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Just looking forward to another host joining our ranks

Hey ADHO15, what's happening with your Gotham game?

Ooh, more tags! Congratulations guys, you all deserve it. I look forward to seeing you in future games!

Ah, and one more very important thing I forgot to say Thank you all for playing. I know I seem really pissy about stuff in places, but I appreciate having more people apply for a game than the game can host. It's great that so many people want to take part in games, and I think a good host encourages in the right direction, rather than berates 'wrong' action; positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement. So that's something I need to improve, and not let my feelings get in the way of hosting. I think the community here already has good games, but we need to keep working to make them the best

You'll note that EB is shifting to team wins. Scum as a team won this game and the last. Having survival the target of games makes for a dull game, because there's little incentive to put yourself on the line.

Sorry, I was thinking of Brickdoctor. So, I don't know what you're capable of I have a confession to make: I totally confuse you two together. It's the Star Wars connection/avatars, plus you both have names that have a similar length and rhythm. Throughout this game, I had to double check my PMs to both of you, and at one point I mixed up your names in thread. I don't have this problem with any other members here, I don't know what it is. Truth is, I thought I was replying to Brickdoctor above

I'd like to see you more active in mafia. You were a standout player in the Coming Darkness, but then in the Baritones and this one you just seemed to show up. So, I'm sure you can be more involved in the future, since I've seen it before The thing about living to the end as a townie, it really is not a compliment. In a majority of games, the scum leave the inactive town to themselves.

It's established in that the game lists all the characters before the game, listing the scum as characters (Mordred, Lancelot, the Lady of the Lake). It's not all that different to Baritones 3, where (smart) players knew the poisoner was the SK; the Forest, where players knew the arsonist was the SK; and Bloodbrick I, where the scum strung people up, while the SK had a separate kill. So it doesn't seem to be all that foreign to EB. The mistake was not making the pistol killer without an allegiance. In that example, I really can't remember what the situation is, but I don't think a win condition was being reached (though in that site's games, early winners like the Jester are confirmed at the time). Here are some clips from the opening of the game: Now, that's one host's style, other hosts have much less detail to their players. This was the game that made me decide to try it here. Something to consider, there were three cops in this game, and as an EB player, I was convinced one was insane. There weren't. It was done to balance the fact that scum can track roles much more easily. This was at least the fourth variable role game I'd played there, so the mechanic was familiar to me, and the game is quite clear in explaining itself before the game starts. Were I (or anyone) to host another game like this here, I would tell that upfront. But I wouldn't change how I set this up. Since it was the first of its kind here, I wanted to surprise and delight players with it. I just imagined all these sad vanilla townies realizing they had the opportunity to select night actions and being very happy. Who knows how they felt?

Here is an example from the last game I played off EB, also a varying med game. The style of killing tells the killer, which was established in the beginning of the game. As a further bonus, the ability of the dead players is revealed, which I don't find particularly useful, so I didn't borrow that game mechanic. Strangely, I don't remember being killed so early in the game The above examples are from an Arthurian Camelot game, hence the use of chalices.

I wasn't on town's side, so I can't really say how it would have been interpreted if it were me. I was really thinking that everyone on here expected recruitments since they happen in most every game.

The main reason was for the story of it. In the first Bloodbrick, there were five scum and one recruit, and I thought it fitting to mirror that. The character Bloodbrick wanted to mirror the conditions of the first game. So she stated there were five scum up front. Honestly, I take most criticisms to heart, and this point isn't one. I don't think it would have affected town's play one bit if they didn't know the number, or they knew there was a possible recruitment. It is never stated in EB games whether there is recruitment (in my memory), and this game was no different. If anything, when the number five was thrown out in the way it was, I would have started to assume there would be a recruitment since it would mirror the first game, and that was what that narrative bit was getting at, that, in the story, Bloodbrick was repeating the game of the past. I clearly stated before the game there was a single neutral. I clearly stated there was five scum. Nothing was said about recruitment. There was nothing to mislead anyone. Any assumptions on that front are the responsibility of the players. Sorry, I can't express this any more clearly.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Conversions were never brought up, and the lack of fixed power roles had no relation to it, it was an assumption on some people's part. There were five agents to start, that was correct. The narrative didn't elaborate on that. But to say that since there were no set abilities there was no recruiting is a stretch. Would it have made more narrative sense for her to say on day one that there are five agents and one more may be recruited? That sounds pretty silly to me. Mafia games need some consistency, but there's also some flow from game to game. In some games, ability players are recruitable. EB games tend not to have abilities be recruitable, but that's an EB habit, and not one I feel obligated to follow, though it was the case in this game. Again, we'll have to agree to disagree. To show a walrus killing Alopex would unfairly have fingered Draggy. That would be unfair, and I think I would have much more to apologize for if I'd done that. Saying it confirmed Shadows as town was an assumption. I'm sorry if you feel cheated, but there was no way around it for me. And the kill investigator worked fine. All town, without a gun, would come up clean. Scum, SK, and armed town would have shown to have a kill ability. For looking at the voting record, it was more difficult this game, since Shadows and Draggy made a point of voting out their teammates early. But we can see that they all voted for Sandy. Whatever Shadows meta-explanation for that was, it was BS, and contradicted his pissiness in Baritones 3 when he thought everyone was foolish for not trusting the person who was putting themselves on the line (in that case, Roncanator, in this case, Sandy). But, the voting record was harder to use this time around. Whitefang in particular would have been hard to peg. But that is simply another argument for active players. If more people were active, Whitefang would have stuck out more. A major incrimination of the scum was the doctor surviving so long. Scum were able to take out all roles, but the doctor kept living until Kiel took it. If we have another game of this style in the future, people's strategies will be a lot better from day one, and we can see how they coordinate themselves ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anyway, here's the record of the night actions, and I'll throw it into the first post too. White meant regular night actions I needed PMs for, purple meant passive abilities, and light gray meant no action. When meds were taken out,

I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. I like your title (I'm a closet freak ), and I hope it all goes smoothly

Thanks The timing is important. When I played this kind of game in the past, it was on a daily schedule, so there was a certain favoritism to people in the right time zones, with the right schedule, but I tried to balance that by splitting the medicine into two shifts, meaning that there was a balanced randomness to it, and it didn't favor any side too much. I'd be curious to host a daily mafia game here. I've mentioned it before I'm sure, but once I started playing elsewhere, I was utterly lost when the day ended 12 hours in. My play is certainly better when the hosts are in Australia than when they're in Canada. But, maybe we can do a 24/12 experiment here some time, 24 hour days, 12 hour nights, that doesn't favor any time zone too much. Yup. That was a mistake Truthfully, the gun inventor mechanism was meant to throw the town into a little bit of confusion. You had to give out a gun (it wasn't optional as Draggy wrote). It meant that you had to trust someone somewhat to give it to them or take a gamble. But it also made the gun investigator more of a challenge as the game went on, and more and more players might have a kill ability. As it turned out, scum lucked into it early on, and I got quite giddy at the thought of a double walrus kill. It was a lack of planning on my part. I had the whole game planned out except how to represent the killings. On the first night, I had to decide whether to do the traditional EB style night scenes, or repeat the morning report style of the first Bloodbrick, and right then and there I decided to do the EB style. That was my planning failure.

My daughter's diaper.

I want to be really clear about my personal frustration while hosting. It wasn't that town wasn't solving everything and accurately catching any scum tells, it was that I didn't see many people trying. For example, I made a comment about Flitwick's hypotheses in my summary, and while I think his logic was off, I appreciate that style of play more. I think it's better to try to figure things out and be wrong than to just stay alive to the end of the game. So, as I mentioned in the afterlife writeboard, if I were playing, I might be equally befuddled about who the scum were. But the effort is what I consider most important.

As a townie, surviving to the end of a scum win is usually a sign that you're playing badly. The only other reason to keep you around is that you are being fed misinformation by them and trusting them, or, in this case, you didn't have useful night actions. Why would anybody be mad at a recruitment? Nobody complained at the recruitment in Werewolf, Baritones, the Forest, Bloodbrick I, etc etc. I really don't get that. The Sandy convicted over Hinck thing was 100% bad gameplay on town's part, and all townies who voted for Sandy (including Draggy!) should be embarrassed. And Shadows did have a massive scum tell that day. He contradicted his own logic on day two. On day two, he saw Zepher target Rice, and Rice died. Therefore, the vote was for Zepher. On day three, Hinck was seen targeting Tammo, and Tammo died. Then Shadows votes for Sandy. That has nothing to do with wacky night actions, it has to do with reading the thread, paying attention, and doing the math. If you log in, see a bunch of people voting for someone, and say, "Okay, I'll do that," you hurt your team. Day three really pissed me off. Eight townies voted for Hinck, and seven voted for Sandy. Would you like me to give more credit to town for that? Perhaps if town had people actively being logical for them, that lynch wouldn't have happened. And I considered this game more "back to basics" than any other game this year, except for the no-role Belville Mafia. There were no tricks. Roles were what they were, and clearly explained. No secret exploding grenades. The variable actions was a twist of the game, but it was all above the table, and I really figured it would get more 'vanilla townies' to participate. It didn't Lastly, the scum team was a random lot. It wasn't stacked. If it was four of them and you, I'm sure you wouldn't be complaining. If you want to complain, complain to God, since it was a luck thing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Overall, my feelings on the players here are this: The same players rise to the top, over and over. In this game, everyone had the same opportunities, but the townies who stood out were Rufus/Pandora, Kiel, and Cornelius. Unsurprisingly, they are players who have stood out in past games they've played. Why is this? Sheer effort. The rest are trying to survive every night/stay in the pack. If every EB player had a pro-active attitude about playing, the scum would be forced to be more active, and drastically increase the chance that they slip up. But instead, scum can lie low and match the laziest players. By day seven, the scum barely posted and just copied the same refrain, "Pandufus hasn't led us wrong." As scum, it's easy to blend into a flock of sheep. If townies had their own opinions, and acted on them, the games would be far different. Another example, Brickdoctor (Sorry Brickdoctor). He was being convicted and his defense was, "I'm town, you'll see tomorrow." How can anybody work with that? Answer, they can't. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So Sok, I can't judge your playing well, you died too soon. But, on the whole, this was an easy game for scum, far easier than the first Bloodbrick, where the scum had town actively sniffing them out. I feel in this game that town just put the weight on a few players' shoulders and then sat around. That is an overall opinion, and not a personal indictment on anyone in particular. If you see things differently, so be it

Pelly was the mascot. He was interesting. I gave Murdock one hint through Pelly, which I also notified scum about; I let him know that the walrus was a group, and not one person. But really, if I ask you what the point of the Cross-Dressing Construction man is, what would you say?

No worries, Sassy, you're good in my book

In the first write up of day one, both the Fraulein and the original, Dr. Blutziegel, were listed as NPCs. But I felt the whole game would lose some narrative value by introducing them that way. Having a solid mafia narrative is certainly my thing. Game mechanics and environment are traditional mafia values, but I seem to want to have a solid narrative trajectory, if my previously hosted games are anything to go by. Fraulein Bloodbrick didn't turn out to be quite as deep a character as her father was, but I was also not as in a convenient place in my life to write her. Still, her and Pelly's tale was quite fun to write while at work between jobs.

Somewhat addressing Scouts and Big Cam's points a little more.... I don't know what any of you did in PM. My opinion of people's play is based pretty much on who scum killed and how they appeared in thread. So, quite truly, I don't have the whole picture of what anybody did. But, from what I did see, there were some standouts. The standouts played a team game. I think my opinion will always be in favor of a team game. And in more detail, Scouts, an NPC is a non-player character. I'm sorry you thought he was playing somehow. I would rake iamded over the coals for the stuff he said, but he was scum and knew it was BS. I wanted to send iamded a PM to smack him for some of the stuff he was writing about voting for Pelly. But it wasn't my place to do that. Hinck and deddy both wanted to break the meta-rules as scum, and that was their choice. If I was playing, I would have told them both off for wasting peoples time and mental energy. In The Baritones 3, I think my trying to determine the penalty was a far more 'useful' town move. Hinck and Ded were quite obviously wheel-spinning. And you chose to make it an issue. A lot of games have NPCs. For example, Baritones 3 had four NPCs, and Belville had one. So, the last two games had them. In no way was an NPC unprecedented. You didn't play either of those games, but that's nothing I can do anything about. Town had three investigators, plus lots of other abilities. That was the balance. EB games almost always have recruitment. I'm sorry if you assumed this was different. In contrast to the original Bloodbrick, which had unlimited conversion of about half the town, this game had a single conversion of anybody. I think this system was more fair and balanced than the last one. And it was a part of strategy. I'll come out and say it, recruiting Draggy (aka Shadows' boyfriend) was a boring choice. I'd rather have seen the deepest player (at that point Kiel) recruited. That would have made it more exciting, and town would have had to register a shift in the player's style. But they did well enough using Draggy. So, I understand your frustration, but I think it was a fair thing.

Dick is a state of mind. I only meant that you were taking some of the humor out of my game, but I understand it as a scum Hinck-move. Yup, I constantly tell him this. I have been sending him a PM mornings for a year now, saying, 'you can't play scum!' It was a foolish move on my part.

A number of townies did little more than show up each day. And then they voted with the group, in this case, "I trust Rufus/Pandora." That was the death of town. If you can tell me how it wasn't, I will fully apologize. Keep in mind that a good mafia player isn't worried about getting axed early, they are worried about their team. For example, Pie getting offed day one is no big deal. Pie getting offed day one with the watcher ability is. A proper townie keeps their own list by their computer and updates it daily, and works for their team. It's not too much to ask, it really isn't. Besides Rufus/Pandora, the three townies alive at the end (Big Cam, Roncanator, Masked Builder) and a few more from the days before, were left alive because they were zero threat to scum. Scum can contradict me if they like. That's my interpretation of events. Contrarily, Rick died night one for the same reason the scum targeted him night one of Baritones... Because he actively plays. It's not about surviving past day one, and thinking so is a mafia problem.

On day one? No. That's just silly. Pure silliness. On day one, the SK is far better off to align with the big number, town. Sorry. There can be more feedback tomorrow if you like. It's not meant to be insults, I'm sorry if it seems that way. Hinck loves grammar. I meant that Jim and Ded were shown through having the paint thinner. As I explained in PM, it's perfectly common in some games to show the method of death, differentiating the SK and scum, but I should have also made the third style of neutral, not pointing to scum. Got it?

I mentioned it somewhere, so I'll have to repeat it. That was my second draw. The first draw had, out of six special roles, Draggy as scum and Rick as the SK. It was Rick's pull that got me to abandon it. Since both had the same role in Baritones 3, I just didn't want it to be like that. So I had a second random draw. There's your lesson for prospective hosts. Don't do what I do