Mid-Range Game 13: Treachery on the Terris Peaks

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Oh yeah, one more thing. I was kinda sad that there was never a Landslide.   I thought that would have thrown an interesting wrench in things. It's probably better for us that that didn't happen, but I still kinda wanted to see one. Were we ever close to having one El(or Twei)?

[Elbereth she/her]

Well, there was always a 20% probability. It jsut hever happened. *shrugs* I'm kinda sad it didn't happen, too. Would have been interesting.

[Elbereth she/her]

So, thoughts on MR13, finally.

Companions. This... well. Confirmed good roles are troublesome. This game was partly created from an effort to balance publicly known, confirmed good roles. This... kind of worked? I'd actually originally meant to put in protection, as Joe mentioned, but if I did that I think I wouldn't allow the Companions any PMs at all. That'd be the biggest change I'd make in a rerun of this game. The reason the Companions got so out of hand, and the reason why the eliminators chose to kill them immediately even though they didn't count towards the win con, was the PM coordination they could do.

Now, Rae was killed immediately, so we didn't get to see much of her take on Companionship. However, Mark was around for a while, and... well, as you'll see if you read the spec doc, he got a bit dictator-like near the end. And Mayor games are no fun. On the other hand, it's not entirely his fault. That was what he felt he was supposed to do, and no one called him on it.

Guys. The point of the game is to have fun. That's literally the only reason we do these things. If you're not having fun, the game's not worth playing. So if you were uncomfortable about doing what Mark told you to do? That's fine! Don't do it! Just because he's confirmed good doesn't mean he will always do exactly the right thing and make the right calls.

As a corollary to that. A few of you suggested you'd be perfectly willing to follow whatever the Companions voted. Now. Why is that? Why are their opinions any more important than your own? Yes, the Companions are confirmed good. So are you. Your judgement is just as important, if not more important, than the Companions'. Confirmed good does not mean confirmed right.

And final point on that topic: So, Mark trusted Burnt and Luckat. Therefore, even though he gave absolutely no reasoning for that nor indication that he had solid reasoning, you trusted them. And then, even though Burnt gave absolutely no reasoning for trusting Joe (nor indication that she had trusted Joe except in the fact that he had her information), you trusted him. In most cases, you trusted him quite a lot. Which... You trusted someone that the person who the confirmed good had trusted, had trusted. Which is a bit of a stretch, no? Confirmed good does not mean confirmed right.

Okay, on to other things. If I were to rerun this, I'd take out Feruchemy. Maybe completely, maybe just one role per person. I'm not sure. But the reasoning for this is that it's just too complicated, and the main idea behind this game is the Companions. Not the environmental phenomena, not the Feruchemy. And those things really distracted from the main point, I think. In addition to that, the Feruchemy made this ridiculously difficult to balance.

Speaking of balance. This was difficult for obvious reasons, partly because I wasn't sure how the Feruchemy would be handled, partly because I didn't know how people would react to the Companions. And I didn't do a great job, obviously, or we wouldn't have had a perfect sweep from the eliminators. I think I gave the eliminator team a bit too much in the way of strategy-thinking, and unlimited access to pewter. Together, those two things were just too much, particularly since almost no one used bronze to counter that pewter. If I reran this, I'm not sure whether I would have more Companions or not. I considered having four for a while, and in this setup that would have been a problem, probably. Without them being able to PM at all, it might not. I'm not sure. But overall, the balance was just too complicated to be able to do effectively, I think. Particularly for my first game. Won't be doing that again.

All that said, excellent job to all the players! You all did very well, particularly the eliminator team. Clean sweeps are rare enough, and you managed to do it in a game with publicly confirmed safe roles! Nicely done.

Shoutout also goes to Twei, for being an awesome co-GM and rolling up all the results for me so I didn't have to deal with that, and doing writeups when I couldn't.

The writeups were particularly enjoyable for me (mostly... that chicken one was a bit disturbing), although I do regret that I decided to actually write them before posting instead of just posting the results so you could start discussing right at turnover. As a storyteller, I wanted to keep the surprise there, but it does disadvantage you. That's something I learned from the game.

I'm sad that there wasn't ever a Landslide. Sometime I'll have to make another game that includes that mechanic, because it would be really fun to see play out. Ah well.

In conclusion, I loved GMing this game (particularly the writeups), I hope you all enjoyed playing, and I'll see you in the next one!

And of course...

---

Tindomë stumbled out of the bushes where she'd hidden as the traitors had emerged from the mountain. They were gone now, long gone, but their faces were still there in her mind. Jonly, Dyfwyl, Kholwa. And then last, Talion, proudest and most terrible of them all. Each godlike, radiating power.

She shivered at the thought of Talion's face, seeming utterly alien, but moved slowly to the cave entrance. She was alone, with barely enough food for a couple of days. She couldn't go back, now, anyway, even if she could make it that far in her weakened condition. They'd kill her if they found out she was still alive.

So she entered the mouth of the mountain, hoping for something, anything, to get her away from here. She eventually came to the cavern and the pool. It wasn't very full, she saw. But perhaps... perhaps it had enough power. She didn't want much. Just enough to get away.

She knelt carefully at the edge of the pool, reaching her hands into the stuff. Then she concentrated, ignoring the thought of Talion and his companions, ignoring everything but one thought. Away.

With a yelp, she overbalanced and fell into the pool. She sank into it slowly, away, away, away, and then... something happened. She felt it.

And then she was lying on cold, hard ground, somewhere else. When she finally managed to look up, she froze in wonder.

She was on another world.

To be continued...

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Long time no see, folks, but it's about that time again, (thread) closing time. It looks like I've missed quite a handful of games in my absence, and lots of fun and betrayal! Glad to be getting back in the swing of things! Many thanks to Elbereth for GM'ing what looks like quite an awesome game, and of course all the many players who keep coming back for more bloodshed!

If anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get a hold of Myself, Wilson, Metacognition or Alvron. Not only will we get you added to the list, but I'm sure we'd be more than willing to help out in any way we can as well!

You can also ask questions and get some hints and feedback from everyone over here in our Art of Game Creation thread as well. 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!

For those wanting to play, MR14: The Canim Fury is open for sign ups so feel free to join in the fun.

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

Edited November 11, 2016 by Alvron