LOST 2 - Smoke and Mirrors: Game Over: Evil Triumphs!

[stessier]

oh moving the island...was me...couple of reasons, and really none too logical.

1. I was frustrated at the whole "skip" mentality, when no one would belly up to the bar. I dont mind skip, i mind hiding behind the intention. That just felt lame to me.

2. It was there, why not? I mean come on, it was there man. Seriously I moved an island..I...could....not....resist...

It was really due to frustration to be honest. I felt that folks were abusing the whole running out the clock bit, and i thought that was lame. So I kind of thought why not, maybe just maybe, someone would land on somewhere and get their ass killed.

You see team lost knew who was who. I was also Jack, so I knew I would pick up that person's dead body ASAP, then find the temple. Since I had the power to rez, I didn't think that would hurt team lost too much. I figured, any person on team lost who died, I'd resurect them.

I figured the one team who couldn't ressurect was Widmore, and if it was going to hurt someone, it had more of a likelihood of hurting them.

In retrospect, there was no "running out the clock". Everyone who was inclined to vote, had voted. Can't see a Widmore purposefully voting for one of their own and the other 2 were MIA. So panties in a bunch for nothing!

[stessier]

Oh, and if there is one thing the Widmore forum drives home is that if Chaos has a low post count in game it is because he is talking somewhere else. There is no such beast as a quiet Chaos.

[Newcastle]

oh moving the island...was me...couple of reasons, and really none too logical.

1. I was frustrated at the whole "skip" mentality, when no one would belly up to the bar. I dont mind skip, i mind hiding behind the intention. That just felt lame to me.

2. It was there, why not? I mean come on, it was there man. Seriously I moved an island..I...could....not....resist...

It was really due to frustration to be honest. I felt that folks were abusing the whole running out the clock bit, and i thought that was lame. So I kind of thought why not, maybe just maybe, someone would land on somewhere and get their ass killed.

You see team lost knew who was who. I was also Jack, so I knew I would pick up that person's dead body ASAP, then find the temple. Since I had the power to rez, I didn't think that would hurt team lost too much. I figured, any person on team lost who died, I'd resurect them.

I figured the one team who couldn't ressurect was Widmore, and if it was going to hurt someone, it had more of a likelihood of hurting them.

In retrospect, there was no "running out the clock". Everyone who was inclined to vote, had voted. Can't see a Widmore purposefully voting for one of their own and the other 2 were MIA. So panties in a bunch for nothing!

I would have prefered that they had voted skip, at least then they had voted, even symbolically. Just sitting on the sidelines, didn't sit well with me. I understand the strategy, but think at the end of the deadline, the highest vote getter should be the victim...be it a player or skip....and i still do think it was a weak play on their part, they could have just as easily voted skip. so yes my panties are still in a bunch!

[redrun]

A: What did you like?
B: What did you dislike?
C: What would you change, and how?
D: Would you play again if it were tweaked?

-- A. Watching folks pretend to be losties! OK, the rest of the game was also good. I liked the explore aspect, the need to co-operate to avoid the 'single person can die/trapped' hexes, the three team dynamic, the intense rule set.
-- B: Barriers - combined with the ability to privately communicate, these were very powerful. MiB converts - again very powerful. Add to this that I didn't want to risk killing Ben until I was sure that the MiB had converted - since that would only give him the ability to convert using the board. Movement was slow, actions could be slow (so, to get a body and get it to the temple was very hard). I disliked the ability to get explosives and set a trap in the same turn. The 'two losties to open the heart and they both die doing so'.
-- C: I'd reduce the Barriers (Each Widmore can put one up or take one down per turn with some max number in existance?), Weaken the Convert ability. Increase the number of Desmonds (losties who can open the heart by themself - perhaps all non-candidate losties could get this?) The private forum was a problem - gave the Widmores too much of an advantage.
-- D: Sure, if time allows.

One more dynamic that this game played out strongly. Two near equal sized teams, each seeing a hope of controlling the daytime lynch - we focused on each other. Both team felt they had a major advantage (Widmores could communicate, Losties had secret communication), which (IMO) tended to make them focus on getting the upper hand. With his pair of conversions the MiB gained a lot of power very quickly. A delay factor (turns?) for conversion? Fewer converstions? A public announcement that a conversion has taken place to up the already high parnoid factor of the game? As the game played out, the victory condition was to destroy the other teams, rather then in-game victory conditions. The MiB, with his 'cannot die' ability, is strongly suited to play the kill them all option.

[Scoop20906]

My two cents...

It felt like no one had any reason to cooperate across teams. In these type of games I enjoy the enemy of my enemy is my friend aspect. That didn't seem to occur in this game.

Too many ways to die. Death was everywhere which prevented anyone from actually making progress on their victory conditions. I think you have to decide do you want this game to be about killing the other teams or outsmarting the other teams. Of course, outsmarting the other teams would make for a longer game.

I suggest you get rid of all the shooters and nerf the MiB's power to simply killing one person per night and if he hits a Hex with more than one person then it is a random kill.

The past and present mechanic was unwieldy for me.

I'd get rid of any secret forums and instead find more ways for people to send secret messages to only one person at a time. For the Widdies their leader has a walkie talkie and can send out one message per day to his team also with a chance that the message could be overhead at the communications station.

Just some random thoughts and I don't know how helpful they are. I'd definitely like to play this one again soon (next month?) after you work out some kinks.

[Scoop20906]

I would have prefered that they had voted skip, at least then they had voted, even symbolically. Just sitting on the sidelines, didn't sit well with me. I understand the strategy, but think at the end of the deadline, the highest vote getter should be the victim...be it a player or skip....and i still do think it was a weak play on their part, they could have just as easily voted skip. so yes my panties are still in a bunch!

I agree with this idea. I certainly didn't enjoy acting stupid about that vote and refusing to vote but it was the only strategy available to the widdies at the point. Unfortunately in these games staying silent is still the best way to survive. I got scanned by Lassr but I was quiet for four full days (RL) and no one as much mentioned my name for a vote. As soon as I come back everyone is all over me again. Staying silent is still a real (but not fun) strategy in these games.

In this game I saw almost no reason to vote in the main game thread. All it did was give people a reason to vote for you. There seemed no reason to share information with anyone from my widdy perspective.

A hard deadline with a simple majority to lynch with the option to vote skip is a good idea. It forces someone to put down some type of vote and at least participate in that way.

[Scoop20906]

I realize there were some unique circumstances with 5 players disappearing, but i think shortening the turnaround would be good.

I tried to impose a short turnaround with strict deadlines on the first full day, and people complained.

Grund, I thought you did a great job of managing people (dropping out) and their orders. Yeah, Im kissing ass.

[Scoop20906]

Night 2 from Redrun

On the walkie talkie that you thought was drained, you're picking up a transmission. It sounds automated:

-- Well, I think we're doing pretty good so far. I'll throw a bunch of stuff out again, use some & ignore the rest . Both Stessier and I are here, and we are both able to send - so, at this point, neither of us has been converted.

New Hexes learned. Hex 16 is the Staff. Unagi and I are both in the Staff in the past, so we did not gain the ability to raise the dead.

Movement Codes

-- These need to be expanded, and not so obvious. Otherwise team Widmore will just put barriers to block moves they don't like. So here is my suggestion: At the start of each new 'day' Grund posts an 'it is morning' post and changes the title of the posting. We'll use the minutes from the timestamp from that post to get our seed numbers:

So, for Day 2: Tuesday, it was: Sat Jul 24, 2010 7:42pm.

So, our numbers would be 4 & 2 - first one for past, second for present. If any number is a zero or an eight replace it with the day the game is in (day 3 is about to start).

Order is: North, Northwest, West, Southwest, South, Southeast, East, Northeast, and around back to North.

Add the seed number to your direction, count that many forward, post the 'adjusted' direction.

If I want to go South both days:

South+4=North (seed 4 for past) Declare North for past
South+2=East (seed 2 for present) Declare East for present

Ajust all movements (second movements also). It's a pain, but it will keep them guessing.

With both Stessier and I sending out messages this turn, he might pass on a different movement code. So, I suggest:
Movement <blah blah> The above code is used.
For movement: The 180 code
From here: Stessiers code (unless he already has a key word)


Item/place/time codes:

Time codes: Include the following word to let us know how soon you'll be there: today (will get there in one movement), tonight (two movements), tomorrow (three movements).

Going for the plane:
"I'm looking for an answer"
"I'm looking for a different answer"
"This isn't the first time I've seen"

Going for the Heart of the island:
Use something directed at sleeping with Kate: Just make sure you put Kate in it, and that it isn't serious (so if someone does bring up a discussion about Kate we can still take part). If the name "Kate" isn't capitalized, we'll know it's Desmond and he's planning on doing it himself. Look for other clues in the same post as to where they expect their past body to end up. If we can't arrange a short game (five turns?) I think we would be smart to work on bringing folks back from the dead as a worthwhile activity.

Going for the MiB (when we know the heart & have arranged it's opening):
Talk about the temple. Ask if anyone has seen it and if they think the location of it should be shared. Join the discussion if you're also going to go searching.

Movement and plans:
I really hope Stessier has a simple set of codes to coordinate movement and plans. I don't. I suggest the following - it's rather obvious and won't stand up a long game, but might do for a shorter period. There are code words to indicate that you are talking about what you are doing (so we know to read deeper for code), and code words for what you actually do.

Code words: You can use these code words - hopefully, if we see them, we'll look for other clues:

holiday, rum, vet, sand, coffee, coconut, tree (need more and better words here).

Alternative names for things:
Hex 1 Purple,elm,cat
Hex 2 Blue,maple,dog
Hex 3 Red,apple,fish
Hex 4 Green,date,bird
Hex 5 Yellow,fig,whale
Hex 6 Brown,prune,dolphin
Hex 7 White,aspen,crab
Hex 8 Black,Orange,lobster
Hex 9 Tan,Lemon,crab
Hex 10 Teal,Olive,clam
Hex 11 Pink,plum,snake
Hex 12 Grey,birch,rat
Hex 13 Indigo,ceder,spider
Hex 14 Violet,pine,salmon
Hex 15 Brown,willow,tuna
Hex 16 Gold,dogwood,trout
Hex 17 Silver,redwood,ferret
Hex 18 Copper,bonsai,monkey
Hex 19 Magenta,Lime,seabass
MiB stranger,tall
C4 watch,eat,cage
Dynamite climb,tame,pour
dead body catch,find,saw
shot bite,break,buy
EMP dinner,food,search

So, to say I want an EMP in Hex 9 on the second night following:
"I found some rum. Now, all I need is I need is a crab dinner tonight and I'll be happy".

Really, I think this is only going to be useful when we all see a common goal, or towards the end of a turn when we're figuring out next moves. As a method of discussion, it sucks. Feel free to come up with something better.

Sonic Barrier Codes: Someone else will need to handle this. Everything I come up with is too complex and/or too obvious. We do have a good idea where each other are, so can use that to help indicate where the barrier are. (Late add: No, I guess we don't know where everyone is anymore, and the original place codes are not going to stand up to repeated usage. I'd suggest using the original codes only to point out new hexes, and the new codes for current hexes if needed for discussion of current location or walls or etc..)

My threat list:

Widmores:
Chaos
Tru1cy?
Remus West
Scoop ? (Scoop and Lassr might switch spots, but I don't think so).
Mr. Bubbles (He's protecting Widmores and trying to declare non-Widmores as Widmores)

I suspect Remus West as Charles Widmore (from a Chaos posting), I'd guess Chaos doesn't have a shot. Both of these are weak guesses.

MiB:
Lassr: Ben (He's the only one who doesn't know his partners, and he scanned Scoop, the only person who declared where they were at the start of the game. Ben is looking to find the MiB, and MiB team should have been the only ones who could safely declare where they were.)
LordMortis: MiB : Brandan sez we have positive ID on him as the MIB.


Losties:
We know the team.

Converted:
Chaos was an obvious target on turn 1. Remus is an obvious target for turn 2. However, I think the MiB will try for someone from each team... Stessier and I are currently safe. Newcastle has really caught my attention with the "Move Island" thing - we were setup to finish a basic explore in three turns, there are a couple of kill hexes, why scatter us now? It does mess up all teams - but it catches my attention as to why.


Who disabled the EMP? Not one of us (unless it was the quiet one). Lassr is at 5 in the past - couldn't have been him. Tru1cy is at 17, he could have done it. However, LordMortis said there was a barrier between 13 & 16 so he is in range. I suspect it was LordMortis who disabled the EMP.

(The barrier between 13 & 16 is why I didn't want to go SouthWest originally Unagi, however I decided it might be safe, based on figuring that LordMortis probably saw the barrier in the present - which he then confirmed.)

Places (Please verify that I got these in the right hexes):

1 The Arrow: <Hex 13><Not safe in Present> redrun
2 The Flame: <Hex 18> redrun
3 The Orchid: <Hex 1> Newcastle
4 The Pearl: <Hex 9> Stessier
5 The Staff: <Hex 16> redrun,unagi
6 The Swan: <Hex 10> Theohall
7 The Tempest: <Hex 3> Unagi
8 Barracks:
9 Beechcraft Wreckage:
10 Black Rock: <Hex 11> Theohall
11 Colossal Statue: <Hex 14> Brendan
12 Heart of the Island:
13 Hidden Runway: <Hex 17> Brendan
14 Jacob's Cave:
15 Lighthouse: <Hex 5> Newcastle
16 Pneumatic Tube Dump:
17 Temple: <Hex 15> Stessier
18 Well (prison in present):
19 Well (prison in past):

Plans

-- What I think we need to do. Keep the game mixed up for a couple more turns. Setup our win conditions. Try to keep them guessing on message status - I think they'll suspect we've communicated, however I doubt they realize just how much we've figured out and shared.

1. Need to find the Heart of the Island. Need to have Desmond or other folks open it. If the temple and the Heart are close together, great. If not, it might be worthwhile, for whomever opens the Heart, to move your past character(s) close to the temple - this would allow Jack to grab your body, pass it to Present, then bring you back. Desmond - I know it's hard, but I do think it would be best if you could do the open - one player dying in a hex is an unknown, two in a hex points towards the Heart being open. Much of the other planning ideas I'm putting out should be secondary to finding the Heart. I'm hoping someone finds it tonight, however there are only three of us that can find it.

2. Need to track the MiB for when it's time for the kill. Would be great to have someone setting up for the shot the turn we open the island... but no good way to know for sure. Not too critical yet, and Desmond can give us a last good location in past when we're about to open the heart.

3. Need to have someone (or better yet, a couple of someones) ready to head out to damage the plane. I'm in the past in hex 16 with Unagi. I'd like to have the pair of us move into hex 18 and grab C4 this turn. I'd love to have a third person join us, I do worry about having too many people in one hex with the MiB's attack, and I do think he'd attack that hex - he also needs the plane to win. However, it's early enough that he might not know the hex yet. It would be very funny to be able to blow the plane up forever in one shot. It would also mean that neither of the other two teams could win - I suspect they would join together to try to prevent us from winning. So, MiB first, then the plane.

4. Would be very good to have someone sending out EMP's. Might be good to have a shooter there - I could see team Widmore sending someone to clear the square. However, I suspect that the MiB won't gas there for a few turns - as long as he doesn't see us coming, he'd probably prefer we clear the island of barriers. If someone is blasting tonight it would be useful for them to hit Hex 13 so Unagi & I can grab C4. Assuming Unagi likes this idea.

5. I think we'd be wise to keep someone in the broadcast station sending out updated lists, discussing plans - even if we reject them it gives us all a common starting point. I'm hoping that team Widmore didn't close off the station in the present (it's what I would have done if I were them). I think you've heard enough from me - Stessier, would you like to loop back here for the next couple of turns? 1. To try to create some common ground, 2. to prevent anyone from broadcasting to team MiB. 3. To figure out better coordination codes (good luck!).

6. At this point, I don't see a need to protect Jacob. I think we're better to focus on setting up our win conditions then worrying about blocking other folks win conditions - with the exception that we're all better to stay alive if possible!

7. If anyone is in range of Hex 16 in the past this turn, you might want to move in and gain 'raise dead'. Next turn I think that either Unagi/myself will double back, or we'll be going for end game moves.

My current plans for next turn:
Past: move from 16 to 18 with Unagi. Pick up some C4.
Present: Move from 18 to 19 if 19 is still unexplored & Stessier is staying to broadcast.

My sorta plans after that:
Past: If we've found the heart, I'm likely to move towards the runway with the C4. If no heart, or a couple of turns while things get setup, I'm likely to move back to Hex 16 to gain the ability to raise the dead.
Present: Explore? Move to 16 so I can pass the C4 to my present self? Dunno.

Stessier: Who stays in broadcast station? I'll watch your postings for "seems OK" and redrun together (threat list, etc.). If I see this, I'll know you plan on looping back.

WOW! Redrun. That is a hell of a long message. Maybe the message length should be capped in the future???

[stessier]

I would have prefered that they had voted skip, at least then they had voted, even symbolically. Just sitting on the sidelines, didn't sit well with me. I understand the strategy, but think at the end of the deadline, the highest vote getter should be the victim...be it a player or skip....and i still do think it was a weak play on their part, they could have just as easily voted skip. so yes my panties are still in a bunch!

I agree with this idea. I certainly didn't enjoy acting stupid about that vote and refusing to vote but it was the only strategy available to the widdies at the point. Unfortunately in these games staying silent is still the best way to survive. I got scanned by Lassr but I was quiet for four full days (RL) and no one as much mentioned my name for a vote. As soon as I come back everyone is all over me again. Staying silent is still a real (but not fun) strategy in these games.

In this game I saw almost no reason to vote in the main game thread. All it did was give people a reason to vote for you. There seemed no reason to share information with anyone from my widdy perspective.

A hard deadline with a simple majority to lynch with the option to vote skip is a good idea. It forces someone to put down some type of vote and at least participate in that way.

I think it is important to remember that the Lostie knew who everyone was in this game right from the start. It would have played out much differently had we truly been stumbling around in the dark. I think the Widdies would have seen much more cross team "help" with Losties simply guessing wrong on their lynches.

The other way it would have played out would have been only Skip votes. When I first read the rules, and before I was in the game, I told Grund that a Lostie should never vote for anyone in less they had a scan. What was the point when it was so easy to kill one of your own and set you back. Only the Widdies/Evil should be willing to vote because they could be sure of not being on the wrong end.

So the Flame changed a lot.

Incidentally, I'm not sure it is truly over powered. We got lucky on when we found it. Find it on Day 4, and who knows what would happen.

[stessier]

WOW! Redrun. That is a hell of a long message. Maybe the message length should be capped in the future???

It is - 20,000 characters.

And, with all due respect, frak you! You guys wrote 20 pages and you're begrudging us one crummy nighttime missive???

[Newcastle]

scoop - you have to realize, team lost had 3 secret communications. 2 by redrun 1 by stessier. These were all 1 way. We then had to communicate back in the thread. So yes it was long, and lengthy and detailed, because it had to be. he had a 1 time shot at getting a lot of information across so we could effectively communicate. We didn't have a secret forum to coordinate easily. So i dont begrudge the fact he did it or length.

Also you have to realize that once someone was converted we didn't lose the ability to send or receive the flame messages, hence it was fraught with danger. Good example is, I used the info from the flame and hte messages to know that both stessier & redrun were in a prime spot to be killed via a gas attack. I also knew all this stuff, because of the flame message.

i think if anything the flame is an awesome tool to have. Should actually stay that way i think, since a lot of the fun for me was the secret messaging.

[stessier]

I used the info from the flame and hte messages to know that both stessier & redrun were in a prime spot to be killed via a gas attack. I also knew all this stuff, because of the flame message.

Originally, I had no intention of going back to the Flame, nor, do I believe, did redrun. The barrier and my (incorrect) hypothesis on where the heart was led to your murderous success.

So yeah, you got lucky.

[Newcastle]

my impression was that i could use the flame and the attack would happen as the first even, due to the players having been on that spot, not landing on it. If it's luck, well it's lucky...or...prescient and astute behavior analysis on my behalf. Ok, probably just lucky.

[Remus West]

I felt that folks were abusing the whole running out the clock bit, and i thought that was lame.

The trouble is that Evil was happy to pile on Widmore so there was really no reason for us to vote. There were no exploratory votes for us to play around with. You had all pretty much openly called all of us Widmore so there was little point in voting each other to "gain cred". You refused to hunt Evil so we couldn't help you there. I was very honest about why I wasn't voting - the longer the day went the more likely someone would have been to give something away and voting to skip could have cut that time short and kept them from doing so.

[Scoop20906]

Yeah, things could have played out differently. However, this game I saw almost no attempt at cooperation between anyone between the teams. At that point it just became a kill fest. While that is the point of most werewolf games I believe that if you have victory conditions you want to limit the amount of deaths so that people have more incentive to actually try to trick their neighbor.

Just my opinion on this. I don't want it to seem that I didn't enjoy myself because I did. It was a really interesting rulezset and I found it really funny that the whole time I was trying like hell to act like a lostie all the losties already knew I was full of it and not on their team.

[Scoop20906]

I felt that folks were abusing the whole running out the clock bit, and i thought that was lame.

The trouble is that Evil was happy to pile on Widmore so there was really no reason for us to vote. There were no exploratory votes for us to play around with. You had all pretty much openly called all of us Widmore so there was little point in voting each other to "gain cred". You refused to hunt Evil so we couldn't help you there. I was very honest about why I wasn't voting - the longer the day went the more likely someone would have been to give something away and voting to skip could have cut that time short and kept them from doing so.

Well, this did show some cooperation between teams. Evil was able to use Losties to eliminate Team Widdy so I'm not entirely correct about there was no give and take between the teams. Sorry about that Grund.

I still think you get rid of the secret forums and change the tape dump to only allow players to send a secret message of their choice. I didn't feel like their was enough paranoia in this game but it certainly felt due to the early discovery of flame.

[stessier]

my impression was that i could use the flame and the attack would happen as the first even, due to the players having been on that spot, not landing on it. If it's luck, well it's lucky...or...prescient and astute behavior analysis on my behalf. Ok, probably just lucky.

Nope, it happened after we all landed wherever it was we were going to land. Otherwise, you would someone get to move first and get an MiB like kill. That wouldn't be very sporting, now would it?

[stessier]

I didn't feel like their was enough paranoia in this game

I felt no paranoia at all because there was nothing I could do about the conversions. They could read out mail and the only way we could find them was through scanning our own guys. It just wasn't going to happen, so it wasn't worth worrying about (imho).

It was fun watching the Widdies pretend to put on their Lostie cloaks. I laughed many a time when one of you would post something so clearly fabricated to make it look like you were blending in. I almost wish Chaos would have gotten the chance to post his codes. It would have been Epic.

[redrun]

In order to do this:
3 The Orchid: "The next time that" ||| then

I had to signifiy that the orchid was in hex 1, so....basically i had to type "the next time that then" because our code was based on how many words to the next key word is the place.

-- Sorry about that. I got the PM from Grund about noon that I'd found the flame and figured out the codes that afternoon. Somewhere in the process I realized that the code word had to work as the first word after the code phrase and started reading them off together to myself - but, obviously, I never fixed the first few.

-- Of course, the real shame of it all was that Chaos spent all of his time figuring out where people were and/or had to be. Otherwise, it would have been fun to see how much time he spent working on breaking the codes.

[Newcastle]

dude it's alright. The way i got around it was via roleplaying, so in that respect i am glad i got it, because others really attempting a roleplay is no common so might have raised eyebrows.
/toots own horn

In all serious it was frustring and fun to figure out how to implement the code. I think you did an awesome job of setting up the code by the way. So, it's all gravy. As a lostie at that time, I let out a whoop, when i saw the message out with such a great system of setting up a communication.

[stessier]

Just curious - did anyone else guess that JD had to be the other Lostie because he followed Brendan, or was it just me? I wasn't positive, of course, but it was the way I was leaning.

[Unagi]

Which is why I was confused as to the constant push for Widmore to be eliminated. It allowed MiB to work his magic. If I played again and I wasn't on team evil I'd push a lot sooner for their deaths. They snuck up and with conversions you can never underestimate that group. You never truly know their numbers especially with conversion.

in order to stop the MiB, we needed to open the Heart. that would likely cost the lostie team a number of players. you can't stop the conversions/MiB via lynches.

none of that was going to happen while the widmore team didn't boob-trap, barrier, shoot, and lynch our team to pieces. i think every lostie, independantly mind you, concluded that the widmore team needed to be targeted. Remember, the onverts could have come from the widmore team. Targeting widmore didn't preclude hitting evil.

[Grundbegriff]

Code: Select all

Jack            Newcastle
Desmond         Brendan
Hurley          Unagi
Kate            redrun
Miles           purge/stessier
Sawyer          J.D.
Sayid           theohall

Man in Black    LordMortis
Ben             Lassr
Claire          Kenetickid

Charles Widmore Mr Bubbles
Martin Keamy    Scoop20906
Daniel          Chaosraven
Charlotte       tru1cy/Semaj
Naomi           Arcanis/Lagom Lite
Zoe             Remus West

Who were the candidates?

Jack, Miles, Sawyer, and Sayid were the candidates.

[Grundbegriff]

I think it might be a good idea to

(a) allow the MiB a nightly kill, if he can find someone to kill, but
(b) change the daily execution to a daily lockdown, as a result of which the elected person is forbidden to move that night.

I agree with the comment that this might be more interesting if death is made much more rare, so that people can have more of a chance to coordinate and pursue the victory conditions.

I also think it might be interesting to have everyone know who's on which team, but have them guard whatever they learn about the map through exploration.

Then it turns from a game about whom to kill into a game about where stuff is and how to use the Island to achieve goals.

I like the idea of giving each Widmoreite his own individual barrier to use or neglect as he will. Managing the barriers was a bit of a hassle.

I don't think the FLAME was overpowered; I think it was just a lucky, lucky break to find it so early and for the finder to be one who used it so well.

I like the idea of conversion, but I think the people eligible for conversion should be people who don't know their teammates: if the MiB can find someone eligibile, he can convert that person. In fact, it would be interesting to have some teammates know one another and others not know one another. This would allow for limited coordination but retain paranoia and openings for deception.

Please share your thoughts about how to improve the game. Maybe we'll run a less bloody and more tactical version in September or October.

[Brendan]

remember Brendan putting and pulling a vote on Lord Mortus - when he changed his mind in one minute? That was the Desmond "I've found the MiB" signal.

Brendan correctly identified LordMortis as the MiB because LordMortis took advantage of his movement bonus in the past and revealed his starting and ending points.

Yeah. He announced "there's a wall here..." on turn 1, but he was too many hexes from that location on the first morning to be non-MiB.

Of course, he moved all over the place every morning. Unfortunately for me, he was in both my present/past hexes and I forgot to say "HAY GUYZ, WHERE SHOULD LORD MORTIS AND I GO TOMORROW?!"

I was pretty sure he'd kill me overnight.

[Brendan]

Where did you go from the Orchid Brendan?

Lighthouse to see if I was a candidate. Half of the scanning apparatuses were useless to me because I was Desmond.

[Remus West]

I didn't feel like their was enough paranoia in this game

I felt no paranoia at all because there was nothing I could do about the conversions. They could read out mail and the only way we could find them was through scanning our own guys. It just wasn't going to happen, so it wasn't worth worrying about (imho).

Why would you guys have been scanning anyone other than yourselves? If I was a Lostie a knew the others the only players I would have been scanning would have been convert suspects. Everyone else would already have been on the enemy list.

[Remus West]

One method you might consider to push the Evil hunt is that being lynched costs the MiB a convert if it doesn't cost him a life. That forces the MiB to convert early as well as gives both other teams a reason to look into lynching Evil early.

[Grundbegriff]

One method you might consider to push the Evil hunt is that being lynched costs the MiB a convert if it doesn't cost him a life. That forces the MiB to convert early as well as gives both other teams a reason to look into lynching Evil early.

Interesting. Everyone votes to lynch Manny, and suddenly Moe drops dead.

[stessier]

I didn't feel like their was enough paranoia in this game

I felt no paranoia at all because there was nothing I could do about the conversions. They could read out mail and the only way we could find them was through scanning our own guys. It just wasn't going to happen, so it wasn't worth worrying about (imho).

Why would you guys have been scanning anyone other than yourselves? If I was a Lostie a knew the others the only players I would have been scanning would have been convert suspects. Everyone else would already have been on the enemy list.

I meant scanning was going to happen. We had to find and open the Heart - didn't really have time to scan.

[Unagi]

One method you might consider to push the Evil hunt is that being lynched costs the MiB a convert if it doesn't cost him a life. That forces the MiB to convert early as well as gives both other teams a reason to look into lynching Evil early.

Interesting. Everyone votes to lynch Manny, and suddenly Moe drops dead.

I could be wrong, but I think Remus meant that the 'Conversion Count' is in effect a Hit Points for the MiB.

Taking a swing at the MiB on Day1 wouldn't be a miss - it would reduce his number of available converts by one. (well, it would be a 'miss' in that the MiB wouldn't die)

Remus didn't elaborate - but perhaps once the MiB has his converts - he has just his 1 hitpoint (like everyone else) and is now 'fully lynchable'.

Just how I read that suggestion.... Not that Moe would drop dead, when MannyInBlacky is lynched.

[Unagi]

So... just for the complete record: I had a team message posted at the Barracks.

Nothing big in it (was actually pretty sure there was a good chance it never was found..)

It does though show how I was confused by one of Newcastle's clues. I wasn't sure how you guys gave credit for the Lighthouse in HEX5 - given the code he put down...

Dear Losties,

Unagi Was Here.

I actually came up to HEX 6, this Wednesday-Night/Thursday-Morning, thinking it was going to be the Lighthouse.
(redrun and stessier remarked that it was Hex5?)

Here was what I had read:
So... code was
15 Lighthouse: "Another thing to think about" ||| is

Newcastle's two quotes:

I mean....another thing to think about …there were no deaths… now is that something we...

And yet another thing to think ….or tickle the brain…is we’re still stuck on this island with...

this second one doesn't have the word 'about', so I thought it was worthless - but that's where HEX 5 comes from...
At the time, I saw what looked to be him maybe trying to correct himself, but it struck me as meaningful that he didn't put 'about' in, and that he was just providing cover for his turns of phrase in the previous quote.... I am guessing both stessier and redrun assumed he was correcting the 'Hex 6' message...

In any case, stessier and redrun reported it as "the Lighthouse is at Hex5", and it would appear that must be right.


HEX 6 = Barracks.
And, if you are here reading this - you know that.


Alas, Barracks are good too, but a long way to come for a (lame) message.

Strange thing - Scoop is here with me AGAIN. he ran 2 squares North like I did to get here. This implies he doesn't care about Hex 11/Blackrock (like I didn't).

OK, so.

What to say...

First - Huge props to redrun. If we win this, you get MVP for sure - great launch message to get us totally coordinated.

It was a lot of fun watching everyone think they could be anonymous with their scan results.

Second, I have a fraction of the amount of time I would like to have for this game. Baby and work are both big time takers currently.
(so, I really appologies for not being a better sleuth out there).

So a few thoughts... we do need to be careful about factions, we can't be too coordinated in the open yet, with our current numbers. (maybe by the time anyone reads this, that will be different).

Early on, it struck me that in order to keep widdling away at the MiB and WM teams, we will need to appear slightly MiB in an attempt to keep them from joining up and actually strike us down, openly As accused Losties.
But, I think we are all actually doing that pretty well.

I actually still need to comb through Yesterday morning's posts to see what other hexes have been discovered since Wednesday.

For me, right now Hex 2, 4,7,19 are still a mystery.

And they clearly hold:
Present-Prison Well.
Past-Prison Well XOR The Heart
Wrecked Beechcraft (reminds me, I want to load of MS Flightsim on my new rig)
Pneumatic Tube


My plan basically is to try and determine if I'm a Candidate, and then also try and deal with the plan, but be around for any Heart work that's needed.
On the way to Hex-5(lighthouse) I will go by Hex 8 in the Present and see if I Teleport to the Orchid. If I don't then Hex-8 becomes the test for if I am a Candidate (as it would be the Heart).


Again, I really sorely wish I could be giving this game more time than I am able to. I'm really enjoying it so far.

I was a little thrown off by Brendan claiming he was in the Runway for both Past and Present. Wasn't Brendan at the Colosal Statue in one of those times?
I have no doubt Tru1cy is bad, but I wasn't sure why Brendan did that. Not saying he's converted, but that was something that looked a little odd - and then how he used J.D.
That being said, I could very well be missing a level of play or something, etc. There is plenty of lying we need to do.

So.

Go Team Losties.

Be great if none of us were converted, but the odds are that at least one was. Frankly - everyone still seems good Lostie to me (with the one Brendan hic-cup that I felt was odd, being the one exception really)

[stessier]

It does though show how I was confused by one of Newcastle's clues. I wasn't sure how you guys gave credit for the Lighthouse in HEX5 - given the code he put down...

I thought Grund meant people were confused who Lostie's were. I had no trouble with that part.

I did have trouble with what you mentioned. I even asked Newcastle outright (okay, in code) in the thread which was right. I can't remember exactly what cleared it up for me, but I think Chaos said something that made it obvious where Newcastle was.

Dear Losties,

Unagi Was Here.

I actually came up to HEX 6, this Wednesday-Night/Thursday-Morning, thinking it was going to be the Lighthouse.
(redrun and stessier remarked that it was Hex5?)

Here was what I had read:
So... code was
15 Lighthouse: "Another thing to think about" ||| is

Newcastle's two quotes:

I mean....another thing to think about …there were no deaths… now is that something we...

And yet another thing to think ….or tickle the brain…is we’re still stuck on this island with...

this second one doesn't have the word 'about', so I thought it was worthless - but that's where HEX 5 comes from...
At the time, I saw what looked to be him maybe trying to correct himself, but it struck me as meaningful that he didn't put 'about' in, and that he was just providing cover for his turns of phrase in the previous quote.... I am guessing both stessier and redrun assumed he was correcting the 'Hex 6' message...

[Brendan]

I was a little thrown off by Brendan claiming he was in the Runway for both Past and Present. Wasn't Brendan at the Colosal Statue in one of those times?
I have no doubt Tru1cy is bad, but I wasn't sure why Brendan did that. Not saying he's converted, but that was something that looked a little odd - and then how he used J.D.
That being said, I could very well be missing a level of play or something, etc. There is plenty of lying we need to do.

I was just pressing to try to get him to say something more revealing / recant his claim / earn a lynch. I was positive he was widmore, and was equally positive no one could counter-claim any claim I made about his presence/absence there. Ultimately, I was hoping to get Remus and company to feel like they had to lynch one of their own to preserve the illusion that they could be losties.

[Newcastle]

unagi that deviation you mentioned was pretty much me screwing up the first time, i think the first was 4 spaces, and it shold have been 5. The second attempt was an "overwrite" attempt. I was hoping you would see it and use the second one. I didn't use about on purpose because I didn't want it to sound overly similar, since I was very worried about seeming too repetitive...since even though they didnt have our code, I didn't want them to have any suspicions that a code was out there.

So yeah, sorry for the confusion, the 2nd one was an attempt at making sure the correct information was out there. I totally spaced when writing the first one, and mis read redrun's instrucions, something about including or not including the final word.

Anywho, sorry for the confusion.

[Scoop20906]

Grund mentioned instead of the daily vote killing someone instead they get locked down.

Maybe we can investigate this mechanic a bit because since we have a map I think it has more bite than a usual WW game.

Being locked down could thematically described as everyone decide to tie that character to a rock or tree for the night and next day.

He won't be able to move or use the items at his location or any of his special powers and basically loses a turn. Once the day is over (next vote is finished) he is able to untie himself and use things/move again.

Problem with this? Once the MiB is discovered everyone would vote for him each night so basically there needs to be some workaround for him. Maybe is still able to use his kill power but not move.

I like this for this game only because it keep people in the game.

[Unagi]

A: What did you like?
B: What did you dislike?
C: What would you change, and how?
D: Would you play again if it were tweaked?

It's actually really hard for me to answer these questions. I feel I have a lot more to say than I am able to articulate.

(IMHO) <-----

A: What did you like?

• I liked the grundbegriff of game - the game board, (some) of their powers, exploring.
• I am pretty sure I liked the 2 time frames - and how we could 'meet ourselves' to pass things to the future. I never got to do that - but I had fun thinking of bringing a corpse from the past to the future in order to raise it from the dead.
• That being said, I liked the 'pipe dreams' of ideas that seemed to loom on the horizon... things like rezzing players and learning how to rez players, and attacking airplanes.... to be honest though - part of me thought to myself: "Yes, this would be fun if we were able to play in real-time, this post-card Chess Game version may be a bit tedious with those events".
• A Very large part of my fun was indeed because Redrun's message let me sit back and laugh at the Widmore team pretend they were not a big team... Sadly, (or not, really) that's something that just wont repeat itself in the same manner (if nothing else, because future "widmore teams" will not be so brazen to think they are the only ones coordinated)

B: What did you dislike?

• I wonder if the board is too big... or maybe just right.... I dunno... I didn't see it all, and there was a lot for me to do that would have kept me from ever getting everywhere... not that big an issue - but I think it's connected to the 'scope' problem.
• It may just be that the game had Too Many options and moving parts, for instance the Widmore team - do they really need Barriers [/i]and[/i] the ability to Booby-Trap?
• The Winning Conditions really seemed at odds with the fact that we all could kill eachother. I think we all saw the main goal as "Control The Map" - and that was only going to happen when the enemy was basically gone.
• Costing 2 lives (even 1) just to opent he Heart was way too big a hit. There was No Way the Lostie would have ever recovered from that event. Never.
• Uhg. Conversions in a game with this many moving parts. I think a simple game can be made more fun by throwing a single conversion in. A game with this many avenues - the conversions only serve to totally undermine the gumption needed to dream of all the other posibilities. I hope I am expressing this well. My look at the Conversions in this game: Luck. If I was lucky enough to be on a team that the Evil guys didn't convert - our team may stand a chance. If I was unlucky - someone on my team was converted, and if that is the case - I felt my teams fate was absolutely sealed.
• Player drop-out... I only bring this up here because I think that the level of complexity of this game may have forced a few players into 'too busy for this' mode. That may just come with the teritory - but it's worth mentioning, because man - it really did sorta suck to have that happen in this game.
• I keep going back to this: So many things to do... And I don't think anyone ever really 'did' any of them. I am pretty sure that the Plane was untouched, the Heart was not even discovered (let alone OPENED and then the MiB put inside and then the Heart CLOSED).
• Falling in a well... never happened to me - but I'd have likely tuned out a bit if it had...
• Participation.... I was particularly bummed to read in the Widmore Forum, player(s) saying there was no point in posting in the actual Game. I realize it's a tactical choice that we all make, etc, - but it just bums me out a bit. I don't like that trend at all.

C: What would you change, and how?

• I almost feel like No One should know who is on their team. (I realize that's perhaps not an idea that others would share) (spare via a 'Team Message' sent by a player "on your team"). I think this is the only way we will ever see something that begins to look like 'cross team cooperation'
• There were times I felt that each player should simply have a 1 night kill option (or perhaps the 1 time option to Kill/Scan). No other deaths - but the ones that each of us can do once (the island would still have some ways to kill players too) - but no Day-Lynch, and no Night-Evil-Kill.
• The Evil team's ability to nuke a Hex made it so that no one wanted to share information. I wondered how things would have totally changed with that Evil-Hex-Nuke removed.
• severely reduce (or totally remove?) the Barriers. (I think you like these barriers though, so I don't expect that will change)
• In order to rez Redrun (not to mention stessier... and Brendan... and theohall...), I needed to
  • find his corpse (LUCKY: I was in a PAST-Hex with redrun when he PRESENT-died), so the issue of getting his corpse was mitigated)
  • Learn How To Rez (land at the Staff in the Past ALONE), I was at the Staff in the past 2 times, neveralone - this was starting to look nearly imposible) Going back to a Hex in the past costs two turns.
  • Actually get the corpse to the Temple in the Future...
  all of those steps needed to be totally un-thwarted, non-booby-trapped, non-stabbed, un-Hex-Nuked, non-gassed, and un-barriered.... Yeaahh Riiight. What were you smoking when you thought players would be able to do this? And, damn, that was simply to get redrun back to life - so that we actually had enough Losties to even have a chance to OPEN the Heart. (and, with Newcastle converted - I actually needed to rez 2 Losties...) Yeah Um... - that needs some looking into - that was Never going to happen.

D: Would you play again if it were tweaked?
Yeah, if the tweaks looked good, and the players signing up to play looked like they really meant it.

[Unagi]

unagi that deviation you mentioned was pretty much me screwing up the first time, i think the first was 4 spaces, and it shold have been 5. The second attempt was an "overwrite" attempt. I was hoping you would see it and use the second one.

I saw the deviation off the code to be an attempt to cover the original text with simular text.
I guess my problem was: If you don't use the EXACT CODE - then you are not using the Code...

You actually totally threw me with your Very Original Lostie Announcement too (which was why I 're-used' the one you used...) You didn't actually use the phrase that redrun suggested - you were VERY CLOSE, but then, a number of non-losties actually had a couple of "very close" phrases that were ignored.

the Code phrase was:
"I'm going to start the day by"

Your post was:
"You know how i am going to start the day? The best way i know stuck on a deserted isle, no way to get off, and plenty of beer on hand"

It didn't confuse me for long, but I was miffed why you couldn't simply follow the rules....

And then- (as I stated in my Barracks post) - your other Lighthouse post (your correction) also didn't actually use the code, and since that code required the counting of letters AFTER the code phrase -I thought the complete Code Phrase was pretty critical....

no biggie though. just chatting. If this were true cloak-n-dagger stuff, I'm sure your sloppy code would resulted in the deaths of some good men...

[stessier]

A: What did you like?
B: What did you dislike?
C: What would you change, and how?
D: Would you play again if it were tweaked?

A: What did you like?

• I liked exploring. Finding out something - having knowledge - is always fun.
• I liked the board and it's size for the number of people we had.
• I think I liked the board powers he had available. I really wasn't alive long enough to make a good survey though.
• As with probably all the Losties, I liked playing possum for the Widmores. As mentioned, probably will never happen again, and that's a little sad.

B: What did you dislike?

C: What would you change, and how?

These two go together and are a little tougher because I think the answers depend on what you wanted the game to be. Do you want it to be WW or a board game? I think with the current setup, it doesn't work as a hybrid because the actions take too many turns to complete. If you want it to be WW, I think the powers/win conditions should be tweaked to call for/aid in the straight up elimination of players. If you want this to be a board game, deaths should either be removed or much, much rarer.

D: Would you play again if it were tweaked?
Yep, assuming life gave me time.

[Unagi]

It does though show how I was confused by one of Newcastle's clues. I wasn't sure how you guys gave credit for the Lighthouse in HEX5 - given the code he put down...

I thought Grund meant people were confused who Lostie's were. I had no trouble with that part.

I don't know how you knew to blow off his first (Hex6) code and to go with the correction-code that wasn't the right phrase - but, you AND redrun had the Lighthouse in the correct Hex via Newcastle's post - so yeah, you guys had no trouble with that. Totally weird to me.

I didn't (once I had the time to read) really have any trouble figuring out who all the Losties were either (save for the J.D. thing, I think my guess was that Arcanis was the silent Lostie, but after Lagom took over - I think it was clear that it was J.D. I can't recall how I deduced what team KK must have been on, but I had...)