The Thing (Recruitment Thread NOW CLOSED)

[FoE]

"Mayday, mayday. Can anyone here me? Over. This is U.S. Station 31. Do you read me? We found something in the ice. We need some help down here. Can anybody hear me? We found something ... we found something ... we found something ..."

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZkkIsLiNg

The year is 1982. A garbled transmission has been received from Outpost #31, a U.S. research station in the Antarctic, indicating the discovery of an alien life form. Further attempts to make contact with the station end in failure.

In The Thing, Outpost #31 was invaded by an alien that could perfectly mimic any lifeform. It had survived in the ice for thousands of years until it was uncovered by Norwegian scientists, most of whom were quickly killed off by the Thing. The survivors chased the creature to Outpost #31, where they were accidentally killed by the American scientists, mistaking their intentions as hostile.

Once inside the Outpost, the Thing began assimilating the twelve scientists they lived there. Led by a ex-Vietnam veteran and helicopter pilot, the scientists tried desperately to destroy the creature.

And this is where the similarities to the John Carpenter film and this Werewolf game end, as the scientists failed miserably and were all killed off.

A month later, a Special Forces unit has been sent to investigate the outpost. Recognizing that they may be facing an otherworldly entity, a special protocol has been initiated: secretly disguised as regular soliders are members of "Psi-Nine," a top-secret government agency trained to deal with supernatural and extra-terrestial threats.

Members of Psi-Nine are each blessed (or perhaps cursed, as some see it) with psychic abilities — they can read minds, contact the dead, and manipulate the emotions of others. The agency is so top-secret that most of its members are not even aware of each other's existence.

The military arrives at Outpost #31 to discover the station devoid of human life. As they investigate what happened at the research station, the soldiers are horrified to discover the nature of the Thing, and its mission to destroy all mankind.

Even more horrifying is the realization that some of their number have already been transformed. And worse, at least one of them has turned traitor and is helping the Thing suceed.

This is the mission: stop the Thing. Prevent it from assimilating the entire unit and escaping to civilization.

Failure will mean the end of humanity itself.

Basic Rules:

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There will be a Day and a Night, just as in Werewolf Games. One player will be lynched each day, and special abilities will go off at night (though the Medium can use his/her ability at any time.)

Players are split into three categories: Grunts (Villagers), Psychics (Special Roles) and The Thing (Werewolves).

If a player is 'scanned' by a Telepath, only their class will be revealed, NOT their special role.

Each Thing has the ability to 'infect' other players, and any player may become a Thing with the exception of the Assassin. However, a maximum of 1-3 players can be infected each round (the maximum will start at three, and may decrease as the game progresses).

Anyone who does not vote for two rounds will be auto-lynched.

The Grunts and (most of) the Psychics win if all the Things, the Traitor and the Assassin are eliminated. The Things win if they outnumber the Grunts and Psychics. The Assassin wins if he's the only player left standing.

Grunts:

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Most of the players will be ordinary Grunts, the guys caught in the crossfire. They have no power except to vote.

The Thing:

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The game will start out with three Things. While the Thing is the same entity, each 'part' of the Thing is an individual being, and as such, they have no knowledge of other Things except those they infect.

The three starting Things vote during the day and have an optional ability to 'infect' other players at night. Again, this is OPTIONAL — the Things do not have to use their ability each night, or any night.

Each Thing has the ability to infect THREE other players. Once these abilities are used up, the Thing can no longer infect other players. Infection has a 100 per cent success rate except for the Assassin; any Thing attempting to infect the Assassin is KILLED.

If a Thing attempts to infect another Thing, the attempt results in failure, but does not use up one of the Infections. It does, however, reveal the existence of both "Things" to each other.

Each Thing can only use its ability ONCE EACH NIGHT.

Newly-infected Things retain their memories as humans. They do not, however, retain their powers if they were Psychics.

If one of the starting Things has been killed, any remaining infections he has will pass to the others, preferably to any Things he/she has infected.

Psychics:

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The Psychics are split into several types. As stated before, Psychic scry as Psychic and may be Infected with the exception of the Assassin. They consist of:

Three Telepaths: Each Telepath has the ability to scry one player each night.

The Twins: The Twins share an empathic link; they know who each other are from the start of the game. The experiences of each Twin is shared by the other; as such, the two players should work in concert.

If one of the Twins is infected, killed or lynched, the surviving Twin is given one free 'Kill' that may be used at any time, day or night. The idea is that the Kill will be used against one of the Twin's killer, or against the other Twin if he is infected.

The Assassin: A pyrokinetic. Cannot be converted by the Infected; he/she will always kill whichever Infected attempts to convert him. They may be lynched, however.

The Assassin MAY choose one person to kill each night, and regardless if they are a Grunt or a Thing, they will be killed. This will be done by PMing the Narrator. He/she continues killing even if the Traitor and the Things are dead.

THE ASSASSIN WINS IF EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GAME IS DEAD.

The Traitor: A fourth Telepath who has been driven mad by his ability. Sees the Thing as a "perfect beings" and will attempt to aid them by getting fellow Grunts and Psychics lynched.

May scry once a night by PM'ing the Narrator. The Traitor can be infected and turned into a Thing WITHOUT USING UP AN INFECTION ABILITY.

The Medium: The Medium may make contact with the souls of dead humans if they are lynched or killed in the night. The dead are compelled to tell him whatever they know without lying ; this may be names of fellow Grunts, Psychics or known Things. He cannot contact dead Things, as they have no souls.

The Medium can either PM a player directly or PM me; if the dead player is a Telepath or the Traitor, I will be keeping track of their scries and relay that info to the Medium. I will also relay the list of names known by the Commander.

The Commander: He's the lead officer in Psi-Nine and knows the names of who all the other eight members, THOUGH NOT THEIR ROLES. (This is done to protect the Traitor and the Assassin.)

The Commander may choose one player to protect from lynching. This is done by choosing the player the previous night and PM'ing the Narrator.

I am the Narrator, and have no co-Narrator. The maximum number of players will be 36. Recruitment ends Jan. 21.

Everyone who's playing so far (38/36):

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Darth Solice
Freshmeat
Raiser Blade
Keris Rain
Bushranger
Vavaara
Travelling Angel
Ominous
Mustiado
Fleeing Coward
Haruki-kun
Mordokai
Onasuma
Banjo1985
Emperor Demonking
topher
Aemoh
Irbis
I'm da Rogue!
Doseki
Darkbane
coolgaelbert
Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins
KerfuffleMach2
pankake
MadHatter
Dr. Bath
Eita
Eksar Lindisfar
Eldritch Knight
Kay
JMK
Someonenonotyou
Zombie pixe
DemonicAngel
Fin
Ranna
Ramebriz

[Darth Solice]

Solice stood waiting for the order to move out and kill the things.

[Freshmeat]

I am in. (filler text)

[Raiser Blade]

I'm all over this like something that is all over something else.

[Keris]

Must... resist... urge... to join... more... Werewolf... Games...
*Gives in*
I'm in. With so many power roles, the Grunts look like they're in for a hard time.

[Darth Solice]

LOL, go easy on me please.

[The Bushranger]

*salutes* Reporting for duty, sir!

[Darth Solice]

How many more people do we need until we begin playing?

[Vavaara]

Playing the odds, and joining my third WW game. Incidentally, I have the actual movie. Great psychological stuff.

[FoE]

We have six so far, and I would like at 24 more before we start. Thirty players is small for a Werewolf game.

[Traveling_Angel]

sweet. IN.

[Ominous]

I'll play as well.

[Freshmeat]

(Upon rereading the rules quickly, I'd have to say that it seems extremely easy for the Things to win.
As soon as three Things know each other, you're dealing with the dreaded issue of daily recruitment. Since the best the grunts can do is find and kill a Thing every day, the grunts can't win as soon as three Things know each other (since those will just recruit a replacement at night), unless the assassin happens to find and kill Things with equally impossible regularity as well.
Since both of these are highly unlikely to happen, and since it'd pretty much requires the assassin to completely forsake his objectives in order to reliably find Things, it's just about impossible for the Things to lose.

As soon as the Traitor scries a Thing, he'll just contact him and ask to be infected. Once these two infected know eachother, they can easily infect a third person with a reliable chance of success, namely 75%. Or they can wait to find a third - it doesn't really matter much really. A mere two (!) are actually required for this to work in 75% of the cases.
From there on out, you're dealing with the entire 'daily recruitment' thing. Keep in mind that as soon as 4-5 Things start knowing eachother (which won't take long) they can actually start recruiting multiple people at night. And as soon as the grunts are dealing with two recruitments per night, well, the game is over. Team Grunt can't kill more than 2 people per 24-hour cycle, even with the aid of the assassin, so they can never overcome a faction that increases it's numbers with 2 every night.

As such, I strongly suggest you tone down the Things and/or (preferably and) give the Grunts more abilities to eliminate people.)

[FoE]

I have heard your concerns and trust me, I have been thinking about this for a while. While I believe there are enough safeguards in place to keep the Thing population in check, I am willing to lower the rules and lowered the chances for success to 25 per cent if one Thing makes the attempt to convert a player, 50 per cent if two Things make the attempt, 75 per cent if the three Things make the attempt. There is no way to insure infection, except to convert the Traitor.

With that in mind, there are several other factors that should keep the Thing population in check:

1) There's a limit on how many players can become Things each round.
2) Failures result in death for all Things involved. That means three Things fail to convert a player, three Things die.
3) If the Things try and convert the Assassin, it's an automatic failure. If they convert one of the Twins, the surviving Twin can exact revenge for the other's death with a Kill.
4) The lynchers and the Assassin have to get lucky at some point.

And while the Traitor may wish to become a Thing, he or she can do more damage remaining as a Psychic. Once converted, the Traitor loses his/her power and then scries as a Thing.

I'm not doing away with the conversion ability, however. That would defeat the spirit of the game — that the person you trust today becames your enemy tomorrow.

[Mustiado]

This sounds absolutely twisted. I'll give it a shot.

[Fleeing Coward]

In, although I wonder if there might be some problems if the commander gets converted early.

[Haruki-kun]

Alright, FoE, I find this very interesting. I'm in!

[Raiser Blade]

I actually like the old rules. As it stands now it seems like the things are one failed infection from game over.

[Mordokai]

/flips coin.

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm in.

[onasuma]

Sure, im in.

[banjo1985]

I would walk through fields of fire to see FoE's sick narration of a WW death scene....

I am so in I'm almost out again

[Jontom Xire]

Very very interesting with some cool features, but I don't think it will work.

Psychics get 3 scries per night while the things are almost certain not to try to infect anyone because they have approximately a 75% chance of dying. Using very basic probability, if they all try to infect one other (and they can't win if they don't) three will die and one be recruited.

I very much like the way the commander knows all the psychics but not which one is the assassin or traitor. Hence he cannot form a network because he cannot risk revealing psychics to other psychics. That's very cool.

Back to the infection thing, I have some questions:

1) What happens if one thing tries to infect another?

2) What happens if a thing tries to infect three grunts, and fails on the first roll (25% success)? Does he still get to roll for his infection attempt on the other two?

Here are some basic probabilities assuming a thing tries three infection attempts all on grunts, and with no other infections by other things on the same targets:

Chance of failing all three: 0.421875
Result: One death, one less thing.

Chance of failing at two: 0.421875
Result: One death, same number of things

Chance of failing one infection: 0.140625
Result: One death, one extra thing

Chance of all successes: 0.015625
Result: No deaths, three extra things.

So basically a thing has a 98.4375% chance of dying if making 3 infection attempts, and only a 15.6255 chance of increasing the thing population.

I think most players would be reluctant to risk leaving the game so early. Things appear to have no scry ability so cannot form networks without infecting. Unless they infect the necromancer, any thing network is automatically compromised (although the necromancer cannot publically denounce the things - an interesting touch).

If I had more time I could do a full spreadsheet of all probabilities.

[Emperor Demonking]

Seems good. I'm in.

[FoE]

Back to the infection thing, I have some questions:

1) What happens if one thing tries to infect another?

2) What happens if a thing tries to infect three grunts, and fails on the first roll (25% success)? Does he still get to roll for his infection attempt on the other two?

Sorry, I should have explained it a little better.

1) If a Thing attempts to convert another Thing, the result is a failure but does not end in death. Instead, both Things become aware of each other's identity. Thus, attempting to convert other players is not only a way of increasing the Thing's numbers, but of finding each other as well.

2) Each Thing can attempt to infect one player each night and no more than that. So your calculations are irrelevant, Jontom.

I think most players would be reluctant to risk leaving the game so early.

That's deliberate, Jontom. The effort here is to keep the Thing population from going out of control in the early rounds. Building up a network of Things is certainly desirable, but it poses a big risk if you attempt it alone.

Instead, if the Things wait a few rounds, the pool of humans will shrink, and the probability of finding another Thing through their infection ability will increase. Also, they may come into contact with the Traitor, and he/she may be able to put them in touch with other Things or prove to be an ideal candidate for assimilation.

Oh, just so everybody knows, this is a horror movie Werewolf game. I will do my best to generate an atmosphere of fear and mistrust as possible.

[Aemoh]

Can't ever join too many. Plus this looks awesome. In

[topher]

Hmm, a WW style game? Count me in.

[Irbis]

I'm in. Looks good so far

[Fleeing Coward]

That's deliberate, Jontom. The effort here is to keep the Thing population from going out of control in the early rounds. Building up a network of Things is certainly desirable, but it poses a big risk if you attempt it alone.

Instead, if the Things wait a few rounds, the pool of humans will shrink, and the probability of finding another Thing through their infection ability will increase. Also, they may come into contact with the Traitor, and he/she may be able to put them in touch with other Things or prove to be an ideal candidate for assimilation.

Oh, just so everybody knows, this is a horror movie Werewolf game. I will do my best to generate an atmosphere of fear and mistrust as possible.

But there has to be something else to even that out. One failed infection by say 3 things basically ends the game for them as things stand - 1 thing left 25% chance at recruiting rather than dying, 2 things and 50% chance of recruit or die if they somehow manage to find the traitor as well. That is assuming that they somehow (highly unlikely with no scries) manage to find each other.
At the same time, with the commander knowing the other psychics and 3 scries a day huge networks could have been formed by the villagers.
The chance to recruit isn't really that bad as it originally was in my opinion, just preventing multiple infections or changing the infections to every second night might be a better idea since that'd allow the things to still recruit without been too overpowered yet compensate them for their loss in killing ability that wws normally get.

[FoE]

Yes, I hear your concerns, Fleeing Coward, but I'm leery about changing the formula for a successful infection back to the way it was. I always had my reservations about it, even though I thought I had sufficient safeguards in place. The problem there was the Thing population will grow too quickly out of control. Here, the Things will have to play a bit cautiously at first.

Nevertheless, I will make a revision: there will be two additional Things, making for a total of six, plus another role I am currently developing that will also result in a 100 per cent chance of infection.

That should sufficiently increase the odds for the Things' success without making them TOO overpowered.

[Jontom Xire]

2) Each Thing can attempt to infect one player each night and no more than that. So your calculations are irrelevant, Jontom.

The rules state:

Each Thing has the ability to 'infect' other players, and any player may become a Thing with the exception of the Assassin. However, a maximum of 1-3 players can be infected each round (the maximum will start at three, and may decrease as the game progresses).

It is not clear that this maximum is amongst all Things and not per Thing. It looks like you are saying that each thing gets 1 to 3 attempts.

Also, what happens if by some huge fluke, all 6 Things attempt to recruit different people and all succeed? Do the three Things that exceeded the maximum number of infectees hence fail and die or do they fail and live?

I'm not sure your idea about it being easier for Things to find each other by infection once the number of players has shrunk applies. Statistically speaking, the proportion of Things lynched should be the same as the proportion of Things in the total population. E.g. if out of 30 players, 6 are things, after you have lynched 5 players you would expect to have lynched 1 Thing, so the remaining Things still have a 1 in 5 chance of infecting another Thing. Moreover it is possible that a Thing gets lynched on day one and hence the Things are then worse off.