Sarachim

Also, to clarify *i's post about stealth-victims not giving away that they are dead: the rule about not influencing the game takes precedence. Players are asked to evade questions, feign inactivity, or the like, NOT to go on behaving as if they were alive.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl It's an interesting idea, but how will it interact with other actions? If Shanker tries to protect the target, or Gladwell tries to compel them, or something like that, will they be told that the target is dead? I guess Shanker/Gladwell/whoever could get a generic "your action failed" message without being told the reason for it. Alternatively, they could just not be told anything until the death becomes public, but I like that solution less. EDIT: *i beat me to part 2 of this.

Did we ever confirm that stealth affects mines in G5, or are we only inferring that from earlier games?

Those are good points, but I don't think the Craftmaster is as bad as you make it out to be, for the following reasons: 1. He doesn't need to finish the game with his artifacts, he doesn't care which ones he gets, and when he's done he puts them back into circulation, so he's not that big an obstacle to the other artifact-gatherers. 2. He creates items which can act as substitutes for the artifacts, minimizing the impact on players who don't have artifact-based win conditions but might want to use artifacts. Also, the random distribution after CMS uses an artifact may actually make it easier for ordinary roles to get artifacts, since they'll be moving around randomly instead of staying in one place. 3. He starts out with one artifact, and can probably pick up a second cheaply at the end like I said above, so in the middle game he's unlikely to be all that disruptive. 4. The odds against the game having six artifact-seekers are pretty high, but I'd like to see it happen just once.

Keep in mind, the Craftsmaster starts with one artifact, and doesn't need his third one until day 5. If he's still alive by then, he probably has an ally who will simply give him an artifact for free. That means that he only needs to get the second of his three artifacts by trading, which shouldn't be incredibly hard when he has access to such a wide variety of items. Assume that middle artifact costs him two of his crafted items. That leaves four for him to trade away, and 80 coins (minus the mage bonus) to get in return, or 20 coins per item. Not bad, when you consider that he can custom-make a variety of powerful stuff. The biggest downsides are, first, that whoever playes Strine will have to be very active in order to successfully manage such a complicated chain of requirements, and second, that he or she will have to be dangerously open about his/her role. On the other hand, Strine has a powerful crafting ability, and can probably afford to undersell the game's other shops. I think the role is balanced as-is.

I don't think I like the change to Dionicio. Aren't we mostly in agreement that the DLs are if anything underpowered? Dionicio, by contrast, has a good record. Making Dionicio into an unstoppable killing machine seems like a move in the wrong direction. The Empire Spy looks fine to me now. I'd be happy to get it.

Originally Posted By: Red or Bust I'm not keen on powers that have only a percent chance to work in general. The Empire Spy in particular seems limited. The only thing he can do is start killing and possibly hope his defense kicks in (and that he's not attacked by a power role). Normally I agree about randomness, but in this case there's an interesting deterrance aspect. The 25% is high enough that I wouldn't attack the Empire Spy unless it were absolutely necessary or I was immune to physical, but low enough that, if I did attack, I'd probably win. It's less protection than an immunity, but a lot more than you give it credit for.

I like that the Addict now has options for how he pursues his win, instead of just asking everybody he meets for Skribbane. That he needs to kill people will hopefully make him less attractive as a fake role claim. Of course, he's not really much of an addict any more, but nothing is perfect. I'm not sure how the new Domont will turn out, but he's interesting, so I'm eager to give it a try.

The problem with Marlenny is that not trusting her is just as likely to get you killed as trusting her. I think she might just be better at this game than the rest of us.

Originally Posted By: Delivered to you by the The fact that the queue is determined by who submitted when, particularly since the 24 hour limit means getting your first action on the first day in early means you'll be ahead all game, bothers me. It would be quite similar and probably just as fair to have all queued actions execute at a specific time (when the moderator wills) in random order. In my experience, this is not as serious a problem as it seems like. Even in tense, fast-paced games, I don't usually resolve an action every 24 hours on the dot, or even close to that. One reason for this is that getting the information necessary to take the correct action is just as much of an obstacle as the time constraint. Even times when I've tried to get an action in at the earliest possible minute, I've often rescinded it hours later after learning something new. Another is that day 1 actions are likely not to accomplish much, since you have the least information and the largest field, and also can't attack anybody. The way things are set up now, the people who figure out what they need to do quickest come out ahead, which I think is fair. If actions resolved at a specific time in a random order, then Player A could identify and attack his enemy Player B, Player B could hear what happened through the grapevine 12 hours later and attack player A, and the outcome would essentially come down to a coin flip, even though A deserves to win the battle.

Originally Posted By: Ash Lael Mage and Blademaster are unchanged. Domont now has the ability where he gets a dedicated account that he can use to post in the main thread to give the Blademaster and Mage orders and information publicly without any of them being aware of each other's identity. This would make Domont a very unique and interesting role to play, and add a lot of intrigue, I think. Problem: what's to stop Domont from saying "Mage and Blademaster, PM our target list to this account?" Once they did that, they'd all find each other and Domont's public-posting ability would be redundant. Apart from that, the concept is interesting.

Originally Posted By: wz. As I think a problem with the Adventurer/Spy, and maybe also with the DLs, is that since they have a wide range of possible targets, no one wants to risk allying with them. Maybe their failure is also linked to Machrone's relative success? Maybe Machrone needs to be part of a successful alliance, which prevents Spy/Adventurer from joining if they have him as a target? Thus, even though they can get by with only killing two people, no one wants to risk it being them. I'm not sure this is it. The one game that each role won, the winning alliance was able to cooperate effectively with the Adventurer/Spy despite having at least one of his targets in that alliance (including Machrone in game 5). Originally Posted By: wz. As In any case, their having Machrone on their list doesn't seem to be hurting him any. Not quite true. One of the two times Machrone lost (the most recent game), the Adventurer identified and killed him. The other, he attacked the Darkside Blademaster (side note: what the hell?). If he weren't a target, Machrone would basically never lose.

I just posted a list of all the roles and their win percentages in the ideas thread. The DLs do, in fact, have a very low one. The Anama do as well, but I think a lot of that can be blamed on the players.

I think we've played enough games now that it'd be interesting, and maybe even useful, to look at some statistics. In the following list, the first number is how many games the listed role has won, the second how many it has appeared in. Hopefully, this will give us some food for thought as we try to balance the role set. Adventurer - 1/5 Aimee - 0/1 Alchemist - 1/2 Anama Hunter - 1/4 Anama Priest - 1/7 Bound Servant - 4/7 Craftsmaster Strine - 2/2 Darkside Blademaster - 2/7 Darkside Mage - 0/7 Dionicio - 3/7 Domont - 0/6 Empire Spy - 1/6 Fae - 1/2 Gladwell - 3/7 Infiltrator - has not appeared Machrone - 5/7 Mickelbur - 1/6 Necromancer - 1/3 Nephil Activist - 0/1 Oliver - 2/4 Pure Spirit - 0/2 Ronaldo - 0/2 Sacred Item Cultist - 2/3 Shanker - 3/7 Skribbane Addict - 0/2 Vahkos - 0/1 All roles - 34/108 This list has some obvious limitations: the performance of each role depends on a lot more than the role itself, some roles have changed a lot over time, and our sample size is still quite small, especially for those roles that have not appeared many times. Still, I think it provides some interesting information: 1. Despite our best efforts, playing Machrone is easy. The merchant roles also have very good winning percentages. Having some roles be easier than average is not necessarily a bad thing, but obviously we want to keep it to a minimum. 2. The Anama and the Darkside factions have both done very poorly. In the Anama's case, we have to keep in mind that they should have won games 6 and 7, but the Darksiders may be genuinely weak. 3. Gladwell is fairly close to average. The Servant, on the other hand, has done extremely well since he stopped needing Gladwell dead in order to win. 4. I was genuinely surprised at the poor performance of the Adventurer and the Spy. I would not have called either role easy, but with their wide choice of win conditions, usefulness in alliances, and few mortal enemies, I would have thought that each would do at least as well as the average. Instead, their combined record is 2/11! Is this just a fluke, or is there something I'm missing?

Yes. If there were some sort of Golden Bonehead award, I'd win it. In my defense, Marlenny told me between this game and the last that if I ever got Vahkos she'd help me win. You're not supposed to lie between games, damnit!

The "tasks" option is appealing, but doesn't it run into the same problem as the "players" option. The outcomes of actions, especially battles, often depend on the items and factions of the players involved. There would be just as much work necessary to coordinate as with any other option, save possibly the "time" setup.

If one of Gladwell's target roles joins him, does the act of joining count as "satisfy[ing] one of Gladwell's victory conditions," or does the joiner need to satisfy another?

The Bound Servant is still listed as having Standard skill and Physical immunity. Is this intentional?

Well, the Anama have a similar issue with the Anama Hunter. I think, rather than ask whether they're balanced, we should ask whether each faction has enough potential recruits to have a fair chance at finding as many as it needs. I think they do, but I'm not positive. Thoughts?

Didn't you start the game knowing Dionicio's identity? At the very least, you should have gotten in touch with Sporefrog and agreed on a combined strategy before you started spreading your role around randomly. If you'd waited until day 2 before you started revealing info, you could have used your ability and had information to trade other than your own identity. Apart from that, you had some very bad luck. The first person you talked to was an enemy, and she happened to be working with another, totally random enemy. That could happen to anybody, really.

I think Nioca's point, which I agree with, was that as Shanker Creator had very little control over his own destiny, and his win depended almost entirely on luck. No other players have much incentive to try to keep someone alive and make them lose; if you need someone to lose, chances are your best bet is to kill them. Furthermore, Shanker doesn't care who loses as long as someone does, so it's hard to trust her. For these reasons, her info-gathering ability is not very useful, since it only helps if she cooperates extensively with others, and the role is ill-suited to that. I'd suggest replacing her current ability with one more directly related to her goals.

I don't know if I'd call the game slow. We had an active day 1, and an absolutely manic day 2. After that, TM and I had met our win condition, so things naturally slowed down. I'd say there was as much action as usual for me, just clustered at the beginning. I like the five-day length. The deadline actually mattered this time. On the downside, the limited time caused several people to lose on a technicality. That's too bad, but probably avoidable in the future without any major rule changes. Marlenny, Doom Warrior: you should have killed me when you had the chance!

If anyone has coins and wants to help me buy the Holy Symbol and then share it, PM me. Please state how many coins you can contribute and whether you want it right now or later on.

Originally Posted By: Donald Hebb When you say "may join the Anama," does that exclude those players who are Anama members by default? Mickelbur starts the game knowing who the Anama Priest is, so he doesn't need to learn that.

If you've already used the Holy Symbol, can you no longer break Gladwell's geas?