The schedule

I don't even know...I find it all very confusing without an OOC space to sort things out. There are multiple threads that take happen in different virtual spaces, and people in the same thread are in different areas talking to different people. I'm not sure how the townspeople can have an effective, timely conversation.

That was my concern from before the game began, and it is still my concern.

1.) We normally start with a 2-day schedule, and I think people are conditioned to that
2.) What Wystro said (no OOC)
3.) What Wystro said (multiple threads/stories taking place in different places; too much information to process quickly)
4.) What Wystro said (we haven't really figured out how to accuse people yet, or discuss clues, but Mai, Mike, and Blackrabbit seem to be in the process of working out a decent system)
5.) Some other shit I haven't thought of yet, but trust me, it's a valid reason

I have a problem with the turn in time as well. I work nights on EST which puts me either voting REALLY early and therefore not making an informed decision or missing the vote time completely. The store closes at 9pm and we tend to get out about 30 minutes after that. I have tonight and tomorrow off but the weekend is all problematic.

If there were two days instead of one then at least I'd have time to think over the hit and the answers and can post early with a little more confidence that I made an informed decision (yeah right)

Yeah, I think initially 2 days might be the way to go. Also it's my fault for forgetting to send out emails and spam =x

We are definitly working on figuring out how to RP accusations and such. My frustrations are more with meta knowledge... Basically we need to suspend belief in timelines b/c the issue I have is this... How foes my character make observations about the kill when he obviously wasn't present? I have several things to say but without Alex actually having been there I don't know how to work them into conversation. I have been trying but so far I think it's been too subtle.

At the same time I like not having an OOC area because if we add one in it's just like any other Mafia game.

I'm turtle shy about the spam, hope it's not too much of a bother for you, Roz, or for anyone else to get...

We could talk about extending the voting time until 10pm EST but I'm concerned that will not give the mafia enough time to SKID. Also I hear Vulash is a huge pansy about needing enough sleep and when he doesn't get enough he just falls asleep randomly when he's in the middle of doing things. It's probably really embarrassing for him. But yeah, we'll kick around ideas.

Some ideas for the thread issue:
We could label threads RP only if they're just for playing around, like the scavenger hunt thread.
People who want to have separate conversations can start their own threads, branching off the main kill-response thread.

At this point I think (and tell me if I'm wrong) we still want to continue with the RP experiment. I'd really like to see what we can do with it.

We could always do what we've done on SA and that is to do our posty post in character bit in the main part of the post and then at the bottom post clarification or reasoning if you think those things might not be clear to everyone reading.. OR you could post an OOC at the bottom saying your character believes one thing (say because they were there and they didn't see anything, like Alex) but the player believes something entirely different. That might give us a little bit of both worlds.

I think the one day is something I pushed for initially, but after seeing it play out a couple of days I think maybe the every other day would be better. Obviously, if we had a SK this would happen anyway. We can't really push the time's back later because Veri and I are both on the east coast and we need time to edit scenes, or write them if the appropriate party isn't able to get us one

Thanks for the feedback!

Obviously, there are some kinks to work out with the system. I'm hesitant to get too far into yet for fear of breaking the game down. I'd really like to have a full out discussion afterwards, but int he mean time Veri and I will talk about patching what we can so you guys can still enjoy this game. Definitely keep the feedback coming though!

I'm joining the 2-day bandwagon...I'm a lemming at heart.

As far as feedback goes, I think it's really difficult to have action take place over such a large area. The last game had an authority figure to wrangle people and keep the flow of action organized. Perhaps there's a way to get everyone together so that they talk about what's going on.

In-the-moment RP is pretty difficult because of time zone differences. If there were an OOC thread where players can chat, it may give us an organizational counterweight to the secret forum that the Mafia surely have. Unless the Mafia are forced to RP in their forum, it puts the townies at a distinct disadvantage.

My suggestion is to have an RP thread where everyone makes at least one compulsory post and also an OOC thread that is unlimited. That way we get the benefit of OOC without people ducking out of RP. As it is, it looks like people are ducking out of RP already and using alternate channels. I must admit that I am communicating and feeling out players more in PM than in the RP.

You're basically describing a typical mafia game with a mandatory RP component. I'm not against that, but I think this format can work with some changes. Lets keep playing this out - I think you guys are actually doing some cool stuff in character. In the mean time I'll start brain-storming these problems and see if I can come up with short term fixes to keep this game exciting and fun, and also try to think of more long term fixes for future games. Keep posting issues you see in the mean time, and after the game we'll have a huge discussion and brainstorming section to see if we can improve the overall format while maintaining the seperation from a typical TAC-style mafia game.

Definitely. That's the whole point. We can't give up halfway through because it got challenging. If it's too challenging, we change things, like the schedule. We are here to work out how to play this type of game, so there's going to be some difficulty. I think we all knew that when we signed up.


This was my main concern back when we first discussed this type of game. With the Alexander case, it could be assumed that everybody was there, either in the tunnel with the killers, or up top with the crowd. This should be formally addressed, and a solution worked out, eg: everybody is present at, or a witness to, every kill.

Another problem I have, which I discussed with Verileah briefly, is that there's currently no way to maintain the integrity of the storyline. There are two ways the integrity can be compromised. Here's two *COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL* examples:


EXAMPLE ONE (blatant)

Wystro is Mafia. Pharren gets killed. Wystro writes a roleplay scenario placing him in the bathroom at the time of the murder. People are going to automatically, unconsciously, assume that this is true. Why shouldn't they? The roleplayed world is assumed to be "real"; that is the whole point. We are creating the world. If Wystro lies in his roleplay, and then people roleplay their reactions based on the assumption that he was roleplaying with honesty, then everything that stems from those interactions is nullified when we find out two days later that Wystro was Mafia all along. Then, the people who roleplayed with him are immediately suspect, everyone gets an extra dose of paranoia, people begin to question what the purpose of roleplaying is in the first place, everyone goes home unhappy.


EXAMPLE TWO (subtle)

Wystro is Mafia. Pharren gets killed. Wystro writes a roleplay scenario wherein he is panicky and wondering why someone would do such a thing, etc etc. Again, people will unconsciously accept this as truth - even if they realize that he could be lying, underneath it all is the base position of "innocent until proven guilty"... that's just how the human brain works; we are programmed to believe anecdotal evidence over hard facts - and then when its revealed that he was Mafia all along, he can say "tee hee, my character is a paranoid schizophrenic with dissociative identity disorder". End result: the same dissatisfaction seen above.


I like to think that most of us would stay away from example one, unless it was accidental. But example two is far more ambiguous, and I'm sure some people see it as part of the game, like lying in OOC discussion. In my opinion, its wrong. As I said, we are creating the world. We shouldn't base the world we are creating on lies, or there's really no point. If Wystro wanted to have his character tell the other characters that he wasn't there, that's one thing. The characters can lie, and obviously, have to. But the players themselves should not be able to write false roleplay stuff. That's in the same category as editing your OOC posts after people reply in order to frame them *cough*, or an even closer (but still not perfect) analogy, copying and pasting from the kill scene into an OOC discussion, but altering the content and hoping nobody will notice.

I considered that all too Pharren... Great points.

And mods, FYI I at least am enjoying myself greatly. Testing a new format is a challenge but lots of fun so far!

True enough points. I'd hope everyone was writing their characters truthfully in some fashion but I know that this is a mafia game and somebody around here is killing some people. Personally I have been assuming that all roleplay has potential lies just like old ooc comments would have.

I agree that the timeline and explaining where you were for the mafia hits and the lynches have their problems. Not everyone's character would want to see anyone die, much less vote to lynch them but the players sure as hell want to see some executions.

I is sleepy, brain not functioning at 100% but I am enjoying the game and am glad that the roleplay that we have often tried to encourage in a mafia game is getting to be done.

I'm oddly relieved that no one is apparently bored shitless. I was worried :X.

We're kicking things around, but I did want to say that I'm really pleased with the way the game is picking up and people are starting to get into the swing of things. I think more games like this, with some tweaking, are certainly possible.

This format is a lot of fun Veri. Definitely RP intensive so it might not work every time. I'm brainstorming different ways to circumvent the /ooc issues now. So far Mai's idea of adding an /ooc to clarify is working well, and I've continued to hint at things I want to discuss in my own RP. I'd hate to have an /ooc thread in this format because it totally defeats the purpose.