TIG CXVII: GAME Thread:

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The Ghost was heaps of fun, but maybe too powerful. We came within a handspan of a final day with three Confirmed Innocents and the ability to easily convey them, which really shouldn't happen. A couple suggestions:

1/ The idea of allowing each quote to only be used once per game sounds like a good way of limiting the Ghost. It means that if you find a perfect line (such as the one with innocent in quote marks), you have to weigh up using it now versus saving it for a maybe Seer reveal later.

2/ Rather than limiting the Ghost to a given number of appearances - we basically sent it in every chance we got here! - how about 'may not be used on consecutive days'? That works for both long and short games, and gives a play-off of "we know a lot now, but what if the Seer gets killed...?'

Another possible limitation is if the Ghost could only quote from one text (per Day? per Game?). e.g. Form would only quote from ROTK, Hui would only quote from TH, Lottie would only do The Sil, etc. And I agree about an every-other-Day restriction, I think that can also curb the amount of information flowing backwards to the Living.

Someone asked about infodrops. The first two were fun to write, and BG and I had a plethora to choose from. The third one was more difficult, as generic statements about the game became increasingly narrow. I almost resorted to either/both logic statements to get around that (e.g. either both Kath and Lommy are ordos or Pitch and Boro are not both wolves, but not both). Thankfully there were sufficient normal phrases to avoid that. What ended up going to Sally was:

There was at least one wolf among those who voted for Hui on D2.
At least one wolf did not receive any votes yet.
Both remaining wolves voted for Hui at some point in the game.

I was surprised that she went for #3, which in my opinion gave the most definitive info. But I was not privy to the pack's plans and opinions, so maybe it made more sense from their perspective.

For the final infodrop, the DT knew everyone's alignment except for Morsul and Lommy. And because BG and I didn't think it fair to reveal the roles so openly, we gave the wolves a statement that could apply to either person and opened it up to their suggestions. Evidently no better thoughts have occurred, as that one statement was still the only one on the drawing board by posting time. I was not supposed to be awake at the DL+6 time, but I could not help it, every time I tried to sleep I would keep thinking that I miscounted the votes, or misphrased the sentence, and it would implicate one of the survivors, and I would have to get up and check to make sure it was still good.

For the future, I would probably make it an implied rule that infodrops will not contain new information that would instantly take the game out of everyone's hands. If it wasn't for the Ghost, it might have been possible to reveal LomWolf and leave it up to the voting to determine the balance. But with a Ghost who can just declare everyone's roles unchallenged, it seemed too unfair.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

G55, since you started about this - if we are talking infordrops, I actually think they are, by themselves, the most dangerous part of the game that can easily get out of hand.

Let me start with the Ghost though - I believe it works fine the way it is and this gameplay has proved it, I think. I would however not be opposed to limiting the quotes in some way like it was suggested simply in order to keep them fresh. It might become repetitive once we have discovered the best universal quote for saying X, and the creativity of the process - which I think should be the main reason for the Ghost to exist - would go out of the window.

But I also acknowledge that the idea to have the Ghost appear only every second day is actually pretty ingenious as limitation. Of all things, that sounds good (and if it is not as good for the village, that could be balanced somewhere else, like by what Gifteds there are etc.). Because having the Ghost appear three times, on an average game, anyway essentially means "every Day". Because:

-Ghost obviously won't appear on Day 1
-and on Day 2 it very likely won't have much information to add anyway
-which means that in most games, it would start appearing from Day 3 onwards. And most games hardly last past something like Day 6. So with three visits, the Ghost could appear nearly every Day.

***

My main problem however is with something else, and like I said, it is the infodrops. In retrospect, I think - despite the fact that the Wolves won - that the rules were strongly on the side of the village (I acknowledge I did not give the rules enough thought beforehand to imagine how it would look in practice; I probably would have said something had I realised it). But:

-while 3 Wolves in a village of 12 was certainly considerably imbalanced in favour of the WWs, and even with 2 Gifteds and the ability of the Dead to vote (which can be ambivalent, as we have seen) the village would still have been at a disadvantage,
-the Ghost returning essentially meant +1 dream conveyed for the Seer even after the Seer had died - that is a big bonus; though even that is arguably not necessarily balancing it (and for example in this game, we Wolves were lucky that the Seer dreamed quite a lot about people who died quickly after - though I guess that also had a lot to do with the numbers, in bigger village this would be less likely to happen.)
-but what in my opinion already went over was the ability of the Dead to decide a tie - I think the Dead's vote should have been counted simply as it was, as the last one cast, and the tie would be broken by whichever vote came first in the Living thread. This would btw also limit the dumping of responsibility on the Dead - while it was entertaining and somehow fitting, I still think it should generally be discouraged, and this would be part of it.
-and finally, what definitely went over, even if we argued that the former didn't, were the infodrops and I think they are problematic for multiple reasons.

Firstly, it puts a terrible pressure on the Mod, and somebody could still theoretically reveal too much to the Dead even by accident.
Secondly and more specifically, it works a bit like a sudoku in the sense that as you go, you crosscheck more and more information. By way of elimination your knowledge rises exponentially, and the longer the game runs, the less space for error there is. You eventually arrive at a point where the next info you'd reveal would simply say "X is a Wolf". We in fact ran exactly into that problem already in our game on, what was it, Night 4? I cannot belive one could possibly run a game that would last, say, six Days. Even with a large village, because information like "at least some Wolves voted in bandwagon for Greenie" may cut away like half of the village.
And thirdly, even the best Mod with the most careful plan not to reveal too much cannot control how the game develops. If you reveal that there is one Wolf among Legate, Morsul and Lottie, and then Lottie is lynched and Morsul Nightkilled, you just gave the village bulletproof info.

(Feel free to disagree)

***

In any case, even if we say that this system is unfair, it obviously poses the question what to do about it. I do not have an answer ready for that. Discarding the whole idea would eliminate 75% of the reason for the Ghost's existence in the first place. I don't want that. One possibility would be for example to limit how often the Ghosts get the infodrops (like also every second Day, or somesuch, starting perhaps with N2 so the first dead person has something to pass time thinking about). But I am not sure whether it is enough, or whether it doesn't have other problems (like making the odd Days uninteresting for the Dead).

The ideal solution of course would be to use the infodrop only in a game where roles of dead people don't get revealed upon death (however I loathe such games). There, either the Dead could get info about everything (ie about both living and dead) in this "sudoku" form and then send it back, or else the Dead could simply just receive the knowledge of everyone's roles after they died - so the roles would not be revealed in the Living thread narration, but in some Dead thread narration - and then they would have to just decide when to send it back. But the second option at least is perhaps somewhat boring and would make the content of what the Ghost is going to say fairly monotonous.

But that would disqualify the use of the Dead in "normal" games, and wasn't the idea to have the Dead in every game?

Anyway, these are my thoughts on future use of these rules. I think this game gave us a lot of input and I am hoping that we can discuss this before some next game where it could be implemented. To be sure however, let me say that despite the fact that I believe this was slightly tilted in the village's favour, the Mods handled it exceptionally, both by providing fairly balanced infodrops and also by modifying the rules ad hoc when it became clear that this would no longer work - I think that kind of common-sense flexibility is important, and it is good if the players can agree on that too, if some rule is discovered mid-game to be "broken" in some way.

***

TL; DR: I don't believe that the Ghost was too powerful; it was the infodrops that were too powerful. We should do something about those while making sure that the Ghost still has something to say. And I would also not have the Dead have a tiebreaking vote, also in order to further motivate the Living to make important decisions for themselves.

[Formendacil]

I agree with Legate's basic premise: that the infodrops are the main source of potential imbalance. I think G55 did great with figuring them out as the game went along, and I think the hardest thing to provide feedback on here would be HOW to find that sweet spot of "some, not too much" info.

I think a Ghost with no info (or only whatever info the Dead may possess--say via the Seer) wouldn't be completely useless if, say, the Ghost had a vote--as distinct from the Dead or perhaps in place of the Dead. That would make for an overall weaker Dead thread, but that's not NECESSARILY a bad thing.

I do still think there should be some limitations on the reuse of quotes--Legate used the word "stale" and I agree strongly. I also think that being limited to only a single quote in the game helps "Phantom-proof" it a little.

(Speaking of which--I was really pleased with the Living for not trying to "direct" the Dead this game. I mean, yes, we were clueless and maybe needed some direction, but it was pleasant to be the Dead without having the Village shouting schemes at us. So kudos for that!)

[Morsul the Dark]

Speaking of which--I was really pleased with the Living for not trying to "direct" the Dead this game. I mean, yes, we were clueless and maybe needed some direction, but it was pleasant to be the Dead without having the Village shouting schemes at us. So kudos for that!)

You mean like me screaming you had a seer?

[Morsul the Dark]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Sorimon I just looked at the admin thread G55 clarifies Kath had one more dream. Vote Lommy let them decided they have extra information

^^^^

[Morsul the Dark]

To Legate’s point one possible way to make the DT a bit more interesting/fun and make the ghost a bit more balanced is to infodrop two pieces of information. One true one false. The DT would then have to discuss which they think is true based on the information they have on hand and the live thread.

For example:

Morsul and Greenie both get 3 votes day 1
The info drop is;
No wolves voted Morsul day 1
No wolves voted Greenie day 1.

Well now the DT has to decide which group of voters is more innocent seeming and could potentially clear them. But also if they choose wrong they might lead the village astray. And of course the live thread will always have to be wary relying on them too much.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I agree with Legate's basic premise: that the infodrops are the main source of potential imbalance. I think G55 did great with figuring them out as the game went along, and I think the hardest thing to provide feedback on here would be HOW to find that sweet spot of "some, not too much" info.

And it is not just about that, the chief problem in my opinion is the "sudoku effect" combined with the unpredictability of how things unfold. I'd be curious to hear more about how did G55/BG experience this having less space to maneuver in for making the infodrops as the game continued.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I think a Ghost with no info (or only whatever info the Dead may possess--say via the Seer) wouldn't be completely useless if, say, the Ghost had a vote--as distinct from the Dead or perhaps in place of the Dead. That would make for an overall weaker Dead thread, but that's not NECESSARILY a bad thing.

That actually sounds good. I think (my memory is hazy) there were similar things in the past, along the lines of that the Dead did not really vote, but they sent a representative who then cast the vote for them. Another option would be to give the Dead two votes this way - one cast by the Dead Thread itself, counted last and therefore with no chance to break a tie, and one cast by the Ghost, at any point they decided, counted just like a normal Living vote. This would have the added value that the Ghost's info would be one Night old (which could be important as we have seen in this game, when the Dead already had Kath and her dream, while the Ghost was still fairly supportive of the notion of the Living that Pitch may be a Wolf).

Originally Posted by Formendacil

(Speaking of which--I was really pleased with the Living for not trying to "direct" the Dead this game. I mean, yes, we were clueless and maybe needed some direction, but it was pleasant to be the Dead without having the Village shouting schemes at us. So kudos for that!)

I must second this. In any case I think all the phantom-schemes are just a complete perversion of the game. Then again, there was not really so much the Living could force the Dead to do in this game that would be of use to them.

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

To Legate’s point one possible way to make the DT a bit more interesting/fun and make the ghost a bit more balanced is to infodrop two pieces of information. One true one false. The DT would then have to discuss which they think is true based on the information they have on hand and the live thread.

For example:

Morsul and Greenie both get 3 votes day 1
The info drop is;
No wolves voted Morsul day 1
No wolves voted Greenie day 1.

Well now the DT has to decide which group of voters is more innocent seeming and could potentially clear them. But also if they choose wrong they might lead the village astray. And of course the live thread will always have to be wary relying on them too much.

This is absolutely terrifying idea, but brilliant in my opinion, and it would be great fun. I am only afraid that while it looks like fun in theory, there's no telling how it would look in practice and whether it would be a fun chaos or just nerve-wrecking chaos.

Most importantly, it, too, would be prone to reveal too much, even more than the normal infodrops. Especially since you would know that one is false, so you effectively are giving TWO pieces of info instead of one. Once the villagers disqualify or confirm one part of the info, they also learn the negative information via the other piece.

Again, it looks good in theory and in isolation. But I think with the infodrops, the key is to imagine what it would look like with them on, say, Day 5.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by G55

Lommy: Deliberately Confused

Deliberately confused about who's a wolf and why the Night kills happened, yes, but I was not lying when I said I couldn't decipher the ghosts' messages. I think Boro and Morsul must have some inhuman powers to have parsed many of them so easily!

That being said: Form, Huin, and Lottie, you totally made the game! The ghost was so fun.

Even though next time, I think it is too powerful. I haven't yet looked at what kind of hints the dead got, but I would probably take those out altogether, and leave the ghost just a messenger of the dead thread's opinions/ a visiting known innocent who gets to express their opinions. Also, I had the same thought as Huin did: there could be a rule like that once a particular quote has been used once, it cannot be used again, because I think it would be both more challenging and more fun if the same quotes couldn't repeat over and over.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Part of me wondered if the reason you could not express it in public was because the Downs would censor all of the batexcrement and bovine feces?

Oops, this game was genuinely very swearing-inducing because it was so crazy. Also I can see I have been haunting other corners of the internet because these days the autocensorhip gives me trouble it didn't before - but I think it's just fair. Also "bat excrement" is a pretty good expression if I may say so myself. But here I was just randomly implying that the wolves could take advantage of Morsul's plans and conveniently without having to think it through and explain how exactly...

And I second Legate that the dead being the tie-breaker by default made this much harder for us. In a normal game, an early misguided innocent vote such as Morsul's for Pitch can doom the whole village. In this game, the village could afford making that kind of mistakes while we had to think really really hard. Partly this is because we were a little time zone impaired (I did say the DL was fine but if I'd known I was going to be a wolf with Legate who's on the same time zone, I may have protested...) but it's not just that. Basically we concluded we needed two innocents to vote for the same other innocent (in a village with only 4 innocents left, that's a tall order) or else we can't really bandwagon on anything, or it's going to look really bad for us, because it will look just like that, two wolves bandwagoning. Especially if we are the ones voting early. A 3-3 situation with the dead as the tiebreaker was something we could not have, because the dead likely had more information (they did indeed) and we would have been in deep trouble if the game continued.

Incidentally, that's why I voted for Legate. I didn't want to bus him, but since I was unsure about our odds of winning on Day4, I figured that my voting him would be the only thing to give one of us a fighting chance if there was one more Day.

My Day4 plans were rather phantomesque and absolutely too ambitious - I was trying to convince Boro that I was wolves with Pitchwife (hence my somewhat more wolvish behaviour than before and also letting Pitchwife off the hook for believing Sally) while trying to convince Pitchwife I was innocent and the wolves were Legate and Boro. I was hoping this would result in a situation where (after Morsul's vote for Pitch), me and Pitch would have voted for Legate and Legate and Boro (and Soriman if he was around) would have voted for Pitch, and it would have been game over and wolf victory. Well that was obviously too complicated to work and I see I overdid the "making Boro suspicious of me" part. (Or then Pitch was just too convincingly innocent. I didn't take that into account!)

Anyway I was very afraid that Legate and I would vote and go to sleep early and after we were gone, Boro and Pitch would have a nice little chat and decide we two were the wolves and we'd be done for. (Hence my opening up on Day5 about my pessimism when casting my Day4 vote, switch a few words and it was absolutely genuine.)

Also if anyone wants to know why Boro on N5? Morsul and Boro were almost as good as known innocents to me; I didn't think they'd be under heavy suspicion on the last Day. I obviously had no idea Pitch had been dreamed innocent. I thought the last day would be me vs Pitchwife, and given the events of the previous Day, I wanted rather Morsul and Soriman to decide than Morsul and Boro (whom I had deliberatedly but perhaps short-sightedly convinced of my wolvishness). So I decided to go for Boro - I also thought that if he was around, they could have a nice long chat with Morsul before us Europeans would wake up and they would get to set the tone of the Day, and I didn't want that. Furthermore, I knew Morsul would vote before I'd have a chance to even read the thread, so I thought I didn't want to give him Boro for company who might convince him to rather vote for me than Pitch. Also apologies to Soriman, who albeit having expressed great sharpness for a newbie at times, I thought was going to be much more manipulatable on the last Day than Boro.

(And also, to be honest, I was tired and I didn't have much faith in my chances of winning alone, so I thought I can at least do myself a favour and kill Boro so I don't have to argue with him for the whole miserable last Day. Well... then I ended up arguing with him even though he was dead. Also since Boro had been trying to get killed the whole game, I thought only fair that we'd off him before the end. By the way, Boro, you were a recurring Nightly headache since N2 - we were like "ok so Boro is an ordo pretending to be a gifted obviously - no, wait, but if he was an actual gifted wouldn't he pretend to be an ordo pretending to be a gifted??" )

Anyway, you can only imagine how surprised I was to log in on Day5 and find out Pitchwife was declared innocent via the ghost and Morsul had already done me a huge favour (or so I perceived it) by going defensive even though no one had really suspected him for Days. I was like "well, looks like I will have a fighting chance after all..."