[GAME THREAD] MoonWolf

[goreae]

Well first off, give liliana immunity to wolfkills. Or at least a wolf-only toughness. I was so looking forward to using that role and then when I went to animate pyure, I was both beat to the punch by a reviver and wolfkilled. It just sucks that such a fun mechanic was just entirely wasted like that.

Other than that, here's something said in the dead convo:

Also, get into a habit of not handing out your roles whenever there is a confirmed player. The reason for this is because I currently tell everyone that I will not participate in it even when I am not a wolf. I now have a reason to not tell a confirmed player my role when I am a wolf. Why am I the only person who does this?

I think I'll start doing that as well. Not because I want an excuse as a wolf, but because it makes the game boring. The main reason the wolves died so quickly in the FMA game is we had proven villagers right off the bat and the wolves were almost immediately snuffed out because of roleclaims to those proven villagers. We were entirely helpless against that. The game goes from "who looks wolfy" to "who had a shakier roleclaim". The wolves can't do much against that sort of game and will most likely lose because of it. It's hard to be sneaky and devious when even the most suspicious villager has a solid roleclaim.

So if there are any proven villagers in future games, don't expect a claim from me.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Well done, I had a great first game. I very much enjoyed the magic theme and the effort put into the flavor text and pictures of the cards.

Some general thoughts:
End of days and recaps, since they obviously have a gap, should have a freeze defined in the rules.
I think the spirits had a little bit too much power to the villagers.
More when I think of them.

It used to be pretty common to specify "day ends at <insert time here>; night ends as soon as I post the recap" in the rolesheets; I just didn't bother because that's the custom here. And yeah, the spirits were a bit OP. I'll have them properly nerfed, should I run this game again.

Well first off, give liliana immunity to wolfkills. Or at least a wolf-only toughness. I was so looking forward to using that role and then when I went to animate pyure, I was both beat to the punch by a reviver and wolfkilled. It just sucks that such a fun mechanic was just entirely wasted like that.

Yeah, that was disappointing. I could give her Toughness from the beginning, just like Thalia. And maybe even do the same with a new wolf role, just to throw everyone off.

 

[Shazam08]

It used to be pretty common to specify "day ends at <insert time here>; night ends as soon as I post the recap" in the rolesheets; I just didn't bother because that's the custom here. And yeah, the spirits were a bit OP. I'll have them properly nerfed, should I run this game again.

You could also give them the option to help wolves or neutrals instead of villagers. Are there such things as mischievous or malevolent spirits in Magic lore?

Some other various town nerfs might help, too; Give Liliana precedence over the Runebinder, tweak spirit calculations so that dead wolves have a higher chance of becoming spirit roles (Lantern wolves, for instance), changing Slayer in some way to get rid of the parity cop thing you noticed, etc.

Overall, though, I liked this one. The vampires and multi-alignment seers were cool dynamics, along with the powered spirit thing. Plus you GM'd pretty professionally with punctual recaps and power confirmations and stuff. *thumbs up*

 

[Someone Else 37]

You could also give them the option to help wolves or neutrals instead of villagers. Are there such things as mischievous or malevolent spirits in Magic lore?

Some other various town nerfs might help, too; Give Liliana precedence over the Runebinder, tweak spirit calculations so that dead wolves have a higher chance of becoming spirit roles (Lantern wolves, for instance), changing Slayer in some way to get rid of the parity cop thing you noticed, etc.

Overall, though, I liked this one. The vampires and multi-alignment seers were cool dynamics, along with the powered spirit thing. Plus you GM'd pretty professionally with punctual recaps and power confirmations and stuff. *thumbs up*

Pretty much everything, at some point, looks "good" or "evil" in Magic. Sometimes the bounds are pretty well defined, such as on Innistrad (White-aligned humans vs. other-color-aligned night creatures) and Zendikar (humans/elves/goblins/kor/merfolk/etc. of all colors vs. colorless world-eating Eldrazi); while at other times it's not at all clear who's good and who's bad, particularly on planes with multiple different factions, such as Ravnica (city world run by ten competing guilds) and Khans-timeline Tarkir (five warring three-colored factions). So yeah, spirits not being helpful to the village could easily be a thing. In fact, even on Innistrad, the non-White Spirits are of the mischevious or outright deadly type.

I could certainly add ways for dead wolves to continue to help their team; I just hadn't thought about it because I'm not sure if werewolves and vampires in Magic actually have souls. I probably won't do the thing where each dead person gets a Spirit role on death again, as that was just a bit too much for me to comfortably manage. More likely, I'd have all the non-zombified dead vote on one action to take each night, such as guarding someone, seering someone, or sending someone a message. That's still fairly pro-Town unless the dead convo is more than half wolves, so maybe I could just give wolf ghosts individual roles. Lantern Wolf could work, as could some poltergeist power-stealing or target-swapping thing. I like this idea.

It seemed that, in this game, the Vampires found themselves fairly strongly aligned with the village, as they need villagers to stay alive. If I were to run this game again, I might like to have them align themselves more against the village somehow, but I don't know how I could do that. Any thoughts?

 

[lenscas]

werewolves and vampires in Magic actually have souls.

My first taught was to apply the same rules of checking if a species can have a planeswalker spark but...that quickly became very messy.
For those that are interested: the main rule is the creature must not be made out of magic. Thus no angles or demons (and perhaps gods). The reason why this became messy is because it is possible according to the story that planeswalkers became demons and gods, however as far as I know not a single planeswalker ever turned into an angle as of yet.
This would mean that the confirmed species that can have a soul (except for the obvious ones like humans)
demons, vampires and gods
non confirmed are
angles, werewolves

however as werewolves pretty much always where humans it is probably save to put them in the confirmed row because of the vampires

see the problem?
(for those that don't see it: demons,vampires and other things that are bed->confirmed soul, angles -> nope )
Thus you can almost say that having a soul means that you are a bad being.

It becomes even worse if we see elspet (or however you need to write it) as we then suddenly have an zombie as well. Oh and I forgot about karn which is an artificial created "being" that also has a planeswalker spark so...yea...... there are so many exceptions of that rule now that you can question if it is still a rule

edit: and I forgot about the eldrazi titans, they might technically not have a spark but they still are able (or where, I forgot if they are all slain by now or not) to move to different worlds which is as far as I know pretty much the only thing the planeswalker spark is good for. So....yea.....hooray for consistency (well.... the story is constant in breaking the spark rule)

 

[the_j485]

Pretty much everything, at some point, looks "good" or "evil" in Magic. Sometimes the bounds are pretty well defined, such as on Innistrad (White-aligned humans vs. other-color-aligned night creatures) and Zendikar (humans/elves/goblins/kor/merfolk/etc. of all colors vs. colorless world-eating Eldrazi); while at other times it's not at all clear who's good and who's bad, particularly on planes with multiple different factions, such as Ravnica (city world run by ten competing guilds) and Khans-timeline Tarkir (five warring three-colored factions). So yeah, spirits not being helpful to the village could easily be a thing. In fact, even on Innistrad, the non-White Spirits are of the mischevious or outright deadly type.

I could certainly add ways for dead wolves to continue to help their team; I just hadn't thought about it because I'm not sure if werewolves and vampires in Magic actually have souls. I probably won't do the thing where each dead person gets a Spirit role on death again, as that was just a bit too much for me to comfortably manage. More likely, I'd have all the non-zombified dead vote on one action to take each night, such as guarding someone, seering someone, or sending someone a message. That's still fairly pro-Town unless the dead convo is more than half wolves, so maybe I could just give wolf ghosts individual roles. Lantern Wolf could work, as could some poltergeist power-stealing or target-swapping thing. I like this idea.

It seemed that, in this game, the Vampires found themselves fairly strongly aligned with the village, as they need villagers to stay alive. If I were to run this game again, I might like to have them align themselves more against the village somehow, but I don't know how I could do that. Any thoughts?

Well for vampires, you could certainly make it so that blood does not recover, giving vampires the choice between killing a safe target and getting hunted, or risking thirst by going for several different ones. The thirst day should happen more than once too to prevent them just becoming complacent.

 

[Shazam08]

It seemed that, in this game, the Vampires found themselves fairly strongly aligned with the village, as they need villagers to stay alive. If I were to run this game again, I might like to have them align themselves more against the village somehow, but I don't know how I could do that. Any thoughts?

Uh... Hm.

• Wolves have blood (probably an increased amount of blood, like "8 quarts" or "infinite")
• When a wolf is bitten, he's notified who bit him
• When a vampire bites a wolf, that vampire can only drink wolf blood
• Humans have a reduced amount of blood (two quarts total, dead if under one)
• Change Nightfall Predator to be some kind of manipulator or diplomat to the vampires, like "Can control a vampire's target every other night" or "In an anonymous conversation with the vampires" respectively
• Give vampires an incentive to kill more humans ("If you drink 8 quarts by night four, you get Toughness")

Take your pick.

 

[Shazam08]

blood does not recover

Wait, I like this one more. It's way more streamlined than my stuff.

 

[the_j485]

I do quite like the idea of vampires not necessarily being nothing but merciless predators, but also some just trying to get by. Sort of like Tokyo Ghoul.

 

[Someone Else 37]

My first taught was to apply the same rules of checking if a species can have a planeswalker spark but...that quickly became very messy.
For those that are interested: the main rule is the creature must not be made out of magic. Thus no angles or demons (and perhaps gods). The reason why this became messy is because it is possible according to the story that planeswalkers became demons and gods, however as far as I know not a single planeswalker ever turned into an angle as of yet.
This would mean that the confirmed species that can have a soul (except for the obvious ones like humans)
demons, vampires and gods
non confirmed are
angles, werewolves

however as werewolves pretty much always where humans it is probably save to put them in the confirmed row because of the vampires

see the problem?
(for those that don't see it: demons,vampires and other things that are bed->confirmed soul, angles -> nope )
Thus you can almost say that having a soul means that you are a bad being.

It becomes even worse if we see elspet (or however you need to write it) as we then suddenly have an zombie as well. Oh and I forgot about karn which is an artificial created "being" that also has a planeswalker spark so...yea...... there are so many exceptions of that rule now that you can question if it is still a rule

edit: and I forgot about the eldrazi titans, they might technically not have a spark but they still are able (or where, I forgot if they are all slain by now or not) to move to different worlds which is as far as I know pretty much the only thing the planeswalker spark is good for. So....yea.....hooray for consistency (well.... the story is constant in breaking the spark rule)

FYI: Ulamog and Kozilek are still alive and kicking, although tomorrow's Uncharted Realms may change that, as last week's was all about those four planeswalkers figuring out how, exactly, they might manage to kill a titan. Emrakul is still nowhere to be found, presumed to be wandering the Multiverse.

Well for vampires, you could certainly make it so that blood does not recover, giving vampires the choice between killing a safe target and getting hunted, or risking thirst by going for several different ones. The thirst day should happen more than once too to prevent them just becoming complacent.

The problem with that it it creates a lot more information for me to keep track of. That's the main reason I did make blood regenerate daily.

Uh... Hm.

• Wolves have blood (probably an increased amount of blood, like "8 quarts" or "infinite")
• When a wolf is bitten, he's notified who bit him
• When a vampire bites a wolf, that vampire can only drink wolf blood
• Humans have a reduced amount of blood (two quarts total, dead if under one)
• Change Nightfall Predator to be some kind of manipulator or diplomat to the vampires, like "Can control a vampire's target every other night" or "In an anonymous conversation with the vampires" respectively
• Give vampires an incentive to kill more humans ("If you drink 8 quarts by night four, you get Toughness")

Take your pick.

I like the last one. Still possible to pull off without killing anyone, but requires not hitting any wolves or other vampires at all and not choosing the same target as any other vampire.

 

[the_j485]

FYI: Ulamog and Kozilek are still alive and kicking, although tomorrow's Uncharted Realms may change that, as last week's was all about those four planeswalkers figuring out how, exactly, they might manage to kill a titan. Emrakul is still nowhere to be found, presumed to be wandering the Multiverse.


The problem with that it it creates a lot more information for me to keep track of. That's the main reason I did make blood regenerate daily.


I like the last one. Still possible to pull off without killing anyone, but requires not hitting any wolves or other vampires at all and not choosing the same target as any other vampire.

Can't you just keep a spreadsheet to yourself to track the blood? Wouldn't be that hard, just give everyone 4 to start, and then change it every time that a vampire drinks someone's.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Can't you just keep a spreadsheet to yourself to track the blood? Wouldn't be that hard, just give everyone 4 to start, and then change it every time that a vampire drinks someone's.

Did you look at the GM sheet I linked to at the bottom of the second recap post? I do not want to make it any more complicated or confusing without a very good reason.
And, thanks to Shazam, I've got a good idea as to how to encourage the vampires to kill more people that doesn't require adding another column to the spreadsheet, so I'd be much more inclined to try that first.

 

[the_j485]

Did you look at the GM sheet I linked to at the bottom of the second recap post? I do not want to make it any more complicated or confusing without a very good reason.
And, thanks to Shazam, I've got a good idea as to how to encourage the vampires to kill more people that doesn't require adding another column to the spreadsheet, so I'd be much more inclined to try that first.

Fair enough. You're only human

 

[Pyure]

Good game SO37. I respect that you didn't try to tweak the rules midgame even though the town had a clear advantage. Gives us a chance to run the game again with reasoned analysis.

I think the main problem (other than vamps allying with town) was the sheer number of seer roles the town had: 1 seer + 2 quasi-seers. It would have been completely silly if lenscas had used his power properly and chatted up his negatives. Combined with private convos, and the bodyguard roles, and the resurrecters...yeah, big advantage to town.

 

[Strikingwolf]

Sorry about my lack of participation, I had forgotten about a trip I was required to go on that completely wrecked my schedule, it looks like it was a great game though

 

[Lethosos]

My game plan was to see if I could make an alliance with Lilian, and have all her zombies look for wolves as well. At a point where there would be, say, 1 to 2 wolves left, nuke the vault and let Lilian win while we hit the last wolves hard.

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk 2

 

[goreae]

My game plan was to see if I could make an alliance with Lilian, and have all her zombies look for wolves as well. At a point where there would be, say, 1 to 2 wolves left, nuke the vault and let Lilian win while we hit the last wolves hard.

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk 2

Funnily enough, I was looking for an alliance with the wolves. If the wolves are removed as targets, the zombies become a bigger threat.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Good game SO37. I respect that you didn't try to tweak the rules midgame even though the town had a clear advantage. Gives us a chance to run the game again with reasoned analysis.

I think the main problem (other than vamps allying with town) was the sheer number of seer roles the town had: 1 seer + 2 quasi-seers. It would have been completely silly if lenscas had used his power properly and chatted up his negatives. Combined with private convos, and the bodyguard roles, and the resurrecters...yeah, big advantage to town.

Yeah, the quasi-seers were a mistake that I only recognized when thinking about it midway through D1. Next time I run this game (which seems like a real possibility at this point, although by that time Shadows over Innistrad will be out with new cards and story), I'm nerfing them to be able to kill villagers as well. I did make up my mind at that point to give them the least amount of information possible in keeping with my "everyone save roleblockers gets a success/failure return" style. Mostly that was "your target didn't die," which was equally available on the recap; on the night when you and Lens both targeted a wolf, I told you that you had succeeded and no longer had any power, and Lens that somebody else had beaten him to the punch and his power was still intact. I couldn't have really given either of you any less information without leaving you in the dark about whether or not you could still kill people.

The living bodyguards were probably OK; most games have those. I think it was the ghosty bodyguards that were the real problem- and RNG gave me an ungodly number of them.

I'll also nerf the town-aligned resurrecting role quite a bit. He will only be able to reanimate a corpse after focusing on it for a day or two, during which time he could be interrupted by Liliana (or any other role?). Either that or I could give Liliana precedence each night, and not have the Runebinder not kick in until day 3 or 4. Because a proven villager on day 3 is just overpowered. Thoughts?

 

[Someone Else 37]

OK, my own reflections, as written in a stream-of-consciousness style with minimal editing, immediately after I wrote the final recap (some of this has already been mentioned... meh):

On D1, there was some confusion as to why RealKC let himself get lynched. I think it might've been because his power triggers upon his death, and that getting lynched looked like the easiest way to trigger it.

Both of the Elder Cathars died within the first two days, and both used their powers to grant erindalc (the medium) Toughness. I guess they really liked the new guy?

I think the whole mechanic of having dead people continue to interact with the game in a very meaningful manner was both a little overpowered (especially when there's plenty of powerful village roles) and a bit more work for me than I'd have liked. In most games, the time it takes to churn out a recap decreases with time; in this game, it really didn't. If I run this game again, I'd probably just have the dead convo vote on a single action to take: scan somebody, guard somebody, or send a message to somebody.

Speaking of which, the way in which I assigned the spirit roles was unsatisfactory, as exemplified by the existence of four freaking ghostly bodyguards (one of whom (Nojr) blocked a wolfkill and got demoted, hence only three S4s in the last Status column in the GM sheet) by the end of the game. I gave lynch victims an equal probability of becoming any of the five Spirits, and wolfkill victims a probability massively skewed toward the useful spirits. Specifically, for wolfkill victims, I chose a random number out of the list (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5), and then gave them the corresponding role as listed in the GM sheet. Hence:
1/15 chance of Voiceless Spirit (totally silent) (only chosen once and granted to Pyure; Nojr also got it after he blocked that wolfkill)
2/15 chance of Dearly Departed (typical WW ghosting rules, i.e. unrelated to the game and throw in an ooOOOOooooo) (never actually selected)
3/15 chance of Tower Geist (seer) (only RealKC)
4/15 chance of Hollowhenge Spirit (bodyguard) (most everyone else who died)
5/15 chance of Lantern Spirit (reverse medium) (only Vike)

If I were doing the individual Spirit thing again (which I won't), I would probably write an ordered list of Spirit roles and give them out to new dead in that order. The lynch list would probably just cycle through all five in the above order; the vampire kill list might repeat (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, 5), so a useful role appears only every third kill (not that vampire kills are even that likely if there's only two of them at the start); and the wolfkill list might just repeat (3, 4, 5)- cycling the three useful roles. Or maybe I'd leave out the reverse-medium from the rotations entirely, and give it to the first wolfkill victim to die after the living Medium. Maybe it'd even be the Medium himself- I like that.

The whole Liliana-Thalia thing didn't even happen. I was a bit disappointed, but there's not much I can do about it.

I think the wolves kinda gave up at the end. None of them even voted in the wolf convo the last two days of the game- I hadn't accounted for that at all. Had I foreseen that, I wouldnt've specified that a Hollowhenge Spirit had blocked the wolfkill on night 4, so it would not be clear that there was any difference between a cancelled wolfkill and a nonexistant one.
Also, Cheese and Eru both got smited for not voting on the same night they got lynched. Maybe I'll deliberately include one of the most active players on the wolfteam on my next game, because RNG is terrible at balance.

Midway through day 1, I realized that I'd made two effective alignment cops, in Mafia parlance, in the two Slayers of the Wicked (Lens and Pyure). Next time, I'm definitely giving them the ability to kill their own teammates, even if it doesn't match the flavor of the card.

Also, I don't like having roles that can protect themselves from a kill when there's not a role on the other side that can conceivably do the same thing. Had Thalia been targeted on the first night, there'd have been a proven villager on day 2. Perhaps next time I'll add a wolf role with a similar toughness-granting ability- there's even a card with a very appropriate and awesome-sounding name:

Doesn't throw around +1/+1 counters or anything, which is disappointing. This or this would be a better fit mechanically.

 

[Pyure]

Yeah, the quasi-seers were a mistake that I only recognized when thinking about it midway through D1. Next time I run this game (which seems like a real possibility at this point, although by that time Shadows over Innistrad will be out with new cards and story), I'm nerfing them to be able to kill villagers as well. I did make up my mind at that point to give them the least amount of information possible in keeping with my "everyone save roleblockers gets a success/failure return" style. Mostly that was "your target didn't die," which was equally available on the recap; on the night when you and Lens both targeted a wolf, I told you that you had succeeded and no longer had any power, and Lens that somebody else had beaten him to the punch and his power was still intact. I couldn't have really given either of you any less information without leaving you in the dark about whether or not you could still kill people.

The living bodyguards were probably OK; most games have those. I think it was the ghosty bodyguards that were the real problem- and RNG gave me an ungodly number of them.

I'll also nerf the town-aligned resurrecting role quite a bit. He will only be able to reanimate a corpse after focusing on it for a day or two, during which time he could be interrupted by Liliana (or any other role?). Either that or I could give Liliana precedence each night, and not have the Runebinder not kick in until day 3 or 4. Because a proven villager on day 3 is just overpowered. Thoughts?

Some combination of these changes would definitely make things more spicy.

I'm thinking a more subtle change for the Slayer of Evil (or whatever its called) might be that it can kill SPECIFIC villager roles. That way you can still use the power with a definite risk, as well as some strategizing. For instance, perhaps it can kill any evil role (as it does) plus the resurrection role (if you can fudge lore for it). Then you'd have a greater incentive to try to isolate the resurrecter before you try using your own power. And then you'd have to hope there's no duplicates of that role each time you used your power. (My thinking here is that this makes the role more than just a typical assassin role)