Quick Fix 64: Spies in Starsight

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

Just now, Haelbarde said:

@Szeth_Pancakes Thanks for the game. I actually had a lot of fun, and ended up more active and engaged than normal  It was an interesting problem to attempt to solve if nothing else, if it maybe didn't run quite as you intended, based on the tags?

yeah no

When signups are slowing down three-ish days before the game starts and it looks like I might just have twelve players for the game, I PM Araris: 

"Hi Araris! I’ve been thinking about distro: is 3 elims & 2 IC good for a 12-player game? Or should it be 2/2?"

Araris replies: "3 elims would be standard for a 12-player QF."

Me: "So it shouldn’t be different because of the wincon?"

Araris: "I think the current win condition is possibly harder than the standard one, so no."

So I'm blaming Araris for the distro being messed up. I'm obviously infallible.

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Oh yeah— @Szeth_Pancakes did you say there was a distro with me/Fifth/Aman as evil, or something close to that? Why on earth didn’t you do that one?  That would have been awesome

It was actually you/Fifth/Aman/TUN. I don't think that would have gone well for the village, though who knows? The entire elim team outplayed all of you this time, and that included two newbies and one sort-of-newbie.

[Mat he/him]

4 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

It was actually you/Fifth/Aman/TUN. I don't think that would have gone well for the village, though who knows? The entire elim team outplayed all of you this time, and that included two newbies and one sort-of-newbie.

I mean, I almost think the village would have had a better shot since they’d have had connections to analyze to begin with, but we’ll never know. Which is quite a pity  

Edited December 24, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Haelbarde he/him]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I mean, I almost think the village would have had a better shot since they’d have had connections to analyze to begin with, but we’ll never know. Which is quite a pity  

Having people to analyse would have been preferable. Not that I relish the thought of going up against you all at the same time.  Depends on how kind you were with night kills, as far as keeping the talky people alive.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

8 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

It was actually you/Fifth/Aman/TUN. I don't think that would have gone well for the village, though who knows? The entire elim team outplayed all of you this time, and that included two newbies and one sort-of-newbie.

Nah this distro is cursed because this team would self-destruct almost immediately  and given how much Mat and Aman and I cage-shuffle-squatted this game…like, imagine beginning of C3 but we’re all evil. Would have been harder to swing  

totally would’ve had a blast though 

[Mat he/him]

13 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

Depends on how kind you were with night kills, as far as keeping the talky people alive.

After three cycles you/Kas/Stick would be dead and we’d just get to fake discussion for the rest of the game  Devo’d go next so that’d already be 2/3 ICs.

In all seriousness, idk what we’d do. Power moves like that always look like good ideas but are just plain scary to be in the middle of when only some of the talkative people are dying.

13 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Nah this distro is cursed because this team would self-destruct almost immediately  and given how much Mat and Aman and I cage-shuffle-squatted this game…like, imagine beginning of C3 but we’re all evil. Would have been harder to swing  

totally would’ve had a blast though 

As if we’d have had that as all-evil  I’d just have been casually paranoid on you guys instead of aggressively so. But yes, lots of fun, regardless of if we’d have crashed and burned.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

Spoiler

I don't actually care except that it's over.

@Amanuensis, @Haelbarde - Sorry dozed off while waiting for Hael to get back on the games, but in my defence, it was maybe 8 or 9AM and I hadn't slept yet.

ggwp Elims

56 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

As funny as it is that the analysis powerhouse of me/Stick/Kas/Aman/Fifth/Devo/Hael did utterly nothing, it is hard to do analysis when virtually only villagers post >> Though that isn’t entirely fair when we all just read Bookwyrm village  Massive props to your C3/4; whenever it was when you posted most and were ever so pure.

Aman, soooooo glad I rethought you and landed on the right read. Stick, am also glad Kas convinced me to stop tinfoiling you.

I think even though we really just were ran around in circles by ourselves, looking back on those last few cycles during those hours where it was just villagers trying to solve, no elims messing with it like we were so worried about it, after I’d gotten over most of my paranoia… I had fun. It was fun trying to work it out, and failing  So thanks, guys. And thanks Szeth for running the game!

Though, Szeth, I might want to have some words about making there be more elims than ICs :P. Though I already know you’re aware of that maybe being a problem.

But yeah when all was said and done the elims just won so GGs  

This more or less sums up my thoughts, where they differ I'm just too tired to edit them

I had fun but the last two cycles were brutal. I think I was mentioning in one of my DMs that I had strong QF62 vibes because it felt like we were just rethinking what was supposed to be commonsensical, obvious clears.

Edited to add:

Quote

Tbh I am re-reading and maybe talking myself into V!you, V!Mat, V!Devo, V!Fifth, V!Hael (very weakly), V!Bookwyrm (maaaaybe), but I also have a massive Mat question mark right now and potential ??? about Aman so something is wrong because if I am correct, where the hell do I go from here?

Clearly I should've listened to C2 Kas, even though C2 Kas V!read Hael off the assumption Hael was Winzik, and was replying to Stick, so V!read Stick.

Edited to add 2:

@Szeth_Pancakes - Btw, your dead doc isn't locked. Not sure about your other docs, but you should check before people accidentally edit it.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Kasimir

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

18 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I don't actually care except that it's over.

@Amanuensis, @Haelbarde - Sorry dozed off while waiting for Hael to get back on the games, but in my defence, it was maybe 8 or 9AM and I hadn't slept yet.

ggwp Elims

This more or less sums up my thoughts, where they differ I'm just too tired to edit them

I had fun but the last two cycles were brutal. I think I was mentioning in one of my DMs that I had strong QF62 vibes because it felt like we were just rethinking what was supposed to be commonsensical, obvious clears.

Edited to add:

Clearly I should've listened to C2 Kas, even though C2 Kas V!read Hael off the assumption Hael was Winzik, and was replying to Stick, so V!read Stick.

Edited to add 2:

@Szeth_Pancakes - Btw, your dead doc isn't locked. Not sure about your other docs, but you should check before people accidentally edit it.

Ah. I didn’t realize that was a thing you were supposed to do

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Ah. I didn’t realize that was a thing you were supposed to do

Now you do, thanks for GMing!

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I don't play QFs a lot, but 25% is standard, right? I'm not sure why past!me thought that killing the IC is harder than outnumbering when outnumbering enables auto-killing the IC though.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Araris Valerian said:

I don't play QFs a lot, but 25% is standard, right? I'm not sure why past!me thought that killing the IC is harder than outnumbering when outnumbering enables auto-killing the IC though.

Four based off square-root rule, four based off 1/4 rule yeah, reasonable at these numbers, but the fact that most of us (I agree) thought this game was Elim skewed because of the IC problem definitely contributed to low-balling.

As, I think, did the desire to just end the suffering.

[Mat he/him]

5 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I don't play QFs a lot, but 25% is standard, right? I'm not sure why past!me thought that killing the IC is harder than outnumbering when outnumbering enables auto-killing the IC though.

The elim numbers were fine, I just think the IC numbers could have been higher/equal. Though it might not have made any difference as the new IC could have just been one of the vanillas who was NKd.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

Just now, Kasimir said:

Four based off square-root rule, four based off 1/4 rule yeah, reasonable at these numbers, but the fact that most of us (I agree) thought this game was Elim skewed because of the IC problem definitely contributed to low-balling.

As, I think, did the desire to just end the suffering.

I think it probably should have been 4:4::e:ic. Or 4:5. The # of elims was fine, the village just needed a little more time to solve.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

I think it probably should have been 4:4::e:ic. Or 4:5. The # of elims was fine, the village just needed a little more time to solve.

Yeah, Elim numbers were fine - Elim skew issue is because at these IC numbers and the fundamental IC dynamic is one where if they try to say things, they're easier to find... Honestly this is one case I'd probably run simulations for volatility, ID my ideal number of cycles to victory for the Village and Elims and see where it goes.

6 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

The elim numbers were fine, I just think the IC numbers could have been higher/equal. Though it might not have made any difference as the new IC could have just been one of the vanillas who was NKd.

I was very, very terrified that our IC would just die to the filter.

[The Unknown Order he/him]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Edit2: @Ookla the Unknown I love the memes, btw  

Thanks. I also did some alliterations, but they weren't super impressive. (Whizk Wiz Away, Strike Stiff Stick Strictly Swiftly, and Dynamically Delete Devo) I didn't include my other meme, which I sent in response to my GMPM.

1 hour ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

So I'm blaming Araris for the distro being messed up. I'm obviously infallible.

It was actually you/Fifth/Aman/TUN. I don't think that would have gone well for the village, though who knows? The entire elim team outplayed all of you this time, and that included two newbies and one sort-of-newbie.

All GMs are infallible, it's always the players and the IMs fault.

This would have been awesome. Second only to a Kas/Fifth/Aman/TUN team, maybe if it was a bigger team a Kas/Fifth/Aman/Hael/TUN team, but I think the village would need a few coinshots and many thugs to make up for that team.

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

The elim numbers were fine, I just think the IC numbers could have been higher/equal. Though it might not have made any difference as the new IC could have just been one of the vanillas who was NKd.

I think equal is best, higher is too risky when it gets to the end game I think. But I would have rathered a six person IC if they were required to talk, that sucked.

Kinda want to know your thought processes @Devotary of Spontaneity, @_Stick_, @JNV, not that I disagree, just would like to know if there was any extra reasoning behind there.

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Yeah, Elim numbers were fine - Elim skew issue is because at these IC numbers and the fundamental IC dynamic is one where if they try to say things, they're easier to find... Honestly this is one case I'd probably run simulations for volatility, ID my ideal number of cycles to victory for the Village and Elims and see where it goes.

Hence my suggestion that we should only give the elims 50 random words from the IC doc every cycle.

[Haelbarde he/him]

7 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

I think it probably should have been 4:4::e:ic. Or 4:5. The # of elims was fine, the village just needed a little more time to solve.

They may have been more dangerous if active I suppose, but then equally more vulnerable. I think an extra IC would have been valuable, though I think you'd still need some change to the spying to avoid having a silent IC doc.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Ookla the Unknown said:

This would have been awesome. Second only to a Kas/Fifth/Aman/TUN team, maybe if it was a bigger team a Kas/Fifth/Aman/Hael/TUN team, but I think the village would need a few coinshots and many thugs to make up for that team.

No thank you...

1 minute ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Hence my suggestion that we should only give the elims 50 random words from the IC doc every cycle.

I am almost considering that one possibility is doing it like QF6's espionage agent where they get black text from a random player in the IC doc, c/ped at rollover. You'd have to cleanse it in a separate GM doc first, but this way gives them more of a challenge and means they can't rely on timestamp info. I am not actually sure they shouldn't be able to rely on timestamp info, FWIW - but just thinking aloud.

I think the fundamental problem just is that if you are the Village wincon, then this powerfully skews your incentives towards "not posting substantively in the doc even if it is a confirmed Village space."

[Stick. she/her]

4 elims against 3 IC ;-; Even if they didn’t kill me today, our failure was guaranteed off that exe. No, our failure was guaranteed off that NK, we suffered for nothing </3

Devo I never expected you to be varvax, amazing disguise xD

I immediately guessed JNV as Dione though I think the elims killed JNV for potentially being varvax? 

I thought me never using my winzik vote along with the knowledge of the inactive IC doc would get the elims to kill Almond/Insanity/TUN but uh. lol. 

[The Unknown Order he/him]

Szeth, I think the best way to preserve the main mechanics of the game and force at least semi game relevant discussion would be to have the vote manip be voted upon in doc with the elims receiving the identities of the players that don't vote. Alternatively you could have a reveal a random IC member to a selected by vote player, having some risk/reward with the villagers/elims.

29 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

No thank you...

I think I would enjoy being an elim with you almost as much as you hate being an elim.

Edit: Kas, there was time before I added the future distro thingies when I seriously considered killing you, so my kill meta almost peeked out. And my oddball Mat kill is neatly explained by it being Bookwyrm’s fault. I can also blame the Xino over kill on both Bookwyrm and Insanity for not telling me how risky and stupid it was.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Ookla the Unknown

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Unknown said:

Szeth, I think the best way to preserve the main mechanics of the game and force at least semi game relevant discussion would be to have the vote manip be voted upon in doc with the elims receiving the identities of the players that don't vote.

The problem with that is Winzik didn’t actually end up using the vote manip at all this game.

[The Unknown Order he/him]

15 minutes ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

The problem with that is Winzik didn’t actually end up using the vote manip at all this game.

That's the point of the elims receiving the names of the non-voters. Vote and maybe die, or not vote and definitely die. Their choice.

Edit: You also forgot to lock the spreadsheet.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Ookla the Unknown

[Stick. she/her]

46 minutes ago, Ookla the Unknown said:

Kinda want to know your thought processes @Devotary of Spontaneity, @_Stick_, @JNV, not that I disagree, just would like to know if there was any extra reasoning behind there.

I do think the elim team in this game is essentially just village with extra steps and a kill, which means the game is naturally skewed in favour of the elims just from design - the elims also get to spy on the village IC doc and know who the other members of the elim team are. All the elims need to do is figure out the IC identities and avoid getting exe’d. Whereas an IC member has to avoid getting exe’d, figure out who all the other IC members are, ensure they don’t get exe’d, figure out who all the elims are, all while having a compromised doc and no PMs. The IC/elim ratio should’ve at least been 1:1, but the two factions having the exact same wincon with unequal advantages means the IC team should’ve ideally been slightly larger imo.

[Archer he/him]

I think the fundamental issue is that you have a discussion of who to kill in thread and a similar discussion in the IC doc of who to kill. The redundancy pushes you exclusively towards the thread. It's a better use of your brainpower to push for the exe of people you suspect and convince fellow voters through public dialogue to join you. Repeating the discussion in the doc has enough risk associated with it that it's untenable. 

So I think a rerun should give the IC a different mandate that encourages discussions that aren't primarily about who to exe. Maybe something like they name pairs and if the pair is e/v, the villager is advantaged in some way. Ignoring the risk of that easily outing elims, at least that discussion only narrows down who you suspect to two people instead of one, so there's room to discuss suspicions in a less directly identifiable way. You might even push including Mat in the pair as the villager when really you think he's the elim. 

By the way, it's worth noting that this game incentivized very specific kill choices, which reduced the elims' ability to gun for an alternative objective through their NKing, such as thread control or conf villager murdering. In a rerun, that might have been more disastrous for them, so I respect treating it as a difficult wincon. 

Good game, everyone, but especially Devo for their IC personna.

Also, Aman, you gave me an adrenaline rush when I saw I got voted on. :D. 

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

Ah, so I suppose you want the game in sports commentator now.

Since I lost every single bet I was a part of...again

GG elims, I only suspected TUN because of dead doc info, otherwise I probably wouldn't have.

My strategy going into that game was to draw a kill and it worked! It also came at a good time because this sickness has been draining my energy so I wouldn't have been able to help with much more than my vote.

Ed1t: It was very much a fun game and thank you @Szeth_Pancakes for running it and @Araris Valerian for IMing it!

Edited December 24, 2022 by The Wandering Wizard

[Amanuensis he/him]

Wow. Honestly what a game. Def going to look back on this one fondly

I want to say excellent work to @NerdyAarakocra @Ookla the Unknown @The Bookwyrm @InfiniteInsanity and @ExoticAlmond

All of you did great jobs convincing me you were village, while some of you did it while also thoroughly stomping the village into the dust! Well done!

Nerdy, sorry again for not standing by my v!read for you earlier. Honestly I blame the Xino NK for that. Holy crud what.

Literally ever player active at C2 EoD was village than, eh? Who woulda thunk it!

This is the first game I'm happy to have lost so absolutely.

Also Archer glad you enjoyed being a recipient of one of my patented Aman Is Going Insane And Doesn't Know What Else To Do But Troll Vote

ED1T:

Oh and @Szeth_Pancakes tyvm for making this happen. Please do consider Wiznik being able to add one player into the IC for a rerun

ED2T:

Also ty @Haelbarde for continuing to gather and present data until the very end. It really was a case that whenever you were around and in thread I v!read you, then when you disappeared and everyone else was talking, I ended up v!reading them and dropping you back down haha. Stick also did great at proving themselves imo. Really was just the confidence in at least 1 of us being evil that messed us up.

That and Xino replicating his e!meta

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Amanuensis