OOTS death pool (thread #4)

[The Pilgrim]

*Dang*

Point.

[padraig]

Let's go with Malack

[Ninja Dragon]

I'll keep my bet on Kilkil.

[Chessgeek]

heh. Twenty minutes earlier and you'd have one shiny point.

Except that that post was 12 hours ago, so they do, in fact, have a shiny point. And I'm jealous. Malack shall pay for his actions.

[dps]

I'll stay with Uncle Geoff

[Dracarot]

I'll maintain my bet on Belkar. I cannot see improvement in his situation.

[Rakoa]

Is it now necessary to state that you are maintaining your bet? Or is it still implied?

[137beth]

I'm going to keep my bet on kilkil, although it seems increasingly unlikely.

[Winter]

Btw, your measure to take points is broken.

Assume two people, one predicts A will die, the second predicts D will die.

Now people in the comic die in the order A, B, C, D, E, F. When A dies, the first person picks B. When D dies, the second person picks F. At the end, both people have the same number of points (2), but D has been wrong four times before his estimates died, while A was much better (two in a row).

You need award negative points for being wrong or your way of taking track will lead to results that do not represent the quality of the vote. Or create some other setup.

I suggest you award 10 points for a death at the point when the vote is cast first. For each character that dies in between then you subtract one point, which means a character will be worth if it saw 10 characters dieing without kicking the bucket.
If someone decides to join in later on a character, he gets the reduced points as well. Simply because if you join in later, more story has happened and you do not deserve a chance to as many points as someone who picks a fresh character (as you already saw "Durkon not dieing twice").

Example:
I call Roy, who is worth 10 points. But in between die Roy, Belkar, some Side-NPC. If Roy dies now, he's only worth 7 points, as he saw three dead in between.
In my above example, Player 1 would have 20 points (A died with 10, B died with 10), but Player 2 would only have 11 (D died with 7, F with 4 (assuming all characters A to F were picked at the same time).

[Koo Rehtorb]

Only the first person to name the victim should get a point. Otherwise it just encourages holding back your vote until you've got good evidence for it.

[Winter]

Only the first person to name the victim should get a point.

This is impossible. There are too few characters for too many people.

Otherwise it just encourages holding back your vote until you've got good evidence for it.

That is an entirely different matter. I think votes for "fights or encounters that have already started" should not count.
You can jump in on Durkon if the Order enters the pyramid, but not after the LG has attacked. Note I include "encounters", which means the pre-fight talk with Malack would exclude you from picking Durkon.
It is also relatively easy policeable as the most current comic at the point of casting a vote would decide if it counts or not. The rule would be: you can only pick a character whose party is not recently involved in any sort of conflict.
You currently could not pick Roy or Tarquin. Both are not on screen but their parties are involved in an encounter. You could very well pick Hinjo, Xykon Celia.

[VanaGalen]

I'll go for Malack now. Btw, does Sabine's reaction to Holy Word count as death?

[Heksefatter]

YES!!!! I won 25 qvumsels. I'll drink 'em all up and then figure out how to win more.

[Winter]

Btw, does Sabine's reaction to Holy Word count as death?

Of course not. She is banished for 24 hours, not dead/destroyed/forever unable to come back.

[sam79]

That is an entirely different matter. I think votes for "fights or encounters that have already started" should not count.
You can jump in on Durkon if the Order enters the pyramid, but not after the LG has attacked. Note I include "encounters", which means the pre-fight talk with Malack would exclude you from picking Durkon.
It is also relatively easy policeable as the most current comic at the point of casting a vote would decide if it counts or not. The rule would be: you can only pick a character whose party is not recently involved in any sort of conflict.
You currently could not pick Roy or Tarquin. Both are not on screen but their parties are involved in an encounter. You could very well pick Hinjo, Xykon Celia.

I don't really think this is necessary; it makes a relatively simple and light-hearted game needlessy complicated, and could result in a lot of petty arguments. Also, as this series of strips proves, 'late' voting does not necessarily give an unfair advantage; people who bet 'late' on Belkar after strip 870 or Malack after 873 did not gain as a result, and there is always the risk of holding back your bet and being too late.

In other news, I'm going to stick with my current bet of Malack.

[onionbreath]

I don't really think this is necessary; it makes a relatively simple and light-hearted game needlessy complicated, and could result in a lot of petty arguments. Also, as this series of strips proves, 'late' voting does not necessarily give an unfair advantage; people who bet 'late' on Belkar after strip 870 or Malack after 873 did not gain as a result, and there is always the risk of holding back your bet and being too late.

I agree with this.

I vote on Belkar for this round.

[Winter]

Yeah, blocking characters from getting picked is probably not necessary. I think the way of keeping track of the points is still not telling, though.

[Gift Jeraff]

Hmmm, 2 PCs dying in a row seems unlikely. Although I think Zz'dtri and Kilkil are safe votes, I'm going to go with Malack because I so badly want to see the bastard horribly slain (and his body defiled in the most humiliating way...to prevent his return.)

[Winter]

Hmmm, 2 PCs dying in a row seems unlikely.

That's why it might happen.

[Kish]

I don't think there's any need to make the rules more complicated than they are.

I am not moving my current bet. Even if both Malack and Durkon were likely to let Belkar live now, he still has a nearly-expired prophecy.

[Winter]

Given that Durkon just now got Xs in his eyes, I want to make a new bet: I put it down that Belkar is going to be next.

[dps]

I don't really think this is necessary; it makes a relatively simple and light-hearted game needlessy complicated, and could result in a lot of petty arguments. Also, as this series of strips proves, 'late' voting does not necessarily give an unfair advantage; people who bet 'late' on Belkar after strip 870 or Malack after 873 did not gain as a result, and there is always the risk of holding back your bet and being too late.

There's another problem with this, which the current situation highlights. Anyone who had picked Durkon now needs to pick another character, but is blocked from taking any member of the Order, or of the current Nale/Tarquin version of the Linear Guild. That doesn't seem fair--they'd be getting penalized for having been right.

[Bulldog Psion]

Now that Durkon is dead, and I've been proven wrong again, I'd like to:

Remove my bet on Belkar Bitterleaf

and say that Malack is the next to die.

Because of a private theory of what's going to happen next.

[Seharvepernfan]

Dammit, there goes my lead.

[gorocz]

Now with a new round of betting, I'd like to chip in on this. Because it looks really grim for Belkar atm. and really well for Malack, I'd go with Malack dying next. Just so my avatar doesn't come true and because, honestly, vamping two characters would be kinda weird...

[Morph Bark]

An interesting idea, this. I'll vote on Belkar.

[ThomasMink]

Just popping in to say that I'll keep my vote for Zz'dtri.

[Emulgator]

Just popping in to say that I'll keep my vote for Zz'dtri.

Pretty much this.

[Rorrik]

With Sabine banished and big battles in the near future, I'm changing my vote to ... well dang, Malack is going to get away, I agree that two PCs is unlikely, but that far out there are a ton of variables. I'm going with Belkar.

[rgrekejin]

Woo woo! Point for rgrekejin!

Question: If Durkon becomes a Vampire, can I bet on Durkon again, in this case my wager being that the undead Durkon will be destroyed, like how a bet on Xykon or Malack would work?