The partisan's had a VERY slow start, with 1/3 being killed off by the vote and the others hitting dead or immune people for a couple nights. Very much one of those things that would have quickly boiled over into a situation where most everyone wouldn't be getting cured. At that point I could see people voting against the more likely candidates and more for voting out other houses. Since the vote manip was also based on that, gave more of a weight to village.
Aura managed to link up with both of the other Stewards day 2 which was the only reason we were able to gain enough information to track things, roman and I didn't talk till day 4(?) though by then I had it narrowed down to 3 possible people. It was fun trying to sort out end of round partisan changes with the numbers we had to try and get an idea of the numbers in peoples houses. Though I am very confused why the numbers were fluctuating the last couple of days, I had more bonus votes than people in my house? In the end I had a pretty good idea for some people that weren't mafia, more than who could but it did make picking which band wagon to decide to win was pretty easy. Pure dumb luck heffling contacted me and proved they were the starting partisan before I even realized that was going to be a thing. Also pure dumb luck that all of the people I was soft networked with ended up being village.
Seriously, I was actually hoping I would die so I could post a video.
Role:
Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Trogdor was a man!
I mean… he was a dragon-man
Or maybe… he was just a dragon…
But he was still Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Burninating the countryside!
Burninating the peasants!
Burninating the peoples!
And their thatched-roof cottages!
-“TROGDOR,” by Strong Bad
You are… Trogdor the Burninator, a Villager of the House of 1982! The patron of the House of 1982 is the Holy Ghost, and the house words are “Built Like a Ship.”
You are a man. But also a dragon? So maybe a dragon-man, possibly. Well, whether you’re a dragon, a man, or a dragon-man, you are Trogdor the Burninator. And you play a very important role in the world’s ecosystem: you burninate things that need burninating. Specifically, you burninate, in descending order of importance: (1) the countryside; (2) the peasants; (3) the peoples; and (4) the peoples’ thatched-roof cottages. If you were not around to do all of the important burninating, the burninating would simply not get done. And then what? There would be chaos! The countryside would grow out of control! There would be thatched-roof cottages as far as the eye can see! Luckily, the world has you to take care of all of their problems, or at least all of the problems that can be solved via burninating. You are Trogdor. And you burninate.
Win condition: Eliminate all threats to the village.
Also I'm a little salty about getting converted the night before things ended just so I couldn't win. I get why H3K did it, but that doesn't make me less salty. I also didn't like getting backed into a situation where I would have had to do that to others to try and win (was going to Partisan ZH tonight if the game hadn't ended). That was the only part of the whole thing that felt bad.
Lastly, @Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Thanks for running, even though I was clueless, lol.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Also I'm a little salty about getting converted the night before things ended just so I couldn't win. I get why H3K did it, but that doesn't make me less salty. I also didn't like getting backed into a situation where I would have had to do that to others to try and win (was going to Partisan ZH tonight if the game hadn't ended). That was the only part of the whole thing that felt bad.
@JPants I didn't turn you for some petty desire to screw you out of the village win. I turned you because I thought I could maybe build a voting block in 1982 on the slim chance it could keep me alive long enough to have a shot, or (more likely) to at least get revenge on the Rising Sun members (who seemed to have spearheaded the village victory) by crowning you guys.
Aura managed to link up with both of the other Stewards day 2 which was the only reason we were able to gain enough information to track things, roman and I didn't talk till day 4(?) though by then I had it narrowed down to 3 possible people. It was fun trying to sort out end of round partisan changes with the numbers we had to try and get an idea of the numbers in peoples houses. Though I am very confused why the numbers were fluctuating the last couple of days, I had more bonus votes than people in my house? In the end I had a pretty good idea for some people that weren't mafia, more than who could but it did make picking which band wagon to decide to win was pretty easy. Pure dumb luck heffling contacted me and proved they were the starting partisan before I even realized that was going to be a thing. Also pure dumb luck that all of the people I was soft networked with ended up being village.
No offense but your (the stewards as a whole, not Blue specifically) numbers were garbage. There were only 5 mafia. There was no survivor neutral. I don't know how you all were seeing 6. I kept barking up the wrong tree because I was trying to reconcile what you three were sharing with what the mafia had access to, lol.
Seriously, I was actually hoping I would die so I could post a video.
Role:
Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Trogdor was a man!
I mean… he was a dragon-man
Or maybe… he was just a dragon…
But he was still Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Burninating the countryside!
Burninating the peasants!
Burninating the peoples!
And their thatched-roof cottages!
-“TROGDOR,” by Strong Bad
You are… Trogdor the Burninator, a Villager of the House of 1982! The patron of the House of 1982 is the Holy Ghost, and the house words are “Built Like a Ship.”
You are a man. But also a dragon? So maybe a dragon-man, possibly. Well, whether you’re a dragon, a man, or a dragon-man, you are Trogdor the Burninator. And you play a very important role in the world’s ecosystem: you burninate things that need burninating. Specifically, you burninate, in descending order of importance: (1) the countryside; (2) the peasants; (3) the peoples; and (4) the peoples’ thatched-roof cottages. If you were not around to do all of the important burninating, the burninating would simply not get done. And then what? There would be chaos! The countryside would grow out of control! There would be thatched-roof cottages as far as the eye can see! Luckily, the world has you to take care of all of their problems, or at least all of the problems that can be solved via burninating. You are Trogdor. And you burninate.
Win condition: Eliminate all threats to the village.
Also I'm a little salty about getting converted the night before things ended just so I couldn't win. I get why H3K did it, but that doesn't make me less salty. I also didn't like getting backed into a situation where I would have had to do that to others to try and win (was going to Partisan ZH tonight if the game hadn't ended). That was the only part of the whole thing that felt bad.
Lastly, Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
There probably needed to be more partisans in the beginning, to give less power to the stewards, and allow the village the chance to factionalise while the partisans don't know that they can be deprogrammed.
Knowing what I fairly quickly figured out talking to romanqwerty (total shot in the dark which paid off big given he had almost as much reason to know how Invictus won as I did) and Bluecyan, I was pretty sure that multiple people would work out that there must be some kind of mega-vote in play, and that I was dead if kime was mafia, by about halfway through Day 2. I couldn't see a way out of it besides to reveal and hope there was a guard, which ultimately I didn't on bluecyan / roman's advice. You were halfway there yourself.
With a vote-bump that big, it was basically a giant target on the back of whichever Steward won a Day 1 vote, short of a runaway wagon.
E2: Also, Phyphor deserves at least as much credit for getting the ball rolling on networking as I do, because once I'd read his post a few times I figured out the Partisan mechanic existed and that he was my opposite number real fast. We had one of the longer Day 1 PM chains I think I've had since Dungeon Phalla and the Too Many Smiths debacle.
Auralynx on
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Lastly, Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
JPants
I'd have to look at the mafia boards to see whether Shalmelo or kime dropped me before I could be certain, but I think it probably does!
@Auralynx I hadn't subbed in for Green yet, but going from the orders thread, the mafia tried to propagandize you day 1, and figured out you needed to go when that failed.
Lastly, Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
JPants
I'd have to look at the mafia boards to see whether Shalmelo or kime dropped me before I could be certain, but I think it probably does!
Auralynx I hadn't subbed in for Green yet, but going from the orders thread, the mafia tried to propagandize you day 1, and figured out you needed to go when that failed.
:rotate:
I thought for sure they'd figured out that me + kime, with him being mafia, being the only two people who voted for Invictus was suspicious.
I'm not sure putting Propaganda on the mafia was a great call in that case. Certainly didn't work out for me!
Aura managed to link up with both of the other Stewards day 2 which was the only reason we were able to gain enough information to track things, roman and I didn't talk till day 4(?) though by then I had it narrowed down to 3 possible people. It was fun trying to sort out end of round partisan changes with the numbers we had to try and get an idea of the numbers in peoples houses. Though I am very confused why the numbers were fluctuating the last couple of days, I had more bonus votes than people in my house? In the end I had a pretty good idea for some people that weren't mafia, more than who could but it did make picking which band wagon to decide to win was pretty easy. Pure dumb luck heffling contacted me and proved they were the starting partisan before I even realized that was going to be a thing. Also pure dumb luck that all of the people I was soft networked with ended up being village.
No offense but your (the stewards as a whole, not Blue specifically) numbers were garbage. There were only 5 mafia. There was no survivor neutral. I don't know how you all were seeing 6. I kept barking up the wrong tree because I was trying to reconcile what you three were sharing with what the mafia had access to, lol.
I wouldn't say garbage, I had a perfect count of the people in the houses, had a good look at where partisans were and while I was off by one mafia in heaven, was right about the rest. Not exactly bad if you ask me. I had perfect info on my house, but the fact Aura died early and roman never had a point where the partisans were purged meant there was some gray area.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited July 2020
I really, really don't think giving the mafia less tools would improve the design for this ruleset. I mean, sure things might've played out differently, but I don't know how anyone could look at what a stomp this turned into for the village and think the mafia had too much power.
I really, really don't think giving the mafia less tools would improve the design for this ruleset. I mean, sure things might've played out different, but I don't know how anyone could look at what a stomp this turned into for the village and think the mafia had too much power.
Oh, no, I think they could probably have used more in order to make the deal Phyphor and I were trying to work out where I actively let him make partisans so we had both power sets (if there actually were any) available would've been necessary. I just don't think the ability to make Partisans was necessarily a good choice of power.
I think the Mafia letting themselves get dragged into the Partisan game is a big part of what let several of your members get caught. Especially since the village Partisans and Stewards managed to network AND develop some trust early.
I think the Mafia letting themselves get dragged into the Partisan game is a big part of what let several of your members get caught. Especially since the village Partisans and Stewards managed to network AND develop some trust early.
Which kinda seems against the purpose of the roles?
Also we, the mafia, could make partisans. So idk how we were supposed to not get dragged into it.
I think the Mafia letting themselves get dragged into the Partisan game is a big part of what let several of your members get caught. Especially since the village Partisans and Stewards managed to network AND develop some trust early.
Which kinda seems against the purpose of the roles?
Also we, the mafia, could make partisans. So idk how we were supposed to not get dragged into it.
I think most people would assume the game would continue once the Mafia are eliminated until only one faction remained, as that's how it tends to work.
And once it became obvious that people could be deprogrammed, I think even less emphasis was placed on winning as a faction before the Mafia died.
Thanks hosts for running this game. It was extremely different than anything I've played before and I enjoyed the innovation.
There were some inconsistencies in the steward numbers we came up with which I attributed to imperfect information about the game. The 6 mafia number primarily came from on N1 we collectively saw 6 new non-partisans join our house (accounting for the regular propaganda and deaths). We ended up having some numbers be off by 1 in day 3/4 and I was pretty convinced something was going on that we didn't know about. That said, these numbers we a hell of a lot better than NO numbers and didn't exactly disagree with conventional vote analysis.
I do think stewards were a little too strong. I think having vote-manipulation as strong as we did gave us an easy way to network. I got in contact with both the other stewards by seeing the results of their vote-manipulation and then exchanging details about our powers.
What happened about the no mafia kill on that one day?
Thought I would have time this morning to post full thoughts, but now that will likely not happen until tomorrow. Short version:
1. Game was designed for the village to take three possible paths: all in with Stewards (control vote, easier win con, but no other specials), all in with Partisans (harder win con, but overwhelming special advantage), or attempt to balance the two. (Mafia also had several paths they could have taken, although they were not as obviously laid out for them.) (Incidentally, Austin also advocated removing the mafia's ability to use Propaganda, but because he thought the mafia would just choose to never use it.)
2. All the Propaganda on day one whiffed. Once that happened, combined with the quick info gathering by the Stewards, it became easy for them to keep the Partisans at bay. If even one hits, the game plays very differently. Vote manip is weaker, Partisans spread faster, etc.
Like I said, more thoughts tomorrow. But that's the short version of why the game went the way it did.
I think the Mafia letting themselves get dragged into the Partisan game is a big part of what let several of your members get caught. Especially since the village Partisans and Stewards managed to network AND develop some trust early.
Which kinda seems against the purpose of the roles?
Also we, the mafia, could make partisans. So idk how we were supposed to not get dragged into it.
I think most people would assume the game would continue once the Mafia are eliminated until only one faction remained, as that's how it tends to work.
And once it became obvious that people could be deprogrammed, I think even less emphasis was placed on winning as a faction before the Mafia died.
I yelled pretty loud about that, on day 1, saying that faction stuff didn't make sense given that quote out of the OP.
I'm not sure how to feel about that; I was actually kinda trying to hedge my bets by saying those things, as either Phyphor was lying and I had reason to doubt him or he wasn't lying and I was gonna get partisan'd and I had reason to make other people doubt him, as I was not thinking that partisan-ship could be cured.
I was right about getting partisan'd, but did not account for vote manipulation.
@Locus@AustinP0027 This was a fun game; my only regret was how early I died, given how interesting things were looking at the end of Day 1. I sent you guys a PM right after I died that was kinda salty, and I apologize for that; as I said in it, by the end of Day 1 I had gotten pretty engaged and thought I would survive.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
@AustinP0027 and @Locus , thanks very much foir running this. It's the most fun I've had in phalla for a long time!
Unusually, my choices actually seemed mostly accurate in the long run, too.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited July 2020
The missed mafia kill was just that; we weren't the most active mafia for various reasons, and submitting orders kind of slipped through the cracks on that day.
The missed mafia kill was just that; we weren't the most active mafia for various reasons, and submitting orders kind of slipped through the cracks on that day.
Seriously, I was actually hoping I would die so I could post a video.
Role:
Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Trogdor was a man!
I mean… he was a dragon-man
Or maybe… he was just a dragon…
But he was still Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Burninating the countryside!
Burninating the peasants!
Burninating the peoples!
And their thatched-roof cottages!
-“TROGDOR,” by Strong Bad
You are… Trogdor the Burninator, a Villager of the House of 1982! The patron of the House of 1982 is the Holy Ghost, and the house words are “Built Like a Ship.”
You are a man. But also a dragon? So maybe a dragon-man, possibly. Well, whether you’re a dragon, a man, or a dragon-man, you are Trogdor the Burninator. And you play a very important role in the world’s ecosystem: you burninate things that need burninating. Specifically, you burninate, in descending order of importance: (1) the countryside; (2) the peasants; (3) the peoples; and (4) the peoples’ thatched-roof cottages. If you were not around to do all of the important burninating, the burninating would simply not get done. And then what? There would be chaos! The countryside would grow out of control! There would be thatched-roof cottages as far as the eye can see! Luckily, the world has you to take care of all of their problems, or at least all of the problems that can be solved via burninating. You are Trogdor. And you burninate.
Win condition: Eliminate all threats to the village.
Also I'm a little salty about getting converted the night before things ended just so I couldn't win. I get why H3K did it, but that doesn't make me less salty. I also didn't like getting backed into a situation where I would have had to do that to others to try and win (was going to Partisan ZH tonight if the game hadn't ended). That was the only part of the whole thing that felt bad.
Lastly, Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
JPants
I'd have to look at the mafia boards to see whether Shalmelo or kime dropped me before I could be certain, but I think it probably does!
There probably needed to be more partisans in the beginning, to give less power to the stewards, and allow the village the chance to factionalise while the partisans don't know that they can be deprogrammed.
Knowing what I fairly quickly figured out talking to romanqwerty (total shot in the dark which paid off big given he had almost as much reason to know how Invictus won as I did) and Bluecyan, I was pretty sure that multiple people would work out that there must be some kind of mega-vote in play, and that I was dead if kime was mafia, by about halfway through Day 2. I couldn't see a way out of it besides to reveal and hope there was a guard, which ultimately I didn't on bluecyan / roman's advice. You were halfway there yourself.
With a vote-bump that big, it was basically a giant target on the back of whichever Steward won a Day 1 vote, short of a runaway wagon.
E2: Also, Phyphor deserves at least as much credit for getting the ball rolling on networking as I do, because once I'd read his post a few times I figured out the Partisan mechanic existed and that he was my opposite number real fast. We had one of the longer Day 1 PM chains I think I've had since Dungeon Phalla and the Too Many Smiths debacle.
Day 1 we had enough independent information that we were either villagers or extremely creative mafia, so I basically told you everything about how my stuff worked, seemed like it helped
Way back when, I wanted to design a game based on characters from various songs, across all genres of music. This was back when phalla games could reliably get 40 players per game, and the largest games could get many more than that. So the game I had in mind had a dizzying amount of themes and mechanics all overlapping and interacting with each other. There was going to be a lot going on, and a lot to keep the players busy. Of course, a game that complex requires a lot of time to plan, and unfortunately life got in the way and I was never able to complete my grand vision.
As I returned to phalla over the past couple of years, I wanted to re-visit the concept, because it held a lot of appeal to me. I really enjoy music and sharing it with others, and I felt like I had a good narrative hook for the flavor. Unfortunately, the time when we could run large games is long past, and therefore it simply was not feasible to implement all of the mechanics I had wanted into a single game. Instead, I decided to break up the giant game into several smaller games, with each smaller game focusing on one or two mechanics/themes from the original large game.
One of the themes/mechanics of the large game was going to be the “genre” of each role. Essentially, each role would be assigned a genre (or two or three, depending on the source material), and there would have been roles and mechanics that interacted with the genres. For example, maybe there would have been a serial killer type role that needed to have a kill on one player of each genre to meet their win condition. Something like that. With fewer players, though, something like that becomes less interesting because there’s only so many genres you can cram into 20ish roles. So instead of having each role with its own genre(s), I thought about making broad categories in which to divide the players.
Originally the plan was to have six of these broad categories, with each player assigned to two categories. I spent an inordinate amount of time doing very basic math to figure out that anything that worked with six categories worked just as well with three categories. This happened to match up well with the Trinity as a flavor concept, so I proceeded with that, and created the three Houses. It might not be immediately obvious, but the roles in each of the Houses are actually thematically linked. The House That Heaven Built, associated with the Father, is more geared towards straight up rock and roll and classic rock; the House of the Rising Sun, associated with the Son, is more geared towards folk rock and other “light” rock, continuing the theme of the Son being associated with folk music generally; and the House of 1982, associated with the Holy Ghost, is more geared towards “weird” rock and roll.
From there sprung the idea of a faction game that is not a faction game. The idea was that there would be rebels (hence, Rock Rebellion) that would try to recruit other players to their cause from each House. These rebels would be countered by the establishment of the Houses. Meanwhile, the mafia would be trying to exploit these divisions to stay under the radar and glide their way to victory.
As for the mechanics themselves, the Partisans were the first to be settled. They would have the ability to convert other players to their win condition. As their numbers increased, so would their strenght, in the form of unlocking village specials. I’m generally not a fan of conversion mechanics, because it can lead to some real feel-bad moments (as was the case here). I felt like the shift in win condition was mild enough (from village to village+) that it would be okay, and that the prospect of more specials mitigated against that. I also felt that it would be okay if some players just didn’t win, even if they were alive at the end.
But we couldn’t let the Partisans just run rampant, because then the game would inevitably become a pure faction game. So the Stewards (originally called Loyalists) were created as a counterbalance. They could slow the spread of the Partisans, and could act as leadership for the village (represented in the mechanics by their vote manipulation ability).
Overall, I’m pretty happy with both how the mechanics of Partisans and Stewards were balanced, and how the game actually played out. As I mentioned earlier, the village had essentially three paths they could go down: (1) go all-in with the Stewards; (2) go all-in with the Partisans; or (3) try to balance the two. Each path came with its own difficulties. Going with the Stewards meant forgoing all other village specials; going with the Partisans meant a more difficult win condition for the players; and option (3) is pretty self-explanatory in its difficulty. As we were trying to balance the game, Austin and I feared that the Partisan option would be too tempting, i.e. that the village would not want to pass up the opportunity for more specials. That’s why the Stewards got an overwhelmingly powerful ability, to make that path more appealing. It turns out we overestimated the allure of more special roles, but I still think the failure of the Partisans to propogate at all on Day One really pushed the village in one direction. In the end, though, that was the village’s choice to make, and obviously it worked for them.
As for the mafia, their greatest strength would be their ability to blend in. Their roles were essentially indistinguishable from the average villager role, complete with the ability to become a Partisan. The mafia also had full knowledge of the basics of each House, as well as the Partisan role and win condition. Meanwhile, they could use Propaganda to keep the village divided, and Divide and Conquer to switch Houses and keep the village on their toes. That ended up not working out, for a variety of reasons, but I think the concept was sound. That the mafia ended up getting (somewhat) steamrolled was more a product of the excellent play of the village.
All in all, I’m pleased with how the game turned out, in terms of mechanics and player engagement. Most people seemed to have fun (and I apologize to those who did not), and the balance did not seem completely out of whack. Each win condition had a chance to win (at some point), and even up to the last day there was a chance for things to go differently. We might have been better off finding a way for the game to move along quicker, perhaps by giving the mafia another kill every other day. But otherwise I’m happy with how things turned out.
As you may recall from my posts in the Prelude, a large part of my musical tastes derives from my parents. Folk music is undeniably the foundation of my musical likes and dislikes. Socially, I've always been a bit of a late bloomer, and so I spent a long time basically just listening to the music my parents listened to. When I did finally start to branch out into my own tastes, rock and roll was the gateway. In particular, my time at sleep away camp introduced me to bands like Oasis, Blur, Rush, Live, the Cranberries, the Beastie Boys, and too many more than I can remember (you can tell I started going to camp in the early '90s). Of course, growing up in New Jersey you learn to love all of our native born rockers, from Bruce to Bon Jovi to Fountains of Wayne to latter-day bands like My Chemical Romance. Eventually, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band helped expand my rock and roll horizons even further.
In designing the flavor for the game, our goal was try to reflect a wide variety of styles and sub-genres and eras in the roles and themes. It would have been super easy to just fill the game with references to classic rock, but that does not cover the breadth and depth of what rock and roll has become since the Beatles broke up. I also wanted a mix of well-known and lesser known songs. I figure most people would recognize "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Tommy and Gina are less obvious since they're not in the title of a song, but "Livin' on a Prayer" is a karaoke staple for a reason (and they make a comeback in "It's My Life"!). Blue Canary is even less obvious, but They Might Be Giants in general, and their album Flood in particular, have decent cultural penetration. I would not expect anyone to immediately recognize Joe, just because it is so generic and the Protomen are not exactly mainstream. Same deal with the Houses. I would expect most people to at least recognize "House of the Rising Sun," for rock fans to recognize "The House that Heaven Built," and for basically nobody to recognize "House of 1982."
There's not much more to say about the flavor, because everything was pretty straightforward. My overall hope, as always, was that someone would spot a reference and say, "Oh hey, I know that song. I love that song!" Or, if they didn't recognize it, google it and maybe find a new song they like. It's fun to share!
Oh, did I say there wasn't much more to say? Well, how about a playlist with every song that was (intentionally) referenced! Let me know if you think there's anything I missed.
And, of course, a google doc with all role PMs, narrations, various flavor stuff, and mechanics. Bonus content includes: one unused villager role, the first (terrible draft) of the opening narration, and drafts of results PMs that I didn't even bother sharing with Austin because they were terrible.
@Invictus do not worry about your salty PM. Can't speak for Austin, but I did not take it personally. Also I've seen way saltier PMs.
I hope you did not take my response as being dismissive! But we are limited in what we can say while the game is ongoing.
I've had different hosts have different takes on what they were willing to say in private to dead people during the game, and part of what I was doing with that PM was poking to see how you felt. I totally understood your response as expressing an (understandable!) unwillingness to talk about things during the fact.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
side note: its' gonna be really important, I think, in the next couple days, so I'd like to know which Steward vote-manipped me out of the game on day 1. You know, just for, uh, future reference.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Though my understanding is the stewards all thought Roman would have the highest manip day 1 and that was changed without stewards knowing when mafia joined the houses end of day 1.
Though my understanding is the stewards all thought Roman would have the highest manip day 1 and that was changed without stewards knowing when mafia joined the houses end of day 1.
Thus Blue being confused by who ate the vote.
Stewards didn't talk day 1. I really was just surprised I didn't end up killing Obi. Then having to back pedal from the soft reveal to not out myself to the mafia.
Posts
Aura managed to link up with both of the other Stewards day 2 which was the only reason we were able to gain enough information to track things, roman and I didn't talk till day 4(?) though by then I had it narrowed down to 3 possible people. It was fun trying to sort out end of round partisan changes with the numbers we had to try and get an idea of the numbers in peoples houses. Though I am very confused why the numbers were fluctuating the last couple of days, I had more bonus votes than people in my house? In the end I had a pretty good idea for some people that weren't mafia, more than who could but it did make picking which band wagon to decide to win was pretty easy. Pure dumb luck heffling contacted me and proved they were the starting partisan before I even realized that was going to be a thing. Also pure dumb luck that all of the people I was soft networked with ended up being village.
Thanks for running @Locus @AustinP0027 . Thanks for the networks @Gizzy @MamaWolf @romanqwerty @Heffling @Wildcat .
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Seriously, I was actually hoping I would die so I could post a video.
Role:
Trogdor!
Trogdor was a man!
I mean… he was a dragon-man
Or maybe… he was just a dragon…
But he was still Trogdor!
Trogdor!
Burninating the countryside!
Burninating the peasants!
Burninating the peoples!
And their thatched-roof cottages!
-“TROGDOR,” by Strong Bad
You are… Trogdor the Burninator, a Villager of the House of 1982! The patron of the House of 1982 is the Holy Ghost, and the house words are “Built Like a Ship.”
You are a man. But also a dragon? So maybe a dragon-man, possibly. Well, whether you’re a dragon, a man, or a dragon-man, you are Trogdor the Burninator. And you play a very important role in the world’s ecosystem: you burninate things that need burninating. Specifically, you burninate, in descending order of importance: (1) the countryside; (2) the peasants; (3) the peoples; and (4) the peoples’ thatched-roof cottages. If you were not around to do all of the important burninating, the burninating would simply not get done. And then what? There would be chaos! The countryside would grow out of control! There would be thatched-roof cottages as far as the eye can see! Luckily, the world has you to take care of all of their problems, or at least all of the problems that can be solved via burninating. You are Trogdor. And you burninate.
Win condition: Eliminate all threats to the village.
Also I'm a little salty about getting converted the night before things ended just so I couldn't win. I get why H3K did it, but that doesn't make me less salty. I also didn't like getting backed into a situation where I would have had to do that to others to try and win (was going to Partisan ZH tonight if the game hadn't ended). That was the only part of the whole thing that felt bad.
Lastly, @Auralynx does this count as our first non-betrayal game?!
@JPants I didn't turn you for some petty desire to screw you out of the village win. I turned you because I thought I could maybe build a voting block in 1982 on the slim chance it could keep me alive long enough to have a shot, or (more likely) to at least get revenge on the Rising Sun members (who seemed to have spearheaded the village victory) by crowning you guys.
No offense but your (the stewards as a whole, not Blue specifically) numbers were garbage. There were only 5 mafia. There was no survivor neutral. I don't know how you all were seeing 6. I kept barking up the wrong tree because I was trying to reconcile what you three were sharing with what the mafia had access to, lol.
@JPants
I'd have to look at the mafia boards to see whether Shalmelo or kime dropped me before I could be certain, but I think it probably does!
Knowing what I fairly quickly figured out talking to romanqwerty (total shot in the dark which paid off big given he had almost as much reason to know how Invictus won as I did) and Bluecyan, I was pretty sure that multiple people would work out that there must be some kind of mega-vote in play, and that I was dead if kime was mafia, by about halfway through Day 2. I couldn't see a way out of it besides to reveal and hope there was a guard, which ultimately I didn't on bluecyan / roman's advice. You were halfway there yourself.
With a vote-bump that big, it was basically a giant target on the back of whichever Steward won a Day 1 vote, short of a runaway wagon.
E2: Also, Phyphor deserves at least as much credit for getting the ball rolling on networking as I do, because once I'd read his post a few times I figured out the Partisan mechanic existed and that he was my opposite number real fast. We had one of the longer Day 1 PM chains I think I've had since Dungeon Phalla and the Too Many Smiths debacle.
@Auralynx I hadn't subbed in for Green yet, but going from the orders thread, the mafia tried to propagandize you day 1, and figured out you needed to go when that failed.
:rotate:
I thought for sure they'd figured out that me + kime, with him being mafia, being the only two people who voted for Invictus was suspicious.
I'm not sure putting Propaganda on the mafia was a great call in that case. Certainly didn't work out for me!
I wouldn't say garbage, I had a perfect count of the people in the houses, had a good look at where partisans were and while I was off by one mafia in heaven, was right about the rest. Not exactly bad if you ask me. I had perfect info on my house, but the fact Aura died early and roman never had a point where the partisans were purged meant there was some gray area.
Oh, no, I think they could probably have used more in order to make the deal Phyphor and I were trying to work out where I actively let him make partisans so we had both power sets (if there actually were any) available would've been necessary. I just don't think the ability to make Partisans was necessarily a good choice of power.
Which kinda seems against the purpose of the roles?
Also we, the mafia, could make partisans. So idk how we were supposed to not get dragged into it.
I think most people would assume the game would continue once the Mafia are eliminated until only one faction remained, as that's how it tends to work.
And once it became obvious that people could be deprogrammed, I think even less emphasis was placed on winning as a faction before the Mafia died.
There were some inconsistencies in the steward numbers we came up with which I attributed to imperfect information about the game. The 6 mafia number primarily came from on N1 we collectively saw 6 new non-partisans join our house (accounting for the regular propaganda and deaths). We ended up having some numbers be off by 1 in day 3/4 and I was pretty convinced something was going on that we didn't know about. That said, these numbers we a hell of a lot better than NO numbers and didn't exactly disagree with conventional vote analysis.
I do think stewards were a little too strong. I think having vote-manipulation as strong as we did gave us an easy way to network. I got in contact with both the other stewards by seeing the results of their vote-manipulation and then exchanging details about our powers.
What happened about the no mafia kill on that one day?
1. Game was designed for the village to take three possible paths: all in with Stewards (control vote, easier win con, but no other specials), all in with Partisans (harder win con, but overwhelming special advantage), or attempt to balance the two. (Mafia also had several paths they could have taken, although they were not as obviously laid out for them.) (Incidentally, Austin also advocated removing the mafia's ability to use Propaganda, but because he thought the mafia would just choose to never use it.)
2. All the Propaganda on day one whiffed. Once that happened, combined with the quick info gathering by the Stewards, it became easy for them to keep the Partisans at bay. If even one hits, the game plays very differently. Vote manip is weaker, Partisans spread faster, etc.
Like I said, more thoughts tomorrow. But that's the short version of why the game went the way it did.
I yelled pretty loud about that, on day 1, saying that faction stuff didn't make sense given that quote out of the OP.
I'm not sure how to feel about that; I was actually kinda trying to hedge my bets by saying those things, as either Phyphor was lying and I had reason to doubt him or he wasn't lying and I was gonna get partisan'd and I had reason to make other people doubt him, as I was not thinking that partisan-ship could be cured.
I was right about getting partisan'd, but did not account for vote manipulation.
@Locus @AustinP0027 This was a fun game; my only regret was how early I died, given how interesting things were looking at the end of Day 1. I sent you guys a PM right after I died that was kinda salty, and I apologize for that; as I said in it, by the end of Day 1 I had gotten pretty engaged and thought I would survive.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Thanks for running the game austin and locus!
3DS: 1289-8447-4695
Unusually, my choices actually seemed mostly accurate in the long run, too.
Ahahahahaha
Day 1 we had enough independent information that we were either villagers or extremely creative mafia, so I basically told you everything about how my stuff worked, seemed like it helped
Also for the record I partisaned nobody night 1
But I guess the Mafia had that all along
Way back when, I wanted to design a game based on characters from various songs, across all genres of music. This was back when phalla games could reliably get 40 players per game, and the largest games could get many more than that. So the game I had in mind had a dizzying amount of themes and mechanics all overlapping and interacting with each other. There was going to be a lot going on, and a lot to keep the players busy. Of course, a game that complex requires a lot of time to plan, and unfortunately life got in the way and I was never able to complete my grand vision.
As I returned to phalla over the past couple of years, I wanted to re-visit the concept, because it held a lot of appeal to me. I really enjoy music and sharing it with others, and I felt like I had a good narrative hook for the flavor. Unfortunately, the time when we could run large games is long past, and therefore it simply was not feasible to implement all of the mechanics I had wanted into a single game. Instead, I decided to break up the giant game into several smaller games, with each smaller game focusing on one or two mechanics/themes from the original large game.
One of the themes/mechanics of the large game was going to be the “genre” of each role. Essentially, each role would be assigned a genre (or two or three, depending on the source material), and there would have been roles and mechanics that interacted with the genres. For example, maybe there would have been a serial killer type role that needed to have a kill on one player of each genre to meet their win condition. Something like that. With fewer players, though, something like that becomes less interesting because there’s only so many genres you can cram into 20ish roles. So instead of having each role with its own genre(s), I thought about making broad categories in which to divide the players.
Originally the plan was to have six of these broad categories, with each player assigned to two categories. I spent an inordinate amount of time doing very basic math to figure out that anything that worked with six categories worked just as well with three categories. This happened to match up well with the Trinity as a flavor concept, so I proceeded with that, and created the three Houses. It might not be immediately obvious, but the roles in each of the Houses are actually thematically linked. The House That Heaven Built, associated with the Father, is more geared towards straight up rock and roll and classic rock; the House of the Rising Sun, associated with the Son, is more geared towards folk rock and other “light” rock, continuing the theme of the Son being associated with folk music generally; and the House of 1982, associated with the Holy Ghost, is more geared towards “weird” rock and roll.
From there sprung the idea of a faction game that is not a faction game. The idea was that there would be rebels (hence, Rock Rebellion) that would try to recruit other players to their cause from each House. These rebels would be countered by the establishment of the Houses. Meanwhile, the mafia would be trying to exploit these divisions to stay under the radar and glide their way to victory.
As for the mechanics themselves, the Partisans were the first to be settled. They would have the ability to convert other players to their win condition. As their numbers increased, so would their strenght, in the form of unlocking village specials. I’m generally not a fan of conversion mechanics, because it can lead to some real feel-bad moments (as was the case here). I felt like the shift in win condition was mild enough (from village to village+) that it would be okay, and that the prospect of more specials mitigated against that. I also felt that it would be okay if some players just didn’t win, even if they were alive at the end.
But we couldn’t let the Partisans just run rampant, because then the game would inevitably become a pure faction game. So the Stewards (originally called Loyalists) were created as a counterbalance. They could slow the spread of the Partisans, and could act as leadership for the village (represented in the mechanics by their vote manipulation ability).
Overall, I’m pretty happy with both how the mechanics of Partisans and Stewards were balanced, and how the game actually played out. As I mentioned earlier, the village had essentially three paths they could go down: (1) go all-in with the Stewards; (2) go all-in with the Partisans; or (3) try to balance the two. Each path came with its own difficulties. Going with the Stewards meant forgoing all other village specials; going with the Partisans meant a more difficult win condition for the players; and option (3) is pretty self-explanatory in its difficulty. As we were trying to balance the game, Austin and I feared that the Partisan option would be too tempting, i.e. that the village would not want to pass up the opportunity for more specials. That’s why the Stewards got an overwhelmingly powerful ability, to make that path more appealing. It turns out we overestimated the allure of more special roles, but I still think the failure of the Partisans to propogate at all on Day One really pushed the village in one direction. In the end, though, that was the village’s choice to make, and obviously it worked for them.
As for the mafia, their greatest strength would be their ability to blend in. Their roles were essentially indistinguishable from the average villager role, complete with the ability to become a Partisan. The mafia also had full knowledge of the basics of each House, as well as the Partisan role and win condition. Meanwhile, they could use Propaganda to keep the village divided, and Divide and Conquer to switch Houses and keep the village on their toes. That ended up not working out, for a variety of reasons, but I think the concept was sound. That the mafia ended up getting (somewhat) steamrolled was more a product of the excellent play of the village.
All in all, I’m pleased with how the game turned out, in terms of mechanics and player engagement. Most people seemed to have fun (and I apologize to those who did not), and the balance did not seem completely out of whack. Each win condition had a chance to win (at some point), and even up to the last day there was a chance for things to go differently. We might have been better off finding a way for the game to move along quicker, perhaps by giving the mafia another kill every other day. But otherwise I’m happy with how things turned out.
As you may recall from my posts in the Prelude, a large part of my musical tastes derives from my parents. Folk music is undeniably the foundation of my musical likes and dislikes. Socially, I've always been a bit of a late bloomer, and so I spent a long time basically just listening to the music my parents listened to. When I did finally start to branch out into my own tastes, rock and roll was the gateway. In particular, my time at sleep away camp introduced me to bands like Oasis, Blur, Rush, Live, the Cranberries, the Beastie Boys, and too many more than I can remember (you can tell I started going to camp in the early '90s). Of course, growing up in New Jersey you learn to love all of our native born rockers, from Bruce to Bon Jovi to Fountains of Wayne to latter-day bands like My Chemical Romance. Eventually, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band helped expand my rock and roll horizons even further.
In designing the flavor for the game, our goal was try to reflect a wide variety of styles and sub-genres and eras in the roles and themes. It would have been super easy to just fill the game with references to classic rock, but that does not cover the breadth and depth of what rock and roll has become since the Beatles broke up. I also wanted a mix of well-known and lesser known songs. I figure most people would recognize "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Tommy and Gina are less obvious since they're not in the title of a song, but "Livin' on a Prayer" is a karaoke staple for a reason (and they make a comeback in "It's My Life"!). Blue Canary is even less obvious, but They Might Be Giants in general, and their album Flood in particular, have decent cultural penetration. I would not expect anyone to immediately recognize Joe, just because it is so generic and the Protomen are not exactly mainstream. Same deal with the Houses. I would expect most people to at least recognize "House of the Rising Sun," for rock fans to recognize "The House that Heaven Built," and for basically nobody to recognize "House of 1982."
There's not much more to say about the flavor, because everything was pretty straightforward. My overall hope, as always, was that someone would spot a reference and say, "Oh hey, I know that song. I love that song!" Or, if they didn't recognize it, google it and maybe find a new song they like. It's fun to share!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6CnDTgu11z3SdCgEA8IXmI?si=MHDHLvNURBCLyMQiv49g-g
And, of course, a google doc with all role PMs, narrations, various flavor stuff, and mechanics. Bonus content includes: one unused villager role, the first (terrible draft) of the opening narration, and drafts of results PMs that I didn't even bother sharing with Austin because they were terrible.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J3WZon_hoKKgjTrX9MiRW6Mqt-51FfUdQ2a9wy2M5SE/edit?usp=drivesdk
I hope you did not take my response as being dismissive! But we are limited in what we can say while the game is ongoing.
Disgraceful
I've had different hosts have different takes on what they were willing to say in private to dead people during the game, and part of what I was doing with that PM was poking to see how you felt. I totally understood your response as expressing an (understandable!) unwillingness to talk about things during the fact.
Thus Blue being confused by who ate the vote.
Island Name: Felinefine
Stewards didn't talk day 1. I really was just surprised I didn't end up killing Obi. Then having to back pedal from the soft reveal to not out myself to the mafia.