And then there were none (AGS Werewolf Game 3) (Phase: End Discussion)

Started by Sinitrena, Tue 14/08/2018 19:22:55

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Riaise

Thanks for the great game, Sinitrena, even though I wasn't in it for long! (laugh) I agree with the others, your write-ups at the end of each phase really add a lot of atmosphere to the whole game! ;-D I also agree that it was right to let the game run it's course, but I think allowing the murderer(s) to forfeit in future games is the right way to go.

To Stu and Kastchey, was there any particular reason you killed me off first? Or was it just a random decision?

Quote from: tzachs on Fri 31/08/2018 16:15:52
Another rule I'd like to discuss, is that dead people were not allowed to post on the thread anymore but can still PM everybody. I found it kind of silly. Mandle PMed the entire group, which is exactly like posting in the thread except outsiders (and the host) can't enjoy what's happening. So, I think, either this rule should be cancelled, OR, an interesting alternative would be to change it into a "last words" post. Anybody who dies is allowed one last post in the thread and then no further communications with that person are allowed until the end of the game (this would shift the balance a bit for the benefit of the murderers though).
This is exactly what I was thinking after I'd been killed off. Perhaps, depending on the setting, there can be a rule that the last words post must be in the form of a diary entry or note written before the player's death. Unless the setting allows for ghosts, or spirits or whatever.

Quote from: VampireWombat on Fri 31/08/2018 15:43:07
I am saddened by the fact that the rp aspect got mostly dropped. I was enjoying playing a skeptic who debunked things despite/because of having psychic powers. I kind of wanted to explore how something about the island made his powers more pronounced or something.
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by that, too. Maybe in future games we should decide as a group beforehand whether each round should be a role-play game or a tactical game. The tactical games would play exactly like the last two werewolf rounds, where we all know what the deal is (how many murderers there are, that the psychic exists, etc.) and essentially play as ourselves, whereas in the role-play rounds we would create characters and can only make decisions based on what our characters know. I'd say in that case we could have a 24 hour introductory period where we make up our characters, like the first phase of this round, and then Sinitrena (or whoever is hosting) can get the game going by murdering a random made-up character. Would something like that work? I'm also contemplating the feasibility, in role-play rounds, of not letting the players know how many of each role there are. So in one game there could be one murderer, two nurses and no psychics, in another there could be two murderers, no nurse and two psychics, but only the game host would know (and, obviously, the murderers would know each other). That might be a bit too complicated, though. :-\

Kastchey

Quote from: Riaise on Fri 31/08/2018 20:31:51
To Stu and Kastchey, was there any particular reason you killed me off first? Or was it just a random decision?
You know what, I'm glad you asked because I intended to really, really apologize to you for killing you first. If there was anything I *hated* about being the party host, it was the decision which player to remove from the game after the uneventful (except for the RP aspect) Day 1 and I only hoped you wouldn't be VERY disappointed when you found out. I know it's "just a game" and all, but I really did have problem with that. I need to man up one day :P

Most simply put, the reason was that it was cat's first game so I didn't want to kill her right off the bat, and dayowlron and VampireWombat have been first kills in previous games so killing them first again didn't feel right. That would only leave you, josiah, tzachs and Mandle. Out of the four of you, I made a more or less random pick (I had some other reasons for or against each of you but nothing I'd strongly consider). For the records, Stu had little to do with the Day 1 decision, he just confirmed he was fine with it.

Quote from: Riaise on Fri 31/08/2018 20:31:51
Quote from: VampireWombat on Fri 31/08/2018 15:43:07
I am saddened by the fact that the rp aspect got mostly dropped. I was enjoying playing a skeptic who debunked things despite/because of having psychic powers. I kind of wanted to explore how something about the island made his powers more pronounced or something.
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by that, too.
So was I. I didn't want to complain about it too much because different people enjoy different aspects of the game, some may be avid roleplayers and some may prefer the sociopsychological aspect, or the deception and trickery or whatever else they find the most exciting.
Live and let live :) (um yeah, that might sound weird coming from the party host)

Quote from: Riaise on Fri 31/08/2018 20:31:51
I'd say in that case we could have a 24 hour introductory period where we make up our characters, like the first phase of this round, and then Sinitrena (or whoever is hosting) can get the game going by murdering a random made-up character. Would something like that work?
I think that is a damn fine idea! This would not only allow anyone who wants to roleplay their behinds off, it would also alleviate the problem I had with choosing the first target after Day 1 which felt very introductory. It also feels somewhat more fair for the town players, because we did mainly focus on playing our characters on Day 1 and excluding Mandle, hardly anyone seemed eager to start the tactical part already. Which was fine as people were just enjoying themselves, but the murderers would still score a kill on that day.

Of course, on Day 2 we would still not lynch anyone but at least the guess work started, so I feel that having a dedicated prelude round with an NPC killed may actually help kick things off without the wolves getting a free kill. So for all that it matters, I'm a big fan of this idea and I wonder what others think.

VampireWombat


Mandle

Quote from: tzachs on Fri 31/08/2018 16:15:52
an interesting alternative would be to change it into a "last words" post. Anybody who dies is allowed one last post in the thread and then no further communications with that person are allowed until the end of the game

This is exactly what I was going to suggest for future games. This is actually the way the game is most often played as long as the group maintains a code of honour about it.

People will be nervous to break the rule, however, because they also have to count on the person they contacted by PM to be dishonest as well and not tell the GM that someone is cheating.

I think we can count on an honest game pretty much. I doubt anyone really wants to shame themself over making a fun game less fun by cheating.

There were some interesting cases that came up because of this rule like: We had two players who were actually husband and wife in real life, so they had to not talk about the game even though one had been the Seer and hadn't divulged their list of scans before killed (in this game "last words" were not allowed either).

As for the "Last Words" rule, there are a few possible ways to handle this that I have seen:

(1) The dead player, when found, is not quite dead yet and that's why they get their last words before popping off.

(2) The dead player, in their last post, phrases it as if it were a diary entry made before their death.

(These first two are just cosmetic differences)

(3) Players send their "diary entries" to the GM via PM and may change them and resend once every Night Phase. The latest version is the one the players will discover the following Day Phase. This means that the Psychic doesn't get to include that night's scan in their "last words" as the GM usually sends out night action PMs to the players just before opening the next Day Phase. The GM could change this by allowing time after PMs have been sent for players to compose new diary entries but this has been found to be a huge pain for the GM and also disadvantages players who live in wildly different time zones to the GM.

(4) Same as above but new diary entries can only be sent once per Day Phase. This makes the above issue about when intel PMs to the players should be sent by the GM during night phases completely moot.

(In all cases above a line-limit is often placed on how long a "last words" diary entry may be. I think about 5-10 lines was the usual limit depending on how much scrolling the GM was willing to do through his or her inbox. (laugh) Or how willing the players are to suspend disbelief when a dying person rattles off a 6-page essay. I have seen funny comments about this like:"Oh, God, I thought he was never gonna die! It's almost lunch time!")

Quote from: Riaise on Fri 31/08/2018 20:31:51
I'm also contemplating the feasibility, in role-play rounds, of not letting the players know how many of each role there are. So in one game there could be one murderer, two nurses and no psychics, in another there could be two murderers, no nurse and two psychics, but only the game host would know (and, obviously, the murderers would know each other). That might be a bit too complicated, though. :-\

I've played quite a few rounds like that and it is the very highest level and purest version of the game (especially if there is actually no Seer (or similar) character but the players don't know that). It's really hard to determine what is going on and crazy theories fly everywhere. It could be fun for this group but if a new player joins in the next round they might just be too confused to ever want to play again.

(About the only way to make the game purer and higher-level than this is to disallow ANY outside communication AT ALL (potentially even for the scum team), like during Assassin In The Palace, and then things get really insane.)

I'd like to play a game round like that at some point but I don't think we're quite there yet. ;)

Kastchey

Oh, wow. The toughest week of their marriage, I reckon!

But yes, I too think this would be a reasonable change. The main advantage of the scum team, apart from being able to kill one town player per day/night cycle is that they know who they are and they are working together.

If revealed town players are allowed to freely communicate between each other no matter if dead or alive, they basically get to use the same type of team work as the scum team does, only that they will quickly outnumber the scum team.

Mandle

Oh, and something I just thought of because the forums I used to play on didn't have this feature:

If the "diary entry" sent to the GM once per Day or Night Phase method is used:

As a courtesy to the GM I'd suggest a rule that, in such PMs, the title "LAST WORDS OF >PLAYER NAME<" is used, and the rest of the PM is ONLY the last words AND placed inside HIDE tags.

This makes searching for a player's current last words easier and also doesn't explode the GM's inbox. Also the GM doesn't have to figure out the exact section to copy/paste.

Sinitrena

Quote from: dayowlron on Fri 31/08/2018 18:51:27
Quote from: Kastchey on Fri 31/08/2018 17:56:23
By the way Sini, are you a fiction writer? If you're not, you should be.
Agreed. I wish I could write that well.

I'm certainly a writer. A published one? Not so much. I wish I were. Thanks for the compliments.

Quote from: Mandle on Sat 01/09/2018 00:41:05
(3) Players send their "diary entries" to the GM via PM and may change them and resend once every Night Phase. The latest version is the one the players will discover the following Day Phase. This means that the Psychic doesn't get to include that night's scan in their "last words" as the GM usually sends out night action PMs to the players just before opening the next Day Phase. The GM could change this by allowing time after PMs have been sent for players to compose new diary entries but this has been found to be a huge pain for the GM and also disadvantages players who live in wildly different time zones to the GM.

(4) Same as above but new diary entries can only be sent once per Day Phase. This makes the above issue about when intel PMs to the players should be sent by the GM during night phases completely moot.

(In all cases above a line-limit is often placed on how long a "last words" diary entry may be. I think about 5-10 lines was the usual limit depending on how much scrolling the GM was willing to do through his or her inbox. (laugh) Or how willing the players are to suspend disbelief when a dying person rattles off a 6-page essay. I have seen funny comments about this like:"Oh, God, is he gonna die already or what?! It's almost lunch time!")


That would mean that all players must constantly keep a diary of the game, doesn't it? Sounds time consuming, for the players and the GM who would need to read a lot of PMs. But in general, sending the diary to the GM is a good idea, especially for players killed during the night phase, because then the diary could be "found" in the night wrap-up post, right when everyone learns who was killed. And before the new discussion starts, which makes a whole lot of sense from an in#game perspective.

Quote from: Mandle on Sat 01/09/2018 00:41:05
Quote from: tzachs on Fri 31/08/2018 16:15:52
an interesting alternative would be to change it into a "last words" post. Anybody who dies is allowed one last post in the thread and then no further communications with that person are allowed until the end of the game

This is exactly what I was going to suggest for future games. This is actually the way the game is most often played as long as the group maintains a code of honour about it.

People will be nervous to break the rule, however, because they also have to count on the person they contacted by PM to be dishonest as well and not tell the GM that someone is cheating.

I think we can count on an honest game pretty much. I doubt anyone really wants to shame themself over making a fun game less fun by cheating.

I think in general we can count on people in this forum following such a code of honour. What I wonder about a bit is how one would actually deal with people who do not follow the rules, just in case. Just call them out? But by then information might already be leaked. I really don't think this would come up, at least no intentional rule breaking, but it might.

Mandle

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 01/09/2018 01:30:31
That would mean that all players must constantly keep a diary of the game, doesn't it?

Well, no, it's not an actual diary.

For example the Seer's can just be something like "Night #1: Scanned Stupot: Villager. Night #2: Scanned Riaise: Werewolf..." etc.

They might also include a few things like: "I suspect Mandle because..."

And, a line-limit can be decided ahead of time. Also, see my above post about hide-tags etc.

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 01/09/2018 01:30:31
I think in general we can count on people in this forum following such a code of honour. What I wonder about a bit is how one would actually deal with people who do not follow the rules, just in case. Just call them out? But by then information might already be leaked. I really don't think this would come up, at least no intentional rule breaking, but it might.

In our group they were warned once and if it happened again they were banned from the next game and on a third offense they got a permanent ban.

The same went for any other kind of rule-breaking like verbally abusing another player for being a "f#cking moron" etc.

But our games were played on the boards of a browser-based RPG game so there were a lot of immature players involved, both in actual age and mental age. I doubt such a rule would have to be used even once in AGS forums.

Sinitrena

Of course it's not an actual diary.

I actually thought more of the work for the GM, looking through a bunch of PMs (but your suggestion above helps a bit with that.)

The problem with such a dry recount of the activities is that it seriously breaks the immersion in a game focused more an role-playing, which seems to be what at least some people would prefer.

Mandle

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 01/09/2018 01:38:33
The problem with such a dry recount of the activities is that it seriously breaks the immersion in a game focused more an role-playing, which seems to be what at least some people would prefer.

Well, in that case, the line-limit can be increased. The main reason for the line-limit where I played before was that there was no hide-tags function so the GM's inbox was a nightmare.

Also, as the only "last words" to ever be used is the latest one, the GM just has to scroll up from the bottom until he or she finds it.

Of course, a GM can just go for option (1)/(2) above and that's cool as well.

Oh, and from a role-playing/reality point of view. We played the game usually as the "werewolf" version. So it made sense that the wolves weren't able to search through the victim's belongings and confiscate the "diary". This might not make as much sense in, for example, this round just passed. For the sake of reality in this last round option (1) is more attractive (and dramatic).

Sinitrena

It would still be a lot of messages. I mean, for this round alone, I recieved 30 PMs (that includes those I had discussing rules with Kastchey). Do you know how many I have, all in all in my Inbox? 161, received since I joined the forums (Okay, I never recieved many before, but still.) Just to be clear, I'm not complaining, more kidding, noticing how many PMs I suddenly receive. 8-0

Anyway, another way might be for the GM to specifically request the diary from the just killed player. I'm not sure how good this would work, because then a period of time between the kill decision and the reveal would be necessary. Yeah, not sure that would work all that great. Just thinking out loud.

josiah1221

A lot of good ideas flowing! The 24 hour role play and NPC kill for example.

It's really fun and should definitely be a bigger part of the game, obviously it will eventually turn to tactics and OOC but a dedicated time for good ole role playing would be a nice bonus!

Also the "last words" without further communication idea sounds like it would be quite the challenge for the town players, maybe more interesting as well. I'm pretty sure, had it not been for outside comm, this last game would have certainly ended differently.

Sinitrea, once again thanks for your magnificent creative writing. You know how to set a great atmosphere! Very helpful for getting into the role playing mood :) I always look forward to see what kind of scenarios you come up with each day and night!

All in all, great job everyone! You officially broke my brain (laugh)

VampireWombat

Quote from: josiah1221 on Sat 01/09/2018 04:05:06
I'm pretty sure, had it not been for outside comm, this last game would have certainly ended differently.
Yes, yes it would have. Of course my entire strategy this game was to just let Mandle loose to do more or less what he wanted.
The only decision I made purely on my own after getting his help was to not scan Kastchey...

Riaise

Quote from: Kastchey on Fri 31/08/2018 22:48:45
You know what, I'm glad you asked because I intended to really, really apologize to you for killing you first. If there was anything I *hated* about being the party host, it was the decision which player to remove from the game after the uneventful (except for the RP aspect) Day 1 and I only hoped you wouldn't be VERY disappointed when you found out. I know it's "just a game" and all, but I really did have problem with that. I need to man up one day :P
Haha, no it was fine. I knew there were only so many games I could go without getting killed off early, so I was kind of expecting it! (laugh) I know how you felt though, I was the same during the first game when I was a werewolf. I felt so bad about taking people out of the game!

And honestly, it's probably for the best that I was killed off so soon, because I was pretty convinced that Mandle was up to no good. Especially after these posts, where he stated that the psychic had told him that dayowlron was the nurse and that he had contacted dayowlron not the other way around. I still can't really make sense of that. (laugh)

VampireWombat

Quote from: Riaise on Sat 01/09/2018 14:27:55
Especially after these posts, where he stated that the psychic had told him that dayowlron was the nurse and that he had contacted dayowlron not the other way around. I still can't really make sense of that. (laugh)
I think he was trying to protect me. Or else wanted to plan strategy with dayowlron. Or something. I know there's a lot of communication he did with others as some sort of chess game or something.

Kastchey

Quote from: VampireWombat on Thu 01/01/1970 01:25:35
The only decision I made purely on my own after getting his help was to not scan Kastchey...
Haha =) Well, if it makes it feel any better we really did decide between you and Mandle on night 3. And I ended up not killing you ;)

Cassiebsg

Nice game. (nod)
I was sure Mandle was up to something fishy, specially after the nurse got killed during night 1... I thought it was Mandle + Cat, and then maybe Stupot + Mandle (with some kind of weird strategy) (roll)
Whatever Mandle was trying with claiming about that the psychic had told him who the nurse was. It sure confused me and made him look like a liar, which is why I thought he was one of the murders and almost made Stupot look credible with his claim (only it made no sense that he was agreeing with Cat on day 2, if he knew she was a murderer at that point... (laugh)).

Anyway, not allowing ghosts, seems like a logic way to go, except there's really no way to control this, so one has to go by the honour code that people will respect the rules (though msging everybody on PM would then be a risky action, cause unless you know who the scum is, then you risk msging them too, and thus be revelead breaking the rules...)

Also I think it would be nice to know how many scum there are. That should had to more tension and less speculation on statistics. (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Mandle

Quote from: Riaise on Sat 01/09/2018 14:27:55
I was pretty convinced that Mandle was up to no good. Especially after these posts, where he stated that the psychic had told him that dayowlron was the nurse and that he had contacted dayowlron not the other way around. I still can't really make sense of that. (laugh)

Well, there were two factors at play with that interesting strategic choice of mine:

The first was me getting confused between what was really happening and what I was telling everyone was happening. I told everyone that we would be scanning the Nurse that night so that the scum players might assume I was being guarded, when actually it was the Psychic that was being guarded.

The second factor was alcohol.

dayowlron

Just a couple of corrections
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sun 02/09/2018 10:28:52
I was sure Mandle was up to something fishy, specially after the nurse got killed during night 1...
I was killed on night 2. Riaise was killed on night 1.

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sun 02/09/2018 10:28:52
Whatever Mandle was trying with claiming about that the psychic had told him who the nurse was.
The psychic did not tell Mandle who the nurse was. Mandle requested the nurse contact him and after giving it some thought I decided to contact Mandle then after a couple of PM's we decided to trust each other so Mandle told me who the Psychic was so I could protect them.
Pro is the opposite of Con                       Kids of today are so much different
This fact can clearly be seen,                  Don't you know?
If progress means to move forward         Just ask them where they are from
Then what does congress mean?             And they tell you where you can go.  --Nipsey Russell

Cassiebsg

Sorry, yes, I meant killed on night 2, after asking the nurse to contact him...

Uhm, did you miss these posts by Mandle: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=56373.msg636593791#msg636593791 ??
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

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