Octopus Overlords

Possessed
–adjective
1. spirit possession by a malevolent entity

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RULEZ IN TEST MODE! PLEASE FEEL FREE TO MAKE COMMENTS

Roles:

Gypsies:


Psychics (4)
Different from the others, you have a psychic's gift.

• The Psychic may select a gypsy each night to scan. The Psychic will learn if the gypsy is "pure", "tainted", or "possessed". The Evil Spirit and Traitor will show as "tainted".
• If the Evil Spirit "taints" the Psychic then the Psychics loses their power but will not realize it. The Psychics will still receive results when scanning however the results will be the exact opposite of the truth (for example a "tainted" or "possessed" player will show as "pure"). The only exception being that the Evil Spirit and Traitor will show as "pure".
• If the Psychic is possessed then they lose their powers.

Protector (2)
Raised from a young age to fight, you can protect others from the evil spirit.

• Each night, the Protector may choose to protect a single gypsy from being "tainted".
• The Protector may not protect the same player on back to back nights.
• The Protector may not protect themselves.
• The Protector will not know if their protection order was successful or failed.
• If the Evil Spirit attempts to "taint" the Protector, then the Protector dies.

Sisters (2)
You are twin sisters.

• Unknown to the rest of the group the Sisters have the ability to communicate secretly with each other (players will have a secret forum).
• The sisters will be informed at the beginning of each day how many living "tainted" gypsies there are. Both "Tainted" and "Possessed" Gypsies will be reported as "Tainted'.

Gypsy (5)
You are a Gypsy. You are accustomed to the nomadic habit of life travelling from town to town. You are tightly knit family and will fight viciously to protect them.

• You have no special powers but are vital to the survival of your group.

Evil


The Evil Spirit (1)
The evil spirit wishes to control or kill all the gypsies. The evil spirit was called by a curse to kill the gypsy leader and now inhabits one of the gypsy.

• The evil spirit may attempt to "taint" a player each night. The "taint" can only be stopped by a protection by the protector.
• If the gypsy inhabited by the evil spirit is killed, the evil spirit then moves to traitor and the traitor then becomes the evil spirit and gains all the powers of that role.
• Once a gypsy is tainted, the evil spirit can attempt to possess that gypsy by choosing to "taint" them on another night (this can not happen on the same night the gypsy was first "tainted"). If successful, that tainted gypsy becomes possessed.
• Possessed gypsies are told the name of the gypsy that evil spirit inhabits but will have no secret communication with them.
• Possessed gypsies wins with evil.

Traitor (1)
The traitor was jealous of the gypsy leader and placed a curse on her. This curse called forth the evil spirit. The evil spirit had other ideas and inhabited one of the other gypsy.

• The traitor starts the game as "tainted".
• The traitor is not aware of who the evil spirit has inhabited.
• If the gypsy inhabited by the evil spirit is killed, the evil spirit then moves to traitor and the traitor then becomes the evil spirit and gains all the powers of that role.
• If the evil spirit attempts to "taint" the traitor, then the traitor and evil spirit gain access to communicate secretly with each other through a private forum. The game flavor text will signify that this has happened.

Victory Conditions

Gypsy Victory: The gypsy who is inhabited by the evil spirit is killed.

Evil Victory: The evil spirit taints all living gypsies.

Rules:

Private Messaging / Forum Posts:
There will be no private forums or private messages between players.

Text sent to players by the Moderator may not be copied and/or shared with other players at any time.

Gentleman's Rule of No Edits (i.e. Edit at your own peril, it's your fellow players you need to satisfy)
Edits to "Game Vote Tally" posts are allowed, as long as the posts contain no 'commentary'.

Game Sequencing:

Night Boilerplate:
Evil Spirit: Who do you choose to "taint"?
Protector: Who do you choose to protect?
Psychic: Who do you choose to scan?

All orders must be in before the hard deadline, or forfeit. Night deadlines are normally 24 hours unless this occurs on a weekend where more time may be granted.

Night Sequence of Resolution:
Evil Spirit attempts to "Taint" a Gypsy.
Protector protects a Gypsy.
Psychic receives their scan results.

Beginning of Day Sequence:
Sisters are informed of the number of living "Tainted" Gypsies.

Voting:
Each day players will be able to place a vote for the player they wish to kill.

Only votes (and withdraws) cast with the   tag are official.

A majority vote will close voting.
If the Day ends without a majority reached no player will be killed. Deadlines will normally be 5 to 7 days depending on weekends or holidays.

End of Day Boilerplate:
Voting is closed on majority is reached.
Results of Lynch are announced.

Deaths:
Dying player's will be revealed as "Tainted" or "Pure" (not tainted). Dying player's specific roles will not be revealed. 
 

Important Game Links:

Game Beginning

Beginning of Day One

End of Day One

Night One

etc...

IN still reading a da roolz

looks interesting but I'll have to wait and see if I'm available to play. Soccer sectionals through June then vacation taking up a lot of my time.

I'm in...

I'll be sitting this one out. Vacation intervenes till mid-month.

I'll read the rules over lunch.

IN. I'll take a break when Lost runs.

Night Sequence of Resolution:
Evil Spirit attempts to "Taint" a Gypsy.
Protector protects a Gypsy.
Psychic receives their scan results.

Why does protection occur after the attempt to "Taint"?

And, on a purely 3rd grade level, you have to come up with a different word for "Taint".

Way to much conversion. I'm sitting this out.

Remus West wrote:Way to much conversion. I'm sitting this out.

Can you elaborate? What is off putting about the rulezset? As you know I am more than willing to change things for everyone to enjoy themselves.

I tried to create a situation where people are not killed outright by the baddie and therefore can play longer.

I get the sense that everyone needs a break tho. Maybe its time to take a month off?

Your effort to let everyone play longer really just makes this a version of The Thing. It'll be a challenge to get ahead and extremely hard to hold things constant - especially with the Scanners no knowing when they are converted.

I think that's what Remus meant about too many conversions.

stessier wrote:Your effort to let everyone play longer really just makes this a version of The Thing. It'll be a challenge to get ahead and extremely hard to hold things constant - especially with the Scanners no knowing when they are converted.

I think that's what Remus meant about too many conversions.

I could change it where the Scanners simply are tainted (I love the word ) and learn they have lost their ability. I gives the Evil Spirit and the Possessed (converted) a chance to spoof a scanner role as well.

By the way, I never played in The Thing game so I'm not sure what the problems may be.

Scoop20906 wrote:By the way, I never played in The Thing game so I'm not sure what the problems may be.

You should read it - amusing in a sick way.

Basically, even with 2 kills a day, the Villagers can't keep up with Evil when it can convert every night. The Good Guys get no info on who is good (since no one dies by evil), so they can't look at previous days and see who to believe. It scarred everyone who played in it - except Chaos apparently - but then, would you expect anything different?

Trying to make everyone have a chance to play longer simply unbalances the game. Even if the scanners know if they are tainted or not it won't matter because they can not trust their scans for more than a single day since their target can be converted. Nothing is constant so there is no way to build any sort of order to make decisions with. One conversion makes things messy enough. Giving bad guys the ability to do multiple conversions breaks the game for me.

Potential gamebreaker:

2 Protectors
4 Psychics

Day One: All 4 Psychics self-out. Night one: The 2 Protectors switch back and forth protecting the same two Psychics - until the bad guys get the Protectors. I know - this is not perfect, because it requires communication of some sort, but it is possible. Would guarantee the scans of two Psychics being reliable until the Protectors get killed.

Also a little burned out right now and not sure of availability the next 2-3 weeks until I get settled in Jax.

Remus West wrote:Giving bad guys the ability to do multiple conversions breaks the game for me.

I tend to agree. It's a ton of fun to watch the little people sqirm, if you are lucky enough to be the converters or the mod - but from the 'detective' side of these games - it becomes meaningless (for me)

I think the rulez actually handle things well.

A player can only be "tainted" first. The do not become converted until they are "tainted" a 2nd time which would require the Evil Spirit "taint" them on a 2nd night. Thats an uphill battle for the Evil Spirt who's winning condition is to simply "taint" once all the living players.

I think it makes an interesting choice for the Evil Spirit.

I can fix the problem with the protectors outing themselves. Protection does not work when used on another protector and the protector will not be informed if it fails. How does that sound?

I can fix the problem with the scanners. Once they are "tainted" they will receive a message saying they have lost their powers which gives them the chance to out themselves.

I could create a mechanism where the Twin sisters can reverse the effects of someone who is tainted? Maybe only allow it to be used twice?

What do you think?

One of the main issues with not allowing the bad guys kills is that they never gain strength with regard to the portion of the vote they control. Part of the challenge in late games is the lessening numbers of good guys that need to be able to pull together. Full conversion makes that swing way to quick. No kills makes it swing not at all.

Remus West wrote:One of the main issues with not allowing the bad guys kills is that they never gain strength with regard to the portion of the vote they control. Part of the challenge in late games is the lessening numbers of good guys that need to be able to pull together. Full conversion makes that swing way to quick. No kills makes it swing not at all.

Thats a good point, Remus.

How about giving the Evil Spirit a secret vote like this:

0 Possessed = 3 secret (extra) votes
1 Possessed = 2 secret (extra) votes
2 Possessed = 1 secret (extra) votes
3 Possessed = 0 secret (extra) votes

This gives the Evil Spirit a boost of 3 secret votes in addition to his 1 public vote which increases his voting power. If he chooses to possess people it takes away from his voting power.

I could also add a mechanic where a player's initial taint will only last for two days and nights and then disappears forcing the Evil Spirit to possess the player or lose the taint on that player.

What do you think?

I think that over powers the spirit early in the game since it essentially means every vote is an endgame vote where the margin for error is tiny yet there will remain so many targets that the potential for error remains large.

Think of a regular end game vote. Just half the potential targets are the enemy (since you will know yourself) thus even guessing you have a 50/50 shot of getting a bad guy. Giving the extra votes means the bad guys control the same voting edge as end game (one misplaced vote and a villager dies) but they are still hiding in a crowd.

Night 1 - 4 Psychics means morning 1 there are 8 known goods (in a 15 player game)
Night 2 - Presumably only 3 Psychics will still have powers, so there are 11 known goods and 1 death
Night 3 - 2 Psychics scan 2 more - the whole field is known

Since you are only have to kill the Evil spirit, the Gypsies will win by Day 5 at the latest.

With 2 Protectors, they could alternate on the same two players so they would never risk being corrupted.

Well, the interest thus far is tepid and remus and stessier have problems with the rulez and changes I have placed so far. Maybe it is time for me to take a break as well.

Present it again later and maybe there will be taker. I'm just not really interested in conversion games right now. The last two left a bad taste in my mouth as I spent a lot of time completely impotent. Being dead in the last game was less frustrating.

Scoop20906 wrote:Well, the interest thus far is tepid and remus and stessier have problems with the rulez and changes I have placed so far. Maybe it is time for me to take a break as well.

hey, I have had at least one game I had to revamp as Remus discovered a broken loophole... Lets try 'worst case scenarios' with what you have here.