That pokemon match was brilliant
Karl picking a preset team not realising it was a gimmick setup and then both of us (I think it's fair to say neither competitive pokemon players!) awkwardly discovering said gimmick through a battle that lasted far longer than a pokemon battle should!
Now for some final comments on this game:
Alternate EndingsThey weren't written out, but I had 5 different endings lined up depending on how the game went:
1) Parliament wins with a majority of its roles still aliveThis is the one that happened and was the "good" ending. The Duke gradually loses power to parliament and eventually Hannivalia becomes a republic.
2) Parliament wins with a minority of its roles still aliveIn this situation while the Duke's conspiracy with the conformists failed he would have played the chaos wrought as a sign that parliament is unfit for power. Hannivalia would have faced an uncertain civil war between parliament and the Duke.
3) Conformists win with less than half aliveThe conspiracy succeeds but the Duke then turns on the conformist-controlled parliament, wanting power for himself alone. Hannivalia would have faced another uncertain civil war, this time between the Church and the Duke.
4) Conformists win with more than half aliveThe conspiracy succeeds and the Duke becomes a puppet of the Church who rule Hannivalia through the conformist-controlled parliament.
5) The Foreign Agent winsThis was always an outside chance, but had the Foreign Agent won, regardless of which way the game went otherwise Hannivalia would have been invaded by the unknown nation, with either parliament or the Duke and Church forming a government in exile.
Shout OutsThese far from cover all the entertaining plays in the game, but I wanted to give some mention of my highlights:
Parksey risked detection on the very first night by making the kill himself - perhaps because I hadn't made it clear a specific person had to be chosen! - but then blended in perfectly as the alpha from that point on. The different time zone excuse maybe worked out in his favour!
Moggy deserves credit for being stubbornly committed to causing chaos even when it was clear his number was up, turning what could have been a very boring day where the lynch was decided first thing in the morning into another entertaining episode. Added bonus hilarity of a complete invention backfiring as Clarkman got accused of being a collaborator!
Speaking of,
Clarkman managed to do the almost impossible and stop himself being lynched on day 9 despite looking the favourite throughout the day. It sounded like he was sending
many PMs in the background as a desperate attempt to achieve that - and it worked! Well, until the very next day at least when he got lynched anyway
Ob Bob has to be the MVP - by night 7 he had a better than 50% hit rate on seering conformists and the seer circle he setup with
Mommy carried the game for the MPs. His reveal as the seer apparently took almost everyone by surprise, which shows how well Ob Bob played it!
Kezzer went out early but not before correctly identifying Moggy as a wrong 'un - unfortunately no one seemed to listen, even after he was proven to be on the towns side in death!
DarkRula and
SuperChris both played good games as their roles. Rula identified Ob Bob as a role on his first night and tracked a conformist on two nights (just never the one making the kill), and funnily enough tracked False on the one night False didn't submit a night action (while the Foreign Agent was still alive). Chris was keen to learn his role in asking questions on how it worked and came very close to roleblocking the conformists without ever blocking a town aligned role - he blocked 3 different conformists and the last, Clarkman, he blocked twice. Also a fun note - on nights 6, 9 and 10 Rula and Chris targeted the same players! (Albear, Clarkman and Zilnad).
Captain Kinopio deserves mention for surviving the game as the Speaker, with only Drumstick holding office before him. I was interested in seeing how dangerous the Speaker position would be, and it ended up less so than I imagined!
Almost Great MomentsThese moments didn't happen, but came very close to it, and would have been brilliant:
On day 5 Kinopio didn't submit an act so it went to RNG - this could have selected the Church Conformity Act, which would have certainly made some ripples!
On day 8 the vote to lynch was replaced with the vote for the MIA, but as the 7pm deadline approached no votes had actually been cast correctly! The conformists noticed this and sawyerpip was I think ready to jump in and steal the election at the last moment - if it wasn't for DarkRula saving the day for the town by reminding the thread the vote was needed!
Setup BalanceI intended to run this setup as a one-off and likely won't run a similar game again, but if I were to go back and tweak the balance, what would I change?
I think there was actually one too few conformists and 8 would have been a better balanced ratio.
I was disappointed that the Foreign Agent only made one kill and both that and the Spymaster role could have used more work. Perhaps the Foreign Agent should never have been at risk of losing a kill attempt from protection for example.
State Secrets Act should have made the game semi-open rather than fully open, with a set of possible roles revealed but not exactly which are in play or how many (certainly I would suggest this in any future use of the setup, but I did like the purity of the choice between close and open in the context of this game offering that meta discussion).
Opening up PMs should have more of a downside or benefit to the mafia. Again I think it was good in the context of a meta discussion, but for actual balance perhaps the seer should no longer be able to investigate once the act is passed allowing PMs. It's only in being able to secretly get their results out to the thread that the seer becomes overpowered!
Rather than a single act being proposed and voted for or against, while that matched the theme better I think a better game would be achieved by having the speaker propose two acts and everyone voting between the vote on which to pass, without any chance to revoke or not pass an act.