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Well, just as well I didn't get my rival lynched on day two. When I saw the wolf rival paired with the cursed villager, and having found out I was an apprentice, I had a pretty good idea that Lemeard was a scanner. With the dead priest and sorceror, presumably seer. So in answer to your PM, Vainglory: No, I can't sub in for marty 
And not just because the game was already over.
And not just because the game was already over.
BTW, marty is no longer listed as a winner in the win post, but as autolynched.
I'm sure he doesn't disagree with that
That it's the sincerest form of flattery, of course
I have *no* idea why they were even trying anymore. It was obvious you were the only padre claimant in the game, and that being such a nice new twist on the doc made it clear that there would be one in this game.
I have never seen Lemeard do this much analysis in a game. It was pretty damn obvious he was JL to me on this last day. Of course, that's the best time for the JL to come out of the woodworks
Yep
Same here. I had been snoop's apprentice for one day and hadn't been able to even *do* much yet when I got hunted.
Why was I hunted anyway, by the way?
You did what was necessary, and didn't build a JL with baddie spies in there. I call that a success
I'm sure he doesn't disagree with that
That it's the sincerest form of flattery, of course
lol I was even blessed
it was hard to stay alive with people wanting to lynch me all the time
I have *no* idea why they were even trying anymore. It was obvious you were the only padre claimant in the game, and that being such a nice new twist on the doc made it clear that there would be one in this game.
I have never seen Lemeard do this much analysis in a game. It was pretty damn obvious he was JL to me on this last day. Of course, that's the best time for the JL to come out of the woodworks
Yep
Same here. I had been snoop's apprentice for one day and hadn't been able to even *do* much yet when I got hunted.
Why was I hunted anyway, by the way?
You did what was necessary, and didn't build a JL with baddie spies in there. I call that a success
Shut up Rand. I see your last comment there
That was not a reference to the previous game, in fact. I have had "justice leagues" in my time that were insanely infiltrated. Circumstances being what they were (no living scanners anymore..) they were the best I could do, but still..
GM AAR - Recap
Just as a note, I did not reveal the pack affiliation of either cultist. It's just the way I did this one, cultist affiliation wasn't revealed because they could help either pack. Also, I have autolynched marty retrospectively so that he doesn't get the win. He was absent for 5/9 days after all. However this is done ex post facto because I do not autolynch in games unless someone violates rules flagrantly. Autolynching really skews balance: marty was the only cursed player left, he could have been decisive if hunted, that's a big balance change. I realized late on Day 7 (having been out most of the day) that marty had exceeded his limit for absence, but nobody came forward when I asked for subs. Kiwi I'd have let you back in if it was public that Lem was your rival; public information you could have deduced anyway. If not though, then I'd have to have kept digging. It turned out to be totally irrelevant anyway. Oh and here is the cookie for Tamius, as he made that beautiful tie early on: ●. Reis also earned one ●. Yes I cooked them myself. No they aren't stolen from Lemeard's bakery, don't be stupid.
Observations stemming from the game:
Padre/Confessor. I wish I had included two padre/confessor roles. I included a Guardian Angel since the padre/confessor is meant to be a doctor substitute, but unfortunately the confessor never came into play. I would very much like to see the next GM use the confessor to prove its merit, since we never saw it operate as intended (I am wondering if Confessor is a better name than Padre since Padre is closer to Priest and might cause more confusion). To those who seem to have forgotten, the Padre/Confessor doesn't actually protect: the person they target will still die if hunted, but they will see one of the attackers. It is something akin to witness, doctor, and guardian angel, but it is obviously none of those. It is closest to the witness, since the victim dies but one attacker is seen, and the name is revealed instantly, not after a delay. However it is more like a GA in that it is targeted, and if the correct target is chosen it always works, no % chance. The fact that the victim dies is crucial to making the Ironman JL more of a Rubber JL: a mouthpiece can only be protected half the time, whereas a doctor/GA combination means a 75% chance of striking protection (100% one night, 50% the next) with a chance of a no-hunt and a wolf exposed. The padre doesn't protect, which would mean hunting mouthpieces would work more like 50% of the time - irrespective of whether GAs and padres cooperate. If they do, a dead mouthpiece could mean a dead wolf, but if they don't then it's no penalty. Personally I think the no hunt stings more than people realize with the doctor. It seems small in comparison to a dead wolf, but it pushes parity back even further than just a dead wolf would, plus it discourages hunting mouthpieces even more than it would, and then the mouthpiece, with all his knowledge is still alive. At least if the mouthpiece died the JL needs to get a new guy out there for them. Thus, I ask future GMs to consider utilizing the confessor/padre.
Leaderlynch. I think the anyone can use it leaderlynch rule worked well. That might seem odd as it never fired, but if we look at Kriszo's unfortunate death, had he been able to use his leaderlynch it could drastically have shifted momentum. If he'd been X-in-command it wouldn't have been any use. Combined with the 50% rule it can't be used to save outed baddies. I think the 50% rule coupled with anyone can use it is one way to implement the leaderlynch. Not saying the best, but it is a way that I personally would like to see in future. It must be said however that the 50% leaderlynch rule needs to be carefully explained in the rules, since Kriszo's death was an unfortunate result of unclear rules. I stand by what I said, that Kriszo had no valid target, and lynching him was the right choice, but as I also said, he would not have been lynched if the rules had been explicit about the need to have a valid target, and what constitutes valid.
Cultists. If we recall, cultists in this game started attached, and could only win with one pack, but contributed parity to both packs. The last bit was slightly controversial; some said that cultists should be able to win with either pack, others that they should only win with one pack. If I were to pick either, it would be that they win with just one pack. My reason for not allowing them to win either way was so that they could be trusted. Cultists that can win with either team are treated like sorcerers and mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed crap, if anything. At least a sorc is scanning, doing his thing. Cultists just sit there with their thumbs up their bums. I think if we learned anything from this game about cultists, it's that the old vanilla cultist idea should be laid to rest. Whatever we do, the old cultist that was able to win with any group, and therefore not trusted, but which had no powers of his own, that's not the model we want. One proposal is that they're an alternative sort of wolf: they hunt and they can't change sides, counting only for their pack's parity. I am okay with this idea, it's one variation and it's got merit. Another is to lock their affiliations, which means they're involved at least. A third is that they have to contact the GM and confirm allegiance (Randy's model?) which is also good. Another thing is that in this game I gave cultists two traits so that they were a valuable asset to their pack, which I think is another way to avoid cultist boredom: hey, you can't hunt with your pack, but that means you can't die during a hunt, get witnessed, etc, and you can still roleblock, spy, plot, shoot people, et cetera. So I believe that this game adds a modicum of weight to the argument against original flavor cultists, while there are a plethora of ways to implement them that make them more interesting and enjoyable.
Dismal Enigma. I had said in my GM Discussion and Vote Thread that I was going to reintroduce the Dismal Enigma, but in the event I just ported Johho888's roleblocker; I had mentioned Dismal Engima a bit previously, but Johho's roleblocker seemed better. I am not sure now. The roleblocker stops the person performing their nightly action (I can't remember if Johho's type stopped daily actions like plotting and leaderlynch but I think not) so they can stop scans by roleblocking a scanner. However the Dismal Enigma as I remember it (and as I intended to resurrect it) would stop people from being scanned. I mention this only as it might be worth throwing back into the mix. Roleblocker is more powerful, but a scan-blocker that can protect a specific person is also worth thinking about. Roleblockers need to know or guess the scanner to stop them, whereas the DE doesn't. Even if you block someone who isn't in your pack for example, should you stop a scan the scanner needs to repeat the scan in order to get information. I wish now I'd brought it back just to see whether it was of any merit. Oh well.
Hunter/Self defense. I definitely prefer splitting this trait in two parts. I dislike % chances (not saying they're bad, just against my taste) and this does away with it. I believe that splitting it gives the hunter more freedom of action, as he's not losing his protection by using his shot. Also, I liked the silent hunting. This made it useful for baddies as well as goodies: baddies are outnumbered so every death hurts them more than the goodies. Consequently if a goodie wastes a goodie and draws attention to himself he hurts the village less than a wolf who wastes a villager and gets himself lynched. Plus villagers aim for baddies, which will get them lauded: baddies aim for important goodies, which gets them guillotined. The combination of silent hunting and protection being removed is why I believe 2 of 4 hunters acted, and they used theirs in mid game. Mr. G would never have shot jonti-h when he did if he thought his name would get splashed in the update. In the same fashion if a villager splashes another villager he can play innocent. With protection being removed there's no longer an incentive to keep it. Now the only reason not to fire immediately is to wait for good information to come to light. So IMHO there's a lot to be said for hunters implemented this way. Also, I told SDs that they were SD, whereas obviously blessed players don't know they're blessed. The GM could withhold that information from SDS, whereas obviously the combined role must know they're a hunter. But if it's known to the SD, it has interesting implications.
Roleplay Traits. I included these due to popular request, but I must say this experience has turned me off them. I wouldn't actively campaign against them, but there are two things about them. Firstly, they must be very carefully thought out. Trinitrotoluen wasn't happy when he was given the "Skittish" RP trait, which meant he was to appear uncertain when placing votes. He felt this would get him lynched very quickly. The same thought had crossed my mind, but I included it as relatively innocuous; many people are skittish and get away with it, and people can refuse if they're unhappy. However later on a similar thing cropped up with the "terrified" trait, which meant one should predict their own certain demise regularly; Randy interpreted marty99's use of the trait as meaning he had an important role. I can imagine similar misunderstandings emerging from other RP traits. The only way to avoid people misunderstanding in this way is if it is clearly indicated that the person is roleplaying when they are using the trait; even then there's always someone thick who doesn't get it, but it should stop most misunderstandings. It does ruin the fun a bit though, and then more are likely to ignore it than bother indicating that they're RPing. Secondly, when they were issued most people immediately used them to a degree that was almost caricature, but then tailed off to the point where I think no one except Yakman (who RPd his trait perfectly, IMO, I enjoyed his performance immensely) was using them. The first is a problem, the second is more of an observation about the way the traits tend to work.
I think that covers all my observational notes. Onto setup!
That was not a reference to the previous game, in fact. I have had "justice leagues" in my time that were insanely infiltrated. Circumstances being what they were (no living scanners anymore..) they were the best I could do, but still..
I think you were the only non-wolf/cultist in the Spanish Armada justice league
I would appreciate if the cultist death doesn't reveal allegiance was in the first post, or at the very least in the Role PM. It's an easy mistake to make for baddies, and it could have kinda screwed the game.
I agree with the padre, the leaderlynch, as for cultists, I am disappointed you forgot to include reis-flavor cultists (yummy, no?). About Dismal Enigma, I would include both, possibly, or well, at least stick them up in the OP. Hunter/Self-defense is something I've been defending for ages. As for RP, it should be spontaneous, not railroaded by the GM's hand. Want good RP, make a good RP theme most WW-ers can identify with.
Seconded.
Also seconded, but please note that I'm not certain about the whole "you need to kill at least as many people as there are in the tie" thing. From an RP perspective it seems odd that a leader can't talk himself out of getting hanged if there's already one other person to satiate the mobs' bloodlust.
However, from a game balance perspective .. more deaths are good.
So I'm on the ropes on that one.
Well, actually, two of those models are mine
The "cultists are differently flavored wolves" model, AND the "cultists can lock their allegiance to a pack to become differently flavored wolves" model.
The latter allows the GM more setup flexibility, but I'm not sure the in-game effect isn't cultists instantly locking themselves to packs ..
Main issue: Too many traits in the game. Wasn't a problem here, mind..
Bring that one to the general discussion thread, please.
In fact: Bring your entire proposed ruleset to that thread, for other GM's to consider and build upon. Maybe throw in some of Johho's interesting proposals of late in there as well..
Yep. I've done that one in the past for good reason, and I'm happy to see my thoughts about it basically match yours.
Well, it was worth a shot to fish at least a bit as to what was going on there. It felt pretty damn odd. The RP trait thing just never crossed my mind .. ;-)
Well, in the first few days you don't have a lot of analysis to do, so having RP traits out there can definitely make the game feel more interesting and fun than it otherwise would be. So it tailing off isn't really an issue.
I do believe you need to take care in what kind of RP traits you put in there, though. "Pirate", "Zombie", "Drunk" etc sound fine to me. "Skittish" .. obviously fails. And in my case, the trait I had forced me to reference to one of your god-emperor games in great detail when I don't know a thing about the setting. Just isn't really my thing to be heavy on the RP, I guess though, so don't take that wrongly..
I think you were the only non-wolf/cultist in the Spanish Armada justice league
I also *didn't* call it a justice league. I didn't trust most of you at all.
You did, though, obviously.
I wanted to get as much of my thoughts/information out there for the remaining villagers in case I was hunted (or even lynched). Thankfully it didn't matter!I have never seen Lemeard do this much analysis in a game. It was pretty damn obvious he was JL to me on this last day. Of course, that's the best time for the JL to come out of the woodworks
A little insight: I found Lemeard, but did not find a cultist in time. Of course if I knew I was in immediate danger, I would have done something against the lynch, but as the Leader trait wasn't explained completely, I thought I was safe for at least a day, and I could try to relay the info to the baddies through some unusual channels. So if the trait descriptions were more accurate, it could have totally altered the outcome of the game. I would be dead anyway, but the seer could have been exposed. Of course I would have not neccesarily been succesful in this, but it could have been at least a possibility.
EDIT: Thanks for hosting Vain!
EDIT: Thanks for hosting Vain!
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Yeah, I did not get this with Najs. He gave me the wrong role and couldn't have scanned me. So I thought that if I just made a short answer, outed a false wolf, and then let Najs post it on the forum, I would cause some confusion and there really was to reason for the other players to believe in it. The PM could very well have been faked and I did not believe that people would believe Najs, which would cause some chaos for a vote or two. Najs also (almost) outed Lemeard as the seer in one of his posts, sadly no one reacted on that post.
Thanks to the GM!
The reason for shooting Jonti was that I thought I would be hanged soon...
Well, Najs didn't ever really *know* that I was the seer. I never actually told him flat out. But he probably had a fairly good idea.Yeah, I did not get this with Najs. He gave me the wrong role and couldn't have scanned me. So I thought that if I just made a short answer, outed a false wolf, and then let Najs post it on the forum, I would cause some confusion and there really was to reason for the other players to believe in it. The PM could very well have been faked and I did not believe that people would believe Najs, which would cause some chaos for a vote or two. Najs also (almost) outed Lemeard as the seer in one of his posts, sadly no one reacted on that post.
Thanks to the GM!
What post are you referring to?
Well, yeah, I did belive that whatever the cause was, no one would take some few words of text as a guarantee that I was I wolf. But I was wrong.
Nah, he wrote that before I had even contacted him.
He just wanted to confirm the Swedishness in it.
@ reis91
Cultist allegiance isn't always revealed. Johho's last two games didn't reveal cultist alignment, albeit they could switch sides. As a general rule if they're exclusive, allegiance is revealed, if they're not, allegiance isn't revealed. Because they could count for either pack's parity, I chose not to reveal alignment. That was apparent on Day 1 when Falc died, at least to his three packmates, and it should at least have given everyone else pause and they could have asked for clarification on the matter, but no one did. That the village didn't know who the cultist were working with was WAD, not an oversight.
As to your variation of cultists - you mean becoming cursed on pack death? I think that bring us pack to unattached cultists. It is different to unattached I know, but if a cultist manages to find a new contact and sell out his entire pack he can then wait to be hunted and join his new friends. The problem with being able to swap pack affiliation is that it undermines trust in the cultists.
I agree entirely about RP - unfortunately fewer people are aware of 40K here than I'd ever have imagined. Oh well. It seems like it's hard to find a theme that people like - many are like "You're a videogame clan that has been infiltrated by a rival clan who want to shut you down" and everyone is really disinterested. Then you get themes like this where everyone says "I don't know what this is."
@ Randy
As far as leaderlynching in ties go, I prefer having to select as many victims as were in the tie. I believe I said at the time with Kriszo that this removes the ability of a player to save someone by wasting a lynch: if you've got 3 valid targets, 1 is you, 1 is your packmate, fellow JL member, et cetera, and 1 is someone you don't care about, while it's a 2 way tie, you're trapped into killing someone you value. This has balance consequences, since players might vote up 3 suspected wolves and have them more than 50% ahead of other candidates. A wolf happens to be a leader, and so he redirects the lynches all onto the one hapless villager that was in the tie and 2 wolves walk free. Another situation might be that you vote up 2 players, 1 is a wolf 1 is not. They finish tied. No valid targets. But the wolf, or his packmate, shifts both lynches onto the same person. It can be looked at the other way though: this gives leaderlynching more utility. A leader who thinks a tie is horribly ill-advised can save all the people involved in a tie bar 1. That could be crucial, if all the targets are bad ones. My main reason for saying you need to pick all targets is that this has always been the norm.
It isn't necessary to always make cultist a different flavor of wolf. If they can't hunt, they're not a different flavor of wolf. It's possible to have wolves attach, but not hunt, which I believe at least one person has done. I'd be happy with being an attached cultist that had traits instead of the ability to hunt. Too many traits shouldn't be an issue; packs usually get something like 1 trait for every 2 members. Having packs with 3 wolves 1 cultist, 1 brutal wolf 1 hunter-roleblocker cultist is only about 2 more traits than normal for the whole game.
Hunter/SD idea was put in my head in your "Do Cylons Dream of Electric Sheep?" setup so I'm well aware you'd done it before at the time you did it I wasn't sure why, but at some point it seemed worthy of resurrecting, and I like the results. It seems to be well received, too.
I couldn't see the harm in trying Johho's RP traits again, especially when they seemed popular, but the results didn't enthuse me.
@ Kriszo
I figured as much. I toyed with putting you back in the game, to allow you to at least shout "LEMEARD IS THE SEER", while also costing the village another day to parity, since this would have been as close to unscrambling the egg as possible. It's quite possible that if you had leaderlynched Paen and gotten away the village would just have wagoned you the next day. Whereas if you lynch the wrong person by accident you can't unscramble the egg, it seemed possible to mostly unscramble the situation by putting you back in. The only damage done then is any chance of you surviving was entirely lost, whereas you might have escaped after leaderlynching Paen. This really did seem like the best course of action, but I suspected that doing so would led to be being sent to the Bonfire of Failed GMing - any sort of "fix" seems to be worse than the original mistake.
Cultist allegiance isn't always revealed. Johho's last two games didn't reveal cultist alignment, albeit they could switch sides. As a general rule if they're exclusive, allegiance is revealed, if they're not, allegiance isn't revealed. Because they could count for either pack's parity, I chose not to reveal alignment. That was apparent on Day 1 when Falc died, at least to his three packmates, and it should at least have given everyone else pause and they could have asked for clarification on the matter, but no one did. That the village didn't know who the cultist were working with was WAD, not an oversight.
As to your variation of cultists - you mean becoming cursed on pack death? I think that bring us pack to unattached cultists. It is different to unattached I know, but if a cultist manages to find a new contact and sell out his entire pack he can then wait to be hunted and join his new friends. The problem with being able to swap pack affiliation is that it undermines trust in the cultists.
I agree entirely about RP - unfortunately fewer people are aware of 40K here than I'd ever have imagined. Oh well. It seems like it's hard to find a theme that people like - many are like "You're a videogame clan that has been infiltrated by a rival clan who want to shut you down" and everyone is really disinterested. Then you get themes like this where everyone says "I don't know what this is."
@ Randy
As far as leaderlynching in ties go, I prefer having to select as many victims as were in the tie. I believe I said at the time with Kriszo that this removes the ability of a player to save someone by wasting a lynch: if you've got 3 valid targets, 1 is you, 1 is your packmate, fellow JL member, et cetera, and 1 is someone you don't care about, while it's a 2 way tie, you're trapped into killing someone you value. This has balance consequences, since players might vote up 3 suspected wolves and have them more than 50% ahead of other candidates. A wolf happens to be a leader, and so he redirects the lynches all onto the one hapless villager that was in the tie and 2 wolves walk free. Another situation might be that you vote up 2 players, 1 is a wolf 1 is not. They finish tied. No valid targets. But the wolf, or his packmate, shifts both lynches onto the same person. It can be looked at the other way though: this gives leaderlynching more utility. A leader who thinks a tie is horribly ill-advised can save all the people involved in a tie bar 1. That could be crucial, if all the targets are bad ones. My main reason for saying you need to pick all targets is that this has always been the norm.
It isn't necessary to always make cultist a different flavor of wolf. If they can't hunt, they're not a different flavor of wolf. It's possible to have wolves attach, but not hunt, which I believe at least one person has done. I'd be happy with being an attached cultist that had traits instead of the ability to hunt. Too many traits shouldn't be an issue; packs usually get something like 1 trait for every 2 members. Having packs with 3 wolves 1 cultist, 1 brutal wolf 1 hunter-roleblocker cultist is only about 2 more traits than normal for the whole game.
Hunter/SD idea was put in my head in your "Do Cylons Dream of Electric Sheep?" setup so I'm well aware you'd done it before
at the time you did it I wasn't sure why, but at some point it seemed worthy of resurrecting, and I like the results. It seems to be well received, too.I couldn't see the harm in trying Johho's RP traits again, especially when they seemed popular, but the results didn't enthuse me.
@ Kriszo
I figured as much. I toyed with putting you back in the game, to allow you to at least shout "LEMEARD IS THE SEER", while also costing the village another day to parity, since this would have been as close to unscrambling the egg as possible. It's quite possible that if you had leaderlynched Paen and gotten away the village would just have wagoned you the next day. Whereas if you lynch the wrong person by accident you can't unscramble the egg, it seemed possible to mostly unscramble the situation by putting you back in. The only damage done then is any chance of you surviving was entirely lost, whereas you might have escaped after leaderlynching Paen. This really did seem like the best course of action, but I suspected that doing so would led to be being sent to the Bonfire of Failed GMing - any sort of "fix" seems to be worse than the original mistake.
I'm not saying cultist's allegiance should or should not be revealed. I think not revealing might prevent to a limited extent throwing them under the bus. The point is that it wasn't clear, and all aspects, especially the ones that are not the same every game, should be made as clear as possible in rules post or in role PM.
As for my cultists, yes, I forgot I gave that idea too, but I obviously meant the fantastic "subversive cultist(tm)" I came up with in Springtime of Nations (which consisted of having cultists being able to form a "cultist faction" which had to kill all the wolves and get parity with village)
As for my cultists, yes, I forgot I gave that idea too, but I obviously meant the fantastic "subversive cultist(tm)" I came up with in Springtime of Nations (which consisted of having cultists being able to form a "cultist faction" which had to kill all the wolves and get parity with village)
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