Kasimir

In the interests of fairness, I've made this clarification to one player and will share it publicly: While the tiebreaker is RP dependent, and I don't want to over-articulate my criteria because I don't want players actively seeking to game me, that's not the point of a reworked Nightwatcher mechanic, I will note that players generally seem to think I overcredit serious/dramatic/fancy RP and undercredit RP that's just...funny, even if it's not going to be winning any fancy awards. I'll just say this would be a very bad assumption to make and leave it at that

Edited to add: K that settles it. I'm declaring kanly on anyone who ruins my quiet, RPful game.

Tenth of the Dusk is happy and retired, thank you Well I mean unhappy and retired but given someone ( @Fifth Scholar) murdered his bird, there's only so much he can do. Not saying I'm opposed to cameos but I really don't feel the obsessive need to link all my characters up and it's also pretty nice to work on someone new ...Anyway I'm signing up for a Shard game for a quiet RPful game so I'm not even bothering to read the rules, lemme know if there's no Elims or something and then I'll just recalibrate from there

Pre-emptive rule clarification here made publicly given the centrality of SP to one of the mechanics in this game: This post counts as 191 words. 151 if I discount the last section, which I won't in this case, given it's an IC RP post, and it's irrelevant here anyway. I don't count text in quotes as those aren't yours. If you have a single line of RP over a huge bloc of ingame text done OOC, I won't count the ingame text as the RP section should break the limit on its own, but you are free to do the RP then text format. To repeat, for the avoidance of ambiguity: I don't count quotes no matter what. These are not your words so I can't give you credit for them. If you are doing a IC RP post on game-relevant matter (see Archer), I count the whole thing, and I'm fine giving grace to the end there. If you are doing a RP post with OOC text later on, then I count only the RP section. You are free to ask me in your GM PM where you are on SP and I will tell you. Edited to add: I can neither confirm nor deny that this game is a social experiment with five different Elim teams all thinking they're the only team in the game.

Yes, and yes. I won't give you an official votecount while the cycle is ongoing for obvious reasons, but at rollover, you will know what the VC was and who voted where. Basically think of how QF59 ran it. Here for reference, if you need to see how this panned out in practice:

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Hour One: Fade Water trickled through the clock. The ancestors used light once, Gaovaris knew. They were ingenious, those ancestors. Before water, they’d turned to light, the way all the Empire now embraced the life-giving light of the eighty radiant suns. Saiman, beloved scholar of Enkidan province had written as much in A Treatise on Light: Ancient Methods of Timekeeping. It had been cited by those as renowned as Master Zhuge himself, in various contexts. They’d never written about the turn to water, though. You could guess why, though. Light was unreliable, and in the dark hours where the eighty suns retreated below the earth to fight the forces of darkness, the night reigned supreme. You needed a way to tell the time even then. Or you could say: doing so allowed government to function, even late into the night. Water trickling through the clock. A strange way to measure what might be the last day of their lives. An ambassador murdered. Vengeance threatened. Always vengeance. It was the honourable thing to do, as the Revered Master himself had written in his Annalects. There were things you had to do; ritual propriety. The ambassador’s death was a desecration. That needed righting. He knew all that, and still he played his cards. He knew about Imperial lidan–it was an old fascination to have hit the Imperial Seat. A Southern import, as far as Gaovaris knew, but everyone’d taken to it, and soon enough, an Imperial version had emerged. Years and years ago. He played six twos: swords, flowers, cups. The artwork on the card was quite good: a glazed celadon wine cup, the sort you lost many an evening in, while contemplating the writings of the ancestors. “Six at once?” Randen asked, eying the faded backs of Gaovaris’s hand as though his eyes could pierce them. “Are you sure?” Gaovaris gave him a bland stare. “In the Art of War, Sahazi writes about the need to act decisively when conditions are favourable. They seem so, do they not?” Water trickled through the clock. Jiang Zhangrong was not going to do something so crass as to admit it out loud, but they were particularly stressed by this sudden, unaccustomed burden. They would do what they could. They would do what they must. Duty, as General Hengkai had said, before he’d died defending the Mulla’dil border from Dzhamar all those centuries ago, was heavier than a mountain. Death was lighter than a feather. You knew this, and still, you could feel the weight come crashing down on you. Soldiers you’d diced with. Laughed with. Broken bread with. You maintained a distance, of course. Regulations were strict about the need to, and the way a proper officer comported themselves. You did all that, and still, the thought of treachery. It made you sick to your stomach. Knowing that you would have to produce the traitor. Or else. Or else. So many scholars, Jiang thought, and allowed themselves to judge. Maybe some sedition came naturally, to those who favoured the ink brush over the sword. So very many scholars. Still, you couldn’t cry over spilled wine. You had to make the best of the cards you were dealt. Jiang had been given a task. They intended to die discharging it, if they must (preferably not, but sometimes, you never knew; sometimes the eighty suns were unkind. It was said, after all, that shadows, too, were the province of light.) They pivoted sharply on their heels and began shouting out orders to the soldiers to conduct the search as thoroughly as they could. Water trickled through the clock. Time never stopped, no matter how pressed for it you were. The eighty glorious suns never stopped, one day after the next, in their relentless passage through the world they guarded with their light. The Captain was expecting results. Water trickled through the clock. Captain Kezin scowled ferociously as the bound and blindfolded man was shoved at his boots by a crowd of soldiers. “Have you determined he was the traitor?” he asked, aloud. There was no sign of his lieutenant. You could take that two ways. Kezin made up his mind about how he wanted to read that absence. “Captain, we found him loitering about the compound’s back gate,” one of the soldiers said, nervously. “Lieutenant Jiang said to take him to you.” “Let’s see what he has to say, then,” Kezin said. He unwound the blindfold. He thought he recognised the man, and he was right. He saw his lieutenant come stalking into the compound square at the head of another squad of searchers, their face shadowed in the wavering light of the torches, and waved them over. “So tell me,” Kezin said, mildly. “You didn’t gag this man. He wasn’t screaming or protesting his innocence. I suppose you took that as a sign of guilt?” “He said he was watching for anyone who was trying to leave,” another soldier said. Kezin peered at her. He thought he remembered her. Prevented an assassin from striking at one of the younger Arbiters of the Discovery Faction while she was drinking tea in the Frozen Moon. That sort of detail always commended a soldier to him. “He couldn’t prove he had orders, though.” “He was clearly traitorous scum,” protested the first. “Captain, he was armed. With these.” A third soldier came forward, with a wrapped bundle of rough cloth. He tugged it open, enough for Kezin to see a sheathed sword, and a dizzying array of knives. The captive looked at Kezin. Kezin hated the bastard. Always had. Had to make Kezin’s life more difficult, and he knew it. The scar just below his left eye felt warm again. Memories of that man’s blade splitting skin as they fought. He said, with glacial impassiveness, “I’ve ordered the compound locked down. The last thing we need is for the killer to evade the searchers and leave. If I did not order you to do it, I clearly had to order someone to do it.” Well, he had. He just hadn’t ordered Fade to guard the secret exit. No one ordered Fade to do anything, or if anyone did, that was above Kezin’s paygrade. Fade said, perhaps taking pity on Kezin. “I have my orders. And I have evidence of them.” “He lies,” the first soldier said, uneasily. Kezin made note of that. A tendency to dig in when confronted was a weakness. Kezin pulled out a knife and slashed through the rough cord binding Fade’s hands behind his back. Fade said, “Thank you, Captain.” “Shut up,” Kezin said. “And don’t make it my problem again.” Fade reached into his cloak, and pulled out a single silk pouch. Kezin cursed. He hadn’t even noticed the lift. But he couldn’t have just done it, could he? His hands had been bound. He wanted to examine the cords, now. Perhaps they hadn’t been tied all that tightly. He hefted it. “Your signet, Captain.” Grinding his teeth together, Kezin accepted it back, pocketed it. “Dismissed,” he snapped. The soldiers gaped. The insistent one was blanching, now, realising he’d apprehended someone on the Captain’s orders, and probably a Discovery asset. I wish, Kezin thought, darkly. He swung. A sharp, underhand throw. The knife buried itself in the dirt and the soldier jumped back. The next time, Kezin promised himself, he was not going to aim to miss. Bloody stupid gesture. He’d liked that knife, but he was furious. Hated Fade’s stupid games. “Get moving!” Kezin shouted, his voice harsh. Not just at that man, at all of them, gathered in the square. “Every hour, the killer eludes us! The Senior Arbiter wants whoever it is found before dawn!” Fade / @Araris Valerian was executed but survived! Hour One has begun! It will end at 0000hrs on Wednesday, 24th May 2023, at 0000hrs SGT (GMT +8). Role PMs have been sent. If you have not received your role PM, please let me know. (But please do scroll down and check your inbox first.) Please remember that PMs are open but are only one-on-one. Please include me and Araris in all PMs. Finally, please also be reminded to desist from posting in the thread until I can reserve the next post. I will always do so in order to collect both the current player list and the most recent set of rule clarifications for easy access.

Sign-ups closed ten minutes ago but I was trying a failed speedrun >> Preparing for rollover. Stand by for PMs.

GM Announcement: Sign-ups will close half an hour from now. This gives me time to get every last duck lined up for kick-off.

Well, then I'm not doing anything other than being extremely dead and frustrated, so that checks out. How convenient for everyone! Alpha had Silver Dust. It's on the spreadsheet. Turns out that when RNGesus supports you and when you're a Thief who actually submits actions, you can get things like immunity to Wrath of Shades. Who knew? Most curious indeed.

Honestly I've not bothered to read the rules or I probably have and my brain has just died in the process and anyway the best way to play is complete dgaf YOLO right? Scraps/fragments of a torn letter: So many people seemed to want unlimited, Shardic power. Evgeny Karamazov didn't. There was joy enough in the research, he supposed. Reasons enough to keep working with the 17th Shard, when those like Hoid seemed to thrive on the idea of collecting Investment the way you collected stamps or coins or fountain pens. But the more Evgeny learned, the more he felt a sense of...disquiet. He didn't particularly crave power. It was the thrill of learning, the joy of discovery that did it for him. And so very many people seemed to seek immortality or power, with no thought for the fundamental brokenness that seemed to come with the human condition. What, precisely, was the point of all this, if you couldn't fix the cracks in the human heart? It didn't matter. The Shards were moving. And so were the 17th. Even if Evgeny had misgivings about all of this. Picked a character. Evgeny Karamazov, the only sane researcher of the 17th Shard beginning to question the decisions everyone is making.

And my axe!

Thanks for the offer, but I really don't need one Not saying this as a player numbers issue - I'm aware rollover time is (technically speaking) never short enough for a QF so I've resolved never to focus on write-ups for QFs. (Well, most games these days.) I've more or less set up the spreadsheet to automate everything on the SP calculation/carry-over/bid end and voting end so I just need to check the inputs each cycle and things are fine. Which also means that in the event of a player dispute, the posts are right there. Edited to add:

Two sets of early pre-clarifications: Don't expect much on the write-ups front. I recognise this isn't something anyone cares about so I'm probably saying this for me more than for you, but whatever This is a QF with some amount of tracking. I don't believe I need a co-GM for this and I think I'm fine, but my aim will be to get the next cycle up as fast as possible without making errors in managing player SP because QF cycles are short. I will be doing my utmost to prevent any player SP errors. In the world where I do make a mistake with your SP and it affects how much you would have staked, I need you to highlight the post to me to rectify it as soon as possible. I can't change the final bid that got locked in post-rollover but I can refund you the missing SP. If you want to point out to me in your GM PM while submitting orders how many SP you expect to have, I can work with that, but that's not required.

Just to confirm, do I swap your character name to KaiDol?

It's a good education! It would've been nice to see pazaak or daidi but I'm happy to learn how rummy works

I will say this: I've never played rummy and I'm getting an education in it, and wondering if this is what you meant when Hael and I were playing pazaak in your thread in QF64 I even wrote a Python script for it.

Reminder: under 24 hours to kick-off/the close of sign-ups!

Thanks to Elan for running this, and congrats to the Elim team. I don't have anything kind or worth saying about Village play this game, so I won't say it. Disagree. Removing present players from the Village is just as much a Village handicap. A lot of it depends on who's left on the Village roster (I reserve comments about Village complacency or low activity dgaf "lol who cares about playing a game I signed up for" players) and it requires the GM to plan for: A. Elim team likely needing to bus, and B. potential high volatility. Not saying it's impossible - I ran with a similar Elim rand in MR57 and they narrowly clutched thanks to RNGesus which maybe says something about how these things end up in play. @Matrim's Dice Sure, given this was specifically a comment about Fae voting that way given teammates up for the exe, therefore more a point in favour of V!Fae, but don't let me stop you from taking quotes out of context, you do you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Edited to add: Maybe instead of 'present', let's substitute: 'players who exist and actively seek to have an impact on the game with their votes and role actions and reads, at a level somewhat above baseline, where baseline is currently, evidently, defined somewhere in the vicinity of 'occasionally votes and remembers the game exists, acting with marginally more agency than a damp cloth.'' I didn't do anything about it. You're the one who voted and got me exed for not knowing how to play like a Villager, having come off...let's see, one Evil game, one Good Guy Fain game, and the game where Wyrm viciously stabbed me in the back, none of which are games that taught me how to play Village I think that's just called 'having a conscience'?

Writer's Blood is great, just really lubricated (surprised me by making some drier pens write.) Had to throw out a bottle of Monteverde Capri Blue due to yoghurt in the ink causing it to turn mouldy. (There's a long story here, I know. Basically there was a mishap with the cleaned yoghurt tubs I use to clean my pens, I had to clean dried yoghurt-water-ammonia mix out of a pen, and then it wasn't fully cleaned out either, causing a knock-on problem when I inked it with Capri Blue...The ink ended up with yoghurt debris, I tried removing it, but the damage was done and the ink turned terribly mouldy with floating colonies of white. It was a longshot anyway.)

This isn't a problem if he's fine giving his email to you. For privacy/safety reasons, when I make your GM PM, I'll remind you there, then you can pass it to me via that channel. Ngl for a couple seconds there I was gonna say "I hope he doesn't mind if I use a throwaway" then remembered that the spec doc is hosted on my SE gmail anyway. Oy vey >>

I got it You won't be RPing but this gives me someone to kill in write-ups if I need to! Or someone to do the killing. Or...

Edited in.

Ok. You are now tasked with getting all the spectators to come up with RP characters, thanks Edited to add: Bhai, your rap knowledge is better than mine That works for me.

I'm fine with duplication of every other role, heads-up to anyone else considering the Lieutenant Background that for vague reasons of some sensemaking, I'm considering this Background taken now. Edited to add: I'll put you down as a pinch-hitter but will note there's no guarantees about it. That work for you?