Long Game 10: A Game of Shards

[Kipper]

I'm just getting so confused now! Am I missing something?

I don't think so. Nobody knows for sure who anybody is except for Odium, his champions, and Endowment. Really, the only way for someone to prove themself is to say something will happen that only they could do, and then it happens.

[Eolhondras]

If all the Eliminators come out as shards then we just need an awakener to prove that one of the shards is lying. Once the lie has been shown everyone on the false Endowments would be either Champions of Odium or actual Shards that are on both lists. That strategy by the eliminators could easily expose them all. But also we would have to ensure that the Awakener is who they say they are and not lying. I'm just getting so confused now! Am I missing something?

 

Round and round and round in circles. The only sure fire way to see how it would play out is if we actually did it, and that to me is too much of a risk.

[Kipper]

No, he gains a copy of their investee's ability. He doesn't get Ruin's kill, he get's Ruin's Roleblock.

Oooohhhh. Now I get it.

Round and round and round in circles. The only sure fire way to see how it would play out is if we actually did it, and that to me is too much of a risk.

I agree with that now. I don't see the OCs just sitting by during that.

@vineyarddawg Good points as well. I heartily agree on most points, but don't discount conniving too much.

[Clanky]

This is my first ever game, so please don't shoot the messenger if this sounds horribly naïve, but "throwing our cards on the table" kind of seems like cheating to me. Well, not cheating, per se, but doesn't it go against the spirit of the game?  

 

I mean, if we do Aonar's plan, basically every shard becomes redundant except for Ruin and Endowment, right?  (And Odium, of course.)  So why do we have all these shards and this wonderfully complex system?  And since we would be preventing Odium from perma-shattering any shards, you basically just pick off the bad guys one by one shooting-gallery-style.  It just doesn't seem like the "right way to play" to me.  I guess what I'm saying is that it looks like it would work, but I don't like how we would get there.

I would agree with you if i thought the plan was foolproof. However I feel like there are enough uncertainties that it isn't. I am still on the fence about this plan but if it did go through I feel like it would probably be chaos like Sanderson Elimination has never seen before. It could be amazing and succeed, it could lead to everyone dying horrible deaths but I guarantee it will be one heck of a journey regardless of the destination.

[Mailliw73]

Okay, wow, you guys have been busy. A 5 page Day 1? Impressive.

About Aonar's plan, I like the concept and idea, but I think it revolves too much on chance. It depends on all the Shards agreeing(which, from the opposition the plan has received, I think is unlikely), Ruin's choice of Investee, finding Odium, and Odium's Investee's kill. If Ruin chooses an of to invest in, we're in trouble or if Odium's Investee kills Ruin's Investee.

I think the big thing now is for Cultivation and Endowment to figure each other out, which is hard, I understand, but will help progress things much quicker.

Meta's plan for Ruin killing Inactives not only keeps our lynch focused on active players, but possibly eliminates an inactive OC and allows Ruin to Invest in another which allows the role block.

[Bort]

I like Aonar's idea. Yes, it's dangerous, and yes, it puts some of the Shards in a risky place, but it could also give us a great advantage.

[twelfthrootoftwo]

There are a lot of places Aonar's plan could go wrong.

 

Revelation of Shards:

-Not all Shards agree to the plan, and some roles are held back.
Solution: Endowment doesn't reveal the Shardholders unless they've all agreed in thread. Or, once a number of Shardholders have agreed, reveal them all, pushing the others to join in.

This can't account for inactivity.

-An OC fakeclaims Endowment, and we're left with overlapping sets of possible Shardholders.
Solution: This can't be maintained long, since Shards have the ability to send messages with their Investiture. We ask each Shardholder to send a specific message to a specific person/s. Only Odium can pretend to be a Shardholder (and I'm guessing that when people are told they've been Invested, they also learn what their power is). Assigning an OC to receive messages is a danger, though - they could confirm another OC, or frame a true Shardholder.

Since this idea for clearing would take a cycle, Odium will have one free shot at the Shardholders. If we delay revealing the Shard distribution, their chance of hitting a plan-critical Shard is reduced somewhat. By its very nature, though, taking this path will reveal many OCs.

-Two Shardholders claim the same Shard. The best case scenario.

Solution: We have exactly two candidates for Odium. If we have Ruin invest Hoid in a prior cycle, both can be roleblocked. We need to determine Hoid, though, and that has its own problems.

Roleblocking Odium (assuming we've accurately determined its holder):
-Choosing an OC immediately

By this point, the Shards' distribution is public knowledge. Considering the lockdown potential of the plan, if Ruin happens to Invest an OC, I'd be very surprised if they didn't throw themselves under the bus so Odium can take out Ruin.

Solution: This is another problem solved by having Hoid invested by Ruin, as a confirmed-good player who can roleblock. Otherwise, there's roughly a 75% chance (taking the standard 20% Eliminators) that the target is not an OC.

-Choosing an OC later

The OC still have their non-Shard kill, which they can use. If Ruin finds a friendly Investiture target, and chooses not to reveal them, they will eventually be killed.

Solution: Preservation and Honor have protection abilities, and  - by this point - have no reason to be using them on other Shards. If Ruin has effectively confirmed their first Investiture target, there's a good argument to reveal them so they can be protected.

-Choosing a sneaky OC immediately

...Having thought through that case, there's now an argument for the first Invested being an OC and hiding. If the rest of their team can hide for a while, the worldhoppers will be whittled down by the lynch and night kill as in a standard game. Then, when they decide to attract some attention, they stop blocking Odium. Two OCs are revealed, but they gain a lot of very useful knowledge in the process.

If there was a way to reveal and confirm Hoid, the plan might be workable. But short of just asking them to step forward, and hoping only one person does, I don't know how we could go about confirming Hoid's identity. (Plus, this requires delaying a cycle for Ruin to Invest them.)

 

Without Hoid, the plan's success requires the village to make good decisions in a limited timeframe - which has been difficult in the past, IMO. We'd essentially be playing the entire game in one cycle, both in the sense of gathering information and in determining the outcome. That, or leaving the outcome to what is essentially a dice roll.

 

I have to agree with vineyarddawg here -  that's not how I want to play the game.
 

 

On to other topics!

 

Killing inactives: I support this idea if and only if Ruin's kill produces either fallen Shards or gives the Shard intact to someone else. If it shatters the Shard, then - until enough time has passed for inactive shards to be given to Endowment - it's not worth losing a potentially useful power.

Satrams has brought up the possibility of some sort of regulation on world PMs - in the spirit of Meta's strategy of removing Eliminator options. I would propose that we freeze the worlds as they are. The players are distributed semi-randomly, and OCs (I think) would be actually distributed randomly. It's a fair way to divide it up, unless we want to chop up the player list and be certain. 

[Bort]

Satrams has brought up the possibility of some sort of regulation on world PMs - in the spirit of Meta's strategy of removing Eliminator options. I would propose that we freeze the worlds as they are. The players are distributed semi-randomly, and OCs (I think) would be actually distributed randomly. It's a fair way to divide it up, unless we want to chop up the player list and be certain. 

 

Ok, you've convinced me about Aonar's plan.

 

On this comment though, I disagree. We shouldn't freeze the worlds. What happens if it turns out that one of the worlds is completely free of OCs? The players there will be stuck and unable to go help elsewhere.

[the winter system]

(Blue open) I think this plan smells of manipulation on the OCs' parts. (Blue close)

[Kipper]

Why?

[Eolhondras]

 

 

On this comment though, I disagree. We shouldn't freeze the worlds. What happens if it turns out that one of the worlds is completely free of OCs? The players there will be stuck and unable to go help elsewhere.

 

I don't like that I seem to be becoming a common voice of discord, so I'll start by saying Twei, I agree, we should freeze the worlds as they are. I think it would do much to aid our cause, and is one of our best weapons to find eliminators. As it stands now, with the assumed random placement of OCs, we have the possibility for a number of positive things to have happened. As stated, there is the possibility of a world that has no OCs. This works in our favour as you have essentially created a group of players that, under the right circumstances, could form an alliance and work together away from the prying eyes of Odiums Worldhopping Delinquents. In terms of forming trust, we don't have a sure fire scanner role, but all the shards and the awakener/s can use their roles to get some kind of idea about the allegiances of the others in their group. (Any other suggestions here are most welcome) The most powerful tool we have at our disposal however is discussion. See how people stand up under scrutiny. Converse and gauge reactions about things that happen in the game. Anything that might put an eliminator in a position where they have to lie, or are forced to try and manipulate. This is by no means a quick fix and will take some time, but since this is a long game, I'm going to go out on a whim and say that we have some time to play with. 

 

Next possibility is that an experienced village player may be in a group with an inexperienced OC. In no way do I mean to insult the intelligence of newer players, (which includes myself) but in the two games that I have played previously, I have been fooled more times than I care to count. As such, if I found myself as a Champ, or one of my newer team mates in a group with Meta for example, I would be jumping at the first chance to get myself/my team mate out of there. I'm not saying we definitely have such a match up, just that if we allow movement between worlds, we certainly won't.

 

Finally I find myself whipping Wilson's (hopefully not quite) dead horse. These smaller groups allow us to focus on a pocket of people rather than trying to sift through information on the whole 28 other players. Where Wilson and Claincey's PM groups failed largely due to well founded fears about dubious overseeings, these world groups have a chance of succeeding. Essentially I propose that we become personally responsible for the investigation of the others in our groups. Anything you find suspicious can then be brought to the thread for general discussion and cross checked against everything else that is being said.

 

This all comes back to Meta's point with the ruin kills. We NEED to have the OC's talking. The more we can force them to talk, the more corners we can force them to lie or manipulate their way out of danger. The more lies they have to tell, the better chance we have of catching them in one.

[A Joe in the Bush]

One of the players pointed out that I added a Role to the game, but forgot to tell anyone. The Final Minor role unlocked was the Witness. 

 

Witness: Once per night you may choose to learn the identity of a random killer. They also learn your identity.

[Clanky]

For the witness role do you  learn the identity of someone with the ability to kill that round or someone that actually did a kill action and succeeded?

[Bort]

I would assume the latter.

[Clanky]

 

Next possibility is that an experienced village player may be in a group with an inexperienced OC. In no way do I mean to insult the intelligence of newer players, (which includes myself) but in the two games that I have played previously, I have been fooled more times than I care to count. As such, if I found myself as a Champ, or one of my newer team mates in a group with Meta for example, I would be jumping at the first chance to get myself/my team mate out of there. I'm not saying we definitely have such a match up, just that if we allow movement between worlds, we certainly won't.

 

 

Also about the idea of freezing worlds I agree mostly. However your same point about an inexperienced OC with an experienced worldhopper could also be reversed. On my world there is only one experienced player. If they are an OC they could manipulate the rest of us in the same way.

[Gamma Fiend]

Gramps listened to the young fools bicker back and forth over proposed plans and suggestions -- he of course had heard the same arguments countless times before -- one didn't live as long as he had without getting mixed up in these hassles sooner or later.The circumstances might have just been different.

"I've said it once and I'll say it again." Gramps huffed, with the full indignity of somebody who gets no respect, "The Cosmere is going to The Void these days."

"Seems like all these young scallywags just want to take control, with their loud voices and their fancy Investitures. I tell you what, back in my day, whoo buddy, we'd have you all whipped into shape so fast it'd make your head spin."

He continued to rant and rave back towards his house, and his precious lawn. He even had a segment of it portioned out to be covered with soot and ash, with weak, brown foliage struggling to peak through. He even used a lantern filled with ruby broams casting it's red light down onto the patch, to give it a more homely feel.

OOC: Bah, RP'ing a grumpy old man is a lot harder than I thought it would be! >.>

As far as the plan goes, I thought it was sounding pretty good at first, but seeing all of the discussion after getting home from work, I realized one thing: I really need to re-read the rules about three more times. >.< There is definitely a lot of possible interactions to take into account, and it will definitely end up getting chaotic, which is where the OCs(?), Team Rayse(?)  will try and take advantage of the confusion. So we definitely need to make sure most things are figured out (and all the Shards are on board) before any sort of big reveal happens. Because that does lead into then past game scenarios, where just a few people basically take control of the entire game, just commanding players to obey or die basically. While, when the game deals us that hand with how the roles interact, it has led to tension in the past. So if we do end up going that route, we should tread carefully. (And remember it's just a game and have fun!)
 

One thing I've been thinking is, how do all of the Shards get ahold of Endowment, to let them know they are okay with the plan? Or what they find? Endowment at least knows who the Shards are, so they can just keep an eye on them until then, and try and see how they're reacting to things in the thread, and see where they go from there.

As far as the Worldbase^TM plan, it sounds pretty solid, and agreed with it in the Nalthis group when it was proposed there. The thing I've been wondering is, how balanced are the world populations right now? We have 5 of us right now there, so if all the other worlds are around the same, the plan should definitely work to keep the amount of manipulation the OCs can manage down to a minimum. And if there are worlds that all players get found to be safe on, then they can start working together in there even if we end up losing Cultivation eventually.
 

[Bort]

Apparently they are not very balanced. We have 11 on Scadrial, or 12 if you include Joe, but he's GM, so he is probably in all the PM threads. No idea about the others.

[Clanky]

There are 5 on Roshar too.

[vineyarddawg]

Apparently they are not very balanced. We have 11 on Scadrial, or 12 if you include Joe, but he's GM, so he is probably in all the PM threads. No idea about the others.

 

Well, the player spread, by design, was not balanced for Day 1.  Everybody got to choose their starting world before the game started. And since everybody gets to choose where they go (or don't go) after that, it'll basically never be balanced.  I think I like the "everybody stay where they are" strategy, too.  Fewer variables, so I think it could be easier to narrow down the bad guys.

 

Also, unrelated n00b question: should we assume that the OC distribution is balanced across all the worlds or by % of total population? That is, should we assume that worlds with more players on Day 1 also have more OC's, or that the OC's are distributed across all the worlds, regardless of population?

 

EDIT: I'm on Roshar, too, and can confirm that Joe is in our PM group.  So he's apparently in everybody's group.

Edited February 3, 2015 by vineyarddawg

[Bort]

Another noob question... If you die, do you get to know who killed you?

Edited February 3, 2015 by Bort

[Clanky]

Another noob question... If you die, do you get to know who killed you?

I'm not sure if you know right away but after the game the GM releases all the stuff from the, Eliminator doc as well as all orders/targets. so you will know at the end of the game at least.

[the winter system]

Why?

Because if an OC proposed it, not saying one did, there'll be a backdoor for the OCs to control how it plays out. I've been in enough games to know to not immediately trust the first Big Plan that arives. Sure, he's PROBABLY good, but I'm not gonna trust "probably."

[Kipper]

So ultimately, Endowment and Hoid need to come forward.

Cultivation could then talk to Endowment, Ruin and Hoid without any of the other Shards needed.

All of the Shards could Invest Hoid and Honor could repeatedly Lash him.

[Unodus]

Having an overpowered Hoid sounds like a good idea to me :V

We have enough roles to protect him, if he reveals himself :B

[the winter system]

DOesnt it say that Honor can't Lash the same person twice? Or am I getting mixed up with my roles?