Ye Olde West. (Game officially underway)

[Supagoof]

The outlaws did send in a kill to kill bassetking last night, so you were a coin toss from losing there. Raldor and I decided that the fair way was to allow the bandits the win since BassetKing did get his PM in first, did pick 1 out of the 2 people who had enough coins to cross the finish line.

edit: Zeb - the PM came in before yours by 7 minutes.

Things that amused us narrators....

Random assignment of roles = Alarra and El J as baners, and Atreyu, Indurain, and Alarra on seperate teams.

A bandit was twice protected by the banker.

The lynching of tormsskull.

Discussion topic - Ideas we are thinking of implementing next round
Next round, the bandit devil will be allowed to crack the safe upon discovery. They won't, unless we end up with even more players, be able to scry who is carrying how much gold.

If we do have enough players, we'll make a seer for the bandits and a seer for the town to detect who is carrying how much money.

Death's will not result in loss of coins. Any items the person may be carrying (purchased from store and gold) will go up for auction.

Bandit kills will result in loss of coins for how much gold that bandit is carrying. Those also to go up for auction.

Thoughts?

[Captain van der Decken]

Those changes looks good. Especially the auctions.


I'm suprised I didn't get lynched, actually. Looking back, I used usual werewolf tactics - ie. usually only voting when necessary.

[Bassetking]

That eliminates one of the few true advantages that the bandits held, Goof. Their ability to hold gold as a group, rather than as individuals allows them to procede with a solid strategy.

Also: Cap. Did you not see my write up on "Why Cap. needs to dance the Hemp Fandango."?

[Captain van der Decken]

Yes, but I'm suprised no-one noticed sooner.

[Bassetking]

Well, to be fair, You, Zeb, and DLD were on my "These guys are Wolves" list from about halfway through.

My play-strategy relied on me maintaining a public RP presence in addition to publically and openly contributing to the continued furthering of the town's "Interests". As such, contacting the Seer prior to his death, or taking an active role would have proven detrimental to my long-term gameplan.

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

(HA! I told you Zeb was BtK! *Does the happy llama dance and pokes Zeb with the Badger-on-a-Stick*


"That's for getting me killed." *poke poke poke*

[faerwain]

BOOYAH!!!
*tosses over some beer to Bassetking*

There Buddy, you definetively earned it. Congrats.

Thanks to our narrators, great job. And also to all of you, it was real fun.(too bad the Cap'n hadn't the time to tell more stories.)

But to the outlaws, I'm still curious: Was my killing more or less a shot in the blue or were you really suspicious ?

[Captain van der Decken]

DLD scried you. I don't know weither or not it was a random guess, however.

[Zeb The Troll]

Actually, I owe DLD a round of beer. The ONLY scry that she got back as "no role" was Llama. That's why we had such a run of luck on the town roles which I was then able to blame on Llama later, and was also what helped me conceive of the scheme which I then accused him of perpetrating.

And, SEVEN MINUTES? We lost by SEVEN MINUTES?!

*headdesk*

Actually, when we had both Cobra and Indurain killed so early I was pretty sure we'd lost by that point and it was only a matter of time. Then DLD gave us Inky and things looked up.

BK - you had us going. Thanks to an unfortunate miscount, we thought Thes was the last bandit and I was scrambling that last night to figure out who you were. The things that gave you away, to me, were that you joined Llama and Thes on the sacrifice bandwagon of Selrahc, and you were the only one who DIDN'T point at Thes when she was lynched. Voting patterns show up much more clearly when you only have 3 people to investigate. On that last night we knew everyone's role except yours, Helgraf's, and HyramGraff's.

El J - the only reason he wasn't killed earlier was so that we could go through with that whole "bleat bleat ugh ugh" plan. With you dead, that story wouldn't have worked so well.

Llama - that early scry (first night, I think) protected you from us for a few nights, actually. I had a STRONG suspicion you were a bad guy because I'd tried to recruit you. In fact, everyone that I'd picked that I didn't get was automatically on my list of potential targets. Sure enough, each of you had a role of some sort except Gnome Barbarian.

[inky13112]

WHAT?! I was scried to figure out my role? Darn, I was sure I was just getting killed because I'd gotten two of you killed.

FYI blaim Alarra for that, she was the one who told me who two of the outlaws were, and I'm guessing she knew to protect EL J for that same reason. I never made a good scry that whole game. And your bleat bleat ugh ugh theory was wrong, he was never scried, never asked to be scried, not really in the trusted group (unless Alarra was giving him info) suspected of being a bandit, and only scried on the last night I was alive because I didn't bother sending in a scry, I already knew I was dead meat.

From my two tries at being a seer, I've determined I'm the worst seer in the world. I miss the deadline almost every night, never actually scry someone right, and get killed really fast most of the time.

[Zeb The Troll]

FYI blaim Alarra for that, she was the one who told me who two of the outlaws were, and I'm guessing she knew to protect EL J for that same reason.

This is the truth. Our hit on El J had been leaked, to Alarra unfortunately, which led to him being protected that night.

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

So you'd have trusted me if I'd ran up to you and thrown myself at your feet going "Scry me, Scry me, scry me all night long," that always seems suspicious to me. Whenever someone tries hard to prove that they have nothing to hide, it seems suspicoius to me.

[The Valiant Turtle]

Actually, it according to my PM list it was a difference of 7 minutes and 12 hours.

All in all it was a wonderful game. I loved getting to see just a little bit of what usually goes on behind the scenes. Hopefully I won't be house hunting during the next one. We realized early on that we really needed something to really use your money for, but decided it should wait till the next game. We may even have shopkeeper roles, but that hasn't been decided yet.

[Bassetking]

Do take into account the potency of the Shopkeeper role, Raldor.

[Helgraf]

(*HUGS for Bassetking*)

(I knew you were a risk, but you paid off big time.)

(Thanks to all my bandits. I had a lot of fun with you all plotting and such. My condolenscences to the hippo that he was killed so early.)

(My thanks also to Goof and Raldor for running an extremely entertaining game. Even if you did ruin my plot to lynch Tormsskull.)

(Dear Outlaws, NEENER!)

(P.S. Thanks also to El J for being a joy to RP with. I didn't know he was the day baner, he never told me. I was just having fun wth the role.)

I Tole you that dog was squirrely!

[Ink]

Good game, all. Thanks, Goof and Raldor. Those changes look promising, Goof. I kinda thought from the beginning of this game that bandits had the advantage, so some of the new rules should balance things out a bit.

[Zeb The Troll]

Good game, all. Thanks, Goof and Raldor. Those changes look promising, Goof. I kinda thought from the beginning of this game that bandits had the advantage, so some of the new rules should balance things out a bit.

Yeah, my only criticism is that there was no way to regain ground with the bandits. If someone with money died, either through lynching or night kills, bandits benefitted with no way to deal with it except kill all the bandits first. With the Outlaws, if you kill an Outlaw, they had to kill two more of the rest of the people to get the game won.

Although, with the way this one ended, its pretty hard to argue balance issues.

[Bassetking]

How so, Ink? The only advantage we had was to hold gold in common, rather than losing it should we lose the bandit to which it was attached.

Without the ability to kill-control, as the Outlaws have, and in so doing eliminate both disavantageous roles and troublesome individuals *Looks at Helgraf* The bandits only real advantage lies in their ability not to "Backslide" i.e. To not fall further backwards.

Truthfully, I had given the game up for lost, when you announced that you were the Banker. Since the Townfolk then knew you were the banker, you could be trusted, and not lynched. Since to kill you would be against the interest of the outlaws, you were safe from their attacks.

As the game stands, currently, the Banker is guaranteed a position of saftey, and near immortality.

All gold could have been sent to you, and , in so doing, placed into your safe. Should that have happened, and, say, you moved the safe randomly throughout the population, the nightly bandit robbery approaches a townsfolk guessing game, that serves no purpose but to further reduce the likely pool of bandits. At that point, the bandits are engaged in an all or nothing guessing-hunt. Scrying becomes worthless, as, since the bandits are unable to determine roles through their scrying, a scry only informs the bandit of the current "Safe/Not-safe" status of any given townsperson on that given day, not overall. A townsperson once scryed could easily have the safe the next night, and the bandits would be none the wiser.

While we could never lose the money we gained through robberies, The Outlaws were in no danger of having their victims return to life. The current proposal not only allows for the bandits to lose the money they've accumulated, but lose money with each bandit slain.

[inky13112]

I believe the above Zeb Troll above has a quite sufficient response to your argument. Theres no way for us to slow you down, except with the banker. And if you think everyone is going to dump all their money into him, your very wrong, people tend to be stubborn and difficult, and also suspicious. A smart bandit could claim to be the banker, and thereby get a bunch of money given to him.

[Bassetking]

I believe the above Zeb Troll above has a quite sufficient response to your argument. Theres no way for us to slow you down, except with the banker. And if you think everyone is going to dump all their money into him, your very wrong, people tend to be stubborn and difficult, and also suspicious. A smart bandit could claim to be the banker, and thereby get a bunch of money given to him.

Up until either of the other two Scryers peek into his head, see he's a Bandit, and wax him.

The combination of the ability to transfer money at any time, to anyone and the ability of the banker to relocate his safe compound the problem, Inky. Should the Townsfolk so choose, they could effectively shuffle their entire currency, nightly, and, in so doing, render the Bandit Scryer useless.

You DO have a way to slow us down. It's the transfer of funds. If the Bandits rob someone who has given all their money away, the bandits have wasted a night's actions, and gain nothing. Even IF the bandits rob that person, they have no way of telling whether or not that person has any money the next night.

The trade off for Zeb's arguement, that the bandits benefitted regardless of when someone died, be it during the night, or during the day, is that the Wolves benefit too. Now, the Wolves don't benefit if one of their number is slain, but, then again, neither do the Bandits.

It can be argued that the Bandits benefit more per-teammate-death than do the wolves, for the simple reason that the wolves must equal the number of townsfolk. My response to this arguement is that in exchange for this, the wolves have more direct influence in the progress of the game. Not only do they have the ability to form a late-game voting bloc, to eliminate potentially threatening and hazardous townsperson roles, to directly influence the progress of the game through their choices of Villager-kills, but also do not face the challenge of, say, the Seer being a different Townsperson every night, and communally sharing knowledge of whom is, and whom is not a wolf.

[Zeb The Troll]

The combination of the ability to transfer money at any time, to anyone and the ability of the banker to relocate his safe compound the problem, Inky. Should the Townsfolk so choose, they could effectively shuffle their entire currency, nightly, and, in so doing, render the Bandit Scryer useless.

You DO have a way to slow us down. It's the transfer of funds. If the Bandits rob someone who has given all their money away, the bandits have wasted a night's actions, and gain nothing. Even IF the bandits rob that person, they have no way of telling whether or not that person has any money the next night.

This is one aspect of this game that the Bandits got lucky with this time. The Townies/Outlaws did not take advantage of this capability nearly as much as we could/should have.

The trade off for Zeb's arguement, that the bandits benefitted regardless of when someone died, be it during the night, or during the day, is that the Wolves benefit too. Now, the Wolves don't benefit if one of their number is slain, but, then again, neither do the Bandits.

Except that the Outlaws had money too, so when an Outlaw with money was slain, the Bandits DID benefit by the pool getting smaller.

I think a good countermeasure for the Bandits would be the ability to "crack the safe" if they happen to scry it. That would be their way of taking out their baner. It doesn't kill anyone, so the Outlaws don't also benefit, but there's no more safe so the town's gold can't be protected any more. It also works out because the Bandits really only have to find one thing one time, whereas the Outlaws still need to find Masons, the Seer, and the Baner. Actually, the Day Baner too. It didn't come down to it, but El J's role was the town's protection against an Outlaw block vote. Had we gotten you first, he would have been next in order to prevent that from happening since we knew who he was.

EDIT: I'd also like to reaffirm that for a first run, this turned out to be remarkably well thought out and I'd definitely like to do another version of this.

[Alarra]

FYI blaim Alarra for that, she was the one who told me who two of the outlaws were, and I'm guessing she knew to protect EL J for that same reason. I never made a good scry that whole game. And your bleat bleat ugh ugh theory was wrong, he was never scried, never asked to be scried, not really in the trusted group (unless Alarra was giving him info) suspected of being a bandit, and only scried on the last night I was alive because I didn't bother sending in a scry, I already knew I was dead meat.

I only gave you one outlaw, Cobra... I had a pm from you telling me to point at Indy, I'm pretty sure I didn't give out his name, at least not to more than El J....*tries to remember*

[Bassetking]

This is one aspect of this game that the Bandits got lucky with this time. The Townies/Outlaws did not take advantage of this capability nearly as much as we could/should have.

Except that the Outlaws had money too, so when an Outlaw with money was slain, the Bandits DID benefit by the pool getting smaller.

I think a good countermeasure for the Bandits would be the ability to "crack the safe" if they happen to scry it. That would be their way of taking out their baner. It doesn't kill anyone, so the Outlaws don't also benefit, but there's no more safe so the town's gold can't be protected any more. It also works out because the Bandits really only have to find one thing one time, whereas the Outlaws still need to find Masons, the Seer, and the Baner. Actually, the Day Baner too. It didn't come down to it, but El J's role was the town's protection against an Outlaw block vote. Had we gotten you first, he would have been next in order to prevent that from happening since we knew who he was.

EDIT: I'd also like to reaffirm that for a first run, this turned out to be remarkably well thought out and I'd definitely like to do another version of this.

There's the problem. The Outlaws draw their pool of "Needed Scries" from a group of, what, Eight out of thirty? That works out to right around a 30% chance to find a necessary-for-goal objective on the first night, increasing nightly as three individuals are eliminated from potential objectives.

Add the elimination of bandits to the wolves goal, and their nightly scry draws from a pool of nearly half the population.

In contrast; The Bandits are looking for one object. They're pulling a 3.3% chance to find their their target on the first night, and never eliminating anyone but the dead from their list of potential targets.

[Zeb The Troll]

In contrast; The Bandits are looking for one object. They're pulling a 3.3% chance to find their their target on the first night, and never eliminating anyone but the dead from their list of potential targets.

Right, but, at least in this iteration, you were also being beneffited by actions you didn't even have to take. When we killed someone, your percentage went up because there were fewer coins in play. When someone was lynched, your percentage went up again (unless either was a Bandit, but a teammate gettin' off'd is always bad for business).

[Bassetking]

Right, but, at least in this iteration, you were also being beneffited by actions you didn't even have to take. When we killed someone, your percentage went up because there were fewer coins in play. When someone was lynched, your percentage went up again (unless either was a Bandit, but a teammate gettin' off'd is always bad for business).

Agreed. Our percentage increased when money was removed from the system.

Now, had the Lynched ever decided to transfer their cash as they were led up the gallows steps, we would have gained nothing.

My point is... don't attempt to balance the Bandit's abilities in regard to an unused and unutilized ability the townsfolk posess.

[Zeb The Troll]

Agreed. Our percentage increased when money was removed from the system.

Now, had the Lynched ever decided to transfer their cash as they were led up the gallows steps, we would have gained nothing.

My point is... don't attempt to balance the Bandit's abilities in regard to an unused and unutilized ability the townsfolk posess.

Right. Like I said earlier, if all non-Bandits had taken advantage of the money moving and the banker, you guys would probably never have gotten as close as you did this game.

[Ink]

Just jumping in for a moment to say that I could only transfer 5 coins per night, so even if everyone in town dumped all their money on me, I had no way of moving it around efficiently.

The bandits' advantage is that they are not disadvantaged when they lose numbers. Outlaws and townsfolk gain advantage when one of the other groups is killed, and are disadvantaged when their own is killed. Bandits can be whittled down to just one guy, and still be no further from winning the game (other than that one guy being killed the next day). Indeed, if a bandit came out pretending to be the banker and managed to get some folks to transfer money to him carelessly, it would be an excellent strategy. So the next day he's hit with a scry, found out, and killed. No loss at all. He dies, but the team is better off in terms of the money pool.

Also because bandits don't have to protect their teammates, they can vote however they want, and their voting records won't be much to go by, unlike masons or outlaws who might try and save their friends. Bandits can pretty much win the game by doing nothing, waiting for the others to kill each other in the day, gaining an advantage then, and then robbing in the night, and gaining an advantage then.

All said and done though, this was a very enjoyable game, and it was a very close outcome in the end. (Actually you have no idea how close, my first instinct was to protect HyramGraff the last night, it was only the flip of a coin that caused me not too. See, even Fate is siding with the bandits! ) Let's see how the next game goes with the new rules shall we? I'm looking forward to it.

PS: By the way, Zeb, after I contacted you the first time, why didn't you have all your outlaws transfer their money to me?

[Zeb The Troll]

PS: By the way, Zeb, after I contacted you the first time, why didn't you have all your outlaws transfer their money to me?

Because I was afraid of giving you any way to link the rest of us should one of us get busted.

[DarkLightDragon]

I was also the one who recommended killing BassetKing.

I must be the best Devil in history. In WW5, I would've found one of the scriers if I had lived a day longer... Hehe...

[Ink]

Because I was afraid of giving you any way to link the rest of us should one of us get busted.

Fair enough I guess. What you could have done was have them transfer it to you, and then you transfer it to me.