Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

20 minutes ago, Kidpen said:

Random question. Why is it the norm to do an elim doc instead of PM?

A google doc just has a lot of nice features that makes collaboration easier:

• You can rapidly converse with your teammates in real time, if you both happen to be online.
• You can scroll through 100 pages of content and find something much faster than a PM allows.
• You can compile important information at the top/bottom of the doc:
  • Tables of contents
  • Charts and tables
  • Lists of questions for the GM

All of these features are quite useful, and commonly utilized in a doc.

Theoretically, you could create a game where the eliminator team is deliberately handicapped, and only gets a PM instead of a google doc. But generally, I'm pretty sure this is the reason GMs make google docs.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Hmm. From my understanding, docs are harder for other people on the Shard to track; you can see when someone is in PMs, while it’s impossible to tell when somebody’s browsing a doc. In addition, docs allow for more free-flow, nonlinear conversations, allow people in the doc to quickly find those conversations, and don’t limit the response time in the way that PMs do. They can also be edited offline in a pinch, making them another good tool for reaching out to others on the team. This also makes docs useful for other groups of payers that aren’t necessarily Elims, such as factions like the EBI in MR30. Finally, I’d suppose that custom has a lot to do with it—there’s a very longstanding history of docs in SE, and it’d be very hard to break from that after so long.  

[Steeldancer he/him]

I think docs are great. Great for rambling about how you're going to murder everyone in. And no one can see your rambling. It also allows for potential anonymity, in cases where games utilize that. Furthermore, it allows for more text options, like making tables and stuff, which are quite useful. 

[Alvron he/him]

As Drake and Fifth pointed out, Docs allow more free flow and open communication.  Some Docs span over 100 pages.  Get all that into a PM and you would quickly drown in page after page of banter.  There have been some games where the Elims had a PM instead of a Doc but those were Quick Fix ones.  There's even been a couple where there was no way for the Elims to communicate with each other.  /shudder

Plus it's nice to be able to plot and plan without having to be logged in.  Sneaky schemes for the win.

Docs also have the advantage of being opened to the players as a whole after a game has finished.  You can go into almost any game over the past four years and still be able to read the Docs.  PMs don't have that luxury.   

[wiritospren he/him]

So how do I actually Enter a SE game?

[phattemer]

There will be signups posted- the easiest way to get notified is to follow the subforum. Someone more in the loop than I could tell you when the next are expected. 

[DeTess she/her]

@wiritos, Herowannabe should have sign ups up in the next week or so (I think), but that's going to be a very non-standard game, even by our standards. I reckon signups for the next LG will be up in the next 2-3 weeks.

Edited August 20, 2018 by randuir

[CadCom he/him]

Wiritos, we can also makes sure that someone tags you so you get a notification when new signups come up. Then you can review the game rules and see if you are interested in playing. 

Like Rand said, this next game is supposedly very different from even what we are used to, so while you are welcome to join, know that most of us will probably also be confused, and may not be able to offer too much help. 

[Madagascar]

Hey guys. I haven't played for a bit, but I lurk sometimes. So I've just played a few games, but I first came here from the Cracked.com forum elimination game where Meta first got the idea for Sanderson elimination, I think. But something a bit unfortunate happened. So my forum (Meta's original forum) is shutting down and the game there is being deleted soon. So we kinda have nowhere to play!  We have our own Discord and are thinking about stuff like starting a new forum and whatnot, but we also just don't know if we really have enough players to keep going. Kinda need some new blood. We're trying one last game right now, but I'm really not sure what the future holds for us.

One thing my friend suggested was finding another site and joining their game. One thing I thought of while brainstorming was the possibility of us moving here. We have like 10 or so regulars who might be interested. I don't know if we'll do this-- we might move to a different site we found, try our own website, or just let Forum Elimination die one final death, but I thought I'd ask this group just in case, because we don't want to just invade en masse. I mean, we're killers, but we're not rude.

I think good things that could come from this are new players, plus our games are sort of technically related with Meta cross-pollinating and whatnot. Both groups seem to roleplay and enjoy crazy game rules. Things I am not sure would work is I don't really know how well our metagames really mesh (we are often pretty silly and jokey). Also the Brandon Sanderson setting is not very familiar to us, and don't know how you'd feel about a bunch of strangers migrating over and trying to kill each other. That said, we're kind of wandering the internet looking for a home right now, so I thought I'd ask!

Edited October 11, 2018 by Madagascar

[Alvron he/him]

@Madagascar, sorry to hear your forum is shutting down.  I've popped over a few times and the games I've watched were quite entertaining.  The main issue I would see is that this is a PG-13 site and Cracked is very much not.  But as long as they follow the rules, I see no reason why they couldn't jump in and play.  Even if it's only for a couple of games, it would give them an idea on if they think this could be a new home for them or if it's not quite their cup of poisoned tea.

Our Metagame is very fluid at moment so I can't see much of a problem incorporating them fairly easily should they choose to stick around.  10+ players invading all at once that all have history between them might cause a couple of issues at first but SE players are very welcoming and I'm sure we will be glad to greet them with a slit throat fruit basket.  After all, we were all strangers once.  They don't need to be Brandon Sanderson fans to join in, though it does help.  Besides, the games here might inspire them to pick up some of his books and convert them into a fulltime Sharder.

[Madagascar]

Ha ha, we would respect the PG-13 rating and rules and whatnot. We're not, like, uncontrollable R-rated monsters. All right, thanks. I'll see what happens.

[WaywardSon]

Are there open signups?

[Elandera she/her]

41 minutes ago, WaywardSon said:

Are there open signups?

Not at the moment, but there should be some in a few weeks. Two games just started, and that's the most we have running at one time. 

Also, welcome to SE! We hope you join us for a game soon.

[WaywardSon]

Thanks. I'll try and catch signups.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

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On another note - I've noticed a lot more games than usual be starved for players recently - I hate to say this, but I think it might be good if we decrease the frequency of games/number of games being played or signed up for simultaneously. I don't have any clear ideas out there, but I'm curious if everyone thinks that would help at all.

—Bard

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I personally think that might be a good idea. I wasn't here when there was a super tight schedule, but it seems a lot of players now are very busy, and most don't like to be in more than one game. It would also free up availability for GMs to be more able to join games, without wondering if they're going to have to start running a game in middle of one.

—Elandera

Quote

I also feel that a change might be due... I'm going to leave on a mission soon, and yeah, I'd like to play as many games as possible, but it seems everyone is just more busy these days. Whether it's college or work or just life in general, we don't have a large enough base of new players to sustain two games at a time. I have no idea if this would be a temporary change or a permanent change, but it might need to be considered. 
Mind you, I still want to run my Skyward MR before I leave on my mission. 

—Steel

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As much I love SE and am always excited to join a new game, I feel like having less overlap between games will ultimately be beneficial, as players who are already in the middle of a game will definitely be much more reluctant to join a new one.

—Lumgol

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Even though I used to be the player who played every game, I don't do it anymore and I'd agree with a change of some sort. 

—Maill

This discussion began in the GM PM, but in the interest of getting all SE players to chip in, and not just potential GMs, I’d appreciate general thoughts from anyone who wishes to have their say; any change made in the current system would affect everybody. If there’s an overall consensus in one direction or the other, however, policy could certainly be changed. I have a few thoughts myself, but don’t currently have time to express them, and will lay them out once I do. 

[DeTess she/her]

This (the low player count) seems to be true for the current LG and the currently running MR, but a quick look further back, I'm not really seeing a trend downwards (though it should be noted, I've only checked the LG's back more than 2 games). I'm not saying that that means we shouldn't do anything, just that the sky doesn't seem to be falling down yet. It's also important to remember that if we reduce the frequency of sign-ups significantly, it'll likely mean we get a reduced amount of new people coming in as well.

That having been said, it might pay to more closely link the double-cycle of games Right now the LG and MR/QF cycle are completely separate, and it might pay to try and arrange starts of signups in such a way that they are unlikely to occur at the same time (for example, new MR/QF starts being at around cycle 3 or 4 of the current ongoing LG).

For those interested, the player counts of the last year or so of LG's are in the spoiler.

Spoiler

start date	name	nr. Of players
07/04/2019	LG52	18
12/03/2019	LG53	25
05/01/2019	AG5	30
29/11/2018	LG51	19
16/10/2018	Lg50	22
29/08/2018	LG49	25
03/08/2018	LG48	19
01/07/2018	LG47	16
22/05/2018	LG46	27
26/04/2018	LG45	22
03/04/2018	LG44	26
08/03/2018	LG43	22
10/02/2018	LG42	19
06/01/2018	AG4	30

 

[Young Bard he/him]

Yeah, I have to admit, my evidence is entirely anecdotal - the last two MR's both had to extend signups in order to get enough players, and a lot of GM's have just seemed frustrated that they didn't have more players. I'll look at the MR numbers to see if there's a general downward trend in those games.

*=Delayed Signups (Just the ones I know of, I haven't rigorously checked every signups thread.)

28/3/19 - MR34 - 13*
1/2/19 - MR33 - 14*
6/12/18 - MR32 - 20
15/9/18 - MR31 - 21
9/7/18 - MR30/AN2 - 14? (restricted player count)
7/5/18 - MR29 - 20
16/3/18 - MR28 - 19
27/1/18 - MR27 - 17

OK - so the player count hasn't so much been decreasing as there was a precipitous drop recently - that may or may not be statistically significant. I know if I had a choice between an MR and an LG when signups are at the same time, other things being equal, I would be more likely to go for the LG. And as a general rule, LG's tend to have fancier shiny new mechanics more often than MR's do as well, which is also a draw, and may be why the LG numbers haven't declined as much.

And because I want to see if the drop in numbers is matched elsewhere, and to be a completionist, here's the QF numbers from the last year.

3/3/19 - QF36/AN5 - 16 (restriction of 16, but it was only barely met in the last hour of signups, so even though it's in the normal range for a QF, I'd still describe this as 'low' turnout)

8/1/19 - QF35 - 21
12/10/18 - QF34 - 17
22/8/18 - QF33 - 20
11/6/18 - QF32 - 15
15/4/18 - QF31 - 13 (Completely irrelevant, but wow, was that game really a year ago? It feels so much more recent than that.)
17/2/18 - QF30 - 17*
18/1/18 - QF29 - 16

So 'the drop' seems to apply to the QF's as well (though not as much), and possibly the LG's, depending how/where you draw the line. Since it is just the last 3 months or so, I'm willing to chalk it up to randomness for now and see if the trend continues.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

My promised thoughts:

First of all, it’s important to recognise that if we are indeed having trouble with declining player counts (which I don’t strictly believe is the case, as I’ll get to in a moment), we really have three groups we need to focus on: GMs, “regular and recurring” players, and newer players. Each of these groups ultimately have the greatest influence on activity and numbers, and any reform efforts will, I believe, have to go beyond a mere rescheduling of the games and instead incorporate ways for each of these groups to help recruit and engage players. 

To address each of these groups specifically: 

GMs

Obviously, GMs have little influence on how many people actually sign up for their games, but it’s important to look at recent games which drew a lot of people as examples of “what works,” as these games tended to have similar undercurrents. For some recent examples, LG53 had 25 players, AG5 had over 30 once you factor in pinch hitters, LG49 was similar in this regard with over 25, and LG46 had 27, 29 with pinch-hitters. LG44 had 26. For all of these, I think there were common factors: 

-A well-known GM, with prior records of entertaining games. An exception is perhaps Steel’s LG46, which was his first game, but Steel is still well-known enough to draw people (especially with the advertising he did ). 

-A storyline to the game; whether a new, creative or epic setting, or a rerun of a prior well-known setting, or both, these games all had a heavy focus on RP and players got the sense a story was being told with their characters. 

-The game mechanics were complex but easy to grasp, or fairly simple with a few neat twists. I’d put AG5 and LG49 into the former category, and LG44, 46 and 53 into the latter. In other words, everything in the rules had a purpose. No unnecessary complexity, or difficult-to-understand wording. This is more of a principle of good design, but it’s important to note that good design exists for a reason: to attract people.  So don’t disregard it. 

So my advice to GMs? Obviously, the first point is outside your control unless you want to start cultivating an image for yourself.  But the second and third are worth bringing up. Perhaps you’re not one for writeups. That’s fine. There are a myriad of willing co-GMs eager to do them for you, and as IM I’ll even do some if you want, though they’ll be short.  It’s important to remember that SE is an RP game, and we should arguably place more emphasis on it, as from historical precedent it does draw people in. Finally, when designing games, get someone to look them over quickly and informally. It doesn’t even need to be a mod or committee member to begin with; it’s easy to get someone to just check that they understood the rules on a basic level on the first read-through, and were interested in them. It takes maybe ten minutes, and can help you format rulesets to appeal to more players. Complexity isn’t bad here; confusing complexity is, and the more it’s avoided the more people you can draw. 

It’s worth mentioning that even these three things won’t necessarily draw a huge crowd. In my humble opinion, LG41 had all three of these positive aspects and got 17 people. As I mentioned before, you have only limited control over these things. So plan for smaller player counts. If your game doesn’t draw the people you thought you needed, it’s hopefully adaptable enough to work for the smaller numbers. If it isn’t, things might break; I know this firsthand, since all the problems in LG48 sprang from this mistake.  Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and continue to be the amazing people you are.  

Regular and recurring players 

You guys form the base of most of our games, and obviously therefore have the most influence on their numbers. My advice here is much shorter. 

First, don’t sacrifice your personal schedule to SE. Joining games when you know you for a fact you’ll go inactive or be disengaged doesn’t solve this issue; it worsens it. I’d rather see active LGs with 15 players than silent ones with 35. However, at the same time, if you know a specific time when you’ll be inactive and it isn’t too long, talk with the GM, or, depending on the convenience of such a measure, sign up as a pinch-hitter; that way, once you have time again, you can freely join. 

Second, give games, and GMs, the benefit of the doubt. Obviously, we all play these games to have fun, so don’t feel compelled to join any game that you have no interest in. But if a game sounds like it could be interesting, and you have the time, give it a spin! No offence to Steel or Bard, but the inherent ideas behind LG46 and MR33 didn’t particularly grab me at first, and I can say with confidence that now they’re among my favourite SE games I’ve played to date. Games might surprise you with their quality. So try them out if they seem interesting.  Might as well make the GM’s job a little harder too, while you’re at it...

Newer players

I believe it was Steel who mentioned that the influx of new players has become insufficient to offset the regular and recurring players who are dropping thanks to IRL stuff (Drought, Steel and Ecth are leaving on missions, and others have simply stopped signing up for games). While it’s true that we aren’t getting as many newer players recently, I’m not sure that it’s an issue that’s driving down game numbers, or even much of an issue at all. Ultimately, new players will only come and stay here if they a. know about these games and b. find them interesting enough, and the community excellent enough, to remain. While point b. seems fine for now, point a. could use work, and it’s a valid argument that we don’t proselytise enough. Of the three factors, however, this is likely the one that contributes to game size the least; new players eventually become part of the “regulars,” and then my second point starts applying more regardless. It’s true that more new players becoming regular would be wonderful, and introducing them with simpler, more roleplay-heavy games (again see point 1 for advice to GMs) may be a workable approach, but ultimately it’s the existing SE community which will have to take measures to address this, if we believe it’s a problem, and any steps taken to improve the quality of games for regulars will apply to newer players as well.

Other Factors: Time at which games begin, personal schedules, numbers not necessarily dropping? 

To conclude, as Rand mentioned, this “trend” isn’t necessarily a huge thing. It’s true that if you go back a little farther into the past, notably between AG3 and AG4, there were a lot more people in many games. Unfortunately for us now, many of those people have left SE, or gotten too busy to continue with it. We’ve already lost, and will continue to lose, longstanding community members this summer to missions. But despite historic departures, and current ones, SE will survive. Why? Because it’s not about any one player, or even a group of players. It’s about the community the games are built around, and if that remains intact, so will these games for a long time to come, regardless of who is playing, or how many. 

But to get refocused, declining player counts have also come with a decline (mostly) in chronic inactives and lurkers, people who perhaps drove up player counts but never contributed all that much to games. I’d argue that this is an indisputably positive development, and that greater honesty about availability has been one of the key triumphs of SE in the past year or so, minimising some of the longstanding issues with inactivity the community had in the past. Our current games typically don’t have 4-5 (or more) people that go completely silent every single game, and that’s amazing and something that should be encouraged. In a way, our current numbers could be seen as a correction of the perhaps inflated counts of a year or two ago. 

Speaking of schedules (and thank you Bard for that data), I’d argue again that the current drop, and many of the declines in signups for games can be traced to the time of year. While I don’t have the time or patience to comb through all the previous games around this time period, I’d attribute current low activity on the forum to the typical exam/finals craze of April and May that is gripping a perhaps slightly older student population than we had a year or two ago. If numbers remain low through June and July, I think that would be more broadly indicative of an issue, but for now I’d wait this out. Besides, I’m not sure that numbers in the low to mid teens for MRs and QFs is inherently bad. They’re meant to be quicker and slightly smaller games, so player size for both seems fairly healthy. I’d again pin blame for Steel’s LG on exam season, and perhaps the Mafia Tournament holding back prospective players. 

Actually Final Thoughts (TL;DR?)

-A slowdown of signups may be wise, and the mods will see what we can do to ensure that everyone’s getting to participate in the games they want to. There seems to be a consensus—ish—in that direction. 

-Numbers, historically speaking, aren’t terribly low.

-Popular games that attract players and support typically have understandable rules, and a good RP and setting. An increase in such games, and RP in general, may be welcome. 

-Don’t be afraid to try out games you’re ambivalent about if you have the time. 

-Thanks to everyone who’s participated in this conversation, as it’s ultimately you, the players, whose feedback is most important as to how we run our games.  

[Araris Valerian he/him]

@Fifth Scholar I think that is a great summary. Personally, if I'm going to be relatively busy IRL during some or all of a game (which recently has been almost always), the deciding factor for me to join is how complicated the ruleset is. I'll join pretty much any game with "standard" rules, with the basic mafia roles, some flavor, and maybe PMs. A separate google doc with rules was enough to scare me away from the spren LG. The rules could even be really complicated, but hidden, so that I as a player don't have to deal with an information overload at the start of the game.

One thought I just had about concerns about signup length and RP: Perhaps GMs could extend signups and encourage players to RP during that time. I know that some players use the signups as a time to introduce their character, but perhaps the GM could take a more direct role in creating one or more settings for this RP to occur. This could take the form of pre-game day/night cycles with writeups or something else. I don't usually do much RP, but when I have, it has greatly enhanced my SE experience, especially when the GM actively used my character in the writeups.

 

[xinoehp512 he/him]

9 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

One thought I just had about concerns about signup length and RP: Perhaps GMs could extend signups and encourage players to RP during that time. I know that some players use the signups as a time to introduce their character, but perhaps the GM could take a more direct role in creating one or more settings for this RP to occur. This could take the form of pre-game day/night cycles with writeups or something else. I don't usually do much RP, but when I have, it has greatly enhanced my SE experience, especially when the GM actively used my character in the writeups.

Let's do this! Having RP be more supported would definitely encourage me.

[A Joe in the Bush]

Why do we make a new thread for each new turn? Is there any benefits to it? It often breaks links that players post to previous posts in the thread once it gets merged.

[Furamirionind]

15 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Why do we make a new thread for each new turn? Is there any benefits to it? It often breaks links that players post to previous posts in the thread once it gets merged.

My concern with keeping the same thread throughout the game is:

 1. It doesnt look as good. - It is aesthetically pleasing to have the write up be the first post on a page

2. It allows for quickly and easily finding stuff that happened in the ongoing turn.

On MU they keep the same thread throughout the game, however, they also have a button at the bottom of the page that allows you to jump to the start or end of any day/night. While it doesnt look as good, it does allow easily finding info.

I think if we were to merge everything to one thread, that would work, but we should try adding a quicklinks section to every rollover then, as otherwise going through the thread will be pretty frustrating I think.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Furamirionind

[Steeldancer he/him]

15 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Why do we make a new thread for each new turn? Is there any benefits to it? It often breaks links that players post to previous posts in the thread once it gets merged.

 

[Furamirionind]

Sure, and that. : P

Personally though, I find it easier to use. Though perhaps that is just because it is the format I learned to play with.

[Elandera she/her]

Some GMs are pretty good about adding quick links to each new turn in the intro post of the main thread. If we could get all of them to do that, it would make things a lot easier. I agree with Joe. It would mechanically make things easier. Links wouldn't break, and we wouldn't have to keep going back to the main thread or have 50-ish windows open just to do analysis.

That might also mean creating banners for new turns to help them stand out a bit more as you're scrolling. Or at least large, bolded font with the turn and name.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Elandera