Insider AAR: Insider (JoeHoya06) wins!

[Zoomzip]

Reserved.

[Zoomzip]

A few quick notes:

1) Thank you all for playing. It is clear to me that this game needs some more tinkering, but seeing a play through helped. My current thought is to reduce the questioning time to 24 hours, and increase debate time to 48 hours. The idea is that the question phase should feel short enough to force the insider to help, that there is not enough time, and that naturally that dynamic should occur. 48 hours seems like too much time.

2) Town did surprisingly well to force the insider to take a role. Well done and good thinking there to create the dynamic that should exist naturally.

3) I thought Joe was gutsy to guess when he did and thought his documenting may have given him away.

4) If you have ideas on how to improve this game and increase the fun per hour of it, please let me know. I'd like to run it again someday.

5) "Apartment House" actually came from me using the actual insider home game to generate the phrase. I then researched and found out it is a real thing, even used by Nabokov (one of my favorite authors) -- I had never heard of it either.

6) Again, thank you to all of you for volunteering to be guinea pigs on this game. My deep thanks to all, especially Fuddin as the Master who had a tough role those first days.

[Keirador]

I super thought the documenting was a major red flag, and I think I probably could have nailed him to the wall given a lengthy enough debate phase, but as it happened the debate phase was so brief, and players so inactive, that as far as I can tell it didn't have any effect at all. Every player left the debate phase with the same vote that they entered it with.

[Zoomzip]

I super thought the documenting was a major red flag, and I think I probably could have nailed him to the wall given a lengthy enough debate stage, but as it happened the debate stage was so brief, and players so inactive, that as far as I can tell it didn't have any effect at all, every player left the debate phase with the same vote that they entered it with.

Condude1 and you picked up the right threads there. Joe also mounted what I think was a credible defense.

That is something I am struggling with. The game is at least somewhat designed to have time pressure be a part of it. You need time pressure to force the Insider to help the commons during Questions. Then you want to have time pressure on the debate to make people really make that time count.

Would 48 hours be better? Or would that possibly be too much time?

Or is it possible that this game just doesn't translate to forum?

these are questions I have.

[Keirador]

I think it just doesn't translate well to a forum game, at least without being EVEN CLEARER than you already were about the time commitment aspect. I had similar trouble even trying to nail down a concept for a Spyfall-inspired game, which is why that game languishes in the "In Development" thread. This could be played LIVE on a forum no problem, and rounds likely wouldn't take more than an hour or so, that's just a very different kind of game and pace than players here expect at all.

I'll be specific and pick on sjg because I know he can take it: his play was unacceptable this game. It seemed fairly clear he didn't even realize the day/game was ending when he left his final post, he acknowledged the points I was raising and basically said he was too tired to think about it right now. And even that was after contributing 9 posts to the guessing phase, and (IMO) not spending nearly enough time recreating what actually happened at EOD to get a clear picture of what happened.

But that happens to all of us. He said he was busy, I absolutely believe him, and in a typical mafia game the town will give you 2 - 3 IRL days to kinda ghost if you're busy. I had to avail myself of such mercy a few times recently to accommodate my travel schedule. Ghosting for 2 - 3 days when the entire game is only 2 - 3 days long, though, is a way different thing than ghosting for a couple days in a game that's going to take weeks. Short of banning participants who can't unequivocally commit to checking in and posting quality posts multiple times every day--and really, who can make that commitment? sometimes unexpected things happen and forum games take a backseat--I don't know how to run a game like with any realistic time pressure. Without time pressure it's too easy for town to guess the phrase without help, with time pressure the game reliably breaks when somebody's car breaks down or partner gets sick or boss decides they want that report early or Game of Thrones is really good that week.

[Keirador]

Well, now I'm second-guessing myself. Because the most active players were definitely the players I had the best reads on: I had Telleo and condude as town and JoeHoya as scum. How many of your orders were provisional? I'm a little shocked it was such a runaway on "no" votes given what I thought were productive avenues in-thread, but I don't have a good idea of how many players even read the last day. I kind of wonder what would have happened had the quiet, vote-PM phase also been a day long: no more conversation, no new information, but a bit of time to digest what was already in thread, in case you missed it?

[Keirador]

Congrats of course to JoeHoya and thanks ZZ for running this.

[Fuddin]

Dang it!! Initially I didn't think Joe was it, but after reading the debate thread, I became more uncertain and almost changed my mind, but didn't because I figured if he was really the Insider, he would have waited slightly longer for someone else to guess/search the phrase.

[condude1]

Oh surprise. Who could have guessed ? Anyways, there are a couple of ways I think that the game could be better suited to forum play:

a) You could reduce the time. I don't think this'll help since hangmanning it's a thing, or charadesing it.
b) Put a limit on the questions each player can ask. I like this option. It creates a growing sense of desperation as the game progresses.
c) Make every question asked reduce the remaining time. The fun method. If every time someone asks a question, the deadline moves an hour closer, there's a rationing of questions, as well as a sense of urgency. I have no clue how this would actually pan out, but my gut tells me it's a decent idea.

[beavis]

Congratulations Joe and thank you Zoomzip!

One way I think we could improve it is to have two parts to the trial phase, which you be a debate phase where we then pm the GM on who we think is the insider, and then the next phase is for the rest of us to decide if we think they were the insider, and for the accused to make their defence.

With the question limit I think that is for the players to try to structure themselves as an added challenge.