Kasimir

Alles klar

Weird thing about coming from my part of the world is that people sometimes say things that are swears here but not in the US/UK/EU and I'm dead certain it's not a swear for you guys so while it did confuse me, I cracked the joke it's extreme and moved on

Whoa whoa whoa that's extreme

I'll manage it one day! Then I can retire in peace

I'm too used to changing them, yeah. Partly to maintain interest and partly because I'm still a bit used to the previous perma-death conventions for non-legacy characters. You did say you managed to stay anonymous to most people D1, I'll take the chance to learn that power, since people were PMing me about not being kel D1...

Is it possible to learn this power

Fair enough man, sometimes it do be like that!

Oh, fun concept! I think the question that comes to my mind in response to yours is whether you see the wincons as being personal or factional. I notice the training dummies have a factional wincon, but I also notice that your wincons for Sadeas's Slayers and Aladar's Attackers are very much individual - beat your opponent to taking out a training dummy. Feels like this means that as soon as the TDs are all taken out, any surviving players on either faction lose. Which means that while they're psuedo-village, there may not be much of an incentive to work together. Either way, I feel like given your current wincon set-up, the surviving player as it stands doesn't have opposition but still needs to ID their target and get rid of it to win. (This is not a recommendation: this is me noting what your current rules seem to commit you to.) Losing opposition just theoretically makes it a bit easier for them as their opponent can't kill a Training Dummy before them. But it doesn't make sense to give them a default win either since they could very well be killed before taking out a TD, and indeed, the TDs want this to be the case. I assume that the Attackers and the Slayers don't know who is in their own faction? Seems implied since only the TDs know.

I looked for your RP but couldn't find it, but you were the best person placed to counter Scimon Tlag anyway - Ellie has too small a write-up presence and not any RP that I can recall that I could draw on. Besides, you frustrated Ash enough during the game so it's reasonable you do it in the finale as well There are actually a bunch of small logic errors in the write-up which frustrates me but I also feel bad asking if El will let me re-edit it, so whatever, everyone can live with Edeis, Mouse, Dragonfly, and Freddie running around a little Accidentally fridging/ignoring Dyring's character arc is more annoying because I'd forgotten Axl had given him that arc. But I was dead by that point, and I'm not GMing this game, I just pinch-hit the write-up last minute (two hours before 'rollover' on zero sleep), so I will forgive myself for utterly forgetting that he had that arc to resolve :/ I promise I do not fridge your character arcs as a GM because your RP matters to me :| There's an interesting history, yeah. Some people revive legacy characters. I think Araris has always been Aralis. I've made a new one each time, as has Wyrm. Hael has his Heatherlocke author clan. That's off the top of my head.

:eyes:

You realise we're probably gonna end up asking if you meant: Commander Arval, Bloodthirsty Arval, Aral, Kavar, Kanvar, Kranvar, Kanval, Karval, and various confused permutations of our names each time in the write-up?

Kavar frowned. He, at least, had been preparing to use people's names, rather than their callsigns. [OOC: RP style for me focuses on using character names rather than usernames, and I'm still old school SE I guess so yeah. This will be fun for me but I am probably just gonna OOC bracket and tag each time to do my part to reduce confusion ] He wasn't sure where the insistence on going by callsign had come from, either, though he'd noticed other operatives beginning to use callsigns over the last few ops. The confusion though didn't surprise him at all. On his first day serving with the Survivor, the quartermaster had confused him with Arval who was, apparently, not the same person as Commander Arval, though Kavar at least hadn't served under the Commander either. After finally managing to get his bunk swapped back with actual Arval's, Kavar found out a couple days later that there was someone by the name of Kranvar on board who had mysteriously appeared on the logs. Kavar was pretty sure that Kranvar was acting fairly suspicious, too. And a kid by the name of Genis had just confused him with Kranvar, or at least, Kavar wasn't sure who Genis was looking for. And then, there was Karval, who just added yet another layer of confusion. But Karval, at least, seemed to thrive on chaos. "Did you mean," he said aloud, very tiredly, as his communicator chimed with a message for Kanvar of Black Squad, when Kavar was with Pyrehawk. "Karval?" [OOC: What are the bets they keep getting each other's emails/messages? ] Pretty sure that's the point Chaos is a ladder :eyes: I'll be honest I already managed to accidentally type my own character name as Kanval and Karvan several times so I think I myself am confused I might actually swap to referring to him as Aral in RP to confuse myself less

And so it begins :eyes: Seeing justified text and it not coming from me sparks joy

#famouslastwords #photos5secsbeforedisaster

:eyes: do the gms agree with u

RIP Striker and Experience, this one is not on me Players and GMs this game trying to vote Araris or TJ or me:

Striker's informed me that he expects potential confusion with two Arvals and one Aral in this game. I blame past Kas who wanted a Mandalorian clan name that wasn't Ordo, Skirata, Orade, Beviin, or Fett Unlike my unlamented Wookie explorer Arrahak, I didn't even need to change Kavar's name to make him SE appropriate! I'll largely be using Kavar in RP for perspective reasons, but I would also recommend you don't vote on me as Aral because that is the path to collective insanity for me and Striker and Experience. Kavar will do fine

Su cuy'gar! Calling it now: JNV is Evil, Araris is Evil, I get N1ed :eyes: Or maybe he's Kip'ika come again

Alright, with apologies to @|TJ|, swapping my character out for one that I might be able to keep up RP for. Nothing against Kam, but he's actually a Wookie explorer I ran in a Star Wars OT campaign with the serial numbers filed off, and I'm not sure I'm feeling Kam enough to run him again. Besides, it's a decent name, I'll probably save it for some other future character just in case Switching up for Mordred Kasjek, a grizzled investigator with a dark past, and the only surviving member of the Sarajevo Reckoner cell. “Full moon is falling through the sky. Cranes fly through clouds. Wolves howl. I cannot find rest Because I am powerless To amend a broken world." —Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay The news was all over the radio, even as this morning's presenter read news of the devastation that had struck Cape Horn. Mordred listened to that crackling transmission over a half-congealed cup of coffee; one that was far too thick and tasted of damnation. Shouldn't have left it for so long, but he'd been studying the board again, trying to draw connections between each bright blue pin. It was the Sidorov case—being a Reckoner never paid the bills, but at least it'd been months since he was last in the red. Balog had run the Sarajevan cell on a shoe-string. Mordred had yet to figure out how he'd done it. But we were younger then, weren't we? He found himself thinking, even as his fingers traced the scars on the battered kitchen table. We thought we could change the world. We thought we could set them all free. The numbers should have been appalling, but the wintry chill of the morning had seeped into Mordred's mind and he took them in with glacial calm. What was another tragedy in an ocean of so many? It was what came from living in a broken world, a world that had been driven to the edge of endurance, even before Calamity. Even before the Epics had begun to appear: men and women with powers that no person should have been entrusted with, powers to destroy and to kill and to wreak devastation. The real question was: which Epic was involved? And what had they done? His phone vibrated. Not the one he used everyday; this was the burner. Mordred's concern levels increased as he pulled it out of his coat pocket. There was a series of coordinates and a time. HERON, it was signed. He knew the cell. Alex, wasn't it? He hadn't worked too closely with them. This was bound to be interesting. The Reckoners were calling again. And as he had done for the better part of his life, Mordred would answer. Edited to bring you a meme:

I see a Kel- name and I'm so tempted to steal it :eyes: But I shall resist valiantly. Signing up as Kavar Aral, a veteran Mistborn operative on one final op. Kavar has been around long enough as an operative, seen enough osik that he should've probably gotten out when they gave him the option to retire two ops ago. But it's always one final op. Kavar should probably know better. It's the last op, the one you think you're coming home from, that kills you, after all. And maybe he doesn't know how to be anything else other than a knife. Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur. This is the way. Notes: Have not read the rules, will probably wing this, may read the rules at some point and sob in despair May or may not be running a Mandalorian from my Star Wars campaign with the serial numbers filed off! Also, I will endeavour to sneak in at least one prequel or OT meme per cycle, including in my RP Will do my best to play this chill RP style, may or may not slip into occasional Mando'a, but it will be translated if it's game relevant, otherwise it's just flavour. You can learn Mando'a if you want to, it's fun. Besides, it's a nice throwback to LG15b where Spirba'ika, Kip'ika, and myself were speaking Mando'a among the aruetiise, though I don't recommend doing that anymore Besides, Spirba'ika turned out to be dar'manda and his teammate Araris N1ed me. So much for the Resol'nare :eyes: Mando'ad draar digu.

:pensive: He has a strong resistance to sleep? I like this guy :eyes: He is my kind of bro :eyes:

Generally agreed, I also think this is a fairly clear line: In a way, I think it's in fact fairly heartening because there was a lack of collective will during the inactivity blight era precisely because of lurker concerns, so I'm actually happy to see the needle being shifted. Think Bev'ika would approve too. and Because apparently I forgot how to multi-quote so RIP. This is just to set out that I'm engaging in discussion with these two points/paragraphs specifically, before I zoom in on specific chunks I want to - IDK, gadfly I suppose. I agree with this, but I also think that's what makes it so pernicious. Let's go back to LG79 because I think it's the easiest case study. Suppose I really was Evil; suppose that Archer happened to be right to suspect me, but wrong that my playstyle oddities were AI (it's just oddities from prior SE experiences.) Plausibly, Evil Kas would still self-vote, because Village Kas does that, and I have to do what Village Kas does. Suppose further - ex hypothesi - that I do end up voicing my frustration, and that it is genuine frustration. Suppose that this - just as it did in the actual game - causes Archer to move off of me and begins a case for IM intervention. (Let's bracket the IM issue; it's relevant but not extremely relevant here since we're looking at the player side actions for now.) I would agree with you that in this scenario, perhaps Evil Kas isn't deliberately weaponising Archer's perceptions of his emotions. He's just frustrated and reacting out of that frustration, and playing into a known part of his Village meta. But the raw frustration is very real, and Evil Kas just isn't controlling it very well. Archer senses that, and reacts accordingly. Does that make the situation any better? Does Evil Kas bear any culpability - or responsibility - for failing to manage his emotions properly? Because in my view, it would absolutely make sense for Archer to feel frustrated or manipulated - even if Evil Kas insists he genuinely felt upset and just didn't control himself well - in such a scenario. Even if the emotions were genuine and there was no manipulative attempt, it was predictable or at least partly predictable that the loss of control would result in such and such a reaction from Villagers. And there's an additional layer, where even if Evil Kas swears hand over heart that the emotions were genuine, I think it would be reasonable to point out other players may still perceive him to be engaging in emotional manipulation, because they don't have access to his emotional state, or his mental states. I think there's still very deep potential for high temperature drama after the game as a direct result of player behaviour, and that seems to still generate a problem. In the long term, whether or not Evil Kas genuinely slipped up, I think we still reach the situation where players may feel unduly punished for basic, normal human sympathy and pulling off of a struggling player. In a single game, that's fine. In more than one game, that's a problem. (So yes, there's a 'pattern of behaviour' question here as well, but the point I also want to make is it doesn't have to be a consistent pattern of behaviour from one specific player; this happening from several players over several games already can poison the well!) To return to your original point, the fact that such emotions can come from players on either team is precisely what makes such altercations so sensitive: because players aren't certain if they're being manipulated, or if that's really just how the other player is feeling. The fact that the possibility of manipulation is a live one is what creates this hesitancy to begin with. I also share Orlok's hesitancy to become a player who immediately and reflexively is forced to question whether emotion is genuine or utilised as I feel this creates a very bad set of meta-expectations, though I admit it's probably too late for me for RL reasons that don't have anything to do with forum stuff. I would agree with this, but that's partly why the model case I'm currently looking at is a bit tricky: in theory, players are adults (hopefully?) and should be able to regulate well, but this does not always come about. Under pressure or in extremis, these emotions can leak, and I think part of the conversation worth having is to say how we should respond/react to such cases. These too wouldn't be emotion-driven arguments: this would be players reacting to the raw emotion radiating off the player and choosing to behave in particular ways in response. More along the lines of: Player X is no longer having fun, I don't want to do this, I should stop. I agree with El (I do not remember whether in the AG thread or here) that we don't want emotion to be a clear sign that the player is Village because that's counterproductive, and as Araris pointed out, and I agree with, players will feel emotion, whether Village or Evil. But I think there's a bigger question of how we should handle those emotions (wow look at me, so very much one to talk) and if there is a responsible way to handle them. Because I think in the scenario I outlined, a series of perfectly normal and understandable emotional responses from both players can lead to a cascade of consequences, drama, and potentially poison the goodwill the community relies on. This is where I think part of this does kick the can up to the IM, but also part of this has to be discussed or expectations set/people resolve this prior to needing IM engagement. (Cf. part of the issue is, perhaps, not ending up in the mire to begin with and needing the IM to haul both of you out and yell at you.) In the other interactions I reference, there has been a similar dynamic at play, though again, fortunately it was a V/V brawl anyway.

I mean, if you want to, why not? You're the GM, if players judge you, just make sure they die very painfully in the write-ups :eyes: *Once again, this should not constitute legal GMing advice, Kasimir is not responsible for any damages, screaming, or temporary discorporation that might result, please seek a qualified SE lawyer. Edited to add: That's right, you have to give me a chance to sign up for more games from you beyond just MR53

i tried rip But yeah I get the point and I think you're right that there's a curious tension there. I'll be honest that making the Tyrian AG an AN does kill some of the buzz for me because as you point out, there's a whole layer of history to the Tyrian AG and in the past (again, pre-LG20, leaving out AG3 where I just didn't sign up because I felt bad about missing LG20 and that I shouldn't sign up for more SE games.) Prior to that, I signed up for AGs because of the history, because of my investment (having been involved in the AG Village that did not break the curse), because it's a simple ruleset that allows the setting to breathe and shine, with room for RP, and most importantly, because my friends and bros would inevitably sign up and I wanted to be there and chill with them, with a side of game solving. I think by 2015, it was clear you weren't always going to be in a game with your friends but the AG was the one time that was the most likely to happen. In a way I did feel a bit more disconnected as Salmon Meerkat, too. I don't know, just thinking aloud. Maybe that's why I was picking up on identities. It wasn't just people doing stuff, it was me wanting to reach out and reconnect and hoping to find people I liked chilling and playing with. I do think it's no accident that most of the people I flagged the fastest were either incredibly obvious or people I had some form of strong connection to. (Sometimes strong connection just means brawling in a game ig ) Anyway. Some more thoughts/comments, partly disconnected because I'm tired and I don't have the energy to: I do think it's on me that I didn't RP as much. As I said, I was having difficulty connecting to Kellehrt and burned out a bit earlier than usual but this one was just a combination of multiple factors including trying to shoulder more analysis than I was prepared for out of guilt and then realising N3 I was likely to be dead soon and resolving to pyrehawk my way through the rest of the game. Interested in whether others have tips on staying engaged with RP for a character that doesn't quite do it for you as I remember also hitting RP troughs in previous games. Don't know if this just is a dry season for me or a sign of overcommitment all over again. It's odd I say this because I kind of liked Kellehrt's arc and the symmetry, just felt that I was often too stressed/tired to do him justice and the fact I was committing to a Solar Bones writing style absolutely did me no favours as that required more deliberate effort than I typically put in when writing up RP. I'm gonna skip emotional manipulation thoughts as I think there's a decent place in the meta thread for them. Expectations. So. I'm not always Village anchor as a niche and it's not my natural/preferred play niche. I'm usually more what I term an Instigator archetype, that comes out of being a popular NK target. I go into a game expecting to die very early and just drag the thread kicking and screaming into discussion, do my best to throw things, and just die early. Part of this is a result of a pre-LG20 mindset where I do tend to die very early apart from that game where Araris saved me (and then proceeded to balance the scales like Thanos by NKing me N1 ) - I am aware my time is limited so play more recklessly/aggressively and try to leave the Village in a better position on my death than before. I usually can't and have never done Village anchor games back-to-back because that's incredibly tiring and stressful. I'm happy to acknowledge that's partly a me problem - as Ada and I were saying, guilt, perfectionism, and overcommitment are one hell of a set of mutually reinforcing complexes. But I also think there's an element where you can't help but feel responsible because players will, like it or not, sheep you. That realistically as much as I beg to be challenged or to have that sort of robust discussion, once I end up as anchor, I will get sheeped to some level, and then I have to be responsible for more than just me. Part of this might just be shrugging and saying "too bad" to players who want to sheep rather than taking on responsibility. But I also think that tacitly assumes that this knowledge doesn't at all exert pressure on anchor players, and as I mentioned in-game, I think this just ends up being very bad as a value proposition for the Village. Actually you know what soddit I'm tired. So I feel like maybe part of why it can feel so hard to approach the issues from this game is because a lot of it feels very abstract. Like hoo boy we're talking about communal norms! So I want to switch tacks a bit. I want to talk about what would have made my issues with the game less severe for me - what people could have done to make the game better for me. Then I will evaluate what I'm talking about and ask whether that's a reasonable set of expectations to have, and then finally ask if we can derive some form of general norm from this. Maybe this can get discussion going. A lot of this is going to be raw, and I apologise for it, because as I said, I'm tired, and I have exams next week so if I don't use the patch of time today, I'm probably just not going to show up to the discussion at all. So best effort basis. I will do my best to be careful with my phrasing. Still, this is going to be very 'thought scratch table' level. But hopefully my underlying thought process will at least be evident. I. What could players have done to make the game less frustrating for me/to help me? II. Are these reasonable asks/expectations? III. Are these generalisable to broader norms? IV. What should I do? This section is more me musing aloud about some of what El and Fifth have said from my perspective in the game. Sort of a "what could I have done better" section, as well as highlighting some issues that arise. kel's 2p I guess. To be fair, I think that's why AG6 was Horneater Falls. It was the Tyrian rules but it just didn't feel right to use the Tyrian setting since that was Meta's. Also why I did Fallion's Tears instead. I don't know, I guess personally I wouldn't name Tyrian homages Tyrian Falls but I think it's cool if you want to get in on the action you know? The game is a tradition, yes, but traditions have to be reinterpreted and passed on and it's not just players who have been around since the beginning who get to run one, or it'd be a very small set of people who could. IDK I guess I'm just saying there's no reason not to go wild. It's a tradition but it shouldn't be a sacred relic that we bring out every year and only the Chosen One can touch it or something. That's how traditions ossify or die. Besides if you're into insane distros, that's probably the best continuation of the Tyrian legacy

Sure is nice to have a legacy Tyrian character I really wish there were more Tyrian runs. They're not the most shiny game on the market but they're comfortable and I liked the amount of setting engagement and RP they traditionally produced. Not sure about this one. I'm definitely disappointed in myself for not RPing as much as I could but I chalk some of it down to the constraints of Solar Bones as a writing style.