Spooks, Day 1-7.

[Don't Panic]

Thanks for the game JA and thanks for the tips.

I genuinely hope they improve towns game.

Just a minor thing: in the lolcats game there was a vanilla townie who did bemoan the lack of PMing, and I took that as a scum tell (durro... yes I know I was obsessed )

Well, yes, my major point is that scum tells get buried in town playing badly, you're right.

I like the zany play, even if it makes things harder for town

I want to bring a few players here to show you guys what I'm talking about. I want to take you to somewhere else to play, if you're up for it

I'm game, if it's TR I'm already a member.

[oblivion]

oh man. I'll have to out my secret identity.

[J.A.Poisson]

me too

[Uselesstwit]

What are you two talking about?

[J.A.Poisson]

We both play at talkrational.org under different names

[higgs2]

I think I'll keep mine.

[oblivion]

Thanks for a great game J.A.

I was getting used to the GM trying to mess with our minds from the Rat-Skep games(and the paranoia game here), interesting to watch us do it to ourselves.

This is really key. GMs that mess around with what makes the mechanics of mafia work get a lot of grief for it usually. Mafia at it's bare essence is players assessing and testing other players and gathering clues from the resulting posts. It's a large and uninformed town team against a small and informed scum team. And the clue the informed team needs to bury is the very fact that they have information that town does not have.

GM clues, whether helpful or confusing are NOT mafia. They can be a lot of fun, but they are based on a different dynamic - maybe a treasure hunt would be a better descriptive.

[virphen]

This is really key. GMs that mess around with what makes the mechanics of mafia work get a lot of grief for it usually. Mafia at it's bare essence is players assessing and testing other players and gathering clues from the resulting posts. It's a large and uninformed town team against a small and informed scum team. And the clue the informed team needs to bury is the very fact that they have information that town does not have.

GM clues, whether helpful or confusing are NOT mafia. They can be a lot of fun, but they are based on a different dynamic - maybe a treasure hunt would be a better descriptive.

This reminds me of something that's both True and Scottish...

Different flavours of the game offer different challenges... as someone who has never been scum on a forum game, I do find I enjoy the PM enabled version more because I can plot and scheme and deceive in a way that having everything out on the thread won't allow. I don't think it's any less mafia for that... it just enables more strategies and ploys and devices.

What has happened with the Ratskep games in particular, is that there are a group of people who like playing the game without taking things particularly seriously, that like the banter associated with it and have in many cases become very good friends because it opens up different channels of communicating. I notice that the only person in the group who seem to regard themselves as the mafia experts who even tried the other style just fucked off without ever even submitting a single action. Rudeness that certainly wasn't reflected in how people tried to play this game.

And some of the comments here are very patronising - this game may have been balanced towards town, but also happened that many of the town players could barely participate in the day rounds, which made it a hell of a lot easier for the mafia. And that included some of the stronger players (in whose number I don't count myself). I imagine it's very difficult for a seer who has maybe a half hour window, if that, to post each day can make a strong impact on the game, yet she has to be assessed here as if she was devoting every spare minute to the game. It's similarly difficult for players who are maybe only online for the first couple of hours of the day round and not on at the end to have much impact on the bandwagons that build up. It's extremely difficult to make any positive play to smoke out a scum when you're not going to be around to respond to things.

[oblivion]

This is really key. GMs that mess around with what makes the mechanics of mafia work get a lot of grief for it usually. Mafia at it's bare essence is players assessing and testing other players and gathering clues from the resulting posts. It's a large and uninformed town team against a small and informed scum team. And the clue the informed team needs to bury is the very fact that they have information that town does not have.

GM clues, whether helpful or confusing are NOT mafia. They can be a lot of fun, but they are based on a different dynamic - maybe a treasure hunt would be a better descriptive.

This reminds me of something that's both True and Scottish...

Different flavours of the game offer different challenges... as someone who has never been scum on a forum game, I do find I enjoy the PM enabled version more because I can plot and scheme and deceive in a way that having everything out on the thread won't allow. I don't think it's any less mafia for that... it just enables more strategies and ploys and devices.

What has happened with the Ratskep games in particular, is that there are a group of people who like playing the game without taking things particularly seriously, that like the banter associated with it and have in many cases become very good friends because it opens up different channels of communicating. I notice that the only person in the group who seem to regard themselves as the mafia experts who even tried the other style just fucked off without ever even submitting a single action. Rudeness that certainly wasn't reflected in how people tried to play this game.

And some of the comments here are very patronising - this game may have been balanced towards town, but also happened that many of the town players could barely participate in the day rounds, which made it a hell of a lot easier for the mafia. And that included some of the stronger players (in whose number I don't count myself). I imagine it's very difficult for a seer who has maybe a half hour window, if that, to post each day can make a strong impact on the game, yet she has to be assessed here as if she was devoting every spare minute to the game. It's similarly difficult for players who are maybe only online for the first couple of hours of the day round and not on at the end to have much impact on the bandwagons that build up. It's extremely difficult to make any positive play to smoke out a scum when you're not going to be around to respond to things.

Yeah, the time zone thing is a killer and it needs addressing given the time zones involved. I once suggested running the gamedays for 18 hours or 24 hours with a shorter nighttime turnaround. 16 hour days seemed to work ok in the lolcats game. The alternative I guess is 12-14 hour days with a GM team rather than a single GM. That adds a lot of documentation to the process unless you're already obsessive about spreadsheets as a GM. I've never team-GMed, though I have had mentors shadow me. It's worth a thought.

[sifaka]

First of all, J.A. thank you for this game.

However, I have to say I'm in complete agreement with this.

Different flavours of the game offer different challenges... as someone who has never been scum on a forum game, I do find I enjoy the PM enabled version more because I can plot and scheme and deceive in a way that having everything out on the thread won't allow. I don't think it's any less mafia for that... it just enables more strategies and ploys and devices.

What has happened with the Ratskep games in particular, is that there are a group of people who like playing the game without taking things particularly seriously, that like the banter associated with it and have in many cases become very good friends because it opens up different channels of communicating. I notice that the only person in the group who seem to regard themselves as the mafia experts who even tried the other style just fucked off without ever even submitting a single action. Rudeness that certainly wasn't reflected in how people tried to play this game.

And some of the comments here are very patronising - this game may have been balanced towards town, but also happened that many of the town players could barely participate in the day rounds, which made it a hell of a lot easier for the mafia. And that included some of the stronger players (in whose number I don't count myself). I imagine it's very difficult for a seer who has maybe a half hour window, if that, to post each day can make a strong impact on the game, yet she has to be assessed here as if she was devoting every spare minute to the game. It's similarly difficult for players who are maybe only online for the first couple of hours of the day round and not on at the end to have much impact on the bandwagons that build up. It's extremely difficult to make any positive play to smoke out a scum when you're not going to be around to respond to things.

There's nothing wrong with taking the game seriously, but players have different styles, and that's what I enjoy in these games.
I thought the comments about Puppy's (hilarious) posts were harsh to say the least.

[virphen]

Yeah, the time zone thing is a killer and it needs addressing given the time zones involved. I once suggested running the gamedays for 18 hours or 24 hours with a shorter nighttime turnaround. 16 hour days seemed to work ok in the lolcats game. The alternative I guess is 12-14 hour days with a GM team rather than a single GM. That adds a lot of documentation to the process unless you're already obsessive about spreadsheets as a GM. I've never team-GMed, though I have had mentors shadow me. It's worth a thought.

Personally I think the answer is to at least allow posting (but not voting of course) at night. I found the schedule in your last game rather confusing, not helped by other players not following it and being themselves confused when the rounds were ending. Naturally there is a change in the dynamic, but I don't think it is a deal-breaker, just a different element in the balance of the game.

[oblivion]

Yeah, the time zone thing is a killer and it needs addressing given the time zones involved. I once suggested running the gamedays for 18 hours or 24 hours with a shorter nighttime turnaround. 16 hour days seemed to work ok in the lolcats game. The alternative I guess is 12-14 hour days with a GM team rather than a single GM. That adds a lot of documentation to the process unless you're already obsessive about spreadsheets as a GM. I've never team-GMed, though I have had mentors shadow me. It's worth a thought.

Personally I think the answer is to at least allow posting (but not voting of course) at night. I found the schedule in your last game rather confusing, not helped by other players not following it and being themselves confused when the rounds were ending. Naturally there is a change in the dynamic, but I don't think it is a deal-breaker, just a different element in the balance of the game.

allowing game-talk after nightfall turns the game into a quasi-PM game. I've never been able to design a well-balanced pm game for the environment where I mostly play.

eta but that's the benefit of different gms. the games vary quite a bit, even if the basic framework is similar.

[irretating]

Thanks for the game JA and thanks for the tips.

I genuinely hope they improve towns game.

Just a minor thing: in the lolcats game there was a vanilla townie who did bemoan the lack of PMing, and I took that as a scum tell (durro... yes I know I was obsessed )

Well, yes, my major point is that scum tells get buried in town playing badly, you're right.

I like the zany play, even if it makes things harder for town

I want to bring a few players here to show you guys what I'm talking about. I want to take you to somewhere else to play, if you're up for it

I'm game, if it's TR I'm already a member.

I'm game. Dunno what TR is or where the somewhere else is, so just let me know

[oblivion]

TR is talkrational.org

I'm thinking it might make more sense to bring a few players from TR over here to play, mentor or both.

[irretating]

TR is talkrational.org

I'm thinking it might make more sense to bring a few players from TR over here to play, mentor or both.

Okie dokes