Herowannabe

3 hours ago, Ashspren said:

I've decided to start the tournament off with 15 people – don't worry, everything will work out the same as it usually does. In fact, in this case, this works out really well... 

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To kick off Tournament 3, our first three competitors are the Hemalurgic Trio...

@Herowannabe, with Human the Koloss!

@Inklingspren, with TenSoon!

@Sorana, with Marsh!

LET TOURNAMENT 3 OF THE ROAST BATTLES... BEGIN!

Quick question/suggestion: With 15 players, I'm assuming 3 rounds with 4 contestants and 1 round with 3 contestants. Wouldn't it be better to save the grouping of 3 players until the last round? That way if you have any latecomers you can round it out to an even 4 players/round. Or are you planning 5 rounds of 3 players each?

Regardless, I suppose I better get started on my raps...

Doesn't Bridge 4 specifically get left over uniforms from the Cobalt Guard and then they just rip the Cobalt Guard patches off and apply their own bridge 4 patches? So a Cobalt blue would be a pretty safe bet. 

37 minutes ago, Kal-Eldin said:

@Herowannabe

if this is or isn’t going to happen could we at least get a confirmation one way or another?

Sorry it’s been a crazy busy week. It will happen just as soon as I can get to it. Or if you want, you can start populating the grid with pictures. Anybody can edit the spreadsheet. Just copy the “master sheet” sheet, rename it to “Game 8,” and start putting random pictures in each of the cells. 

12 hours ago, Firerust said:

Well, this would be my first rap battle as well. Might as well start with the best, I guess.

'Cause no gancho or naco can tangle with the likes of the one-and-only The Lopen.

Just do what I do and put it off until late in the evening and then hurry and write out a rap before bed, except that you want it to be really good so you keep working on it and tweaking it and adding things over the next several hours until before you know it it's 3am and you're brain is so fuzzy that you can't think clearly enough to rhyme any more and so you finally give up and hit the "submit" button. 

On second thought, don't do what I do... 

4 hours ago, Unlicensed Hemalurgist said:

Well that can't be right. Of course the final empire had flowering plants; where else is all their wine coming from? Characters from the Central Dominance, far away from vineyard-supporting regions may be personally unfamiliar with flowers, but the fact that grapes exist for wine means they must exist somewhere.

Unless Scadrial "wine" is actually more like Rosharan "wine," of course, but there's no reason to believe that's the case in-text.

There are a few inconsistencies, but basically, see the first two entries here: https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=Fruit

Scadrian fruits are not the same as our fruits, and what they call wine would not be what we call wine (in other words, their wine is not made from grapes, but some other sort of fruit or plant). 

6 hours ago, Ashspren said:

Axelius, please let me know when you make a decision! Then, I will add you to the list. 

Not retired forever, I promise. Please note that this is a very rough outline and susceptible to change, but this is my current plan...

I want to keep the winning characters out for 5 tournaments. We will have 4 normal tournaments, then the fifth one will be a Tournament of Champions. The participants will be the four semifinalists from each tournament. If someone doesn't want to participate, I will call upon the second place winner from their primary round (I have been keeping track of both the first and second place winners). 

After that, the cycle will continue with another 5 tournaments. Characters who had been previously retired will be back up again. 

Hopefully, this thing lasts that long...

If I see that keeping the winning characters out is threatening the longevity of this thread, then I will change the rule.

Does this work with everyone? Please let me know so I can change it – I want this to be enjoyable for everyone! 

I like this plan, and I don’t think that it will be all that limiting. There are still dozens of other characters to choose from. I mean, we still haven’t covered half of the main and secondary characters. For example, IIRC nobody has done Wax yet, or Kaladin or any of the Kholins, most of Kelsier’s crew, or a lot of the lead female roles like Marasi, Sarene, Siri, Jasnah... (did someone do Vin? I feel like somebody did, but I can’t remember...)

The same goes for villains. I don’t think we’ve seen Dilaf, Zane or Straff Venture, Denth or his crew, and so on. 

So yeah, not being able to choose 1-4 specific characters isn’t really much of a limitation.

13 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

I lobed both games, and would love a chance to play again. I would also be willing to run such games.

Oh that reminds me, now that the spreadsheet is set up I am happy to put myself available to GM this again anytime in the future OR to assist anyone else who wants a turn as GM/Oracle. Or, if anyone feels comfortable running it on their own, then I’ll be happy to sign up as a player.  

12 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I did enjoy playing these games, even though I did not participate as much as I could have. For timing purposes, possibly 24 hours for the first round and second rounds and then 48 hours for the third?  I feel like a lot of the time in the early rounds was spent waiting for more information, but then we ended up needing all the time in the second play-through to arrive at an answer so maybe that's a bad suggestion.

Perhaps we should do something like set a default of 24 hour turns, but allow players to request a 24 hour extension to the current cycle if they wish. That way if there isn’t much to discuss then we can hurry on to the next cycle, or if there is a lot to discuss we can slow the turns down a bit. 

3 hours ago, Kidpen said:

I get to choose my character?!?! 

I have no idea what to choose.

We can choose one for you if you want... 

Does anyone remember the name of the beggar that’s there when Axies the Collector wakes up in the alleyway?

2 hours ago, Kidpen said:

You know I honestly can't tell if you tried to use asterisks or if you misspelled ruleset or something and it was a joke. Guessing the first though. 

Whoops! Yeah it was the asterisks thing. My bad! 

@Ashspren I’d like to sign up for round 3 as Human (the Koloss) please!  

1 hour ago, Archer said:

Shout-out to everyone who roasted (and allowed themselves to be roasted)! Not only did everyone create great submissions, but you all were super gracious and supporting. Self inflicted back-pats all around! @Herowannabe I'll admit I was a tiny bit disappointed that I didn't get to roast Stick, but the best pun I'd come up with was calling him 'short staff-ed', so maybe it's for the best. 

Ha ha!  

I had even started brainstorming a few lines when it looked like I might be facing Jak. Now that it’s over I might as well share them: 

Congrats @Archer! I confess that I’m not the least bit sad that we never faced each other directly.  

Thanks @Ashspren for running this and props to all the other contestants this time around. Allomancer Jak may have won but there wasn’t a single dull rap this tournament!

I stumbled across this one from Stormlight in the Magic Duels app: 

54 minutes ago, A stick said:

Picture sounds good

What happens if we get two pictures of the same person. I imagine theres a lot more Kaladin pictures than there are, say, Gavinor.

We’ll make sure the pictures are of different things/people. 

8 hours ago, Kidpen said:

Or we could do codenames pictures with random art from the gallery...

But sure, I'm in for next round.

Yes! Let's do it. Everyone up to try picture codenames for this round?

4 minutes ago, I am a STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! said:

I’ll be spy master

who won? My first time playing so does assasin override last red agent or what

Oh sorry, Red Team won! The past several rounds we have been playing the 8-ball variant, where you have to find all of your team's agents and then find the Assassin. 

One of these days we should try the Duet version of Codenames. It was designed for 2 players, but can still work with Teams. Basically, both teams have their own version of the key-card and have to get the other team to guess certain agents. Some of the agents overlap for both teams, some of them don't. And each team has 3 assassin tiles to avoid. The teams win or lose together. It's pretty fun. It would take some tweaking to make it work over the forum, and would probably require 1 person to moderate it, but we could make it work. 

Oh! I completely forgot to mention that the finale write-up was done by Paranoid King. If you liked it, please go give him upvotes, not me!

3 minutes ago, Snipexe said:

I’m also going to add one thing. I really liked running the two games in a row. I know it was an accident, but it really changed the feel of the game in a good way. I think with only 24 hour cycles, as paranoid said, we might be able to fit in two games in a row. Just a thought.

Yeah, it's the type of game where it takes a couple rounds to get a feel for it. Plus, with all the randomized tiles it adds a lot of replayability. For example, in 2 games we only saw 1 out of the 6 event tiles. Not to mention that we haven't even begun to tinker with custom roles or events or anything like we do with normal SE games.

1 minute ago, Paranoid King said:

A transcript was found  in the oracle's basement. It seems to have been written weeks before the kidnapping.

Thanks for posting that!

1 minute ago, Paranoid King said:

That was a good game. I thought the balance was perfect. In fact, if I were to change anything, I would be make days half as long so we could fit more games in the same timeslot.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I don't feel like we really need 48 hour turns- 24 hours should be plenty. And at 24 hours/cycle, the game would only take 5 days at the absolute max (1 day for the Assassin to pick their things, 1 day for each the 3 cycles, and 1 day for the Conspirator to try to find the Witness). I really am curious how the Moderators would feel about slotting this format into the schedule on a regular basis... @little wilson @Orlok Tsubodai @Alvron @Seonid: thoughts?

Alternatively, if the Moderators and Site Admins don't mind, we could even break it off and make it it's own thing over in the General or Cosmere Discussion forums, since it is technically a different game. But personally I would rather keep it here with the other SE games.

Claude Aradel is the last Red Agent, and Kandra is the Assassin!

Good Game everyone! This was a tricky board and I don't know about @Ashspren but I had a tough time making good connections between agents. 

So, who's in for the next round? And we'll need two volunteers for Spymaster, too.

@Scion of the Mists @A stick  @Jondesu @luckat @Rhapsody @recneps @Rebecca @Kidpen @Snipexe @Cadmium Compounder @I am a STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7 hours ago, Paranoid King said:

@Herowannabe! I am making an accusation! The witness was Metaterminal, and he unraveled the murder by using logic and charisma.

Epilogue - Meddling Squids

Inside the Oracle's house, room had been cleared for an occult circle. Candles had been lit around the outside, and the investigators were chanting ominously.

Sum no timere phasma
Sum no timere phasma
Sum no-

"ENOUGH ALREADY!"

The choir was interrupted by an ominous spectre, who had materialized in the middle of the summoning circle. He was carrying a sealed cage under one arm, and he wore a pair of ghostly spectacles. He gestured expansively around the room.

"Look at you all! I'm disgusted. This oracle has done nothing but lead you astray!"

A squid darted forward, blooping and gurgling at the ghost.

"Yeah, yeah, he got the murderer last time, but he killed me to do it! He's omniscient, isn't he? He could have easily avoided that! Can't the Oracle just tell us how to solve the case, or better yet, gotten out of our way and let us solve it? Hah, I was watching you stumble around looking for clues. You didn't even bother going to the crime scene! You relied on the Oracle's notes the whole time! And I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling squids."

The Oracle stepped forward, turning a page on the script.

"...Angry monologue, pause for emphasis. Ah, yes. Heroic declaration. Ahem"

"Begone, foul beast! You taint this air and all that. Yadda yadda."

John Smith screamed, letting loose several lightning bolts. One of them hit Felksi, who collapsed.

"You haven't heard the last of me! You will rue the day, Oracle!"

Game over! The Investigators have (narrowly) won!

7 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

and that’s game right there. Well played PK, Joe, and Itiah. 

And yes, in case it isn't clear, @Steeldancer was the Witness, @A Joe in the Bush and @I think I am here.. were both Co-Conspirators, and @Paranoid King was of course the Assassin. 

A few parting thoughts from the GM/Oracle:

For my hints, I chose "Accident" as the murder method over "poison" because I felt like "poison" would lead people in the wrong direction- towards actual poisons like Blackbane Leaf and Venomous Bite and etc. That decision kind of backfired on me though, as most people seemed to write off Deathants and focus on other possibilities instead- A big part of this was the Conspirators, who did a great job at subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) steering the focus away from PK. Fortunately (or Unfortunately, depending on which team you were on), Steeldancer was there as the Witness and was able to hone in on the right clues just in the nick of time. 

None of my starting tiles helped to give hints for Spectacles, so for Day 1 all of the hints were supposed to be pointing towards Deathants: Wilderness and Untidy Clothes are pretty straightforward. Despicable Personality and Necessity were both there because I was envisioning a Trapper using the Deathants to murder a rival. The Footprint was there because in the book stepping on a Deathant nest is what causes them to swarm out and start biting, but nobody was catching on to that connection, so on Day 2 I chose to replace that one with the Hint on Corpse: Head clue (for the Spectacles, obviously). 

I feel this was much better balanced than the first time. Changing the location tiles and giving everyone 5 methods/evidences felt like the right balance to me. I'm curious to think what everyone else thought- particularly the Conspirators. 

Thanks everyone for playing, and thanks to @Alvron for Moderating! I had fun, and I hope we'll be able to fit this format into the schedule in the future. Alvron mentioned in passing maybe slotting a quick Deception game in between LGs, but I'll leave that decision up to him and the other Moderators. 

Oh, and could one of the Conspirators please share the link to the Conspirator doc with the group? This time around I had @Alvron create the doc so that I wouldn't be able to peek at their plans and plots. Thanks.  @Paranoid King @I think I am here. @A Joe in the Bush

Okay red team, your next clue is: Governor Innate 2

@Scion of the Mists @A stick  @Jondesu @luckat @Rhapsody @recneps

14 minutes ago, I am a STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! said:

@Herowannabe

It's not my turn yet. The countdown timer in @Ashspren's post ended prematurely. The Blue team still has about 12 hours left. Or, if at least half of you pass your turn (by posting pass in bold) then I can take my next turn. 

@Rebecca

@Kidpen

@Snipexe

@Cadmium Compounder

@I am a STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

44 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

Ok I've gone through each scenario in my head that is left, and I have arrived at a possible thing. @Herowannabe, I am Making an accusation. 
I think it was PK using the deathants leaving behind the spectacles! 

Day 3.5 - A Specter's Spectacles

The Investigators were starting to get frantic. They had followed numerous leads- everything from lead poisoning to a lead bar, but each lead had each led to a dead end. They were about to throw in the towel when a small metallic squid flopped in the room and began gurgling and waving its tentacles frantically. Everyone looked at it, befuddled. 

"Does anyone speak squid?"

Bemused investigators glanced around at each other, but each shook their head. They had all opted to take the much more useful Cremlingish elective at university, except for one who had minored in Swinese. 

"Look, I think he wants us to follow him!" Someone said, and the investigators all watched as the squid squelched its way out the door, beckoning urgently with its tentacles. 

Several hours later- because squids don't move very fast on land- the shiny creature triumphantly threw open the door to an old abandoned shack, and the investigators flooded into the small one room building. There in the corner was Eban Naroreh, the Oracle, bound and gagged and barely breathing. His ancient, shriveled frame was further shriveled by nearly 3 days without food or water. They quickly untied him and dribbled some water into his mouth, and his eyes fluttered open. 

"Eban! Are you alright? Who did this to you!?" the investigators asked.

Congrats to @Steeldancer for correctly solving the crime! @Paranoid King, you and your accomplice(s) have one attempt to guess who the Witness is! If you can correctly identify the Witness you will get away with your crime and win the game. But you better hurry, the Investigators are working on a complex exorcism ritual. If you take longer than 24 hours, or if you guess incorrectly, the Investigators will banish your Ghost to the Spiritual Realm forever and you will lose! Good luck!

Well it took me nearly until the end of the cycle, but I finally got a short writeup edited in. Enjoy!

Just now, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

@Herowannabe, I accuse Droughtbringer using Rioting and leaving behind a False Beard.

No. 

1 minute ago, Kidpen said:

@Herowannabe I accuse Walin using a Fire and leaving behind a Skull.

I do indeed have an opinion.

No.