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Old 07-21-2017, 09:49 AM   #772
Kuruharan
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: A Remote Dwarven Hold
Posts: 3,685
Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Boots So many things...

As Lommy said in the Dead Thread, there were so many things going on under the surface of the game that I can't get it all in one post and will probably forget things.

Congratulations to the Bad Side for playing an outstanding game and putting on a clinic for how to behave as a baddie in a game thread. That was a magnificent performance. The Goodies didn't really key into who you were until the end and the Ordos were pretty much completely in the dark.

Kudos also to Gifteds, particularly Nerwen and Shasta who were the Gifteds of longest standing, for putting up a terrific battle during the NIGHT phases and prolonging the game beyond what I thought it could go. This game would have been over a lot sooner if Nerwen and Shasta had not put up such a great performance. Even when they were still in the dark about Legate, Shasta in particular (who was very sick in the early part of the game) figured out the type of player that Legate was targeting. I think Legate only successfully performed both of his available NIGHT actions once in the game because of this. I think that was the NIGHT Sally was turned.

It was interesting that in this game the Bad Side excelled in the DAY phase of the game and the Good Side excelled in the NIGHT. I think this speaks to the quality of the players in that each side was able to overcome their natural disadvantages through sheer finesse...and a large dollop of elbow grease.

A) As Lalaith said, she was the first selection to be the Good Wizard. She begged off and because I am a merciful Mod, I allowed her.

This led to a sequence of events as follows:

~~~~~~~

Kuru: Crap! Lalaith can't be GW. Back to Random.org.

*click*

Random.org: 1

Kuru: Hmm...number 1 is...Nerwen.

No offence at all intended to Nerwen but this put me on the horns of a dilemma for two reasons. From a meta standpoint, Nerwen had been the Seer in the last game I modded and I didn't want to be seen as establishing a pattern of the same player being in a similar role multiple games. The second, and more pressing, reason was at that point it was 1:00 AM on the east coast of Australia (I know this because I looked it up on timeanddate). I don't know what timezone Nerwen lives in but that told me that no matter what it was stupid o'clock there and the odds of her getting my PM any time soon were negligible. This was a problem because I wanted to get the game started that evening (my time). I was looking ahead (to this moment in time now, effectively) and seeing availability problems for many people who were playing (and myself, truth be told) and I felt it urgent to get going as soon as possible or I was afraid the game would implode.

So I clicked Random.org again.

*click*

Random.org:11

Kuru: Hmm...11 is...Legate. Gah, didn't take Legate off the list. (Legate had already accepted the post of Evil Wizard by this point.)

*click*

Random.org: 1

Kuru: I hate you.

*click*

Random.org: 14

Kuru: Ahh...finally somebody different! Let's see, 14 is...Pervinca Took. Hmmmm...probably not a good idea.

*click*

Random.org: 1

Kuru: Curse you.

~~~~~~~~

So, I sent the PM to Nerwen, gave up all hope of starting that evening and posted my postponement notice on the thread.

It worked out pretty well in the end, not that I had any doubt on that front.

I will admit to rolling my eyes a smidgen when she immediately picked Shasta as Ranger. Mostly because they were both in the exact same roles as the last game I modded. I also thought it would be such an obvious move that Legate would pick up on it immediately. He didn't seem to, though.

B) Now that the game is over, there are a couple of things that I would do differently.

The first major thing I would change is I would give the Evil Wizard two NIGHT 1 picks instead of one. I would do this partially to still give Evil Team a running start at the beginning of the game ahead of the two scrys they would be facing (more on this below). The main reason though would be because of the loyalty issue. It is hard on players, especially toward the end of the game, to have invested so much on one side and then suddenly have that taken away. It would still need to be a part of the game, but I think maybe having three strikes at it is too many.

The second and most important thing is I would ditch the Hunter role and replace it with the Seer. The Hunter role was completely lackluster and had little inherent utility. Nerwen didn't even convert Steve until midway through the game, and I think she mostly did it to create an ally who would at least be protected from being converted into a wolf. Steve did do a good job of providing Nerwen a lot of good analysis, but on that front he suffered from the same problem as the rest of them, he just wasn't convinced that Legate was the Evil Wizard. Up until the end, he thought Brinn was.

I confess to considering changing him to a logical Hunter, but I thought doing so without warning would have been unfair to Legate and at that point Steve was only targeting Ordos and thus would have just died quietly without indicating anything to anybody.

In a broader sense I think the Seer role would have been better because it would have put pressure on the Evil Team, which was a bit lacking in the game. I know Legate and Company will probably feel different about this but they were never significantly pressured during the game and while I think this is in large part attributable to how very well they played, I think the game was a bit balanced in their direction. I think the Seer role (which I discarded thinking it was the best decision at the time) would be a much better fit for this format. It would bring much greater and genuine utility to the Good side and pose a more significant threat to the Bad Side.

Basically, due to the nature of the game, the Bad Side starts the game with the initiative and I feel that the way I structured the game was flawed in that I did not give the Good Side enough tools to give them a chance to claim the initiative. To me game balance is the ability of both sides to have the tools at their disposal to have the initiative and I don't feel I did a good enough job on this front with these rules.

This leads me to my last point:


Quote:
Originally Posted by Brinniel View Post
And Kuru, I'm sorry you never got to see your Wizards' Duel (though not too sorry!).
I'm actually far more disappointed that the Visitors were not used, or were used so late that it didn't happen...and wasn't at all used for the purpose originally intended.

This is the second game I've done where I've had a role not get to its full potential. At least my other game I had a dragon. This time there were no Visitors.

I think the way to tweak this is through the Seer. That way the Good Wizard could use Seer scrys to feel more confident in creating Visitors and have more information available to do so. I had the impression in the game, although Nerwen never said anything specific about it, that she didn't feel like she could take the time to make a Visitor because the Evil Team had her under so much pressure that she had to focus solely on trying to counteract them and not take time to gather information from the Dead Thread.

And lastly, for this post, the Dead Thread.

I feel like we have reached a point in the development of the Dead Thread concept that it is time to consider tweaking the concept a bit. To me it was very apparent in this game that it didn't have quite the punch that I think it needs to have.

The idea I have rattling around in my head at the moment is to create a new rule where if certain criteria in the Dead Thread are met then the Dead Thread empowerment would double the vote total of the voting target of the empowered person.

To explain what I mean, let's cite the example of the last DAY when there was a vote (although I'm sure some of you already understand exactly where I'm going with this).

The Dead Thread voted to empower Shasta that DAY who voted against Legate. That brought Legate's vote total from 3 to 4, which created a tie, resulting in no lynch.

Under my proposed idea, some criteria in the Dead Thread is met (say everyone has to vote unanimously or something like that) then the empowerment for Shasta would have resulted in Legate's vote total going from 3 to 6, ensuring his exposure as a wizard of some kind.

I think this kind of empowerment would have to be limited to only a set number of times per game so that it would have to be used by the Dead deliberately of intent and not gratuitously.

This would also give Evil Players more of a role in the Dead Thread than just hanging out because it would be vital to them to do their best to disrupt the maximum empowerment of the Dead Thread.

And the last, last thing for this post (I promise), is it time for us to consider creating a ++ No Lynch option for people to vote since that seems to be developing into a strategy in its own right in the evolution of the game?

Some time this weekend I will post a rundown of the NIGHTly actions.
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