Tol-in-Gaurhoth (Isle of Werewolves)

[Kath]

So is the quoting in place of a vote or empowerment of some kind? All they do is quote a Tolkien line and then the Living spend the whole Day wondering what on earth the Dead are on about?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Kath

So is the quoting in place of a vote or empowerment of some kind? All they do is quote a Tolkien line and then the Living spend the whole Day wondering what on earth the Dead are on about?

Well there hasn't been any finalised version of what exactly it would mean. We spent a couple of posts discussing it in the Dead Thread, Form being the one who worked on it the most. The original idea was that one of the Dead would always come back as a ghost, but could only speak using lines from the books - then we started thinking about how to make sure they can't just pick up any lines and actually make too clear statements. The idea of first lines of chapters or somesuch came up.

A different derivation of the same is simply sending a "dream message" from the Dead to the Living, but yeah, I think there should be more to the powers the Dead have than just that for it to be relevant.

And at the same time I am also very much against what Hui warned about, that is, doing it so that the Living can't just make the Dead their info-service and do the "if X is a Wolf, post a quote from the first chapter of The Hobbit".

[Galadriel55]

I let my fantasy run away a little bit and envisioned this. Every Night, theDead choose a ghost to return to the living. The next Day the ghost may post Tolkien quotes (to be defined, eg full paragraphs, first sentences, etc) on the Living thread. The ghost is not restricted in how much he posts, but may only post Tolkien. Once the ghost gets to the land of the Living, until he returns to his grave at Night he cannot communicate with the Dead (ie once on the Living thread he cannot look at the Dead Thread, and has to act independently). However, the question is what info the DT would be trying to convey. Maybe indeed the Dead have special powers, like one extra dream per game, or a dream every Night but 25% chance it's incorrect, or some other information the ghost would need to convey. The ghost idea is awesome but needs that extra bit to balance it out, it's the bit that's difficult to figure out.

[Formendacil]

Yeah, the idea that the Ghost could only speak the line of a chapter-opening was an attempt to corral what the Ghost can say into something more cryptic. To sum up the idea of what *I* was thinking about the Ghost:

1. In a Dead Thread game, the Ghost can be the means of the Dead Thread's involvement.

2. Each Day, the Dead Thread votes for one of their own to return and haunt the village.

(3. Perhaps the Ghost has a vote? If so, does the Ghost cast their OWN vote or is it casting a vote the Dead Thread has already chosen?)

4. To keep the Ghost from being too much a straight-up data-channel between the Dead and Living, the idea was to make it that Ghost can only speak cryptically (other than voting, obviously). Some thoughts thrown around included the idea that the Ghost could only post quotes from their Living days--no bolding, no italicising, and I wanted to add "full paragraphs only" so that it wouldn't be immediately apparent why the Ghost had chosen that paragraph (i.e. if there was a nugget of emphasis buried in a paragraph, they wouldn't be able to post just the relevant clause, which would be hardly better than just being able to type what they wanted). The "first line from a Tolkien chapter" was a variant on this theme. I like that it makes things "more Tolkien" than this game sometimes devolves to... but it might be TOO limiting. Some sort of happy medium that ISN'T too much of a burden on the Mod is the idea.

(5. If the Ghost can vote, then perhaps that should be the SOLE purpose of the Ghost: the Dead Thread votes during the NIGHT and whoever the Ghost is makes a single Haunting during the DAY. In this case, maybe a single, cryptic clue would be permitted by the Mod.)

6. I think, if there is to be a Ghost, there should also be a Cobbler, and that the Cobbler's role should NOT be revealed to the Living Village upon Death--or to the Seer. Perhaps it should be revealed to the Dead? Or not?

[Blind Guardian]

The other option would be to allow the rules of the last game to stand while also allowing the Dead to select to say per night. Like Boro did on the last Night. So ++empower and ++quoteVote.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

6. I think, if there is to be a Ghost, there should also be a Cobbler, and that the Cobbler's role should NOT be revealed to the Living Village upon Death--or to the Seer. Perhaps it should be revealed to the Dead? Or not?

This is something that should absolutely hold. And I think it exactly should be that it would NOT be revealed even to the Dead, in order to allow the possibility to send back a Ghost, but lo, it was a Cobbler and made a mess of everything in its final returning grand act.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

This is something that should absolutely hold. And I think it exactly should be that it would NOT be revealed even to the Dead, in order to allow the possibility to send back a Ghost, but lo, it was a Cobbler and made a mess of everything in its final returning grand act.

That. ++Reveal the cobbler as an ordo to both Seer and Dead.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

That. ++Reveal the cobbler as an ordo to both Seer and Dead.

Not that the probability of it is very high (Cobbler needs to die, not be recognised by the innocent Dead, then needs to be selected by them to return), but already the possibility of the Cobbler being there forces the players to think about it and play around it.

But yes, the more pressing concern is to figure out all the powers of the ghost(s?) and the Dead in the first place.