little wilson

I actually wasn't referring to that. I was referring to the fact that Ecth was Denth, which Aman now knows, since he knows everything about each dead person.

Question, Aman: do you believe me now?

Ecthelion.

Trolling is fun when your opponents actually made the game fun. The Children had a very distinct advantage in this game, though, and they played with vicious competitiveness that made it obvious to anyone watching the fight between the Children and GOH who was going to win. Who was always going to win, without a miracle every cycle. Just look at the player count. Hardly anyone is dead and 75% of those who are are evil. The game is horrendously broken, so Ecth doesn't owe any of us anything. "Trolling is always fun" is not the case if you've just watched your entire team get slaughtered and you never stood a chance. I honestly can't fault him at all for not wanting to invest any more time in the game. That's what vicious competitiveness does. Winning for the sake of winning and nothing else. It's not so fun when you suck the fight out of your enemies, is it?

I'm pretty sure I said a few cycles ago that it was clear with Joe's suicide that GOH didn't have a chance. They're revealing themselves because they don't see any point in not. They've given up. But they might as well let the Independents know that if they die, the Children are closer to getting their win and ending the game, which means that the independents can't get their own win cons. GOH can't win, but they can at least try to make it so the Children don't win either.

The strategy of QF1 is going to be more similar to standard games than QF4, since QF4 had conversions and someone who not only controlled the PMs but could also spy on all of them. Really, though I wouldn't actually recommend any QF to read. I'd suggest LG1. It's one of the shortest Long Games (if not the shortest; I don't want to check) and it gives a good example of how the games work. Even better, it was the first game so there were a number of mistakes made from a number of people, so it's a good start if you're going into your first game. You won't beat yourself up as much over mistakes because you can see that some others had an extremely rough start as well.

That game had conversions, and that's not a standard thing. Quick Fix 1 might be a better one to go with, for shorter games that are standard. The lynch votes were submitted secretly, but they did use the thread and have some public votes.

Yeah, that usually how it goes for everyone. Beginning of the first game is a little rough, but you'll learn quick. Everyone's pretty good about helping others out.

Absolutely! We love new blood players! You can also take a look at the General Rules thread, but other than that, you're good to go.

Well, if the game ends today, Araris will be the only Independent who wins, because no other Independent has completed all of their goals and they won't have the chance to complete the rest. So unless some Independent has a goal that revolves around Ecth's role, and that's the last goal they have to complete....yeah. Oh, and didn't you know? Aman doesn't believe I took two hits. He would lie about something like that and therefore he believes that I would too because obviously I do things just like Aman. Yep.

Twi's right. At least in the way that I meant it. You pay for yourself.

The person who asks should be the one paying, unless going dutch has been agreed upon. The asker is usually the one who plans the date, so they're able to plan something that matches their budget. And if that's just a hike or a picnic in a park, that's perfectly fine. The cliche dinner and a movie is both (usually) expensive and a really lame first date idea.

It's been part of my member title for at least a year though.

Did we discuss me sending it to Roshar? I know we discussed me sending it somewhere, but I thought we'd mentioned Scadrial rather than Roshar. And that changed when we thought Clanky was coming to Nalthis since that changed that particular plan a bit.

Me and the other Independents on Nalthis are working together to get our goals (at least the ones that are actually feasible and don't require {90}+ to accomplish). I'm a Master of Nalthis' investiture and since most of the people on Nalthis need a lot of Investiture for their goals, I published on Nalthis a couple nights ago (you're welcome, Awakeners on different planets), and in another night or two I can start targeting them with Collect Research Materials so they gain another {3}. If there's someone with an ability that reduces the cost of Forgery actions, could you come to Nalthis?

Wilson. Just to stop that from happening. I'm working with some other Independents and I'd prefer not to die quite yet.

@Clanky You wanna come to Nalthis tonight?

He started on Sel with me and I would imagine he's still on Sel.

Orlok isn't playing anymore. As far as I know, he basically withdrew himself from the game, but since there wasn't a pinch-hitter left to take over for him, Locke is just sitting there.

When it comes to being an eliminator, some people have to wait a while, while others have the RNG favor them greatly. Joe was evil in his first two games. An old player named Claincy was evil 3 of his first 4 games. But then Maill wasn't evil until around his 8th game. The longest streak is 11 good games (held by Jain, who doesn't play anymore). So you've got a bit. You'll be evil eventually. Have no fear.

That's because I said in the thread that I would only scan people who got me a Lifeless. If I'd gotten a Lifeless from a Child (by a Child giving me their own Lifeless), I would've scanned you. If I'd gotten a Lifeless from GOH, I would've scanned whoever they wanted me to scan. I made that pretty clear in the thread before I worldhopped to Scadrial. There was a Lifeless on the ground. Therefore, I'm not getting a Lifeless from anyone. I'm getting a Lifeless for myself. By myself. That's on the ground. Therefore, per the arrangement that I set in the thread, I didn't have to scan you or anyone, and you demanding that I scan you was ridiculous since it wasn't part of the arrangement. This is why I said that you were seeing promises that I hadn't actually made. I really don't think it was GOH. I know others might not agree with me about this, but I don't think there were other GOH on Scadrial that cycle. You could be right about the Ghostbloods, though that would mean that team is bigger than we'd thought it was since Dalinar wasn't on Scadrial. As for other Independents....If they had a win con that involved killing an evil player or me specifically (if they guessed my role, which was theoretically possible by knowing that I was a Cognitive Being who had multiple win conditions involving Nalthis, so therefore was probably a Nalthian), I could potentially see it, but I would think they'd wait a cycle until after I possessed the Lifeless, since they knew by my comment that I would be very low on Investiture after doing that action. Therefore, it wouldn't take as much to kill me. Had they waited, I would've died to those two attacks. I would think that an Independent, since they're Independent and only have themselves (theoretically) to rely on, they'd be preserving their Investiture and using actions in the best way. Unless they have a win con that's just to attack an evil player. I think someone (can't remember who) mentioned that they had a win con that was to be attacked, so I could potentially see a win con that's to attack players (doesn't necessarily have to result in a successful kill). Though that's an absurdly easy win condition. I read that vote as him also denying you your win con of leading the lynch on an evil player. I could be wrong about that, but that's how I read it. I do agree that he's trying to stay alive to complete his other win cons, but I think he was also trying to throw a wrench in your plans. Yeah, I honestly don't get that. Either there are more GOH or there aren't. Rae's comments in the PM strongly indicates that there are moredon, even if there's only one more. Therefore lynching Bugsy wouldn't end the game. I will say, though, that whoever else is on the team is either inactive or close to, which would explain why Joe would suicide like he did. Yes, I'm betting most of my assumptions about this on Joe's suicide. He's not a player who just suicides for no good reason, or because he's under scrutiny. But if he felt he didn't have any hopes to win and staying alive helped his opponents? Yeah, he'd suicide in those circumstances. Almost undoubtedly. The question is why he felt he didn't have any hopes to win the game. I had been told that someone guilted Nyali into granting a partial win to those who completed only 2 of their win cons. If this isn't GM-endorsed, then great. But my concern is that it is GM-endorsed, and therefore, it does favor a certain set of people. Well, yes. Every player plays different alignments differently. There are those who side with villagers as neutrals and those who side with eliminators as neutrals. There are those who help both equally. There are those who play chaotically or according to their whims. It's more just that, to me, the win conditions of "Independents" shouldn't be ones that are inherently reliant on others. That doesn't mean they have to be ones that the Independent can do purely and entirely by themselves without involving anyone else at all, but they should at least be in the power or control of the Independent to do. I'm not sure about the win cons of other Independents in the game, but most of mine are not ones that I have control over (as already stated). I've no idea who Denth or Vasher are (though I kind of suspect that Denth might be GOH, if GOH was selected at least partly by Homeworld), and while I at least have a scanning ability that could help me find one or both of them, that doesn't really help me in the actual completion of that win con. It's not about this game specifically. It's more just about the metagame as a whole, and that spans across games. My issue here is in regard to fun. There's been too much competitiveness and aggression in the games lately (and I'm not innocent in this either. I tend to respond to aggression with aggression, and I don't particularly like aggressive!Wilson, so when that happens, I take note of it and try to figure out why). Obviously the competitive aspect of the game will always be there but it shouldn't be there at the sake of fun. Fun should always be the priority. Not just for you but for all players in the game, even those who are your opponents. It's not a negative playstyle. It's just the way you play neutrals. If you ask Stink or basically anyone who's been a neutral in a game I'm playing, I'm very opinionated about how neutrals should be played, and that's that they shouldn't take sides because it can mess with the balance of the game. If they're going to help one side, they should help the other. But not everyone feels the same way. I know a fair number of players who think that it's impossible to play a neutral without taking a specific side at some point. So that's just a difference of opinion. It's not meant as a condemnation, though I will say that since most game breaks are in the direction of the village (as in, the village has the advantage), when neutrals come into play and they default to helping the village, it offsets the balance even more in favor of the village. But the game being broken isn't the neutral's fault (I don't really think it's the GM's either. A lot of breaks you can't really know about until the game is play-tested), so...yeah. And it's not so much that I think lynching Bugsy will end the game. I don't think it will. It's more that the avoidance of lynching Bugsy on the off-chance that it ends the game is just...wrong. If there was another certain GOH, then that would be one thing. But avoiding him and then grasping at straws to find another person to lynch who might be, but there's literally no evidence to support it... I can't agree with that. I can see why people want to prolong the game to get more people to win, but quite honestly, if there was a way for me to complete all of my win cons, but it meant keeping the last eliminator alive for another 3 cycles, I would say kill the eliminator because it's not worth prolonging the misery for them just so I can win. I haven't been an eliminator in that exact situation, but I was an eliminator in a horribly broken game where all of my teammates died within 3 cycles of each other and it was me left standing for another 3 cycles, knowing that there was no way I could win. I can only imagine what it would've been like if the village had known that I was evil, and decided to keep me alive so they could try to get ahead of the other village faction. I probably would've killed myself one night just to spite them. Though, they also probably would've been roleblocking me to stop me from doing exactly that. Which would've been even more irritating. While that's not quite what's going on here, it feels close. Too close for me to feel comfortable with it, anyway.

My Nightblood win con is just that Destroy Evil must be used 4 times. Those uses don't have to be successful. So no, an evil player does not have to die. And yes, I did indicate that at some point on Scadrial. As an aside, your downvote on me was also childish, so I'm not sure you're the best judge.

Oh, believe me, if I didn't wish to continue playing, I would've told Nyali that, yes, I would in fact like to be able to commit suicide. I think if I'd pressed the issue, she would've allowed it. The only way to change the current metagame, however stupid it is, is to play in it and encourage a change.

Yes, because I would totally lie about having been attacked and drained of 14 of Investiture from those two attacks and then not talk in either the thread or the PM for 96 hours to uphold the facade of my being attacked. You got me. Amazing. And you're right, I did say that I didn't blame you for Bard. I still don't blame you for Bard. I never said or indicated that I believed that Bard was Spiked when he did that or that he was acting under orders for it. But do not believe that there was a coordinated attack on me that you didn't have something to do with. Oh, and thanks for publicly revealing my character. That's super appreciated.

Warning: this is long. I was just silenced for 96 hours and I find that I have quite a lot to say. I was attacked twice two nights ago, and due to one of my passive abilities, I was effectively silenced in the thread and the world PM (which, side note, completely silencing a player is a terrible mechanic. You’re tacitly endorsing inactivity, which isn’t the best thing to do). I was on Scadrial when I was attacked with about 15 other people, a decent portion of whom were Harmony’s cronies (along with Harmony himself). I do not believe that two random people, acting of their own accord attacked me. It’s possible that a single player attacked me twice of their own volition, but even that doesn’t really strike me as true, since I would imagine that a single attack costs a decent amount of investiture, so making two attacks is a little extreme, particularly given my candor in that PM (I’ll get to that in a bit). This indicates that this attack was a coordinated effort to take my life. But who could coordinate such an attack? God’s Own Hate certainly could, but I’m equally certain that they didn’t. I believe that the only major thing Joe was hiding from Rae was that he could see what she said in other PMs. She said some things that strongly indicated that there were more GOH than Bugsy and Joe, and she wouldn’t have been saying anything if anyone else on GOH was on Scadrial as well. So GOH didn’t do it. But who else was left to coordinate an attack? Surely Harmony wouldn’t do such a thing. Or wait, maybe he would. Because Aman lies through his teeth any chance he can get if it advances his purposes. I do not believe for one second that he’s willing to help any Independents win. At most, he can only help 4, because the game ends once enough Independents complete their win cons. So guess what happens if you’re not part of those holy four that are chosen? You’re screwed. You’re left by yourself to complete your nigh impossible win cons. What Does It Mean to Be Independent? No matter what Aman implies about Independents basically being a faction of their own, we’re not. We are Independent. Let’s look at what Independent means for a quick second. Independent: Not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself Not subject to another’s authority or jurisdiction; autonomous; free Not influenced by the thought of action of others Not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc. Not relying on another or others for aid or support. We are neutral. We belong only to ourselves. Sure, there are Independents like Wonko who see the word ‘Neutral’ or ‘Independent’ and go “Woot! I’m helping the village now!” (this is the second game he’s done this exact thing as a neutral/independent role) but then there are others who see ‘Independent’ or ‘Neutral’ and realize that they don’t have to care about the faction game unless the faction game interferes with them. They’ll even ignore other Independents. Because the point of an Independent is that you shouldn’t have to rely on others for aid or support. That’s kind of in the definition. You shouldn’t have to depend on someone else to win. You shouldn’t be controlled by others (like a marionette doll, Bard). You are Independent. My Win Conditions Are Not Independent Win Conditions While my alignment says that I’m Independent, my win cons seem to indicate otherwise. I would think that an Independent’s win cons should be managed almost exclusively by themselves, even if others are involved with those win cons (like having to give a certain number of items to other players, etc). If you’re Independent, you shouldn’t have to rely on others to complete your win cons. That’s not the case for me. See, I only have one win con I can actually do all by myself. As you all know, I was looking for a Lifeless, and whoever could get me a Lifeless I would help. I showed up to Scadrial as requested and Stink had dropped a Lifeless Squirrel on the ground, which meant that I could maintain my Independent nature (which is what I’d wanted to do in the first place) and get that Lifeless for myself. When I informed Scadrial of this, Bard immediately threatened me, telling me that he didn’t even want a Lifeless, but if he put in an order for it, it would cut my chances of getting it to half, and if others tried for it too, my chances of getting it would be even worse. He accused me of ruthless practicality (when really, I was just sticking to my freaking alignment) and said that he could be ruthlessly practical in return, by holding the Lifeless over my head and making me march like a marionette doll to their tune. To control me. Now, I needed that Lifeless to get a body. I currently don’t have one, and one of my win cons is to Possess a Lifeless. It’s the only one I have any hope of completing, even though the action itself costs me ten Investiture to do. My second win condition is for Nightblood to Destroy Evil 4 times in the game. Now, I cannot hold Items, thanks to a passive ability, so I can’t hold Nightblood. even if I could hold Items, I’m [evil] so I wouldn’t be able to drop Nightblood (I’ll have more to say about my [evil] alignment in the next section). Therefore, whomever is holding Nightblood has to be using Nightblood. And they’re not doing that. Considering that effect Nightblood has the longer you hold it, I’m betting that person is inactive, which means that I can’t complete that win con through absolutely no fault of my own. I quite literally cannot do it by myself. Addendum: If an active player does hold Nightblood, I have an action that I can use to target you which not only gives you an extra action period in the night (so 4 actions rather than 3) but if you’re holding Nightblood, it has no negative effect if you use it. No Investiture cost. The only catch is that you drop the sword at the end of the night. My last win condition pertains to two very specific characters. One of these characters must be dead at the end of the game and the other must be alive. It doesn’t matter which is dead and which is alive, but the only way this win condition is complete is if one is dead and the other is alive. I have no kill ability. I also have no protect ability. So that means I need to rely on other people to kill one of them and protect the other. Once again, this is another win con I cannot complete by myself, even if I could find both of the characters in question. What Happened on Scadrial While I was on Scadrial, I informed everyone there of all three of my win cons, and told them about my Possess Lifeless action, what it meant, and how it might help. I told them that it cost a lot of Investiture (though I didn’t specify how much) and that it was the only win con I could do. I told them that my alignment is Independent [evil], but that I don’t know why I’m evil (I do not view this character as evil). I told them that once I completed that one win con, I would be perfectly happy sacrificing myself to someone who needs to kill an [evil] player as one of their win conditions. I just wanted that one win con. And then I got attacked. Twice. This dropped me so low in Investiture that I couldn’t even talk in my world PM (speaking of, Araris, that item you were asking about in that PM was on Scadrial when I was there). Now I have to build my Investiture back up to have enough to use on that action to complete that single win con, assuming I don’t get attacked and dropped in Investiture again. My Thoughts Post-Attack Needless to say, I’m a little mad. I seriously contemplated suiciding during the night: using my Possess Lifeless even though I don’t have enough Investiture for it in hopes that I’d drop past the mark where my soul frays and I die. I’d decided that if other people were going to be selfish enough to not even give me the chance at getting that one win con I’d asked for when I’d offered to help them as well with theirs if it had anything to do with my [evil] alignment, I wasn’t going to continue investing time in a game I had no chance of winning, and I also wasn’t going to help them complete one of their win cons for waiting for them to kill me, when they’d been selfiish in the first place. The game, quite frankly, lost its entertainment for me, and I don’t play games that aren’t fun. Why wasn’t I having fun, you ask? Well, let’s start with Rae. Aman, who usually harps about playing to your win con and your current alignment, bullied Rae into giving up Bugsy, telling her that the only way he’d bring her back to the good side is if she gave up one of her current teammates, they killed him to verify that he truly was GOH, and then they’d spike her and bring her back to being a Child. Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Does anyone else think that’s a rotten thing to do? A terrible precedent to place? Yes, let’s start encouraging people to give up current teammates because they can switch alignments. Because that makes a game fun. Oh, but Aman is actually a paragon of virtue because he then said “Oh, but don’t tell us the rest of the GOH because we don’t want to make this game too easy.” Are you kidding me?! You don’t get to talk about making the game too easy, Aman, when you just bullied a person into giving up an opponent of yours--one of her teammates. Granted, it was Rae who made the decision to actually do it, and she paid the price for it, but it doesn’t change what you did in the first place. When you start treating the game like a competition and that everything is about that win and nothing else matters, you suck the fun out of the game for everyone. Except those who are taking it just as competitively as yourself. But if it’s all just a competition, are you actually having fun? Is the game worth playing if you’re not having fun? No. It’s not. Games are supposed to be fun. Competitiveness is not fun. If you want brutal honesty, I have no desire to play with most of the Children (and the Independents who are ruthlessly helping the Children out like this) ever again. Because you’re not playing for fun. You’re playing to compete. And that gives the game an entirely different atmosphere that is distinctly unenjoyable. You can claim that you’re playing this ruthlessly so the greatest number of people win, and that win should add to the fun, or whatever, but the game is horribly broken. All you’re doing right now is prolonging the misery for your opponents--people who it would take a miracle for them to win at this point. Now they have to wait until you decide the game should end. Sure, maybe they’ll continue to attempt to eek out a win, but Joe committed suicide. Do you honestly think Odium himself would’ve suicided if he thought his team had a shot? Highly unlikely. He suicided to at least keep one person from completing a win con. Bugsy did the same thing by voting for himself during the day. The Ghostbloods have lost 2 players and a third is publicly known (assuming they even have more than 3 players). Your opponents are beaten. End the game with dignity. Don’t drag it on and let your opponents get more and more irritated at the game. That’s called poor winning. If you’ve ever wondered what poor winners look like, they look like the Children. They look like Harmony. A Final Plea to the GM This game is broken. Allowing partial wins to players who complete 2 of their win cons greatly favors those who are part of factions in a game that is already unbalanced towards those who are in a faction. It is unfair to Independents who have multiple win cons that they cannot hope to achieve. I ask that you reinstate the original win condition for the game: that players need to complete all of their win cons in order to win. We signed up for an all-or-nothing game. Changing it now shows favoritism towards a certain group of players. If you’re going to change it, you might as well just drop it to one win condition or even get rid of the individual win cons completely. Losing is simply part of the game. There was always a chance that this game would end with a mass loss for everyone. It might be best if that’s actually what happened, because all this is going to do is cause the people who never had a shot at completing all three win cons get mad at the people who had 2 easy win cons and one hard one. Do you really want the game to end with those kinds of negative feelings? I would apologize for the length, but again, I was just silenced for 96 hours. In that timeframe, I experienced a rather wide range of emotions: fury, suicidal, acceptance, indifference, irritation and many, many more. My words have been pent-up for too long. This is what happens.