Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[Arraenae]

I liked MR17 a lot for how it encouraged RP.

First, there was a cycle with no lynch in the beginning, which gave RPers time to RP and strategizers time to strategize. Strategy-loving RPers got to do both. RP takes time and effort -- first you have to create a character you want to RP with, then you have to figure out what they're going to do, and then you have to write the thing out, and then you might want to look over what you wrote and edit stuff, and maybe there's so formatting too, and if you're RPing your analysis you have to make sure your analysis makes sense, and so on, and so on. Having an entire cycle at the beginning where I didn't have to also bother with analysis was really encouraging for me to RP.

Second, Aman, the GM, gave me a character prompt. MR17 was set in the world of Red Rising, which I hadn't read at the time. I decided to make a character from a world I was familiar with, Roshar, and plop them into the Red Rising world. Aman's character prompt filled out the details and also gave my character, Nyanah au Thorne, a motive for being village. Since I didn't know the world too well, this was very helpful. I was able to RP off of the prompt, which I think improved the quality of my RP that game. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence, but it was also a game where my suspicions were spot-on. The RP definitely made me more engaged with the game.

MR17 was a good game for RP, and I think it should be looked at for ways to encourage RP without setting heavy-handed rules.

[Straw he/him]

I made a Community Chat Doc! Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YZ9DUQfAzbGElqTfmpHVvyrV7YOkwIC5qtar0OS7dcI/edit?usp=sharing

Edited December 27, 2016 by Straw

[Young Bard he/him]

On 12/28/2016 at 1:35 AM, Straw said:

I made a Community Chat Doc! Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YZ9DUQfAzbGElqTfmpHVvyrV7YOkwIC5qtar0OS7dcI/edit?usp=sharing

1) You made it view only

2) What's the advantage of this over the Discord Chat?

[Straw he/him]

Social experiment. It's classified.

[AliasSheep]

Do Wheel of Time games count as Sanderson or Non-Sanderson games given the announcement in the AG?

[little wilson she/her]

Wheel of Time games count as Sanderson.

[Haelbarde he/him]

4 hours ago, Wonko the Sane said:

NOTE: A large section of the following was originally typed in my PM with Seonid. When I realized how much I wanted to say, I cut and pasted, then finished it here. I intended to bring it up publicly eventually, and I didn't want to type it all twice. It would perhaps be better to wait for the end of the game, but this is on my brain right now, and I wanted to get it out there. This isn't in bluetext, but it is very much out-of-game; I just hate reading and/or writing bluetext for more than a few short paragraphs.

[Referring to the rampant inactivity] ...I intend to bring this up at the end of the game, because we as a community need to discuss this. I'm just as guilty, so I don't mean to cast aspersions on anyone, but this is a problem that needs addressing. The fight against inactivity has been a part of the game since the early days of SE, but rarely have I seen it destroy games with the depressing regularity we're getting these days.

You seem to feel the same, with your public pleas, but I feel that appealing to individuals is going to be ineffective, as your target audience is specifically the group least likely to hear you. Instead, we need to come together, outside the context of any particular game, and talk this out, like what we're doing for etiquette or rules complexity.

The fact that this is happening so regularly, no matter the game, players, or circumstances, means that the problem is systemic. We can't solve this by resolving to "try harder", unless we expect a large section of players to make significant sacrifices in other areas of their lives. And since there was definitely a time when playing this game didn't require that, we need to talk through what's wrong with the status quo.

What, systemically, causes players to go inactive so often, and to stay that way for so long? What changes can we make so that keeping up with things is easier and more rewarding? How can we help players who have gone inactive to more easily return to the game? What can we do, in the possibly-inevitable event that some players do go inactive, to ensure that the game survives it with minimal damage to the experience of the remaining players?

We need to talk these questions and others over, back and forth, and consider them from every angle. It's natural to jump to conclusions: I -- like, I would guess, so many of you -- immediately want to blame the current hot-button issues of complexity creep and a hostile game environment. But that only serves to rob us of a conversation we desperately need to have. Don't be afraid to voice your first thoughts, but don't stop with them either.

Maybe what's changed is simply the player base, and we need to accept that; working not to restore the game to what it was, but to help make it into a positive experience for the players of today. Maybe expecting a major change in activity is just plain unrealistic in the near future, and our efforts would be better spent designing games that can be fun even after losing a large number of players. Maybe -- a personal observation -- this community has gradually become more and more insular and esoteric, and newer players are being discouraged from participating by a wall of obscure and confusing jargon, dizzyingly intricate strategies, and frankly hard-to-follow references to older games; things that can enrich and streamline the game for more experienced players, but scare off newbies.

My point is that we don't know, and we do ourselves a disservice if we fail to consider every possibility, no matter how seemingly outlandish, before identifying the problem -- and long, long before we decide on a course of action. The Shard has never failed to impress me with its intelligence, levelheadedness, ingenuity, and compassion. Let's put that to work, people, and solve this problem as I know only we can.

Unfortunately, with the game still running, we probably can't discuss the specifics of the inactivity in the game just yet, but I do still have some thoughts.

I think one of the biggest things is people not really understanding, or acknowledging, the time commitments of these games. Really, any game probably requires, as a minimum, half an hour a day, reading the thread, and making a quick response. To contribute analysis or RP, you jump up to more like an hour and a half, at least. And depending on the format, you are expected to keep that up anywhere from a few days, to a month and a half (I guess that also depends on when you get killed). It's not a small time commitment, and if you skip that half hour, it makes it all that much harder to get back into it. I think a problem that does occur is that people don't actually work out how busy their life is for the duration of the game. Another problem is people signing up for games, and then not caring enough to remember they are playing. Another is having multiple commitments to games.

Some of this I've said before - I think ever game should have a strategy in place to deal with inactives, whether a filter, or pinchhitters, or whatever else. I'd also be interested in having some sort of CAPTCHA to ensure only people who read the rules actually play. But a new thought is that I think people should be actively discouraged from playing more than one game at a time, and particularly not two LGs at the same time. Ideally, rules of games should be available well in advance, so people can prioritize which games they join. I think a reason people ignore their time constraints is because the games are all so interesting, and they aren't forced to choose, so play both.

I personally haven't found the game environment hostile, although I'm both an R&R player, and someone who had been semi on hiatus, and will soon go on hiatus permanently, and do I think that game complexity has hurt people's ability to contribute discussion/analysis, I don't think that accounts for most of the inactivity.

You know what the problem with working out what causes inactivity? The lack of talking Ultimately, I think it's a mix of things. And that's going to require a mix of solutions. Recurring players need to be conscious of the effect of their inactivity on the games they join. Ideally, they are honest with themselves, and do their best to only play when they know they have the time to commit. GMs need strategies both to handle when players temporarily have to deal with life, and to deal with players not willing to put the minimum required effort in. New players need to be clearly communicated what the expected activity is.

Ideally change should come from the players, but not all the problems can be solved by players - new players who sign up and don't do anything, or players who have unforseeable emergencies. I think it would be valuable for the community to brainstorm ways for GMs to handle these sorts of situations.

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 2:14 PM, Metacognition said:

Very well, then here's a rule specifically for you, Hael: You have to RP in each post you make, at least a little, and not take the game too seriously. I'll be watching.  

Apart from this post, and the one pointing to this thread, neither of which actually include playing an active game, I indeed kept to that. And it got me RPing. But the rule was a pretty silly rule that had little to do with the sort of thing I was talking about. You've repurposed it for the AG, which may help RP, although I found it hobbled me - it was harder to contribute lots of posts, or in a quick manner. The rules I was suggesting were less about forcing players to do something specific, rather providing easy to manage regulations to minimize the possibility, or impact, of players going inactive.

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 10:06 AM, Wyrmhero said:

TLDR: Put the effort in and read the above, or you're exacerbating one of the problems as I see it.

Personal favorite use of a TL;DR!

[little wilson she/her]

Something I thought of recently is that new players don't necessarily know what rules are enforced more than others. For example, a lot of mafia forums have etiquette policies, and a number of these etiquette policies say things about insulting other players and being a poor sport, but those aren't rules that are enforced unless someone specifically mentions it. Last year's mafia championship game that Hael participated in had a number of players openly insulting other players, but they were never called out. Not until Hael finally commented on it to the GM, and then the GM gave a notice. But it didn't stop the insults, and nothing else was said. While there may be rules in place, that doesn't mean those rules will be enforced.

17th Shard has a relatively small moderating team, considering our member base. And yet we have relatively few problems arise. Do you want to know why? Because the members themselves regulate the site. If someone gets negative, it's usually a member who says something about it and tries to help the other person understand why the 17th Shard isn't the place for such negativity. First contact is rarely with staff. Because the members have taken it upon themselves to adopt the rules and help others understand them. To help others adopt them too. This is why the Shard has been and will likely continue to be the safe haven that it is. It's not the staff enforcing rules, except in extreme situations where they must. It's the members upholding the rules and helping new people understand them as well.

We can do the same thing here. But it's going to take a concerted effort from the players, the moderators and the GMs to do. It's not just for the GMs to put filters in place and regulate inactives like that. It's not just for the moderators to blacklist chronic inactives. It's not just for the players to deal with it. It's for everyone to. That might mean an eliminator team killing an inactive or two. That might mean an extremely harsh inactivity filter. That might mean blacklisting people who don't contribute to the game in any way post signing up. That might mean trying not to lurk, even though it's strategically sound for you to blend in with inactives. That might mean restricting people from playing multiple games (or at least multiple LGs) at one time, as Hael suggested. Whatever it means, it needs to be done in tandem, with the support of the majority. Saying that you don't have to do something because someone else will handle it won't fix the issue. If you're not willing to take the responsibility of fixing the problem on yourself, the problem will probably never be fixed and the only person you'll have to blame for it is yourself for being unwilling to help.

This is not something one or two or five people can tackle. This is something that needs the support of the community as a whole, or it will never be fixed.

And this doesn't even have to be just about inactivity. If someone posts a super-complex game in the Game Creation thread and you're worried about the complexity of it, say something about that. Voice those concerns. Maybe help them break the game down into something more manageable that they still like but is balanced. We can all help each other. By helping each other, we'll be helping the games, in all aspects.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Though short, your game was fantastically active, Wilson.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Do you guys just hate me or something?

LG24: Attacked by the eliminators N1.

LG25: Attacked by the eliminators N1.

QF20: Lynched D1 on no evidence. Was village.

AG3: Ongoing, but go read it.

Assuming an average of 25 players per game with the standard 2 deaths on first turn, a person has an 8% chance of dying first turn. This is significantly higher than that.

At this rate I'm not going to put any more work into making characters anymore, it just isn't worth it.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Ecthelion III

[Magestar he/him]

8 hours ago, Ecthelion III said:

Do you guys just hate me or something?

LG24: Attacked by the eliminators N1.

LG25: Attacked by the eliminators N1.

QF20: Lynched D1 on no evidence. Was village.

AG3: Ongoing, but go read it.

Assuming an average of 25 players per game with the standard 2 deaths on first turn, a person has an 8% chance of dying first turn. This is significantly higher than that.

At this rate I'm not going to put any more work into making characters anymore, it just isn't worth it.

Etch, you should have seen my first few games.  I typically don't put a lot of work into making characters to begin with, but I do know your pain.  I died C1 in a couple of my first games, and in quite a few of them I was villager.  It happens.

In LG24...  I couldn't find out why you died there.  shrugs  Plus I got all cringey reading over that game.  I was so... naive.  shudders

In LG25, you were targeted because of 'How insightful you had been in previous games'

In QF20, you were lynched on a misunderstanding.  It could happen to anyone.  

In AG3, well, I can't say anything more than I did in-thread.

That percentage seems right, however, there are people who die more in the first cycle.  It happens.  A lot of it is random.  But keep playing.  Despite the fact that I always seem to find you and Len suspicious (sorry.  ), I do enjoy playing with you.  If you feel like you're putting too much work into your characters for what you're getting from them, then maybe put a little less work in.  I tend to build up my characters as the game progresses, (If I put effort a character) so that I don't feel let down if they die early.   

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

3 hours ago, Magestar said:

In QF20, you were lynched on a misunderstanding.  It could happen to anyone.  

Actually, no. QF20 he was deliberately lynched Day 1 by the Eliminators, because his brother was an Eliminator.

[Magestar he/him]

34 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Actually, no. QF20 he was deliberately lynched Day 1 by the Eliminators, because his brother was an Eliminator.

Oh.  I just read the thread.  Must have missed that.

In that case, blame Len.  

[little wilson she/her]

16 hours ago, Ecthelion III said:

At this rate I'm not going to put any more work into making characters anymore, it just isn't worth it.

That's an awfully defeatist way of looking at things. You're also not the only person dealing with a high death rate.

Here's some interesting statistics: the sum of all the characters/avatars who have been in every game played in SE is 1653. The death count is 1102, or 66.7%. This means that the average survival rate is 33.3%. Individuals with a lower survival rate than that die more frequently than the average SE player.

Here are the survival rates of a selection of players with lower survival rates than the average:

A couple things I'd like to comment on this. Everyone, minus Ecth, that is higher than Seonid has played more than 20 games. Seonid, Hael, and Kas are all at 17-18 games. The rest, including Ecth, are between 10 and 15. There are some really low survival rates there. Mage is less than 10%. He's only survived one game, out of 15. That's kind of insane. Hael died the first 12 games he played. However, if we count just from the time people stopped making a hobby of Hael Hunting, his rate is 60%. 3 out of 5. Not too bad. And I imagine, it'll hold to about that. If he were to continue playing rather than going on a hiatus, I imagine his death rate would balance out at about 30%. Once you hit about 25 games, the survival rate you have is probably going to stay about the same, unless you make a concerted effort to change it, and even then, it's questionable.

Death is just something that happens. It usually balances out the more you play. The average survival rate for those with 20 games or more is about 30%. So less than the average SE player, but not by much. Certainly better than 20-25%. But that's because you've played more games and people have a better placement of you in terms of kill-necessity, and you've gotten better at being less suspicious-looking, no matter your alignment, so you'll probably by lynched less as well. Especially early on.

For example:

You've been lynched 7 times in your 12 games. 2 of those lynches were when you were village (so you accrued suspicion and couldn't deflect it....or your brother arranged your lynch because he was evil  ), and 3 were when you were evil. You've been lynched every time you're evil. But I'll bet you've learned something every time you've been evil as well. You're probably learning how to avoid suspicion. That's what happens when you're evil. You learn. You get better. Eventually, you'll make it through a game without getting lynched as an eliminator. You might get vig-killed, but hey: at least it wasn't a lynch. And you'll improve from that. You've been killed by the eliminators once, and that was in MR18, towards the later part of that game. You've been attacked by the eliminators a couple of times early on as well, but you didn't die to them. And yes, attack cycle is rather different than death cycle. 

The first block of information is the cycle you take your first hit. The second block of information is what cycle you die. You've been attacked 4 times in the first 2 cycles, but you've only been killed 3 times in that same chunk of time. You tend to be attacked first between cycle 3 and 4, but you don't tend to die until cycles 5 or 6. That's...not bad. Sure, your death rate in the first two cycle is on the high side, but there are others with a high number of deaths in those same cycles. Orlok has been killed 7 times in the first two cycles. He can definitely relate, because he was really upset about it after the 4th or 5th time it happened.

Really, it's just about playing more. Those early deaths will average out. Your survival rate will rise. You've only played 12 games, which I get that that sounds like a lot, but comparatively, it's fairly low. There have been players who played 10+ games before they finally became an eliminator for the first time. Like I already said, Hael died the first 12 games he played. 12 games isn't enough to get into the true direction your stats are headed. That takes around 25 games. And I can practically guarantee you that your stats won't look like this 13 games from now.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Wilson, can I rename you to The Data Overlord? Way to be optimistic. The real thing I'm bummed about is how all of these have happened in the last 6 months, so hopefully the pattern doesn't continue.

Just a note, though, at 58.33%, I have the highest lynch percentage of everyone who plays the game right now.

I don't care if I die overall, I know it happens and a C4-7 death doesn't really bug me, but the day one lynches and kills are literally the worst.

[Jondesu he/him]

2 hours ago, Ecthelion III said:

Wilson, can I rename you to The Data Overlord? Way to be optimistic. The real thing I'm bummed about is how all of these have happened in the last 6 months, so hopefully the pattern doesn't continue.

Just a note, though, at 58.33%, I have the highest lynch percentage of everyone who plays the game right now.

I don't care if I die overall, I know it happens and a C4-7 death doesn't really bug me, but the day one lynches and kills are literally the worst.

Yeah, I've had two of those now I think? And they definitely suck. I can tell you at least if I'm an Elim in any games coming up, I probably won't hit you N1 (or Wilson).

[Herowannabe he/him]

I just noticed this conversation about activity levels, and as the founding member of the Contribution Crusade I feel impelled to respond to a few things.

On 1/9/2017 at 8:02 AM, Haelbarde said:

I think one of the biggest things is people not really understanding, or acknowledging, the time commitments of these games. Really, any game probably requires, as a minimum, half an hour a day, reading the thread, and making a quick response. To contribute analysis or RP, you jump up to more like an hour and a half, at least. And depending on the format, you are expected to keep that up anywhere from a few days, to a month and a half (I guess that also depends on when you get killed). It's not a small time commitment, and if you skip that half hour, it makes it all that much harder to get back into it. I think a problem that does occur is that people don't actually work out how busy their life is for the duration of the game. Another problem is people signing up for games, and then not caring enough to remember they are playing. Another is having multiple commitments to games.

Unless you're a speed reader, I'd say the minimum time to read through the thread is much longer than 1/2 hour per day. I'd say you're looking at least an hour. More if you want to analyze and/or respond to things. 

 

Quote

Some of this I've said before - I think ever game should have a strategy in place to deal with inactives, whether a filter, or pinchhitters, or whatever else. I'd also be interested in having some sort of CAPTCHA to ensure only people who read the rules actually play. But a new thought is that I think people should be actively discouraged from playing more than one game at a time, and particularly not two LGs at the same time. Ideally, rules of games should be available well in advance, so people can prioritize which games they join. I think a reason people ignore their time constraints is because the games are all so interesting, and they aren't forced to choose, so play both.

I personally haven't found the game environment hostile, although I'm both an R&R player, and someone who had been semi on hiatus, and will soon go on hiatus permanently, and do I think that game complexity has hurt people's ability to contribute discussion/analysis, I don't think that accounts for most of the inactivity.

You know what the problem with working out what causes inactivity? The lack of talking Ultimately, I think it's a mix of things. And that's going to require a mix of solutions. Recurring players need to be conscious of the effect of their inactivity on the games they join. Ideally, they are honest with themselves, and do their best to only play when they know they have the time to commit. GMs need strategies both to handle when players temporarily have to deal with life, and to deal with players not willing to put the minimum required effort in. New players need to be clearly communicated what the expected activity is.

Ideally change should come from the players, but not all the problems can be solved by players - new players who sign up and don't do anything, or players who have unforseeable emergencies. I think it would be valuable for the community to brainstorm ways for GMs to handle these sorts of situations.

I agree with all of this. Let me address a couple of these things:

What can Players do?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but one thing I plan on doing with the Contribution Crusade (or at least my part on it) is rather than just campaigning to lynch inactive players, I want to reach out to them via PMs and invite and encourage them to return to activity. 

Time commitments. These games do require a lot of time commitments, but there are some things that players can do to make it easier on others with busier schedules. For one: huge RP posts. I have a love/hate relationship with RP. It can be a lot of fun to read the stories that other people craft (I remember reading one player's story- I think it was @Alvron- where he had this big ongoing story with his character and an obligator pulling his strings, and it ended with his character pretending to be an allomancer in order to get the jump on and kill the obligator. It was epic. 

However, big RP posts like that take a LOT of time to read through, and can be distracting and even annoying when you're trying to find and analyze things directly relating to the game and votes. I would love to see players who post long RP posts add "TL:DR" tags at the top (or bottom) of their post with the important game information contained in it. I'd love to even see RP get its own color tag, so players can tell what to skip. So to take an example from the current game, I'd love to see this:

 

15 hours ago, Wyrmhero said:

His lordship up at the manor didn't want to see me, that was made plain clear to me. Didn't want to see anyone, as a matter of fact. I grilled his butler for the details, but the guy wouldn't crack. Never said anything about his lord even stepping outside of the place for a stroll in the garden, let alone a secret trip to murder someone. Laid low with a cold, he said. Seemed unbelievable that it'd happen now of all times. I'd trust a Terrisman not to lie though, not like this. Did make me suspicious, but not about the lord. Might be he was being made to be sick, some poisons could do that. But I'm no doctor, I couldn't just physic him back to health with a snap of my fingers. So for the time being, I had to pursue other lines of inquiry.

 

Of course, the village seemed happy to give me them. I came back into town to find an old man swinging from the gibbet, all beaten and bloody. Tensions were high, I knew that, but high enough to kill a defenceless elderly person? Hell, we could've stuck him in bed with the lordship, maybe the cold'd have done our job for us. But too late now. I guess the guy should have been killed by the old laws anyway, being a Soother. Didn't fancy the idea of the Inquisition paying a visit to our fair town. But that would've been all lawful, this was an act of murder, no matter which way you looked at it.

 

The law dictated that I should hang those responsible for what they did to him. Asking around, seemed it was done all democratically. Can you imagine? We overthrow the lords and ladies that pushed us down into the mud by right of birth, and the first thing we do with that freedom is kill each other. It hurt to think it, and I'd never said it, but maybe we were better off under The Lord Ruler. At least he kept the world running and didn't blight our crops or cover the skies in a choking, creeping darkness. Maybe we should be cursing the Survivor, not praising him.

 

Seemed the controversy, as it were, was about a guy being a bit of a smooth talker. Reginald, his name was. I knew him a bit; run into him a few times, sometimes literally. He was a petty thief, but ever so nice about it when I did catch him. “Sorry, Mister Sharpe,” he'd say. “Won't happen again, Mister Sharpe,” “Can you put that knife down please, Mister Sharpe, I'm rather attached to those parts and would like to remain attached to them.” Nice guy, for a crook. Never hurt anyone when he stole stuff. Guess it made sense that people would suspect him, considering he was a part of the village's underbelly. Even if they didn't, they might just be pleased to hang him. Just in case.

 

But again, despite what the law said, I didn't feel like he deserved death for it. Everything seemed to be different, these days. The law was solid as steel on punishments for these guys, but I didn't want to follow through. Hadn't followed through with Reginald before, wasn't going to start now. I could understand why they did it, I guess. Fear brings out these rash actions in people. Hell, if I was still here when it was going on, I might've been one of them. I guess I had my own laws to follow, and they were telling me something different this time.

 

I didn't feel like Reginald's escape-artist act itself was incriminating though. You can't blame a guy for not wanting to die. Sure, a few of the people who pointed the finger at him had some good points from what I heard, but not wanting to die? I can get behind that. Rather partial to life myself. Perhaps now, he'd be a bit more of an upstanding member of the community, help find the real guys responsible, and maybe cut down on the thievery. Or it was a ploy, and he was the guilty party. Either way, I was sure we'd find out soon enough, either by the noose or by a coin.

turn into this:

 

15 hours ago, Wyrmhero said:

His lordship up at the manor didn't want to see me, that was made plain clear to me. Didn't want to see anyone, as a matter of fact. I grilled his butler for the details, but the guy wouldn't crack. Never said anything about his lord even stepping outside of the place for a stroll in the garden, let alone a secret trip to murder someone. Laid low with a cold, he said. Seemed unbelievable that it'd happen now of all times. I'd trust a Terrisman not to lie though, not like this. Did make me suspicious, but not about the lord. Might be he was being made to be sick, some poisons could do that. But I'm no doctor, I couldn't just physic him back to health with a snap of my fingers. So for the time being, I had to pursue other lines of inquiry.

 

Of course, the village seemed happy to give me them. I came back into town to find an old man swinging from the gibbet, all beaten and bloody. Tensions were high, I knew that, but high enough to kill a defenceless elderly person? Hell, we could've stuck him in bed with the lordship, maybe the cold'd have done our job for us. But too late now. I guess the guy should have been killed by the old laws anyway, being a Soother. Didn't fancy the idea of the Inquisition paying a visit to our fair town. But that would've been all lawful, this was an act of murder, no matter which way you looked at it.

 

The law dictated that I should hang those responsible for what they did to him. Asking around, seemed it was done all democratically. Can you imagine? We overthrow the lords and ladies that pushed us down into the mud by right of birth, and the first thing we do with that freedom is kill each other. It hurt to think it, and I'd never said it, but maybe we were better off under The Lord Ruler. At least he kept the world running and didn't blight our crops or cover the skies in a choking, creeping darkness. Maybe we should be cursing the Survivor, not praising him.

 

Seemed the controversy, as it were, was about a guy being a bit of a smooth talker. Reginald, his name was. I knew him a bit; run into him a few times, sometimes literally. He was a petty thief, but ever so nice about it when I did catch him. “Sorry, Mister Sharpe,” he'd say. “Won't happen again, Mister Sharpe,” “Can you put that knife down please, Mister Sharpe, I'm rather attached to those parts and would like to remain attached to them.” Nice guy, for a crook. Never hurt anyone when he stole stuff. Guess it made sense that people would suspect him, considering he was a part of the village's underbelly. Even if they didn't, they might just be pleased to hang him. Just in case.

 

But again, despite what the law said, I didn't feel like he deserved death for it. Everything seemed to be different, these days. The law was solid as steel on punishments for these guys, but I didn't want to follow through. Hadn't followed through with Reginald before, wasn't going to start now. I could understand why they did it, I guess. Fear brings out these rash actions in people. Hell, if I was still here when it was going on, I might've been one of them. I guess I had my own laws to follow, and they were telling me something different this time.

 

I didn't feel like Reginald's escape-artist act itself was incriminating though. You can't blame a guy for not wanting to die. Sure, a few of the people who pointed the finger at him had some good points from what I heard, but not wanting to die? I can get behind that. Rather partial to life myself. Perhaps now, he'd be a bit more of an upstanding member of the community, help find the real guys responsible, and maybe cut down on the thievery. Or it was a ploy, and he was the guilty party. Either way, I was sure we'd find out soon enough, either by the noose or by a coin.

TL/DR:

I mildly suspect those that lynched Ecthelion

I'm not convinced that Dalinar (Reginald) deserves to be killed for trying to preserve himself

 

What can GMs do?

I fully support GMs working anti-inactivity mechanics into their games. This includes avoiding making the game too complicated, which as I know is more difficult than it seems. It also includes GMs creating inactivity filters, something that weeds out and eliminates people who are inactive for too long. And lastly, but not leastly, it includes creating mechanics that encourage and reward players for being active. I remember MR2 (I think it was- Meta's MR game about pirates on Dreok Crushthroat's crew) did this REALLY well. Rules weren't overly complicated, but players got a coin or two every cycle they posted and could use coins to purchase items. It was simple, but it made everyone want to participate every day so that they could earn their coin.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Herowannabe
Bah, formatting got screwed up and I can't figure out how to fix it. Just open all the spoiler tags I guess.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

That was Quiver I think. LG2.

[Jondesu he/him]

My first game, ME17 I think, had an awesome activity rewards system, loved it.

I like the TL;DR idea, and having RP in another color. Perhaps really long ones could even be in spoiler tags to save scrolling.

[Magestar he/him]

12 hours ago, little wilson said:

Mage is less than 10%. He's only survived one game, out of 15. That's kind of insane.

Thanks.  Now I feel justified in complaining a bit.  

Interestingly enough, Wilson, it was your game that I survived.

Ecth, if you ever get down, just look at my survival rate.  

5 hours ago, Jondesu said:

My first game, ME17 I think, had an awesome activity rewards system, loved it.

Agreed.  MR17 had a very, very nice system.  I'd like to see some more stuff like that.  I feel like a Nalthis game run with Breaths could do a similar thing, if you could get the Flavor to work.

[Jondesu he/him]

Question for some of the analytical players: how do you keep track of everything? I tried making a doc for myself (a spreadsheet in the last one, with color coding and everything), but keeping it updated is more work than it's worth. Is there an easier way? I just have a very hard time remembering things like who voted for whom, and what arguments/claims people make.

[little wilson she/her]

Back when I was analyzing things closely, I used a spreadsheet. My first game spreadsheet was for LG6. Some of my other spreadsheets are for AG1, LG12, and LG14. I no longer do spreadsheets though, because I'm trying not to get so intensely involved in the games and spend so much time on each one. But the LG14 one in particular worked for me, since I dropped the post count for each player and started paying attention to how frequently people were online, which was something I used more than post count.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

8 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Question for some of the analytical players: how do you keep track of everything? I tried making a doc for myself (a spreadsheet in the last one, with color coding and everything), but keeping it updated is more work than it's worth. Is there an easier way? I just have a very hard time remembering things like who voted for whom, and what arguments/claims people make.

I use play-by-plays and record mentions. For every post, i make a one sentence summary, and write down who they mentioned, defended, RP'd with, ignored, and voted on. 

[Aonar he/him]

I take a different tack from Joe, and my advice would be that if you have trouble keeping track of everything, don't bother trying. I only record votes, claims, and known role/action info. Sometimes I don't even bother with votes. (Unless i have a ton of time, and want to do a network analysis.) However, each turn, or at least each cycle, I make sure record my current thoughts and impressions of the state of the game, optimal strategy, and the alignments of/connections between various players. Then, whenever new evidence is available, I go back, reinterperet and reassess my thought process, looking to see what logic is sound and what is flimsy, trying to interpret plans and actions from as many angles as possible, comparing to see how and why my thoughts have changed over time, and look for inconsistensies. Little if any of this thought process tends to make its way into the thread. (Although parts of it often end up in docs/PMs, as I work best with another player(s) as a sounding board.) I find that the best way to keep track of everything though is to simply keep your thoughts clear and organized. While detailed record keeping helps some people, I find that just being aware of what is going on, and what your thoughts are and why is far more useful. (And don't be afraid to use the forum search or user content functions if you need to dig back for specific info. They're useful. :P)

[Haelbarde he/him]

Is there an easy way of seeing who has posted, and how many times, in a given thread since the update?

As far as keeping track of voting, have you seen the vote tallies with the vote history that Kas and I use? That's easy enough to make, and record. I often keep track of if someone has posted, so I have data on how active players are.