Araris Valerian

Maybe we should just start by exeing the folks we think are meta-elims. If they can’t participate in the pseudogame then there is a lower chance they succeed in their bet, regardless of what said bet is. I’m happy to vote for either Qian or Myst, the latter of whom was entirely unwilling to propose any alternatives to Coder during the previous Day.

This list of names is surprisingly similar to the list of folks I’ve been talking with recently.

Hmm, if nobody’s here, that means the four of us can exe whomever we want, right? If we can’t all agree on Coder, any other thoughts? Qian rubbed me the wrong way during the pseudocycle, so I’d be down to vote for him, but I’m open to other suggestions.

But if they read your posts and agree, then when they pop in they'll just vote on Coder, since there are no other "viable trains", as you put it.

But if everyone uses this reasoning, then there will never be a second viable train. Not to mention that there is quite a bit of time left in the cycle, so worrying about which trains will eventually become large enough to pass seems rather premature.

If you don’t want to exe Coder, why are you voting for him?

I get that, but elims can hide behind excuses like that to protect teammates. It’s easier than coming up with an actual argument to not exe someone, which itself is easier than proposing an alternate exe.

I find this argument reasonably convincing, but partly as a result I'm going to stick to my vote on Myst, who seems strongly against a Coder exe. I would like to hear from other folks what they think about a Coder exe.

I feel like most of the assumptions here are unwarranted. What if a villager didn’t like the NK? And why assume 4 pseudo elims? What rule says the pseudogame would have a “normal” number of elims? Given that the elim team could quite easily be outed on C1, I would think the natural assumption is that the team is larger than we’d expect to make the outcomes a bit more balanced. Myst

So it looks like there was no elim kill in the pseudogame. That seems odd to me. Meta-villagers would want to try and kill whoever they thought was a meta-elim, and the meta-elims would surely have someone they want dead. If it's in everyone's interests for some kind of kill to happen, why isn't there one?

Does the conversion take place as soon as the pseudogame ends, or can the meta-elims hold off on using it?

Oh. I was just assuming that a few folks flipped alignments at random, since the elims that get revealed also happens randomly. @The Unknown Medallion, could we get confirmation about this? Edit: And conversion isn't currently listed in the metagame OOA, so that should probably be clarified if it is an action.

I wasn’t really saying we should do that. Just that the added complexity doesn’t have to get in the way of solving the game. We can win by solving the metagame, getting this one right just makes it easier. I probably can’t convince everyone to chill on my porch with me, but I do think folks should just take things as they come and not overwhelm themselves with stuff we don’t have to bother with yet.

I mean, in a pinch we could just ignore this game and focus on the metagame. It's a terrible strategy, but it does avoid a lot of the complication.

I’m not a fan of this. The only world in which outing the elims is bad is one where the meta bet is on the elims losing, and all the elims are metavillagers, and there is no metavillager Lurcher, and there is a metaelim Coinshot. Why should we make decisions based on an assumption of all of these things being true at the same time?

I’m pretty sure the elims have a major incentive to let this game drag on for a while, especially if they are confident in their bet. The reason is that conversions are more powerful the later on in the game that they take place. On the flip side, if the village wins quickly (causing the elims to lose their bet), we’ll get a some flips that won’t tell us much, since we won’t have any discussion to draw further connections with. For this reason, I think the elims would bet on an elim victory, since it necessarily takes longer. So while it won’t result in as much carnage, I’d be in favor of the elims outing themselves (or at least one of them doing so).

I’d bet (were I into role play) on elims winning because I’d get to kill a lot more folks in that scenario than in a village win. Just saying.

They are the same, just at different stages of life . Yeah, there’s one that is a legendary swordsman, but he’s not as cool as me. Obligatory note that y’all should read Codex Alera if you haven’t yet.

I'm in as Araris Valerian, the bus driver.

Reading this, and thinking about some other things, like TUN not wanting to play because the game could end up as a FFA, makes me think that having wildly different scenarios is ultimately not great game design. The FFA and possibly the Kandra scenarios would work well as MR/QF type games, while the standard elim scenario really fits the LG format best. With that in mind, I’m thinking of instead having the 3 scenarios correspond to different types of elim teams. I really like the Tasty/Kandra rules I came up with, and I think that could be bundled with an arson setup (so most nights still have a single kill, preserving symmetry). I think another scenario would involve conversions. The third could just be a fairly standard elim game. I think conversions, arson+SK, and standard elims all have different enough methods of solving that there is still a pretty strong incentive for villagers to engage with the clue mechanic in order to determine which scenario is ongoing.

That’s a hard question that also depends on the number of signups you get. I’d suggest just listing out a couple of possibilities for 10-15 players and seeing if there are any obvious breaks in the game. If you ran the rules this is something you could get help with from a coGM or IM.

Looks interesting! You may consider having the fists share Google Docs, rather than PMs. It’s not entirely clear how many Trollocs the myrddraal can use their ability on per cycle, so I’d clarify that. Otherwise, the balance seems like it would largely come down to the distribution. I like the flavor, though the game probably doesn’t lend itself super well to player RP. There’s still plenty of potential for fun writeups though!

Yeah, the idea is that in the FFA scenario, for example, someone might not want to share that they found the room with items in it. Or if the elim team finds a room, they might want to keep that amongst themselves. Finding a room and using it would probably be separate actions due to targeting. If you’ve been to a room at least once, you can visit it to take the action. If you’ve haven’t been to it, but someone posts in thread or tells you in a PM that they found it (or you learned from some other source), you can attempt to visit the room using “directions” from that player. The action submission would be something like “visit the Vault using directions from Kas, and target Wilson with the Vault action”. If Kas has, in fact, been to the Vault, then the action usually succeeds (with some small chance to be lost by default) and I get to use the ability on Wilson. If Kas hadn’t been to the Vault then I get lost for sure.

Alright, here are my thoughts on the game mechanics: Some of the information mechanics were broken to one degree or another. It shouldn’t be possible to rule out scenarios from flips, since that takes away from the mystery of the game. Following players played into this as well, but mostly because the scenario was known and nobody was self-interested enough to go for items instead. Scenario 2 seems to need some mechanical incentive to create a bit more tension during the Day turns. I’m more used to folks being aggressive and backstabby, but there wasn’t a ton of built-in motivation to behave like that in the game The exploration mechanic can still be fleshed out a bit. Doc mentioned this in his thoughts, and I agree. The current rules has mystery elements in regards to the scenario, but not the layout of the House. With all that in mind, I’m considering the following changes for the next run of this game: Players with an exploration role that are eaten by the Kandra will lose that role, but when their body is later discarded it will show their original role. (so that Scenario 3 can’t be picked out by the death of someone with a role) If at least one of the three exploration roles is not assigned to a player in the Kandra scenario, the Kandra’s original body will have a 50% chance to flip as having had a random one of the unassigned roles. (so that scenario 3 cannot be picked out by the death of someone with a role during Night 1) Maybe cause all evil players, including the gun wielder, to flip as Influenced Explorers. Maybe allow the Kandra to cause the target of an exe to flip this way once per game. This could also be an alternative gift ability. (so that players in scenario 2 know when they exed correctly, and so that all 3 scenarios cannot be identified directly by writeup results) The bearer of the Smoking Gun can optionally designate an Accomplice during the night, who will randomly get either an item or the Gun if the bearer is not executed the following day. The Accomplice knows the bearer’s identity, and cannot become a Hero by executing the bearer. The Accomplice role only lasts for a single day turn. (so that at least one person wants to keep the bearer alive, adding some tension to the scenario 2 executions) And the biggest change: Exploration now involves the discovery of Locations. Players can search the house for a random location, or look for a particular one. Each location has an associated action that can only be taken by a player that has found it, or been told about it by another player that has previously found it. Each player also has both an exploration action and a second action they can take each night. When you try to visit a location you think has been found, you submit the name of a player you think found the location already. If they have, you visit it (with a small chance of getting lost), otherwise you always get lost The same location can be found independently by multiple players The follow action (will be reworked a bit) and the items action will have their own associated locations that must be found Some new items that interact with locations will be added, like a key that can be used to lock/unlock a location, a map that can be used to visit any location without finding, etc. Odds of finding a non-boot will increase The location for clues will be available to everyone at the start The odds of finding new locations will be similar to the odds of finding a useful clue: there will be a formula for success that scales with the number of players If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I’m all ears. And once again, thank you everyone for playing!

I've edited links into the main post. Thoughts on the game will come later today.