Tuesday, 22 July 2008 At the Mountains of Sensibility - Epilogue quote [ ... are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false? ] October 18th 1931, Miskatonic University Dearest Marianne, My love I must apologise for not writing to you the moment we docked, but the S/S Ile de France reached New York a day behind schedule and so I was forced to fight my way off the liner and rush to catch my train to Arkham. There I was met at the station by Professor Alvin Lovehandle, Dean of Miskatonic University, and the editor of the Arkham Advertiser, monsieur Dunwoody. Bodnoirbabe has taught me a little English during the voyage and I was able to greet them in their own language. It will amuse you so when we meet once more. It is an uncouth and unromantic language, but as the Americans say ‘it gets the job done’. Until then you must try to imagine the bustle of being presented to the departments like some dignitary, and interviewed over and again. Bodnoirbabe is in her element, but I must admit that I yearn to be back in Avignon with you, and I would not have accepted this invitation if it were not for my ulterior motive in coming here. Yesterday we were driven to meet Alice Crother, the fiancée ex-fiancée of the American Danforth. They were to have married when he returned from the Antarctic expedition. Everybody stared at me. I don’t know what they expected me to say to her, just because I had been there when Danforth was killed. ‘I was sorry to see your boyfriend picked up and dropped by a flying monster from eighty feet in the air, and we left his body to freeze solid.’ They probably had not even made love before he left - Americans are such prudes. It was today I finally had the opportunity that I agreed to come here for, although I think that Dr. Henry Armitage the Chief Librarian was not enthusiastic to let me view the University’s edition of the Necronomicon. If only the Bibliothèque nationale de France had given me access I would not have had to come all this way. My command of Greek is not strong, but I was able to follow enough of the Latin pages to make sense of what I needed. We know so little of Abdul Alhazred who wrote the Al Azif - even his name is a contradiction. Was he really crazed as the accounts tell us, or is it that our perception is too narrow to understand those who have talked with the Gods? Reading Alhazred’s words puts me unnervingly in mind of the dreadful change that came on the German Doctor juju. But I found what I wanted. There was no specific mention of the City by the Mountain, or the Elder Things that dwelt there, but the indications were there when you already knew what to look for. The beings that settled the Earth in the very earliest of days. Their titanic avian architecture. Their battles, back and forth with other dimensional wanderers through space. And the dreadful shoggoths – I thought of the room with the untouched battleship pieces, and the tunnels swept clean beneath the City. Thank god we did not venture down there. Confirmation of Danforth’s final claims was written almost like an afterthought. At the height of their culture, the Elder Things encountered a threat from a previously unknown ‘Great Old One’, which approached the Earth from the unknown reaches of space, rather than from another physical dimension. Unlike other Old Ones, the Eater was only semi-sentient, and functioned more like a catastrophic force of nature or the abstract personification of appetite. Essentially, it was made from hunger - the hunger to devour everything that was not itself, but most particularly heavy elements like iron. The Earth attracted it from the great darkness, and if allowed it would have migrated to the planet’s molten ferrous core and consumed the world from within. The Elder Things, however, tricked the creature before it could reach the Earth, using iron to lure it into some sort of metaphysical prison that kept it from breaking free. Layer after layer after layer of material hardened the cage, and so it was that the Elder Things built our moon to keep the Eater imprisoned forever. When I finally closed the book it was night outside, and a greater silence had descended on the library. I knew that Danforth had read the necronomicon, so everything he said might have been his memories of it regurgitated through madness. I would certainly have thought so before crossing the Mountains of Madness or seeing the Elder Things with my own eyes. What do I believe now, dearest Marianne? I cannot in truth say. The necronomicon at Miskatonic University of America is many times older than that nation, and at some time in its history someone has carved the translation of its most famous passage into the leather cover. That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die. Could such a thing exist, and do the Elder Things truly believe that the Eater can free their own earth-bound shackles? Danforth had said ‘They’ve got everything they need. Pain and blood and anger and death with which to build the rungs, and iron enough to draw down that which dwells there.’ Their need for iron was plane, their looting hadn’t left so much as a scrap of the metal. But how can you build a structure or a machine from pain and anger? The more that I ponder, the more certain I become that our Antarctic nightmare was indeed the machination of the Elder Things, and that the deaths of my friends were engineered as a contribution to the moon-ladder. And so I am thankful that not only did we escape the City, but that we voted six to four to take the surviving Germans with us – if only to deny the Elder Things the material to finish their dreadful construction. But the knowledge still sits uneasily with me. We were all de-briefed when we returned to Europe, and something of the truth must have gotten through to the beureaucrats because I have read that the Starkweather-Moore expedition to Antarctica has been blocked, and there are no new expeditions planned. It is clear that the civilised nations of the world are ignoring Antarctica for the moment. But there are so many horrors in the world, and we know nothing of how great the reach of the Elder Things might be. On the train to Massachusetts I read in a paper of a Doctor from Arkham who turned his hospital into a nonesuch and then burned it to the ground. When they caught him two weeks later in a nearby town, he had already murdered sixteen people, and he claimed to have learned that they were ‘fish’ from a series of dreams. Since he burned down the lunatic asylum, nobody knows what to do with him. I know that I must try not to see signs of the Elder Things everywhere that I look, yet it is strange that such a thing should happen so close to Miskatonic University of all places, and so very recently. And black thoughts are hard to push away. The violence in Europe has grown worse this past year, and after electoral victories in Germany ,the fascist politician Herr Hitler is demanding to be made Chancellor. Times change and governments change, and the Elder Things have surely learned patience. Would such a man be wise enough to shun the City and the Elder Things? And just how great a sacrifice of blood would the Elder Things demand for their endeavour? But my part in this story is now ended, I think. I would like to see more of Massachusetts, and New York City before I leave America, but I hope I will see you not long after you receive this letter. There was an early frost on the ground when I left the library. It sparkled in the electric street lamps, and my breath made clouds of steam. Somebody had dropped an advertising leaflet on the ground, and I read the words ‘Sensible Sext, 2009’. I stepped over it, and suddenly I smiled once again that my story is done. It has been a good night, and I know that I have nothing to fear from the cold ever again. Yours, with all the love and yearning that is in my heart. Your husband.JewbacchusziekoAlacronvalen85 Zelgius MisanthropeApomorphspite48KingPellinoreverycleanteeth -_-lilmookieesquireEquinophobe Bodnoirbabetodde The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth's gods... -- H. P. Lovecraft TEAM=german;COLOR=black;LOGO=cclia.org/german_flag.jpg;MEMBERS=archangel_2,todde,kishi, zieko,juju,spite48,shiney things,enderite,Equinophobe,eightysix,Omegaphobic,Context, al_,beerboy,theolypse,Defiance Falcon,Narrenschiff, daffyduck,verycleanteeth,headlessfriar,brat#3 Thank you everybody who has taken part in At the Mountains of Sensibility - you're all winners. And if any of you have had half as much fun as I have had, then it has all not been in vain. TEAM=french;COLOR=darkred;LOGO=cclia.org/french_flag.jpg;MEMBERS=rosary, valen85,Zelgius,Jewbacchus,foobar,Stension,KingPellinore, LoC,JewyPEZ,Aidentas,-_-,Apomorph,shizac, Todomanna,Stratafyre,foglai,Bodnoirbabe,Alacron,FifthSpango,thumble,redemption ,Misanthrope,lilmookieesquire [mafia game] [by cb361@2:22amGMT] [+10]

cb361 said @ 2:23am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 1 The French lynched Stratafyre, one of their Protectors, and Shiney Things the German Watcher was also accidentally killed. Jewbacchus watched Saboteur enderite, but unfortunately it was JewyPez on sabotage duty. LoC murdered theolypse for his luckstone. Luckstones were up for grabs as the expeditions embarked in an (unfortunately) metaphoric orgy of thieving. verycleanteeth pre-empted Defiance Falcon by stealing lilmookieesquire’s luckstone, who responded by stealing juju’s. Meanwhile Alacron stole verycleanteeth’s new luckstone from underhim. Zelgius tried to steal from redemption, but daffyduck beat him too it. Narrenschiff stole Jewbacchus’ stone, and spite48 cruelly stole the stone that Brat#3 had put in so much work for. todomanna had no compunction about stealing from Aidentas. Meanwhile beerboy contented himself by trying to loot theolypse’s corpse. eightysix got into his role by enthusing about exactly how Omegaphobic would sabotage the French. Unfortunately I was having too much difficulty with my own write-ups to include someone else’s. KingPellinore loved to hike and explore all alone, often putting himself in danger. We all knew he had a set of foraging apparatus he swore by. Saved his life in the jungles of whereever, he claimed. We also knew where he kept them when he wasn't using them. Todomanna would spend his day commuting to and from the lavatory. Food poisoning was perhaps the easiest way to disable a person. I would be attacked by mysterious assailants, and thumble would have a difficult time tending to both me and KingPellinore with most of his equipment damaged. Everybody else would find the day inconvenient as their personal belongings went missing. 4 of my fellow saboteurs will blend in with these people, while another one of us will impede the expedition with a severity equal to mine. I left lilmookeesquire and Misanthrope alone, wondering what people would think of them as they went unmolested.

cb361 said @ 2:24am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 2 Jewbacchus had his eye on lilmookieesquire on night 2. Foobar protected himself from two points of sabotage with stone, and archangel_2 fared just as well protecting Brat#3 with his luckstone. Protector zeiko protected -_-, but that didn’t stop his sneaky malingering. daffyduck used his luckstone to protect himself, but only slowed himself down because the saboteurs overlooked him during the day, and when Aidentas came for him in the night, he was unprotected. eightysix personally took the job of murdering Stension After the confusion of last night, almost every thief walked away empty-handed. Zelgius was too late, and thumble took Alacron’s luckstone - the one that originally came from lilmookieesquire. Context and zieko both got a luckstone from their lynch-vote. Juju the new serial killer started out by investigating enderite and todde.

cb361 said @ 2:24am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 3 Obsidian Needles were up for grabs, literally.. Foglai stole Brat#3’s (he now had two needles and a luckstone) and spite48 took Aidentas’. Kishi took the needle from archangel_2, but zelgius beat lilmookieesquire to steal it from under him. Bodnoirbabe had the last laugh though, and walked away with the needle from zelgius. Headlessfriar protected narrenschiff and foobar protected foglai. valen85 received a luckstone protection when thumble used the lilmookieesquire stone on him. Jewbacchus had his eye on the innocent KingPellinore while eightysix was sabotaging and murdering. He considered killing Watcher Jewbacchus, but went for Protector foobar in the end. Juju investigated beerboy and lilmookieesquire, and took out enderite.

brat#3 said @ 3:02am GMT on 22nd Jul So who was the filthy French bastard that killed me? Not that I would bear a grudge against that player, no...

cb361 said @ 3:04am GMT on 22nd Jul Ah, that would be Monsieur -_-

brat#3 said @ 3:07am GMT on 22nd Jul How did I know that was coming.

-_- said @ 3:22am GMT on 22nd Jul I would not leave you to just anyone dear brat ;)

brat#3 said @ 3:53am GMT on 22nd Jul And here I thought you were keeping me around 'til the bitter end.' ;)

-_- said @ 4:08am GMT on 22nd Jul I believe I said it in our Google Group when we were deciding to kill you, but I'll happily repeat it ... you were just too smart to let live :D

spite48 said @ 7:32pm GMT on 22nd Jul That makes survival seem like failing an IQ test :(

spite48 said @ 8:28pm GMT on 22nd Jul "Spite48, if you're reading this ... that was smart of you to be ready like that ;) " Reading through the number of times my murder was contemplated gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. ;)

juju said @ 12:03am GMT on 23rd Jul I'm always amazed at how often people plan to kill me, and put it off for other targets. And how everyone always pegs me as a protector or investigator.

spite48 said @ 1:41am GMT on 23rd Jul juju on account of always pretending to be a protector...

cb361 said @ 2:24am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 4 Foglai protected alacron with his luckstone, and began his plan to needle eightysix whilst spite48 was planning the same fate for JewyPEZ. Lilmookieesquire stole foglai’s other needle, and spite48 got a luckstone from Misanthrope. Archangel caused great consternation by stealing -_-‘s needle. Zelgius got the radio transmitter that we could have used to contact -_-, but chose not to use it. Zeiko protecting himself didn’t prevent juju from investigating him, while she sliced up beerboy. Jewbacchus watched Valen85 whilst Context was sabotaging Omegaphobic was killing FifthSpango. JewyPez killed kishi.

cb361 said @ 2:25am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 5 Foglai stole a needle from archangel_2, but equinophobe got that when he murdered foglai. Juju stole a needle from lilmookieesquire, which apomorph then took when he murdered her. Spite48 killed JewyPEZ with his needle and stole the one from apomorph, only to lose it to Alacron. Verycleanteeth stole a luckstone from context, but zelgius got it in the end. Misanthrope stole zeiko’s. archangel_2 began a plan to needle apomorph with the needle he stole from -_-, but foglai stole it, saving apomorph’s life. Omegaphobic and LoC carried out the sabotage, whilst Equinophobe killed foglai and apomorph killed juju.

cb361 said @ 2:25am GMT on 22nd Jul Day 6 On day six only archangel, -_- and apomorph solved the quiz to get a flare gun. Zelgius stole -_-‘s (narrowly beating Alacron), but -_- inherrited archangel gun when he murdered him. Alacron began planning to murder -_- with the needle he stole from Spite48, whilst Bodnoirbabe had the same fate planned for valen85. Jewbacchus had his eye on Zelgius, and zeiko protected spite48. Zelgius used his luckstone to protect KingPellinore.

Alacron said @ 8:25pm GMT on 22nd Jul Interestingly enough -_- I had begun to suspect that you were really a Frenchman so I was planning to switch my kill target, but I waited until after the lynch to see which way the game was going to go because if I did have to switch then it would be another 2 days until the kill took effect.

cb361 said @ 2:34am GMT on 22nd Jul

brat#3 said @ 2:35am GMT on 22nd Jul So really, spite48 was the winner.

cb361 said @ 2:39am GMT on 22nd Jul Well, he certainly learned never to tangle with something that has more orifices than you do.

brat#3 said @ 2:43am GMT on 22nd Jul Or more tentacles than you have orifices?

cb361 said @ 2:50am GMT on 22nd Jul And I certainly never tangle with anything that has more tentacles than I have tentacles.

spite48 said @ 2:51am GMT on 22nd Jul I'd like to think so.

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:38am GMT on 22nd Jul (If only there was a way we could destroy the city by melting all of Antarctica with some sort of heat ray...)

archangel_2 said @ 6:38am GMT on 22nd Jul Maybe global warming is being done on purpose?

Alacron said @ 2:39am GMT on 22nd Jul Excellent game cb361, detailed and deadly I know well wishes have been expressed already but you deserve them for the effort you when through to set up all of these details.

theolypse said @ 2:48am GMT on 22nd Jul A pleasure to watch, even if, busy and without stake in the matter and overwhelmed by the journalling, I could barely follow the discussion. Also, the team play appears to have been a fantastic mechanical touch. Bravo!

cb361 said @ 2:53am GMT on 22nd Jul Team-play certainly made a change, bit I think it'll require a bit of fine-tuning if we use it again. Also, it would have been an utter mess without the little flags. I'm going to have to get an Internet Explorer version of the voting script working.

spite48 said @ 2:55am GMT on 22nd Jul I think it worked very well. A very exciting and dynamic game. The flags and voting script made it easy to focus on gameplay rather than mechanics.

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:57am GMT on 22nd Jul Thanks CB361! I had a great time, even though I had to miss a couple days and all my buddies died. Really, that was an amazing amount of work you put in. Thank you for giving us so many minutes (hours) of your delicious life force. Yum.

cb361 said @ 2:56am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:2] Also, thank you to Sythe for looking at the first version of the rules, and quite rightly telling me to simplify it. That version had a whole range of weird objects, it had people defecting from one team or the other, it had each team electing captains and sled-masters with extra powers and it had a much more complicated travel/sabotage model. In practice, it would have been an utter disaster.

theolypse said @ 3:01am GMT on 22nd Jul Yeah. That sounds pretty bizarre. Let me be the dumbass who rolls out an absurdly complicated game.

Aidentas said @ 3:28am GMT on 22nd Jul Haha... Have you seen the full rulelist for Hollywood?

Aidentas said @ 3:32am GMT on 22nd Jul Or the original rulelist for this game?

cb361 said @ 3:44am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:1 Funny] My first draft rules are at http://www.cclia.org/sensibility.html

Aidentas said @ 3:50am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:1 Insightful] Please, please, please send that to the forums at mafiascum.net. They'll freak... And we'll probably get 5-10 new players.

Context said @ 9:05am GMT on 22nd Jul Are there any players here who came from mafiascum to play with us?

-_- said @ 9:31am GMT on 22nd Jul Dude .. they play ten person games almost exclusively don't they? these 40-50 player games probably scare the shit out of them.

Aidentas said @ 9:47am GMT on 22nd Jul They still haven't heard of us.

cb361 said @ 3:57pm GMT on 22nd Jul I posted it at http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1169769#1169769, but chickened out and gave them the sensible version of the rules. It'll be interesting to see what they make of it.

theolypse said @ 4:00am GMT on 22nd Jul Sweet titty-fucking jesus.

cb361 said @ 4:11am GMT on 22nd Jul I just re-read parts of it, and, yeah. And that's without the complicated work I did on balancing skills, like how each player might be a good quartermaster but a bad team-leader. And I was trying to engineer a situation where both teams would have to co-operate a bit to find the serial killer, but would have the option to betray the other.

sythe said @ 4:34am GMT on 22nd Jul Heh, yes, the full rule-set would have made people cry.

-_- said @ 4:06am GMT on 22nd Jul Beautiful set of rules you have there .. I may wind up stealing a rule or two from you ;)

cb361 said @ 4:08am GMT on 22nd Jul That's what it's there for.

theolypse said @ 3:33am GMT on 22nd Jul No. Before my time. I'm intrigued, though.

redemption said @ 2:59am GMT on 22nd Jul I don't think I can express enough thanks for this game. Alas, my last for a while (long holiday is gonna prevent me from the next one or two). So thank you cb361, thank you to the other players as well for having made it such an awesome and atmospheric game, and damn you Frenchies for killing me!

spite48 said @ 3:11am GMT on 22nd Jul Spite48's Game Recap Day 1 to Day 4 We lose our watcher. No problem, our protectors will surely be able to detect Saboteurs. Right? As far as I'm aware neither German protector ever detected a saboteur's malingering. Between missed opportunities and unlucky choices, nothing was ever learned that way. Critically -_- outsmarted the luckstones, and played a careful game. Our agents on the other hand came through by giving us the information we needed to figure out the math of malingering and sabotage. Unfortunately the math didn't ever give us the tools to distinguish between -_-, VCT and Todde. Day 5 Foglai wins the game for the French by stealing Archangel_2's needle. We thought he still had it on Day 6, and it was only on Day 7 that we learned the truth: Apomorph was still alive, and we couldn't achieve the double-lynch that we sorely needed to win the game. Day 8 Todde's health improves and he returns to SE, just too late to give us any chance at a vote for a double lynch.

foglai said @ 6:24am GMT on 22nd Jul Yay me!

archangel_2 said @ 7:16am GMT on 22nd Jul Yeah, that REALLY messed us up...

-_- said @ 9:28am GMT on 22nd Jul YAY foglai !!

cb361 said @ 3:13am GMT on 22nd Jul Discussion Groups French Saboteurs in the German party German Saboteurs in the French party French war buddies German war buddies

-_- said @ 3:39am GMT on 22nd Jul It is so pleasing to see the German War Buddies refer to as a "good and loyal German" :D

-_- said @ 4:11am GMT on 22nd Jul And now we see why I never got to be a bad guy before ... the comment count :D

brat#3 said @ 6:01am GMT on 22nd Jul So what do we have to look forward to next round? Jamaican bartender? Brooklyn cab driver? Alabama preacher? :)

-_- said @ 7:02am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:1 Funny] Awwwww... now darlin If I'm to understand you here, you're lookin for a little exotica with your mafia ;) Don you know a man gots to do what a man does or the strictures of de modern world will eat is very soul? You'se expectin me ta tell yous my voice before I even speaks it? Gedouda here! For WHEN the time is CHOSEN we shall ALL RISE UP and lay low those who would being US suffering and DESOLATION in these TRYING TIMES!!! ;D

juju said @ 7:52am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:1 Insightful] The sad thing is that I hear that not in an Alabama preacher's voice, but as Robin Williams doing his preacher voice.

-_- said @ 9:27am GMT on 22nd Jul That's creepy juju, that's pretty much what I was "hearing" when I wrote it.

theolypse said @ 3:38am GMT on 22nd Jul Face, face. You always assume I'm sloppy about role allusions, and it never works out for you.

-_- said @ 3:39am GMT on 22nd Jul um .. say whaaaaaaa?

theolypse said @ 3:41am GMT on 22nd Jul "HE'S THE PROTECTOR!"

-_- said @ 3:44am GMT on 22nd Jul Right, I was wrong there ... but you were the one who died for it ;)

theolypse said @ 3:49am GMT on 22nd Jul Well, yes. I tend to die when the confusion I sow sprouts.

cb361 said @ 3:55am GMT on 22nd Jul You sow confusion and reap brussel sprouts?

theolypse said @ 4:02am GMT on 22nd Jul I reap Brussels everything. Brussels cabbage, Brussels sausage, Brussels... Shut up, you can so reap sausage. And now I've forgotten where I was.

brat#3 said @ 5:00am GMT on 22nd Jul No fair! Apparently we not only had to put up with the French on our expedition, but a Belgian as well! Now our defeat makes sense.

theolypse said @ 5:08am GMT on 22nd Jul Belgium! That's right.

theolypse said @ 5:12am GMT on 22nd Jul Having three of the best on one talk-together team doesn't help either. Damn, boys. That was organized.

thumble said @ 4:47pm GMT on 22nd Jul You spelt rape wrong.

Aidentas said @ 3:44am GMT on 22nd Jul [Score:1 Funny] cb361, This game put the papaya on the t-bone, the velvet on the ceiling, the coke lines on the tranny co... ...What? It was a really good game, like ducks on a throne, or pushpins in a Cadillac, or snow in Papeete. Great job! Now... Rest.

theolypse said @ 4:45am GMT on 22nd Jul I don't want to be tasteless and jump on cb's heels, but this Day 0 post is burning a hole in my pockets. Should I give people recovery time? Does someone else want to run the next one?

brat#3 said @ 5:20am GMT on 22nd Jul POST IT NOW.

brat#3 said @ 5:21am GMT on 22nd Jul I mean,.. y'know, like, whatever..

Misanthrope said @ 5:23am GMT on 22nd Jul Put the day 0 tomorrow and start friday, would be my suggestion.

KropperPrime said @ 6:19am GMT on 22nd Jul Hmm I'm filtering the mafia games, why is it that I see this?

theolypse said @ 6:26am GMT on 22nd Jul We're trolling you.

KropperPrime said @ 10:45am GMT on 22nd Jul It's working, I'm annoyed.

Aidentas said @ 6:33am GMT on 22nd Jul I would suggest asking Marck, as I think I know the answer, but am not entirely sure it's accurate.

daffyduck said @ 6:26am GMT on 22nd Jul Crap. Still haven't read the groups, but I was disappointed at myself. I never came up with the idea of identifying people using the Luckstone, so I spent it on meself, hoping that would give us some extra mileage. Sigh.

daffyduck said @ 6:38am GMT on 22nd Jul Oh, and I liked the fact that there were no 'vanilla' townies. Being a thief gave me at least something to do during the night, plus giving me a sense of selfworth if I manage to steal something special.

brat#3 said @ 7:06am GMT on 22nd Jul Heh.. well after having anything I earned stolen, and being unable to steal anything of value for myself, my sense of selfworth wasn't so hot by the end :P But that's my own fault. :)

archangel_2 said @ 7:13am GMT on 22nd Jul Being rather good at the puzzles is what gave me self-worth, and while I did manage to steal two things of use, I'd rather there were less thieves and I could've kept my earned goods...still, it made the game interesting!

archangel_2 said @ 7:11am GMT on 22nd Jul Well, fo rmy part, it looks like I did great with the puzzles (I completed three of the four puzzles) and horrible with the ACTUAL game. I was SURE that -_- and Apomorph were innocent (and Aidentas, until he was lynched). I DID think JewyPEZ and LoC were saboteurs, but by then, so did everyone. I REALLY thought juju was a saboteur (which would've benefited us anyway, if we'd lynched her after she became the serial killer, but doesn't change that I was wrong to think she was a saboteur), and even the German saboteurs mention in their group how poorly I grasped the mechanics of the game. /sigh/ Still, it was a LOT of fun, and I'm up for the next game! . . . Just don't trust who I think is saboteurs next time! lol

brat#3 said @ 7:16am GMT on 22nd Jul Sorry for my incorrect suspicion of you, btw. Another day and I would have been cured of that assumption :(

archangel_2 said @ 7:26am GMT on 22nd Jul lol No problem. As you can see, I was more wrong than right, and even Omegaphobic thought I was suspicious by his inside knowledge! I was just stuck working a week and a half of doubles at work (no days off), and was too tired to pay enough attention to the math or keeping straight all the comments. (Such as that -_- attributed something I'd said to someone else...)

-_- said @ 9:26am GMT on 22nd Jul :D

daffyduck said @ 8:09am GMT on 22nd Jul I only managed to read halfway through the FS in the GP and I have to get some sleep right now, but I can already say this: -_-, I hate you. Very, very much. That's not to say that the rest of the saboteurs were not crafty and devious, but for some reason I have this... special hatred reserved just for him. Ok, had he been lynched I would've probably directed my hating powers at someone else, but right now I'm happy just hating him. Crapfuckbollocks and all that.

-_- said @ 9:33am GMT on 22nd Jul Awww.. put on some pants why doncha?!

daffyduck said @ 5:39pm GMT on 22nd Jul How'd you know I'm typing this naked? You're good.

cb361 said @ 6:03pm GMT on 22nd Jul Consider yourself baptised.

valen85 said @ 8:30am GMT on 22nd Jul So here's my strategy: None.

Jewbacchus said @ 2:35pm GMT on 22nd Jul Sweet. I survived to the end of a win. I came up with bupkus on the watches.

cb361 said @ 4:12pm GMT on 22nd Jul You would have to be pretty lucky to catch even one saboteur, I'm afraid I designed the role to be much less effective than the Investigator.

thumble said @ 4:53pm GMT on 22nd Jul Good game! I'm pretty happy with how I played this one, was a bit looser than I usually am and while I died relatively early I think I stirred some interesting discussion. My only regret was that I didn't go with my instinct and touch the serial killer fountain. That would've been fun.

Alacron said @ 8:15pm GMT on 22nd Jul I have a question, as an aspiring Mafia game creator how do you go about making sure the number of townies, mafia and special roles are balanced in a game so both sides have a fair chance? cb, I'm sure you went through a lot with the balancing in this game but I welcome the advice of anyone who has run a mafia game here.

cb361 said @ 9:00pm GMT on 22nd Jul That's an excellent question. They seem to put a lot of thought into it at mafiascum, but I don't know how far their conclusions apply to us. Balancing the game is therefore incredibly difficult. For some reason SE mafia games seem biased toward the town. I used to think this was because our games went on for longer and so the town had more time to track the mafia habits. Now I think it might because was say more, or because we're more familiar with the recurring personalities. Or it might just be because sythe is usually a townie. Anyway I think that when setting up the game it's easy to overestimate the mafia, and so over compensate on the side of the town. In Sensible Express I was one of two Investigators, and together we steamrollered the baddies. My (often stated) opinion on Investigators is that it's no fun having someone telling everybody who to vote for, so they should be very rare or non-existent. Mountains was an experiment in how to do without them. Allowing objects and thieves can be fun, and it allows you to manipulate the game a bit by drip feeding certain objects. But it's a load of extra administration. I made every vanilla player in Mountains a thief because being a vanilla townie can be thankless and boring, and when you choose someone to steal from you at least have a chance at something more fun. I probably shouldn't have had so many objects though. That poor Shoggoth got so angry after replacing the battleship pieces on the stone grid nine times, that it smashed the plinth and squelched off. Anyway, it all depends on your game. We usually go for about a quarter mafia, and I think it's better to err on the side of economy when assigning powerful roles to the town. But it's probably more important for a balanced game that there is a good range of experienced players and new players on both sides. Even if it means swapping the odd player around.

eightysix said @ 9:30pm GMT on 22nd Jul cb361- was actually thinking of asking if you'd like you revisit Innsmouth for this year next month (it's the one year anniversary), but I suspect you may be burnt out after running this. This looks to be a crazy amount of work, with double the lynches a day, twice the amount of work at night - I really applaud you for a job awesomely done. Much respect.

cb361 said @ 10:06pm GMT on 22nd Jul I didn't realise it had almost been a full year since Innsmouth. If you'd like to revisit it in some way and people are still interested in dank slimy monsters, that sounds great. I'd love to help you out, but probably I should stay in the backseat. I'm aware that I took over a bit during Innsmouth, and I didn't feel happy about myself. For this game, the work was really in the write-ups. I had a spreadsheet that calculated everything to do with the sabotage and distance, so that wasn't a problem. And the Voting Script eliminates having to count the votes by hand. But I'm a slow writer, and the epilogue for example took me most of the evening. If do the Sensible Sext, the Gothic Monastic Mystery that I've been thinking about, I'll have to make sure I do the writing ahead of time.

eightysix said @ 10:41pm GMT on 22nd Jul It won't feel right without you, though, so it'd be great if we could work on it together again. Failing which, if time avails itself and enough people are interested, I could do it and you could play, since you've provided us with this game. Would be the least I could do.

juju said @ 12:05am GMT on 23rd Jul Color me interested (fushia? yellow?) Innsmouth would be an excellent revisit.

brat#3 said @ 1:14am GMT on 23rd Jul Heh, I still get grief from the site I came from for writing a nine page prologue to the round I modded.. and I still owe them the epilogue. I think I need to understand the concept of 'brevity' before I attempt anything here.. Gothic Monastery sounds great, btw. Have you read/heard of 'In the Name of the Rose'?

cb361 said @ 10:20am GMT on 23rd Jul Heh heh heh ...

juju said @ 12:24am GMT on 23rd Jul [Score:1 Informative] So, I suppose I can tell you all why I got to be a serial killer. It isn't just because cb loves me (you know you do my friend.) As spymaster I got to learn the identities of the other team's saboteurs. However, our wonderful GM was way too sleep deprived at the time, and sent me a list of one saboteur on the French team, and five on the German team. I think the only name that I didn't get from our team was -_-, because I would have remembered that. So, I let him know, and offered to bow out so it wasn't biased. Even though I could have just played it off and looked brilliant. But cb told me that he wanted me to stay in, and would make me the SK he had planned so I was a neutral party. We actually kicked around several ways to work it so it didn't unbalance the game, and they would all have downsides if he didn't want to just take my bowing out. I deleted the PM, but certain names stuck out so I couldn't forget them. Like Aids, and either JewyPEZ or LoC (I can't remember which I knew anymore, but it was one or the other.) I felt bad that I couldn't be 100% sure that I wasn't biased by that (going by gut feelings gets thrown off when you have some knowledge), so I started rooting for the saboteurs on the German team to win. I figured I'd probably be offed fairly soon after getting SK powers, since I just had a feeling that a watcher was going to pick me to be it, and I'd be found out, so killing beerboy was a way to make it easier for the French team to win after I was killed.

archangel_2 said @ 10:22am GMT on 23rd Jul I'm confused. How did killing beerboy make it easier for the French team to win after you were killed?

Apomorph said @ 3:15pm GMT on 23rd Jul Remember that last day? Now picture it with one more confirmed townie to work with.

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