Long Game 54: Cognitive Diversions

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Ouch.

[Snipexe he/him]

Wow, that was one of the most entertaining spec docs ever. And 300 pages! Wow Steel, you guys were really talking a lot.

[Steeldancer he/him]

There, I think that's enough distance from the top to give people plenty of room to stumble into my traps. 
First, before I roast the village in this game, Essences. What was the secret? What was the answer?
Well it was actually kind of simple. The best essence items were made by sticking 5 of a single type of essence together. They made extremely powerful items that aren't just consumed by using them once. Here they are:
5x Wind= Winds of Swiftness, which grants an additional 2 actions each cycle. 
5x Smoke= Smoke of Obstruction, which can be used once a cycle on an action of any player to prevent the results of that action from being observable in any way. Including the writeup. 
5x Fire= Funeral Pyre, which grants, once a cycle, an unblockable kill. It will eat through any protection or block except additional permanent lives. 
5x Crystal= Crystal of Truth, which grants, once a cycle, an unblockable alignment scan. It will see through any lightweaving. 
5x Plant= Seeds of light, which grant the ability to once per cycle, target a player. All players who have been targeted with this ability previously give the holder of Seeds of Light .5 stormlight at the end of the night turn. 
5x Water= River of Theft. Once per cycle, you can target a player and steal all of their items and essences. 
5x Oil= Fish Oil grants the holder the ability to submit an action for a single player, once per cycle. They choose a single player that they will use this with, and the submitted actions will only work if they match with the type of spren they are. 
5x Metal= Aluminum. Aluminum can be used to shield oneself from all stormlight actions, or prevent another player from using any stormlight actions for a cycle. 
5x Stone= Gemstone. You may increase your total stormlight holding abilities by one. 
5x Flesh= New Body. Grants a new, permanent life. 
I see some other people have posted, so I'll dump this and let people chew on this and work on my other things in a bit. 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Steeldancer

[Snipexe he/him]

1 minute ago, Steeldancer said:

There, I think that's enough distance from the top to give people plenty of room to stumble into my traps. 
First, before I roast the village in this game, Essences. What was the secret? What was the answer?
Well it was actually kind of simple. The best essence items were made by sticking 5 of a single type of essence together. They made extremely powerful items. Here they are:
5x Wind= Winds of Swiftness, which grants an additional 2 actions each cycle. 
5x Smoke= Smoke of Obstruction, which can be used once a turn on an action of any player to prevent the results of that action from being observable in any way. Including the writeup. 
5x Fire= Funeral Pyre, which grants, once a cycle, an unblockable kill. It will eat through any protection or block except additional permanent lives. 
5x Crystal= Crystal of Truth, which grants, once a cycle, an unblockable alignment scan. It will see through any lightweaving. 
5x Plant= Seeds of light, which grant the ability to once per cycle, target a player. All players who have been targeted with this ability previously give the holder of Seeds of Light .5 stormlight at the end of the night turn. 
5x Water= River of Theft. Once per cycle, you can target a player and steal all of their items and essences. 
5x Oil= Fish Oil grants the holder the ability to submit an action for a single player, once per cycle. They choose a single player that they will use this with, and the submitted actions will only work if they match with the type of spren they are. 
5x Metal= Aluminum. Aluminum can be used to shield oneself from all stormlight actions, or prevent another player from using any stormlight actions for a cycle. 
5x Stone= Gemstone. You may increase your total stormlight holding abilities by one. 
5x Flesh= New Body. Grants a new, permanent life. 
I see some other people have posted, so I'll dump this and let people chew on this and work on my other things in a bit. 

All I want to know is what the Homunculus would have done.

Everything aside, this was a really fun game, thanks Steel and Mail. Though I didn't help out much on the actual playing side of things, (I may have gotten a bit distracted with the previously said homunculus) the essence stuff was awesome, and a really cool mechanic.

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Roast away.

[Furamirionind]

9 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

5x Smoke= Smoke of Obstruction, which can be used once a cycle on an action of any player to prevent the results of that action from being observable in any way. Including the writeup.

Wait wait wait! If I submitted a Division (3-stormlight) kill, and someone used this on me, would there be no announcement of that player's death in the write-up or player list?!?!?!

[Alvron he/him]

4 minutes ago, Snipexe said:

All I want to know is what the Homunculus would have done.

Nothing.  You were never going to be able to Awaken it.

36 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

P.S. I’d use my typical Odious gold, but that’s a mod color, so this Storm blue will have to do in thread. 

Proof that the Mods are the truly Odious ones.  

[Steeldancer he/him]

Ok, first, before anybody jumps down my throat, here are the actual document links 
dead doc
elim doc
Master Spreadsheet
And now, the roasting. 
GAH YOU GUYS. GAHHHHHHHHHHHH
You failed on just about every count. You guys focused on essences WAY too much. Most of the essence items just replicated abilities other spren had, it was way more efficient to focus on the abilities you had and use them rather than messing around with essence items. Speaking of which, I have no idea what a homunculus would have done. I didn't really want to allow the creation of that at all. 
Anyway, some of the most important village abilities- that being the truthwatcher scan and the stormfather bonding mechanic- were used little or not at all. I largely balance the game around spren abilities, but then no one actually used them until cycle 3 or so. Meanwhile Lumgol happily dodged the lynch every single day, and EVERYONE CLAIMED IN PMs.
Seriously. Guys. This was a conversion game. You all knew perfectly well that there was a decent chance the Fifth was either already converted, or would be converted soon. And yet to a man, almost everyone claimed their true role to Fifth. And then when you killed Fifth, he passed the rest of role claims to the person who had already been converted, and had already collected a couple key role claims from willing villagers. In other words, you narrowed down exactly who was the Stormfather, and failed to practice PM safety at all. 
So, in the future, may this be a lesson to you: if you're in a conversion game, don't freaking claim. Not unless you want to be converted. It made it very simple for Lumgol to convert Fura and Xinoehp, who allowed the elims to pull off what they did at the end there. Converting the two roles I only stuck one of in the game because they were more powerful, because everyone claimed, is kind of a problem. 
And not only that. On that last day, you had the opportunity to lynch an elim. they were before you. And yet, not enough villagers bothered to show up and vote. And so the elims had an extremely easy time of hammering, with hardly even any effort. Like HONESTLY. I get being fooled, but at least storming vote. 
sigh look in the end I'm kind of frustrated because I spent a lot of time working on these surge mechanics. A lot. I kind of made up the essences on the fly. And yet no one even tried the surge I was most looking forward to, Lightweaving. I really wanted to see what totally new surge mechanics would do to a game. But I think the essences just overshadowed it too much, and that makes me a bit frustrated.
That being said, I did still have fun running this game. It was nuts, frustrating, and also supremely entertaining. I didn't really care about the lynches, but it was just pure gold watching Lum avoid lynch after lynch. That wasn't mechanics, that was just you guys failing to take Fifth's advice and lynch Lumgol already. 
And as much as I feel the eliminator win was due to some really dumb decisions on the village part, I have to give it up for the eliminators. Lumgol, Devotary, and Fura were shining stars. They did a great job. Levitaph and Xinoehp were around too, and played some important parts as well, but weren't as active due to IRL stuff I believe. Lumgol made excellent decisions in her conversions, and Devotary did a fantastic job of fooling basically everyone. A lesser team would have stumbled over the opportunities the village gave them, but this team took every opportunity to utterly crush the village. Lol. I'm proud of you guys for being active and really participating. 
Now, on that topic, @Levitaph and @Dr. Dapper. You guys are both new to SE, but I'll be honest, you guys played fantastic first games. I really hope we get to see more of you in the future. 
I need to post this before my mother turns off the wifi, I'll discuss rules and whatnot in a later post. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

12 minutes ago, Furamirionind said:

Wait wait wait! If I submitted a Division (3-stormlight) kill, and someone used this on me, would there be no announcement of that player's death in the write-up or player list?!?!?!

there would be an announcement of their death. 
But their alignment and role would not be revealed.  

Edited May 4, 2019 by Steeldancer

[Furamirionind]

2 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Not unless you want to be converted. It made it very simple for Lumgol to convert Fura and Xinoehp,

Umm... No comment? (What? I don't have enough experience being evil...) EDIT: Just to clarify, I was seriously trying as a villager. I was just deep down hoping I would get converted.

2 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

And yet, not enough villagers bothered to show up and vote. And so the elims had an extremely easy time of hammering

Not true! If Joe and Rath had moved their votes to hammer Devotary, she and Joe would have been tied.  I was super paranoid about that as I kept seeing them check up on the thread with nothing to say. We had inactive elims too.

2 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

but it was just pure gold watching Lum avoid lynch after lynch. That wasn't mechanics, that was just you guys failing to take Fifth's advice and lynch Lumgol already.

I mean, I did try really hard to lynch Lum D4. But no one listened to me... *whistles casually*

Edited May 4, 2019 by Furamirionind
Clarification on first response.

[Rathmaskal he/him]

3 minutes ago, Furamirionind said:

Not true! If Joe and Rath had moved their votes to hammer Devotary, she and Joe would have been tied.  I was super paranoid about that as I kept seeing them check up on the thread with nothing to say. We had inactive elims too.

I actually stopped watching the thread just before the two of you switched and then came back after the turn was over :/

[Steeldancer he/him]

Ok, rules. There were some issues with the rules, and in a rerun, what would I fix? 
First thing I would fix is the whole making system. I would throw it out, and just place in the various items, and cut the most powerful items entirely. Just items that replicate other abilities, and magnify a few abilities. The surges and spren abilities would need to be tweaked to accommodate this. But that was the single greatest problem with this game. 
Second thing I would change would be the percentages for the bonding chances. I would lower it severely so the stormfather's ability actually matters, or I would do the following idea. 
My further idea was to expand the bonding mechanic to require continued activity. Essentially, you start off unbonded. By being active, you get the chance to be bonded. By being active in the same way again, you can then advance to second oath. Then to third oath. All the way to fifth oath. This would probably be on a turn by turn basis, and there would be more activity requirements. The first bonding would grant you the first surge, the 1 stormlight ability. The second oath would grant you the second surge, the 1 stormlight ability. The third oath would grant the first surge, the 3 stormlight ability. The 4th oath would grant the 2nd surge, the 3 stormlight ability. The 5th oath would allow for you to use a 5 stormlight ability on either surge, where it would do... something. I'm thinking something more open ended. Not sure. But you'd have to be extremely active, and a bit lucky, in order to get that open ended ability. The stormfather's lives would then also be able to advance an already bonded spren up a bond level. It would be a cool way to continue to encourage activity. 
I would also get rid of the suicide thing. It was fine in this game, but... at the same time... I feel it removes some responsibility from Sja-Anat. Lumgol pointed out Sja-Anat is basically the only one without abilities, and so is kind of useless after using up all their lives. I feel like that should be altered? Some sort of ability that can be unlocked when Sja-Anat reaches a single life, like the Stormfather unlocks his stormlight filling ability. Not sure what it would be, though. 
I also feel like I should have been more consistent with what the items did. Having the items just have abilities similar to existing abilities in the game would just make things a lot easier. 
I think... I think that's more or less everything I wanted to say. If I remember something, I'll post about it. 
Other than that, I appreciate everyone signing up for this game. I also appreciate Joe picking up the game with basically no warning on my part. I really hope this gets rerun in some form, and please, future GMs, listen to this rule advice. And make sure you have a good spreadsheet that you know how to use. I kept breaking mine as soon as Mailliw wasn't helping lol.
I will be running one more game before I leave SE for 2 years. It will be a Skyward game, featuring one of my favorite things: a serial killer. Maybe. Or maybe not. (but you know I'll stick it in anyway so yeah). It'll be an MR that'll probably run after this QF... hopefully... I've gotta finish up those rules. So, I'll see you then. 

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Yeah, if a spreadsheet formula doesn’t work for you, don’t use it... I experimented a lot with the spreadsheet and it made some things more complicated for Steel, so sorry about that. But I’m also proud of a couple of things.  it made bonding easier, but Stormlight was complicated and messed up. 

[Furamirionind]

Just read the spreadsheet... Wow, that's cool. I see some automation in that!!!

I also want to apologize for killing Joe. We originally were going to kill someone else (Dapper I think) instead. But we didn't know Joe's role. We also thought the game would probably end that day turn by just winning the lynch.  As it would be easier to get an elim kill on someone (likely) without enough stormlight to protect themselves than someone who might have either a protect or a redirect, it's safer to kill the unknown.

[old man moomba he/him]

Sadly, I could have lived if I'd waited to Slick myself.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

1 hour ago, Furamirionind said:

Just read the spreadsheet... Wow, that's cool. I see some automation in that!!!

Thanks! That was the goal. 

32 minutes ago, Dr. Dapper said:

Sadly, I could have lived if I'd waited to Slick myself.

I think you just would’ve been killed that first time then. I could be off though. 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

While roleclaiming in a conversion game is an objectively terrible idea, and I would not have roleclaimed if I wasn't evil, Lum would have had a far greater chance of being lynched if Fifth and Cadcom had survived long enough to reveal the flaws of Lum's roleclaim. Preventing Sja-Anat from getting all her conversions off might have been worth letting the elims learn everyone's role.

We were so focused on Dapper and Joe's unknown roles, that we completely forgot that Snipexe had vote manipulation, and probably should have been attacked instead of Dapper D4. That could have turned very ugly if that had been used and Rath had roleblocked my vote manipulation D5.

25 minutes ago, Dr. Dapper said:

Sadly, I could have lived if I'd waited to Slick myself.

We attacked you two nights in a row, and you didn't have enough stormlight to protect yourself from both.

 

Now that this game is over, I can plug QF37, for which signups close in three hours.

[Furamirionind]

23 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Lum would have had a far greater chance of being lynched if Fifth and Cadcom had survived long enough to reveal the flaws of Lum's roleclaim. Preventing Sja-Anat from getting all her conversions off might have been worth letting the elims learn everyone's role.

Hmm, I think I had enough info to figure out Lum was Sja-Anat C2/3. Unfortunately, I completely forgot she claimed Stonespren to me in our PM...

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Principle requires that I object to the point being raised that roleclaiming is bad. But it’s bedtime so if you want to read my thoughts on it, look in the spec doc.  I definitely don’t think it’s objectively a bad idea. There are advantages to it. 

[Lumgol she/her]

This game was freaking awesome.

Man, it was so entertaining to see how long I could survive. This was my first real taste of being evil and it gave me a chance to see how different it is from being village.

As for claiming Stonespren, it was the best role I could claim. Not only was it difficult to prove, but I had a one-use item that could craft an essence item for half its cost. So I could actually "prove" it and get away with it. Obviously, between conversions and being burnt, I never got around to that.  

However:
I ABSOLUTELY could not have pulled it off without my teammates.

@Devotary of Spontaneity, you are brilliant. You see through so many possibilities and there were countless times when you've pointed out flaws in my arguments or details in my plans that I'd never thought about. It was wonderful working with you.

@Levitaph, I was incredibly proud of my decision to convert you. I'm impressed that you managed to guess both of the elims C2, and I just knew that despite being new, you'd be a strong addition to our team. I really hope you warmed up to Enlightenment and I'd love to see you around in more games.

@Furamirionind, I think I converted you just in time. If I had done that any later, you would have become a driving force for the village. You were incredibly fun to have around in the doc (you kept it very active )  and you had so many ideas and plans and I look up to you so much as a player.

@xinoehp512, I didn't really get a chance to interact with you as you were mostly inactive and I died once you joined the elim doc, but I do highly appreciate the activity that you did put in once you were converted. 

Thank you all so much. I couldn't have done it without you.

Also, congratulations to everyone who suspected me. You guys made the game so much more entertaining and fun as I was on edge all the time.

Thank you as well to @Steeldancer and @Mailliw73 for running the game. 

[Furamirionind]

Basically everything I did before C3 was a mistake... Burning Dapper, Claiming to Fifth, My PM with Fifth, sending my action to Fifth, Claiming to Lum, Claiming to Devotary... Probably other things...

31 minutes ago, Lumgol said:

@Furamirionind, I think I converted you just in time. If I had done that any later, you would have become a driving force for the village. You were incredibly fun to have around in the doc (you kept it very active )  and you had so many ideas and plans and I look up to you so much as a player.

Wow, thanks Lum. I'm speechless.

I should probably link this as it was intended to be my end of game notes.

Also I don't think I have mentioned yet, @TheMightyLopen, what I said to you about me ignoring Levitaph was completely true when I was a villager. I really shouldn't have ignored him, but I did.  Village!Fura likely would have said that in-thread rather than directly to you. But elim!Fura felt bad as that may be too meta a defense. Elim!Fura doesn't like meta defenses, just debates and arguements.
I hope to play again with you soon!

Also, I am really surprised my post at the end worked to siphon votes to Devotary. I tried to phrase it in a way that I would only convince a couple people to switch.  I kind of expected Joe or Rath to come after me hard because of it... But as neither did, Devotary had to make the post. xD

Edited May 4, 2019 by Furamirionind

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Well played Lum and converts! I was totally wrong about you Lum. The Day I was lynched I had it narrowed down to you or Levitaph, and I was like, 95% sure it was Levitaph.

Fura, you had me waffling on whether you were really a convert with that PM, but at that point it just made too much sense to me that you'd have been converted. However, if Lum had been lynched, I may have started to reconsider since you had gone after her quite a bit at that point.

All in all, I had a lot of fun trying to narrow down targets for Sja-Anat and who they might have converted(I was right about that at least), and even though I didn't create anything cool with them, I thought the Essences were interesting! I also got my item stolen and was lynched the Turn I got Bonded, so that was kinda sad...but it was a fun game! Thanks Steel and Maill for running it!

[DeTess she/her]

I don't have much to add that hasn't been said yet. The elim team did a pretty phenomenal job in this game, and I need to start listening to bad gut feelings when they arise, as maybe Lum would have been lynched D1 in that case. I doubt it though.

[Elandera she/her]

15 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

And yet no one even tried the surge I was most looking forward to, Lightweaving.

Hey, I wanted to! Devotary and Lum are to blame.

A huge congratulations to the elims. As begrudging as I am about it, your team played an excellent game. Lum, you make some great decisions. I'm impressed, but glad to see you succeed after being kill D1 on your first time as elim.

Thanks to Steel and Maill (The Storm?). This was a very entertaining game to watch. I loved the mechanics and do hope to see them in play in the future.

[+Ark1002]

16 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

But back in Celebrant, a single spren remained. The Stormfather had left already. He was Nightshade. He and his Stoneward looked over the city, and vowed retribution. The enlightened spren had caused this destruction. They had abducted the injured spren. And they would pay. They would have no home, not if he and his radiant had anything to say about it. 
Stormlight in hand, Stoneward and Stonespren found a single remaining boat, and headed for Cultivation's perpendicularity. 

Huh. Apparently I am gonna take revenge? Cool.

This was a really fun game for me, and the only one I've managed to be completely active since the anonymous one