Prince of Persia Theme Month Game: Conclusion

[Shadows]

As it was written, "One day the Nizam shall rise again and bring upon the land a

great disaster. Many will die as they attempt to reclaim control of the Sands of Time."

This is that story.

THE CONCLUSION!

The Grand Vizier checks his mailbox royal scribe for the last time. It appears that all of the votes have been cast.

Guards! You will line up the last citizens on those specially prepared non-stationary scaffolds and then we may begin!

Welcome one and all to another exciting episode of Witch Hunt, er, PoP Mafia! I'm your host, Grand Vizier Shadir, the One-eyed and our special guests are... YOU! Hmmm? Oh, that's for the television audience. Television, you know... nevermind.

The Grand Vizier is committed to the well-being of all participants. Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the show. If anyone survives.

After tabulating the final votes, it seems that you, foul purveyor of all things biryani, Svelte, have received the most votes, a total of 4.

"Yay! I'm popular! No, wait, that's not yay. Boo! Boo on all of you!"

Yes, right. *pulls the lever, sending Svelte to the hereafter* And he was ... loyal!

I will now announce the remaining votes as I pull levers. If, at any point, all of the Nizam are dead, or they outnumber the citizens, I will stop pulling levers and announce the winners.

3 votes for Walter Kovacs. *pull* Loyal!

3 votes for Alice *pull* Loyal!

2 votes for Spyder *pull* NIZAM!

2 votes for hewman *pull* NIZAM!

2 votes for The crazy one *pull* Loyal!

2 votes for def *pull* NIZAM!

Hmmm... 1 banana. 2 banana. 3 banana. SCORE!

It seems you finally managed to do it, you've found and successfully brought all of the Nizam to justice. I'm making a note here: huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

Congratulations go out to the survivors: Rick, brickme, Darth Hawken, and Stash2Sixx (in the order in which you would have died).

Now, we have one small bit of unfinished business to take care of, the non-voters from day 1: Dunjon, indianajones and Pyramid.

You three will be given the extreme honour of digging the graves for the dead. Of the 52 original citizens, 45 are now dead. We will need 48 graves, if you will.

"48? But sir, if 45 are dead, why do we need 48?"

45 dead + 3 soon to be.

"Oh? Who's dying?"

The Grand Vizier just stares at the 3 of them and shakes his head. A drunken traveler appears. "To dig your own grave is quite a sight..." OH SHUT UP!

Thanks to all who participated, it's been a lot of fun. Now, none of you may ever PM me again!

As he prepares to return to his chambers, the Grand Vizier thinks he sees the ghostly images of Svelte and Dragonator, holding hands and skipping off into eternity together, but he could be mistaken.

Please feel free to use this topic to discuss the conclusion, send delightful complements to the host or to exchange cake recipes.

[Svelte]

Well, we got there in the end. Praise be to Ishtar! The Nizam were defeated. A shame really, since historically they were humble administrators and probably could have introduced a few benefits of civilisation, like cheese and indoor plumbing.

Mae the pearl gold scorpions enjoy their empty new kingdom - since there doesn't seem to be much life left in these desert sands.... Not unless Rick, brickme, Darth Hawken, and Stash2Sixx are going to make babies with each other and star our Persian PoPulation proliferatin' profusely

And my biryani is delicious, how dare you slander it!

[Spyder]

Oh well, we tried, and we will be back.

Long live the Nizam!!!!!

(And thanks for the great game Shadows)

[Walter Kovacs]

Wait, Spyder was Nizam?!? But I clearly remember blocking him on night 1. Hell, I based my entire strategy on the fact that no Nizam were blocked on Night 1. Unfortunately, I did not keep a copy of what I sent. Perhaps I did misremember. Wouldn't that be tragic.

At least I made it all the way to the final night. Not bad for my first mafia game.

Thanks for hosting Shadows. It truly was fun, and I look forward to the next game.

[Hewman]

Oh well, we tried, and we will be back.

Long live the Nizam!!!!!

(And thanks for the great game Shadows)

So close! Thanks for a fun game everyone and congratulations to the winners.

Llik Mazin the Persian Kitty.

[Spyder]

Wait, Spyder was Nizam?!? But I clearly remember blocking him on night 1. Hell, I based my entire strategy on the fact that no Nizam were blocked on Night 1. Unfortunately, I did not keep a copy of what I sent. Perhaps I did misremember. Wouldn't that be tragic.

At least I made it all the way to the final night. Not bad for my first mafia game.

Thanks for hosting Shadows. It truly was fun, and I look forward to the next game.

Yeah, sorry about that, but you were so usable. (Don't take that the wrong way)

Any ways, I really did have a great time fooling you Walter, and your a good sport about it, thanks.

And again Shadows, thank you to you.

So um, when's the next game?

[JimBee]

Well, I was completely fooled. But fantastic game, well done, Shadows. I'm sorry I doubted your powers. It was interesting to see how all of the night actions played out. We'll have to play another one of these mafia games killfests sometime.

Oh, and yay me for being the first to die!

[Inconspicuous]

I had an alliance with def, and the thought that he was Nizam crossed my mind on a few occasions. I thought I could trust him, especially when he tried to pull Lord Arjay, someone I strongly trusted, into the alliance. Alas, we were both dead the next day.

Thanks for hosting such a short and fantastic Mafia Game, Vizier Shadir! I think this will go down in history as one of the most epic bloodbath games ever.

[Hewman]

I had an alliance with def, and the thought that he was Nizam crossed my mind on a few occasions. I thought I could trust him, especially when he tried to pull Lord Arjay, someone I strongly trusted, into the alliance. Alas, we were both dead the next day.

Thanks for hosting such a short and fantastic Mafia Game, Vizier Shadir! I think this will go down in history as one of the most epic bloodbath games ever.

I don't think it was us 'The Nizam' that killed you, according to def we only killed 4 people and it was only once we got to the last night that we truly crossed anyone, we liked having people on our side, so avoided killing anyone we had loose alliances with.

Now I'm hooked on these games, I can't wait for another one.

Edited May 17, 2010 by hewman

[def]

Noooo! It can't be!

For the record, I barely killed anyone, just Dragonator and Whitefang. The Nizam killed 4 players total! You guys did it all yourself.

I really thought we might survive the night. All the winners would have been killed by Nizam if we hadn't been taken out first, except Rick. Who Darth Hawken said he was planning to take out

Thanks for the opportunity Grand Vizier, I really thought we had a chance.

And Big Cam and Inky, I didn't betray either of you, I was trying to build up legit alliances. Though I didn't protect you either

[Hewman]

Noooo! It can't be!

[

For the record, I barely killed anyone, just Dragonator and Whitefang. The Nizam killed 4 players total! You guys did it all yourself.

Thanks for the opportunity Grand Vizier, I really thought we had a chance.

And Big Cam and Inky, I didn't betray either of you, I was trying to build up legit alliances. Though I didn't protect you either

Perhaps that's why we lost, we weren't quite ruthless enough.

Oh and to JimButcher, it's a pity you didn't stay around longer, I was enjoying your posts, although with half the people targeting you in the first day it did allow all the Nizam to slip through unscathed.

[def]

Perhaps that's why we lost, we weren't quite ruthless enough.

Well, one mistake was splitting the votes on the first night, which jamtf suggested against (if I remember correctly) but we thought would work. One mistake. Then, the second night, who would've thought four players would join us against Dragonator?

But we used our blocks and protects well, I think. And killed I Scream Clone, Quarryman and Whitefang well on the third day.

Really, if the Vizier hadn't taken our protects we'd still be standing, and if he had allowed us to count our last night kills, there would be nobody standing. And “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas”

I'm curious as to who targeted the Nizam on Day 4 though. We got six votes from eight people. Did anybody score two of us?

I have to empty my inbox now though.

[Shadows]

Checking my notes, I can share a few details.

1. On day 1, blocks stopped about half of the action. A large portion of the rest was used on a small number of players as I tried to represent with the various mobs in the conclusion. People were clearly divided with large numbers attacking the same person as large numbers were defending.

2. Getting rid of the blocks should have made night 2 a bloodbath, but again, people were largely focused on single players and, for example, used 9 votes on Dragonator.

3. When I said that the earlier you voted the better, I wasn't kidding. That order broke a number of ties along the way and was instrumental in the final sort order for the last day. If the votes had been very slightly different, the whole thing could have easily reversed.

4. The Nizam were organized. They protected each other and voted in small packs to try to insure that their targets died. Oddly, that was largely unsuccessful as they tended to either target people who were heavily protected or who would have died anyway. If they had actually been less organized and taken out more random targets, they may have won. It's one of those things you just can't predict.

Pro Tip: As a general rule, I've found that it's always a good idea for scum to go into this with a few different targets in mind, and never go along with the group. Let the loyal citizens have their vengeance, kill the unexpected target, the one they are ignoring. It not only doubles your success rate, but it leaves them questioning why certain people are dying instead of the obvious ones.

5. In order to give the conclusions a more story-like feel, it was sometimes necessary to be vague or change the order of things, but not in a way that could legitimately mislead the players. If, for example, you targeted someone who died, but someone else claimed the kill, it may be true, or it may not. In some cases, 2 people targeted someone but 1 was blocked or was being attacked and defended while the killing took place. In other cases, entire strings of killings were linked with one person killing someone who was protecting someone who was killing someone who was protecting someone, etc. It became very complicated to properly represent without identifying the specific participants (unless they died, for the most part). There are only so many ways to say "the killer", so it did get a bit tiresome after a while.

6. At one point I considered allowing investigation, but that would mean major back and forth PMing, and it's quite enough to be on the receiving end of 52 PMs without having to send some out as well. At the same time, some of you write too often, to the point that I had to add the "one PM per day" rule, and honestly, it's a good rule that will stay in place in future games, but for this one it was probably ok to have a little of it at the beginning, just to help the newer members get acquainted with the format.

Speaking of future games: Whew, it's tiring. Seriously. Post day 1, 24 hours, night 1, 24 hours then 2 hours of processing and day 2 was up. Rinse, repeat. That's a tight schedule. In the future, there will not be a day/night, it will just be a 48 hour day with a reminder at midday that there is 24 hours left to vote. Half the topics, half the titles, half the hassles of that, no major loss in terms of plot. At the same time, I may avoid blocks or provide each player with a specific set of actions and only allow a limited number to block. I plan to try public voting in the next game, at least for one of the later days. I think it will add an extra depth to the conversation and potentially more clues to balance out the relative strengths of the sides.

This entire format is basically mafia training, a madcap and exciting way to learn general mafia principles without the complications that a real game can provide. This game was totally unplanned, literally spawning from an idea to the first topic in 15 minutes. As a result, it was a little less organized than future efforts will be, but it gave me a lot of opportunities to experiment on you, thus the constant Portal references.

So yes, there will be more of these games, but not often. I would like to see them work in association with other events, like it did in this case. In a real mafia game, you would be provided with a full character profile and avatar. In these, you make up your own within the specifications of the host. I like that as a means of getting you to relate to your character and participate in whatever the larger event is. Expect that to be part of future games, and possibly become a requirement, ie, you can't sign up without an appropriate avatar/story.

I've heard rumours that next month there is going to be something special that I may be able to tie one of these games to, so keep watching. No, not another theme month, but a contest. Seriously, stay tuned.

[def]

Pro Tip: As a general rule, I've found that it's always a good idea for scum to go into this with a few different targets in mind, and never go along with the group. Let the loyal citizens have their vengeance, kill the unexpected target, the one they are ignoring. It not only doubles your success rate, but it leaves them questioning why certain people are dying instead of the obvious ones.

We had discussed it, but we basically felt that we wanted to get the experienced players out, since they were the ones capable of organizing people rationally, and we felt we could pick the noobs off easier at the end, since people wouldn't concentrate their protects on them. Little did we know the degree of acceleration in this game, the changing rules each day. Maybe we would have strategized differently if we knew we'd have so little time. Really, with 52 players, we were expecting 6-7 days.

But, advice taken.

[Dannylonglegs]

Wow! That was exciting! And a rousing finale too! I still maintain that if which-ever peasant(s) who killed me hadn't that I would have lived . Oh well. I'm impressed that people actually lived! great job Brickme, Rick, Darth Hawkin, and Stash2sixx! I built a vignette for my kill on day one and I'm gunna post it whenever I find the time. It's nothing special, but I was planning on building a few, but I only had one cool kill. And now that the game's over I guess I can state my involvement in the group of proven innocents on day2. I was the one who told brickme to kill dragonator w/ me. I expected him to provide me protection (which I'm sure he did, but just a little late) and I protected Lord Arjay. He blindly trusted me, although no one (to my knowledge) tried to block me the first night. For all he knew (which was what I told him) I could have been a Nizam. It's good to have friends.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[RileyC]

I knew you were a Nizam Def!

Man Stash2Sixx only posted like once. That kinda was annoying me..

Really great game Shadows I enjoyed my time in it.

Now who killed me? :skull:

[Hewman]

I knew you were a Nizam Def!

Man Stash2Sixx only posted like once. That kinda was annoying me..

Really great game Shadows I enjoyed my time in it.

Now who killed me? :skull:

I believe I may have contributed to your death, sorry about that!

[Shadows]

we wanted to get the experienced players out, since they were the ones capable of organizing people rationally

Ah, that was your mistake. Metagaming strikes again.

I tell people it's a bad idea, but they don't believe me. They think I'm only trying to save myself, but seriously, it never turns out well and at some point, it exposes the people doing it to experiencing it themselves because once all of the known players are gone, they're next.

[Stash2Sixx]

I only posted "like once" huh?

Might want to head back to math class Roncanator. I posted multiple times. Whoever made that list earlier in the game also missed my multiple posts and said I was one that hadn't posted yet. But did I argue, nope. No need to draw more attention to myself. By staying low on the radar, I survived. By having a really strong alliance with a handful of people in this game, that also helped me to stay alive.

In this case, smart move by going after the experienced players first. We were smart enough to get an alliance going right from the get-go. We were fairly coordinated, but might have needed a little bit more so it seems. Anyways, good game Shadows, congrats to all the winners, and good job to all of the others. I hope all of you newer players learned something, I know I always get something out of every one of these games.

added on: Judging by what shadows just wrote, he didn't think it was a smart move, but if it had been be, I might have gone about that same route Def. Worked fairly well for you this time, but might not work every time.

[def]

I tell people it's a bad idea, but they don't believe me. They think I'm only trying to save myself, but seriously, it never turns out well and at some point, it exposes the people doing it to experiencing it themselves because once all of the known players are gone, they're next.

But that's why we didn't target Svelte after day one! We wanted it all pointing at him, which is what happened. I couldn't convince people otherwise on day 4, and I did try

[Rick]

Hooray. Pure randomness and no alliances whatsoever wins.

[iamded]

You guys did it! Good job, good job indeed.

~Peace

[jamtf]

Well, one mistake was splitting the votes on the first night, which jamtf suggested against (if I remember correctly) but we thought would work. One mistake. Then, the second night, who would've thought four players would join us against Dragonator?

But we used our blocks and protects well, I think. And killed I Scream Clone, Quarryman and Whitefang well on the third day.

Really, if the Vizier hadn't taken our protects we'd still be standing, and if he had allowed us to count our last night kills, there would be nobody standing. And “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas”

I'm curious as to who targeted the Nizam on Day 4 though. We got six votes from eight people. Did anybody score two of us?

I have to empty my inbox now though.

Yes, the first night was a mistake and it was me who suggested we should cast 5 votes on 1 heavily defended person on the first day to get rid of people who we felt could threaten our small alliance by mobilizing others. It was my idea to cut the "sacks of hay" in half by spreading votes once the seasoned players were gone. The 3 + 2 tactic clearly did not work out as planned for us since our targets survived without a problem, despite the massacre created by the loyal citizens.

I admit killing Dragonator on day 2 (I was 1 one of these 9 killers) + WhiteFang and I Scream Clone (by voting early) on day 3 when I went down myself (on purpose I might add).

The early voting rule clearly did the trick for the survivors since once you're dead, you can not make an impact anymore. I really thought that 3 remaining Nizam x 2 votes each would certainly result in 6 civilians getting killed. Fingers crossed that some of the survivors would take out the remaining 2 and that the trusted people alliance of Spyder and hewman would be loyal towards them.

Anyway, advice taken. Now we know what to do in case we play a new game that's sort'a like this.

Ah well, it was a great way to kill time (and people) . Thanks again Shadows, I mean Grand Vizier the One-Eyed.

Edited May 17, 2010 by jamtf

[Lord Arjay]

Well that was fun.

I had a general strategy which was to spend the day gathering as many protects as possible. Unfortunetely that led to some people relying on me for protection, they ended up dead.

On day 3 I kind of lost it, I suddenly went and sent in my action to kill Shadows. That was a mistake.

After a while my head cleared though so I decided to help my allies. During that time I discovered PrEtzel was a Nizam thanks to Fugazi. Then you posted night 3 and I was at a complete lose as to why I said I was a Nizam. As soon as jamtf made that post about self sacrafice I knew he was a Nizam. I guessed Spyder early on but I didn't have any proof, that's why I jumped on the attacking thing. Until def proved me wrong and I had a lot of trust in def, so I gave up.

When hewman contacted me I believed him 100%. So he was of my list of suspects. In the end Svelte was my top target due to my first failed attempt on him.

Ah Well, I guess I threw it all away when I targeted Shadows.

Thanks for being an amazing host!

Edited May 17, 2010 by Lord Arjay

[RileyC]

Sorry Stash, I counted and you posted a total of 7 times. Its seven times more than I suspected you for! See I know my math!