STEVEN UNIVERSE 2: HOMEWORLD COMMUNICATION HUB

[Varsoon]

Welcome, members of

The Threats to Earth

.
You may converse in this thread at any time.
Your members include:

Skybird
SirCakez
Reasonably Rational (Cerberus v666 + Drixx)
Shadow_Step
TheWayItEnds

[Varsoon]

THREATS TO EARTH

(SCUM):

Spoiler: SCUM FACTIONAL INFO AND EVENTS:

The Scum team is informed that they have a traitor with the flavor of 'Jasper'.
They do not know Jasper's player identity, and Jasper does not know their identities.
The Scum team have a number of Episode Events that they can trigger as a factional action.
Triggering a Scum-Factional Event does not count against a player's maximum number of actions submitted.
Submitting a kill does count as the player's submitted action for the Climax Phase, except when they are the final surviving player in the team.

SEARCH FOR JASPER:

Exposition Event. Activated during the Climax Phase.
Can be triggered after Episode 4, requires +2 Stress or higher.
Priority 1 Event.
Flavor is tied to the Episode, 'Hit the Diamond'.
The following information is private and only known to you:
Returns two pieces of information scanned from the wagon that ends in a lynch:
1. How many 'Gem' characters were on the lynch,
2. If Jasper was on the Lynch.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax phase:
Lowers Stress by 2, towards Slice of Life.

KEEPING IT TOGETHER:

Climax Event. Triggered during the Climax Phase.
Can be triggered after Episode 1, requires -1 Stress or lower.
Can not be triggered during a Season Finale.
Priority 1 Event.
Flavor is tied to the Episodes, 'Keeping it Together' and 'Nightmare Hospital'.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax phase:
All alliances fail to form.
Any players who would have retained an Alliance from the previous phase now instead take one less vote to lynch for the following Episode.
Adds +3 Stress, towards Tragic Destiny.

MESSAGE RECEIVED:

Climax Event. Triggered during the Climax Phase.
Can be triggered at any time, requires -1 Stress or lower.
Priority 1 Event.
Flavor is tied to 'It Could Have Been Great.'
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax Phase:
It becomes public knowledge that The Cluster may awaken and destroy Earth.
From this point onward, players may forego taking Climax actions to add a point to a cumulative, hidden score.
If both Players in an Alliance forego their Climax actions, they add 3 points to this score.
Players are told that if the score does not reach a high enough point by the upcoming Season Finale, there will be several deaths.
Adds +4 Stress, towards Tragic Destiny.

THE CLUSTER:

Climax Event. Triggered during the Exposition Phase.
Can be triggered only as a Season Finale Event, requires -3 Stress or lower, 'MESSAGE RECEIVED' must have been triggered.
Priority 1 Event.
Flavor is tied to the Episode, 'Gem Drill'.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax Phase:
If the players have culminated points equal to the total of non-scum members left alive, then this event fails.
In the case that this event fails, subtract -6 Stress, towards Slice of Life.
In the case that this even succeeds, the top two players in the pool of those who submitted points towards 'MESSAGE RECEIVED' will die.
In the case of a tie, break first to the most recent point-submitter, then to a Gem, then to the player with the least amount of text on their rolecard.
In the case that no player submitted any points, the scum team may choose who to kill.

REMOTE DETONATOR:

Can be triggered at any time.
No Stress Requirement. Requires that a player has flavor-claimed in the game thread.
Priority 0. Can be triggered at any time, does not invalidate other events.
Flavor is tied to the Episode 'Message Received'.
The following information is private and only known to you:
By submitting a quote of a player's claimed flavor name, you may instantly kill that player.
This Event will fail if targeting a player whose flavor has been mod-confirmed in the public game thread.
If the claimed flavor is incorrect, the player survives, but this event does not take place and is refunded.
If this kill fails for any reason otherwise, this event takes place and is not refunded.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax Phase:
Increases Stress by 1 towards Tragic Destiny.

RETURN TO EARTH:

Exposition Event. Triggered during the Climax Phase.
Requires -2 Stress or lower. Requires at least one scum member to have died, or 'Search for Jasper' to have been triggered.
Can only be triggered during a Season Finale.
Flavor is tied to the Episodes 'Back to the Moon' and 'Bubbled'.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the start of the Exposition Phase:
Only players in Alliances may vote or take actions.
If the Exposition ends on a scum lynch, the scum team gains an extra kill for the Climax phase.
If the Exposition ends on a town lynch, the entire scumteam is removed from the game and unable to take actions for the Climax phase.

[Varsoon]

As a note, your provided safe claims are safe in every way except for word count.
You should always claim the wordcount on your actual role PMs, as it will keep you from being caught in any sort of lie.
Wordcounts are used in some very specific cases in this game--as evidenced by some of your Factional Events.

The only other major difference between your actual roles and your fake-claims is if you are a Gem or a Human.
You should always claim what it on your fake-claim in this case. If you claim otherwise, you do so at your own risk.

[Varsoon]

You may chat here during the Confirmation and Prequel Phases.
Spectators have access to this PT and I will release it once the game is over.
The only PTs that are not spectated-and-released by default are Hydra PTs made for this game.

[Varsoon]

I can answer any questions that you might have.
Also, feel free to post your role PMs here--I do not by default because I want that to be a decision the player makes, rather than forcing players to have knowledge of all their allies' roles.
That said, if you do quote your role PM, make sure to post your role PM for this game. If you slip and post from a different game, I will have to modkill you. So don't slip. Please don't.

[Varsoon]

Pretty much.

[Varsoon]

I have a question into Varsoon about triggering this in Episode 1. I want to know if I automatically get an alliance with Steven. If so, that could be big knowing who Steven is.

@Mod, when you say Steven will become immune to "any action you submit" is that just me or the whole scum team?

Just your actions will have no effect.
You will decide to activate this event during the Prequel Phase--if so, it will happen during Episode 1.
You will have an Alliance with Steven in addition to any other Alliance you form.
The idea is that if you use this Event early, you can begin the game with knowledge of who Steven is and get a double vote, but
If you don't use it early, you can enable a double lynch.

[Varsoon]

The alliance that Skybird's role gains with Steven only lasts for the duration of the episode.
As long as Steven is alive, he will be immune to her actions.
Her double-vote is triggered specifically by either voting the same player twice in a single post or by specifying the vote as a double vote, for instance:
VOTE: Varsoon
VOTE: Varsoon

or

Double Vote: Varsoon

would be accepted.

[Varsoon]

But yes, the idea was that you could use the event to learn Steven's identity at the cost of giving him some immunity and using scum resources that could be spent otherwise.

[Varsoon]

Yes.
It should be noted that both Skybird and the Pearl account can't be the only voting players on a lynch.
Furthermore, all powers that affect votes do not work in LYLO. I marked this on many of the role PMs, but I may have missed a few. I'll make a public note of it.

[Varsoon]

No.

[Varsoon]

If you vote like this
VOTE: Varsoon
VOTE: Not Varsoon

You'd just end up with a single vote on Not Varsoon.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: Some clarification on the timing of events. If an event says it can only happen after Episode x, does this mean it can only be ACTIVATED after that point, or can it be activated before that point, if it would actually occur afterwards.

Example: Only occur after Episode one, climax activation, exposition event. Can this be triggered during Episode 1's climax so it will occur during Episode 2?

You can activate it beforehand--the Event can only take place afterwards.
So, in your example, if an Exposition Event specifies that it must be AFTER Episode 1;
You can trigger it during Episode 1's Climax, causing it to take place during Episode 2's Exposition.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: Can we activate remote detonator now? What syntax would you accept for an onion quote, given that he only speaks in gibberish

?

You can trigger things with no Episode Requirement/Episode 1 Requirements right now as if the Prequel Phase were a Climax Phase before Episode 1.
They won't take effect until Episode 1 begins.
I believe you misunderstand the remote detonator. You simply need to get a quote from the player in which they are publicly claiming their flavor.
So, for instance, let's say that I am playing the character Steven Universe.
I make the following posts:

I am Steven Universe. Come at me, bro.

and

I don't like Steven.

and

My role has something to do with getting even with a SainT.

and

I might be Steven, but who knows?! I could be... Connie.

Only the first and fourth quote would work for Remote Detonator. It must be clear that I am claiming my flavor. Flavor that is crumbed =/= Flavor that is claimed. You would submit one of these quotes in which I flavor claim and you would also submit who you think my flavor character is. Let's say that you submitted the fourth quote and guessed Connie--you'd be wrong, and I'd refund the shot and you could use the Event again to guess Steven.

That said, please do not abuse this power. If you start pressuring people to publicly claim they are every character in the show so that you can submit 50+ flavor submissions until you get it right, I will simply have this Event fail on every account of trying that and be much stricter on what accounts as a flavor claim.

I don't mind crumbs. People often miss crumbs, crumbs are often misleading, etc. If a player outright claims in an attempt to leverage their flavor as a gameplay advantage, I want you to be able to punish that with Remote Detonator.

I also just realized that your factional events are an older version. So, I'll be updating them. The major change that I can recall is that you can't Remote Detonator anyone who has publicly, mod-confirmed flavor.

[Varsoon]

I have updated your Factional Events--an older version was posted.
Please review the updated Events. The major change to many Events is that I have made it clearer which information will be public/private.

[Varsoon]

Sorry about that--I had thought that I updated this list of factionals but only had done so to the one in my review thread.
That said, the ability was always intended less to be a sick wombo-combo extra kill and instead as a means to punish players trying to explicitly flavor-game.

[Varsoon]

This is a different situation--you can still double down on resources here to discover Steven's identity (and even that of other roles) and remove him from the game, just not with the Remote Detonator Event.

Remote Detonator wasn't meant to encourage you to discover a player's flavor (in private) to get extra kills, nor was it meant to punish publicly revealed Flavor--it was designed as a method of giving scum an advantage should town decide to try to outright game the flavor. It was never nerfed; I simply made the mistake of not updating your factional abilities. The original version was an oversight; after designing the entirety of the game, I realized that it could too easily be used to punish mod-confirmed flavor, such as from the Events that the scum team has access to. I went back and changed it to its current iteration before the game was given a pass on review, but I mistakenly did not update this factional PT when I should have.

I apologize for this issue. Rather than finding frustration in the discrepancies between earlier builds of the game and the final game, please focus instead on winning with the tools that you have now. I can confirm that all of the information that you and all other players have is the final game's information and that this problem won't arise again within this game. I'm sorry that it did in the first place.

[Varsoon]

We're with OWK.

@Varsoon: Is SirCakez power going to ehnahce every member of that alliance he's in?

Yes, because it functions as an alliance and, therefore, alliance powers work as they normally would.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: will anyone who SirCakez allies be aware of the benefits of the alliance?

-Cerb

Alliance abilities that affect all members of an alliance are posted in the alliance OPs.
This is no different than previous iterations of the mechanic, where I made it clear that certain alliances had climax-chat, for instance.

[Varsoon]

Apologies--it's one of those distinctions that I took for granted. I figured that if a power said "All of your allies become bulletproof", it would be understood that they'd learn about it.
But yes, to confirm, alliance powers that affect/boost a whole alliance will always be public to the alliance so long as they are triggered simply by being a part of the alliance.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: how does a zero priority event interact with other events that change stress? For example, if we use message received, stress will go up to +2, which will allow the usage of all our personal events. If we trigger beachapalooza the same night, will it resolve or not?

-Cerb

You can only trigger an event if the requirements, including Stress, are at the right place.
Since Message Received wouldn't resolve until the end of the Climax phase, Stress wouldn't change by +4 until after that resolution.
Meaning you'd have to wait to submit Beachapalooza.

[Varsoon]

You're right--I should probably use the world 'resolved' instead of 'triggered' in most of the Episode requirements. :/

[Varsoon]

Ah, I think I was using 'Activated' as 'submitted' and 'Triggered' to mean 'resolved'.
Eeeeh, I think the best way to do explain it would be to break down a sample Event to make sure we are on the same page:

SEARCH FOR JASPER:
Exposition Event. Activated during the Climax Phase.

This means that you submit this event during a Climax Phase and its effects happen during the following Exposition.

Can be triggered after Episode 4, requires +2 Stress or higher.

This means that this Event can't be resolved until after Episode 4, but you could still submit it on Climax 4. It requires +2 or higher stress at the time of submission.

Priority 1 Event.

This means that it will take priority over any Event less than 1.

Flavor is tied to the Episode, 'Hit the Diamond'.

This reflects the sort of flavor I will write. Furthermore, all of the effects below happen once the Event resolves.

The following information is private and only known to you:
Returns two pieces of information scanned from the wagon that ends in a lynch:
1. How many 'Gem' characters were on the lynch,
2. If Jasper was on the Lynch.
The following information will be publicly posted in the game thread at the end of the Climax phase:
Lowers Stress by 2, towards Slice of Life.

[Varsoon]

Message Received doesn't have any effects until the end of the climax Phase.

[Varsoon]

Yes;
Town will begin having the option to skip action submission during the following Night/Climax.
The +4 Stress won't take effect until the Exposition phase begins.

[Varsoon]

I'd have them both happen simultaneously.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: if a role does not have any climax abilities to forgo, can it still contribute towards the point value needed to prevent the cluster, and if it can, will contributing have any negative effect on whatever passive powers said role is forgoing?

They must have an activated ability to forgo using.

[Varsoon]

Ally: Yume
Trigger: Beach-a-Palooza
Trigger: Message Received
Roleblock: Titus
Skybird: Shoots grapes

The roleblock and kill are likely to change, actually. :p

Thoughts?

This is the final submission I have.
You have up to the deadline to change these, but know full well that changing things at the last minute is pretty stressful for me and definitely means that I won't have the game ready to flip phases on time.
I give 24 hours more than most other mods and I still get 5-minute-before-deadline submissions. It's boggling.
Next time I'm doing 48 hours to submit, then like 12 hours for me to just process and ready the flip.

[Varsoon]

Welcome Shadow_Step to the game.

[Varsoon]

Absolutely--I'm planning on making my next game be a 12p or 13p game.
I like large themes and I think there are ways to keep Large Themes interesting for people.
I've experimented with it in my Space Dandy game with the split dimensions and in SU 1 and 2 with the Season Finale/Events.
Rhetorically, though, I do understand the idea of being slogged down by having 20+ players posting in a continuous thread.
I am hoping the Allying mechanic still keeps enough individual interest.
I will very likely not be designing any games with more than 21 players any time soon (several years, if ever) just because it gets far too unwieldy.
I think that the 12 to 21 range is great for the kinds of games I want to make.
I also just made some grilled cheese.
It was delicious.

[Varsoon]

Last I checked, only a single player was confirmed as town in the main game thread.
Unless you count dead people.

[Varsoon]

Well, y'know I can't talk about any of that until post-game.
Carry on as you will.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: are we

required

to vote?

The Event simply reads that players 'may submit any target player to star in the 'Beach-a-Palooza' event.'
This means that no one is required to vote.

Furthermore, I would appreciate it if everyone would send their actions in via PM more regularly.
I don't mind taking action submissions via the thread here, but when a single player calls all the shots, even the allying shots, and those conflict with what players may have submitted privately, it causes a conflict of interests on my end.

[Varsoon]

The way I resolve it is that I take the actions in real time, so if someone comes after and submits something different, I'll accept that instead.
That said, I'd really prefer if each individual player confirmed their own actions, but it is what it is. Do what works for you guys.

[Varsoon]

The requirement is that "a player has flavor-claimed in the game thread."
The main game thread, that is.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: can you please confirm the points for the beach-a-palooza are correct. I feel like you only gave mastin one point for Yume's vote, rather than two, even though the two are technically "allied" with one another. :p don't confirm or deny anything, just please confirm the numbers are accurate...cuz it's sorta making it so the numbers DON'T add up when there's no reason why they shouldn't.

-Cerb

No backsies
It is what it is
I stand by it

[Varsoon]

I actually made a typo/mistake--the stress goes up by 1 right when the Even resolves, which is immediate.
For some reason, I didn't edit it down and just used the same copy/pasted "Revealed at end of Climax" despite that making NO SENSE for this event.
Sorry about that.
Stress is now +2 as it should be.

[Varsoon]

Got it.

[Varsoon]

That might be the best traitor role I've ever seen and it was so bungled I am astonished.

Typical Varsoon
designing roles too good for this world

[Varsoon]

If your allied partner is killed or lynched, you will still retain the benefits of being in an Alliance for the remainder of the Episode.
That said, if the source of the effect is dead, it is gone.
Does that make sense?
Varsoon becomes bulletproof when in an Alliance.
Cheetory6 makes all members of his Alliance ascetic.
Varsoon and Cheetory6 become Allies on Episode 4.
Cheetory6 is lynched on Exposition 4.
Varsoon still counts as being in an Alliance, and is therefore bulletproof due to his own role, however,
Since Cheetory6 is dead, Varsoon is no longer ascetic.

[Varsoon]

The wording on it is, like others, misleading/incorrect.
The idea is that it can not take effect during a Season Finale, IE: you can't stop people from having their Season Finale Alliances.

[Varsoon]

Once again, apologies for the poor formatting on your factional Events. :/

[Varsoon]

Did you read my post?
There is a chance that farside blocks you at night. We can't afford no kill nights.

Shadow kills Farside
Shadow allies with Mastin
RR allies with Random

This is the night action I went with.

[Varsoon]

I ask that you strive towards victory and keep judgments about the balance of the game withheld until it is over and all of the roles and mechanics revealed.

Similarly, I can not defend the balance decisions that I made without spoiling the setup--I can only ask that you trust that this game is as winnable as any other, and, if you seem to be in dire straits, that you see it as a reflection of the outcome of every player's play rather than a flaw in the setup.

[Varsoon]

<3

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: Does the peace and love event still prevent our events tonight?

You simply cant have any events resolve tonight is all.

[Varsoon]

@Varsoon: Should the living players list be updated due to the event which has removed the gems from the game?

It's more of a commute--they're just temporarily removed. Furthermore, half of the point is that the Event just qualifies that this happens to the 'Crystal Gems' but doesn't out which players they are.

[Varsoon]

I'm trying not to use shorthand like 'bulletproof' or 'commute' in my games.

[Varsoon]

It's all good--the previous actions weren't bolded or sent in via PM, so I was unsure if you had any night actions planned, actually.

[Varsoon]

<3
My prayers go out to you, man.
As always, feel free to let me know stuff ahead of time as far as the game is concerned. I don't mind doing what I can to help out.

[Varsoon]

That's absolutely fine.
I would only qualify 'playing against your wincon' as knowingly hammering yourself, outting yourself as scum, etc.

[Varsoon]

And, honestly, knowingly hammering yourself is fine in most situations, but as the last scum alive, it would be strictly against wincon.

[Varsoon]

1. The Event that removed the Gems from play would also render them as non-legal targets for alliances.

2. It's only in LYLO that the +4 loved mechanic deactivates. I know I've been pretty flippant with Lylo/Mylo stuff, but since that one's a global rule and I wrote it only as LYLO, it stays that way.

<3
Happy new year to you, too, my guy.

[Varsoon]

I can't answer that question.