Sorry, since the game ended I haven’t been on a computer, so all my posts have been from my phone/tablet which sucks for typing.
For the whole LimeGreenPatato thing, what happened is he signed up and made the original 20 player list. As we got closer to the game, he hadn’t signed in since signing up, so I was nervous he wouldn’t show up. Kept trying to find replacements, but nobody wanted in. So then I went ahead and planned that if he didn’t show up, I’d axe the mafia sympathizer role and just run a 19 man game.
So then I sent out a few group PMs with people who hadn’t confirmed yet, and LGP was on one of these PMs.
So come game start time, he hadn’t checked in. So I assigned the roles with a random number generator, got everything set up, sent out PMs, and put up the game thread/story around 6:30.
And then at 8:00 PM, LGP responded to the PM stating that “He was away, but is back and ready for the game.”
So, an hour and a half after the game started, our 20th player was checking in.
Because I liked the idea of the 20 player game, and given the nature of the role that was removed, I told him to hang tight and I would work him into the story for day 2. So it wasn’t planned from the start, but I always had a plan in the back of my mind in case we got a 20th person last second.
So I came up with the story of a new survivor stumbling onto the camp, and paired it with a new role added to the game that meant the newly added person would probably be distrusted heavily. It worked in the sense of a zombie apocalypse at least, and it added an interesting twist to the game, without upsetting the balance too much. I regretted it partially because a potential 5 mafia to 15 civ game would be heavily civ favored, but I felt like the Carpenter role threw traditional balance and game choices out the window anyway, so I rolled with it.
Funnily enough, the PM I sent out had BJ, LGP, Dramatix, Bious and SikWidIt on it with the title “Mafia Checkin.” This was sent out a few days before the game started.
On day 1, Dramatix was lynched and was mafia. And then during night 1, SikWidIt posted to this checking PM the following:
He had stumbled upon a PM called “Mafia Checkin,” and then saw that Dramatix was on the PM thread, and assumed he had accidently been shown all the mafia members, and was going to be honest and leave the game because of this mistake. Of course he misunderstood the post, it wasn’t the actual mafia people, just a checkin for the game.
But essentially, he had outed himself as a civ to 4 other players (LGP, Bious, BJ, and Dramatix), really 2 since LGP wasn’t in the game yet and Dramatix was dead. Luckily, I already had a PM from Sovi3t to kill SikWidIt, so this mistake could resolve itself without me having to DQ anybody. But had Sovi3t been on that PM, it would have been a different story.
This is what BJ was talking about, when he was flabbergasted that the Redneck would kill somebody who had come out and confirmed himself civ, and later said it wouldn’t be fair to use such info in game and dropped it.
But it made for an interesting moment : )
I’m also really glad everyone enjoys the story, it takes a bit of time doing creative writing like that. I haven’t really written anything in a long while, since school days, so it’s fun to get the creative juices flowing again. I always tell my wife I’m going to write a fucked up collection of zombie short stories one day, so it was fun to kind of get a feel for that. I would need to expand my adjectives and invest in a thesaurus though! Some of the story bits ended up being rushed, mostly because we do Family night here on fridays, and due to my fuckup that meant 2 fridays in a row had stories due at 9PM, right in the middle of the family time. So some of the updates came late; other times I had written them a day early when I knew what was going to happen. A few votes came down to the last minute so I had to write them at the deadline, and sometimes would take about an hour and a half just to do it.
But I got the impression it was a hit, I had people PMing me for story death suggestions. Cyntalan wanted Doof or DRD to die in a pile of bullshit to reflect their in game arguments; I couldn’t do it because then it would be like giving away that their lists and arguments were bullshit! DRD wanted an epic death saving all the citizens, I had planned to move the game outside the mall and onto the streets had the carpenter died so I couldn’t do that for his death, but at least he died saving the carpenter making the death somewhat epic.
I’m also nervous writing the story, because I don’t want to accidently leak roles just because of the choices I make characters. If I avoid making Cult/roles say certain things, then I risk leaking story clues. If I make them say other things, then I risk leaking story clues. It’s a fine balance and I’m always worried I’ll post a story, and people will be like “oh, so XXX is YYY I can tell from the story.” But so far I don’t think I’ve done anything quite like that. I just have fun trying to pull off parallel stories, throw twists into what you think is happening (Redneck Masturbation, Redneck killing OZ instead of the cult leader, rewinding time with SWBeta and SikWidIts deaths) so I’m just glad other people enjoyed it, and it wasn’t just in the way of the game
Edit: the LGP thing really makes me suspicious that LGP is just an alt account for somebody who doesn’t want us to know their real account. Signs up for the game, doesn’t sign in until the game goes live, and within an hour or two of the post going up, he’s back checking in. But I don’t know who it could be
