Tol-in-Gaurhoth CXIV – The Evil Breath of Morgoth in Dor-lómin, discussion thread

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

They are like one villager - and they have one vote.

Think of it like this (I'm not sure I got your question correctly). Every living villager has one vote each but the QT has one vote as a unit whatever the number of them are (and that is a result of their own "internal voting").

The QT is like one villager then, voting with the other villagers at the end of everyDay. And like a villager can give her/his vote any time of the Day, the QT gives it's vote at a certain time of the Day. I was thinking about two hours before the DL to be fair to both parties (the QT would have as long time as possible to see what happens on the Day they give their vote - and the villagers would have some decent time to pay heed to what the QT voted).

Sounds like a good idea. However, I wonder whether it may not be better to do the thing that has been done a few times in the past - that the Dead Thread (or in this case, QT) "empowers" a villager by voting for someone, and the person they vote for then gets, for instance, an extra weight for their vote - i.e. their vote counts as two.

I believe that sometimes this was done for the Day at hand, making it kind of more of a wild card for the living (suddenly, one player's vote counted as two and everyone realised it only at the narration); but sometimes it was also done for the next Day (and the villagers knew who was chosen?).

The advantages of this were among other things that the Dead could thus send the Living some messages, as in, not only empowering people in order to catch Wolves, but also to signal, say, "hey, you can trust person X" or "what X has been saying makes sense" etc. To be sure, it offered plenty of room for the Living (with the Wolves assisting merrily) to bicker about what exactly it was that the Dead were exactly trying to say etc. Sometimes however this mechanic got straightaway "hijacked" by the Living dictating the Dead what they should do (not that the Dead listened, if I remember correctly).

But I don't know honestly whether the option you presented (just giving a vote) may be better and more straightforward.

Just one more concern I wanted to mention - having a "QT DL" as you say, e.g. 2 hours before real DL is nice idea, it kind of equalizes the fact that the Dead can figure out a bit more than the Living with the fact that they won't have all the facts (usually lots of things can happen in the last 2 hours). And it MAY serve as an incentive for the Living to start voting from there - my only concern is whether the Living won't be reluctant to vote before the Dead vote. But not that people are usually in a hurry with their votes anyway.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Sounds like a good idea. However, I wonder whether it may not be better to do the thing that has been done a few times in the past - that the Dead Thread (or in this case, QT) "empowers" a villager by voting for someone, and the person they vote for then gets, for instance, an extra weight for their vote - i.e. their vote counts as two.

I actually like the separate vote (as opposed to an empowering vote) better. I've never played in a dead thread game, but I followed them, and the empowerment did seem like more stress and complication than good use. Besides, the big debate in past games was how to use the vote to communicate information, as roles were not known. However, Roles will be known here, and the information left to convey is more vague (e.g. who we think the dead wolf's pack is, who the Seer dreamed as innocent two nights ago). I think it's cooler to let the dead keep voting a diluted vote that directly affects the tally.


By the way, what happens to the Gifteds when they are in quarantine? Can the Seer still dream? And how about Wolves - can dead Wolves PM amongst themselves?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Sounds like a good idea. However, I wonder whether it may not be better to do the thing that has been done a few times in the past - that the Dead Thread (or in this case, QT) "empowers" a villager by voting for someone, and the person they vote for then gets, for instance, an extra weight for their vote - i.e. their vote counts as two.

...

The advantages of this were among other things that the Dead could thus send the Living some messages, as in, not only empowering people in order to catch Wolves, but also to signal, say, "hey, you can trust person X" or "what X has been saying makes sense" etc. To be sure, it offered plenty of room for the Living (with the Wolves assisting merrily) to bicker about what exactly it was that the Dead were exactly trying to say etc. Sometimes however this mechanic got straightaway "hijacked" by the Living dictating the Dead what they should do (not that the Dead listened, if I remember correctly).

That part in bold is just what I wanted to avoid. Back in those games those discussions took most of the air from the thread and people talked less about who to vote than how to best use the game mechanics and why the other thread should comply...

So yes, I was willing to make it more straightforward.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

By the way, what happens to the Gifteds when they are in quarantine? Can the Seer still dream? And how about Wolves - can dead Wolves PM amongst themselves?

I think it has been the general rule that all the special abilities and advances the different gifts bring to people are negated in death aka. in quarantine. So no more dreams to the Seer, no more PM'ing with the other "Infectors" (wolves) by Night, no more hunting or rangering...



One more question about that QT-vote came to mind from your comments. Should it actually be just one hour before the DL they have to vote? In a normal game the action tends to pack into the last hour of the Day - or the last 1½ hours - if the Deadline is good for most people. I wouldn't want to leave it to the very end but would like to leave the Villagers some time to mull the QT vote over before the DL. On the other hand, the later the QT can follow the things folding out the more reasoned choices they can made - and the more fulfilling the game is for them.

Just remember, that a "more reasoned choice" doesn't equal "the right choice"



Talking of the Deadline...

As no-one wishes for an early morning Deadline (US late evening translates into early morning in Europe), I'd suggest we'd go for something like little bit before Midnight GMT. That would be Midnight or little after in Finland, little before in Continental Europe and an hour earlier in the UK - and something like afternoon in the Eastern US.

What do you think?