is it gets players to sort of do a 'who is more valuable' listing and pressure perceived inactives or perceived low value players into leaving. That's pretty dangerous as an attitude to be endorsing.

35 minutes ago, Archer said:

If I was assigned villager but worked the entire game towards positioning myself to convert, at the expense of cooperative village play, is that acceptable?
If I was an elim who intent converted and sold out my former teammates in exchange for a brokered mutual win, would that be acceptable?
I'd rather rulesets explicitly say that some people are expected to convert and provide even a flimsy excuse for why it makes sense to a villager to do so because otherwise I think it meets the technical definition of game throwing.

Yep. Because my read is that the answer to (1) is yes, and the answer to (2) is definitely yes because I asked about its legality prior to making the threat to do so. The GM+IM view was: "It's kind of an arse move but you did warn them and you're known to hate being Evil so that makes it a bit less sucky than if you blindsided them with it out of nowhere." FWIW I probably would have asked Drake to not make me ID the entire team to him as the cost of converting out to ally with him but if he'd made that the cost, I'd've to roll with it. Beggars can't be choosers in this landscape of low breaches.

I think the bottom line is that my takeaway is that games get screwy when Intent Conversions are part of the picture, because the choice is firmly in the hands of the player. It's really rare to do it and to not mean it willfully when you have to do it thrice. On the player-side, this is very firmly part of the reason I refused to take the game seriously prior to parrying the ML away from Szeth and feeling guilt over the three MLs + Szeth softclaiming Frost on Roshar. Staying Village in a game where most players are willing to stab the Village in the back for crems and giggles, lulz, a feeling of power, or being on the winning team quite frankly sucks and there's no point in getting that invested in the game since that sets you up for failure. On the game-design side, I think there's a question to be asked: is this so fun that I want the default mode of engagement of the game to be about the fun rather than taking wincon seriously? Is this the sort of basic attitude I'm looking for from my players? FWIW I do think a legitimate answer is yes - many Shard games are just weird power trips that end up being somewhat fun because they're weird power trips but also broken af. 

Edited to add 2:

Right, apologies - I realised I answered your questions in a descriptive way rather than normative way.

Truthfully, (1) and (2) give me an icky feeling. I detest that sort of play viscerally and don't feel it's consistent with my wincon. I was vaguely okay with this because of a 'not Vmaxxing' attitude but also mostly elided the discomfort by Not Thinking About Them. So I think straightforwardly the fact the game finds both (1) and (2) acceptable is undeniable. But whether I think it should be acceptable or not is a more cursed question and if I am forced to be truthful about my feelings, the answer is no.

I think my bottom line is some hot mix of: Do Not Like + I kind of think that's the price you pay in setting up a Shard game + Faction game + Conversion game: you just have to accept wincon shenanigans are a hot mess, opportunists will exist, and this is A Different Sort of Game.

Edited to add 3:

Maybe this is the best take I have for this:

Can you convert out? Sure. Will I consider myself in breach of my wincon if I shoot or exe you to remove a defection risk? No. If (1) and (2) are allowed by the rules, so is (3).

Edited to add 4:

35 minutes ago, Archer said:

What I liked about this game is that there was a case to be made that the loss of you as a village team member could be justified by the benefit of the action you took to cause your conversion. I believe Drake killed a baddie on his way out the door, for example.

Like - unfortunately or otherwise, there's simply no world in which Intent Converting to Aut can be seen as anything other than an explicitly anti-Village action. There's no such justification here for that particular thing and that door is wide open: even more so because Elims cannot Intent Convert to Aut. Only Villagers can.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

11 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Feel that a lot more needs to be said about whether it is a good/bad thing. As a player, fundamentally it means going into a game where you have to recognise you shouldn't take your wincon seriously because half your teammates will mug about for the chance to stab you in the back given the opportunity. Probably more reason to have trusted Drake. Oh well. I highlight that statement in particular because it feels a bit handwavey. And maybe that's fair as I shouldn't expect you to open a conversation about the ethics of self-chosen conversion and Devo and Aman and you certainly struggled to deal with me struggling about that.

But I highlight this particularly because this is just an exchange I recently had with Archer over approval of a particular game. Which is that Archer notes that social disapproval can be something that stops players from screwing other players too much. And this is true. But when GMs design a feature into a game, then players may also infer that it's acceptable to do those things. And then problems can arise anyway. (Hi Len.) It feels like something that in game design, the GM really needs to think about, and that players need to consider their views on before signing up for such games to moderate expectations.

5 hours ago, Archer said:

I get that the existence of the mechanic implies permission to use it, but it's weird that the core contract of the game is broken so vaguely.
If I was assigned villager but worked the entire game towards positioning myself to convert, at the expense of cooperative village play, is that acceptable?
If I was an elim who intent converted and sold out my former teammates in exchange for a brokered mutual win, would that be acceptable?
I'd rather rulesets explicitly say that some people are expected to convert and provide even a flimsy excuse for why it makes sense to a villager to do so because otherwise I think it meets the technical definition of game throwing.
I'm personally okay with the mechanic, I just wish it made logical sense to engage with it. The best solution I have to offer is requiring that someone convert eventually, making it a sanctioned and admirable choice to take one for the team. 

Part of the reason I'm a bit hedgy on Intent Conversion is, is that it's not my mechanic. It's a carryover from Seonid's game, and I don't really have a good view on what his intentions were with implementing it, just how I changed things.

For reference, in LG43, Intent Conversion happened after 2 consecutive Shardic Ability uses, by any non-Hoid and non-Khriss player. This would then grant them a new neutral win condition, some of which were game ending and some of which were not. Also most of them were either hard or just not well balanced with each other (as evidenced by LG43!Autonomy ending the game out from under everyone's nose). For LG95, I made it so it took 3 total uses to just make it more impending, and that the win cons would not end the game and would generally be attainable by multiple players. I also made it so AC and SoU who Intent Converted would retain both win conditions, with the logic that an Intent Conversion would hurt those teams more than the 17th Shard otherwise.

I think most of these changes made it more fair, but it also may have removed a lot of the risk in Intent Converting, because any Shard could work with anybody. Also, Intent Converting to the SK faction is a whole different discussion, and likely something I could have considered better.

It is a pretty key part of this game, because of the nature of the Containment and Siphon system - there has to be some counterbalance to prevent the Villagers from securing the more powerful Shards early on through sheer numbers, just like how the Conversion nature of the game is a counterbalance preventing the Elims from doing the same. That becomes a decent argument for not letting 17th Sharders keep their wincon, so that if they want to keep a potent Shard in Village play they have to either sit on it without using the Shardic or pass it to someone who potentially isn't to be trusted. (I think changing the Containment and Siphon system entirely, ie the cumulative Siphoning I mentioned earlier, could also help counterbalance - I'd just have to figure out how that actually would work.)

I don't know if it's something I'd try and fix over just abandoning the Siphon system and running a standard-ish Shard game with the Charges in place of Investment Roles. I am going to keep the fourteen wincons I had to make and then not use on the back burner in case I do, though... 

 

Edit: Also Taldain and Scadrial D3 should be fixed now

Edited July 4, 2023 by Ashbringer

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

*sigh*

[STINK he/him]

Thanks for running the game Ash and Aman! I'm sure the similarities in the name had no correlation to why you 2 were GM and co-GM

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

17 hours ago, STINK said:

Thanks for running the game Ash and Aman! I'm sure the similarities in the name had no correlation to why you 2 were GM and co-GM

It is indeed fitting that the Ashaman, the true successors and followers of the M’Hael, should run a Shard game  

[Kasimir he/him]

I think it's worth noting for the interests of full disclosure that Archer and I were the two approvers for the public elements of the ruleset. My view of Intent Conversion remains that it's essentially the main demarcation that this game isn't meant to be treated seriously and players probably shouldn't care too hard about their wincon because 90% of it will be out of their control, which puts this game in a specific genre of game. That's fine, but it's the sort of thing that needs a specific set of expectations to get off the ground.

On 7/5/2023 at 3:31 AM, Ashbringer said:

It is a pretty key part of this game, because of the nature of the Containment and Siphon system - there has to be some counterbalance to prevent the Villagers from securing the more powerful Shards early on through sheer numbers, just like how the Conversion nature of the game is a counterbalance preventing the Elims from doing the same. That becomes a decent argument for not letting 17th Sharders keep their wincon, so that if they want to keep a potent Shard in Village play they have to either sit on it without using the Shardic or pass it to someone who potentially isn't to be trusted. (I think changing the Containment and Siphon system entirely, ie the cumulative Siphoning I mentioned earlier, could also help counterbalance - I'd just have to figure out how that actually would work.)

All of this seems to boil down to me to a claim that, then, which I think is what Archer is driving at, for this game to be balanced, Village players need to meta not-care about maxxing their Village wincon. It also does guarantee that Elims can focus/charge Shards recklessly in a way the Village simply can't afford to do so - it just pushes the apocalyptic explosion later once they've had a full roster. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

All of this seems to boil down to me to a claim that, then, which I think is what Archer is driving at, for this game to be balanced, Village players need to meta not-care about maxxing their Village wincon. It also does guarantee that Elims can focus/charge Shards recklessly in a way the Village simply can't afford to do so - it just pushes the apocalyptic explosion later once they've had a full roster. 

The Village does have options for keeping Shards. A Villager could just sit on a Shard and save 1-2 Shardics for when they’re most needed, or they can do 2 Shardics and then pass the Shard to someone they trust. Both of those would be a lot better options with more Village coordination, sure, but Prudence (Shardic passing or Charges) leaves that as an option.

I do think a future Ash Shard Game would be less of a rerun though. I’m piecing together ideas.

[Sart he/him]

As someone with not much skin in the game, perhaps the problem with this ruleset is including a village faction in the first place. The fun of this game, at least to me, was trying to become one of the Shards and gain cosmic power. If the standard win condition was gain a Shard, and fulfill it's win condition, I think that might have led to a more interesting game.

[DeTess she/her]

7 hours ago, Sart said:

As someone with not much skin in the game, perhaps the problem with this ruleset is including a village faction in the first place. The fun of this game, at least to me, was trying to become one of the Shards and gain cosmic power. If the standard win condition was gain a Shard, and fulfill it's win condition, I think that might have led to a more interesting game.

True, but it has the issue that if you can't get a Shard, you simply can't win, and have fewer ways to affect the game state as traditional analysis would also not be encouraged.

One way you could fix that, especially with the smaller game sizes is to have everyone except (some of the) members of the factions start with Shards.

[Ashbringer he/him]

I will say, "LG49-style anon game with 16 players / 16 Shards" is on my list of ideas! But I think Mat is doing something sort of similar, and it would... not be taking much from this game. At all.

[Kasimir he/him]

On 7/6/2023 at 1:40 PM, Ashbringer said:

The Village does have options for keeping Shards. A Villager could just sit on a Shard and save 1-2 Shardics for when they’re most needed, or they can do 2 Shardics and then pass the Shard to someone they trust. Both of those would be a lot better options with more Village coordination, sure, but Prudence (Shardic passing or Charges) leaves that as an option.

The point isn't whether the Village has options for keeping them, and I don't think anyone remotely denies this. The point is that this doesn't rest well with the claim that Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards.

Or to put it more formally:

(A) Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards because it effectively threatens them with not being Village anymore if they did.
(B) Villagers have effective options to stop Intent Conversion.
(C) Not monopolising Shards is essential to the balance of the game.
(D) Villagers should care about and act for the best interests of their current wincon.

You can't have all of these together. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

The point isn't whether the Village has options for keeping them, and I don't think anyone remotely denies this. The point is that this doesn't rest well with the claim that Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards.

Or to put it more formally:

(A) Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards because it effectively threatens them with not being Village anymore if they did.
(B) Villagers have effective options to stop Intent Conversion.
(C) Not monopolising Shards is essential to the balance of the game.
(D) Villagers should care about and act for the best interests of their current wincon.

You can't have all of these together. 

Hmm. I don't know if Intent Conversion really stops it from happening, it more slows it. Because the choices that avoid the risk of Intent Conversion risk the Shard getting into the wrong hands, and also the Village as a group knows that if they come together to Breach a Shard, that there's a risk the recipient will Intent Convert.

But I think I get what you mean (mostly) - and yeah, Intent Conversion means players don't need to take their current wincon as seriously. That's a danger in most games with conversion, but especially this one where you can self-convert. And, I don't know if that can really change without scrapping the concept entirely, which is what I'd probably do.

Not having a Village faction is an idea, but I don't know how you'd execute it. Unless I go for another another variation of Shard Game - take the AG5 starting split factions, and then give them the power to Breach the Shards they choose and the entire faction gains potential wincons based on what Shards they collect. Though at that point you're running a more chaotic AG5.

[Elandera she/her]

Congratulations again to TKN and Drake as the Autonomous faction for getting their primary win condition before any others! Also congratulations to JNV as Ruin for destroying three planets! Thanks to Ash for running a great game.

As always, if anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get ahold of Wilson, Devotary of Spontaneity, Elbereth, Araris Valerian, Elandera, or StrikerEZ, or post in the GM Signups & Discussion Thread. Not only will we get you added to the list, but we'd also be more than willing to help out in any way we can. 

You can also ask questions and get some hints and feedback from everyone in our Art of Game Creation thread. With all the games that we've run so far, we have plenty of experienced GMs that can help you refine any game you're thinking about. If you would rather keep some detail secret, or are self-conscious about posting in thread (there's really no need to be; while we do slaughter each other, we are very polite about it), then I'm sure one of our fantastic committee members (Amanuensis, STINK, Sart, Fifth Scholar, Straw, Archer, and Kasimir) would be more than willing to help you out in private.

Thanks again to everyone that played, and we look forward to killing seeing you in future games!