ESPIONAGE: Round Three (Spies & Informants Win)

[Jd-]

It wasn't them!?

Spoiler:

[KainTheVampire]

Morons, I tell you! Morons!

You ignored what Jellitto wrote about suspecting that Jd- and KL for being the informants That would have saved lots of trouble! D:

[Iwamoto Yuri]

You could have revealed all roles...

Jd- will do the favour later on.
For now I'm disappointed to see how things went. It could have been an amazing round but it ended up making me depressed.










I'm going to lie down now.

[Memesu]

So was Kl online during first days?

[breva]

I just wanna say Jd- is probably the best informant out there. That really was impressive, great job Jd- and KL!

[Jd-]

A gigantic post is coming up in a few seconds. This will, hopefully, clear up everything that has happened and all points of contention that arose beginning last phase to now.

[Jd-]

What Happened Here (And How We'll Prevent It From Happening Again)

Request: Do not respond to just one sentence or two of this post without having read it all. Due us all the courtesy of reading all of this information before creating any additional confusion in an already confusing situation.

Preface & Acknowledgments

Out of all the rounds of all the community games I've played, there have been some really exciting moments. Some really great wins, some really close losses, some dominating and impressive performances by the other side. Some great alliances, some great deductions, some great underdogs coming out of nowhere to save their side right at the end. All of those rounds were memorable because they ended where they should have and there was very little, if any, activity that violated the rules and made it difficult for the game to proceed as it was designed. Let me preface all of this by saying that no one intentionally violated any rules and that, at the end of this post, you'll see that steps are going to be taken to completely eliminate this from even happening accidentally in the future. However, in the interests of making clear everything that happened here, everything will be laid out in as clear a manner as possible.

All told, I'm afraid this round won't be remembered on the same terms as the previous round, which was a great one. That is a shame, too, because it was incredibly fun up until that specific point. Everyone, not the least of all us (the Informants) who were pulling double duty pretending to be civilians and trying to protect the Spies (Kamite/Breva), invested so much time and effort in this round. Until that specific string of unintentionally game-breaking posts, we were headed for a really exciting finale--the kind this game was designed for. I actually expected this round would be a really close and interesting one, and kept an "Informants' Diary" of sorts to share after the game. I'll post it after this, but please read this first.

Before all that, though: Credit where it is no doubt much-deservedly due. Fujiwara/Raifuujin were playing a great round from the start. shinichi'sapprentice did a remarkable and very impressive job accurately piecing things together and sticking to that story. He did great and deserves a pat on the back for all that effort. I feel especially sorry for him, because he did so well and put so much time into it but wasn't able to see his work fully appreciated with it being tainted by the incident. googleearth and Togop also had great rounds, while dumytru put on one of the best showcases of how to be a civilian in any of the rounds so far. In fact, he appeared to be so innocent that he seemed guilty. The rest of you all did well too; I don't want to take up the entire preface with acknowledgments, but well done to everyone.

Yuri did an excellent and enviable job as GM, even when things got crazy and out of hand in the aforementioned incident. Three cheers of a job very well done by our dear GM. I would also like to thank Fujiwara for spotting the obviously problematic initial post that led to the crumbling of the round and trying to right it. Even while dead, Fujiwara tried to salvage the round and ensure an even playing field for all involved despite an opposite initial team alliance.

I already conferred with the GM immediately following the incident about what happened. She agreed with everything we raised, including the obvious ramifications it would have for our side, but there was nothing that could be done to fix it. I asked Yuri to call the game early during Day 5 (as in, end it just a few hours into the phase), because there was just too much outside information being introduced to the game on top of the debacle from the previous night that completely tipped the scales. She decided to let the game continue, which was fine, as I had already employed my last-ditch strategy for the day that would be our only chance at winning and salvaging the situation. I was willing to concede the round to the Civilians anyway without letting everyone waste the entire day debating a cert, because, truthfully, I didn't want shinichi'sapprentice's efforts to be in vain. He was right, he caught on early and didn't let go. Thankfully, the day went by mostly uneventfully and no one really lost their entire day to it.

Here's What Happened

Prep Phase, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 went very well for all sides, for the most part. The Spies were mostly hidden, KL & I as the Informants were trying to keep focus away from them and successfully ingratiated ourselves in the civilian effort, and the Civilians had clues to lead their theories. When the Detectives died based on KL and my nomination at the end of Day 3, the countdown began and the Spies would escape in two phases. While suspicions were mounting, so was the excitement and drama that was undoubtedly about to ensue.

During Day 4, an obvious vote target emerged through our engineering and setup from throughout the game to that point: RoboG55/Meme. They appeared on two of the revealed lists and fit our activity profile we had culled in the topic. As the Informants, KL & I had been readying this vote for Day 4 without much difficulty.

Miyano_shiho of Team 8 (Jecka/Miyano_shiho) appeared near the end of the phase to quell any suspicions toward her team, which had been considerably low at the time. Their team had been mentioned in passing briefly by a couple of teams, but they were not in any way at risk for being arrested that phase. What followed was the incident that unraveled the balance of the round and ensured one side was going into the final round at a tremendous disadvantage. Miyano had been inactive for virtually the entire game, but appeared out of nowhere and decided to get really, really involved.

While I honestly believe it was not Miyano's intent, she unfortunately did break nearly every civilian rule in the book with her first post that day and the several others that followed. I genuinely believe she intended to defend herself and her teammate, but when she did so, she first inadvertently revealed the entire content of her list in defense of herself. This was the first of seven posts, all of which contained illegal information completely outside of the game balance. Several of these came in direct response to being told to stop discussing the list due to it being outside the rules, with those responses being even more revelatory than the original post that had already done irreparable damage to the prospects of the other side. By the time she was done, it was extremely unlikely for the Spy/Informants to win, as she had vindicated and exonerated, illegally, enough targets that there were almost no applicable avenues for us to take to even try to win.

Miyano's outside-the-lines posts exonerated her team as civilians, which led to not only her team but also other teams being removed from contention for being the Spies. Kleene Onigiri & Miaka, specifically, were confirmed as civilians as a result of her posts. This gave us two fewer options with which to proceed on the final day, and if you look back, you'll see that we set up three options for the final two phases to create doubt: Kleene/Miaka, RoboG55/Meme, and Jecka/Miyano, with RoboG55/Meme just being arrested. Thanks to Miyano revealing her list and the additional posts that followed, she essentially forced us into a losing gambit with an even greater hill to climb purely based on illegal actions outside of the game balance. There are numerous examples of Miyano's posts and their illegal content having directly influenced the remaining civilian teams into changing their perceptions, and likewise having eliminated almost any chance at misdirection (a key component of the Spy/Informant gameplay) for the final phase. Put simply, she gave way too much certainty to the civilians. So much so that they may as well have all just posted their lists and got it over with.

Even after Fujiwara posted in the thread that posting the details of one's list like that was against the rules, Miyano then posted outright: "I'll just say I based my previous post off our list." This left zero ambiguity about the nature of her list, her post, or the findings of her post, and since everyone was treating her in the meta game as a civilian (by asking her to edit the post, with posts being edited/removed, and the GM coming down on her), it was obvious she really was a civilian and the list wasn't fake. Even following mentioning that her multiple preceding posts had been against the rules, she continued, saying again, "Teams 8, 3, 5 and 11 are certainly not the spies based on our list. (When I say that, do I break the rule?)". I then posted, to try to misdirect all this, "That is in violation of the rules, so from this point forward, you should probably not mention anything related to your list." I also tried to imply that her list may be fake as a last ditch effort, but the damage was not only done once but done seven times over in the course of just an hour or two. Ultimately, we were left with no choice whatsoever but to go along with the fact that Miyano is a civilian, when otherwise we would have never done so and would have been using her as a possible target of votes, suspicion, or confusion in the final phase.

Further, Miyano (a living player) posting open-endedly about a private message exchange with Fujiwara (a dead player) further confirmed she was a civilian. Miyano mentioned that the PM correspondence (already illegal amongst living players, but definitely illegal between living-to-dead and vice versa players) was the result of Fujiwara's "deduction", which I think most people (myself included) concluded was Fujiwara realizing she was a civilian and was not just a Spy/Informant lying and was unfortunately breaking the game. Unfortunately, because of the way she worded her post, Fujiwara had no choice but to post in the topic that no theories or deductions about the game content had been shared with Miyano at that time and that it was one PM urging Miyano to delete the post (the first one) because it was in violation of the rules.

This situation was compounded many times over in confirmation that Miyano was just a civilian who revealed way, way more than she was ever expected to reveal. Before Fujiwara's post, Miyano said once more, "They [Fujiwara] just randomly pmed me saying thay I might have broken the rules." This, yet again, reaffirmed on a meta level that she was a civilian who had been concerned she was ruining the game balance by breaking the rules, even though that was not her intent. In her fifth post, she again mentioned that all of her previous reasoning had come directly from her list. Immediately afterward, I tried to defuse and fix the situation, but she responded by saying, "I think shinichi'sapprentice knows what kind of evidence I'm dealing with. I'm not the type of person to post nonsense at 3AM when I've been inactive for most of the round." This was an obvious cue--way too obvious--that she was giving to shinichi'sapprentice saying that it came from her list and was based on shinichi'sapprentice's mention of the Spy definitely being on your list if the Detective wasn't.

To put it bluntly: Revealing her list forced us into a situation we never should have or would have been in. This forced us to resort to tactics we otherwise would not have been forced to use and ultimately has ensured all of the time and effort put into this round was in jeopardy. Even if Miyano's information had been misinterpreted, there is no verifiable way for us to fight back against it without appearing suspicious, due to her posting it with such certainty and all of the meta confirmations that followed validating her as a civilian. In essence, we were stuck with whatever she said, no matter how it was actually interpreted.

To make things even worse, Robo just posted after being arrested: "Just saying, detective wasn't on my list. So the spy must have been. If I was alive this round, I would pick team 7." As if things weren't bad enough, we end up with even more suspicion toward the team we're trying to protect, who have now illegally been implicated by two different players outside the expected rules of the game.

Ultimately, the game devolved into something that the Spies virtually certainly shouldn't have won, due to illegal revelations. While this result was not Miyano's or anyone else's intent, I'm sure, that is the result that came about in the end.

Aftermath

The most disheartening part of the entire game is that I think, for both sides, fairly winning or losing really wouldn't have mattered in that it wouldn't have changed their memories of the round. The round was interesting and engaging--I'd dare say even more so than the already exciting Round 2--in a way that few games of any sort can ever be. Logic, emotions, memory, and deduction all challeneged in equal portions, only to have it all turned on its head unintentionally by a momentary lapse.

After all this time and effort, we'll now never know how Day 5 would have really gone. shinichi'sapprentice, especially, did so well and will never get the vindication of having the chance to have been able to follow through on his suspicions and try to convince everyone to go along with it without the outside prodding that came along beginning at the end of Day 4. I was looking forward to that showdown, but I had to come up with a new strategy for us to suit the new situation. Let us see how future rounds go; we'll have a rematch someday, I'm sure of that. Watch out for that day!

What I can say for sure is that this is NOT going to happen again. All possible steps will be taken to prevent this. More info on this below.

Suggestions for Future Rounds

The following are general suggestions and rule changes coming for future rounds, but any rule discussions should be carried out in the central information topic and not here. Please do not fill up this round's topic discussing rule changes when there's already a topic dedicated to it.

Keep in mind that once a player has posted information in the topic, it cannot be taken back. From the second it's posted, it's possible another player has seen it. Once that player has seen it, it's not only unfair to other players to withhold that information by deleting it, but its sheer removal validates the information that the players saw in the first place. I would ask all future players to be extremely diligent and careful with information you post in the topic regarding private information (such as your list). If you are in any way hesitant about posting something, confer with the GM! The GM is there to ensure the game is played fairly on all sides. They are there to answer your questions, as is mentioned in their initial PM and throughout the rules.

The Spy/Informant teams should not have to combat not only normal suspicions but also an inordinate amount of outside information coming from outside the game's balance. This wasn't a problem with the past rounds, with only one or two minor offenses. This time, it got way out of hand, and that's why we're going to completely overhaul these mechanics to fully eliminate the slightest potential for these issues. The Spies and Informants should not be expected to account in their already complicated strategies and relationship management for people working outside the rules to make their job already harder than it is. Even if that information that was posted turned out to be false, the damage is done and it is not easy to recover from.

Lists will be fully overhauled following this round. I have some ideas and will be posting them for consideration within a few days. I can't confirm exactly how it will work, but suffice to say this is getting fixed to ensure the integrity of future rounds. I can only apologize for allowing such a hole to exist in the game sphere to begin with, but honestly, the honor system had worked fairly well so far. I did not expect it to blow up in such a way, but it looks like it was just a matter of time. We'll talk about it and we'll fix it. What I expect will happen is that people will be free to share information at their behest from now on, but the "lists" as you know them won't be the "lists" that are in future rounds. More details to follow later.

If you are a special role and don't want to be nominated, do not be quiet. It makes it far, far, far easier to nominate you when people are sure you're not active enough to rebut them. People are most likely going to target you first from their lists if you're quiet. If you decide to still be quiet, just know you'll rocket to the top of any suspicion hierarchy that arises.

You are not allowed to in ANY WAY showcase any private correspondence from the GM with other players. This means no screenshots, no copy-pastes, no hinting, and no replicating of anything the GM has said to confirm your role.

Dead players are dead. Arrested players are considered dead, as is stated in the rules. If you are killed or if you are voted for an arrest, you are no longer allowed to post ANYTHING in the topic about the game. You're dead. Consider yourself dead. Dead people do not make new posts. Before, and in Mafia rounds, we've been lenient about this and let people post "Aw shucks" sort of messages. From now on, we have to cut down on this. The second those results are announced, you shouldn't be posting anything. 99% of players are going to be respectful of the flow of the game, but sometimes people are going to inadvertently give away clues whether they ever intended to or not. The safe way to deal with it is just a zero posts policy.

To avoid any potential mishaps, the GM will not share the identities of special role players while the game is ongoing, even with dead players or non-players. This didn't come up in this game, but I can imagine it creating a hazard in future rounds that could last 10 days or more. Additionally, on that same token, we may need to institute a rule about mutually dead players talking to non-partners about the game just to avoid any information leaking out.

Closing

It's a shame that we invested so much time and effort into this round only for it to be soured at the end. Really disheartening, but there's not much else to say. What's done is done.

My next post will contain the aforementioned "Informants Diary" in full, showcasing our actions and why we decided what we did, when we did, and for what reasons.

[Fujiwara]

Congrats to the spy and informant teams!

I think we can all agree that the situation became rather unfair for the spy side in the last two days, so I think it's all the more impressive that you managed to win anyway. ^_^
Honestly, if the civilian side had won after all of this, it would have been a more than hollow win, imho.

I'm sure there'll be a lot to discuss now that the round is over, but despite the complications that arose this time, I hope we'll continue playing Espionage in the future.

And before I forget it, thanks for GMing for us, Yuri! *hands Yuri Dalek-shaped cookies*

[Iwamoto Yuri]

And before I forget it, thanks for GMing for us, Yuri! *hands Yuri Dalek-shaped cookies*

:,) Thanks Fuji-San

[Kleene Onigiri]

So what the hype happened?
Who were the spies and why was the phasechange changed?

That was totally shit. Don't have time to read Jds long as post while I can't have enough time to VOTE!

[KainTheVampire]

Dead players are dead. Arrested players are considered dead, as is stated in the rules. If you are killed or if you are voted for an arrest, you are no longer allowed to post ANYTHING in the topic about the game. You're dead. Consider yourself dead. Dead people do not make new posts. Before, and in Mafia rounds, we've been lenient about this and let people post "Aw shucks" sort of messages. From now on, we have to cut down on this. The second those results are announced, you shouldn't be posting anything. 99% of players are going to be respectful of the flow of the game, but sometimes people are going to inadvertently give away clues whether they ever intended to or not. The safe way to deal with it is just a zero posts policy.

*asked Yuri if it was okay to write morons*

[Jellitto]

Congratulations to the Spy team and the Informant team!!!

Morons, I tell you! Morons!

You ignored what Jellitto wrote about suspecting that Jd- and KL for being the informants That would have saved lots of trouble! D:

Indeed.

[Jd-]

So what the hype happened?
Who were the spies and why was the phasechange changed?

That was totally shit. Don't have time to read Jds long as post while I can't have enough time to VOTE!

Kleene & Miaka voted for themselves this time. Clearly, they were inactive or at least wanted us to think they were inactive. That means they must be the Spies, because NO KILL HAPPENED TODAY. I know where my vote's going next phase.

. . . Annnnd I'm joking! When you get time to read the post, everything will make sense.

[Jd-]

Congratulations to the Spy team and the Informant team!!!

Morons, I tell you! Morons!

You ignored what Jellitto wrote about suspecting that Jd- and KL for being the informants That would have saved lots of trouble! D:

Indeed.

I caught onto that, as you'll see in the Informants' Diary coming up soon. When did you investigate us?

[KainTheVampire]

Congratulations to the Spy team and the Informant team!!!

Morons, I tell you! Morons!

You ignored what Jellitto wrote about suspecting that Jd- and KL for being the informants That would have saved lots of trouble! D:

Indeed.

I caught onto that, as you'll see in the Informants' Diary coming up soon. When did you investigate us?

The day before we got arrested