Suggestions

Weir wrote:Re: Jessea and Tarinen dying without other Houses gaining. We actually gauged whether or not we would kill of Kaylie and the High Seat of Maravin (Ichot, which I guessed at and was right about eventually, though I didn't know because he never told me) by whether or not the other Houses stood to gain from it.

That could be one good change to a game like this one. Provide an incentive for each House to kill off the High Seats of the other Houses, like maybe they get all the gold from the other High Seat coffers to do what they will with, or an extra ability, or something.

There was one, but it was hidden. I probably should have made it known so they would actively work on achieving it haha

Because if you did recruit someone then the percentage of them actually being beneficial to your cause wasn't that high. I think the odds of someone NOT being a darkfriend is around 60%. And if you did get a darkfriend in your house, you're screwed.

I investigated Tarinen the first night I was in Taborwin because someone told me that he'd been asking about roles and stuff. That led me to believe he was trying to recruit for a house. As it happened, he was a member of Taborwin. That was a lucky break for me and we killed him that night, putting me up as the High Seat and a Forsaken.

I really was a little overwhelmed by my abilities this round because I had Forsaken abilities, Forsaken weaves, House abilities and I could buy any ability too. But since I could only do one thing a night, that helped out.

I knew when Keya came to me that I had an advantage because I felt like I could get her to trust me and follow my lead and she did. I told her that money was power in this game and that the way to control the rest of the cell was to force them to give her their money. We'd all decide our actions and then disburse the money according to who was doing what. This way no one had enough money to do much on their own and we were able to coordinate our efforts.

I forced her to give me the names of everyone else and we started working together. We had a few bumps in the road (one night I forgot to send them their money before the deadline! oops ).

Then we started suspecting Dare of being a df so I invited him into Taborwin. He readily agreed and Weir tried to investigate him. When Weir told me he couldn't find him, I knew that either he was the Forsaken using the disguise weave, or he knew the Forsaken well and had gotten the weave used on him. So I started talking to him in a private room on the forums and then we moved to msn where we talked for several hours, trying to get to a point of trust. Eventually we did and we were all set to work together, but you guys lynched him. I forced Dura to change his vote to no lynch, but it wasn't enough.

Avaine wrote:
Also, there was no real point to joining a house. Half my income went to Fogel (if I got any), and if I wasn't as stingy as I was with my money I don't think I would have been able to protect myself through night three, if that. The prices might have been a bit much for what they advertised. What were the odds of the cheapest assassin killing someone?

I'm just bummed the game ended after only 6 nights.

You're a good moderator, you responded to mails and posts quickly, and have some good ideas Jez.

Thank you for the compliment.

And yea, I was actually a bit surprised at how few people wanted to join houses and that should be reworked slightly.

My original thought process was that I didn't want to make it too enticing, I wanted the heads to work to convince members that their house is best. I also thought that more bribing would take place. I hinted in the High Seat roles that house funds could be given to players as a "bribe" to join, and that would have made it really fun for the townies. Didn't happen though, probably because nobody wanted to join so houses had low funds lol. I think that if I do this one again, I should decrease the amount of house funds deducted from the players and the decrease the cost of house actions.

I also originally toyed with the idea of giving each house their own unique ability that no other house had, but I had a hard time coming up with completely unique abilities that would still remain fair so nobody felt like they got the crappy house at the end. More thought is needed. I would love more suggestions on abilities you think each house could/should have!

edit: (this was in response to Avaine)

Not really I think - if the house is big enough and powerful enough (which Maravin would have been eventually), then you also control half the money the DFs in your house have, and you can afford to take out more people than they can. Even if the DF puts half of his/her money into their own schemes, they have to lie about it constantly and you have say six people using their share of the money to carry out planned actions.

I don't think providing a discount was the right way to go with houses. Maybe just given them an entirely different set of roles, or at a higher percentage (or any combination of the three).

No that's not how it worked Keya.

The money that was taken from members went into the house coffers.

That money could only be used for two things. Forcing a recruit at 125gcs or fully investigating a member at a whopping 400gcs.

That's it.

Yeah, I hated that most our people were in houses, because we lost a lot of money. The only time I used our house fund was to force Xander into my House so he could get the discounted rate since he wouldn't have enough money to buy his night action from the general store.

Jennifer wrote:

I knew when Keya came to me that I had an advantage

Jennifer wrote:

I forced her

You should have seen what she did to me, I still get nightmares.

Keya- Even if you had the darkfriends money, it was only a matter of time before they narrowed down the field enough to find out who was the house head and have him/her killed. You also have to rely on the darkfriends doing what you tell them to. As fas as I know, if darkfriend A was a member of my house, and I gave him money to kill someone, he didn't have to do it. He could have just transfered that money to someone else.

Oh and I laughed when I saw Jessea and Callisto trying to sell things. Even if I thought an item would benefit me (which I had serious doubts about ) there was no way in hell I was giving any player a single cent. Last thing I needed was them using the money I gave them to kill me! haha

I'm actually surprised people bought things from you. I said the whole way along that money was power and we needed it and we needed to keep the town from getting it. Jessea and Callisto were always on my radar because they just seemed to be stockpiling money. We hired the master assassin a lot but I kept worrying that one day we wouldn't bid enough and one of you guys was going to dump your whole savings on it and take me out

A thing to remember is, even with the 9 votes available (which we didn't actually get until we joined forces, which was very late in this game) no one was lynching! Honestly, one person shouldn't be able to lynch someone just by throwing a LYNCH DURA in at the last moment. I also knew that there was really no way I would be lynched the next day, because even if the town tried we could have outvoted you. So the only time the number of votes came into play was essentially today...

But yes, I'll admit that 10 DF's is a little much, but remember that it was really just one group that infiltrated Taborwin, Maravin, and Saighan (not to bash on the other DF's! really I'm not!)

I think really we were just so much more organized than the other factions, we had a gameplan set out for each day and night. It was a solid group and I really had fun

Oh, and just out of curiosity, do you remember how much we actually needed to bid on the Master Assassin? I can't help but thinking that we way overbid on him...lol

lol Keya

All I did was hassle her until she caved! I kept telling her that if she didn't tell me, we were screwed. SCREWED!!!

Jessea wrote:No that's not how it worked Keya.

The money that was taken from members went into the house coffers.

That money could only be used for two things. Forcing a recruit at 125gcs or fully investigating a member at a whopping 400gcs.

That's it.

That's what I meant - a powerful house would keep recruiting with the extra money, and as you gain more members the 125 gc isn't that much for you. Meanwhile the members have their share of the money that you can distribute and allocate to carry out more and more tasks. Beyond a point, unless you had five dfs in one house (very unlikely), having one or two wouldn't have mattered much in a powerful house.

I completely agree with Jenn that money was key, and the longer the game lasted, the worse it was for us, because beyond a point a House with say 10 people would own the game. People not joining houses was what killed it I think.

I do think that if one house was responsible for taking out the Head of another House then the two houses should have merged (like our DF cells would merge with the death of a Chosen), because technically you achieved something huge in killing off the Head, you should double in power or at least substantially add to it (most likely, the house head you killed was leading a far weaker house - one would think.)

No you still miss the point. We could only do it once per night. The person could leave after 2 days. The most you could artificially inflate your numbers was by two.

Suggestion for my team members -

spam tell in-game everyone else who played - MWAHAHHAA

rofl

Jessea you won! Stop complaining!

Just kidding

Even though it cost me my life...it made me giggle to single handely take out gem

And at my death i had like...300gc.

The funniest thing was when I bought a vial from the mod, and paid for info on it...she said it was safe to drink.

I thought it was a player trying to cheat me out of my money (like I was doing) and immediately sent her a message saying I would pay all my crown (like 270 at that point) for the master assassin to kill whoever sold me that damn vial!

Lol...

I'm not complaining! I'm just trying to give advice on where things could be tweaked in the future to make the game even more fun.

I need to stress that I really did enjoy myself this game. The only part I hated was when I killed Jac.

Oh and just so you all can understand my pain, below is exactly what happened on the day I killed my friend and constant companion. *cry*

_____

Folding up your daily paper, you place it on the kitchen table before you, and take a strong drink of kaf, pondering the days events to come. "Do you think he can be trusted?" you ask Jac. Putting away a porcelain mug Jac turns to you and shrugs slightly. "I don't know" he says "but I plan to find out...I won't find out anything until tonight, but I should go now, in case I notice a clear moment to sneak into his home"

Nodding you place your cup on the table "that may be best" you respond, gazing out the window to the oncoming storm. Grabbing his cloak and heading for the door, Jac stops as you call out "Wait". Pausing, he turns to face you. "Be careful today" you say, giving him a brief smile.

Bowing he nods and says "but it is you who must be careful my dear" and walks out the door."

Sitting alone, you begin tapping your fingers on the side of the porcelain mug as you think over your next move. A faint creak of the floor sounds behind you, and you quickly stand and turn around.

A lone figure in a long dark cloak moves forward. Their face is concealed within the shadows of the hood, but you can make out an evil grin as the figure slowly steps closer to you. You open your mouth to ask what this is about, when their arms suddenly fling forward, pressing their hands against the side of your head. You close your eyes as the world spins around you.


A few hours later you wake up on the floor in your kitchen. Sitting up, you rub your head trying to remember how you got there. You cannot remember anything, except that you are a darkfriend and must please the Dark Lord by ridding the city of these innocents.

Standing up you pause as you hear your front door open and footsteps approach. Silently, you grab a butter knife from your kitchen table and move forward. Jac turns the corner, his smile fading as he sees you. Rushing forward, you stab the blade deep into Jac's heart, cackling madly. You have already begun....

Oh also Callisto, this happened AFTER your death.

You would have been guilty of killing two innocents had you had your way.

Jessea wrote:Oh also Callisto, this happened AFTER your death.

You would have been guilty of killing two innocents had you had your way.

Your going to fault me for clairvoyence? *blink*

And I knew Dare was a df, but if I had voted for him it would have been the whole "Callisto is voting for Dare because he voted for her"

I may never be able to tell with gem of jennifer...but I have the innate ability to know when Dare is evil

Ok so basically dfs had two houses of their own, with 5 members each at the start, that could join other houses at any time, and could also reliably investigate on night 1, compared with me as the high seat which couldn't afford to target investigate anyone and even then it only had a chance of revealing role. And high seats started by themselves, with 10/28 players being darkfriends, 1 independent, 3 other house heads, plus anyone the other house heads had recruited already as possible people to recruit. At LEAST half the possible players we could have tried to recruit were only going to want us to lose. And no way of really knowing whether who we were inviting were good choices, since we only had a *chance* of finding anything useful, let alone finding out their role. Once they joined we could spend 400g and investigate them, but that could only be done rarely due to the cost. Not to mention most vanilla townies arent going to want to join a house anyway, since they can win with any house winning if they stay independent. Plus with no real significant investigation on the non-df side unless they're in a house, and even then any darkfriend can kill whoever they want due to cash abilities, the chances of anyone catching any useful information so that they can call for a lynch are slim to none. Not to mention the fact that nobody in the town trusts each other or can work together, and the houses are all trying to eliminate one another so they dont trust each other or work together.....is it really that shocking that dfs werent getting lynched? Besides even that....the abilities available to vanillas werent conducive to finding out info. When one person has one ability they are forced to use that one ability. If you give people the choice between protecting themselves and tracking, they'll protect themselves, which I suspect is what most people spent their cash on.

How is this not stacked -too much- in the df's favor?

I can definitely see how it could be unbalancing, but you have to keep in mind that had we not actually decided to work together, it would be a very very different story.

This is how I picture it differently -

If I had been the head of the house, I wouldn't have gone and shouted about recruitment on the thread itself (since it would make me a target) - instead, I would have quietly tried to talk to as many people as I could (in game - invite secretly, or send them messages etc). My weakest point would be at the start where what happened to Tarinen is possible - when she ends up inviting a DF who has already organized the team and takes over the house. However, that's a one off chance (and as Jenn said, we gave ourselves at least an equal footing by planning quickly).

More probably, if I don't hit a DF right away, I would have tried to get as many people as I could in the House, not investigated them and not revealed myself (or the other members to them). I would make them give me their money and allocate tasks and if someone is consistently 'failing' then I would investigate and get them killed eventually. With aggressive recruitment, that would be easy, plus killing off 1/5 of a df cell is a big blow.

The fear for us was that every day, the houses would increase in strength. We can choose to stay out of it and keep all our money but eventually we would be out-moneyed. With 500 gc let's say, we would never be able to compete with a powerful house. So we HAD to join houses and halve our income.

The town couldn't have a visible leader, and they didn't have people joining (which btw makes no sense to me - I would have joined a house asap as a vanilla townie because my own money isn't enough - I can keep protecting myself while people and houses go stronger, doesn't really help me and isn't fun). Had people been recruited/recruiting and stayed (not forced recruiting, but if you talk to people and convince them), then I think your major threats would have been other houses then the 5 dfs, who ideally would have been targeting each other.

That was the worst case scenario for us (which I was worried about) - we needed to kill the Other df cell to really gain power, and if we had focused on that, the Houses would be growing stronger while we eliminated each other.

So the game could have been played out very differently. I don't think in itself it was overbalanced, but the trusting each other (which isn't DF Rpish really) was what helped us out.

Even so, I think, as Weir pointed out, we could easily not have had the luck we had, and then things could have been very different. If Tarinen hadn't picked Jennifer first off, we wouldn't even have had a foot in the door, we wouldn't have had a spy in a third house, etc.

1/3 chance to recruit a df for each house. You're likely to get a df in a house every day that the 3 houses recruit.