Werewolf CLVIII: Infernal Affairs

[johho888]

Where the EL switch came from. Skobie had figured I was the van Helsing and wanted to save me:

If nobody will switch off you, shall we two switch into Eternaly_Lost? That way EL would have 4 votes and you 3. I might be fool for defending you but at least you shot a wolf so there it is.

I guess. the_hdk seems OK and he argues for EL. And I only ever voted tamius because his complete lack of meaningful votes and lack of activity.

I don't really know about him. He's very quiet - but then again I remember how he was 6 years ago so he could have changed a lot. Also, I suppose you are van Helsing, then? I must say I can't remember I've ever seen it in action.

Also, in case both of us survive this night and you aren't baddie - I'm just normal villager (duh). Though I must say I'm even more clueless that usual in this game right now seeing how there's been several no-hunt nights and not that many days without outings or such.

 

[Arkasas]

I love the sheer paranoia being displayed by all sides at this point. Especially Skob's mad predictions that he was the last villager. That was funny...

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

I love the sheer paranoia being displayed by all sides at this point. Especially Skob's mad predictions that he was the last villager. That was funny...

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there aren't wolves out there trying to get me. *nods*

Where the EL switch came from. Skobie had figured I was the van Helsing and wanted to save me:

Also, I didn't really figure johho's role out myself, it was quite clearly spelled out in the thread by johho himself. I wanted to lynch tamius23 but felt Eternaly_Lost was good wolf candidate, too, so I was good to go with him. I just didn't feel where the incentive to vote johho came from so I wanted to coordinate a bit to save him.

Notice how much interest the_hdk took about who's van Helsing. Clearly more than a villager would but a wolf would be very interested in avoiding him with the hunt. Also, gigau really sealed the deal about himself for the next day here with him going after johho etc.

 

[marty99]

Werewolf CLVIII: Infernal Affairs - The Game Master's After Action Report​

Day 11:


Eternaly_Lost's last minute confession of the day before sets up the way the voting will go today:

To unsave you.

Brutal Tamius23



I honestly have no idea who my wolf pack is. I got assigned an Zombie, and no one thought to contact me all game.

So Nautilu or gigau then?

vote Nautilu

Skobelev makes the first analysis in a good while:

Now then. It is our as police officers and officers of Sûreté to bring the guilty party or guilty parties to the cööört. Right. Now then, let us look at the facts.


Gen. Skobelev: lynched aedan777 (red) day 9 and Eternaly_Lost (gray) day 10. Villager (duh).

johho888: hunted Hax (red) night 7, lynched Eternaly_Lost (gray) day 10, though he wasn't very enthusiastic about EL. Didn't go with the switch attempt to tamius23. Very likely is van Helsing as he claims.

the_hdk: voted aedan777 (red) on day 9, first to vote Eternaly_Lost (gray) on day 10. gigau has been accusing of being baddie but no action otherwise. Less likely to be baddie than some others.

Najs: voted Eternaly_Lost (gray) on day 9, voted Eternaly_Lost (gray) on day 10. Very unlikely gray (assuming he would have known as packmate that EL was gray), possible red though he voted for red in 5-3-2-2-2 situation (putting red to 3 votes) and again voted Comm Cody (red) first on day 8, though there was outing later for him.

leksu: votes johho on day 9 and day 10 and gives weak argument for it. Witnessed madchemist on night 6 and outed on day 6. Nothing proving his goodiness in voting records. Could be turned but then walrus said he had info and didn't whack walrus immediately after getting it. Puzzling.

gigau: voted on day 9 first the_hdk, then piled onto aedan777 (red) when he was going to die anyway. Day 10 voted tamius23 (red), switched to the_hdk, then ended on johho. Very solid candidate as gray, potential for red seeing how he totally piled on tamius23 yesterday (fourth voter, no votes on anybody else).

Nautilu: day one voted madchemist (gray) in a huge 2-vote tie (could be alibi vote) day 9 throwaway on gigau, day 10 voted tamius23 (red). Potential gray.

Now then. Do we assume that both packs started as 4+2? If we do, there are 2-3 wolves in red left and 1 wolf 1 cultist in gray. It’s the worst-case scenario and we would need to preferably get red wolf. Unfortunately finding red wolf is harder since there is less in voting records for the turned ones.


Also, let’s look at the wolf table.

[COLOR="#FF0000"]reds  [/COLOR]                             [COLOR="#808080"]grays[/COLOR]
Citizen1oo1 wolf                   Falc wolf
Comm Cody wolf, GC member          snoopdogg wolf with rival
?                                  madchemist the brutal werewolf
original wolf?                     original wolf?
WL (-> J. Pass), brutal cultist    Eternaly_Lost brutal cultist
Steed, cultist with one eye open   ?
aedan777 turned wolf
tamius23 turned wolf
?

Vote nautilu

I don't think gig would forget to contact his cultists

The_hdk has it right here.

Votecount

Gigau - 3; Johho888, Najs, Nautilu
Nautilu - 3; Gigau, Leksu, The_hdk

Not Voted: 1
Gen. Skobelev


Seven hours and seven minutes to deadline.​

The voting seems relatively settled with seven and a half hours left, with a two-way tie between the main candidates, and only skobelev to vote.

Hmm...

Gigau sets his brutal on the first person to vote him that day. Which in this case is johho.

Skobelev ends up voting Gigau, and he ends up being lynched alone. He brutalises Johho888. Gigau shortly after the deadline expresses regret that he didn't change it to Nautilu instead. Were he to do that, it would have completely changed the game, destroying the Winter Hill Gang and making the Triads hunt.
Instead, Nautilu hunts The_hdk, the last wolf of the Triad Pack. The Triads have had quite a spectacular downfall in the past few days, having 6 members die in about the same number of days. Very unfortunate for the_hdk, though, as he had successfully managed to dispel a lot of the suspicion gathering about him recently, and seemed to be not on the village's likely lynch list, so to lose by a hunt so close to victory was very disappointing for him

Now, only 4 players left, and so we move on to...

The Twelfth and Final Day:

A pm from Skobelev to me:

Ah well, not much to do now, I think. There's leksu the turned red wolf, Nautilu the gray zombiewolf and Najs the gray cultist. Here's hoping they have brutals, or, better yet, one-eye-open to prevent other pack from winning.

Indeed.


Nautilu sends me a pm (don't have it anymore) asking if he can attach cultists to his pack during the day, without having to wait during the night. Basically, he wants to out himself so he can gain parity. I tell them this isn't possible, and he says the rules are "biased" against him Little does he know my ruling prevents him from outing himself in the thread to a game full of villagers!

After much a little debate in the thread, Skobelev casts the first vote, on Nautilu. It looks like the village may indeed win this! But will another villager be tied, and if so, whom?

Precisely. I think he is a good candidate for cursed wolf.

Vote Leksu

Najs votes Leksu on the basis he may have been turned, but assuming symmetrical packs there must be at least one original Winter Hill left at the very least...and Leksu is the one person that can't be. I honestly didn't expect Leksu to be among the frontrunners today.

Leksu votes Nautilu: not much choice in the matter.

Nautilu then votes Leksu, making it a two-way tie. It stays this way until several minutes before the deadline.

Unvote Leksu Vote Najs
lets hope for the best

Unvote Najs Vote Leksu
Lets hope this is right.

Nautilu makes a double-snipe that ends up in the same place.

Leksu, and Nautilu get lynched in a two-way TIE... Both Skobelev and Najs don't seem too confident they've won, but won they have. Two winners, out of a starting pool of 39 players. And a truly remarkable comeback by a village that was on the ropes from the very first night. Losing the game's only seer before he had time for a single scan was a huge blow, but was surely a good thing for the game overall (no offense, Ithvan!) as it made it more in the open and less about the JL, and perhaps galvanised the village to be more active in hunting down the wolves themselves. A nice climax to a very enjoyable game to GM.


I will make one more chapter as a conclusion and stuff. Very tired so sorry for rushedness, and stuff. Will get back to other comments later...probably. Drifting away.

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

I was operating under worst case scenario assumptions on the last 2 days. I was sorely tempted to leave the Nautilu-gigau thing to tie but then thought with bad luck it might mean parity immediately if grays lost wolf and cultist jumped ship. Oh well.

On the last day the only options I saw was that either there was just the gray wolf left or that there were gray wolf, gray cultist and red wolf. Since leksu couldn't be gray wolf the votes to him from Najs and Nautilu, gray candidates, made the 2 wolves, 1 cultist -option look more real. I counted that if leksu was turned he'd want to stand in the way of gray victory while the grays would vote in unison against leksu. So I'd need to vote gray wolf and hope tie lynches both wolves as cultist would wither without wolf. And of course that the gray cultist wouldn't sell out his packmate to jump ship to reds since that would ensure cultist+red victory.

Also, if the (as I saw it, less likely) option of only 1 wolf remaining that would have to be either Nautilu or Najs, with Nautilu more likely. Since grays hadn't had turned nights leksu would be obviously goodie in this scenario and again I was counting on his vote.

So, yeah. In the first scenario victory for village looked not-too-likely, in the latter it depended on whether the right person from the potential gray pack was picked. As it happened, Nautilu was the gray.

I can't tell if Najs reached the conclusion about village needing a tie or did he genuinely believe leksu to be gray wolf. In any case, good that nobody went along with the last-minute attempts of Nautilu.

And I really don't understand why Nautilu would have gone public seeking cultists. He was gray wolf, he'd know that there were no more cultists left. Clueless villagers were the ones who assumed there was still gray cultist around, nobody expected red cultist. Oh well, going public would have saved leksu, at least.

 

[Arkasas]

I think Naut really could have mounted a stronger defense. From my (all-knowing) vantage point, it really looked like he was shooting himself in the foot.

But I digress.

 

[marty99]

Werewolf CLVIII: Infernal Affairs - The Game Master's After Action Report​

Conclusion:

The reason I chose the theme was the following:
With a detective/police theme, I thought it lend itself to good roleplaying opportunities.
The title sounded cool I thought, and that was important to me; you may not think consciously about the title of a game but "Infernal Affairs" I think, in two words manages to suggest and convey a lot of what makes a good werewolf game. It suggests evil, and hell, and the struggle with it. As it is a pun on the phrase 'internal affairs' but with a sinister twist, it suggests backstabbing, politics and paranoia. Also, I think the rhythm of the phrase is nice, it rolls off the tongue. Overall quite a dark theme, about the right tone for a werewolf game.

In the end, I thought the theme worked quite well. There was some very good RP'ing from several people. I especially enjoyed Gen. Skobelev's Clouseau, Gigau's Poirot, Leksu's brooding someone who quips sinister one-liners, and Hax has Huggy Bear. There could have more roleplaying, but generally there was a higher level of it than most games in recent years. I think the theme worked well with the level of deaths, as well, and the paranoia leading up to the final days.

Now to the actual set-up.
1. I am just about the most passionate opponent of strong JLs in games, quite frankly I think most games in which there is a strong JL are quite boring for the rest of the players.
So what I what I wanted to do with this was neuter the chance of any powerful JL forming, but make sure there were at least some potential ways some kind of JL could set up, but not a very powerful one...

I think, though it was probably down to luck as much as anything, this happened pretty much perfectly in the game. There was no real strong JL, but in the mid-game there was a weak kinda JL forming around Arkasas and Walrus, but which was easily killable by the wolves. I felt this worked very well here.

2. I decided early on there would be two packs. I wanted big enough packs to really create a dynamic that allows for vote analysis in the late game, so at least four wolves in each pack. [Also van Helsing and unattached cultist]

I feel two packs worked well, as it usually does, with both packs being alive with 7 players left, yet not overrunning the village as the good guys still actually managed to win. Unattached cultist didn't change much since he joined a pack almost straight away, but it did have the effect of messing up the village's analysis about the set-up somewhat.
I think the High-Sorcerer was a refreshing change, at least, and it did lead to more co-operation between him and the packs.

3. To balance the High-Sorcerer somewhat, I added in the van Helsing. Again, I thought this would be a refreshing return of a role and it would provide some interesting outcomes. There are several different rule variants of the van Helsing, I chose a moderately powerful one, but not too much, so that he had a one-time super-scan, a hunter trait, and One-Eye Open. I was hoping the super-scan would eventually be used late in the game, and that it might hit a baddie, giving the vH a chance to use his hunter trait.

Seemed to work quite well, wasn't used as part of a JL but did manage to scan and kill a baddie and provoke a lot of discussion about what johho's role was and whether he was van Helsing.

I put a thief in the game, because I love the kind of havoc that this role can create, more or less by itself. In terms of entertainment value it definitely provides a great amount compared to the effort it takes to set it up.

DEFINITELY created the desired havoc here

4. I've noticed many games tend to run out of steam by the mid to late game, and I wanted to try and reduce that as much as possible. Therefore, I wanted a high number of deaths per day/night cycle, higher than most games have ever had before.
Therefore, I liberally spread One-Eye Open, Hunter and Brutal traits throughout the roster, giving them to normal villagers, wolves, sorcerers, cultists and scanners alike.
I also reduced greatly the number of blesseds/curseds. I don't like blesseds in a game much as they slow it down, and while curseds do add something, given the High-Sorcerer's ability I decided to have no curseds in the game at start. However, in the case the Sorc forwent his cursing powers in favour of scanning, or died early, I wanted to have the possibility of at least one no-hunt night, so I added in a couple of blesseds. One of them on a otherwise traitless villager, and the other on a witness as a I really wanted at least one or two witnesses to be able to survive until they could use their abilities.

While this game will always be memorable for the amount of deaths if nothing else, I do think it's quite clear I went a bit overboard, and misjudged it here. I was intending for a lot of deaths, but not quite this many. Instead of 3 deaths per day/night cycle, I think 2.5 would have been better: still much higher than average, but giving a little bit more time for the game to develop.
On the positive side, though, it did move the action forward constantly and I don't think there were that many boring days (there just weren't that many days full stop).

5. I put in two sets of rivals, and made one of the rivals a wolf, and his rival a One-Eye Open, to see what would happen and to shatter the illusion that rivals are always goodies. I also added a Lover, who was also a rival, to cause a bit of havoc. I thought perhaps having a Rival might encourage the Lover to sleep around, to try and avoid a kill in the night.

The Rivals curiously didn't do anything themselves, but their very presence coupled with a couple of coincidences did make thing a little bit more interesting. And the Lover, although only ever using his powers twice, died the second time he used them, which was funny, but I do think as I did before that that role may need to be tweaked to make it more interesting.

6. I put leaders in the game, although I wasn't too enthusiastic about them. I only made three leaders, a 2nd in command, a 3rd and I decided to give the Leader trait to the winner of the day 0 voting. Due to a GM error I didn't send out the names of the second and third leaders with role distribution, so I decided to just wait until the first one died before informing them they had become leader. This isn't normal practice but as the rules didn't say chain of command had to be told I figured I'd get away with it.
I also decided to make all three leaders villagers, as this is one of those traits that people usually assume wolves will have, as opposed to rivals or hunters, so I thought it might be a bit of a curveball.

Leaders were never used here although randakar almost did (and it would've quite drastically changed the game if he had!) so I can't comment too much. I still don't like them that much, but I think they should be in a game to some extent.
I made the change to the rules that even if a leader lynches a baddie they still lose their powers, which I'm not sure people actually noticed. This is to prevent JLs using leaders too much.

7. Lastly, I wanted quite a 'light' game in terms of role interactions and stuff. There was the High Sorc, the van Helsing, and the GC, of course, but apart from that I didn't want too much information. There were plenty of traits in this game, but you will notice that most of them were killing traits, and there weren't as many 'informational' ones: no priestly, sorcerous or padreous powers, no spies, no padre, no doctor etc. There was one seerish power, which I gave to a hunter as well, hoping it would be cool if they scanned a wolf and decided to go vigilante.
So all in all, there actually wasn't much in terms of results from nightly actions, as I wanted a game that wasn't too hard to GM and that people would focus more on analysis and behaviour, rather than complex trait powers.

As expected and intended, there wasn't a whole lot of information going around. In the end, this did make things behind the scenes at times a little bare, but on the other hand perhaps slightly opened things up in the thread.


Regarding my GM, I made quite a few minor mistakes in this game, but luckily none of them actually made a tangible impact on gameplay. But I will definitely need to improve on that.



Overall, though, I feel this game turned out much better than I expected. I think the one thing I did get pretty much right was the set-up, which ended up very well balanced despite everything. Everything else I put down to the players and activity in this game, which made it a very fun game to GM and hopefully a good one to play in!


Thoughts for the next game I hope to do:

• I like the Guardian Council as a concept, and I think with tweaking I will probably add it in my next game.
  
  
• I will probably keep scanner cultists in the game as I feel it gives them more to do, although I'll definitely change what they can scan for.
  
  
• I may well keep both the High-Sorc and van Helsing in. I may change the additional powers of the High-Sorcerer, though. In some games long ago he had the power to send in an order to save a certain person from lynching, if they received the most votes. I'm thinking of putting that in in some way. May also change van Helsing a little bit, there's been several variations on it.
  
  
• I will keep a high number of brutals, One Eye Opens and Hunters in the game, but not quite as much as in this game. I will, however, probably allow "brutal chains".
  
  
• I'll probably put in more informational traits. One thing I especially like is the Spy trait, and with enough work I think it could be very good in a game. I'd also perhaps put in some "-ish powers" to spread around the possible information.
  
  
• I want to JL to be as vulnerable in this game, but perhaps more potential to be more powerful. I like to envision a game where the JL consists less of a centralised hierarchy of scanners > mouthpiece > various other claimants, and more of a loose, decentralised confederation of players all working together, with less of a distinct chain of command or centre, and also much easier for baddies to be part of. Too much behind the scenes is sometimes bad but I want there to be more next time, only this time hopefully it will be easier for ordinary villagers to get some idea of what's going on. This won't be easy to achieve, but it's something I think quite a lot about.
  
  
• I will probably change the Thief role the way Teep suggested in this thread.
  
  
• Perhaps I'll put in the Jester or some derivation of it, as it seems like an interesting role that could have important applications in the type of game I'm thinking of.
  
  
• Protection will still be very very hard to come by, though perhaps not quite as impossible as in this game!
  
  
• Given Randakar's pestering, I might put in the Pathological Liar role
  
  
• The theme I already have in mind, though I don't want to spoil it. But it'll be a theme that can lend itself to really any kind of roleplaying imaginable, I hope. And I want to create an environement where RP'ing is rewarded, so I will consider giving traits to the best roleplayers as judged by me e.g. blessed or leader or something. Also, the Spy reports will tie in with the theme. Probably.
  
  
• I think the game I have in mind will require a fairly large number of players, so if I get less than I did in this game I will probably put it off until the next time. I'd really like to get 40+ in order to work it.
  
  
• The Werepenguin trait may or may not make a comeback.
  
  
• RP traits such as the foreigner will be in the game to some extent, although I will try to ensure every player has a way to communicate clearly at the same time.
  
  
• I will be much organized and stuff. Instead of doing most things from memory I'll try use excel or whatever you other fancy GMs do.

 

[Arkasas]

And there you have it, kids.

Now, we need 5 or 6 more people to say things so that this will beat Refugees in posts. Say things!

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

And there you have it, kids.

Now, we need 5 or 6 more people to say things so that this will beat Refugees in posts. Say things!

Uh oh...

In the end, I thought the theme worked quite well. There was some very good RP'ing from several people. I especially enjoyed Gen. Skobelev's Clouseau, Gigau's Poirot, Leksu's brooding someone who quips sinister one-liners, and Hax has Huggy Bear. There could have more roleplaying, but generally there was a higher level of it than most games in recent years.

Don't forget Comrade Sleepyhead with his Soviet homosex rp! But yep, I really liked to play as Clouseau and this gave me excuse to dig up the Clouseau dvd box and remind myself about the ingeniosity of Chief inspector Clouseau.

 

[tamius23]

And there you have it, kids.

Now, we need 5 or 6 more people to say things so that this will beat Refugees in posts. Say things!

Since you ask (my apologies for losing your pretty formatting Marty):

I like the Guardian Council as a concept, and I think with tweaking I will probably add it in my next game.

Seems like a decent idea to reduce the power of a guardian angel. In a big game (30+) it'd probably make sense to have a doctor/padre too, but not both, to give the village some chance of protecting its most valuable players. Especially if there are 3 packs.

Although now players will know you tend to go in for few anti-hunt type roles, they may be more aggressive in hunting those viewed to be important goodies, like mouthpieces.

I will probably keep scanner cultists in the game as I feel it gives them more to do, although I'll definitely change what they can scan for.


I may well keep both the High-Sorc and van Helsing in. I may change the additional powers of the High-Sorcerer, though. In some games long ago he had the power to send in an order to save a certain person from lynching, if they received the most votes. I'm thinking of putting that in in some way. May also change van Helsing a little bit, there's been several variations on it.

Were it me, I'd leave at one of sorcerer and cultist as scanning for roles. After all, the cultists probably ought to have some method of linking up with a pack short of an outing.

I will keep a high number of brutals, One Eye Opens and Hunters in the game, but not quite as much as in this game. I will, however, probably allow "brutal chains".

I have to disagree with you on brutal chains. I've always thought that a brutal only applies on lynching (which includes leaderlynching and being lynched thanks to innkeeper shenanigans).

This is the first game that I've seen brutal chains in and played in (and remember); they've been used in the past, though, there's that famous update post with JDMS and EUROO7 and some other people from a game a long, long time ago.

I'll probably put in more informational traits. One thing I especially like is the Spy trait, and with enough work I think it could be very good in a game. I'd also perhaps put in some "-ish powers" to spread around the possible information.

Yes, I agree. Seerish powers and the like make up for an early seer's death like we saw in this game. (If the seer dies late then there aren't many people with powers left so their impact is diminished). Often, players like to use them straightaway ("use them or lose them"). Keep that in mind.

I want to JL to be as vulnerable in this game, but perhaps more potential to be more powerful. I like to envision a game where the JL consists less of a centralised hierarchy of scanners > mouthpiece > various other claimants, and more of a loose, decentralised confederation of players all working together, with less of a distinct chain of command or centre, and also much easier for baddies to be part of. Too much behind the scenes is sometimes bad but I want there to be more next time, only this time hopefully it will be easier for ordinary villagers to get some idea of what's going on. This won't be easy to achieve, but it's something I think quite a lot about.


I will probably change the Thief role the way Teep suggested in this thread.


Perhaps I'll put in the Jester or some derivation of it, as it seems like an interesting role that could have important applications in the type of game I'm thinking of.

Given Randakar's pestering, I might put in the Pathological Liar role

Well, all three of these are in CLIX, by way of an experiment. Let's hope they end up worth putting into future games. Thief looks promising and well-balanced (if the thief picks a very important goodie like the seer, the snowballing effect of waiting until a side is winning then adding to it is counterbalanced by the fact that all the seer's knowledge, such as people he has contacted and his scan list are lost.)

The theme I already have in mind, though I don't want to spoil it. But it'll be a theme that can lend itself to really any kind of roleplaying imaginable, I hope. And I want to create an environement where RP'ing is rewarded, so I will consider giving traits to the best roleplayers as judged by me e.g. blessed or leader or something. Also, the Spy reports will tie in with the theme. Probably.


I think the game I have in mind will require a fairly large number of players, so if I get less than I did in this game I will probably put it off until the next time. I'd really like to get 40+ in order to work it.

Do remember that 40+ is very unlikely indeed. 30 is a big number these days. I am almost certain we haven't had 40 since Refugees (CXII); this game has been the biggest since then, ahead of Bloody, Bloody Sunday (CLIII), if my memory serves me right. It'd probably be fair to say we've been going through a Werewolf Golden Age since about CXLIX.

The Werepenguin trait may or may not make a comeback.

What is the Werepenguin trait?

]I will be much organized and stuff. Instead of doing most things from memory I'll try use excel or whatever you other fancy GMs do.

How do you write down orders? Where? I'd be really interested to compare GMing practices with you.

Don't forget Comrade Sleepyhead with his Soviet homosex rp! But yep, I really liked to play as Clouseau and this gave me excuse to dig up the Clouseau dvd box and remind myself about the ingeniosity of Chief inspector Clouseau.

I was waiting for the perfect time to pull out Pollapönk's No Prejudice (again) as a riposte to Sleepyhead but he died too soon. Also I kept forgetting.

 

[alxeu]

Going to unsub after this post. I've seen all there is to see. Good job marty!

 

[marty99]

Good idea! I'll go back and do that with the games I hosted too.

Excellent! Now I can finally read Refugees without knowing what's gonna happen!

I didn't realise there had been some info in that post that was later removed. I thought the redaction happened before the post was done.

Walrus is a sneaky ninja sea creature.

Didn't the wolves actually hunt Walrus then, though? I'm pretty sure he got whacked before my blessed deflected a hit.

Yeah, you were right about that bit o

Also, that J. Pass plot was brilliant. Too bad it didn't work, really. One of the dangers (in more way than one) with having robber who can switch sides.

Yes, but the risks involved are also huge.

So, just to confirm, was leksu cursed or not? Because the order should have gone through

No, I made the decision early on that the Sorcerer had the live fully through the night to place a curse. I know it works differently than scans, but it's a completely different mechanism which hasn't before, and I thought it made more sense to make it similar to the apprentice claiming type thing.

Did johho ever actually use his ability?

Yep, Hax.

Shouldn't a Van Helsing have scanned everyone, not just Hax?

No. He has a one-time super-scan, revealing all roles and traits of a single person, and that's it.

This.

Well, combine that with hunter and one eye open, and it becomes a very, very strong role. He can (potentially) out one wolf, shoot another, and he can't really be hunted unless the wolves are willing to lose another member of their pack. And even if he wastes his super-scan on a villager, he can form an instant mini-JL. Not bad at all, I'd say.

Indeed. It's also a very different kind of power to the traditional goodie powers, Seer and Priest, and I think it adds a little something to the mix.

I still wouldn't call it underpowered, even as a scanner. It's way better than the one-shot seerish/priestly/other powers that are often given as traits, since you get complete information from it.



Now that I think of it, this was a missed opportunity. If snoop was going to die (admittedly, not a foregone conclusion, but not unlikely, the way things were going), it would have been a great thing if he had just openly admitted to being a wolf, immediately getting SPLIT on our side and feeding cursed players to us rather than the Triads. It almost creates a perverse incentive to be the first pack to have a wolf outed.

Yeah, considering the Triads hunted the only two players to be cursed, it would have been a massively different game if Snoop had gotten in contact with Split.

Don't forget Comrade Sleepyhead with his Soviet homosex rp! But yep, I really liked to play as Clouseau and this gave me excuse to dig up the Clouseau dvd box and remind myself about the ingeniosity of Chief inspector Clouseau.

Oh yes! His parting post was probably my favourite RP post of the game.

Seems like a decent idea to reduce the power of a guardian angel. In a big game (30+) it'd probably make sense to have a doctor/padre too, but not both, to give the village some chance of protecting its most valuable players. Especially if there are 3 packs.

Although now players will know you tend to go in for few anti-hunt type roles, they may be more aggressive in hunting those viewed to be important goodies, like mouthpieces.

Well that's the thing, I don't like too much protection. But yes, next game wolves may try to capitalise on that, but I'll probably throw in at least a doctor or something alongside it.

I have to disagree with you on brutal chains. I've always thought that a brutal only applies on lynching (which includes leaderlynching and being lynched thanks to innkeeper shenanigans).

This is the first game that I've seen brutal chains in and played in (and remember); they've been used in the past, though, there's that famous update post with JDMS and EUROO7 and some other people from a game a long, long time ago.

Maybe I haven't played much, but I honestly don't remember an update where that hasn't happened. *shrug* Generation gap, I guess.

Yes, I agree. Seerish powers and the like make up for an early seer's death like we saw in this game. (If the seer dies late then there aren't many people with powers left so their impact is diminished). Often, players like to use them straightaway ("use them or lose them"). Keep that in mind.

The witnesses made up for it in this game. And players do often use them early although I really don't see the point - if you come back with a negative on your scan early, you've basically wasted it.

Well, all three of these are in CLIX, by way of an experiment. Let's hope they end up worth putting into future games. Thief looks promising and well-balanced (if the thief picks a very important goodie like the seer, the snowballing effect of waiting until a side is winning then adding to it is counterbalanced by the fact that all the seer's knowledge, such as people he has contacted and his scan list are lost.)

Be interesting to see what happens, definitely!

Do remember that 40+ is very unlikely indeed. 30 is a big number these days. I am almost certain we haven't had 40 since Refugees (CXII); this game has been the biggest since then, ahead of Bloody, Bloody Sunday (CLIII), if my memory serves me right. It'd probably be fair to say we've been going through a Werewolf Golden Age since about CXLIX.

Alliance of Magicians had 39 IIRC, or maybe 38, but it was the biggest in a while as well. I'd agree we are going through a good patch, since I've returned there's been several good new players started in Lite, and I've only observed one Big game of course.

What is the Werepenguin trait?

It started in this game:
Werewolf XV: The Curse of the Werepenguin

This is the trait:

Werepenguin: The werepenguin is a transferable curse that lasts 24 hours. If you are the werepenguin it cancels all of your abilities for that day i.e ‘scanners’ cannot scan, a wolf cannot hunt, GA can’t protect etc, you can not use any ability at all. It also cancels blessed and cursed traits for the duration. If you are a wolf/cultist/sorcerer you do not count towards your pack's number whilst under the curse of the werepenguin. You may still vote as usual. The curse does not affect the results of being scanned. You are considered cursed from after the lynch/eat result of the day you recieve the curse until upto and including the lynch/eat result of the next day when you pass the curse on. Whoever is the werepenguin on the final day automatically dies and so cannot win. Transfering the curse: Each night the person who is the werepenguin will PM me and tell me who he wishes to transfer the curse to for the next day. Nobody else will know who the curse has been transferred to. You will not know who gave it to you. If the werepenguin dies, the curse is still transferred to the player of his choice. Random transfer: I will randomly transfer the curse under the following conditions and will not reveal who the new cursee is nor that a ranom transfer has taken place: If I receive no PM from the werepenguin; if you attempt to transfer the curse back to the player who passed it to you; if the new cursee dies on the same evening he was to receive the curse; a wolf attempts to give it to a pack mate; or you attempt to keep the curse...... If you fail to PM me (unless declared absent) you will be penalised by not having voting rights the next day and (unless I decide its advantageous to you) the affects of the curse last an extra 24 hours.

And it was also in a few more games devoted to the theme (there may have been others, I'm only looking for titles with "Werepenguin" in them) where the role was changed somewhat:
Werewolf XX: Return of the Werepenguin

Important change from the first game: The Werepenguin has spent the last few hundred years working out and doing some martial arts training (see picture above), so if the Werepenguin is attacked at night, one of his assailants will die; and if the Werepenguin is voted to be lynched, the last person to vote for him will die. The Werepenguin cannot win, but also cannot die. Transfering the curse: Each night the person who is the werepenguin will PM me and tell me who he wishes to transfer the curse to for the next day. Nobody else will know who the curse has been transferred to. You will not know who gave it to you. Random transfer: I will randomly transfer the curse under the following conditions and will not reveal who the new cursee is nor that a ranom transfer has taken place: If I receive no PM from the werepenguin; if you attempt to transfer the curse back to the player who passed it to you; if the new cursee dies on the same evening he was to receive the curse; a wolf attempts to give it to a pack mate, or if a member of the masonic brotherhood attempts to give it to a fellow member; or you attempt to keep the curse.

WWXXX: Werepenguin: Mutation

Changes from last game: The werepenguin went under a strange mutation after it's last death. You may have heard the saying what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Well, for the werepenguin isn't quite the same. It's what does kill him, only makes him stronger.

The werepenguin has a semblance of sentience now. When a player is forced to pick who the werepenguin posses, he gives 2 names. The name he wants the werepenguin to go to and the name he doesn't want it to go to. There is a 50% chance it will go to the first name. Then failing that, all the names are put up for possible candidates, except the current host and the 2nd name. If only 1 name is given, it is assumed to be the 2nd name.

Those inhabited by the Werepenguin lose all their abilities. They become normal villagers that don't count toward anything, but are always scanned as normal villagers and do not count towards WW parity or victory for villagers. If the werepenguin is the last wolf of a pack that was to hunt that night, no hunt will occur. If there ends up with 1 WW who is possessed and the rest villagers, the game continues and werepenguin finds a new host. If whomever is the werepenguin dies, by whatever means, there is a 50% chance that the Werepenguin will inhabit one of those who caused their death. A death of a possed person will always be revealed as a normal villager.

So obviously, very different effects in the last two games of it. All well before my time, of course. I talked to johho about it a long time ago and he said it wasn't that successful, on the other hand, there were three games about, and it does seem cool. It's not something that will really drastically change the game, but an interesting twist, I think.

How do you write down orders? Where? I'd be really interested to compare GMing practices with you.

Sometimes I write it down in Word, others I just rely on memory. Couple of times I forgot and had to ask the people to reiterate their orders. Definitely need to improve that

Going to unsub after this post. I've seen all there is to see. Good job marty!

Thanks Alxeu!

 

[Arkasas]

I'm kind of debating as to whether I played better this time or in CLVI.

Ah well. We've beaten Refugees, so I think we're done here.

Or are we?

 

[johho888]

Excellent! Now I can finally read Refugees without knowing what's gonna happen!

I've gone back as far as Refugees but with the timeline in spoilers the first page as a help to navigate to the updates gets a bit hidden.

Indeed. It's also a very different kind of power to the traditional goodie powers, Seer and Priest, and I think it adds a little something to the mix.

Yes. I think the lack of protection made the van Helsing even more useful than normal in this game.

Maybe I haven't played much, but I honestly don't remember an update where that hasn't happened. *shrug* Generation gap, I guess.

As far as I can recall I have never seen brutal chains not being used in this situation, it has just never been written down in the rules.

And players do often use them early although I really don't see the point - if you come back with a negative on your scan early, you've basically wasted it.

In my experience some players use one-time scans early (either because they don't like them and want to get them out of the way or because they want the info, even if it's negative, as an excuse to start PMing people), some people save them for the middle to late game (and risk dying with them unused) and some people never use them (I have no idea why). I'd say it's about 1/3 of each category.

So obviously, very different effects in the last two games of it. All well before my time, of course. I talked to johho about it a long time ago and he said it wasn't that successful, on the other hand, there were three games about, and it does seem cool. It's not something that will really drastically change the game, but an interesting twist, I think.

Well, people liked it but it was mostly passed around between the veterans of the day and newbies like me never got our hands on it. So I might be biased because of that but if keeping newbies out of the game is was items do then I'm not sure it's such a good idea.

Sometimes I write it down in Word, others I just rely on memory. Couple of times I forgot and had to ask the people to reiterate their orders. Definitely need to improve that

I use pen and paper mostly. If people send in standing orders early I usually save them in a plain text file if they are complicated. I like to have all orders in the inbox until I've done the update after which I delete the PMs. PMs for GM AAR I try to only save the interesting ones and not every PM or else wading through the flood of spam can make writing the AAR more work than fun.

 

[tamius23]

Alliance of Magicians had 39 IIRC, or maybe 38, but it was the biggest in a while as well. I'd agree we are going through a good patch, since I've returned there's been several good new players started in Lite, and I've only observed one Big game of course.

Oh, of course. SoL really had a knack for getting huge games. It's a shame he vanished off the face of the internet.

This is the trait:

So obviously, very different effects in the last two games of it. All well before my time, of course. I talked to johho about it a long time ago and he said it wasn't that successful, on the other hand, there were three games about, and it does seem cool. It's not something that will really drastically change the game, but an interesting twist, I think.

A very odd trait. Seems to be some sort of cross between a reverse Pathological Liar and the Amulet of Protection. I'd be interested to see how it affects things but I wouldn't put it in a game I GM.

Sometimes I write it down in Word, others I just rely on memory. Couple of times I forgot and had to ask the people to reiterate their orders. Definitely need to improve that

As for me, I write down orders in TextEdit as soon as I receive them. I cross-reference them with the Excel file with the roles and the traits in and then write down all the things that happen as well (e.g. xxx the Seer scanned xxx the SA cultist, who receives a PM saying the name but not the role; xxx uses jester powers on xxx the insane sorcerer making his scan a sane seer's scan) which saves time and brainpower when the update time comes. Although often it all goes wrong and some crucial order changes somewhere, or the villagers decide to lynch four people. I often like to think the village is there to screw up a carefully balanced setup.

This time I'm experimenting with a GM AAR file which I'm writing as I go along (like I do regular AARs). Hopefully there'll be some more PMs with this method.

 

[Ithvan]

Losing the game's only seer before he had time for a single scan was a huge blow, but was surely a good thing for the game overall (no offense, Ithvan!)

EDIT: Still bummed I couldn't sub in.