Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[Straw he/him]

16 minutes ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Another problem is I don't know how to do this... or what it means. I need to figure this out, would like to spectate

The spec doc is just a Google doc where people who aren't playing can talk about the game. I'll send you the spec doc link for QF44. I can see that Elbereth is currently viewing the thread, so I think she'll also send you the link for LG65.

If you were referring to not knowing how to ping, pinging is just writing @ and then someone's name. It should give them a notification. Ex: @Matrim's_Dice.

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

I kinda want to make a game where you die to an inactivity filter if you don't post at least one GAME RELATED post every cycle or 2 cycles.  Thoughts?

[Elandera she/her]

38 minutes ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

I kinda want to make a game where you die to an inactivity filter if you don't post at least one GAME RELATED post every cycle or 2 cycles.  Thoughts?

I like the idea, but what would you classify as game related? There are several who post things that just say they have no suspicions and they'll get to things later. It's technically game-related but largely just filler.

You could easily do something quantifiable, like a word count minimum, to make sure people don't pop in with a line or two to avoid the filter but still stay under the radar. 

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

9 minutes ago, Elandera said:

I like the idea, but what would you classify as game related? There are several who post things that just say they have no suspicions and they'll get to things later. It's technically game-related but largely just filler.

You could easily do something quantifiable, like a word count minimum, to make sure people don't pop in with a line or two to avoid the filter but still stay under the radar. 

I wouldn't call that game related since it literally doesn't add anything to the game.

But yeah something that made it impossible to escape the filter if you just say "will post tomorrow" or irl blue text etc.

[Young Bard he/him]

Matrim's Dice and Shard of Reading, I'll @ you both when signups for the next game go up so you can see if you're interested in playing.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Young Bard
Had something else here, but decided it was too close to current game talk, so deleted it.

[Straw he/him]

1 hour ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

I kinda want to make a game where you die to an inactivity filter if you don't post at least one GAME RELATED post every cycle or 2 cycles.  Thoughts?

Shouldn’t this go in Art of Game Creation? I’ll put my response to this in there.

[Elkanah he/him]

@Matrim's_Dice and @Shard of Reading This right here is the link I promised you. Sorry it's later than I had hoped to send it to you. This post explains what I meant by long game and Quick fix. The whole Rules and Etiquette thread is worth reading, but this will at least get you started and give you an idea for how long until the next game is up.

 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Okay, so an interesting conversation started up in the discord server earlier, and I felt like it'd be interesting to come here and let everyone give their thoughts about it.

What do people think of players choosing to either completely ignore their GM PM or look at it and, if they're an elim, ignore the identities of their teammates?

[Elkanah he/him]

I thought a lot about not having the elims not know each other at all when I reran QF 11. You'd just have to have a bigger team and tailor the roles. I don't like the idea of not looking, but not going to the doc would be a fun way to play

Edited May 19, 2020 by Elkanah

[DeTess she/her]

11 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

What do people think of players choosing to either completely ignore their GM PM or look at it and, if they're an elim, ignore the identities of their teammates?

I personally think it's something you need to build your game around. Someone not looking and playing whatever alignment they feel like playing can really mess with balancing, especially in smaller games. Someone looking, and then not joining the elim doc is more of a double-edge sword balance-wise, as the solo elim will be harder to catch, but in a role-based game the elim team also can't make use of their role and might kill them on accident. I know I personally would be somewhat unhappy if a team-mate unilaterally decided they didn't want to play as a team.

That having been said, I think you can definitely design a game around the second assumption, where either all the elims can only coordinate with a vote for the kill, not knowing who the others are, or with some other type of enforced anonymity of the elim doc (such as making it clear that there is traitor in the doc).

[Kynedath]

I personally feel like ignoring your GM PM and not looking at your alignment is a poor decision. If you're a villager then no harm really, but if you're an elim then you're depriving your teammates of a player essentially.

And like Detess said, if you don't join the doc then you lose the possibility of teamwork and add the risk of your teammates hitting you with a kill and that can absolutely ruin an elim tams chances at victory.

What I HAVE seen done and I think is a clever idea with potential is going into the elim doc but not looking at the names, making a few new pages and make a conversation with the other villages making them aware that you want to keep them anonymous. If the elims are okay with it I'd ask them to use the same color as background and font color where your names go so that they're invisible unless you highlight them. The others can choose to either know the identity of their teammates or not. I think that maybe Aman did that in one of the docs I was in?

[Straw he/him]

Recently, I created a small thread activity counter in Python, and thought I'd share it here. I also made a post transcriber, and I'll get instructions for that up soon.

Let me know if there are any features that you'd like me to add. Also, if you're curious how this works, I've commented the code.

Instructions for use:

1. Download Python from this link, if you do not have it already. Scroll down to the bottom and choose a version to download. I don't believe it particularly matters which open you choose, as long as it's for
2. Follow through the Python installation. At the start, make sure to check the box to add Python to PATH. Other than that, you don't need to do anything special while installing. If you forget to add it to PATH, uninstall and reinstall Python.
3. Open up Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (MacOS). 
4. You will now have to download two libraries for Python using the Command Prompt/Terminal. You will use the "pip install" command. If you are on MacOS, you will use the "pip3 install" command instead.
5. Type "pip install bs4" and press enter. Type "pip install requests" and press enter. Do not include the quotes for either of these. Remember to replace "pip" with "pip3" if you are on MacOS.
6. Download my program from here. The download button should be right before the code itself, in the gray row.
7. Double click on the downloaded program to run it. The program will request a "base url". For this, you will be entering the page one url of a thread, minus the page number itself. Ex: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57663-quick-fix-game-21-the-names-smith-john-smith/. Make sure to include the / at the end. The program will also prompt you for a "start ID" and "end ID". These are optional parameters for getting activity counts of thread sections. You can get an ID by clicking on the share button on a comment, scrolling until the end of the link, and then copying the number. For example, the ID of the post above me is 990686.
8. The program should output an activity count for the given section.

Example of use:

Getting full activity count of QF21:

Getting activity count for page four of QF21:

The IDs in the image above are the IDs of the first and last posts in that page:

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57663-quick-fix-game-21-the-names-smith-john-smith/?do=findComment&comment=531391

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57663-quick-fix-game-21-the-names-smith-john-smith/?do=findComment&comment=532966

[+Lotus she/her]

Hi-o. This sounds really interesting, but I'm wondering how we would know when a new round opens.

[Elandera she/her]

2 minutes ago, MysticLotus said:

Hi-o. This sounds really interesting, but I'm wondering how we would know when a new round opens.

Hello and welcome! A new game is posted usually a few days after one ends. Our pattern is to have a Long Game running consistently, and switch back and forth between a Mid-Range and a Quick Fix game so there are almost always two games running. 

I think the MR should be wrapping up soon, though I haven't been following it a lot. We can tag you when the new sign-ups are posted. Games usually start about a week after sign-ups.

[+Lotus she/her]

5 minutes ago, Elandera said:

Hello and welcome! A new game is posted usually a few days after one ends. Our pattern is to have a Long Game running consistently, and switch back and forth between a Mid-Range and a Quick Fix game so there are almost always two games running. 

I think the MR should be wrapping up soon, though I haven't been following it a lot. We can tag you when the new sign-ups are posted. Games usually start about a week after sign-ups.

Oh, thank you so much!

[StrikerEZ he/him]

18 minutes ago, MysticLotus said:

Oh, thank you so much!

If you want, you could ask for a spec (spectator) doc for the game I'm currently running! I'm running Long Game 66 right now. Spectator docs are google docs where people who aren't playing the game can talk about what's going on in the game. Players who die usually get access to that doc when they die as well. 

If you want to watch a game before you join one to kind of see what it's like, I'd love to give you the spec doc for my game! Just send me a PM called "LG66 Spec Doc" and I'll send you the link! Welcome to SE! Happy to have you here!

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Related to that, I think it might be beneficial to have a notification / sign up thread. Every time a game started, or a Game Master needs a pinch hitter, one of the mods could post in that thread with a link to the signups, or to the GM's profile to PM. That way people who want to play could follow a single thread, instead of the entire forum. It would help declutter notification inboxes. 

If we didn't want to have a 6th pinned topic in the forum, we could just post these in the General Rules topic.

Does anyone else think this would be a good idea?

[Elandera she/her]

12 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Related to that, I think it might be beneficial to have a notification / sign up thread. Every time a game started, or a Game Master needs a pinch hitter, one of the mods could post in that thread with a link to the signups, or to the GM's profile to PM. That way people who want to play could follow a single thread, instead of the entire forum. It would help declutter notification inboxes. 

If we didn't want to have a 6th pinned topic in the forum, we could just post these in the General Rules topic.

Does anyone else think this would be a good idea?

I think that's a great idea. We could also unpin the championships thread except for when it's needed, and create a new "Current Game Notifications" thread (or a more clever title than that nonsense).

[StrikerEZ he/him]

23 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Related to that, I think it might be beneficial to have a notification / sign up thread. Every time a game started, or a Game Master needs a pinch hitter, one of the mods could post in that thread with a link to the signups, or to the GM's profile to PM. That way people who want to play could follow a single thread, instead of the entire forum. It would help declutter notification inboxes. 

If we didn't want to have a 6th pinned topic in the forum, we could just post these in the General Rules topic.

Does anyone else think this would be a good idea?

 

9 minutes ago, Elandera said:

I think that's a great idea. We could also unpin the championships thread except for when it's needed, and create a new "Current Game Notifications" thread (or a more clever title than that nonsense).

I think these are great ideas. I don't think that name is nonsense, Elandera! I kinda like it.

[Elbereth she/her]

Status update on all the threads! 

• The Championships thread is hidden and unpinned when it's not currently in use (or should be; I'm not sure if that happened this past year but it is generally what we do), so that'll free up one slot. 
• Art of Game Creation is just fine, I think, and will stay as it is. 
• We're currently thinking of replacing this thread with a thread like the one discussed, to get rid of four years of clutter, and move most meta-relevant discussion to our Discord server, which is where the vast majority of it has been anyway. That would be a thread to announce game signups, request pinchhitters, and ask general questions. 
• General Rules is also getting a redo at some point, because it's... somewhat outdated.  That is slightly further down the road, because it needs a fairly significant rework, but will happen. 
• SEAcropolis is dead and sad and has been for a long time. Does anyone have thoughts on how to change that / what to do about that? Because I haven't got anything yet. 

Please be patient with the mods, as doing things is hard and we are busy. But feel free to comment on any of the above! 

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

1 minute ago, Elbereth said:

SEAcropolis is dead and sad and has been for a long time. Does anyone have thoughts on how to change that / what to do about that? Because I haven't got anything yet. 

Could hold a contest of some sort? people can send in fanworks in return for a Non-Sanderson pass? Otherwise I think it'll stay dead. The story meta has died.

[Straw he/him]

6 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

SEAcropolis is dead and sad and has been for a long time. Does anyone have thoughts on how to change that / what to do about that? Because I haven't got anything yet.  

Maybe do the same thing as you're doing with this thread? I don't see much point in keeping it if it's not getting used, unless there's any sudden interest.

1 hour ago, MysticLotus said:

Hi-o. This sounds really interesting, but I'm wondering how we would know when a new round opens.

I'm not sure if Joe mentioned it, but there's a MR42 spec doc as well. I think that if you ask Joe he'll give you a link.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Straw

[Gears]

Greetings. I am interested in this. Having skimmed the rules and past games, I believe I have an adequate understanding of the game. As there is not currently an open game, I am simply proclaiming my existence to the world at large. Please inform me when a new game begins.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

3 minutes ago, Gears said:

Greetings. I am interested in this. Having skimmed the rules and past games, I believe I have an adequate understanding of the game. As there is not currently an open game, I am simply proclaiming my existence to the world at large. Please inform me when a new game begins.

If you want to watch the game I’m currently running (LG66), you can PM me and I’ll send you a link to the spectator doc! Welcome to SE!

Edited June 10, 2020 by StrikerEZ

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

I'm interested in this, but I'm absolutely horrible at remembering rules and what contexts to use them for.  Is it possible to shadow someone who knows what they're doing to get a feel for the game?