Tol-in-Gaurhoth CIX - The TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXTRAVAGANZA!

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Oh, Kuru, I still remember when Oddwen mercilessly ripped you apart to win Tol-in-Gaurhoth III. Good times.

I love the premise; missed it the first time round. One question: you say the active players aren't allowed to look in the Dead Thread (or Deid Threid, as we Scots might say). Is that simply a matter of trust, or is there some (obvious) thing I'm missing which prevents dastardly wolverous treachery? Ah! Such villainous lycanthropy! I can't take it anymore: STRING THEM UP!

++NILPAURION FELAGUND

[mormegil]

Like Form, it's been a long time since I've played and I'm a bit tentative on this but it seems appropriate to play the 10 year anniversary edition...I can't believe it's been that long. It honestly seems like a year or two ago. I hope my level of participation is sufficient. Life has changed significantly in 10 years so my free time is less than it was but I look forward to losing

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Oh, Kuru, I still remember when Oddwen mercilessly ripped you apart to win Tol-in-Gaurhoth III. Good times.

Was that the one where I single-handedly lost the village the game when I was the hunter by blasting the wrong person to smithereens on the final DAY or am I thinking of another one of my ignominious defeats?

I love the premise; missed it the first time round. One question: you say the active players aren't allowed to look in the Dead Thread (or Deid Threid, as we Scots might say). Is that simply a matter of trust, or is there some (obvious) thing I'm missing which prevents dastardly wolverous treachery? Ah! Such villainous lycanthropy! I can't take it anymore: STRING THEM UP!

There is no mechanism to prevent cheaters, I'm afraid. It was, in fact, quite a hot topic during the previous game in this format, although to some extent I think one of the Cobbers was stoking that fire to cause trouble (but I do hope it doesn't come up as an issue over the course of this game). However, everyone in that game (at least as far as we know) followed the rules. I truly don't think anybody on the Downs would stoop to that level, if I did I wouldn't do a game in this format. We can certainly be fierce competitors around here, but we play fair. The sort of ignominy and shame that would visit upon the head of somebody who was found to have cheated...it really doesn't even bear thinking about.

But I'm certain nothing like that is going to happen.

Anyway, a big thank you to everyone who has signed up!

Sign ups are certainly still open, but we now have enough players for me to post all the roles. I will update the first post with the roles shortly.

[Kuruharan]

I hate double posting, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw this.

I have updated the initial post with the roles. Everyone please review them carefully.

Thank you.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I may return to cause psychological/moral/meta angst.

I'd need to read up a bit, though.

[Kuruharan]

Nilp!!!

So glad to see you! I hope you do decide to join. It should be right up your street...

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I noticed that the old Halls of Mandos threads goes 20 pages for the main one and 12 for the dead one...

Never mind the reading up, just sign me up.

I'll do my best to get lynched on DAY 1, as usual--even though that won't shut me up for long.

[Thinlómien]

Nilp, Lalaith, morm... this is actually happening, isn't it? I'm not dreaming??

*group hug and happy dance*

(now that I'm still glad you guys are playing and not getting headache from Nilp's antiques, paranoid about Lalaith seeming so nice and reasonable, or having an inner debate whether morm is actually suspicious or it's just a habit of mine to suspect him )

[satansaloser2005]

I'm currently trying to convince the phantom to join us. If anyone wants to help in said convincing....

[Kuruharan]

...he said to add him.

[Kuruharan]

Hey guys,

I know it is kind of late in the day to be thinking about this (and that a lot of people are on trips and stuff) but I have been reading the original game threads very carefully the past few days looking for final minor adjustments to improve balance, etc. (I have a list, but I will post those all at once so as to limit confusion).

In reading the previous threads the idea that there needs to be a slightly more solid means of communication between the Dead Thread and the Living Thread has started to gnaw on me significantly. Since roles haven't been assigned yet (so everyone will be able to give their honest opinions re. balance), I thought I would toss my idea out to the group for everyone to look at and discuss whether it should be implemented in this game or if it is a workable idea at all.

My idea is that a single player (I will call it the Visitor) should have the ability to communicate with the opposite thread every NIGHT. I'm hung up on a couple of things. 1) Should this be Dead Thread to Living Thread communication, like a ghostly visitation, or Living to Dead communication (I'm leaning toward Dead to Living). 2) How should this selection of the Visitor be made? I believe this needs to be a rotating role to give the wolves the opportunity to mess with people and cause problems which leads me to question 3) should the Visitor have the ability to choose the recipient of their visitation or should the recipient somehow be determined for them and the Visitor just chooses what they say to the recipient (through me, there will be no direct contact)?

My idea, also, is that the identity of the Visitor will not be known to the recipient. Rather it will be along the lines of, "You recieve a ghostly visitor in the NIGHT. You are so frightened that you cannot tell their identity. The ghost says to you, "cookies are nummy" and departs." Something along those lines.

Anyway, that's my idea. I apologize that I'm bringing this up so late, and it may be that the Village in the previous game had such bad luck that I'm too worried about trying to balance things toward the village.

Those who read, please give me your comments. I would need some solid implementation ideas before I would do this and I don't feel it is ready for that yet, so if we don't iron out kinks this won't happen.

[Macalaure]

One last question:

Is it a wolf win if
-the total number of wolves equals the number of villagers
-the number of wolves of one team equals the number of villagers
-the number of wolves of one team equals the number of villagers + number of wolves on the other team.

Am I making this too complicated?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

One last question:

Is it a wolf win if
-the total number of wolves equals the number of villagers
-the number of wolves of one team equals the number of villagers
-the number of wolves of one team equals the number of villagers + number of wolves on the other team.

Am I making this too complicated?

Hmm...my original plan was total number of wolves equals the number of villagers. I hadn't even considered making the victory condition be the number of wolves on one team equaling the number of villagers. That would definitely ease the problem I've been wrestling with in the concept that in all my little simulations of the game it is pretty short, which makes it hard on the village. It would also greatly reduce (although not eliminate) the possibility of a tie, which I think is optimal.

I must ponder this, but I may well make this change. Anybody else's input on this decision is welcome.

other than that there needed to be a bit more knowledge available to the dead

I fear I am adding more kinks rather than working them out.

From my perspective, I think with NIGHTly role reveals and (trusted) Seer dreams the dead will have enough information to be going on with. I was concerned that the dead might end up with too much information which is why the Seer can only dream once a NIGHT in the Dead Thread as opposed to the Living Thread when the Seer can dream twice. I thought that was one of the benefits of a quicker game was it kept the pressure up on the dead to use interactions and deductions rather than just relying on reveals because there wouldn't be enough time.

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Knock, knock.

Boro and Sally mentioned I should look in.



Edit: This is a signup, if that wasn't clear.

[Rikae]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this concept developed and experiencing it from the perspective of a player, Kuruharan! After the first game, I was hoping someone would eventually revisit it and work out the kinks. (Unfortunately I can't quite remember what those were, other than that there needed to be a bit more knowledge available to the dead).

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Oh, Kuru, I still remember when Oddwen mercilessly ripped you apart to win Tol-in-Gaurhoth III. Good times.

I love the premise; missed it the first time round. One question: you say the active players aren't allowed to look in the Dead Thread (or Deid Threid, as we Scots might say). Is that simply a matter of trust, or is there some (obvious) thing I'm missing which prevents dastardly wolverous treachery? Ah! Such villainous lycanthropy! I can't take it anymore: STRING THEM UP!

++NILPAURION FELAGUND

I look at it this way: if we trust those players who live together not to discuss the game (more difficult than it sounds!) surely we can trust players not to read a forbidden thread as well.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Rikae

I look at it this way: if we trust those players who live together not to discuss the game (more difficult than it sounds!) surely we can trust players not to read a forbidden thread as well.

That's true. And this community can certainly trust each other to play the game in the right spirit. There is a psychological difference, though, because if you discuss the game when you're not supposed to then you know that someone else knows about your reprehensible act - even though they are themselves also guilty. This way, however, the crime would remain a total secret.

Did you guys play a game together since? We never did. One of us (not saying which) would have been totally unable to keep secrets like werewolf roles.

[Mithalwen]

While I think everyone acted honourably last time I wonder if the Social Group facility would work to ensure the secrecy of the tomb... not sure exactly how it works but someone more techy than me might

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

While I think everyone acted honourably last time I wonder if the Social Group facility would work to ensure the secrecy of the tomb... not sure exactly how it works but someone more techy than me might

Hmmm...that is definitely an interesting idea that should be investigated, it might have a variety of useful applications.

However, for this game I think I'm going to give it a miss. I'm not sure how accessible the information would be for after the game and I want people to be able to read both threads after the game is over.

[Rikae]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

That's true. And this community can certainly trust each other to play the game in the right spirit. There is a psychological difference, though, because if you discuss the game when you're not supposed to then you know that someone else knows about your reprehensible act - even though they are themselves also guilty. This way, however, the crime would remain a total secret.

Did you guys play a game together since? We never did. One of us (not saying which) would have been totally unable to keep secrets like werewolf roles.

We've played a couple more games together, and these days we're strict about not discussing games at all, but it's still a challenge to keep everything secret from someone who's sitting right across the room.

[Kuruharan]

After pondering it over, I have decided to adopt Mac's suggestion of having a Baddie victory being defined by size of the victorious pack rather than as both packs together.

The rules have been updated to reflect this.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I'm already near the end of DAY 3 for the old Mandos game.

Wow, that was crazy.

EDIT: Also, I've been used as a verb about two years after my last game. I feel so proud.

[Kuruharan]

A friendly reminder that sign-ups are still open so there is still time to find people to play.

I will be closing sign-ups a week from today as I will need a little time to do role selection and notification. NIGHT 1 will begin 10 PM US Eastern on May 31. There will be no NIGHT kills that NIGHT, just Seer dreams and Wolf plotting. DAY 1, with all its attendant fun, will begin 10 PM US Eastern on June 1.