#5 default live rules

55 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

naive knot
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I'd like to suggest 5 new "default" live game rules for queue. These rules should by default be in place, and if the ST or table would like to change them, they should all collectively tell the table that before the game starts.

  1. No before game collusion.
    e.g. two players privately agreeing that if one is good, the other is evil, they will pretend to be a twin pair.
  2. No threatening to intentionally throw, or claiming that your intentionally throwing.
    e.g. saying that if the fang gu jumps to you, you will out to town and self nom, scuffing the game.
    e.g. saying that actually, you lied when you claimed you were the baron, your actually a townsfolk and you were just throwing because your upset with town.
  3. No publicly accusing a player of trolling or intentionally scuffing the game DURING the game (ping moderators or storyteller for that)
    4. No trolling i.e. no deliberately playing badly / lying specifically because you think it will be funny. (jokes like temp saying your the imp then denying that and saying your X I don't consider trolling)

5. No, as a good player, outing yourself as evil in TB or SnV (when you aren't the snake charmer).
e.g: claiming that you are baron when you are the saint in TB.
e.g: claiming day 1 that you were the demon and the snake charmer bit you, when in fact you are the good flowergirl in SnV.

I have been convinced away from rules 4-5, and consider them a solved suggestion.

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I think 5 is important, despite the fact that it stops some potentially useful town tactics. e.g. if you were next to someone you KNOW is the imp, and their is a chef 1, you could fake claim your a minion to throw them under the bus.

That said, this tactic is supremely marginal at best, and is usually a huge huge mistake. Worse, its reasonably common for players to out evil as townsfolk to punish town for "ruining" their game (the words that some players who has outed as evil while been town have used).

Even if a player is just misplaying, it can feel to the rest of the table like they are throwing, which really brings the mood down. Given how marginal the strategy is, and how much damage can be prevented by banning it in base2 (the games with the least experienced players), I think rule 5 is good.

I think rules 1-4 are good with no drawbacks.

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That said, I think rule 5 is mostly an example of rules 2 and 4.

meager tangle
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I mean, doesn't all of this just come down to "you must try to win the game"?

naive knot
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yes, these could all be given as sub examples of "you must try to win the game". But theirs alot of vagueness to "you must try to win the game", and these examples specifically describe what "you must try to win the game" means.

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All the examples are things that have actually happened in games I've played or spectated.

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The fang gu example, for instance, I brought up with mods while the game was going, and one of the mods was uncertain on whether the play was fine or not. I think moving the rule from the general to the concrete is good.

echo python
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i think policing how people play the game is a very delicate topic, and it’s been brought up a lot before

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i’m personally against it, the only exception being games with newer players

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which, in fairness, seems to be every game nowadays

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that said, i don’t think there’s ever going to be one optimal play to make in any given situation, especially when your tools are limited by arbitrary rules

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i understand that it can be frustrating to have this happen in games, believe me i do

naive knot
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TBF I can absolutely see why people might disagree with (5), its definitely the thing I'm most tentative over. Letting players make mistakes is part of the fun of the game.

How do you feel about rules (1-4)?

fleet palm
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I think 2-4 are mostly fine, though the line between "trolling" and using chaos to your advantage is not always clear

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5 I think is actively harmful. There are times when "outing" yourself as evil can help good win.

echo python
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i’ve taken up the time to actually have conversations with the players who do some of these tactics, because i’ve been genuinely frustrated with how i perceived certain players were approaching the game

fleet palm
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Good players have been known to claim goblin because they don't think town should execute them.

echo python
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after those discussions, it became clear to me that in the majority of situations, these things are not done out of malice, and there is a very fine line between what can and can’t be considered “trolling”

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especially when that line moves so much in one direction or the other depending on whose perspective you’re looking at it from

fleet palm
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(And there's more complex plays--if you have time, watch the missing pieces world cup game where Patters "outs" as lleech despite being the fool. He gives an in-game explanation to the storytellers at one point of why he's doing this, and its correct. He did end up losing, but that's because evil played a blinder of a game)

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As to 1... I don't know.

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What's "colluding"? There's people I play with who, we are going to talk day 1, first conversation, no matter what. It's our personal meta. Its an actual or unspoken agreement before game. There's people I know I'm going to fake an evil twin pair with regardless of actual role or alignment of either of us if its on script. Part of this is because its fun for me, which is why I play, part of it is because I think faking evil twins is useful as both good and evil.

echo python
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2 and 3 are fine for me, i see no issue there. 1 is touchy, because again, you’re putting boundaries on what people can and can’t do, and limiting how people choose to enjoy their gameplay experience. notably, however, sometimes people in that situation choose to put their own joyful experience over everyone else’s

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4 and 5 are just a flat out “no” in my eyes

naive knot
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(5) is rooted in my experience as a new player with <10 games and no games of BmR. My first game (in which I told everyone I was new to script), I was lunatic. I outed to a good player that I was demon and I thought they were my minion. They told me I was the demon, and named their fellow minion (another good non-evil player) as evil.

When I brought up the fact that I was lunatic and the minion outed themselves, they told me they were just trolling me.

echo python
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5 is done in good faith all the time, usually just as a quick joke, which isn’t remotely harmful

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and when it is something bigger, it’s usually well-managed

echo python
midnight ridge
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5 I think is just incompatible with the actual rules and interactions of the game. Gambits for pushing kills and info, fooling players to out their team (normally Poppy games), Politicians, etc. It feels bad, but bluffing is bluffing.

fleet palm
echo python
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the amount of times i’ve seen a demon caught out because their lunatic bluff fell through when they approached a “minion”, and ended up screwing up and outing themselves, socially, as the actual demon is much higher than zero

midnight ridge
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Also 2-4 are pretty much already rules, or contained within existing rules though not outlined explicitly.

fleet palm
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Well.. lying because you think its funny is certainly not against the rules.

naive knot
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Yeah you've convinced me that rule 4 and 5 wouldn't work well.

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On rule 1, I specifically dislike it because its a form of cheating. If two players get together and agree that if one is evil and the other is good, the other will play for evil, that's clearly cheating. Pre-game agreeements for evil twin is only a minor advantage for both players, but its an advantage for both players.

If players just decide to fake twins during the game, or if theirs a meta of faking twins, thats fine.

fleet palm
naive knot
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I understand where people are coming from on not wanting to police play strategies, as its very very important to allow players to make mistakes. The main problem that motivates suggestion 5 is that I've seen multiple players get angry and intentionally play badly as revenge against players on their team who's plays they dislike. This isn't conjecture; after the game, they've actively admitted they did this. It's been a big problem in games that go bad.

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Though I now agree that 5 is a bad fix for this.

midnight ridge
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That's just actively throwing and/or being toxic though.

naive knot
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it is, and its against the rules.

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Eh, I guess the actual problem is the ST doesn't stomp it during the game.

midnight ridge
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Yes, though I will also point out most ST's don't know if they can enforce much in terms of rules and how to.

fleet palm
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The ST can't enforce play choices, only the rules of the game, for good or ill.

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(They can punish being loud and obnoxious with a hell's librarian)

echo python
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obligate hell’s librarian at the start of every game

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and if a player breaks it, @terse grove goes to their house and breaks their kneecaps himself

violet warren
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In terms of the above, rules 1-3 are already frowned upon and will be clearly defined once we get the live game rules updated (which should be ready for consultation in September)

violet warren
echo python
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not that i think there isn’t a line

violet warren
echo python
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it’s just very hard to define imo

echo python
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always a fan of mods reaching out to the community for input on decisions like this