WWIX – Hogwart’s Havoc - Day 18

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

I had a great time both as a student and as a Death Eater. There were lots of great role-players and I think Helgraf deserves special applause for working so hard to keep in character in PM's. It really added a bit of spice to being a DE and was greatly appreciated.

Thanks to the narrators for running this, I know it was rough to try to keep things even and balanced. One of the first things you learn as a narrator is that there is no accounting for players. Seriously, you can even plan around what you think "person X" will do and still someone comes along and bumps everything up.

It was fun to be Fluffy!!

[Zeb The Troll]

I'll be honest. Not informing people of the changes didn't seem right to me either. That gnawed at me the rest of the time. Even if the changes needed to be kept secret, I think it would have been better to inform all of the players that changes had been made for purposes of strategy.

I also don't think there's any dispute that the Teacher win condition was unachievable after the changes. And may even have been impossible to meet before that, now that I think about it. Requiring that the game be won with more than 50% of the original players still alive is maybe a bit unrealistic.

I don't like the Imperius Curse AND normal recruitment. One or the other, not both. Sometimes one side or the other gets lucky and that was the case with the recruiter getting nabbed early this time.

The Firebolt - heretic originally had it, but when he died it went to Cult of the Raven and that's where it stayed until very late in the game when it was given to douglas and then Draken. We're not responsible for that miss.

We are, however, responsible for goofing up the Ravenclaw scry on Castaras. All of the narrator spreadsheets agreed that she had it and she should not have been scried that night. In a vain attempt to try to make up for the flub, at one point when the teachers wanted to use the Time Turner but didn't know who had it, we informed the actual owner (Castaras, coincidentally) of their desires and got the 'okay' instead of what we normally would have done, which is ignore any request that didn't originate from the possessor.

Goof - I'm really sorry you didn't like how the role worked out. You've got some good points. Moreover, we shouldn't have given you that role. After it was too late we recalled that you'd asked not to have a role. While normally we'd ignore that kind of request, we went the opposite way and all but hand picked you for this one. Honestly, being an Alpha game, you were chosen by both sides and probably would have been either a Teacher or a Death Eater anyway, but we should have at least honored your request enough to not consider you for this one.

In general - After this game I think that if a game starts with an excessive number of people, rez items should be removed.

There was a lot of good RP in this. I don't want to list people for fear of forgetting someone, but reading every post was very easy in this game.

[Beren One-Hand]

I had lots of fun, even though I got killed off about halfway through or so.
Some one later on mentioned that the Teachers sacrificed me to save someone else, but when I went back and looked at the points at the time I couldn't figure out what he was refering to. Can anyone tell me what was going on there?

As for the game mechanincs, I don't have much to add since it was my first game. I'd think that no mater how Snape's roll ends up next time, his powers (or lack there-of) shouldn't be known by either. It'd be okay for him to obviously know at least some of both sides, but anything more should be known ownly to him - otherwise the uncertinty of which side is he on and just what is he up to would be completely negated.

I also like the idea of having Voldemort be unkillable until all the end, not only does it have a nice flavor to it, but it allows him to be the soul person to know who all the Death Eaters are (as was mentioned in the books). This allows side swaping without revealing the entire team, since the only one revealed is unkillable. At his descresion he can create "cells" of Death Eaters that know each other, since it would be a lot of work to send out individual PM's to each DE.

[Helgraf]

House points. Again, people just didn't seem that concerned about them.


Well, as noted earlier in the game, the House Points have no real bearing on the victory condition, so there's no incentive to play to them when you have a more pressing goal - to wit, survival. If House Points somehow were tied to a mechanical benefit (such as a single use item/effect or the like), it might work, but you'd still have to balance out their usefulness and likelyhood of being activated, especially in consideration of the "You'd be a fool not to use it" technique Shadow came up with for the Teacher/Student trust plan.

Also, tying them to the successful use of the house ability also, as Shadow later pointed out, meant that the Hufflepuff ability would never see point-scoring use. The house abilities were not equivalent in their benefit to either side or overall, so that created a disparity right away in Ravenclaw shooting up the score chart and never letting go of that lead.




1. Only Voldemort and the Inner Circle, (Malfoy and Wormtail) know the actual identities of the Death Eaters. The Death Eater's only know how many of each other there are, and look to Voldemort for instruction. This will result in a threefold change: First, The Voldemort role will require a great deal of leadership in directing the underlings votes, chosing who to kill, etc. Second, this will make the Snape role a little easier to play because it will eliminate the need for a Death Eater contact. Third, it will actually allow for the Sirius Black role to work as originally intended, (that is, undoing recruitment.) as the unrecruited Death Eater will only have information that will not have a great effect.


Okay ... unrecruitment is still bad. We (team DEs) started out with a 6:10 DE:Teacher deficit - add in Sirius Black and Umbridge and we start out 2:1 disadvantaged. If we have irrefusable recruitment, yeah, we _can_ even out those numbers, but if the recruitment can then be reversed, we still risk losing a cell of DEs every time someone gets "back converted" - and in a game where you're outnumbered about 7:1, you can't afford that kind of loss.

Also, the seer starting out known to the circle of teachers is another huge advantage - there's absolutely no way to 'tar and feather' the seer when all the masons known who it is without even the possibility of doubt, and given the number of ways to protect the seer's life (baner, Gryffbane, firebolt) or keep them around (time turner) or just make them undeterminable (cloak), that pretty much means Team Teacher/Student gets a guaranteed safe seer for the majority of the game. Especially with the Shadow technique, since that guarantees the DADA will find the teachers right away, even if "official" recruitment doesn't happen until night 3, he'll still be glad to protect the seer, since greater odds are that Gryff will be covering the baner or that the item seer will see to it the baner gets the firebolt.



2. The Horcruxes and Imperio curse is something I would like to see carried over to the next game, but with the following alterations. Taking a page from the Zombie Invasion game, players will then have the oportunity to declare their actions for the day. At the moment, Actions would include: Attend Classes, and Seek Horcruxes. There may be more developed in time. The imperio Curse worked only 3 times, and was a 100% successful instant recruit, to which teachers were immune. I feel this is reasonable balanced, and can be kept, so long as the starting number of DE's is reduced.


Umm, "Reduced"? As noted above, we're already outnumbered by the organized good guys (with pre-known seer to boot) 2:1. Or ever so slightly less if you discount Sirius Black and Snape. If we had an unrefusable recruit as a regular (every x turns) thing, maybe. But with only 3 recruits per game, peroid? That means we can't _ever_ even match the numbers of our enemies - if we're lucky, we recruit to replace losses so we can try to block a house ability. Only the fact that (first converted) Atreyu kept giving us the trusted list gave us a good idea of whom to recruit after him. Because we'd be fools to recruit anyone who hadn't been trusted. Their lifespan would have been far too short. I was waffling on recruiting Indurian, and in the end I did it only because it let me lock away the Gryff Bane - if he was lynched, there would be no more Gryff bane because he was the last one alive. If he wasn't lynched, the DEs could decide whether to go with the advice he was given on whom to protect or not.

Anyway, whether or not we have the right number of starting DEs is debateable. Reducing our numbers even further is lunacy, in my opinion.



House Powers:

This is an area requiring severe revision, and I am open to suggestions.

Gryffindor, I think should really only be limited to be effective on students, that way it doesn't have as much of an effect as it did in this game.

At the moment, these are the only changes I've been able to determine. What do you think?

Gryffindor working on students only would be theme appropriate (we save our friends), but at the same time would pretty much nerf the role - it would very quickly become as useless for House Points as Hufflepuff's ability.

Random Thought: Perhaps instead of immortality, let the Dark Lord role scry as a student. If he or she happens to get lynched, well, that's the way the ball bounces. It's less story-feel-appropriate though.

Random Thought #2: Alternately, an illusionist-role on team DE. The ability to hide the affiliation of one of our own would (as I'd noted in the PM) go a looong way toward increasing our survivability.

[Supagoof]

Thanks narrators, I know that Snapes role had to be limited due to original setup of the game (can't tell Snape whose on each side because he'll simply give the list to the side he want's to win, anything else hinders him.)

I like the idea of having the DEs unknown to each other besides Voldemort - to organize them is something very in line with the books, and also for them to gain his trust - in line with the books.

Snape - That would help his role and definitely make it more interesting. However, his scry regulation should change from "Scry as Snape and only as Snape" should change to "scry as team scrying him" - and all others "DEs and Teachers" the same way, then at least he can remain hidden until he figures out his way to manipulate towards his win goal. Though the other DEs will be given there names and can choose to share them with Voldemort, Snape could lie which means none can be trusted until he wants to reveal himself. Again, more like in the book where he had to play both sides in order to conceal himself amongst them. Perhaps make it real interesting and change Sirius to a similar role. 2 moles on the teams, one sided with the DEs and other with the teachers. Either way, the thing that hindered me the most was that the others on both sides knew everything about me except for my alliegence, which was the most limiting factor on the role.

I agree with Helgraf about the imbalance against the DEs, but also know that while the DEs recruit to grow their numbers, they also can lower total players in the game. take for example, 5 people left in the game = either 2/5 (.40) as DEs or 1/4 (.25) - which means recruitment is more powerful then the nightly kills. So remaining hidden and getting the lynch mob to attack anyone other then a DE is key and also something to make the game get less away from the behind the scene PMs (boring) to more logic of why you point publically.

Voldemort should start by knowing all the DEs, and also who is wormtail + malfoy.

Perhaps Dumbledore the same way - fair balance.

Ministry should have their own win condition, which goes against making it simpler to understand the game, but also gives a different incentive should they be discovered by a team. Perhaps just to survive + their special ability is enough - or maybe like Snape to pick a side...

As for house abilities, change them so they have less impact on game play. Give the houses a different set of goals that are house point based = they win the house cup. House cup then to be awarded at game's end (when either side meets the win condition). Here are some thoughts...

Ravenclaw - the house sends in a PM for a riddle each night. The next day the rest of the houses have to figure out the Riddle. If they can't figure it out, the Ravenclaw gets X amount of house points. If they can, then then the house that figures it out gets Y number of house points. Say, for example, a correct answer ='s 10 points for the house. Each day 30 points are up. So, if Gryf answers correctly, they get 10 points, but if Huf and Sly don't, Rav gets 20. Each house then has to send in via PM their answer. Perhaps for simplicities sake, each house has a house leader?

Gry - award points for players who role-play acts of courage and dignity, remove points for players who don't.

Huf - award points for players who rp acts of unionship (bringing people together), subtract points for players who don't.

Sly - award point for players who thwart other houses from gaining points, subtract those who don't.

Or possibly setup Quidditch style matches where house A takes on house B in a challenge. First house to complete challenge wins match and points. Points then based on difficulty of challenges....(and challenges can be from answering questions to getting a point for everyone in your house who goes and does a stabbity death in HP style then links it back in the main thread to all sorts of things like that.)

Would = more PMs in the daytime for narrators and less at night, plus would keep the game RP real interesting.

Just some thoughts....

Thank you narrators for the compliment and the honor of being handpicked for Snape. Even though the role was bleh, I appreciate the Kudos knowing it was a hand selection for that role and I hope I didn't fail you in working it in ways that I could.

[Helgraf]

Long long ago, I'd promised to share the PMs I'd issued and had replied to as the Dark Lord.

I sent them via PM to someone, but forgot to post them here.

So ... here you are.



Two eyelids flickered open. A slight hiss of air drawn into the vertical slits that marred an otherwise serpentine beauty.

A single word spoken.

"Morsmordre!"

Across the land, the Black Mark would flare to ugly evil life. These are those whom might be among the marked elite. The slaves who would beg at the master's table for the scraps of power which the loyal and the capable would be rewarded with.

Some of them were new to the society. Others had been a part of it from the beginning. This made them no more trustworthy - indeed their long time in service without working toward my return makes them as suspicious as the new kine. All would be observed. All would be tested.

He waited for them to apparate before him...

--

"You have answered my call ... so few of us, when once there were so many. So few have remained true, so few have remained pure and focused through the long years.

But we are closer than ever, my faithful hounds. I am, perhaps disappointed that none of your guises have risen in my rightful house of Slytherin. Yet we shall make this work to our advantage.

Knowledge is power. Knowledge will be our power. We must move with control and precision. Let passion die in your hearts - the time for exultant slaughter of the unworthy shall come soon enough. Let passion die down to an ember and use that burning as a focus toward our inevitable goal.

All of you must keep your ears open and your eyes ready. Especially my pets in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Thirst for news. Listen to your fellow students whose forms you have taken. Learn. Insinuate. Strangle the weeds in our garden, the muggle born.

I sense the questions in you, in each of you. Speak this once freely, yet not impertinently. None among you is so important that you cannot be ... replaced."

The Dark Lord watched them all, waiting...
--
(by Gnome Barbarian - Wormtail)
Grovels towards the dark lord. Finally at the dark lords feet eh never looks up while he speaks.

Dark Lord... we are honored to serve you and do your bidding. Anything you ask of me will be done. I have infultrated the blood traitors house. They believe me to be one of their twin sons.

He lets out a little snicker.

I don't believe that any of the blood traitors will discover my disguise. With the other twin help I can surely sneak around hogwarts and weed out those hidden from us. Whom do you wish me to watch over the first night?

He continues to grovel at his masters feet.
--
(Travelling Angel - Bellatrix)
"Frankly, My Lord, it I have no immediate ideas. However, I do suggest we do away with unknowns unless Wormtail finds someone special.

"However, we already have a strong presence in Ravenclaw. I suggest we work our recruitment efforts to take control of that house, so that we can use its mental faculty for our own purpose, rather then suffer when some mudblood unearths one of us."
--
(Helgraf - last two lines are Bookboy's (Crouch Jr.) reply)
The Dark Lord nodded slightly. It could not be said that he smiled, but his tone seemed to carry a note of approval as he replied. "Yesss Bellatrix. You sense a layer of my plan in this. We should recruit ... and we should kill. Until they are with us or dead. Then shall their scrutiny be put at our own disposal. He looked at Wormtail, eyes in the snake-smooth face regarding him with an odd seeming of hunger.

"It is my will that we should look also into Hufflepuff. Their power to shield one from the mob may prove useful to us, though we only have a single pair of eyes within. Therefore MacNair, I must insist you curb - for now - your appetite for destruction and instead employ your tongue carefully. Mister Hopkins should encourage his fellows discreetly in ways that will aid us."

My Lord, may I suggest that we ignore Slytherin? They are the most likely to arouse rumors.
--
((Captain van der Decken - MacNair))

"As you wish, my lord.

However, what of Snape, m'lord? Can he be trusted? He could easily choose the wrong side. He knows I am his contact but, I suspect, does not know weither I am a Death Eater or a Teacher."
--
((Wormtail))
My lord, I do not believe Snape can be trusted. He is to much of a liability. I believe we should kill him the first night. Get rid of him so we do not need to worry about him giving up Walden to the other side. Which he may have already. But first I suggest we ask him for the name of his Hogwarts contact so I may keep and eye on them to see if he was telling the truth.

Through the entire conversation he does nto look up.

Give him the ultimadum. For if I know one thing about you my lord, you will not allow someone to play both sides like the foolish dumbledore. Either he is with you or dead.
--
((Vonriel - Lucius Malfoy))
Lucius makes the slightest bowing of his head, acknowledging his respect towards Voldemort.

I agree with the plans to recruit Ravenclaw's household into our fold. The fools already accept four of us as their own, so it should be easy to gather enough of the rest to our cause, my lord.
--
"It is assured ... Bartholemew Crouch Junior... that House Slytherin shall feel the weight of our shadow cast upon it. If our enemies wish to waste their energy in this matter, it is of no concern to us. As for the matter of the so-called renegade Severusssss."

The Dark Lord's eyes narrowed slightly. "One treachery shall be met with another. MacNair, you shall be the instrument of my will. Learn what you can from Severus. If he will give up the name without further inducement then we shall make note of it. If he proves treacherous, he will die, as all whom have betrayed me." Voldemort's gaze passed over each of them in turn, seeming to penetrate deep within. "Remember that."

We should also consider whom we want to nominate for Ravenclaw's scry. We need to be careful not to reveal ourselves by all voting together _yet_ - unless, of course, the house is inclined toward someone we already wish scried.

Bellatrix. Suggest to the Ravenclaw students that we begin discussion of whom to scry tonight via the house journal. We shall see if the vote is close enough to warrent intervention, but currently, any scry outside is a useful scry.

"Lucius Malfoy." Silence hung in the air for the space of several slow heartbeats. "Tell me your thoughts on whom is worthy of joining our ranks."

--
((Barty Crouch Jr.))
If we wish to get Potter, Cho Chang Would be a good start. He is known to have feelings for both her and the Weasley girl.

--
((after my first "lynching"))
The Death Eaters had gathered after the rumours that the Dark Lord had been exposed - possibly even captured - at Hogwarts.

Wormtail was agitated. Could the plan have fallen so easily? The Dark Lord had seemed so certain.

Lucius and Bellatrix's faces were impassive, but ambition never slept. Each was already plotting their next moves for power and control.

MacNair, on the other hand, was barely controlled - the animal need for blood and killing was making him pace and mutter violently under his breath all sorts of foulness upon the mudbloods and the mundanes.

Crouch. Crouch sat in a corner, nearly catatonic. His gaze was glassy, and his chest hardly moved.

There was a quiet sort of rustling sound ... Nagini slithered into the chamber, lidless eyes locking onto Wormtail, sinuous body swaying back and forth.

Crouch's arm raised slowly, a battered old wand held in it. In a voice barely his own, he hissed. "Morsmordre!"

Instantly, the Dark Mark flared to terrible life on each of their arms. Before they could react, there was a sound ... and the Dark Lord stood before them once more, clutching something small and dark that seemed to beat in the grip of his hand.

"Ambition ... is useless without preparation," he incanted without preamble. "Preparation without ambition goes nowhere."

His grip tightened, causing a faint wet tearing sound. Dark blood oozed over his fingers and dribbled downward to splatter drop by drop upon the floor.

"Even the blood of a fool has value," he hissed, then threw the mangled remains of the heart he'd held on the floor at Wormtail's feet. "to one who knows how to use it."

"Lucius, that cow Umbridge will do her best to stifle your efforts until we can kill her or make her one of us. But you must make the effort anyway ... she may yet slip up."

"Wormtail ... you have brought us a valuable treasure in your spying. McGonagall dies tonight. Find us more."

"The battle is only beginning, my servants, and I am as powerful as ever."
--
((Night 4 - after Malfoy's lynching))
Ahh, Lucius Malfoy. Of all my treacherous underlings, few had quite so much ambition as you. A pity you gambled and lost.

EmeraldRose is almost certainly a teacher. She dies tonight.

Through dark and secret pacts, I have called another Death Eater to fill the shoes of Lucius. The great beast Fang (Atreyu the Masked Llama) now works for us. I will begin including him in our circles soon.

With Fang's aid, we have four votes in Ravenclaw again - and the field is narrowed to 10 members. One more elimination without any of us dying and we will control its vote.

Wormtail ... unless you have another candidate you feel is more worthy, I suggest we scry either Alec, CurlyKitGirl, Draken, Jontom Xire, Malpak Azhurer or North. (EG, a ravenclaw whose identity we dont know yet). We're very close to house control, and I'd like to clear one more subject for either murder or use of imperio. Probably murder. Best to save my remaining, limited uses for more subtle effects.

MacNair, Wormtail keep us abreast of what your houses are up to (in as much as you can, of course). We need our ears in the other houses.

Ravenclaw DEs (I'll send this to Atreyu as well), we may be able to push the vote. Each night we creep a little closer to control - all it would take right now is for one of the other five voters not to follow the party line, as long as all five of us vote as one, and we get our choice of scry. We still don't want to narrow down the list any further, so once again, I recommend we go afield and all vote on Kyrian of Hufflepuff.
--
(( conversations between Fang (Atreyu) and Voldemort - a bit of OOC & IC mix ))

Originally Posted by Atreyu the Masked LLama
[email protected]: so......Insert neat user name here is a teacher :)
(11:07:35 PM) Cameron/Shadow *naf: heh
Voldemort paused briefly. "Fang ... Insert neat username here isn't enrolled at this this school. ((Isn't playing this game))."
(Yeah. I know. It seemed kinda funny, though.)

*Fang's ears droop at the comment. It sounded that master was not amused. The dogs quickly ran off to find something else to please He Who Should not be Named, but Should be Served. They return with a note from Cedric that is addressed to himself, Ink, Tormsskull, Vuurmeester, and ZombieRockStar.*


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow
You have all been scried by either Ravenclaw or the Teachers as Students.

I thought I'd put you all in contact so that you could begin to work together.
I will not tell you the names of the Teachers at this point.
I will tell you that we are currently talking about possibly giving those names up to you all and bringing you into the fold if/when the time has passed so that Vonriel(Malfoy) cannot be raised by the Timeturner.

It's not certan, it's just a possibility.

If you have any questions for the Teachers, feel free to contact me.
*Fang held the letter out to Voldemort, his faces smiling evilly.*
--
Voldemort smiled. It was a twisted horrible thing on that snake-smooth, slightly egg-like face. He pulled out a fresh muggle arm he'd been originally planning to use for a bit of improvisational spellcraft, and tossed it to the great beast.

"I am ... pleased. I agree ... killing them would be ... poorly thought out at this time. On the other hand ... recruiting another one of them could prove most ... desireable. Having another of their trusted at our side would make the finding of us all that much more difficult."

"Worm, add Adrian Pucey (ZombieRockStar) to the list of the known; another student."
--
((Night 7))
The Dark Lord waited as his servants Appariated in, one by one. The great three-headed beast Fang came through the door, three heads bickering with one another ... the outer two had the good sense to fall silent in the Dark Lord's presence. The middle head followed after, but not before making one last attempt to nip the ear of the left.

The Dark Lord smiled a sickly smile, revealing almost needle-like teeth.

"In Chaos we have found the Order. By persistance and desire, we have unearthed our enemy. Through loyalty and treachery we are gaining the upper hand. Wormtail, Fang, and our newest ... associate ... have proven their worth to me. Each has brought more names to the list ... so that we can more readily seperate the cowards from the students ... cull them out like the chaff in the wheat, and then reap the harvest to our benefit."

"The boy Potter will lose everything that matters to him before I take his life. His teachers, his friends, yes, even his beloved school. Another teacher dies tonight."

He considered them each and all in turn. "Wormtail, your efforts shall not go unrewarded. But there are still, I suspect, a few in hiding. We must ferret them out. Your judgement has been keen of late. Pray it remains so."

"Fang ... MacMillian. Let us know if that wretch Slughorn recommends someone for the Ravenclaw House Scry. We may need to ... interfere, depending on those results."

"Bellatrix - for now, keep a low profile. They continue to search for us, and you, sadly, are likely the next one they will find. You have blended very well so far, as befits your nature. I approve."

"With Barty Crouch Jr's ... careless lack of attention to the important details, our efforts to compromise Ravenclaw house scry have been hampered. If he still lived, he would have earned Crucio for his ineptitude," the Dark Lord hissed venomously.

"Do not forget to vote for your respective houses. We wouldn't want anyone to be ... suspicious, after all. As that fool Madeye often raved ... 'Constant Vigilance' "
--
((Unfortunately, after this point I hit my net problems - so no really good IC stuff remained until the endgame which was posted in thread))