Seonid

Well, we just got notice that we have to move out of our apartment by the end of the month. So I need to find a new place to live, a job to pay for it, and GM MR24. I'm really sorry about this, because I really wanted to play this one. But I think I'm out. That's the bad news. Good news is that there's an even number of players now

Just got a random eviction notice. Well, not quite an eviction notice. But a notice that we are required to vacate before the end of the month. Because our apartment complex got sold to a new owner who wants to make renovations, and then rent out the apartments for double the price or something. We're 3 months into our year-long lease - we thought we'd have until the end of it before they kicked us out. But apparently not. They're offering to let the affected folks move into other vacant units in the complex, but I don't think there's enough for everyone, and I sure as heck don't want to deal with the same thing again in a few months when they decide to renovate the building we move to. Add to that the fact that I still don't have a job. It wasn't a good day today...

I've decided to start posting my creative work here again. Currently, my efforts have been mostly focused around the Starnet setting (you might notice that I jump back and forth between settings as my attention gets pulled elsewhere!). I'm in the process of formalizing and setting down all of the setting information, so that I can start writing an actual novel in the setting. This is big for me, because I haven't actually written non-worldbuilding efforts in a long time. So I'm quite excited about this. Today's update (linked just in case somebody's too lazy to scroll up to find it, and also because visitors might not know what's new and what's not) is a general overview of the setting and what makes it special, and the beginnings of a historical introduction, covering the prehistory of the setting. Stuff is portrayed as it would be in-world, so things that scholars in the Starnet don't know, the article doesn't know. I as the author might know, and if you're really curious, I might even tell you Tomorrow, look for more updates to the history of the Starnet, and how the dozens of refugee colonies ended up forming the Second Empire! And, as always, if you have questions about anything (including about how anything I wrote in the cosmological information posts relates to the setting), feel free to ask! I love answering them. If I get any interest, I may post samples or works in progress of the story I want to tell to the Shard. We'll see how that goes.

Well, this was a fun game. I really enjoyed running it, and I hope y'all enjoyed playing it. But the time has come and gone to close this thread up. And in doing so, I'll offer a few parting thoughts. My apologies to @Metacognition that I never finished the death RP of your character. But in a sense, it's fitting. The game that ends with the lynch of the mute also ends with a mute RP. I'll take it. Life gets busy sometimes, and RP can be elusive. And I'll try to do better in the future at getting those writeups out. Well played to the village! And well played to the Eliminators, who got it down to a single, decisive day vote. Better luck next time! If anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, please get a hold of Wilson, Orlok Tsubodai, Alvron or myself. Not only will we get you added to the list, but we'd also be more than willing to help out in any way we can. 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! If you would like to play, LG37: Coyote Stories is open for sign ups but will be closing soon so sign up and start killing your fellow Sharders.Thanks again to everyone that played and we look forward to killing seeing you in future games!

I did the same thing. Started at around 9 pm and didn't stop until 6 am. I'm too old for that...

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!

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.

Alright, time for a retrospective. First of all, thanks for playing! I enjoyed this game quite a bit, and I hope that - for the most part - you did too. For all except the last cycle of the game, I felt like there were meaningful decisions to be made. So that's a good thing. And now for the first big section of my commentary: Broken Mechanics and Other Issues: First, let's talk faction distribution. There were 15 Alethi and 8 Parshendi. In theory, that should be reasonably equal. 8 players is a large enough voting block to have significant influence on the lynch unless the Alethi make a unanimous, concerted effort to overcome it. In terms of lives, the Alethi have 15 plus protection roles (3 Guardsmen, 2 Highprinces, and 2 Shardplate) and the Parshendi in theory had 19 lives. Although the Alethi had extra protection, this was supposed to be balanced out by a lack of good information on how best to use it, so at least some of the protections should not get triggered. In contrast, the Parshendi can use warform to make sure that every single one of their key roles is prevented from dying until all the Parshendi are dead. My largest concern in this game, balance wise, was the possibility of an anti-peace Parshendi-Voidbringer alliance from D1. With Warform protects/redirects, it could take up to 3 rounds of lynching before the first voidbringer died, assuming all kills got pushed off onto unaligned Parshendi ablative armor. And with 3 kills per round, that's a lot of power to be throwing around. 3 Voidbringers was the reason I added a Highprince to the SoH team. The less-reliable but still useful backup kill, plus the powerful protect ability and the second life, was supposed to balance out the 3 kills/round. Now obviously, in my worry about balancing the optimal Voidbringer situation, I made some errors that are particularly glaring in hindsight. Foremost among these is the fact that, even with a unique faction doc, the Parshendi were unlikely to find the exact set of defenses in order to maximize the use of their extra lives (I'll refrain from using the word optimal here, because that has turned out to reference an ongoing meta discussion to which I do not intend to refer at the moment. It gets its place later in the retrospective). In fact, 2 Voidbringers died with extra lives remaining - one without having used up any of them. A side effect of tying the extra lives to the forms that I didn't fully think through before game start. This edit would have needed to happen regardless of the game state. This rule will show back up when I rerun this game in 6 months or a year. Hence the first of my 2 mid-game edits. The second faction distribution issue was this: I failed to notice that the Parshendi could easily end up as a ganged-up-on minority who lacked the ability to respond in kind. In this game, that possibility was realized. Two Voidbringers died early, leaving the Parshendi nearly completely at the mercy of the Alethi. In addition, the most vocal and influential of the unaligned Alethi were quite publicly on the side of the Sons of Honor, and had been from the beginning. That created a situation where the Parshendi faction's ability to have fun was significantly compromised, hence the second of my mid-game edits. This edit was not an edit forced on me by imbalances in the rules - a different game state might have meant that the situation it dealt with didn't come up. But, it is still a failure mode of the rules, and I will probably give the Parshendi a Shardbearer in the rerun. Other, less serious, issues in the faction distribution included: 1. The fact that the Sons of Honor's kill ability was tied to a single role - the shardwielder. This will probably be rectified in a rerun by giving the Sons of Honor a faction kill or by making Shardblades transferrable between players, so a Shardblade never leaves play. It is worth noting that this really didn't come into play - the Sons lost their Shardblader late in the game, and at a point where public opinion had turned against them. Keeping their kill would not likely have significantly altered the final game state. But, had the lynch hit Striker early in the game and the SoH lost their kill, I would have made a different set of balance adjustments, likely making the Shardblade transferable between members of the faction. 2. The small size and inexperience of the Ghostblood faction. The inexperience I blame entirely on the RNG. I did no adjustments anywhere to the random results this game - a departure from my standard practice, in which I treat the RNG as sort of a starting point, and make edits from there towards a game state I think will be fun to play. The small size was also a problem. I was trying to go for a serial killer vibe with the faction, but it didn't turn out well. Next time, I think the Ghostblood faction will be a single serial killer, with a Shardblade and Shardplate, or something like that. Now on to role issues. The most significant broken piece of the game was the Highprince. Especially the fact that there were two of them. Mutual protects that kill the attacker is a thing that should not have been allowed to happen. But I didn't catch it in time. So the Ghostbloods killed themselves on the blades of a Highprince protection gauntlet. There's an easy fix to it, luckily. In fact, there's a number of easy fixes. The one I'm going with for the rerun is this: the Highprince does not block the attack. They only strike back at the attacker. However, they can self-protect in compensation. That plus the Shardplate will still make them a powerful role, but they won't be overpowered like they were here. The other broken roles were the scanners. With public factions the way they were, there was a 50/50 chance for any given Alethi artifabrian to catch a Voidbringer or the Ghostblood. And with 2 scanners that detect both role and faction, it was only a very limited time before everything was known. Similarly, once the Parshendi all shifted into scholarform, it was only a matter of time before they found all of the Alethi roles and factions. I don't know for sure yet what I want to do about that, but I'm thinking of changing the Artifabrian to scanning role/form only, but not alignment. If they caught a Voidbringer in Decayform, they have essentially successfully caught the Voidbringer anyways. And maybe change the Parshendi scholarform to the PM role and make nimbleform an Action Scanner role instead. I think that that would tone down the ridiculous levels of scanning we saw in this game while still leaving the scanning roles/forms enough utility to be useful. And now the last section of this retrospective, and possibly the most contentious. Faction play. I intended for the unaligned party win conditions to be a choice, with advantages and disadvantages on either side, with no clear dominant strategy. As evidenced by the conclusions of most of the players in the game, I failed at that. The unaligned who wanted a peace treaty victory chose it because of aesthetic preferences or because they thought it would be more fun. Anybody who seriously considered the matter came to the conclusion that the easiest way to complete their win con was to align with the secret faction among their own ranks. I don't want to drag this thread into a discussion on what ought to have been done, and whether a player ought to always take the easiest road to their win condition or not. That's a better conversation to have in the Meta Discussion thread. But I'll comment briefly on how the evolving meta discussion (often quite heated) affected this game, because it was significant. Mostly, this showed up in the form of the assertion that, because the joint unaligned victory was more difficult, it therefore wasn't worth going for. Frequent use of terms like "optimal play" and the like gave a sense of superiority to the argument. I didn't mind players choosing the secret faction win con over the joint win con. The point of the game was that both should be available as choices. I didn't mind the debate about which path to follow - that's an important piece of the game. I did have strong issues with the implication - whether intended or not - that players who wanted to go for the joint unaligned win condition were somehow inferior players, or were playing poorly, or that the choice of the joint win somehow showed a deficiency of intelligence or skill, as if any sane and rational player looking at the game would automatically come to the conclusion that the faction as a whole ought to pick the secret faction win condition. Whether conveying that message was intended by the proponents of the argument or not, it was what was I picked up. I can't do much about the larger meta argument other than lodge my protests, but I can tweak things in the future so that the choice doesn't feel so one-sided. A future rerun of this game will feature the Highprince as a role that can only win with the joint unaligned win condition. The Parshendi will have a Shardbearer role that can likewise only win that way. In addition, the Parshendi will have a unique role that can change into any of the normal Parshendi forms, but has a role + alignment scan ability that can be used instead of the form action. This unique Parshendi role (placeholder name: Ambassador, not to be confused with the Alethi Ambassador vote manip role). would also only be able to win with the unaligned faction joint win. I might make them immune to the lynch, but that might be a little bit much. We'll see how things shake out. For either secret faction to win, all of the "can only win with the joint Parshendi/Alethi victory condition" players would have to be killed as well. This would make the Sons of Honor need to target at least one and possibly more Alethi players to meet their win condition. And likewise, the Voidbringers have at least one Parshendi and possibly more that they have to kill. Anyways, this concludes my retrospective on this game. Thanks for playing it, and I hope to see all y'all around in future games I GM.

Welcome to the game! I'll sign up as Najar Wyst

@little wilson Yitzi did bring up the lack of robustness in a PM with me shortly after I made the adjustments. I told him that I had accounted for it by giving a highprince and a guardsman to protect against other faction kills, and an ambassador to influence the lynch. My retrospective is coming, but I wanted to clarify things before this conversation gets even more heated than it currently is.

Aftermath: Peace Talks The death of Rif sparked a short, swift struggle among the survivors on the plateau. Petyr lunged for the last member of the fanatic cult that had dedicated itself to the destruction of the peace talks, but Kreshela's Shardblade swung up to interpose between them. Only Anya's last-second dive between them saved Petyr's eyes from flashing to smoke. As Petyr and Kreshela began to match blades against each other, Dalinar strode in, his massive Shardplate fully intact, and forcibly pushed the two of them apart. "Stop it! Stop this!" His booming voice echoed across the plateau. For a brief moment, everything stood still. Then, almost reluctantly, Petyr and Kreshela dismissed their blades. The skirmish sputtered out, as Alethi ambassadors and Parshendi scholarforms dropped their improvised weapons. Eshonai walked forward, and Dalinar stepped aside. Behind him, the body of the last Son of Honor cooled, slain in the fighting despite Kreshela's protection. Eshonai's voice thrummed to the Rhythm of Resolve. "Are there any else that oppose peace?" The silence was deafening. Dalinar stood next to her. "Then shall we proceed with the negotiations?" ------------------------------------- TBD (A Joe in the Bush) was lynched. He was a Son of Honor Ambassador! Anya (Daniyah) was attacked and killed. She was a Parshendi Warform! Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked but survived. Vote Count: A Joe in the Bush (6): Sami, Sart, Elbereth, Daniyah, Frozen Mint, Alvron Alvron (3): _Stick_, A Joe in the Bush, Drake Marshall The game is over! The Alethi and Parshendi have won! Thank you everyone for playing, and this time you can actually look forward to a retrospective from me. Alethi Player List: Straw @Straw Alethi Guardsman Stick @_Stick_ Alethi Ambassador Samar @Sami Alethi Guardsman Unnamed Character 4 @Sart Alethi Ambassador Kreshela @Elbereth Alethi Highprince Parshendi Player List: Kyner @Drake Marshall Parshendi Warform Mint @Frozen Mint Parshendi Scholarform Petyr and Cranium @Alvron Parshendi Scholarform Shardbearer The Dead Plato Anderson (Elenion). Voidbringer Decayform Arbol (Roadwalker). Voidbringer Decayform Locke (OrlokTsubodai). Alethi Artifabrian Aredor (asterion137). Alethi Artifabrian Raaman (Hemalurgic Headshot). Alethi Guardsman Zephyras (Megasif) Ghostblood Ambassador Kintas (Jondesu) Ghostblood Parshendi Warform Unnamed Character 5 (Crimsn-Wolf) Ghostblood Shardbearer (Plate) Unnamed Character 1 (BrightnessRadiant) Son of Honor Highprince Max Mercury (The Flash) Alethi Shardbearer (Plate) Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade) Corinoc (cloudjumper). Voidbringer Stormform Rif (Yitzi2) Son of Honor Guardsman Anya (Daniyah) Parshendi Warform TBD (A Joe in the Bush) Son of Honor Ambassador Doc Links: Dead Doc Parshendi Doc Voidbringer Doc Sons of Honor Doc Ghostbloods Doc

Cycle is over!

Day 9: Aggressive Negotiations Writeup will come later. Probably. I hope. ------------------------------------- Day 9 has begun! Due to other engagements, the next rollover will be postponed by a couple of hours. Also, an important note: I will end the game as soon as the victory conditions of one faction or alliance of factions becomes inevitable. Corinoc (cloudjumper) was lynched. He was a Voidbringer Stormform! Rif (Yitzi2) was attacked and killed. He was a Son of Honor Guardsman! Vote Count: Cloudjumper (9): Straw, _Stick_, Sami, A Joe in the Bush, Yitzi2, Drake Marshall, Daniyah, Cloudjumper, Alvron, Alethi Player List: Straw @Straw Stick @_Stick_ Samar @Sami TBD @A Joe in the Bush Unnamed Character 4 @Sart Kreshela @Elbereth Parshendi Player List: Kyner @Drake Marshall Anya @Daniyah Mint @Frozen Mint Petyr and Cranium @Alvron The Dead Plato Anderson (Elenion). Voidbringer Decayform Arbol (Roadwalker). Voidbringer Decayform Locke (OrlokTsubodai). Alethi Artifabrian Aredor (asterion137). Alethi Artifabrian Raaman (Hemalurgic Headshot). Alethi Guardsman Zephyras (Megasif) Ghostblood Ambassador Kintas (Jondesu) Ghostblood Parshendi Warform Unnamed Character 5 (Crimsn-Wolf) Ghostblood Shardbearer (Plate) Unnamed Character 1 (BrightnessRadiant) Son of Honor Highprince Max Mercury (The Flash) Alethi Shardbearer (Plate) Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade) Corinoc (cloudjumper). Voidbringer Stormform Rif (Yitzi2) Son of Honor Guardsman

Cycle ended an hour and a half ago! Sorry I missed it. For some reason, I thought it was tomorrow. Writeup to come soon-ish.

Just noting that the confusion could be just as easily resolved by giving Alean a nickname that she goes by most of the time she's mentioned. However, unlike other Sanderson worlds, the cultures in this one are not nearly as well fleshed out, and so things like naming practices can be easily altered.

I was about to register my surprise - I thought this had largely been abandoned. It was fun while it lasted, though.

I'll take a spec doc link.

At the moment, we have a mid range game coming to a close - it should be over by the end of the week. I'd guess signups for the next game will go up either over the weekend or early next week. We should also have a long game coming up soon, I think. I'd have to check. EDIT: ninja'ed by Orlok

Day 8: The Duel Ethelinar stalked the plateau, scowling. Dalinar was a fool. Peace with the Parshendi was unacceptable. How were the Heralds to return and restore the Vorin Church to its rightful place if the Parshendi did not summon a new Desolation? With a curse, he turned and walked towards the center of the plateau. There, he saw the Parshendi Shardbearer. There were rumors in the camp that the Shardbearer had murdered Max Mercury and Zephyras. This was an affront that could not be allowed. He counted his heartbeats as he summoned his Blade. He would see that travesty brought to justice. And by doing so, Dalinar would surely see that peace could not be maintained. His Blade coalesced in his hands, dripping condensation. He pointed it at the Parshendi across the plateau. "You! You murderer! I challenge you to a duel, to avenge the deaths of my people!" Dalinar rushed over to intervene, but was stopped by the Parshendi leader. She whispered something in his ear, and Dalinar was still again. Was the man bewitched? Dalinar raised his voice. "The challenge has been issued and accepted. The duel is to the death. May the warriors fight with honor." Ethelinar smiled a feral smile, and charged. The Shardblades shivered as they clashed, the massive swords ringing across the plateau as the warriors fought. The Parshendi parried, and parried, and parried again. Ethelinar growled. This close, he could see large rents in the Shardplate, where the red and black colored skin showed through. Smiling, he pushed even further for the kill, only to be parried again. He let out a howl of frustration. Why wouldn't the savage just lie down and die! Suddenly, from the watching crowd of Parshendi came a cry of rage. "You traitor!" A hulking Parshendi stepped forward, fearsomely armored and with red spren dancing around him. Ethelinar knew him - Corinoc. He'd tried to kill him before, but the massive savage had survived somehow. "You betray our whole people for what? A piece of paper that says there is peace? There is power enough to wipe these miserable humans off the face of Roshar. Feel it now!" Red lightning danced at his fingertips, and blasted towards the Parshendi Shardbearer. Ethelinar laughed. After this, it would be simple to convince the rest of the Alethi, even Dalinar, that the savages couldn't be trusted. But a smaller Parshendi jumped in front of the lightning at the last minute, rolling away singed and burned. He couldn't tell if she was dead or alive. The blast still knocked the Parshendi Shardbearer off of his feet, and Ethelinar moved in for the kill. Out of nowhere, a Shardblade materialized to block his stroke. "You would strike your opponent when they are downed by treachery? Where is your honor, sir?" With a grunt of rage, he shoved the wielder out of his way, only to find his opponent on his feet again. He shouted to the heavens. "By the Almighty and all the Heralds, why won't you die!" He charged forward, only to be forced back by a flurry of quick blows. He parried them with blinding speed, wishing once again that he had also won Shardplate in the duel that had gotten him his Blade. As he parried yet another powerful blow, his foot hit a rock at the edge of the chasm. He looked down to see that he was standing at the edge of the plateau and the blow he had turned aside had carved off the piece of stone he was standing on. Suddenly he was tumbling down. His head struck the chasm wall, and he never saw the ground. ------------------------------------- Day 8 has begun! Corinoc (cloudjumper) was lynched but survived. Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) was attacked twice and killed. He was a Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade)! Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked but survived! Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked with a Stormform attack from Corinoc, but survived! Vote Count: StrikerEZ (3): Drake Marshall, Cloudjumper, Alvron Cloudjumper (7): Straw, StrikerEZ, _Stick_, A Joe in the Bush, Yitzi2, Sart, Frozen Mint Alethi Player List: Straw @Straw Stick @_Stick_ Samar @Sami TBD @A Joe in the Bush Rif @Yitzi2 Unnamed Character 4 @Sart Kreshela @Elbereth Parshendi Player List: Kyner @Drake Marshall Anya @Daniyah Mint @Frozen Mint Corinoc @cloudjumper Petyr and Cranium @Alvron The Dead Plato Anderson (Elenion). Voidbringer Decayform Arbol (Roadwalker). Voidbringer Decayform Locke (OrlokTsubodai). Alethi Artifabrian Aredor (asterion137). Alethi Artifabrian Raaman (Hemalurgic Headshot). Alethi Guardsman Zephyras (Megasif) Ghostblood Ambassador Kintas (Jondesu) Ghostblood Parshendi Warform Unnamed Character 5 (Crimsn-Wolf) Ghostblood Shardbearer (Plate) Unnamed Character 1 (BrightnessRadiant) Son of Honor Highprince Max Mercury (The Flash) Alethi Shardbearer (Plate) Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade)

Cycle is closed!

BrightnessRadiant wrote a death RP for her character that she graciously offered for use in the writeup. I have edited it in, and you should all go find one of her posts and upvote it.

Yeah - I shouldn't have signed up for this game. I didn't have the time or energy to devote to it, and the village suffered because of it. Not that I was alone in this, but well...I can only take responsibility for my own actions. Sorry for trying to stand up against a Joe lynch, @little wilson. Not knowing anything about how the game had gone, it really did look like a dire situation for the village, and the neutrals looked like they were coming in and trying to blackmail the village into meeting their win cons. And I reacted as badly to that as your neutral team did to other potential blackmail. I just didn't have the time and energy to follow up and make it worthwhile. Again, my bad.

Sigh. I probably did. I hate the color palette we've been given with the new software. Makes it so difficult to catch the votes sometimes. Could have sworn i caught yours, though. At least it didn't change the lynch. Maybe I ought to start asking for bright red votes only?

I am confirming that the 3 votes you indicate are in the places they should be.

This time, I'm pretty confident in my vote tally.