Yitzi2

I will sign up as Brightlord Erethin.

Firstly, I actually felt that, at least early on, the unaligned Alethi were in favor of the peace route. Clearly one of us was misreading the sentiment. You are absolutely right about the difference between balance and robustness; however, I would argue that a lack of robustness is even worse for everybody having fun than a lack of balance is...and having kingmakers right from the start of the game is worse than either. The fact that Striker would have made the Blade transferrable if Striker had been lynched early wasn't much help, since we didn't know that. IMO, after-the-fact balances decrease fun, since if players don't know they're in store they'll still feel that things are prone to becoming stacked against them, and once they do know (either because it happens, or they're told ahead of time), it makes them feel like what they do doesn't really matter. Sometimes after-the-fact balances are necessary, but setting them up to be reasonably likely to be necessary just makes things less enjoyable for at least a certain type of player. You also misunderstand; we were not convinced that we would lose. We were, however, convinced that a scan of Striker would cause us to lose, and had to play around that. The Highprince role was indeed fairly powerful. Scanners are also a fairly powerful role (doubly so when they have extra lives, and triply so when they also have a secure doc to reveal their results without their identities). The main weakness of the Highprince is that they can still only protect one person at a time, so being less predictable is a good defense against them. (Unless they team up with a "chain" of Warforms; that would have been a dangerous combo.)

I believe the word you're looking for is canonicity.

Two of those three hits were Highprince retaliations...I presume that Elbereth and probably BR had a fair suspicion that Ghostbloods would be the ones who'd get caught in it, but it didn't target anyone in particular.

Now, this game clearly did not turn out as intended; it is not often that a rule change in the middle of the game is required, and even then I have to say that it was less fun for some players than Seonid's games often are. I believe that this is an opportunity to discuss a couple of little-known (read: I just figured them out due to this game) principles of SE game design, so that we can all take them into account in the future: I. Factions are a stabilizing force, but neutrals are a destabilizing force. Most of the time, faction games mitigate any game imbalance, and make for closer and more intrigue-filled (and thus more fun) games, while the presence of neutrals does the opposite (though often by a small enough amount that the more complex game format offsets this and makes neutrals still worth including). The reason for this is fairly straightforward: In a faction game, only one faction can win. As a result, if one faction is ahead of the others, the others will temporarily ally in order to balance things out, and if one faction is behind it is more likely to be ignored and give the others a chance to catch up. Conversely, neutrals can win with any faction, so generally have an incentive to end the game sooner. This neutral imbalance is mitigated by a few factors: 1. The neutrals are usually weak, having no major resources of their own until the late game (where their numbers may be enough to swing the lynch). 2. The neutrals are usually vulnerable, able to lose via a single lynch or kill, so they can't afford to be too strongly on one side. 3. The neutrals don't have much information about who is on which side. 4. On this forum, neutrals often won't cause one side to win even when they can, because they are portrayed as neutrals and (this being less hardcore than many mafia forums) playing that role is more important for many than winning. However, in this game, the unaligned Alethi were essentially neutrals (able to win with the Sons or the unaligned Parshendi) with none of these mitigating factors. They had the numbers to control the lynch and survive having a few of their members lynched or killed, had a strong indication whether any vote would help the unaligned Parshendi or the Sons (due to the public alignments), and were not portrayed as neutrals, encouraging them to pick a side rather than stay out of it. This created a situation where both unaligned Parshendi and Sons felt that whether they won or not was determined not by themselves but rather by the unaligned Alethi...and that makes for a less fun game. II. Every faction (here defined as a group of people with the same win condition(s)), in order to have fun playing it as a game, needs a path to victory that is both self-sufficient (so they feel that victory is in their hands) and resilient (so they don't feel they can lose by a small amount of bad luck). What exactly this means depends on the type of path to victory, as they can be divided into a few types: 1. Control of a kill. This can be something like the elim kill, or the lynch (which is controlled by the village in the sense that if every villager votes the same way, that will decide the lynch). This is self-sufficient as long as the faction controls that kill, and resilient if the number of actions required to remove it (or remove their control of it) is a significant portion of the number needed to wipe out the entire faction. The unaligned Alethi had this: They had control of the lynch, and removing that would require taking out a significant number of them. The Ghostbloods had it: They had a kill, usable until they were all killed. The Voidbringers were borderline: They had the Stormform kill, but doing so would reveal them, making it easier to take them out. The unaligned Parshendi did not have it before the rules change (they had no kill at all), and afterward were borderline (the Shardbearer had 3 lives, plus warform would make him very hard to take out, but perhaps not close to as hard as wiping out all the unaligned Parshendi). The Sons of Honor did not have it: A single unlucky scan, together with the unaligned Alethi deciding to lynch Striker, could have knocked us out early. 2. Manipulating others (e.g. the jester role, which tries to get himself lynched, or someone who tries to get another person lynched). This obviously is not self-sufficient in the strictest sense, but can still have the same effect if the manipulator has a large information advantage over those to be manipulated (e.g. knowing whom he is trying to take out). To be resilient, it is necessary both that there are no scan roles that can make this task impossible, and that the number of actions that others must be manipulated into is not too large compared to the number of manipulators (as a rule of thumb, I'd say the difference between manipulations and manipulators should scale with the number of manipulators the same way that elims scale with total players). This path to victory did not exist in this game, since nobody had an information advantage regarding their targets. (e.g. the Sons of Honor did not know which Parshendi were unaligned). 3. Non-kill paths to victory. These are usually the domain of neutrals, and are more often than not self-sufficient and resilient, though they generally cannot contribute to the main conflict of the game. In this game, there really weren't any, since every faction had enemies they needed to take out. Thus, the Sons of Honor, and the pre-change unaligned Parshendi, had no path to victory fulfilling the conditions to make the game as fun as it could be, and that also had a significant damaging effect.

Yes, you were. Which is why it was convenient that you were a likely Ghostblood candidate, and even more convenient when Drake decided he'd rather just kill you than scan you...

To be clear; that reluctance was due to misjudging whom the Ghostbloods were more likely to attack.

If there are unlimited PMs, then you could easily end up with group PMs that might as well be a doc. There's also fun to be had by having most, but not all, of the people with access to the doc be elims, and most but not all of the people without access to the doc be village. (This also lends itself well to games with a conversion mechanic.) Of course, there would need to be some mechanism to discourage just lynching everybody in the doc.

Though it might be interesting in a game with limited PMs, especially if elims have the ability to alignment-scan people they have PMs with. But yeah, if the elims have no way to identify each other, then they won't really function as an elim faction.

Were you wrong? No. Is the discrepancy something that will lead the Alethi unaligned (especially Elbereth) to side with us? I hope so...

-The unaligned Alethi are certain to win either way, unless there's a Ghostblood or two hiding (in which case the victory route that doesn't require finding the Ghostbloods would be the better one, plus if there's no other Parshendi Ghostbloods then your clearing everybody except Joe and myself would preclude that possibility anyway, so killing Parshendi would let us know about the situation sooner; I don't think it's very likely in any case, though.) -The unaligned Parshendi and the Alethi both had to look out for their own interests as well as those of the Alethi, and did so. The difference is that we split our resources (Striker's first kill was a known Voidbringer) while letting the Alethi resource (the lynch) look out for the interests of the Alethi, while you used your resources entirely for your own interests, while also splitting the Alethi resource. (Admittedly, in the early game you really didn't have much of a choice, but it didn't change even once you got a Shardbearer.) And I don't think it's entirely up to Elbereth; if she does nothing and there's an available guardsman among the unaligned Alethi, that might also be enough to give us the victory if the rest of the Alethi unaligned (or enough) agree to lynch a Parshendi tomorrow. But yeah, Elbereth is the primary decider here.

Got it. I'm wondering if you know of an example where the elim team was larger than usual due to having a large number of likely-to-be-inactive or otherwise highly suboptimal players?

What about in a case where it isn't so clear; for instance, if the neutrals were to throw in fully with one side, the other side might decide to respond by taking them out, but also might not. So in that case, would saying "if you throw in fully with the other side, we'll lynch/kill you" be an issue, if it doesn't go so far as "help only us, or else"?

Actually, I am a Son of Honor. (I believe it is clear from Drake's post that Joe is the other one.) Now, that raises the point: The unaligned Alethi have the ability to decide whether to win with the Sons of Honor, or with the unaligned Parshendi. (You have enough protection to ensure we, as well as you, survive long enough to take out both Cloud and Alvron, no matter what they do.) However, I would request that you consider: I helped you find a Voidbringer the very first cycle. Striker killed another one the second cycle (admittedly, I don't think that was on purpose). Brightness Radiant did most of the job of wiping out the Ghostbloods through her Highprince attack. And we have been pushing to vote for people whose deaths were required for your victory (Ghostbloods and Voidbringers), never once trying to manipulate you into mislynching an unaligned Parshendi (as the game format probably assumed we would). Conversely, the unaligned Parshendi have consistently attempted to drive the lynch against Sons of Honor instead of even Ghostblood Parshendi. In other words, we have been working toward your victory with the lynch as well as our own with our shardblade; I request that you consider that when making your decision as kingmakers.

Consider LG36, where STINK was an elim, and killed off an elim (namely himself).

I'd say that for the context of this discussion, it only counts if you have the exact same win condition as them...in such case, a betrayal is a particularly troubling move. This is true. However, it is only viable up to a point; if the play is so "imperfect" that it essentially means that player might as well not be on your team...well, one player on an elim team can be the difference between a fair game and a game so imbalanced that it's no fun.

Let's finish the job. Cloudjumper.

I'd argue that betrayal by a trusted player who turns out to be on the opposite team after all is somewhat upsetting but viable, but there are things that are far more upsetting (e.g. a betrayal by a player on your own team). Likewise, there's a difference between a teammate making a move that throws the game (or otherwise hurts the team) by accident (upsetting, but it's just a game), and doing so on purpose (feels much more like a betrayal).

Ah. So someone else was blackmailing, and that was probably why you took my comments in the game the way you did.

I think that was due mainly to me not knowing that jerk-y moves (such as backstabbing someone else for no personal gain) are frowned on, and trying to take precautions to prevent it.

So it seems, at least from responses thus far, that the main themes in what people are looking for are: 1. Fun for all players. This is definitely desirable, but does not need to be specifically accommodated; if we make sure everything else is achieved, then it's achieved automatically. 2. The strategy/battle of wits. For this, I think our primary goal needs to be that the game should be balanced. 3. Interacting with others. To make the game fun for people looking for this, I think it is important to ensure that people are not jerks in the service of achieving any of these goals, and that the game doesn't devolve into fiat. Fortunately, our community is apparently such that the former can usually be achieved by asking people not to do such things, and fiat games are extremely difficult to make even when you try to (someone who mayors and says "no discussing things in the thread" or "no interactions that don't go through me" isn't very likely to be listened to). 4. RP. Encouraging this is really up to the GM and players, but there's unlikely to be any opposition to it. So it seems that the real conflicts arise when: i) People get so caught up in the strategy that they do jerky things. It seems to me that setting boundaries there is fairly feasible, if it turns out it needs to be done. Even if explicit boundaries are not needed, letting new players know that there's a rule "don't do anything that you'd be upset if someone did it to you if the situations were reversed" would probably help avoid issues from those who expect a more "hardcore" game (and therefore either take license, or take precautions that look like jerky moves). ii) Someone gets so caught up in the strategy that people feel that that person is taking over the thread and that they have to go along with what the other person wants even if it makes it less fun for them. To that, I propose we adopt an official rule: "Playing that way would make the game less fun for me" is a valid reason for not doing something. That way, people who want to lead the village can do so, without it mayoring to the point that it affects other people's fun. iii) People who enjoy the strategy (and therefore need a balanced game) feel that the game is not balanced because one side has significantly more non-optimal players (weighting for non-optimality and proportionate to the side's size) than the other. The only way I can see to resolve this (though I'd like to hear if anyone else has ideas) is for those players who play non-optimally to be known, and GMs make sure to consider that when balancing sides. So the main things I think we need to discuss from here on are: a) Do we need explicit boundaries, or is "don't be a jerk" enough? b) Should we have an official rule that "that isn't fun for me" is a valid reason not to do something, treating it like blue-text stuff (i.e. no lying and saying something would detrimentally impact your fun if it won't) and perhaps even having a special text color for it? c) How should we let new players know about whatever resolutions we decide on for a and b? d) How should we make sure that games are balanced (and thus fun for the strategizers) in light of the fact that some players are significantly more likely to play non-optimally due to finding it fun than others are?

A metagame discussion question came up in the conclusion-to-LG35 thread, and I'd like to continue it here. The question at hand is: How do we ensure a forum that is fun for everyone? In order to discuss that, I would like input from as many people as possible about a question that needs to be answered first: What are you trying to get out of an SE game, to the point that it's no fun if it's not absent? Then we can try to find a way to give everybody what they're looking for. I will answer first: I am looking primarily for a game in which I can attempt to win, and feel confident that the game gives me a fair chance of achieving this. When I say a "fair chance", the distribution of extremely skilled players and newbies may or may not be taken into account (i.e. if Aman and Wilson are both elims and the elim team is smaller as a result, or Aman and Wilson are both elims and the elim team is not smaller as a result, either way is ok), since those can be compensated for by helping newbies and trying to improve to match the top players, but players who choose not to try to win need to be accounted for in alignment distribution in order for me to feel that I have a fair chance. I am also interested in RP, and would be interested in an SE "game" that is so RP-heavy that there's no possibility to try to win, but as long as it's a game where "trying to win" is a meaningful concept, I cannot have fun unless I can make a fair attempt to win.

The servants of Odium? Though it is interesting to consider what would have happened if, instead of saying "we had your king assassinated", the Parshendi had said "your king told one of us that he wanted to sustain his rule by bringing about another Desolation, so we had him killed for all of our sakes."

I agree that telling people to have particular play styles is a suboptimal solution; however, we do need some way to deal with the issue of some people's playstyles making things unfun for others. I find it interesting that you mention Stink, as that is actually a playstyle that we do need to find a way to deal with; Stink's playstyle making things un-fun for players who care (at least to some extent) about winning is no less a problem than highly competitive playstyles making things unfun for players who don't care that much about winning. We need to make things fun for everyone, or else we might as well just split the forum in two right now. If you feel that RP is not the solution, maybe I misunderstood the problem: What, exactly, are you trying to get out of a game of SE, if it's not RP and not competitive play? I do think that we should play the game with suboptimal players, but we need to design the game around them, or else the game becomes unfun for players who do care about winning (which are players we want to support, as long as they aren't the toxic type who care about winning at the expense of other players' fun) who have those suboptimal players on their team. I agree with you about extreme mayoring as you describe, as that prevents everyone else from trying to win. (They're simply following orders, not trying to win via their own ideas.) However, if someone's ideas are ignored for no real reason, that is also a decrease in their ability to play the game. To put it another way: Someone being the effective leader of the village isn't a problem, but when it replaces discussion with a single person's fiat, that's not ok. EDIT: I'm inclined to continue this in the metagame discussion thread.

Yeah, I know how those can be. I think there are really four basic issues to be dealt with in this regard: 1. Play that is optimal for winning, but such a jerk move that you'd be upset if it were done the other way around. I believe that the best way to prevent this is to simply have a rule not to do it, and make sure that all new players know about these rules. It might also help to have rough rules about when betrayals are acceptable, and when they aren't. (Betraying someone known to be on your own team is pretty clearly not acceptable; betraying someone on the opposing team pretty obviously is IMO, at least in many cases. But we like complicated game formats, and having guidelines on the more complicated situations might help get everybody on the same page.) 2. People who play optimally making the game less fun for those who prefer a more relaxed playstyle. I think that promoting RP is a good way to deal with this, since it means that even the optimal players will play in a way that makes the game fun for those who don't care so much about winning. 3. People who play in a more relaxed manner making the game less fun for those who prefer a more optimal playstyle. This gets tricky, and in extreme situations may require the use of publicly known handicaps. (For instance, if a player likes to do crazy things sometimes, they might ask for a public bonus role requiring them to take an interesting but suboptimal action every so often, and then when figuring out team numbers they might only count half.) After all, playing around suboptimal players is a lot more fun for the optimal-style players when the suboptimal play is an official part of the game. 4. Different playstyles. For instance, I don't have an issue with someone mayoring, as long as everybody gets to contribute ideas. If someone else does, that could cause conflicts. It gets worse in a case that could be seen as issue #1. One possibility to solve this is to have an official playstyle for the forum or for a specific game; another is to ask everybody to have a public profile providing their preferences, and have that be in a separate thread, so that people can easily see what will and won't bother other people. (This is not counting issues through which the game format can make something feel oppressive or un-fun to some players; that is something that I intend to address more in the epilogue to MR23, as that game has clearly not turned out as intended, and I intend to analyze some of what about the format made it so unstable and otherwise problematic.)