Revolution Mk II

[Jontom Xire]

Mark II of Revolution. The last one seemed to go quite well, although I would like some actual feedback on that. Let's see if this one can be even better.

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You live in an idyllic civilisation, a true democracy where all citizens have equal say in all aspects of government. Partly this is due to the fact that all citizens have the same values in life, you all support the same form of government, all have the same philosophies. The reason for this is that when this society was formed as the result of a bloody revolution, everyone who didn't fight on the winning side was put to death. Those that remained all fought for their beliefs, so those beliefs must have been the same.

Now, however, disturbing rumours abound. Of dissatisfied elements, agitating for change. Who knows how much longer this peace will last.

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Rules

Spoiler

1) Everyone is a neutral citizen unless they're not.
2) There are several small groups of agitators. Each have their own agenda.
3) The game is over when there are no agitators remaining (citizens win), or a revolution is won in the name of one of the groups of agitators and there are no opposing agitators left alive (that group wins).
4) Each day citizens can CHOOSE to lynch someone on the grounds that they are an agitator disturbing the peace. As a democratic society more than a third of the population must vote to lynch the person for them to be lynched. The person with the most votes gets lynched.
5) You can only make one lynch nomination or vote.
6) Each day anyone can declare a revolution. There must be a cause or principle behind the revolution, and it DOESN'T have to be one of the ones the agitators are agitating for. It can be anything.
7) There will be no lynchings if there is at least one revolution.
8) Each person can either support a revolution, support the status quo, or stay out of it (NOT RECOMMENDED).
9) When a revolution succeeds, anyone who opposed it or did not assist it is put to death. When a revolution fails, anyone who supported it or did not assist in putting it down is put to death. Hence anyone who changed sides or stayed out of it dies. IC this is to ensure a stable new society where everyone is guaranteed to share the same ideals because they put their life on the line for them. OOC this will weed out inactives. OOC if you notify the GM that you will be inactive for a good reason then IC you will be considered to have been ill at the time and so be spared as having a good excuse for not joining the winning side.
10) Each night, each group of agitators may CHOOSE to assassinate someone they believe is a member of an opposing agitatory group.
11) Each night, an agitator spy may investigate the quarters of one other person to try and determine their role in the game.
12) Citizens win by being alive at the end.
13) Citizens may choose to join a group of agitators by swearing blood oaths, or other such rituals, at which point they become an agitator. See notes on recruitment below.


Recruitment
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Agitators may NOT pretend to join other groups of agitators. Agitators may secretly approach citizens by PMing roleplay actions to the narrator(s), e.g. that they are going to leave notes where such and such a player will find them. That player will then have to provide the narrator(s) with role-play PMs as to their response/actions. The person you attempt to recruit can choose not to join you. Also it's also not a one stop shop - it may take several PMs to negotiate/persuade someone to join you.

You can send such PMs at any time - even directly if you wish to take the risk. Once I get a PM from the target saying they wish to join you, and a PM from you saying you wish to recruit them, I will send PMs to declare whether the person is in fact valid to join you and making it all formal and tidy, with a nice description fo the ritual in which everyone unmasks and knows who everyone else is. If an enemy agitator does attempt to infiltrate another group, this ritual will undoubtedly result in their status/role becoming known and them being executed.

None of this interferes with any other actions in the game. You still get your spy and kill actions as before.

To aid in this game being more GM autonomous:

A) People who nominate lynching victims (or the victims) may automatically write an appropriate lynching post when the vote hits 50%.

B) Anyone who initiates a successful revolution may, if everyone has made clear their position, or the announced end of day has arrived, post a successful end of revolution including lining up all the losers against a wall and shooting them.

C) Agitators may choose to PM their victim. Victims please be honourable and just post a suitable death scene. Once you get that PM do NOT reveal the sender to anyone in the game.

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Roles

Spoiler

Citizen - just trying to stay alive
Partynics - Going to bed before midnight should be illegal. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll! Yeah!
Moralisers - Everyone should behave in a proper and dignified manner. Loud music, rock 'n' roll, sex, and drugs are improper and should be banned. Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise. But not too wealthy because that would indicate greed which is improper.
Technophiles - We should rearrange society on a technological basis. Stick AI in everything to do everything for us.
Anachronists - We should return to a more rural way of life. Get closer to who we really are.
Spy - Affiliated to a particular group of agitators, the spy can determine the role of one person per night.

Players

Spoiler

Akaziel - Citizen, lynched day 2.
Alarra - Moraliser, killed night 2 by Anachronists.
Arlanthe - Technophile, lynched day 4.
Atreyu the Masked Llama - Moraliser, killed night 4 by the Anachronists.
Belethorien - Anachronist spy, lynched day 6.
Captain "Fluffy" - Anachronist, killed night 1 by Technophiles.
Captain van der Decken - Citizen, killed night 2 by Moralisers.
Castaras - Citizen, killed night 1 by Moralisers.
DarkCorax - Citizen, died in the revolution on day 5.
DarkLightDragon - Citizen, lynched day 1.
Fleeing Coward - Moraliser spy, killed night 3 by Technophiles.
Helgraf - Citizen, must join the Technophile revolution or die.
HyramGraff - Anachronist, killed night 5 by the Moralisers.
Ink - Citizen, killed night 1 by Anachronists.
Inky13112 - Technophile, killed night 3 by Anachronists.
Korias - Technophile spy, killed night 3 by Moralisers.
Lord Magtok - Citizen, death unknown, need to check and can't be bothered.
pingcode20 - Anachronist, killed night 4, can't remember by whom.
Rejakor - Technophile and winner!!
Vicarin - Moraliser, killed night 6 by Technophiles.
Weebl - Moraliser, died in the revolution on day 5.
Xykon_Fan - Moraliser, killed night 5 by the Technophiles.

The game is started. There are no Partynic agitators as they won the last game and hence are the current ruling government. I suppose I could have added Pucenics as a replacement set of agitators, but suppose they won! Shock horror! All that disgusting puce colour everywhere :)

[pingcode20]

Well I'm back in.

[Akaziel]

I'll try this. Seems interesting.

[Gnome Barbarian]

Im in.... I cant believe people sided with me and then killed me in the last game, thats horrible.

[Jontom Xire]

Originally Posted by Gnome Barbarian

Im in.... I cant believe people sided with me and then killed me in the last game, thats horrible.

It was classy - one group scried you and the other killed you :) That made twice in one game that one group scried the other's assassination target and I got to write a PM to the spy about how they were sneaking around so quietly only to realise that the person they were spying on was dead.

It's been a really fun game to run - so many really classy coincidences.

[Gnome Barbarian]

In my post I wsas going to ask for emergancy powers that I would "give up" after the fighting was over. Thats cool I got scried and killed in the same night. I must have made an impression.

[Castaras]

In. Again. Seeing as I got killed before I made my scry attempt in the last game. >.<

[Captain van der Decken]

I'll play again.

[Selrahc]

*Signs up*

[DarkCorax]

*sign up too*

[HyramGraff]

I'll play again.

[inky13112]

Yeah that was fun.

[Zar Peter]

I'll sign up! But I must warn all that I'm away from June, 2nd to June 9th without any possibilitys to come to an internet access (holidays in the mountains)

[DarkLightDragon]

I'll join... and I'm resisting the urge to make certain Paranoia-related jokes! Go me!

[Helgraf]

The Computer told me I had to play. I told the Computer that I was happy.
Therefore I am here.

[[Insert Neat Username Here]]

Sounds good. I'm in.

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

Blue Serpent was better than the tree huggers!

I'll play

[Jontom Xire]

Why do I get the feeling that everyone thinks this is just Paranoia but better? It's totally different! But seriously guys, I'm touched. I had no idea that Paranoia was so well appreciated. Although every time I read DLDs sig I think of resurrecting it.

I love you all, people.

Anyway, to business. I'm going to let the recruiting cycle last a little longer, because A) I'm busy with all the other werewolf games that have started up all at once, and B) I want more players this time, so I'm going to be patient and not just start as soon as the minimum count is reached.

I also want all comments on Revolution! Mk I in regards to rules, game play, and flavour text. I had some good rules comments from pingcode20 who was either extremely jammy or extremely skillful and basically won the game for the Partynics. Those comments were good and have been incorporated in the rules for this game. I'm still on the fence on one point though. Pingcode's comments about gameplay were right on the button, but my idea was somehow better conceptually. I need to find an answer that incorporates the best of both.

Oh and also the final "winning" section of the last post was written by Pingcode20 as well as the last assassination method.

FINAL comment (I promise), as the Partynics won the last game, the "nation" in this game will be either Ravetopia or Partytopia. Your choice.

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

Rave topia...where we all offer sacrifice to the mighty god, Ravezilla!!

[Castaras]

Partytopia! So that we can dance all night!

[Lord Magtok]

I'll join in.

[pingcode20]

Well, I'll just cross post why I think the peaceniks lost.

I believe the Peaceniks lost because they moved too quickly against Alarra, whereas the Partyniks focussed more on keeping appearances up. It's a curious fact that it's surprisingly easier to lynch an innocent, than trying to kill off a rival.

As demonstrated by the last day of Pucetopia, I took down Ink by pinning all of the partynik's crimes on him, a charge against which he had little or no defences against.

Going back to where the peaceniks lynched Alarra, they moved too quickly to defend Castaras, and two of three members actually voted first. Then Arlanthe PM'd at least myself, DarkCorax and GB, and tried to convince us to vote against Alarra.

In hindsight I probably should have sacrificed Alarra.

However, he eventually revealed he was a peacenik to lend credence to his claims, and was essentially a 'free scry'. So that night we killed Arlanthe and scried Atreyu, the next one on the list.

The next move would have been to kill Castaras, if Atreyu had come up negative.

So, there we have it. Peaceniks were too overeager and shot themselves by pulling out all stops to save their spy.

I'd chalk up the Partynik victory to a failure of stealth by the peaceniks.

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With the revolution rules, I think this might suffer from the same problem as why there were no recruitments; Risk/Gain.

The recruitments were pretty much paralysed, because it required you to wager one agitator for the potential to gain one. Since you only have (at most) three or four agitators, a single loss is quite costly.

With the revolutions, the main problem with the 'Agitators win if there is a revolution in their name' rule is that if it can happen too early, then it's far too easy to win the game. If it can only happen without other agitators, then there's no good reason to do so, because then you're risking the game for a quick victory.

It's something of a conundrum.

What might be a possible way to improve on this would be to make recruitments secret and set the revolutions rule so it only ever results in a game victory if the number of your agitators > all opposing agitators, but that would only really work with the full four agitator organisations.

[Jontom Xire]

Pingcode - I've already modified the "win by revolution" rule so that there have to be no enemy agitators left.

As for secret recruitment, someone did ask me, and I did agree, that you can roleplay it. I'll try to squeeze it into the rules, but basically if you PM me and say something like:

I want to leave a note under XXX's pillow that reads:

Join the Partynics! If you are interested leave your reply behing the loose brick in the fountain in the town square.

If they then PM me to say that they are going to wake early and go secretly spy on the fountain all day and you PM me to say you're going to check the fountain, I will PM you to say you find nothing and PM them to say they see you going to the fountain. So you have still got to be clever. Needless to say this will involve a lot more work for me, so I think I'm going to need an active co-narrator to help.

[Castaras]

If no-one steps up, then I'll be willing to co-narrate, Jontom.

And I am very active. As I'm sure alot of people can tell you.

[Jontom Xire]

I'm sure there's a very naughty double-entendre in there somewhere :)

[Castaras]

...You are one sick minded person, Jontom.

*Goes to reread the rules.*

[Rejakor]

I'm in. :D

[[Insert Neat Username Here]]

On second thought, I'm already in too many games. remove me from the list.

[Rejakor]

Bah, there can never be too many games.

Also, sleep is for the weak.

[Arlanthe]

Pingcode, noting your comments below, once again I don't regret sacrificing my identity and life to kill Alarra and save our spy in round two :)

I said my piece on why I thought the Peaceniks failed at the end of the revolution thread. I saved our spy, as you point out, but the spy only assassinated once and didn't spy every turn (and chose targets randomly at that), so giving up my life to save said spy for several more turns turned out to be kind of pointless.

But I digress. Count me in this round too!