AnialosCollies are love, Collies are life!Shadowbrook ColliesRegistered Userregular
Since I was the first conversion I'll weigh in on my thought process. Day 0 I was talking with several people and got an overall idea of peoples win-cons and some general clan numbers. My clans win-con (Gangrel) was harder than a general village win-con, which while not unexpected, was slightly annoying. When I started finding out who else was/claimed Gangrel the person I was most excited to work with was @Obifett. Naturally when Obi asked me halfway through Day 1 if I wanted to Rend deal, I knew something was up. Could I have walked away right then and turned him in to someone? Sure, but I like Obi, and feel that would be a dick move. So, I do the deal, and he invites me unofficially to be an Anarch. Since he was the one I wanted to work with most and I didn't like my clan win-con AND he took the risk/time to ask me before the official offer, it took all of three seconds to say yes.
Involuntary ones suck because you could end up on the losing side and get screwed out of benefiting from you're earlier endeavors in the game.
I've seen two implementations of voluntary conversions.
-You have this games version of it, it gives people an out if they're village and their faction has already lost. On the other hand, no one should take it early on IMO since your faction has hit the going to lose point and by taking it, you're screwing over your team. This runs into the issue where you might not find willing converts and if you're anti-village, people are going to try to kill you. IMO if this is used, they probably should have a different wincon, that isn't out number the combined elements of the player base that isn't cult.
-Spool's mini had voluntary conversions where some of the neutrals had to pick a side to win. This was probably one of the better conversion mechanics I've seen; especially, on the voluntary end (granted I think the mafia was able to force them as well) since part of the wincon was to be converted. The challenge was gaining trust of one sides to extend the invitations and being able to determine which side would let you win.
Darn it @anialos the gangrel win con was one of the easier ones. Probably the third easiest next to brush and cat if, if only because assurance decided to double the number of temere, while making half of them incredibly easy to soft confirm
His position seems to be primarily rooted in the issue of VOLUNTARY conversions, which I agree, are weird since at the time of being made the offer you are playing against your wincon if you accept.
I've honestly never even heard of voluntary conversions before this game.
Involuntary ones suck because you could end up on the losing side and get screwed out of benefiting from you're earlier endeavors in the game.
I've seen two implementations of voluntary conversions.
-You have this games version of it, it gives people an out if they're village and their faction has already lost. On the other hand, no one should take it early on IMO since your faction has hit the going to lose point and by taking it, you're screwing over your team. This runs into the issue where you might not find willing converts and if you're anti-village, people are going to try to kill you. IMO if this is used, they probably should have a different wincon, that isn't out number the combined elements of the player base that isn't cult.
-Spool's mini had voluntary conversions where some of the neutrals had to pick a side to win. This was probably one of the better conversion mechanics I've seen; especially, on the voluntary end (granted I think the mafia was able to force them as well) since part of the wincon was to be converted. The challenge was gaining trust of one sides to extend the invitations and being able to determine which side would let you win.
I really liked the conversions in Spool's mini too.
There was one mafia who had a one time forced conversion that would only work on a neutral(MrT had it and used it on me) and there was the alternate win version where a neutral could talk their way onto a proboard to join the mafia or village(which stever did).
His position seems to be primarily rooted in the issue of VOLUNTARY conversions, which I agree, are weird since at the time of being made the offer you are playing against your wincon if you accept.
I've honestly never even heard of voluntary conversions before this game.
Since I was the first conversion I'll weigh in on my thought process. Day 0 I was talking with several people and got an overall idea of peoples win-cons and some general clan numbers. My clans win-con (Gangrel) was harder than a general village win-con, which while not unexpected, was slightly annoying. When I started finding out who else was/claimed Gangrel the person I was most excited to work with was @Obifett. Naturally when Obi asked me halfway through Day 1 if I wanted to Rend deal, I knew something was up. Could I have walked away right then and turned him in to someone? Sure, but I like Obi, and feel that would be a dick move. So, I do the deal, and he invites me unofficially to be an Anarch. Since he was the one I wanted to work with most and I didn't like my clan win-con AND he took the risk/time to ask me before the official offer, it took all of three seconds to say yes.
If you accept it, even if you think you will lose, you are paying against your win condition.the choice itself is anti village, which you are supposed to help win above all else
This grabbed my attention a few days ago, and @Capfalcon best summed up my feelings on it.
The requirement is not "you have to play to your win condition," that's just how it's usually phrased since it typically is the same as "you have to play to win."
But in reality, only the second is valid. And it IS super-important
I'm sad that Malkavians were so scary to the mafia. We were most harmless! :P
Thanks for running this, Assuran. It was lots of fun
I don't really agree. Phalla is a team game, and playing to your team's win condition is the goal. You're not in it for just you, out that were the case the game wouldn't work the way it does.
By voluntarily switching teams, you are doing the same thing as crashing your team's ships together. You hurt your original win condition and make it more difficult for your original team to win.
Phalla isn't a game about personal interest, it's about working as a group to meet a goal.otherwise, villagers would lose if they died, because they personally didn't make it to the end.
But as you pointed out on the final night, this wasn't really a team game. It was a faction game, and most of the factions had conflicting win conditions.
But taking the conversion then makes it even harder for your specific team.
It makes sense for late game, when the win condition is impossible, but at first all you're doing is making it harder for them to win.
But, in this game, there were circumstances when a team's wincon was impossible. I wish I had read those more carefully when the game started, and asked assuran if I had any questions. Because as soon as you made it clear that you weren't going to step down ever, the Ventrue should have been lobbying for your removal. Or they should have bulk converted to the Anarchs.
It also would have saved me from clinging to the idea that "nah, it's OK, I don't need the Malk VC" and would have made it look like I could still win.
There's a beautiful kernel at the heart of this game, something ephemeral that I can't quite put my finger on yet. I love the idea of everything just being factions, of the Camarilla Clans and the Caitiff and the neutrals all having their own scores to settle and goals, but having to work towards one of the meta-factions winning.
Maybe giving the Prince its own victory condition would have better fostered that, made it so that it wasn't just a benevolent village role. Maybe his goal should have been to prevent any of the Clans from gaining too much power, to forestall victory conditions.
@oaklore named after the player rend, who would make these deals.
The idea is you are completely honest and then see how you can help each other win. Helpful in faction games, silly in normal mafia vs village setups.
I spent this entire Phalla thread wondering what that was, as well. I pieced together most of the jargon people threw around (vig = vigilante, right?), but Rend deal and soft networking were hard to sort out with real specificity. Is soft networking making alliances that aren't mechanically enforced? That's the closest I could figure out to a definition, but I don't understand why some people use "soft networking" like a pejorative. It seems like that kind of deal-making would be a big part of a game with such a large social component. What am I missing?
Soft networking means trading information with people despite not being positive of their allegiances, essentially. It's a gamble.
In ye olden days people were quite hesitant of forming a network without seering the shit out of everyone involved. In this game, the mafia and village alike traded information freely (with some deception) figuring that we'd all learn enough truth to sort out the discrepancies and inconsistencies in stories later.
I think part of it is that most of the phalla players are people you see in every game. Softnetworking's weak spot would be the fact that it's pretty much blind trust, but it's hard to backstab someone you always play with.
Okay, I see. The degree of risk assumed in what you described does seem prohibitively high.
On the subject of being less willing to screw over people you deal with regularly, I did come across an article on the subject while I was Internetting around to learn more about this Mafia game. Apparently, it's a common phenomenon for people who play together regularly to be hesitant to betray one another. The long-term risk to reputation is not worth the short-term reward gained by the betrayal. If betrayal and intrigue are part of the core assumptions of the game, that seems counter-intuitive ... but people aren't always rational.
If you take treachery out of the equation, there's still the truth-seeking aspect of the game, which seems plenty entertaining on its own. And I guess there's still the specter of some kind of backstab, making a healthy level of paranoid]a probably a requisite. Is that about right?
Okay, I see. The degree of risk assumed in what you described does seem prohibitively high.
On the subject of being less willing to screw over people you deal with regularly, I did come across an article on the subject while I was Internetting around to learn more about this Mafia game. Apparently, it's a common phenomenon for people who play together regularly to be hesitant to betray one another. The long-term risk to reputation is not worth the short-term reward gained by the betrayal. If betrayal and intrigue are part of the core assumptions of the game, that seems counter-intuitive ... but people aren't always rational.
If you take treachery out of the equation, there's still the truth-seeking aspect of the game, which seems plenty entertaining on its own. And I guess there's still the specter of some kind of backstab, making a healthy level of paranoid]a probably a requisite. Is that about right?
The moral of the story is to have an all consuming bloodlust for your fellow man, and to not have any compunctions about stabbing people in the back even if you think they're swell. Like Langly. Fucking turtle shells deflecting my attempted homicide.
Okay, I see. The degree of risk assumed in what you described does seem prohibitively high.
On the subject of being less willing to screw over people you deal with regularly, I did come across an article on the subject while I was Internetting around to learn more about this Mafia game. Apparently, it's a common phenomenon for people who play together regularly to be hesitant to betray one another. The long-term risk to reputation is not worth the short-term reward gained by the betrayal. If betrayal and intrigue are part of the core assumptions of the game, that seems counter-intuitive ... but people aren't always rational.
If you take treachery out of the equation, there's still the truth-seeking aspect of the game, which seems plenty entertaining on its own. And I guess there's still the specter of some kind of backstab, making a healthy level of paranoid]a probably a requisite. Is that about right?
People still do this, but the degree or manner in which it happens usually plays out differently.
there's a difference between agreeing to work together soft network wise and rend dealing. Rend deals really have the social onus that will carry over from one game to another. I never actually completely trust people I soft network with, because if your win conditions are conflicting, someone it's going to be lying.
Two games ago, I worked really closely with the serial killer and had no idea. I didn't fault him for that later.
If you accept it, even if you think you will lose, you are paying against your win condition.the choice itself is anti village, which you are supposed to help win above all else
This grabbed my attention a few days ago, and @Capfalcon best summed up my feelings on it.
The requirement is not "you have to play to your win condition," that's just how it's usually phrased since it typically is the same as "you have to play to win."
But in reality, only the second is valid. And it IS super-important
I'm sad that Malkavians were so scary to the mafia. We were most harmless! :P
Thanks for running this, Assuran. It was lots of fun
I don't really agree. Phalla is a team game, and playing to your team's win condition is the goal. You're not in it for just you, out that were the case the game wouldn't work the way it does.
By voluntarily switching teams, you are doing the same thing as crashing your team's ships together. You hurt your original win condition and make it more difficult for your original team to win.
Phalla isn't a game about personal interest, it's about working as a group to meet a goal.otherwise, villagers would lose if they died, because they personally didn't make it to the end.
Incorrect. Phalla is not a team game, it is a game of individuals, each seeking their own personal victories. It just so happens that for a great many of those people their goals coincide.
If you ever intentionally do something that causes you to lose in exchange for helping someone else win, you are seriously harming the integrity of the game, the threads that keep the game together
If you accept it, even if you think you will lose, you are paying against your win condition.the choice itself is anti village, which you are supposed to help win above all else
This grabbed my attention a few days ago, and @Capfalcon best summed up my feelings on it.
The requirement is not "you have to play to your win condition," that's just how it's usually phrased since it typically is the same as "you have to play to win."
But in reality, only the second is valid. And it IS super-important
I'm sad that Malkavians were so scary to the mafia. We were most harmless! :P
Thanks for running this, Assuran. It was lots of fun
I don't really agree. Phalla is a team game, and playing to your team's win condition is the goal. You're not in it for just you, out that were the case the game wouldn't work the way it does.
By voluntarily switching teams, you are doing the same thing as crashing your team's ships together. You hurt your original win condition and make it more difficult for your original team to win.
Phalla isn't a game about personal interest, it's about working as a group to meet a goal.otherwise, villagers would lose if they died, because they personally didn't make it to the end.
Incorrect. Phalla is not a team game, it is a game of individuals, each seeking their own personal victories. It just so happens that for a great many of those people their goals coincide.
If you ever intentionally do something that causes you to lose in exchange for helping someone else win, you are seriously harming the integrity of the game, the threads that keep the game together
But I didn't say that, I said helping the team to win. Not someone else unconnected with you.
Darn it @anialos the gangrel win con was one of the easier ones. Probably the third easiest next to brush and cat if, if only because assurance decided to double the number of temere, while making half of them incredibly easy to soft confirm
I think Malkavian should have been easier, especially with Langly arranging to soft-network them on day 1.
Okay, I see. The degree of risk assumed in what you described does seem prohibitively high.
On the subject of being less willing to screw over people you deal with regularly, I did come across an article on the subject while I was Internetting around to learn more about this Mafia game. Apparently, it's a common phenomenon for people who play together regularly to be hesitant to betray one another. The long-term risk to reputation is not worth the short-term reward gained by the betrayal. If betrayal and intrigue are part of the core assumptions of the game, that seems counter-intuitive ... but people aren't always rational.
If you take treachery out of the equation, there's still the truth-seeking aspect of the game, which seems plenty entertaining on its own. And I guess there's still the specter of some kind of backstab, making a healthy level of paranoid]a probably a requisite. Is that about right?
People still do this, but the degree or manner in which it happens usually plays out differently.
there's a difference between agreeing to work together soft network wise and rend dealing. Rend deals really have the social onus that will carry over from one game to another. I never actually completely trust people I soft network with, because if your win conditions are conflicting, someone it's going to be lying.
Two games ago, I worked really closely with the serial killer and had no idea. I didn't fault him for that later.
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
Darn it @anialos the gangrel win con was one of the easier ones. Probably the third easiest next to brush and cat if, if only because assurance decided to double the number of temere, while making half of them incredibly easy to soft confirm
I think Malkavian should have been easier, especially with Langly arranging to soft-network them on day 1.
Langly offered to soft-network like everybody on day 1.
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
people realizing that literally everyone will lie about being mafia and then not caring
Darn it @anialos the gangrel win con was one of the easier ones. Probably the third easiest next to brush and cat if, if only because assurance decided to double the number of temere, while making half of them incredibly easy to soft confirm
I think Malkavian should have been easier, especially with Langly arranging to soft-network them on day 1.
Langly offered to soft-network like everybody on day 1.[/quote]
I know that. In my mind, the Malkavians benefited more from early networking like that than others because their victory required quick coordination of targets/powers/etc. The clans with outnumber wincons could have fired essentially blind for a couple of days and still managed a win by luck or a last-minute play. The Malkavians didn't have that luxury. OTOH, the Malkavians also didn't need (or want, really) to piss off anyone in order to achieve their wincon. Quick soft networking got rid of their major obstacle (coordination) without getting rid of their major strength (a friendly village). Of course, that doesn't take into account how much the mafia wanted to kill them
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
people realizing that literally everyone will lie about being mafia and then not caring
Right. So I don't really see the distinction between a Rend deal and not-a-Rend-deal-soft-networking. In my mind, wincons are either compatible or not. If they're not, and someone tells you theirs, you should probably lie, regardless of why they told you.
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
people realizing that literally everyone will lie about being mafia and then not caring
Right. So I don't really see the distinction between a Rend deal and not-a-Rend-deal-soft-networking. In my mind, wincons are either compatible or not. If they're not, and someone tells you theirs, you should probably lie, regardless of why they told you.
Depends if you want to be considered Rend-deal reliable ;-)
edit: The difference is ,basically,if you lay out a certain number of ..contractual obligations and or just spout out the term Rend Deal
Technically speaking a person isn't suppose to take aggressive action if they are odds against each other till it's absolutely required. It's usually smarter to accept than not to. Since the person is than bond by that law.
There are circumstances of course where someone offering a rend deal could be considered a very dick move.
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
people realizing that literally everyone will lie about being mafia and then not caring
Right. So I don't really see the distinction between a Rend deal and not-a-Rend-deal-soft-networking. In my mind, wincons are either compatible or not. If they're not, and someone tells you theirs, you should probably lie, regardless of why they told you.
The reason that it has its own name is because it is sacred.
It isn't necessarily something you'll personally run into.
Posts
Involuntary ones suck because you could end up on the losing side and get screwed out of benefiting from you're earlier endeavors in the game.
I've seen two implementations of voluntary conversions.
-You have this games version of it, it gives people an out if they're village and their faction has already lost. On the other hand, no one should take it early on IMO since your faction has hit the going to lose point and by taking it, you're screwing over your team. This runs into the issue where you might not find willing converts and if you're anti-village, people are going to try to kill you. IMO if this is used, they probably should have a different wincon, that isn't out number the combined elements of the player base that isn't cult.
-Spool's mini had voluntary conversions where some of the neutrals had to pick a side to win. This was probably one of the better conversion mechanics I've seen; especially, on the voluntary end (granted I think the mafia was able to force them as well) since part of the wincon was to be converted. The challenge was gaining trust of one sides to extend the invitations and being able to determine which side would let you win.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I had them as far back as 2007.
I really liked the conversions in Spool's mini too.
There was one mafia who had a one time forced conversion that would only work on a neutral(MrT had it and used it on me) and there was the alternate win version where a neutral could talk their way onto a proboard to join the mafia or village(which stever did).
3DS: 1289-8447-4695
Infidel runs phallas? Madness.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
I like conversions, even if most people don't. I can understand why some hate them, however.
Didn't jump on any bandwagons either.
hi-5
Felt the village was gonna win, so there.
Also, this thread is harder to kill than a vamp at midnight.
The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
I would never lose.
It's basically agreeing to trade role information and work together as much as victory conditions allow.
The idea is you are completely honest and then see how you can help each other win. Helpful in faction games, silly in normal mafia vs village setups.
It also would have saved me from clinging to the idea that "nah, it's OK, I don't need the Malk VC" and would have made it look like I could still win.
There's a beautiful kernel at the heart of this game, something ephemeral that I can't quite put my finger on yet. I love the idea of everything just being factions, of the Camarilla Clans and the Caitiff and the neutrals all having their own scores to settle and goals, but having to work towards one of the meta-factions winning.
Maybe giving the Prince its own victory condition would have better fostered that, made it so that it wasn't just a benevolent village role. Maybe his goal should have been to prevent any of the Clans from gaining too much power, to forestall victory conditions.
Don't worry about it, it happens sometimes.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
I spent this entire Phalla thread wondering what that was, as well. I pieced together most of the jargon people threw around (vig = vigilante, right?), but Rend deal and soft networking were hard to sort out with real specificity. Is soft networking making alliances that aren't mechanically enforced? That's the closest I could figure out to a definition, but I don't understand why some people use "soft networking" like a pejorative. It seems like that kind of deal-making would be a big part of a game with such a large social component. What am I missing?
In ye olden days people were quite hesitant of forming a network without seering the shit out of everyone involved. In this game, the mafia and village alike traded information freely (with some deception) figuring that we'd all learn enough truth to sort out the discrepancies and inconsistencies in stories later.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
On the subject of being less willing to screw over people you deal with regularly, I did come across an article on the subject while I was Internetting around to learn more about this Mafia game. Apparently, it's a common phenomenon for people who play together regularly to be hesitant to betray one another. The long-term risk to reputation is not worth the short-term reward gained by the betrayal. If betrayal and intrigue are part of the core assumptions of the game, that seems counter-intuitive ... but people aren't always rational.
If you take treachery out of the equation, there's still the truth-seeking aspect of the game, which seems plenty entertaining on its own. And I guess there's still the specter of some kind of backstab, making a healthy level of paranoid]a probably a requisite. Is that about right?
The moral of the story is to have an all consuming bloodlust for your fellow man, and to not have any compunctions about stabbing people in the back even if you think they're swell. Like Langly. Fucking turtle shells deflecting my attempted homicide.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
oh you guys
People still do this, but the degree or manner in which it happens usually plays out differently.
there's a difference between agreeing to work together soft network wise and rend dealing. Rend deals really have the social onus that will carry over from one game to another. I never actually completely trust people I soft network with, because if your win conditions are conflicting, someone it's going to be lying.
Two games ago, I worked really closely with the serial killer and had no idea. I didn't fault him for that later.
Incorrect. Phalla is not a team game, it is a game of individuals, each seeking their own personal victories. It just so happens that for a great many of those people their goals coincide.
If you ever intentionally do something that causes you to lose in exchange for helping someone else win, you are seriously harming the integrity of the game, the threads that keep the game together
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
But I didn't say that, I said helping the team to win. Not someone else unconnected with you.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
I bet they wont go making that mistake again :P
I think Malkavian should have been easier, especially with Langly arranging to soft-network them on day 1.
What's the difference, exactly? I mean, what prevents someone from offering Rend deals to everyone and sundry and then just assuming that those who refused the deal had something to hide? I mean, if one or two people attempted that strategy, then the mafia could just kill them quickly and lose little by it. But if a considerable number of the village did that, well then, the mafia would have no choice but to accept the Rend deal but lie anyway...
Langly offered to soft-network like everybody on day 1.
people realizing that literally everyone will lie about being mafia and then not caring
Langly offered to soft-network like everybody on day 1.[/quote]
I know that. In my mind, the Malkavians benefited more from early networking like that than others because their victory required quick coordination of targets/powers/etc. The clans with outnumber wincons could have fired essentially blind for a couple of days and still managed a win by luck or a last-minute play. The Malkavians didn't have that luxury. OTOH, the Malkavians also didn't need (or want, really) to piss off anyone in order to achieve their wincon. Quick soft networking got rid of their major obstacle (coordination) without getting rid of their major strength (a friendly village). Of course, that doesn't take into account how much the mafia wanted to kill them
Right. So I don't really see the distinction between a Rend deal and not-a-Rend-deal-soft-networking. In my mind, wincons are either compatible or not. If they're not, and someone tells you theirs, you should probably lie, regardless of why they told you.
Depends if you want to be considered Rend-deal reliable ;-)
edit: The difference is ,basically,if you lay out a certain number of ..contractual obligations and or just spout out the term Rend Deal
Technically speaking a person isn't suppose to take aggressive action if they are odds against each other till it's absolutely required. It's usually smarter to accept than not to. Since the person is than bond by that law.
There are circumstances of course where someone offering a rend deal could be considered a very dick move.
The reason that it has its own name is because it is sacred.
It isn't necessarily something you'll personally run into.