TLS Mini Christmas Party!

Lex

Administrator
I have a Christmas dinner and party booked at literally 8pm next week, sad :(

But I may drunkenly join later in the eve :D
 

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
I cba with voice chat but I'll give it a go. I'll have to be on my phone though, my PC webcam thing apparently gave the ghost. Maybe not, maybe it just had a few bad days. I wonder where I put it, if it did broke, I should open it up and see what fucked up. It has to have been intentinonal / planned obsolescence.
 

Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
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Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
Bugger all; I was mocking the perceived paranoia of planned obsolescence with Internet Comment Etiquette. :monster:
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Get out of here with that shit. :P

Yop, you don't need a webcam, just a microphone and headphones / a headset.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Ghost Hotel

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Noppo said:
Welcome. Thank you for coming to the Ghost Hotel. Uuuuuuuuuugh.....

Ghost Hotel is a Final Fantasy VII-themed spin on hidden role games like Mafia and Werewolf, which we can play by Discord voice chat on Saturday. This particular version is for between seven and 30 players. Since those games might not be familiar to everyone, I thought I'd better go over the rules. Click the spoiler tags below to open each section, or skip to the TL;DR section if you CBA.

In Ghost Hotel, there are two competing teams, or alignments.

The good team is made up of NPCs, Heroes and possibly a Dreamer. They win if all the evil Executives are dead. They do this by hanging people in the day. They do not know anybody's alignment or role at the start of the game aside from their own.

The evil team is made up of Executives and possibly a Scientist. They win if the Executives reach parity with the non-Executives, i.e. there are the same number of each still alive. They do this by murdering people in the night. The Executives know who the other Executives are at the start of the game.

Note the distinction between being hanging and murdering. The terms are not interchangeable. "Killing" is a generic term that covers all types of player deaths.

There are a number of randomly selected roles in the game, some of which have special abilities, which I'll come to later. At the beginning of the game, I will assign each player a role at random by Direct Message (DM) on Discord. Each role's alignment is predetermined, so you will know which team you are on from the start.

Your role, and by extension, your alignment, is for you alone to know. Keep it secret until your (in-game) death. If your role requires you to communicate with other players, I will invite you to a private Discord server. You may not communicate with other players while the game is ongoing except when I instruct you to. This is very important. Secretly messaging other players is cheating, but I have no way of stopping it, so just don't do it. Even evil players should have honour in this game. :P

If you are killed, either by hanging or murdering, you must immediately reveal your role in a neutral manner. For example, you could say "I was Lucrecia, the Dreamer," but not "I was Lucrecia, you idiots, and by the way, Fancy is on the evil team, so kill her next." Your participation in the game is over (with one possible exception) and you are forbidden from saying anything further, either to the group or privately to players who are still in the game. I will mute players who break this rule even once. You are free to chat with other players who are completely out of the game.

Even if you are dead, you still win or lose with your team, so sometimes it's worth sacrificing yourself.

The game starts with a night in which nobody is killed. The Executives say hello to each other and a few roles get to perform their special abilities, but that's it.

The game then proceeds to a day phase and alternates between day and night phases.

During the day, all players who are still alive may discuss who they want to hang. You can say whatever you want in this phase about your role, alignment, suspicions, or anything else. Claiming to be something you are not is acceptable and often advisable, especially for evil players. Since the majority of players are good, you do not want them to think you are evil, because they will hang you for it.

At the end of the discussion phase, or after a reasonable period of time at my discretion, there will be a round of nominations followed by one or more rounds of voting. Nominations and votes proceed in a predetermined order which stays the same throughout the game, with only the player going first changing. Imagine everyone sitting in a circle where one person has a crown that they pass on to their left at the start of a new day. Players also drop out when they are dead, of course.

In the nominations round, each player may nominate, if they wish, a player they think should be hanged. If one player is nominated by more than half of the players, they are immediately hanged. If this does not happen, however, the player who received the most votes will be put in Mr. Hangman's gallows and will be given a chance to defend themselves. Each player must then declare, again out loud, whether the accused should live or die. The accused may also vote. Again, a player needs more than half of the votes to be hanged – a tie isn't enough. If the player is not hanged, the player with the next most nominations is put in the gallows, and this continues until someone is hanged or until there are no more nominated players left to put in the gallows. In that event, nobody is hanged that day.

When a player is hanged, they reveal their role as described above, the day ends immediately and no further discussion is allowed. You cannot, for example, comment on the revealed role of the newly deceased player, though I'll allow involuntary, non-verbal reactions. The only thing you can do is go to sleep, by which I mean mute your microphone or otherwise STFU.

The main night-time event is that the evil Executives "wake up" and have a brief meeting in their private Discord on who to murder that night. The meeting is limited to discussing which players they want to murder, so speculation about players' roles is not allowed. It is not a straight vote, however; players can say things like "If it were up to me, I'd kill Flare, but I'm fine with killing Cacti as well," and can change their minds in an attempt to reach a unanimous decision. If that proves impossible, the highest-ranking surviving evil player decides who to murder. Players will know who they outrank and who they don't.

Some roles get to perform their special abilities at night.

In the morning, everyone wakes up to begin a new day phase, with the exception of the murdered player, who reveals their role as described above.

The total number of players in the game determines how many good and evil players there are. For example, if there are six players (the minimum needed to play), four of them will be good and two will be evil.

Roughly half of all players will be "NPCs" - good players with no unique name and no special abilities. Their only job is to take part in discussions during the day, then nominate and hang players. However, in parties of 13 and above, a good NPC might be replaced by Dio, a neutral one, who is working only for himself. They also might not. In parties of 14 and above, Don Corneo is also a possible neutral NPC. It's important to note than neutral roles win in addition to the good or evil team winning.

The other good players will have special abilities. One of them is Lucrecia, the Dreamer, who is guaranteed to be in play. Lucrecia is the strongest good player, since she can investigate whether a player is evil or not each night. How she chooses to use this information is up to her, but she should usually be careful not to reveal her role, since the evil players will want her dead. She'll also be joined by one or more randomly selected Heroes, whose abilities are a mixed bag; some of them may help a great deal, some may not help at all, and others may actually be a hindrance. Part of the game is trying to work out which ones have been included.

The default evil player is called an Executive. There will be either two or three of them at the beginning of the game, depending on the overall party size. They have no special abilities beyond knowing who the other Executives are and being able to murder people at night. In parties of 11 and above, the evil team will be assisted by Hojo, the Scientist, who can investigate a player each night to find out if they're Lucrecia. Outside of the daily public discussion, Hojo doesn't communicate with the Executives, so he also needs to be careful how he utilises his discoveries. While he is an evil player, the game ends if all Executives are killed, even if Hojo is still alive.

There are also two situational roles, which will be applied in addition to your main role. In parties of nine and above, the first person to die will become a ghost, since it can be frustrating to die before you've had a chance to do anything. Each night, they may haunt a player they have not haunted before to prevent them from speaking the next day. Haunted players can still nominate and vote for/against hangings. The ghost should follow the game closely after their death, since they still win or lose with their team. Ghosts cannot talk, nominate or vote and are forbidden from communicating with players privately, just like everyone else. Finally, in parties of 10 and above, Cait Sith will choose two people to be lovers. They will be both be told who they are in love with. In addition to their existing win conditions, lovers can win by being the last two players alive, even if they are on opposing teams. If one of them dies at any point, however, the other immediately dies of a broken heart.

A full breakdown of team balance and descriptions of all the special roles can be found here. Note that there are two tabs.

  • Why do NPCs have no names?
    Evil players will usually claim to be NPCs. If they were named, you could say "oh yeah, which one?", and if the evil player were to guess incorrectly, you (or someone else) would immediately know they were evil. You can, if you wish, role-play as an NPC from the game – I've included some suggestions here (second tab, "Roles").
  • Why did you choose the names you did?
    I tried to only pick names of FFVII characters who could theoretically have been at the Gold Saucer on the night the party is forced to stay at the Ghost Hotel. Hence, no Biggs, Wedge, Jessie or Dyne. I didn't choose Sephiroth because his presence would have changed the situation too drastically. Including Lucrecia is cheating a bit, but I wanted to give her and Hojo opposing roles.
  • Isn't it boring to have no special ability?
    I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but I've never found it boring when I've been a Villager in Werewolf. You do not have the stress of having to lie to conceal your role, so you can focus fully on gathering information about other players. You are also somewhat expendable, so you have the most creative freedom with your strategy. Go pretend to be Lucrecia or something. Remember you can still win if you are dead.
  • If I'm on the good team, why should I want to hang people?
    The simple answer is that, special roles aside, it's your only chance to kill evil players and win the game.
  • Shouldn't there be more evil players, especially in larger groups?
    Game theory suggests that the number of evil players should increase slower than the number of non-evil players to keep it balanced. This is for a number of reasons:
    • At the start of the game, the Executives know each others' identities, while their opponents have no knowledge whatsoever. Larger parties also have an increased chance of hanging non-evil players.
    • The Executives only need to achieve parity to win, while the good players need to kill all the Executives.
    • Not every Hero's special ability is helpful to the good team. In particular, Shera, Vincent and Reeve can help the evil team more than the good team.
    • The possible presence of neutral players may help to conceal the executives' motives. Dio wants to be hanged so he'll try to arouse suspicion.
    • Should a good player fall in love with an evil player, the good player will try to protect the evil player.
If you have any questions of your own, ask and I'll be happy to answer. :)

  • There will be good and evil teams, possibly some neutral players.
  • You'll be given a role. Read it. Don't reveal it. See what other roles might be in play here (second tab, "Roles").
  • Follow my instructions. I don't expect you to remember everything I've written here, especially if you haven't played before. As moderator, my job is to guide you through the game, which isn't as complicated as I've probably made it seem. :geek:
  • Don't talk to other players privately unless I tell you to.
  • In the day, nominate and vote on people to hang.
  • In the night, decide who to murder if you are an evil Executive, or use your special ability if you have one.
  • Work with your teammates to eliminate the opposition!
 
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fancy

pants
AKA
Fancy
Goddamnit Lucrecia. :ffuuu:

You are a friggin superstar Flint!! <3 I am sooooooo so stoked for this!! <3
 

Dawnbreaker

~The Other Side of Fear~
Sounds like a hella fun, but since my appearances will be spotty (I do have some stuff going on) I will have to bow out of that game. :sadface:

I will still log on, but not for the whole time, is all.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
@Fancy: Me too!

@Dawn: Fair enough. A game can be over very quickly if things go badly for the evil players, but it can go on for an hour or more if there are lots of players and people are slow to make decisions.

@Everyone: If you'd like some basic tips for the game, these ones seem pretty good. Just substitute NPC for villager, dreamer for seer, scientist for sorcerer and executive for werewolf.
 
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Cacti

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Kanthos, Cacti Kanth
This is going to be so much damn fun YASSSS

Thank you for putting in all this effort Flint <3
 

Flare

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Flare
I&#8217;ve never heard of this game before but it sounds so fun! Flint you&#8217;re awesome <3

I&#8217;d love to play it too if possible but I&#8217;ll be a bit late to the party so I understand if that&#8217;s not feasible. ;-; idk if you could play it twice in one day or if people wouldn&#8217;t want that, etc
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Can defo do multiple rounds if there's demand. Usually when people get a taste for the game they want to go again.
 

Flare

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Flare
Darth I implore you to keep requesting extra game rounds of this until I can play one as well :awesome: <3
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
I'm continuing to tweak the roles to try and make the game as interesting and balanced as possible. At some point tomorrow I'll announce that I'm done tweaking, so you can learn the roles without having to worry about them changing any more.

Given our theme, I thought it would be more fitting if the ghost could haunt people every night instead of just killing somebody once. They cannot haunt people they've haunted before, just like Cloud cannot protect people he's protected before. If you are haunted, you'll be so scared that you won't be able to talk the next day. You can still nominate and vote for/against hangings. This is roughly equivalent to the "spellcaster" in Ultimate Werewolf.

Edit: Fancy asked if ghosts become neutral players. They do not. They keep their original alignment.

The ghost will now reveal their role as normal when they die, meaning that I had to change Yuffie's role as well. Taking inspiration from the "robber" in One Night Ultimate Werewolf, she'll now choose a player on the first night, learn their role, and swap winning conditions with them without their knowledge. This means she will win or lose as if she had their role, and they will win or lose as if they were good. If she swaps with an executive, for example, she'll win if the evil players win, but she'll be the only person to know this!

Edit: To stop things from getting too complicated, if Yuffie is in the game, she will not gain a lover's extra win condition if she chooses to swap with them. In fact, she will perform her swap as the first action on the first night, before anyone falls in love.
 
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Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
OK. Unless anyone spots any glaring mistakes, I'm done tinkering.

You can find the finalised team counts, roles, and (new!) player cards here.

There's also been a slight change to the way I'll set up the game: I'll start with a night phase in which nobody is killed, just to allow the Executives to meet each other and a few players to perform their special abilities. I didn't want the first day &#8211; and the first hanging &#8211; to be completely devoid of information.

It's all happening tomorrow, folks! This game and plenty more! This hype train we're on don't make no stops!
 

Lex

Administrator
does anyone want to have a mini mini christmas party for an hour or so tonight

i won a bottle of pink champagne in work today and my week has been so bad that i think i'm just going to sit here and tan the whole bottle
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
I would if I wasn't so busy. :( Maybe after midnight once a uni deadline has passed.

(He says, while procrastinating enormously.)
 

The G'randiest' Daddy

Teh Bunneh of Doom
AKA
Darth
We'd be happy to be there, we're gonna probably be derping around on XIV or warframe or something, so happy to chat a bit with anyone else willing :D
 
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