Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[Steeldancer he/him]

Has there ever been a game where the GM seriously messed with all the players? 

[Elenion he/him]

28 minutes ago, Flash said:

Has there ever been a game where the GM seriously messed with all the players? 

Hmmm... yes, I'd say so. Read up on MR20 and see if you count Joe's moves as messing with the players.

[Haelbarde he/him]

I mean, during sign ups for my first game, I gave everyone a secret kill role, which let them kill someone before the game started, just to see what people did with it.

[Elbereth she/her]

(It should be clarified that that is normally a horrible idea and that everyone who died was resurrected in the first writeup. It was entertaining, though. )

Edited August 2, 2017 by Elbereth

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

3 minutes ago, Elenion said:

Hmmm... yes, I'd say so. Read up on MR20 and see if you count Joe's moves as messing with the players.

Honestly, read any of my games and see if I'm messing with people?

[Haelbarde he/him]

Yeah, as elbereth said, it didn't actually effect the game, and it made for an interesting dream sequence for the opening writeup.

And yes, read all Joe's games

[Seonid he/him]

I concur. If Joe is the GM,  players are getting messed with.  When you run a game where you can vote and lynch the GM and the mods, with in-game consequences, I think the threshold of troll GM has been passed. 

Of course,  his games are consistently fun.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

1 hour ago, Seonid said:

I concur. If Joe is the GM,  players are getting messed with.  When you run a game where you can vote and lynch the GM and the mods, with in-game consequences, I think the threshold of troll GM has been passed. 

Of course,  his games are consistently fun.

What about games in which you can place an action order to sue the GM 

[Elbereth she/her]

If you're referring to LG36, yes, but that didn't have ingame consequences.  Killing the GM and the mods in QF14 literally made everyone die and no one win because the people of Luthadel rioted and anarchy reigned. 

It was fun.  

[Seonid he/him]

2 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

If you're referring to LG36, yes, but that didn't have ingame consequences.  Killing the GM and the mods in QF14 literally made everyone die and no one win because the people of Luthadel rioted and anarchy reigned. 

It was fun.  

Yep. Even from the spec doc

Of course, then there was the recent Alcatraz QF, in which the GM was a marriageable character with a unique Smedry talent. That nobody figured out and so nobody took advantage of. But it was there and it was cool, and it would so totally not fly in other mafia forums and I love SE for it!

[Amanuensis he/him]

3 hours ago, Elbereth said:

 

If you're referring to LG36, yes, but that didn't have ingame consequences.  Killing the GM and the mods in QF14 literally made everyone die and no one win because the people of Luthadel rioted and anarchy reigned. 

I wonder how that happened...

[Steeldancer he/him]

17 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Honestly, read any of my games and see if I'm messing with people?

HAHAHAHA QF14 OH I LAUGHED SO HARD!

You have inspired me... I now have some very fun ideas. 

[Amanuensis he/him]

A while ago I was asked to give me thoughts on this discussion about competition and never got around to it, so I'll offer my perspective now that I've got some time.

Personally I don't believe there is anything inherently wrong with playing these games to win. I may be biased since my biggest motivation is victory nine-games-out-of-ten, but that's besides the point. The issue I feel is when decisions are made without first considering how your words and actions could effect others. My philosophy on this has a lot to do with my general philosophy about life. I believe that all conflict in the world can be broken down to a person being unwilling to accommodate another in some way; in putting their own interests above anyone and anything else's.

I used to have a lot of trouble with this starting off. A great example of this is a situation involving Orlok and myself in LG23: The Siege of Luthadel. In that game, on the second day, I felt I was being unfairly targeted because I was accumulating votes for no other reason than people considering me a threat. Several players had it in their heads that if I was kept alive, their factions would lose, and thus allied together to get me killed. I reacted very negatively to this because (it being my first faction game) I think it's ridiculous to lynch a villager out of paranoia alone. That and I was genuinely trying to make sure that every faction worked together to eliminate the true threat (the eliminators). As a result, I decided to lie about Seeking my biggest suspicion, Orlok, and finding that he was Spiked, only to save my own skin without ever considering how that would make him feel, especially since it turned out I was wrong.

Having seen his reaction in the dead doc after my eventual lynch, I realized the error of my ways. I put my survival over the fun of another player, and that was wrong, even if the reasoning for people voting for me were wrong, too.

Had people put themselves in my shoes, or if I had put myself in Orlok's, I believe that game would have been a lot more fun for everyone. In the end, I think that no matter what reason people play these games for, so long as they don't dismiss others and try to empathize with their perspective, we can all have a great time. This aligns perfectly with the concept of not forcing others to play the way you want. I understand how it can be frustrating when someone on your team isn't playing optimally, but I've come to find that something like that can easily be worked around. Rather than antagonize, just try to start a conversation with them. Figure out what they're thinking first before you make any judgments, and even if you come to the conclusion that they are evil, treat them with respect (this applies to any situation when you're pushing someones lynch, too). And more importantly then not participating in arguments yourself, don't sit on the sides lines and say nothing if you see one developing. I think as long as everyone follows this advice, it doesn't matter what your goal is with playing these games.

Be altruistic, always, not just in these games, but in real life too. It honestly couldn't be any simpler.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Amanuensis

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

On 05/08/2017 at 7:01 PM, Amanuensis said:

I understand how it can be frustrating when someone on your team isn't playing optimally,

*cough, LG28 :), shoutout to the elims I didn't end up killing.

[Arinian]

6 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

*cough, LG28 :), shoutout to the elims I didn't end up killing.

I almost decided to kill you 

[Steeldancer he/him]

Hey I'm curious when the AG runs. Is it at the end of the year?

[little wilson she/her]

Just now, Flash said:

Hey I'm curious when the AG runs. Is it at the end of the year?

The AG starts end December/beginning of January.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

On 07/08/2017 at 11:58 PM, little wilson said:

The AG starts end December/beginning of January.

maybe this time I'll be around to play it!

[Sami she/her]

How do GMs pick roles and alignment for the players at the beginning of the game? 

Edited August 10, 2017 by Sami

[Stick. she/her]

27 minutes ago, Sami said:

How do GMs pick roles and alignment for the players at the beginning of the game? 

I've never GMed, but sometimes they use an RNG or they handpick them. Or they do both. Use an rng and then make adjustments if needed

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, Sami said:

How do GMs pick roles and alignment for the players at the beginning of the game? 

I think every GM has their own method, but I usually make a list of the roles in the game, randomize it 10+ times, put them all next to the player list, and then select the one I think is the most balanced / interesting. As Stick's said, it's not uncommon for us to make a couple minor adjustments, given the fact that RNG doesn't account for who the player's are.

For an example, see the below image.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Amanuensis

[Elbereth she/her]

10 hours ago, Sami said:

How do GMs pick roles and alignment for the players at the beginning of the game? 

For me it varies per game. QF25, for instance? Orlok had to be evil because he knew the twist in the game, and Stink was handpicked. For a small team like that, synergy is really important. But roles were done by RNG - I figured out which and how many I wanted and then rolled to see which players had them. 

LG26 was also done essentially by hand - Nyali made about twenty test distributions, and then I took the last and switched a lot around to make it's as balanced as I could. 

LG21 was in the middle: it was RNG except a few select roles that had to be active for the game to work properly. Those three or so were chosen from a shortlist of players Seonid and I trusted to be active.

But LG25 was a few RNGs for the evil team and I picked the one I liked. LG33 was the same. For normal games, that's the practice I'd recommend: RNG a few times and pick the best of them. It's just for the non-standard games that you have to be more careful. 

Edited August 10, 2017 by Elbereth

[Elenion he/him]

17 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

I think every GM has their own method, but I usually make a list of the roles in the game, randomize it 10+ times, put them all next to the player list, and then select the one I think is the most balanced / interesting. As Stick's said, it's not uncommon for us to make a couple minor adjustments, given the fact that RNG doesn't account for who the player's are.

For an example, see the below image.

Is it me or are none of those the distro that ended up getting used? Because I ended up with Arbok and Bard got Dragonair.

[Amanuensis he/him]

4 hours ago, Elenion said:

Is it me or are none of those the distro that ended up getting used? Because I ended up with Arbok and Bard got Dragonair.

I made some adjustments. For example, I decided to put 2 of each "special" Pokemon in. I believe #1 was the distro I went with, just used another RNG to determine who of the starters got them.

EDIT: Ecth was supposed to be Bulbasaur, Bard Squirtle and Bugsy Charmander. With Mage as an Extra, they got Metapod, Dragonair, Kadabra and Arbok, respectively.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Amanuensis

[King Cole he/him]

When is the next game? I really wanted to get into the previous QF game but I went on a week long trip with no internet