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[Mini Phalla] Airport Survival (GAME OVER, multi-group win!)

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Full versions coming in the morning:
    Special Travellers:
    Jetsetter (Invictus): could purchase a ticket to anywhere he liked until the end of Day 3. Too wealthy to be Bribed.
    Transfer Ticker (ebum): could leave on a second flight if he missed his first choice. First choice was San Francisco, second Atlanta.
    Buddies (Obi and CesareB): started Masoned, shared Denver as a destination.

    Spy
    SeGaTai: Had The Package to start. Could plant it on people, steal it back from someone, or kill people with his Spy Pen (twice before it ran out) once per night. Could track The Package. Needed The Package to leave the airport on a Traveller to win; was eliminated if it left. Draw if killed but The Package left.

    Undisclosed info: inspected as ordinary if he didn't have The Package and wasn't attempting to use his Spy Pen at the time; in the latter case or if targeted for Murder with Pen charges remaining, mutually-assured destruction. If Arrested or Murdered, his tracking device would have gone to whoever offed him.

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited June 2013
    The TSA
    Composed of a chief (The Anonymous) and two Agents (buddha73 and Cayrus). All three could Inspect people. The Chief controlled the Arrest kill, which was lost if not used on a valid target. The Chief could also delay 2 flights until Day 7; the Agents could guard their holding area, preventing theft of The Package, if they'd come across it before the end of the game. To win, they needed the Travellers to complete their win condition and to make 4 arrests or secure The Package, phrased in their PM as "stop smuggling." Completing only one was a Draw.

    Undisclosed info and Inspection mechanics: mutually-assured destruction if Inspecting the Spy while he was trying to kill someone or the Thug, if he appeared guilty (and see post-mortem, coming later). Inspect functioned as an action seer, caused people to miss flights if used on their departure turn, and caused arrests of people who appeared guilty. Bribed Travellers, the Air Traffic Controller, players with The Package, the Thug after using Murder, or the Arms Dealer after using Take Care of Business appeared guilty.

    The Criminals
    Arms Dealer (Zonugal): Carried a Bag of Cash, which could be used to Bribe up to 5 Travellers, but no more than 2 per Hour. He also got the Take Care of Business ability due to downsizing for limited players, which let him steal The Package from a target or the TSA.

    Thug (Bedlam): Could Murder someone, which we all know how worked, or Guard Zonugal as actions. Murder would never fail and doubled as a Package-acquisition method, but had mutually-assured destruction potential if used on TSA agents or The Spy, which was warned of by fluff text. Guarding caused Bedlam to suffer the consequences of actions taken against Zonugal; see post-mortem. Gained control of bribes on Arms Dealer death, which was also acquired from a cannibalized thier Criminal.

    Bribed Travellers (TRV and Iron Weasel, as of Day 2): Bribed Travellers' win condition became to make their own flight and have The Criminals fulfill their win condition. If passed the package, they would return it to Zonugal. They still counted for the Traveller win condition on departure. This information was not given to Zonugal until he actually Bribed someone, which may have been an error.

    The Criminals needed to begin a turn in possession of The Package and end that turn still in possession of it to win.

    Air Traffic Controller
    Works as described by SaberOverEasy. He omitted a couple of details: flights could not depart before Day 4 (3 had we started with fewer players), was not given specific role info on anyone though he had alignments, and was unable to respond to or initiate PMs with anyone besides The Criminals or the TSA.

    E: filled in some omitted Thug info.

    Auralynx on
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    Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Who said this was a secret faction game? I did. Never doubt me again! Not a bad first time, Auralynx. There was a lot going around and a hell of a lot oddities but for the most once I figured out the game, it seemed to make sense. I knew Anon was somebody, but I couldn't say who he was.

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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited June 2013
    Other Stuff:
    -The order of priority for actions was kills, inspections, steals, bribes, package movement, vote resolution, departures.
    -The Package would, if it had moved at all, have returned to SeGa at the end of the turn if he was alive and the bearer killed or voted out. If SeGa had been removed from play, it would have ended up with the TSA or Criminals, in that order of fall-through priority.
    -Flights were not evenly distributed: 3 to Atlanta, 1 to Boston, 2 to Chicago, 4 to Denver, 2 to Edinburgh, and 3 to San Francisco, plus Ebum and Invictus with special departure rules.

    My post-mortem:
    So I regret not seeding in more special Travellers or starting the game with The Package already on one, as some of you suggested might be the case. I had a couple of ideas (Travellers who had their own reasons to appear Guilty, for example) I left unused, there.

    I'm reasonably likely to revisit this village win condition at some point. It was intended that the Air Traffic Controller be able to play kingmaker, since this was run as a mini, but also be vulnerable to removal, though I didn't anticipate things going wrong so swiftly for the Criminals.

    I am pretty sure that this resolved as quickly and uneventfully as it did due to the forum issues and mobile vote-close on Day 1, the latter of which I apologize for and the former of which was infuriating.

    The other major factor seems to have been Bedlam contacting Cayrus and asking about The Package on Day 1, which was just unfortunate luck. From there, he was inspected, though he didn't yet appear guilty, and then died Day 2 due to Guarding an about-to-be-arrested Zonugal. Humorously, Zonugal had orders in to bribe SeGa and GG on Day 3 before he was arrested, so he was likely getting Spy Pen'd anyway. The specials were amazingly on-target all around, and Cayrus and buddha get gold stars for their efforts.

    My expectation was that the Criminals would lead off by asking around quietly and start bribing Travellers, giving them control of a voting bloc and information which they'd use to target their abilities; instead, Zonugal mugged premium BECAUSE he was voted out, which prompted me to warn them to be less reactive on Day 2. The damage was already done, however, and Criminal player availability on Day 1 was unfortunately poor.

    Auralynx on
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    Iron WeaselIron Weasel Dillon! You son of a bitch!Registered User regular
    This was different and neat. Thanks for running it, Auralynx!

    Currently Playing:
    The Division, Warframe (XB1)
    GT: Tanith 6227
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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited June 2013
    Oh, right, one other important thing:
    Giant thanks to @mrtlicious, @mill, and @Zombie Hero for the support and suggestions.

    Auralynx on
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    Gandalf_the_CrazedGandalf_the_Crazed Vigilo ConfidoRegistered User regular
    1) Village win condition was a really cool idea, I like it.

    2) I still have no idea why I was the obvious vote target on my last day. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, but I just could not figure out why things coalesced on me.

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    Gandalf_the_CrazedGandalf_the_Crazed Vigilo ConfidoRegistered User regular
    3) Excellent game, Auralynx, thanks for running it. :)

    PEUsig_zps56da03ec.jpg
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    Buddha73Buddha73 Registered User regular
    Thanks Auralynx for hosting!! Had a lot of fun being only my second phalla and first time a special!

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    kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    I love being right.

    Your reasoning was wrong, even if your conclusion wasn't entirely. :)

    Thanks for running, Aura!

    Battle.net ID: kime#1822
    3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
    Steam profile
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    Erin The RedErin The Red The Name's Erin! Woman, Podcaster, Dungeon Master, IT nerd, Parent, Trans. AMA Baton Rouge, LARegistered User regular
    Aura, you have earned one complementary touch of my beard. Use it wisely.
    Thank you for this game

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    InvictusInvictus Registered User regular
    I really enjoyed this game, Aura. I think it had a really excellent integration of theme and mechanics.

    Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
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    JPantsJPants Registered User regular
    Fun game Aura! Wish RL wasn't such a dick this past week or so and that I could have really gotten in to it.

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    BedlamBedlam Registered User regular
    All our abilitys had a down side if we got scanned, plus I got scanned on day 1 so If I tried to kill someone I would have gone down anyway.

    The package was a neat little game but I figured it relied on soft networking more than abilitys and I guess I guessed wrong on contacting cayrus. No hard feelings though, wasnt really sure how to solve the problem and our team wasnt super active either (and we had less mans). Hell I didnt even think the TSA were against us at first since our role PM revolved around trying to kill the spy.

    Not sure about the game. Was nobody trying to stop the village? And lack of specials would mean it would be harder for them to work together. Faction games usually have a split village with a mafia trying to kill everyone.

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    InvictusInvictus Registered User regular
    Bedlam wrote: »
    All our abilitys had a down side if we got scanned, plus I got scanned on day 1 so If I tried to kill someone I would have gone down anyway.

    The package was a neat little game but I figured it relied on soft networking more than abilitys and I guess I guessed wrong on contacting cayrus. No hard feelings though, wasnt really sure how to solve the problem and our team wasnt super active either (and we had less mans). Hell I didnt even think the TSA were against us at first since our role PM revolved around trying to kill the spy.

    Not sure about the game. Was nobody trying to stop the village? And lack of specials would mean it would be harder for them to work together. Faction games usually have a split village with a mafia trying to kill everyone.

    I think nobody was trying to stop the village, yeah. Which makes a ton of thematic sense, honestly; nobody really cares about stopping travelers from getting where they're going.

    This part of the game was interesting because it's against all the metaknowledge people were likely to bring in, which is the shit I love, but at the same time it was actually deducible from circumstances and the fluff, which I think is the best evidence of the integration of theme and mechanics.

    Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
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    kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    Battle.net ID: kime#1822
    3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
    Steam profile
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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited June 2013
    Bedlam wrote: »
    All our abilitys had a down side if we got scanned, plus I got scanned on day 1 so If I tried to kill someone I would have gone down anyway.

    The package was a neat little game but I figured it relied on soft networking more than abilitys and I guess I guessed wrong on contacting cayrus. No hard feelings though, wasnt really sure how to solve the problem and our team wasnt super active either (and we had less mans). Hell I didnt even think the TSA were against us at first since our role PM revolved around trying to kill the spy.

    Not sure about the game. Was nobody trying to stop the village? And lack of specials would mean it would be harder for them to work together. Faction games usually have a split village with a mafia trying to kill everyone.

    Yeah, PMing Cayrus was a really unfortunate thing to have done; I winced for you. You were originally gonna have a third guy - Mill was pretty insistent that you needed one - but we started a little undermanned.

    re: win conditions, I meant to talk about that a little earlier. Here goes:

    No, nobody was trying to stop the village directly. The Spy and Arms Dealer could cause Travellers to appear Guilty upon inspection by passing the package or bribing them, which would have killed them on inspection, and you, the Spy, or the TSA Chief (and the vote) could kill them outright, if in somewhat-limited fashion. The question was whether the damage caused by non-Travellers + the Vote could get rid of 8 villagers before 9 of them left, basically; it was actually going to be a near thing before SeGa got caught, because 4 departures was almost the lowest possible result in terms of which flights left and the TSA was going to be hunting for 2 more arrests pretty aggressively. There was discussion of inspecting Invictus again to make him miss the flight they knew he'd gotten on due to checking him during Hour 3!

    I color-coded the factions by how many villagers they were likely to remove, and with the Criminals having a conversion of sorts, purple seemed like an obvious fit. Also, all through the planning talks it never occurred to me that the TSA and Criminals would want to know what flights people were on badly enough that it should be part of an ability, so I slotted it in on Inspect and Steal. If I had it to do again I'd add that third Criminal and give the Arms Dealer the ability to check out people's flights somehow.

    I was hoping TA would inspect someone else or SeGa would want to use the Spy Pen again, honestly, because that would have given us a really hectic and interesting Hour 5.

    Auralynx on
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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    Yeah. I mean, I don't want to claim my design was infallible - The Package should almost certainly have started on a Traveller, for the most obvious problem - but much of that had to do with the choices the Criminals and Spy made this game. There is room for improvement and I'd love to hear other ideas that might work if I re-use the Traveller win condition. I've got one already, in fact, but it's gonna be work-intensive to write up.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

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    InvictusInvictus Registered User regular
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    To follow up on this: One of the reasons I was so fixated on trying to figure out the other factions' wincons was because I wanted to know how to figure out who they were. If the "mafia" doesn't have the standard mafia wincon, then I don't know how to predict how they'll act.

    Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
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    AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    Invictus wrote: »
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    To follow up on this: One of the reasons I was so fixated on trying to figure out the other factions' wincons was because I wanted to know how to figure out who they were. If the "mafia" doesn't have the standard mafia wincon, then I don't know how to predict how they'll act.

    In theory, and I'd hope in practice, that was supposed to be part of the fun, here. I'm bummed the Travellers didn't get too involved as well, so we're all on the same page.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

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    JPantsJPants Registered User regular
    Sorry about my lack on activity. I had expected this week of work to get better than it had been, but it went the other way instead >.<

    I really enjoyed the theme of the game though and the whole trying to figure out various factions motives and means was fun and based enough on the metaphor that all the speculation felt plausible.

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    Iron WeaselIron Weasel Dillon! You son of a bitch!Registered User regular
    edited June 2013
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Invictus wrote: »
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    To follow up on this: One of the reasons I was so fixated on trying to figure out the other factions' wincons was because I wanted to know how to figure out who they were. If the "mafia" doesn't have the standard mafia wincon, then I don't know how to predict how they'll act.

    In theory, and I'd hope in practice, that was supposed to be part of the fun, here. I'm bummed the Travellers didn't get too involved as well, so we're all on the same page.
    I think that might be linked to the feeling of Traveller disconnect that kime alluded to. If my goal is just to catch my plane (as opposed to find and eliminate a threat), then as a Traveller I have a strong incentive to keep my head down and avoid attracting the attention of anyone who might try to stop me. Conventional wisdom says that A Quiet Village Is A Dead Village, but in this case, I think the opposite might have been true.

    And while I agree that the idea of Travellers being essentially ‘in the background’ of a struggle between spies, smugglers and the TSA makes thematic sense, I’m not sure that giving the majority of players a role that basically boils down to “no one cares about you” works well in the context of a Phalla.

    While it’s true that in a standard Phalla, Villagers are basically just victims waiting to happen, at least someone is trying to do something to the Villagers – either destroy them (mafia) or protect/help them (village specials). That is, something is (or may be) happening to them, which I think encourages participation. When the major players in the game have literally no stake in the fate of the Villagers one way or the other, it makes it hard for the Villagers to care enough to get meaningfully involved.

    Iron Weasel on
    Currently Playing:
    The Division, Warframe (XB1)
    GT: Tanith 6227
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    SaberOverEasySaberOverEasy Info Broker Registered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Invictus wrote: »
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    To follow up on this: One of the reasons I was so fixated on trying to figure out the other factions' wincons was because I wanted to know how to figure out who they were. If the "mafia" doesn't have the standard mafia wincon, then I don't know how to predict how they'll act.

    In theory, and I'd hope in practice, that was supposed to be part of the fun, here. I'm bummed the Travellers didn't get too involved as well, so we're all on the same page.

    To follow up on what kime has said, the design really discouraged the Travellers from getting involved. The best play for a traveller BY FAR is not voting anyone out. The Travellers have no tools for figuring out the other subgroups and even if they did, not a ton of need to use it as there aren't any groups directly opposed to them. The one piece of information they have that's important (destination), there's no apparent reason to share and several good reasons not to. All in all, as a traveller, not doing anything is probably your best play. Were it not for inactivus, the TSA could have easily pushed for a day of peace and not voting.

    If you want to run something with this win con again, the mafia needs to be completely opposed to it OR all of your villagers need to be in some sort of faction with an additional win con.

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    ObiFettObiFett Use the Force As You WishRegistered User regular
    Auralynx wrote: »
    Invictus wrote: »
    kime wrote: »
    Yeah, with no enemies and no one that really cared about villagers, I kind of felt useless? The game ended and I feel like it hasn't really started, because everything that mattered was done behind-the-scenes

    Still fun, but I'd suggest some change based on that.

    To follow up on this: One of the reasons I was so fixated on trying to figure out the other factions' wincons was because I wanted to know how to figure out who they were. If the "mafia" doesn't have the standard mafia wincon, then I don't know how to predict how they'll act.

    In theory, and I'd hope in practice, that was supposed to be part of the fun, here. I'm bummed the Travellers didn't get too involved as well, so we're all on the same page.

    To follow up on what kime has said, the design really discouraged the Travellers from getting involved. The best play for a traveller BY FAR is not voting anyone out. The Travellers have no tools for figuring out the other subgroups and even if they did, not a ton of need to use it as there aren't any groups directly opposed to them. The one piece of information they have that's important (destination), there's no apparent reason to share and several good reasons not to. All in all, as a traveller, not doing anything is probably your best play. Were it not for inactivus, the TSA could have easily pushed for a day of peace and not voting.

    If you want to run something with this win con again, the mafia needs to be completely opposed to it OR all of your villagers need to be in some sort of faction with an additional win con.

    I finally get access to my computer and jump on the thread to post my one main thought on this game and see that SOE has already beaten me to the punch.

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    ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    I really enjoyed this phalla.

    And upon reflection I may not have made my move to steal Premium's luggage on day 1. I certainly should have just bribed the fuck out of everyone for as long as possible.

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
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    ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    But this was my first time not being a villager, so lessons learned!

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
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