Re: The Don S. Davis memorial Stargate mafia game.
Many thanks to TC and Gorny for hosting the game. I had a blast.
Thoughts:
I'd be afraid to be a lurker anytime soon. Every time someone was accused of being a lurker, they were found to be an anti-town when lynched.
Feysal sure knows how to investigate. Feysal also managed to evade Orphan's Prior plague without the trigger phrase being known at that time. Lucky hunches or omniscience?
The town could have benefited from making a bargain with the wraiths in return for information that Tomin died night 1. Not that they would have cooperated. Not that a suitable bargain could be reached. Not that we would have believed the wraiths. Just pointing out that such truthful information could have helped the town.
Replicators changing from cult to mafia if they find Carter. Scary. They targeted me twice. The town can thank Thyiad and the RNG this didn't happen. I'm glad I helped the town win, yet RepliCarter just sounds fun.
The wraiths couldn't target correctly to save their lives. Their targets were blocked or doc saved or immune to feeding most of the time. The wraith feeding seems like a red herring. Feeding looks like it would have worked against only ~50% the town while providing protection from 5% of the town. They would have been better off just killing their nighttime targets rather than try to feed. It would have made a COMPLETELY different game without Sathoris night 1 and Noodle night 2.
Recruitment transferring from Bad Ash to Noodle was a nice twist. I'm not sure if that was an ability given to Fifth or just one of the events. It sure made finding the recruiter more difficult. Sathoris was suspected and lynched because of this twist.
Adria - "I will win if you say X"
Prior - "I kill you if you don't say X"
Tomin - "I can kill Adria if conditions are right."
Adria and Tomin and Prior is a mind blowing combo. Excellent job on that mods. It's unfortunate we didn't get to see the full effect play out. Am I mistaken, or is Adria a variant of village idiot in this case? The Prior role is just evil, especially if the Prior turns out to be neutral.
Orphan's ascension seems tailored to the Adria character yet it appears he ascended into the Prior "serial killer" instead. The combination seems themed, yet the resulting character was one of the 20 original roles. I wonder if Uraj successfully using the ascension ability would result in someone returning not with new abilities but as a completely new character, perhaps even a deceased role. I too would have liked to see an ascension.
All in all, I'm a bit surprised the town won this game. A series of perfect target choices by Pro Town power roles coupled with terrible target choices by the Wraith led to their early demise. The replicators had 3 chances to win with Carter's near lynch on day 2, bus driver switch night 3, and failed recruitment night 7. Orphan had enough information to really screw with the town at the end. I'm surprised he didn't hint that I had been recruited and the new daytime kills could be a RepliCarter ability. He could have given the Prior plague to Ankeli rather than myself, framed me with the new daytime kills and lynching Sathoris, then tried to convince Flip.
Questions:
Was Ankeli's gun really removed or was he choosing not to use it?
Was the ED on day 4 chosen to be on that day or was it randomly assigned or was it triggered? And the ED mentioned night 3 .... Tricksy! False!
What was the alignment of the Prior? A neutral poison variant serial killer would be a truly maddening experience. No wonder there wasn't enough traction to test Orphan's ascension and obvious evil connotations in the stories.
Was the Prior originally the 20th role for the 20th player that never materialized or was the Prior always the ascended version of Adria?
Was anyone aware that saying Lemons to McKay would remove his treestump protection?
Did Feysal investigate Ankeli or was he bluffing? In other words, did replicator recruits keep their old abilities?
Could the replicator cult night talk?
Was Orphan's resurrection event on day 4 preplanned? Would it have happened whenever he was killed? Would he ascend on day 4 if not already dead?
Game Balance:
At first I thought the wraiths were underpowered, but since "immune to wraith feeding" isn't the same as "immune to wraith" I guess they had a chance after all. Well, maybe not. I see now that only 1 wraith had the opportunity to kill as well as feed. In the future, I think all wraith should have those choices. It would have been a massively different game.
Did this game suffer from Too Much Information? Headaches. Orphan being ascended as an Ori follower. The duct tape comment let me hint that I targeted Feysal rather than reveal the true nature of the ARG. Every role PM to pro-town players is listed as Pro Town except for one (and yet NOBODY posted it that way and I was ostracized for asking boogyman for his version).
And yet, there was misinformation as well. Misspelled Gua'uld and Lucien Alliance. The electromagnetic disturbance night 3 that apparently didn't happen after all. The aforementioned duct tape incident I took advantage of. Laarz "Is there cake here" wasn't O'Neill.
I'm guessing Orphan received both role PMs. That amount of knowledge - full details about two characters and power roles and win conditions - made finding holes in his stories impossible. The only potential hole was the existence of Tomin and my own PM. And yet he needed information from both roles to survive as an ascended Ori follower.
My own role PM contained ultra powerful information as well. Knowing of replicators and Ori and recruitment and Fifth and Tomin, combined with the day/night stories allowed me to utilize the ARG to maximum effect. I *almost* give my role name out along with my knowledge when I was almost lynched. I never did because I was afraid that Fifth was specifically looking for me, which he was.
I can't tell if the replicators are overpowered or underpowered.
Overpowered:
recruiter can pass to another replicator
immunity to all but one wraith
resistance to Aiden Ford
replicators might not be known unless Carter spills the beans
gain a night kill ability if they recruit Carter
Underpowered:
25% chance at recruitment
50%/25% chance for Bra'tac to unrecruit a recruit
Carter can neutralize the replicators
It all comes down to Carter. Whether or not replicators get to Carter before Carter gets to the replicators determines who will win. I like that all sides have a chance to win, but it seems the replicator win% is too strongly correlated with Carter's outcome.
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