Okay! Sorry about the late reply and story, but the baby shower went a bit long, and then I stayed a bit past that, and then possibly over stayed my welcome a little bit...
Anyways. First off, thank you all for the kudos. I do not deserve all the credit; Gambor is the one who introduced me to the game in the first place, and mentioned it would be fun to play with you guys as something different. I simply went ahead and ran the game.
Secondly, the
ending story has been posted. I should have had that up right away, but it could have gone three different ways and I did not have time to write all three possible endings. Hopefully it was worth the wait.
So, general thoughts on the game. I mentioned this to Goryani briefly in a PM, but I doubt I'll run another Assassin in the Castle/Palace game in the future. Mini-games in between big games, probably yes, but not this particular game. Sathoris touched on the biggest flaw with AitP early on, and the last two days exemplified the issue:
The assassin would be wise to not post as that means we cannot possible find him except randomly, which I'm guessing this game is going to boil down to. Random lynches until we hit the assa who if caught decides to kill the possible king.
Mafia, at it's core values, is a game of the Informed Minority (Mafia) versus the Uninformed Majority (Town). In Mafia, you have to post a lot to get information flowing to determine who is the good versus the bad. If people don't talk, then they're scummy and should be lynched.
However, this game is the opposite. The lone assassin (the minority) is missing the one critical piece of information that everyone else has (the town/majority). The more discussion that takes place, the more information you give to the assassin, making his job easier by either ruling out players as King, or placing suspicion on who is the King. So, optimally, the best way to play this game is to not talk at all and just randomly lynch people.
That makes for a boring game.
Luckily, this game did not turn out like that and was extremely entertaining. At least, for me it was. The psychology behind how you guys were 'scum-hunting' was great. Getting a back seat view from Goryani about who he thought was the King and why was enlightening. (For the record, I never gave him any help, only just asked him a couple times as to what he was thinking about the players at the time).
Favorite quote from the game was from kestegs, responding to pharphis -
@Kestegs,
If you likey, why don't you votey? Do you have a better target? Is it someone we know?
Do you think I'm trying to save my scum buddy?
This quote, I think, really nailed home for a few people that this was not a normal mafia game, and normal scum hunting tactics would not work. As Gambor stated succinctly -
"You're not looking for mafia. You're basically looking for a one shot serial killer." Which is absolutely true.
Anyways. I am pleased beyond all words that this game turned out well and everyone had a good time. I wanted to try for something a little 'left of the dial', so to speak. Something that would make the players think and read into play-styles, rather than rely upon role PMs. Something that was similar to mafia, but different enough to not make it feel stale and worn out. Something that would invigorate the players and readers, and make them eager for the next great game.
Hopefully some of that was accomplished.
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Edit, questions:
Apologies, apologies apologies I was not around for the last vote. Or even really the second to last vote. It was my bachelor party this weekend and the place had wi-fi but nothing would connect to it, and my phone was dead like the entire weekend with the exception of the vote on OMG. Sorry CG.
No apologies necessary. Even if you had posted, and even voted Goryani, he would have won the game. Before deadline he had PM'd me stating that if he was lynched that he had chosen you for the kill target. It just would have changed the first scene of the final story a little bit, so no harm, no foul.
I consider the King the hardest role to play. You know for a fact that you'll never be lynched, but you can't trust anyone else in the game. At least the guards have one other person they can trust. As the game wears on, the King gets harder and harder to play - is that a guard pretending to be the king to draw out the kill? Or is he misvoting because he's the assassin and doesn't know any better?
One suggestion: make role PM's public. My boomshankalaka comment wasn't an accident.
This is something I should have done, yes. In fact, it's something I should do with
all my games. (At least, vanilla PMs in games that have power roles).
