Aces & Eights

[AvatarVecna]

Spoiler: initial Recruitment thread

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It's time for a poker tournament! The best players from all over the country are gathering together in the hopes of winning the hundred grand prize! Unfortunately, there's some awful rumors that other tourneys in the area have found evidence of some no-good dirty cheaters conspiring with each other to muscle out the competition and split any prize money, and if you were a gamblin' man, it's good odds they'll be up to the same tricks trying to swindle you out of a payday.

Spoiler: Rules

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Basic Mechanics
This is a game of Werewolf/Mafia. It functions somewhat like "Among Us", if you are more familiar with that game.

Prior to the game starting, I will randomly assign roles to players from the lists below. The role you receive will define your win condition and what powers you have (if any). If you are a member of the scum team, you will start the game in secret contact with other members of scum team via a group QT, which you can use to discuss strategy without being discovered.

The game will start on a Day Phase; the first Day Phase will last 72 hours, while subsequent ones will last 48 hours. During any Day Phase, all players can vote for who they wish to "lynch" (remove from the game) that phase. Your vote is not set in stone once cast, and you can recast your vote at any time (or even unvote entirely), provided that the phase has not ended. To cast your vote, please bold and color in red the name of the person you wish to vote. It doesn't have to be their forum name proper, or some official "I vote [name]", as long as it's recognizable who you're voting and the formatting has been done.



This particular game's vote mechanics has a difference from normal which I will detail in its own section.

At the end of the day phase, I'll tally votes, and declare how many votes each wagon received. Whichever wagon has the most votes is lynched and can no longer participate in the game publicly or privately (except for Dead Chat, where they can talk with me and anybody else who is already dead). I will then inform the other players of that person's role and alignment. If there was a tie between who had the most votes, the tie will be resolved randomly.

After a Day Phase ends, the game will shift to the Night Phase; all Night Phases will last 24 hours. If you possess a power that lets you target somebody during the Night Phase, this is the time to use it. During this time, the scum team will be able to select a non-scum player to be killed (as well as using whatever other powers they might have as well). After a Night Phase ends, the game will shift to the Day Phase once more.

This cycle will repeat until one of two things happens: either all members of one team or the other is eliminated, or the elimination of all members of one team is inevitable. For example, if you get to a Day Phase with 7 players left (3 town, 4 scum), town has basically already lost, and so a Mercy Rule will be invoked to call the game early instead of making everybody play through the next 120 hours.

Private Communication

For purposes of not flooding my inbox with questions, private communications between players, and power uses, we will be making use of a Discord Server. Communicating via forum PM, offsite communication, or Discord DMs is not allowed (at least not about game anyway). Any communication between players about game is not allowed barring a power that explicitly allows for it (like lovers/masons, for example).

Narrator Confirmation

Narrator confirmation of things will be limited, but the narrator will not lie to you; if you are told a thing by the narrator (such as a death reveal, or an answer on a power interaction), it will be the truth. With that being said:

Bastard-ish Rule

This is a poker tournament. Your ability to expel people from the game is partially a reflection of your skill, but it's also a reflection of accumulated chips. Seven people trying to get one particular person removed from the game can play around that person and use their chips strategically. But if that one person has more chips than all of them combined and plays their cards right, they could outmaneuver their opponents...or just survive the attempted ousting through sheer wealth. A person's chip pile might not reflect their wealth - they could always buy more chips. But the limits of their pocketbook will become apparent when they run out of chips and don't try to get more.

Every player begins the game with a certain number of votes. This number is greater than one. When a player dies, their voting power at time of death will be announced publicly, and will then be distributed by the end of the next phase (so a person who dies during the day phase will have their voting power distributed during the night phase, which is finished by the next day phase, and a person who dies during the night phase will have their voting power distributed during the day phase, which is finished by the next night phase).

Half of this voting power (rounding up) will be distributed either how the dead player wished for it to be distributed upon their death (specified privately prior to their demise), or distributed randomly if they did not express any particular wishes for it. The remaining voting power will be distributed by [REDACTED]. Once distribution is determined, at the end of the next phase I will specify who received voting power from the dead player, but not specify how many they received or what that player's new voting power is.

Here's how multiple votes work:

1) At the end of the day, I will tally the number of un-crossed-out votes from a given player (their Targets). I will compare this to the number of votes they're supposed to get (their Power). All of a player's targets will make it into the Official Vote Count at the end of the day, but only their power will be reflected in the wagons.

2) If their number of Targets and Power is equal, one Power is assigned to each Target.

3) If their number of Targets is greater than their Power, one Power is assigned to their most recent Targets. So if you have three Power and five Targets, only the three most recent Targets actually have votes on them.

4) If their number of Targets is lower than their power, their Power is evenly distributed between all targets, with any remainder biasing towards the most recent Targets. So if you have seven Power and three Targets, your targets will receive 3/2/2 votes, with your most recent Target getting three votes.

All that being said, any vote manipulation comes from the player's ability to disguise their vote power, but there is not actual vote manipulation. If the game starts with fifty-two votes in play (for example), then there will always be fifty-two active votes, and none of them are assigned secretly, where someone is publicly not voting someone while privately voting them. Voting power cannot be created or destroyed by any means, and all cards will be on the table at the end of the day phase.

Roles

Everybody will have a specific role. Not all roles are specified here, and not all roles specified here are guaranteed to be present. Roles might appear more than once, but don't expect this unless the game gets particularly large. There may be neutrals, but not necessarily.

Player List:

1. Xihirli
2. 3SecondCultist
3. Benoojian
4. bladescape
5. Book Wombat
6. CaoimhinTheCape
7. flat_footed
8. Illven
9. JeenLeen
10. Lady Serpentine
11. Levitate
12. Persolus
13. Snowblaze
14. Taffimai

Substitutions:

1. Batcathat
2. Rogan

Spectators:

1. Caedorus
2. Let'sGetKraken

I'm still waiting on at least one player to join the discord and see their powers, so wait to start playing until I announce the start of Day 1.

[AvatarVecna]

Day One Ends In ~72 Hours

The tables are full. The dealers are quick. The chips are feather-light but weigh on the mind like a ton of gold.

"Aces are high, jokers are wild."

And the games begin.

[Levitate]

Howdy pardners 🤠

[Illven]

I play Squirtle, and attach a water energy to it! Squirtle use bubble on the Litwicks go! Now I flip a coin... Come on heads....?

[So counting Ti as "player 14"]


CaoimhinTheCape? This coin is weird.....


[Back to DnD. ]

[3SecondCultist]

Alright friends, let’s see what the cards say, shall we?

[roll]1d14[/roll]

- - - Updated - - -

Huh, I guess it doesn’t work on this forum?

Well Rogan for now then.

[Persolus]

Well howdy, folks, I'm Persolus n' me n' my nice little six-shooter here think y'all shouldn't kill me first round.

Fer the record, I'd like to be stated as spe-cif-i-catin' that this here ain't any claims of power roles as such, just good ol-fashioned role-play.

Now i have me here a nice fancy little d14, and wouldn'tcha know, it's giving me a feeling that JeenLeen might not quite be playing above the board with us, if y' catch m' drift.

[Book Wombat]

By the toss of the myriad coin, ye shall answer Snowblaze.

[Snowblaze]

Di checked her reflection in her hand-mirror, quite unnecessarily at this point: she knew quite well the proper amount of lipstick to apply to produce the desired effect. It was part of the ritual, though, that was what mattered.

Satisfied, she reached for the cards in front of her, mentally fixing her mask in place as she did so. The little smile as she saw what she'd been dealt wasn't fake, though, it never was. She smiled for the thrill of another round of the game she loved. Smiled because this was what she lived for.

Let's go with... Book Wombat, because OMGUS. Also bladescape and Xihirli. Because why have multiple votes and not use them properly?

(Speaking of which, is there a reason to not just have everyone claim their voting power?)

[Persolus]

Howdy pardners 🤠

Pleasure t' make yer acquaintance, Levitate, right? Welcome to our pleasant li'l town of GiantITP, apologies that it's a mite in-hospitable-like at the moment what with the dirty-no-good-sons-of-a-gun cheaters 'round these parts. You got experience with this sort of thing?

Di checked her reflection in her hand-mirror, quite unnecessarily at this point: she knew quite well the proper amount of lipstick to apply to produce the desired effect. It was part of the ritual, though, that was what mattered.

Satisfied, she reached for the cards in front of her, mentally fixing her mask in place as she did so. The little smile as she saw what she'd been dealt wasn't fake, though, it never was. She smiled for the thrill of another round of the game she loved. Smiled because this was what she lived for.

Let's go with... Book Wombat, because OMGUS. Also bladescape and Xihirli. Because why have multiple votes and not use them properly?

(Speaking of which, is there a reason to not just have everyone claim their voting power?)

Well my fair lady, seems to me like there's no reason for anyone asked not t' jest lie straight through their teeth, and that could be for any number o' reasons, if you follow my train of thought. If you want t' start us off with sharing yer own be my guest, but don't mind me being a mite hes-i-tatent to join you!

[Snowblaze]

Well my fair lady, seems to me like there's no reason for anyone asked not t' jest lie straight through their teeth, and that could be for any number o' reasons, if you follow my train of thought. If you want t' start us off with sharing yer own be my guest, but don't mind me being a mite hes-i-tatent to join you!

I mean, I'm slightly struggling to think of reasons for town to lie about it rn. (Beyond "screw you, I'm an agent of chaos and I will not abide by your rules".)

(Then again part of the reason I'm suggesting it is just "I, personally, want to know what's going on". Which isn't the same thing as "it is pro-town to reveal this information", even if I do also think the latter.)

As for my number of votes, the same as the number of people I'm voting for.

Also hi and welcome, Levitate!

[JeenLeen]

None of us know the distribution of votes we each have.
The wolves have some better insight into that than Town does, since they have more players in communication with each other, but they can't know if their count is different from a normal player's or not. I have a few speculations about how AV might've done the vote distributions, but I'm not sure how much I want to publicly speculate yet.

I want to reread the rules on how votes are distributed after death, but I have a suspicion that sharing our votes (like sharing powers) might help the wolves more than town right now. "Rich" folk could make better targets, and wolves have more concern about who really has a wagon on them verses it being a bluff.
So I can think of reasons it might be good for Town to lie. Not sure if I'm correct or not, but I can think of the reasons.

So Snowblaze.
Her asking could be genuine. It could be wolf trying to get intel. I admit I don't think she'd have a tone like she does if she were wolf, but WIFOM.
And why not... Book Wombat, Persolus, JeenLeen

Tangent: this does feel like a fun game to RP in. Might try that in a bit, but real life and work caught up with me as this game started.

- - - Updated - - -

Reread some.

Half of this voting power (rounding up) will be distributed either how the dead player wished for it to be distributed upon their death (specified privately prior to their demise), or distributed randomly if they did not express any particular wishes for it. The remaining voting power will be distributed by [REDACTED]. Once distribution is determined, at the end of the next phase I will specify who received voting power from the dead player, but not specify how many they received or what that player's new voting power is.

Caution: the Half of this voting power (rounding up) will be distributed either how the dead player wished for it to be distributed upon their death (specified privately prior to their demise), or distributed randomly if they did not express any particular wishes for it. The remaining voting power will be distributed by [REDACTED]. Once distribution is determined, at the end of the next phase I will specify who received voting power from the dead player, but not specify how many they received or what that player's new voting power is. way some votes are distributed after death might be known, or easier to find out, by the wolves. Or a maybe-not-friendly neutral. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from that, but it might be reason to keep vote info low.
At the least, it's a reason to realize that, even if we're honest about our votes now, we can't really use that info well since we don't know when/if votes will go to a wolf.

3) If their number of Targets is greater than their Power, one Power is assigned to their most recent Targets. So if you have three Power and five Targets, only the three most recent Targets actually have votes on them.

4) If their number of Targets is lower than their power, their Power is evenly distributed between all targets, with any remainder biasing towards the most recent Targets. So if you have seven Power and three Targets, your targets will receive 3/2/2 votes, with your most recent Target getting three votes.

Important: "three most recent Targets actually have votes on them". In most games, it's the oldest uncrossed votes that count. In this game, it's the opposite.
Am I reading that right?

Questions for AV
Asking this to make sure I understand the rules.

If I had 4 vote power, and I vote Snowblaze and Book Wombat, each would get 2 votes each as 4/2 = 2. Right?
If I only voted Snowblaze, it'd count as 4 votes against her, right?

Are we allowed to do something like vote the same person multiple times?
I can see this to let us make sure we are voting the way we want (that is, not confused by the rules). So if I have 5 power and want to be sure I get two votes on A and three votes on B, I could vote A A B B B.
(I think voting A then B would do the same based on rule #4, but I might not remember that later.)
Of course, that tips our hand to our vote power so it's probably a bad move, but I want to know if it's allowed in this game.

- - - Updated - - -

NOTE: I screwed up the copy/paste and QUOTES from the opening thread regarding the REDACTED thing. I think my point is still getting across clear enough, but adding this to note that screw-up since we're not supposed to edit our posts.

[Xihirli]

Well, I suppose it's time to Ante up.

JeenLeen, I'll match your one chip that you've put on... everything.

[Benoojian]

(Speaking of which, is there a reason to not just have everyone claim their voting power?)

If someone in town is significantly richer (more votes) and the unknown half of the votes goes to wolves or evil neutral, then knowing who in town has the most votes is pro-wolf not pro town.

Speaking of voting, I see 3SecondCultist and Persolus using dice...at a card game?

[Illven]

If someone in town is significantly richer (more votes) and the unknown half of the votes goes to wolves or evil neutral, then knowing who in town has the most votes is pro-wolf not pro town.

Also the wolves having an accurate vote count means they can open wolf after their vote power exceeds town, if they don't know, vecna can't end game cause wolves could misplay.

[Snowblaze]

Okay, yeah, on further thought (read: other people pointing it out) there are actually some pretty good reasons not to massclaim voting power. (Though I kind of doubt the extra mechanic is "wolves get a ton of votes", seems unbalanced imo.)

So... reads.

awkward silence

The only things of note imo are Jeen's post, which... my gut dislikes "I don't think Snowblaze would have this tone as wolf but I'm voting her anyway", but also making that read is giving me flashbacks to incorrectly invoking it in Champs so I won't.

And 3SC voting for someone who isn't playing, which... it's NAI. I can't even force myself to have a read on it, except "just to check, 3SC, you are aware Rogan is a replacement and not currently playing".

So, yup, I officially have no reads. Can people do stuff please? Thanks!

- - - Updated - - -

Actually no that's a lie, Jeen is also self-voting. Which is... mildly towny if I squint. I have reads!

[Benoojian]

Okay, yeah, on further thought (read: other people pointing it out) there are actually some pretty good reasons not to massclaim voting power. (Though I kind of doubt the extra mechanic is "wolves get a ton of votes", seems unbalanced imo.)

I was imagining Wolves starting with little or no voting power and slowly *cheating* their way into a majority of the I'm guessing 52 votes.

[CaoimhinTheCape]

Rolling up their sleeves, Cape turns their chair around and picks up their hand. A smirk appears on their face and they tilt their hat down to cover their eyes. "Sorry for the delay, took a while to hitch up my ride. Now. Let's see what we can make with this hand..."

---

Let's start this and make sure most of y'all have a vote on you (probably) (maybe) (who knows). Exceptin' those I'm not as familiar with as well (I'm not putting votes on new players Day 1 unless y'all claim to be wolves or something)

Vote: flat_footed
Vote: Illven
Vote: Lady Serpentine
Vote: Taffimai

Well Rogan for now then.

Rogan is listed as a substitute? Is he in this game?

So Snowblaze.
Her asking could be genuine. It could be wolf trying to get intel. I admit I don't think she'd have a tone like she does if she were wolf, but WIFOM.
And why not... Book Wombat, Persolus, JeenLeen

There a reason you're voting yourself, partner?

---

So, my normal thing is to make vote counts with all my posts. But doing that this game seems terrible, with being able to put down multiple votes but not knowing how many of them will end up counting. I think I'm gonna bow out of doing that this game, if y'all don't mind.

[Taffimai]

Player List:

1. Xihirli
2. 3SecondCultist
3. Benoojian
4. bladescape
5. Book Wombat
6. CaoimhinTheCape
7. flat_footed
8. Illven
9. JeenLeen
10. Lady Serpentine
11. Levitate
12. Persolus
13. Snowblaze
14. Taffimai

I play Squirtle, and attach a water energy to it! Squirtle use bubble on the Litwicks go! Now I flip a coin... Come on heads....?

[So counting Ti as "player 14"]


CaoimhinTheCape? This coin is weird.....


[Back to DnD. ]

How exactly are you rearranging the player list for Serpentine to end up as number 14? At first I thought alphabetically, but then I remembered that Xihirli is playing. "I'm pretending to do a random roll when I'm really not" is wolfy, so Illven until explained.

Speaking of which, is there a reason to not just have everyone claim their voting power?

I mean, I'm slightly struggling to think of reasons for town to lie about it rn. (Beyond "screw you, I'm an agent of chaos and I will not abide by your rules".)

(Then again part of the reason I'm suggesting it is just "I, personally, want to know what's going on". Which isn't the same thing as "it is pro-town to reveal this information", even if I do also think the latter.)

As for my number of votes, the same as the number of people I'm voting for.

Wolves don't win at parity with town. They win when all town are dead, or town cannot outvote them anymore and there are no night actions for town to regain the advantage. There is a [redacted] mechanic to redistribute the votes of the dead, and AV had to adjust people's starting votes due to two extra players joining. There's clearly a mathematical formula she's using for our voting powers. Presumably it's aimed at keeping the earliest time wolves can win after a certain game day and before another to keep things more or less fair for both sides.

Wolves may or may not know the [redacted] bit. But they're likely to figure it out faster than the rest of us since they know who they can trust to speak the truth. (*) Just for that reason, I wouldn't want to claim them openly, or at least not this early. Another is that if I have a strong townread on player A and leave them my votes, I want to know they aren't just going to get NKed for it - bc wolves will be gunning for the people with the most votes, obviously. A third is that it's possible that AV gave more or less voting power to people with more or less powerful roles and that info doesn't need to be out in the open (yet).

I'm giving Snow a slight scumlean for fishing.


(*) My personal assumption was that they'd get distributed among those responsible for the death - so equally among all voters for the elimination, and all onto the wolf who carries the kill at night.

Also the wolves having an accurate vote count means they can open wolf after their vote power exceeds town, if they don't know, vecna can't end game cause wolves could misplay.

If I squint I can read this as tmi that wolves don't currently have an accurate vote count, or a wolf ploy to lure us into thinking they don't (I'm talking about total votes in the game, not the distribution among the players). As town that's a dangerous option to overlook.

[Illven]

How exactly are you rearranging the player list for Serpentine to end up as number 14? At first I thought alphabetically, but then I remembered that Xihirli is playing. "I'm pretending to do a random roll when I'm really not" is wolfy, so Illven until explained.

Look at the time of my post and the time of vecna edit. Vecna edited the post approx 2 hours after I posted to include Ti being there. When I rolled, knowing there were 14 players, Ti wasn't on the list, I saw she was the missing player and decided that she was at the end of the list for the purpose of my roll.

[Taffimai]

Look at the time of my post and the time of vecna edit. Vecna edited the post approx 2 hours after I posted to include Ti being there. When I rolled, knowing there were 14 players, Ti wasn't on the list, I saw she was the missing player and decided that she was at the end of the list for the purpose of my roll.

Ok then I will summon Flat-footed!

[bladescape]

I'm here from an airport in Europe.

And I would like to announce I have 10 voting power so I will not be voting for obvious reasons as I'd prefer to allow democracy to prevail rather than give in to my authoritarian tendencies.

I also won't be doing reads yet because I just got off a 14 hour flight.

Good night ya nerds.

[Book Wombat]

I'm here from an airport in Europe.

And I would like to announce I have 10 voting power so I will not be voting for obvious reasons as I'd prefer to allow democracy to prevail rather than give in to my authoritarian tendencies.

I also won't be doing reads yet because I just got off a 14 hour flight.

Good night ya nerds.

Just vote for everyone (except four)!

[Levitate]

Pleasure t' make yer acquaintance, Levitate, right? Welcome to our pleasant li'l town of GiantITP, apologies that it's a mite in-hospitable-like at the moment what with the dirty-no-good-sons-of-a-gun cheaters 'round these parts. You got experience with this sort of thing?

Yeah, for those who missed it in the signup thread, I got here from the advertisement on Mafia Universe, so you can generally assume I know what I'm doing, been playing since 2010 and have probably a couple hundred FM games logged at this point. (Also used to do D&D but haven't played a regular game in about a decade or so)

Also the wolves having an accurate vote count means they can open wolf after their vote power exceeds town, if they don't know, vecna can't end game cause wolves could misplay.

Scum will ~always know when they can do this because the total number of votes is known (it's 52), so this is effectively a moot point.

I was imagining Wolves starting with little or no voting power and slowly *cheating* their way into a majority of the I'm guessing 52 votes.

I'll give town points for the imagination although this is probably untrue, lest we could solve the game simply by figuring out who has less vote power.

- - - Updated - - -

re: the voting discussion, while I'm not going to demand people claim their full voting power, I do think it's important to have some manner of transparency when it comes to voting - between people having different voting power and the possibility of spreading votes around, this might lead to uncertainty about who is up for elimination at the end of the day which is basically always anti-town.


As such while I'd normally be all for RVS shenanigans and the like, I figure this game I'll hold on to my vote until I find a place I feel good about putting it.

I don't put much thought into snowblaze's opening, I can see a townie coming in with the mindset of wanting to be transparent but it can be imitated by scum at relatively low risk so basically null for me.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm here from an airport in Europe.

And I would like to announce I have 10 voting power so I will not be voting for obvious reasons as I'd prefer to allow democracy to prevail rather than give in to my authoritarian tendencies.

I also won't be doing reads yet because I just got off a 14 hour flight.

Good night ya nerds.

Hm, why claim it at all then? Are you planning to not use your vote in any capacity on Day 1?

- - - Updated - - -

The forum automatically appending my posts is actually really handy for my posting style.

[Book Wombat]

The forum automatically appending my posts is actually really handy for my posting style.

It is indeed handy, just beware that it only works in this subforum. In all others it sends each as separate messages.

[Illven]

As such while I'd normally be all for RVS shenanigans and the like, I figure this game I'll hold on to my vote until I find a place I feel good about putting it.

Hm, why claim it at all then? Are you planning to not use your vote in any capacity on Day 1?

I will trade you info for info.

Bladescape enjoys being inscrutable, they once meme claimed a role already being claimed by two players in the game at the time. They may or may not have ten votes in actuality.

Now for your part. RVS is code for random vote shenanigans?

[Levitate]

I will trade you info for info.

Bladescape enjoys being inscrutable, they once meme claimed a role already being claimed by two players in the game at the time. They may or may not have ten votes in actuality.

Now for your part. RVS is code for random vote shenanigans?

I'm familiar with bladescape since he's around on MU and peripheral sites a lot, let me have my line of questioning tyvm


RVS is "Random Voting Stage", seen it referred as the jokevote phase elsewhere, different names for early game fluff/shenanigans

[Xihirli]

I see a lot of bluffs.
You see, I'm holding all the cards. And guess what? They're all full houses.

Never actually played cards, meaning to learn.

[bladescape]

I'm familiar with bladescape since he's around on MU and peripheral sites a lot, let me have my line of questioning tyvm


RVS is "Random Voting Stage", seen it referred as the jokevote phase elsewhere, different names for early game fluff/shenanigans

I'll give you prior warning that me on MU is on average more opaque than me on GITP.

But I also promised to explain my actions "next game" so here we are at you lucking out.

I wanted to claim 10 votes to see how people would react to the rather large percentage I have while also seeing if wolves are tempted by the obvious bait.

[Snowblaze]

Morning.

Do we actually have confirmation there are fifty-two votes? I know AV used it as a hypothetical in the OP, and it would be thematically appropriate, but that's not the same as AV outright stating it's true.

Also mild townlean on Taffimai.

Also also I am glad we have 72 hours.

[Persolus]

Morning.

Do we actually have confirmation there are fifty-two votes? I know AV used it as a hypothetical in the OP, and it would be thematically appropriate, but that's not the same as AV outright stating it's true.

Also mild townlean on Taffimai.

Also also I am glad we have 72 hours.

Y'see i was just about t' make the same ob-ser-va-tion myself; Doug Dimmadome did say 52 was all hypothetical-like, so while I wouldn't put it past her t' keep it all that way, decent probabilities we have somethin' way out.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll give you prior warning that me on MU is on average more opaque than me on GITP.

But I also promised to explain my actions "next game" so here we are at you lucking out.

I wanted to claim 10 votes to see how people would react to the rather large percentage I have while also seeing if wolves are tempted by the obvious bait.

What in tarnation- is this bladescape NOT bein' all enigmatic-like??