Araris Valerian

Yes. Of course in any case where a Rioter is Smoked, the vote is not lost.

The Night is over!

The Day has ended!

The Night has ended!

The Day has ended!

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Oh no! Koloss have begun advancing on your town, Tyrian Falls! Since The Lord Ruler died, they seem to be acting with a mind of their own. Unfortunately for you, your town is a way point between Fadrex City and Luthadel. That means you have a stockpile of metals, but that’s probably why they targeted you in the first place. On the other hand, you have a large collection of metals! You might be able to hold them off, but it seems like someone (or a conspiracy of someones) seems to be undermining your defenses. Somehow, before the Koloss arrive, you have to rid your town of these dissenters; those that are spiked. Until then, you won’t be able to mount an effective defense for your town. If you fail, everyone dies, so you better not fail! Welcome to Anniversary Game 11 and another year of SE! I will be the GM for this game, and @Kasimir will be helping me with writeups. Signups will close on Friday January 10th at 9PM Eastern Time. The game will begin at 11PM Eastern Time the same evening, which is the time all rollovers will occur at. This is an anonymous game so don’t sign up in the thread. Please sign up by PMing me privately. You can message me here, on Discord, or wherever else you like, and you'll be in so long as I respond with a "noted" within a day or two. If you message me on Discord and your handle doesn't correspond to your Shard username, let me know your current shard username). Do your best not to indicate whether or not you're playing to anyone else. If you want to spectate, PM me and I'll send you a link when the game starts. Check out the rules below and pick a cosmetic role if you wish before signing up. Rules: Clarifications: Cosmetic Roles: You are highly encouraged (though not required) to take a cosmetic role. Use it however you wish and include it however much you want in your posts. This is simply for fun and for RP creativity. Anonymous Game Notes: Quick Links: Player Count: 15 Pinch Hitters: 1

Thank you Drake and Striker for running this game! I enjoyed this setup (and was kinda sad that it ended so quickly). Definitely would be interested in a rerun of these rules. Also, is this the first SE game with a flawless village victory? Next game should be the AG. I'll need to chat with the other mods and see what we're planning for that.

Arenta's gossip has not yet extended to the potential Unmade influencing events. Right now the rumor mill is grinding through Cillian's death, and Arenta has disciplined herself to (mostly) limit her gossip to that. Arenta snuck out during the day to see what she could learn about Jonoh and Matoro. They both seemed to be reasonable suspects for Cillian's companion, so clearly the decision could only rest on their financial status. The question was, who might know the juicy details, and what sort of rumors could compel them to share with her?

Whatever "streaming" was, it certainly seemed to be popular. Arenta had herself paid Volomir's room a visit in the night (just to check that he was sleeping well, of course), but beyond that apparently he'd been attacked and saved and possibly more. Hopefully she could catch some whispers of who else had been tramping around the Bucket at night, since her sign on the door clearly stated that unauthorized visits carried a charge of an entire clearmark. For now she jotted down two new lines in her ledger until the culprits revealed themselves. Breakfast didn't serve itself, but during the busywork Arenta mentally noted her suspicion of Matoro. For a murder conspiracy to unravel so quickly, couldn't it be that one of the killers had found themselves unable to help their companion?

There were only two things Arenta missed about Cillian. He'd owed her a not unsubstantial sum, which was related to the other thing she missed; his singing. She'd been letting him pay her back by performing for the other guests, and the songs had brought a bit of liveliness to the Leaky Bucket that was now replaced by low mutters and the sounds of eating. Maybe the lack of tunes was more honest, more fitting, for a backwater town's crem-covered tavern run by someone that was generously referred to as "an old hag." But it had been nice to pretend otherwise. Perhaps the next time someone performed at the Bucket, she'd ask them to sing a "Requiem for a Dying Song" as a way to remember. During a break in the evening crowd, Arenta took some time to smooth out the scratches Sever had made in her wall. As she did, she reluctantly admitted to herself that it was unlikely he was a murderer, in light of Cillian's actions. A vandal, certainly, but not a killer, and he didn't owe her anymore, which made one person in the village. Finished with both polishing and pondering, Arenta perked up as she heard a Volomir's name mentioned from a table in the corner. While she moved closer to catch whatever rumors she could, her eyes darted around the room, mentally noting the various scuffs and spills the guests had caused, adding a small charge to her mental note of the tabs for each. Unfortunately, the person she'd overheard stood up to leave, setting a few clearchips on the table, and she only caught the end of his last sentence. "... was responsible for bringing down Cillian." So, Volomir had helped. Well, he probably wasn't the killer either. Didn't seem like the kind of fellow to send a companion to damnation if he could do a thing about it. Just then, Arenta heard a holler from the kitchen, and looked over to see several plates waiting to be served. Seemed there was more work than gossip tonight, and debts didn't loan themselves.

Arenta had been reconsidering her assessment of who the murderer might be as lunch for the day drew to a close, but then she noticed Sever drawing on her wall. So she instead resolved to hold fast to her original conviction (and to take the cost of the repairs out of the 3 marks and 1 that the fellow had overpaid by earlier). She didn't really have a lot to go on, but that was no reason to frivolously change her mind. "What's happening, Jonon, is that you owe me spheres. My books are upstairs right now, so I don't have the exact amount, but I can tell you it's not nothing! I'm not in any particular hurry, but a little cremling told me something juicy last week that you might not want spread around, if you get my drift. I'm not going to let the world end before every last person in this village settles up with me, and that includes you."

Arenta's eye lit up at the spheres for a moment and she smiled, showing a (mostly) full set of teeth. "I take it you're planning to dine here in the near future? I'll count this against your next several meals if that's the case. And of course, if you hear anything juicy it might go a bit further." Her face darkened momentarily. "Or is this a bribe? Just cause we're settled up doesn't mean that you aren't the murderer."

Arenta pulled a ledger that looked nearly as old as she was from behind the counter and leafed through a few pages before holding it up to Sever. "This here is proof to the contrary. You spilled some chicken soup on the floor last week, which I charged you 3 chips for. And the other four are cause you haven't paid for what's in front of you right now yet." Her face softened a bit. "Course, that's quite interesting about the Elder. I wonder if it has anything to do with that Shin fellow that's been hanging around." She leaned in to whisper, "I hear he's an assassin." Straightening up as much as she could, Arenta made a small mark in her book. "Well, I'll forgive you about the soup. Just don't forget to pay for your lunch."

Arenta noticed one of the customers aiming to stab her wall with a dagger. Or maybe he was aiming to stab a paying customer. Regardless, a holler would put a stop to it. "Hey you! Sever! You already owe me 7 clearchips. Don't be doin' anything to make that number go higher or I'll ban you from the Bucket!" The Leaky Bucket was the finest establishment this side of the Purelake. Though the original construction had been simple soulcast stone, previous owners had built on and enhanced the structure in various ways over the years so that now the inn had all the comforts a traveler could want. All of this was in stark contrast with the innkeeper, a crusty old lady starting to bend with age, seemingly only kept going by a desire to pry into the business of anyone and everyone that lived nearby. The only person Arenta didn't harass constantly was her brother, who happened to be the best cook in town, and probably the only reason folks still came to the Bucket. The other reason folks put up with her was that despite her appearance, the slightest bit of gossip would immediately change Arenta's attitude, making her amendable to far more than one would expect. For now, Arenta was mostly content to let everyone trickle in for lunch (her brother was doing something miraculous with lavis grain and some rare cremlings he'd imported) and see what she could pick up while serving the tables.

There's probably some juicy gossip about your method of cheating making its way around the town . Welcome!

Welcome! Always nice to see a fresh face to murder play with. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to check out the rules thread, both for some general subforum rules and also since it also has a bunch of the jargon we use. And I'll be playing as Arenta, the grouchy old lady who believes (with or without reason) that everyone is indebted to her. Of course, she's always willing to forgive a debt if there's some juicy gossip involved.

I’m gonna play. Character to be determined, but I’ll grab Gossipy Innkeeper as my CR. Also a small warning that I’ll be traveling on the 11th and will be limited in my activity that day.

Also, since I don't know exactly how the signups spreadsheet works, I'd like a LG slot.

Okay, let's try and get the next LG running. @Experience is next on the list, followed by @The Unknown Order, and @Kasimir still has a whole bunch of slots after, though I suspect he's still busy. At the pace things are going, this will probably be the last LG before the anniversary game.

Alright, you'll have priority over Aeoryi, I'd suggest asking around on Discord to see if anyone wants to Co-GM for you. Or, if it's just writeups and rules you want help with, I could probably do that stuff. I've read all but the last Skyward book, though it's been a while.

You can send your rules to committee, and then if we don't hear from anyone before you by the weekend, you can post signups.

The lineup for the next QF is: @Kasimir (twice!) @JNV @Sart @Szeth_Pancakes @Stick. @Aeoryi I'm available to IM for whoever runs the game.

Alright, my thoughts. Starting with what worked. And I think the big thing that worked was the theming, roleplayed, and writeups. Even thought there wasn’t a ton of player RP, what was written was good, and I had a lot of fun doing the writeups. I also think scenario 1 would have worked very well if it had happened, though I can’t say for sure. The N0 exploration worked decently well, I think. After watching how things played out, I would probably make player choice have a larger impact on things than it did, but otherwise leave the concept in place As for what didn’t work, well, that’s related to the motivating concept for this game, which was to have an extra layer of information to solve for, with incentive structures for folks to be dishonest about said information. That was why scenario 2 existed (and I’ll note that S3 was the least thought out when writing the rules). I was hoping that in S1, elims could use the existence of S2 as a distraction, and in S2, players who knew the scenario could lie to indicate S1/S3 to get other players exed. Instead what happened was we ended up in S2, and everyone was honest about their clues, so the asymmetry broke down. There was also very little PMing or alliance forming. I think this was due to player expectations and activity (which were related). I ended up asking for a few more players (which means folks that could give %100 effort), and while everyone was reasonably active, I think the effort of scheming about scenario info wasn’t something most players felt like they could put in (shout out to @Lego Mistborn, who I enjoyed watching behind the scenes). Of course, once S2 was outed there were only 2 cycles left, so at least things didn’t drag on where folks didn’t feel they had any agency. So where does that leave things? Well, I think at some level these rules are fine as-is if all the players would be equally enthusiastic about all the scenarios. And that’s a little hard to patch; any mafia game breaks down if it doesn’t attract players enough to get them to engage. But I’d like to rerun this game at some point, and I can’t count on things being different in the future, so I’d like to work out a patch. @Kasimir mentioned in the dead doc as a suggestion for S2 to give players individual and competing win conditions. I like this idea, but the only problem is that the framework of the game requires there to be an execution and a NK in S2, and no other killing methods. The win conditions would also need to be distributed at the start of the game, though that’s easy. If anyone has ideas for ways to win other than survival in S2, I’m all ears. The 4 main mechanics to engage with are the gift, exploration, execution, and the Gun, so any ideas probably need to involve one of those. The other possibility is to scrap S2 as written and come up with something else. I’m open to suggestions on this end as well, since I haven’t put much thought into this angle. Whatever alternative needs to have a NK and an exe. And it needs to have different information incentives than S1 and S3. Those are strong constraints, but maybe someone has a good idea that I haven’t considered. And that’s all! Thanks everyone for playing my game, I hope to play alongside some of you in the future, and I look forward to the next game I run.