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[miniphalla] Phallanx: A Newbie Phalla - Game Over. Mafia win.
Julius Caezure
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is the gift the saviors of far-flung Hellas upraised here,
Having delivered their states from loathsome slavery's bonds.
- Diodorus, History, 11.33.2
Thanks to the efforts of Frank Miller, Zack Snyder and underpaid middle school history teachers everywhere, I would imagine most of you are familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae. You may even recall stories of the Battles of Marathon and Salamis. However, I would wager that, if asked, none of you could give me the name of the single land battle that decisively ended the Second Persian Invasion of Greece. That battle, the Battle of Plataea, is a story that those of you who have seen or read 300 unknowingly already have a passing familiarity with; for it is the battle before which one-eyed Dilios recounts the story of King Leonidas I and his 300 Spartans.
On the plains north of the small Boeotian city of Plataea, the allied Greek city-states fielded the greatest Greek army ever assembled. Commanded by the Spartan Regent-General, Pausanias, the Greeks lured the brilliant Persian general, Mardonius, to his death and slaughtered tens of thousands of Persian soldiers, effectively ending Xerxes's invasion of Greece.
This game takes place immediately before the Battle of Plataea.
Having delivered their states from loathsome slavery's bonds.
- Diodorus, History, 11.33.2
Thanks to the efforts of Frank Miller, Zack Snyder and underpaid middle school history teachers everywhere, I would imagine most of you are familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae. You may even recall stories of the Battles of Marathon and Salamis. However, I would wager that, if asked, none of you could give me the name of the single land battle that decisively ended the Second Persian Invasion of Greece. That battle, the Battle of Plataea, is a story that those of you who have seen or read 300 unknowingly already have a passing familiarity with; for it is the battle before which one-eyed Dilios recounts the story of King Leonidas I and his 300 Spartans.
On the plains north of the small Boeotian city of Plataea, the allied Greek city-states fielded the greatest Greek army ever assembled. Commanded by the Spartan Regent-General, Pausanias, the Greeks lured the brilliant Persian general, Mardonius, to his death and slaughtered tens of thousands of Persian soldiers, effectively ending Xerxes's invasion of Greece.
This game takes place immediately before the Battle of Plataea.
PHALLANX:
A Newbie Phalla
A Newbie Phalla
What is Phalla?
Phallas are the Penny Arcade forum version of the party game Mafia. This is a Miniphalla, which is a lot like a Phalla, only smaller and hopefully shorter in duration. For more information, please refer to the CF Phalla Signup List, the CF Master Phalla Thread, the PhallaWiki, or the PhalLounge.
I have stolen pieces of this opening post from the previous newbie phalla run by Orange Soda and Dac Vin, who in turn borrowed from the prior newbie phalla run by Sheep Have Wool. I have also incorporated bits and pieces from the original newbie phalla run by robothero
Ground Rules
This miniphalla is for new players only! If you've played in 6 or fewer Phallas, or you're brand new, this game is for you. Why? You'll be playing with other new players, and you'll also be able to get advice from mentor/veteran Phalla players to help improve your play. This game will also be an "Open Setup" with no hidden and/or unusual roles.
What if I'm not a newbie?
I am going to do things a bit differently from the previous newbie phallas. In addition to in-thread posting, I am taking signups from veteran players to serve as a mentor to some lucky newbie. Vets willing to serve in this capacity, please sign up in DarkOrchid, and indicate your local time zone. This will hopefully allow me to match you with players more likely to be online and active the same time as you.
Vets who cannot serve as mentors, whether for time zone constraints, work business, etc., can still participate! As in games past, I will veteran players to post comments in DeepSkyBlue while the game is in progress. That said, you should read the rules below about non-player posts below before making a post. Failure to follow the rules will result in you losing your chance at fabulous prizes. And will likely earn you my eternal scorn and hopefully the ridicule of others (for whatever that's worth).
...Fabulous prizes?
Yes! The mentor/veteran player that is voted Most Helpful by the players will win a fabulous candy pack prize! In addition, the newbie voted MVP by a select group of veteran players will also receive a candy prize of his/her very own!
Wow! Candy! I'm a newbie to Phalla - how do I play?
- Sign up in this thread by posting !sign up. Additionally, please indicate the number of games you have played, as well as your local time zone. This last point will allow me to hopefully coordinate you with a mentor who will be online and active around the same time as you.
- After signups have ended, you'll receive a role PM. This PM contains information about the role you will play in the game. This PM should not be shared with another player.
- Sometimes hosts will simply provide a standard villager PM. I personally find it more fun and engaging to have a unique name, and since I am the one hosting this game, that is exactly what I will be doing. Everyone involved will receive a unique name with their role. I will, however, post the actual role PMs in a separate post below.
- Follow the Basic Rules:
- The "village" consists of all players in the game. Included in the village is a small number of bad guys. Normally, the bad guys all know one another at the beginning of the game, but nobody else knows anything about anyone other than themselves.
- Each day (normally 24-hour period) the village discusses and publically votes for one person to be executed that night. At the same time, the bad guys choose two people to kill each night and PM the names to the narrator.
- The good side wins if all of the bad guys die. The bad side wins if the number of good guys is less than or equal to the number of bad guys (on the assumption that at that point, they control the vote plus get their kills, so it is an inevitable win).
- Usually, there will be one or more "special" roles among the good guys (and occasionally among the bad guys). Exactly who holds each role is only known to that person, although how many of each role exist is most often known.
- Each night, the narrator gives the details of who died, and normally whether they were a bad guy. Some games also include clues or outright statements if someone who died is a good special.
- The "village" consists of all players in the game. Included in the village is a small number of bad guys. Normally, the bad guys all know one another at the beginning of the game, but nobody else knows anything about anyone other than themselves.
- Other Rules:
- You may not communicate regarding the game with someone who is dead.
- You may not use any anonymous method of communication to discuss the game. Forum-based PMs, external IMs, and e-mails are allowed as long as the person you are talking to knows who you are. Setting up a Proboard can be a good idea, but inform me of the URL if you do so.
- You may not use screencaps to "prove" anything to anyone.
- No direct quoting, sharing, or forwarding of any kind of any PM from the host, including your initial role PM.
- No playing madlibs with sentences in your role PM that may or may not be flavor to identify yourself.
- You may not communicate regarding the game with someone who is dead.
- You might also wish to look at the Standard Special Roles, as all of these will be appearing in this game (the exact number of each depends on the number of signups, and will ultimately be clarified once signups are closed, but before the game officially begins):
- Roles will have different names depending on the theme of the game. Listed below are the usual "generic" terms for each role. Normally, specials exercise their power by communicating with the narrator via PM. This is exactly how I will be handling things in this game.
- Seer -- once per night can "investigate" a particular person and find out from the narrator if they are a bad guy. Variations of seers may be able to determine a good special as well, although they may be unable to distinguish them from a bad guy.
- Vigilante (or "Vig") -- once per night can kill a person of their choosing.
- Guardian -- once per night can protect someone from any death other than execution by the village. Whether they can protect against multiple attacks on one person in the same night is up to the narrator.
- Masons -- a group of good guys, usually of similar size to the group of bad guys, who start the game knowing each other, and that they are all good.
- Roles will have different names depending on the theme of the game. Listed below are the usual "generic" terms for each role. Normally, specials exercise their power by communicating with the narrator via PM. This is exactly how I will be handling things in this game.
- Vote each day by posting your choice in !red. You can (optionally) retract a vote by posting in !Lime. This is not required, but I do appreciate it. You must vote each day. Inactivity = death and/or disqualification.
Each day will end at 10:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Any vote or action made after 9:59 PM WILL NOT count. - Ask questions of the moderator by posting in orange or sending me a PM.
Wow! Candy! I'm a veteran Phalla player - how do I play?
Veteran players who wish to participate by offering advice do not need to sign up, only those veterans interested in serving as mentors need sign up in DarkOrchid. You may post in the thread in DeepSkyBlue while the game is in progress. I may put in a post limit if the thread becomes too spammy. Do your best to avoid making many short posts - longer, single posts keep the thread less cluttered. The rules:
- Do NOT directly comment on the current game situation. You may offer general advice and answer questions, and you may offer commentary on previous day actions as long as it doesn't influence the current day.
Bad: Orange Soda was evil, and Dac Vin argued for him - you should vote him out today.
Good: Once you find a baddie, checking the vote records for previous days can be really helpful. - Do NOT play for the newbies. You are assisting them.
- Unless you are assigned a mentee, please do NOT contact a newbie outside of the thread. If you have generalized advice, please feel free to post it in the game thread in DeepSkyBlue.
Failure to follow these rules results in disqualification! When in doubt, send me a PM to ask if something is OK to post. There will be ZERO tolerance of rule violations.
Clarifications
Please request clarifications in bold orange, either in the thread or via PM or proboard as appropriate. If I feel the clarification is exceptionally important I reserve the right to do whatever is necessary to preserve the requester's anonymity and post the request and answer in-thread. Clarifications will be posted in a separate reserved post below.
Julius Caezure on
0
Posts
Players should sign up by posting !sign up, along with the number of games in which they have participated, and their local time zone.
This game has been pre-balanced to work with either 20, 25 or 30 players. I will allow signups in descending order of experience (if we reach the 30 player hard cap, the most experienced will be bumped in favor of the least experienced, regardless of order of signup).
For this phase, I will allow players to sign up who have played in 10 or fewer games.
Phase One Signups, etc.:
Players should sign up by posting !sign up, along with the number of games in which they have participated, and their local time zone.
This game has been pre-balanced to work with either 20, 25 or 30 players. I will allow signups in descending order of experience (if we reach the 30 player hard cap, the most experienced will be bumped in favor of the least experienced, regardless of order of signup).
Reserves:
Reserve Mentors:
* Also, note that all mentors have been linked to their PhallaWiki player page. If your mentor does not have a page, or it is terrible, harass him or her into making/fixing it.
1.
Phase One Clarifications, Narrations, etc.:
1. Order of Actions: Vote -> Guarding -> Kills -> Seering.
2. The Vigilante's kill and the Mafia's kills occur simultaneously.
3.
A: Not in this phase of the game. This phase is intended to be a fairly regular ("vanilla") miniphalla. There will be a small networked mafia that will have daily kills available to them, and an uninformed village majority. The village specials this game consist of only one pair of masons, one vigilante, one seer, and one guard. The second phase of the game is planned with more advanced mechanics and a greater selection of roles in play.
4.
A: I had not given it much thought. I am not going to advertise the pairs, but will not forbid sharing the information.
5.
A: The first player to reach the tied number of votes "wins" the vote.
6.
A: If this happens, the mafia wins.
Day 0 - Beginning Narration
End of Day 1 Narration
End of Day 2 Narration
Day 3 Results
End of Day 3 Narration
End of Day 4 Narration
End of Day 5 Narration
End of Day 6 Narration - Game Over
Epilogue
Villager Role PM:
You are a Spartan warrior. Raised to be one of the strongest warriors the world has ever known. You wear your scars proudly and carry yourself with more confidence than any 10 regular Greek soldiers. With a spear and shield you and your comrades are nearly invincible on the battlefield. However, this is one enemy that you cannot fight with your weapons, even if you had them. Instead you must keep your mind and intuition to discover the traitors to Greece.
Role:
Villager
Ability Mechanics:
None beyond the power of your vote.
Win Condition:
Eliminate the four Persian spies.
Mason Role PM:
You are a Spartan warrior. Yet you are more than that. You are a twin. Together you and your brother were raised to be a pair of the strongest warriors the world has ever known. You wear your scars proudly and carry yourself with more confidence than any 10 regular Greek soldiers. You and your brother are inseparable, and you each know that the other cannot possibly be a Persian spy. Accordingly, you will start out with knowledge of one another's identity.
Role:
Masoned Villager
Ability Mechanics:
None beyond the power of your vote.
Masoned:
You are masoned with your brother, ***.
Win Condition:
Eliminate the four Persian spies.
*Apologies for the picture, but I just couldn't resist. In case you're wondering, you're the one on the right/left.
Vigilante Role PM:
You are the newly assigned commander of your phalanx and its greatest warrior. You stand nearly as tall as Demosthenes and are almost his equal in battle. Your intense amount of training has yielded incredible rewards on the battlefield allowing you to commit near-superhuman feats of prowess.
Role:
Vigilante
Ability Mechanics:
Each day you may PM me the name of a player you would like to kill.
Win Condition:
Eliminate the four Persian spies.
Guard Role PM:
You are one of the famed Spartan warriors. However, unlike the majority of your brethren your focus is not on the ability to take lives, but on the use of tactics to preserve them. Your defensive capabilities are greater than those of an average warrior, and as such you may use them to protect yourself and those around you.
Role:
Guard
Ability Mechanics:
Each day you may select one player (including yourself) and protect them from any and all kills directed at them. (Note: You may not protect someone from the vote)
Win Condition:
Eliminate the four Persian spies.
Seer Role PM:
You were raised in a small village at the foot of Mount Parnassus. When you were young you would marvel at the travelers coming from across Greece to visit the Oracle at Delphi. One day you yourself ventured to the temple and somehow stumbled into the Oracle's chambers. The temple guards found you and forcibly removed you from the room, but not before the Oracle reached forward and touched you on the forehead. From that day forward you were cursed with terrible headaches. But in exchange, you gained the ability to sense people for who they truly are.
Role:
Seer
Ability Mechanics:
Each day you can select one player and will learn their role.
Win Condition:
Eliminate the four Persian spies.
*Apologies for the image, but I can't find anything else that would easily lend itself to association with an Oracle and a Greek warrior.
Mafia Role PM:
You are a Persian spy. You were once a loyal Greek, and in your heart, you are still. But when you saw the size of the Persian army and laid your eyes upon the horrors that await those who defy King Xerxes, you made up your mind that Greece was best preserved through cooperation. Especially when the only alternative was complete and utter destruction beneath the might of the Persian Empire. You have been sent by General Mardonius to spy upon and sabotage the allied Greek army. You do not know who informed Pausanias that you and your fellow spies had snuck into camp with the last batch of soldiers, but the fact remains that the only way you can carry out your mission is if you and your brethren can kill the other soldiers around you.
Role:
Mafia
Ability Mechanics:
Each day, you and your mafia brethren may PM me the name of two players you would like to kill that evening.
List of Persian Spies:
As a member of this game's mafia, you know the identities of all of the Persian Spies.
You (***) are *** of ***.
*** is *** of ***.
*** is *** of ***.
*** is *** of ***.
Win Condition:
Eliminate or outnumber the Greek soldiers (villagers and their specials).
Activity:
As for other people, look for someone who is posting alot but not saying anything particularly of value. Especially if they're posting lots of things offtopic and not contributing to finding mafia or clearing up game mechanics. They probably have something to hide and are just trying to maintain their 'normal' activity levels."
Day 1 Kill-Confirmed Reveals:
*Meaning, who a person is killed by is not shown in either narration text or in the death summary
It should be noted that specials should not be contacting anyone who is not confirmed. There is rarely a good reason for it unless that special is already being bandwagoned that day, at which point you have nothing else to lose. Many village crippling mafia ploys are started by a mafia member pretending to be a village special and infiltrating the network, although this is harder in a vanilla game provided the network is smart about information control."
Clarifications:
A few things you want clarified AS SOON AS YOU SIGNUP if they haven't already been pre-listed in the OP:
What happens in the event of a tied vote
The action order
Whether or not there is trickle-down*
*Trickle-down is a rarely used rule where killing the vote leader preemptively will cause the vote to kill whoever was in second."
Confirming a Villager:
In order to be confirmed as a villager, even loosely, the person must do something with game mechanics to prove themselves.
The most common three ways are:
1) Vig calling a kill after narration (so that mafia can't change their kill to that for confusion purposes, among other reasons) that comes true and can be flavor attributed to the vig
2) Seered good village passes along info from the seer that someone else is evil. After this evil is voted out and is actually evil, they are confirmed as the network mouthpiece*
3) Mason asks to be killed, reveals their mason partner after narration but before they are officially dead. Narration shows them as a mason (or at least, as a good guy), this in most games will confirm their partner.
There are number of things in more advanced games that can screw with these three ways (unblockable kill, bus-driver on the vig's target, thrall, MASONED thrall, etc), but you shouldn't have to worry about them in more simple games.
*The sole point of contact for the network, to control information flow and protect the special's identities.
Activity 2.0:
Fundamental Rule #1a: If you either cannot or do not want to stay active, WITHDRAW. Don't limp through a game you can't pay attention to or that you're not enjoying. Your teammates won't appreciate that, your host won't appreciate that, and you probably won't appreciate that."
Defaulting Your Daily Abilities:
By "default", I mean, the minute you log in for that round, if you have a special ability, USE IT IMMEDIATELY. If you have a vote, quickly scan the thread then throw a vote in.
By placing a vote, you won't get taken out for inactivity, and by using your ability, you haven't wasted it.
I say this advice because 90% of the games here have a "retract vote" ability**, where you can take away a vote your placed and direct it elsewhere. Most Phalla Game Masters allow players to change their special ability targets right up until the vote closes. Some games (few and far-between, and you will be informed which when you read their rules) only allow you to place a single, unchanging vote, so do be careful and read the rules first to ensure you can retract your vote before defaulting a vote.
Too many times have I seen vigilante attacks wasted due to waiting till the last minute or not being able to get to the computer at a later time. Too many players have been screwed over by inactive guardians who forget to send in their commands for that round. Too many specials have been culled from the game due to inactivity/non-voting.
Always default early and often.
ADDITIONAL
It is understandable that some players don't like to place a default vote early on because they don't know who to vote for, or they're simply not voting as a mental tactic. That is understandable, but forgetting to vote at all for a day, yet being 100% available online is generally inexcusable, and game masters tend to boot those players out of their game.
Taking Advantage of the Vote Close:
Many players (usually Villager-Friendly Vigilante or Mafia pretending to be Vigilante Roles) take advantage of this time to announce the targets that they have killed that round, in order to prove that they have the ability to kill other players.
Essentially, if they can beat the narration / results with their post, that pretty much proves that they do have that ability (presuming their target really is killed).
In certain themed Phalla games, this strategy can backfire with Mafia pretending to be Vigilante, as many themed Phalla games reveal whether or not someone was killed by the Mafia. Before pretending to be a Vigilante Role, a Mafia Role player should check with the Game Master as to whether they will be revealed as the killer."
Editing your Posts:
- Avoid editing any post in which you made a vote.
- Do not edit posts containing votes after 5 minutes of time pass; this is considered cheating.
- If ninja-editing a post because you put too much information out, or accidentally revealed yourself, be careful; Players watch these threads like HAWKS and generally catch any change you make.
If your change is innocuous, it is common courtesy (and only to your own benefit) to slap a "Edit: Reason I edited" at the end of your post.
Sobriety & Phalla:
Try to make a goal for yourself to stop posting at X 0'clock so that you arn't just talking to yourself or others all night throwing out crazy suspicions.
If the other players wake up in the morning to a ton of posts it seems to make you next on the chopping block. "
Game Participation and Ability Usage:
In addition, some players of special roles choose to NOT vote on particular days in order to appear to be a "disappointed villager role".
Not voting on any particular day is generally discouraged; many Game Masters have instituted rules that govern inactivity, from replacing the player to simply booting them from the game. Keep an eye on the OP for the thread and read the rules requirements for participation carefully.
Participation / Inactivity is known to swell on weekends and holidays."
Plain Villager Roles:
Additionally, some themed phallas give out "items" and "bonus abilities" to villagers after a certain number of rounds have passed. If you are a villager, do not despair; keep your wits about you and help out your Village.
Other Themed phalla games give villagers named characters. This is a helpful label that allows you to potentially prove your role as an innocent."
Voting and Retracting Votes:
- Some GMs use !red to indicate a vote, while others use !lime.
- In order to change your vote, some GMs require that you !retract your prior vote before you !vote again.
- A new trend has recently been adopted where GMs do away with requiring you to retract your vote in order to place a new vote. All you have to do is !vote for someone else and it will trump/cancel/override your prior vote.
The difference between pointedly retracting a vote is usually for the purposes of bookkeeping; used by some players to keep track of other player voting trends, or by GMs who might possibly count votes and/or vote retractions as a part of some secondary, hidden mechanic.
Then-again, some GMs are just anal-retentive like that.
RNG:
- Many players commonly resort to RNG to select a vote target, especially on Day 1.
- No one ever actually knows whether they simply pick a target and are just saying they're using RNG.
- RNG is sometimes used by the Game Master to determine who dies in a vote tie.
- A good website that provides web-based RNG tools is : http://www.random.org/
- Personal opinions on this differ wildly, but I personally dislike the use of RNG for determining anything. You can always fabricate a reason for a vote..."
Man, I've been waiting for this.
The undead phalla makes 2.
And I'm in the Eastern Time Zone.
never played before, in EST and I contacted you earlier via PM.
Is that all the info you need?
Oh god I'm so sorry JC.
"No direct quoting, sharing, or forwarding of any kind of any PM from the host, including your initial role PM."
"No playing madlibs with sentences in your role PM that may or may not be flavor to identify yourself."
Also, like, I'm totally a new player. And stuff. Never played a game before!
I'm in PST.
Techniques taught will be epic revealing, nemesis baiting, baddie trapping, and generally how to be a pretty cool guy!
Steam
I've been in 5 phalla's now. Two of which I came in as a reserve. But I'm looking forward to this so I can pick up some tips and become a winner!
I'm in the Atlantic time zone as well so one hour ahead of all you eastern folks.
This is not proper conduct. :P
I signed up as a player not a mentor!
First time joining a phalla, also EST.
Thank you. OP fixed. Also, I am pointedly ignoring your lime signup :P
Considering you've only played in two or three games since I've been around...
I've been in/will be in 5 phalls (This one not included; one of them (The bioshock phalla) was a replacement midway through the game. If you'd rather me drop for someone totally new, please let me know.)
I am in the EST.
There are many ways to play a game like this. Only one mixes fear, love and cold steel
Mine has no love, only fear, cold and steel. Love is for the weak.
Quick note to newbies: Don't be afraid to talk right now. It's still pregame so anything you say can't be used to bandwagon you, plus we get to know you and socialise quite a bit and that is always a good thing when you think about it.
Muahahahaha!
Also, I guess I'm in Central now, huh? That feels weird to say.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Unless they screwed up and miscounted kills.
I always enjoy these newbie games!
Except when it IS used to bandwagon you.
You mean someone who understands the true darkness that lies in the heart of every Phallan, right?
Although if people find you annoying, rightfully or arbitrarily so.... They could use that to bw you day one, and no-one would bat an eye. Than again if you have a non-presence and you around a bunch of very polite & talkative players (rare), they may vote you out just because they don't know you.
Who's next?
All evil mentors please contact me so I can get this network set up.