'Are You A Grinch?' - Grinches, Grinches Everywhere!

[Corazon de Leon]

If you remove the Alpha role's invisibility to seers then the game becomes massively imbalanced in favour of the village - to the point where I'd argue it's essentially impossible for the wolves/vamps/grinches etc to win.

To counteract this, in the game we just ran - I would have given the grinches an addition number and kept the "down to 1 kill" figure at 3, so the town would need to get rid of 3 grinches to earn some respite.

*Rest bite.

[Qikz]

The Alpha absolutely needs seer invulnerability. People are endlessly complaining about trusted PM groups and seer circles and protection circles, etc., all of these things would be far more prominent if the Alpha was detectable by a seer.

The balance was just right in this game, in my opinion. Ironhide's list of seered players was critical at the end once the Alpha scum was killed.

I think if you remove the alpha invunerability it'll be fine, just have them come back as a bad guy and not say what the role is.

If you want to remove trust circles you ban PMs as we suggested before. PM's at the end of the day just keep the already completely out of the picture villagers in the thread completely out of the game and it leads to people being bored and not taking part or it kills activity in the thread where nobody is working anything else.

The fact the seer couldn't see roles meant the seer could never actually trust anyone. They could 100% scan someone as human and talk to them and immediately die the next day. I think the balance in the end of the game worked out this time, but I think there are ways of improving it moving forward and my personal favourite idea is to ban PMs and keep everything bar the bad guys conversing in the thread. I know Pedz will sit there and say I was in a PM circle, but at the end of the day all I did was tell what sawyer said to me in the thread.

[Pancake]

The Alpha absolutely needs seer invulnerability. People are endlessly complaining about trusted PM groups and seer circles and protection circles, etc., all of these things would be far more prominent if the Alpha was detectable by a seer.

The balance was just right in this game, in my opinion. Ironhide's list of seered players was critical at the end once the Alpha scum was killed.

I think if you remove the alpha invunerability it'll be fine, just have them come back as a bad guy and not say what the role is.

If you want to remove trust circles you ban PMs as we suggested before. PM's at the end of the day just keep the already completely out of the picture villagers in the thread completely out of the game and it leads to people being bored and not taking part or it kills activity in the thread where nobody is working anything else.

The fact the seer couldn't see roles meant the seer could never actually trust anyone. They could 100% scan someone as human and talk to them and immediately die the next day. I think the balance in the end of the game worked out this time, but I think there are ways of improving it moving forward and my personal favourite idea is to ban PMs and keep everything bar the bad guys conversing in the thread. I know Pedz will sit there and say I was in a PM circle, but at the end of the day all I did was tell what sawyer said to me in the thread.

Yeh I just disagree on both counts.

I would be happy to try a no PM games, why not, but I don't think it's the glorious solution to every problem, I just don't see how it would make such a big difference. Special roles will be just as tentative in the thread as they are in PM games, they're trying to avoid detection after all. They can drop hints in the thread in the same way that they can with PMs allowed, but these are very hard to decipher as a Villager until the person dies and their role is revealed, and even then it is problematic (see aayl1's message about Cora leading to his death, against all common sense I might add).

I've always been a plain Villager, and from my point of view, there is no need to PM. I have nothing to hide so my best play is to theorise in the thread and get involved; it's the job of the villager, if people find that boring then they shouldn't bother signing up, honestly. If I get a PM then I'm happy to respond to it, of course, but it's not where a Villager should be doing most of their work. However, I don't see the benefit of preventing special roles from communicating behind the scenes if they need to, because they're simply not going to communicate openly in the thread whatever you do.

Besides, the influence of PM groups is always massively overstated. This game was won because Ironhide posted the list of seered players in the thread and because smart Villagers (Ob Bob, Satriales, Moggy) got the job done off the back of this intel.

I think Drumstick's solution to remove mayors and make the seer role only identify good/bad is a better and more elegant solution than removing PMs.

[satriales]

Thing is though the alpha rule breaks the whole wanting to make contact right away because you could end up getting really unlucky and contacting the alpha day 1.

Assuming only one Alpha then that chance is very small. Much more likely that the wolves (with their multiple kills) will randomly kill you that night anyway.

I was a seer in AYA Bluehat and if I remember correctly I contacted Jiggles on Day 1 after seering him. He turned out to be a witchdoctor and we got a little protection circle going.
I did end up getting killed early on in that game but I think being able to put trust in someone early on does make a big difference when you have an important role.

[Tomous]

Yeah, seering the alpha day 1 is a 1 in 40 or however many people are playing chance. Obviously it could happen, but the odds are low.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I agree completely with Pancake. I also strongly believe banning PMs is not only a horrible idea in general but it simply will not fix the problems for which it is being mooted.

I was a Villager, I posted a lot (of mostly gooseberry fool ) in the thread and I also PM'd a lot (again, of mostly gooseberry fool) in the background. At no point was I trusted with any special information (rightly so). We ended up down to low single figures so it was obviously well-balanced and I had a great time playing it. Remind me, what's the point of a game again?

The only suggestion I would make for a future game is a way to mix things up a little bit. It was a very 'pure' experience and that's great, but I'd probably vote for a few twists along the way next time.

I still think anonymous accounts are the way forward.

[Jenuall]

Having a role does put some pressure on the player to be relatively conservative, but at the same time the reality of the game is that you have to take some risks to learn things and try to further the village goals.

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

[That]

I thought this was a very good "classic AYA?" game. It was well balanced in terms of the roles and how the numbers of roles were proportioned.

I personally think it's fun to twist around the formula too, so I look forward to any possible "alt account, no PMs, in-game events" style game in the future. We've had games with some of those elements before and it creates a very different kind of experience.

[satriales]

I agree that it felt like a classic AYA game. Season 1 of Survivor rather than Island of Idols.

I was unsure of the balance at first and even told the gf that we had basically lost the game about a day before Banjo was killed. Not knowing how many wolves were left meant it felt a bit more hopeless than it actually was.

It ended up a really close game but I don't know if that was due to us villagers playing badly at the start and not getting close to lynching a grinch. Or if wolves usually win but for the banjo mistake. I think it's hard to know without playing the same game again.

[Qikz]

I agree that it felt like a classic AYA game. Season 1 of Survivor rather than Island of Idols.

I was unsure of the balance at first and even told the gf that we had basically lost the game about a day before Banjo was killed. Not knowing how many wolves were left meant it felt a bit more hopeless than it actually was.

It ended up a really close game but I don't know if that was due to us villagers playing badly at the start and not getting close to lynching a grinch. Or if wolves usually win but for the banjo mistake. I think it's hard to know without playing the same game again.

I think it was more at the start there were way higher chance of us hitting a villager than a grinch and at the end we'd already gone through everyone and it was the people left that were not sus at all that ended up being the bad guys (strawberry floating called it in my Detective StayDead big bang btw!). The grinches played incredibly well which is why we didn't find any until the very last few days.

[Pancake]

I agree completely with Pancake. I also strongly believe banning PMs is not only a horrible idea in general but it simply will not fix the problems for which it is being mooted.

I was a Villager, I posted a lot (of mostly gooseberry fool ) in the thread and I also PM'd a lot (again, of mostly gooseberry fool) in the background. At no point was I trusted with any special information (rightly so). We ended up down to low single figures so it was obviously well-balanced and I had a great time playing it. Remind me, what's the point of a game again?

The only suggestion I would make for a future game is a way to mix things up a little bit. It was a very 'pure' experience and that's great, but I'd probably vote for a few twists along the way next time.

I still think anonymous accounts are the way forward.

I would love an alt accounts game! Has to be setup properly though so a bit more work for the host.

I quite liked the vanilla feel of this game but events for the villagers to get involved with are always fun and tend to generate discussion so I'm all for them if they don't totally wreck the balance.

[sawyerpip]

People are very conservative when they play as a role - see Lagamorph and Hypes barely shooting anyone and none of the roles going to sawyer when I was literally begging them to when I knew 100% that Sawyer was an elf.

I know I made this point during the game, but my being a Grinch didn't make it less true - you might have known for sure Sawyer was an elf but 1) you had no way to prove this to the thread, it was based entirely on them deciding to trust you and 2) there was no evidence to suggest whether or not you were a Grinch so no reason for the thread to trust you any more or less than any other player. So I don't think this is a fair example of people always being conservative when they have a role. There is evidence to the contrary (see: Mommy the seer).

There was definitely evidence to suggest Qikz was not a Grinch. Obviously not 100% evidence, but that's AYA?.

The Alpha did need immunity in this game otherwise a trusted circle would have formed immediately and it could have been easily co-ordinated to make life too difficult for the Grinches.

Yeah, I think to say there was no reason to trust Qikz or me more than any other player is inaccurate. Ironhide eventually contacted me without ever seering me so we obviously managed to convince him I was more likely good than not on the balance of evidence.

I agree that the Alpha needs immunity in these games, isn't that the only thing setting them apart from the other bad roles anyway? Depending on the number of seers the uninformed majority could start getting informed far too quickly if there was zero risk element to messaging any 'good' seered players.

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

[Tomous]

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

For sure, Jenuall has backed himself into a bit of a corner:

> Uses post count script
> Too useful, so wolves kill him


> doesn't use post count script
> villagers: WELL ISNT THAT SUSPICIOUS.
> Jenuall gets lynched

[Jenuall]

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

For sure, Jenuall has backed himself into a bit of a corner:

> Uses post count script
> Too useful, so wolves kill him


> doesn't use post count script
> villagers: WELL ISNT THAT SUSPICIOUS.
> Jenuall gets lynched

Yeah pretty much!

That's why I'm posting this now in advance of any future game so it can't be taken as some change in behaviour due to having a role/being a baddie!

[Qikz]

People are very conservative when they play as a role - see Lagamorph and Hypes barely shooting anyone and none of the roles going to sawyer when I was literally begging them to when I knew 100% that Sawyer was an elf.

I know I made this point during the game, but my being a Grinch didn't make it less true - you might have known for sure Sawyer was an elf but 1) you had no way to prove this to the thread, it was based entirely on them deciding to trust you and 2) there was no evidence to suggest whether or not you were a Grinch so no reason for the thread to trust you any more or less than any other player. So I don't think this is a fair example of people always being conservative when they have a role. There is evidence to the contrary (see: Mommy the seer).

There was definitely evidence to suggest Qikz was not a Grinch. Obviously not 100% evidence, but that's AYA?.

The Alpha did need immunity in this game otherwise a trusted circle would have formed immediately and it could have been easily co-ordinated to make life too difficult for the Grinches.

Yeah, I think to say there was no reason to trust Qikz or me more than any other player is inaccurate. Ironhide eventually contacted me without ever seering me so we obviously managed to convince him I was more likely good than not on the balance of evidence.

I agree that the Alpha needs immunity in these games, isn't that the only thing setting them apart from the other bad roles anyway? Depending on the number of seers the uninformed majority could start getting informed far too quickly if there was zero risk element to messaging any 'good' seered players.

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

In the games I've played outside the forum with the Godfather rather than not beeing seerable they come back as a normal bad guy, but they're immune to being killed outside of being lynched. They can't be targeted by any killer special roles.

[Drumstick]

I agree that it felt like a classic AYA game. Season 1 of Survivor rather than Island of Idols.

If that's the comparison you're making; I'll take Borneo.

IOTI

I was unsure of the balance at first and even told the gf that we had basically lost the game about a day before Banjo was killed. Not knowing how many wolves were left meant it felt a bit more hopeless than it actually was.

Not sure if I mentioned it publicly anywhere but the plan was always to reveal the number of grinches when there were three remaining. It just took a long time to get to that stage.

I had it that the grinches win 95% of the time if Banjo doesn't forget to post

[Drumstick]

I quite liked the vanilla feel of this game but events for the villagers to get involved with are always fun and tend to generate discussion so I'm all for them if they don't totally wreck the balance.

The events have barely any affect on the outcome or balance whatsoever, the only reason I didn't include any this game was because I was swamped with work

[Herdanos]

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

For sure, Jenuall has backed himself into a bit of a corner:

> Uses post count script
> Too useful, so wolves kill him


> doesn't use post count script
> villagers: WELL ISNT THAT SUSPICIOUS.
> Jenuall gets lynched

Yeah pretty much!

That's why I'm posting this now in advance of any future game so it can't be taken as some change in behaviour due to having a role/being a baddie!

You know the only way forward now is for you to run the next game

[Jenuall]

I might look at making a more refined version of my post counting script available for others to use in one way or another before the next game comes along. I'm interested to see what, if any, impact having that information available toward the end of the game would have!

You should definitely do that, if only to try and take a target off your back for future games

For sure, Jenuall has backed himself into a bit of a corner:

> Uses post count script
> Too useful, so wolves kill him


> doesn't use post count script
> villagers: WELL ISNT THAT SUSPICIOUS.
> Jenuall gets lynched

Yeah pretty much!

That's why I'm posting this now in advance of any future game so it can't be taken as some change in behaviour due to having a role/being a baddie!

You know the only way forward now is for you to run the next game

Haha, not even joking when I say that it has crossed my mind!

[Curls]

I was impaled?!