Political Conspiracy- Game Over

Norinel · Post Post #0 (isolation #0) » Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:25 am

Game 1: Game over
(Someone)
PBuG
rite
Kerplunk
Aftran/Esse

Conspiracy is a game of my own invention that's part of my quest to find a game that captures the Mafia feel with fewer players. It's caught on to some extent at a low-traffic IRC server I frequent, but it's a little bit rules-light, and seems to require a certain mood of general silliness in order to work well. One variant I've come up with and would like to test is called Political Conspiracy. Does this look interesting enough to people to be worth a play? Any suggestions on things I could tweak or fix or whatever?

Norinel · Post Post #4 (isolation #1) » Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:51 am

Kerplunk wrote:- With PC how many innocents are there if there is a conspiracy?

Theoretically, anywhere between two and the number of players minus two, so there are at least two conspirators and two innocents. I personally will go with about a 50/50 split for the first game, but I can tweak that if necessary.

- And when does the game end when there is no conspiracy?

The same time it ends when there is a conspiracy- the end of the discussion segment after the final voting segment. There are the same number of voting segments (One minus the number of innocents if there is a conspiracy, which is public knowledge) whether or not there's a conspiracy.

I might post an example game or two later.

Norinel · Post Post #5 (isolation #2) » Thu Aug 14, 2003 7:43 am

Well, if we want to play, we still need at least one more person (The minimum's four.), but here's a pair of sample games that might clear things up:

Say the players are A, B, C, D, and E. With 5 players, there'll be a potential conspiracy of 3, leaving 2 innocents. This means that there'll be one innocent.

In the first game, there's no conspiracy. Some discussion ensues. In the voting segment, A and B vote for D, D and E vote for B, and C votes for A. The mod randomly chooses D to be disappeared, and announces that D has vanished. (Not that there was a tie to resolve or anything) More discussion ensues, ending the main phase. In the decisive phase, A and B choose no (They don't think there's a conspiracy, probably because of their voting success), and everyone else chooses yes. A and B win, and it's almost a perfect win because it's just the two of them.

In the second game, there is a conspiracy, consisting of A, D, and E. Some discussion ensues. The conspirators vote for B, and B and C vote for A. The votes by the innocents are ignored, so B disappears and the conspirators focus on C for the next discussion segment. He's sufficiently confused, so chooses no when the decisive phase happen. The conspirators win.

Norinel · Post Post #7 (isolation #3) » Thu Aug 14, 2003 9:07 am

Not necessarily; you could have a six person game with three conspirators and three innocents. The number of conspirators is known before the game, though.

Norinel · Post Post #9 (isolation #4) » Thu Aug 14, 2003 10:37 am

If Kerplunk is interested in playing, there'd be the minimum of four players. Does that sound good to everyone?

Norinel · Post Post #12 (isolation #5) » Fri Aug 15, 2003 1:31 am

Okay, we'll start when rite gets back with Someone, PBuG, rite, and Kerplunk (Assuming nobody else signs up before then), which'd mean potentially two conspirators and one voteoff. Any ideas for time limits?

Norinel · Post Post #14 (isolation #6) » Sun Aug 17, 2003 9:56 am

Okay, make that three conspirators, but still one disappearance.

If you're curious, Aftran's a friend of mine from the not-much-traffic IRC server.

Norinel · Post Post #16 (isolation #7) » Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:43 am

The second link in the top post should function, but it looks like the server's having problems, so I'll just yell at Aftran or copy and paste it here when I'm on the right computer.

Norinel · Post Post #18 (isolation #8) » Mon Aug 18, 2003 2:12 am

Someone, did you get the rules? It looks like the link is working now, it's just slow.

Distributing roles now. For the record, to deal with motive identification stuff, the pm will say "You are an innnocent." or "You are a conspirator. The other conspirators are x and y and the innocents are x and y."

Norinel · Post Post #19 (isolation #9) » Mon Aug 18, 2003 2:17 am

Roles are out. Confirm by pm. The game will begin as soon as everyone's confirmed.

Norinel · Post Post #20 (isolation #10) » Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:05 am

All confirms are in, and the game has begun! Whee. Don't forget that it is allowable to communicate privately.

For lack of a better idea, I'll say that the discussion will end once everyone's made a vote: end discussion in bold in the thread.

Norinel · Post Post #26 (isolation #11) » Thu Aug 21, 2003 12:10 am

*bump*

Doesn't look like much is happening in the thread, at least. I wouldn't put it beyond me to impose a deadline or something if discussion doesn't pick up or I don't hear about interesting private discussion or something. (And if you've lost interest, please say so so I know what's happened)

Norinel · Post Post #28 (isolation #12) » Thu Aug 21, 2003 9:41 am

Double post to make the thread reappear or something.

Norinel · Post Post #30 (isolation #13) » Thu Aug 21, 2003 11:48 pm

If everyone else says they're done with initial discussion (posting

vote: end discussion

if you want to be formal about it), I'll take votes.

Norinel · Post Post #34 (isolation #14) » Fri Aug 22, 2003 12:37 pm

Thread reappearance bump.

Norinel · Post Post #36 (isolation #15) » Fri Aug 22, 2003 1:02 pm

Yes, Esse is Aftran, who did have posting problems.

vote: end discussions from rite and PBuG will start the voting phase.

Norinel · Post Post #38 (isolation #16) » Tue Aug 26, 2003 10:34 am

Oh, yes. PBuG's away and has asked for replacements in other games. Forgot about that. Should we replace him or wait or what?

Norinel · Post Post #40 (isolation #17) » Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:36 pm

I think he's actually come back, so I'll pm him or something.

Norinel · Post Post #44 (isolation #18) » Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:17 pm

It's now the voting phase. Consider the thread locked, and don't communicate outside it, just pm me a vote for someone you'd like to see gone. 72 hour deadline, which shouldn't be too unreasonable given that all the players have posted on the forums recently.

Norinel · Post Post #45 (isolation #19) » Thu Sep 11, 2003 1:02 pm

Some combination of the tribe, the conspiracy, and random chance have spoken...

Someone

is no more. Discuss.

The whole vote: end discussion thing has its problems, but I'll stay consistent for this game, perhaps trying a stricter deadline next time.

Norinel · Post Post #47 (isolation #20) » Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:28 am

Maybe you've been talking, but I haven't seen you talking.

Deadline, 72 hours.

Note that we'll move to the decisive phase when the deadline hits. I'm prodding all the players now.

Sorry I didn't do this earlier, but I'd like to see this game at least finish without everyone just sort of disappearing.

Norinel · Post Post #48 (isolation #21) » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:25 am

PBuG needs to be replaced.

Norinel · Post Post #52 (isolation #22) » Fri Sep 26, 2003 11:19 am

The deadline has past, so submit your decision as a yes or no answer to the question "Is there a conspiracy?" 72 hour deadline; any innocents I don't get a choice from choose incorrectly.

Norinel · Post Post #53 (isolation #23) » Mon Sep 29, 2003 11:25 am

The game's over. On another day, I might have made this a silly prosaic thing, but I won't.

There was no conspiracy. Esse, rite, and Kerplunk submitted "no" decisions, and win. PBuG didn't submit a decision, so he loses. Thoughts to come later.

Norinel · Post Post #54 (isolation #24) » Wed Oct 01, 2003 11:25 am

Okay, here are the promised thoughts:

A rather uninteresting vote count:
1 Someone (Esse)
1 PBuG (rite)
1 rite (PBuG)

The next game (If there is one) needs to have deadlines for everything. Hopefully, if everyone knows how long the game will last, they'll try to stay available and keep up activity or something. (I'd guess that the reasoning of the innocents was along the lines of "If there were a conspiracy, they'd actually be interested in the game.") It'd also reduce replacements becoming an issue. (If something does happen that'd require quitting, I'd just ask that player to presubmit decisions and voting)

Antrax pointed out to me privately that the innocents could work together to figure out if there's a conspiracy by agreeing to all vote for someone at random. Of course, the innocents aren't supposed to work together because convincing other innocents there is a conspiracy is a good thing. The way I'd encourage that would be score.

Suppose a scale of 0 to 1 points for a game, where 0 is a total loss, <.5 is losing, 1 is a perfect win, >.5 is winning, and .5 is a tie. If there is a conspiracy, it'd probably be just 0 for whichever side loses and 1 for whichever side wins. If there isn't, the eliminated innocents probably get nothing (Or perhaps the same score as those who choose incorrectly), survivors who vote correctly get .5 + .5 * (the number of other innocents who chose incorrectly/the number of other innocents), and survivors who vote incorrectly get .5 * (the number of other innocents who chose incorrectly/the number of other innocents).

In case that confuses you, here's a post facto scoreboard for the last game:
Someone: 0 (Eliminated)
PBuG: 0 (.5 * (0/3))
rite: .666 (.5 + .5 * (1/3))
Kerplunk: .666 (.5 + .5 * (1/3))
Aftran/Esse: .666 (.5 + .5 * (1/3))

Would anyone be interested in trying a game with stricter deadlines?