ESPIONAGE: A brand new simple forum game! (Central Rules & Information Topic)

[Togop]

I personally am OK with transparent text, or any other encrypted/hodden text that nobody has out-of-game information about. For example, if I want to post a riddle in the game thread and then post encrypted message that needs to be decrypted using the solution for the riddle, I should be allowed to as long as I haven't talked about this riddle to someone before, haven't posted it in the riddle thread, etc. Similarly, the key could be included im the spy's order, as that's in-game info, too.
GM communication is meta, not in-game info.
The reasoning for this is that I want to allow creativity as much as possible.
True, though, that is easy to cheat around by posting a riddle you know someone knows, but so is no PMing.

Another thing I want to say is that it was fairly boring when at the end everyone knew for sure I was the informant and thus even if I said something it would be disregarded. I think we should try to avoid that somehow.

[shinichi'sapprentice]

but transparent texts are not really hidden since it's there, in the topic, still available for all players to look at.

and that's an interesting thing you brought up, googleearth. i agree with it about the people using messages that only some people will be able to understand. that's just evil...

and since we're listing things that needs to be cleared up,.. here's mine... i know in the latest round(R5), the editing of stuff have been thoroughly explained already. but maybe we should put emphasis on it more? aside from the smileys, 'hugs', and edits are my other suspected identification order in the last round. i think we should include in the rules that the spy shouldn't at all order their informants to edit stuff as identification order. unlike transparent texts, editing one's post is a more rather harder one to catch! informants may edit their posts on their own accord. but the spy ordering 'em to edit... just no.

--edit: Togop posted above ↑ posting this first... then gonna read it

[shinichi'sapprentice]

I personally am OK with transparent text, or any other encrypted/hodden text that nobody has out-of-game information about. For example, if I want to post a riddle in the game thread and then post encrypted message that needs to be decrypted using the solution for the riddle, I should be allowed to as long as I haven't talked about this riddle to someone before, haven't posted it in the riddle thread, etc. Similarly, the key could be included im the spy's order, as that's in-game info, too.
GM communication is meta, not in-game info.
The reasoning for this is that I want to allow creativity as much as possible.
True, though, that is easy to cheat around by posting a riddle you know someone knows, but so is no PMing.

Another thing I want to say is that it was fairly boring when at the end everyone knew for sure I was the informant and thus even if I said something it would be disregarded. I think we should try to avoid that somehow.

thank you for agreeing with the transparent text. i second the 'creativity' one \o/ but i have to disagree with your example. i actually already thought of doing that if i'm spy(oh, when will i ever get my first special role xD) it's creative and fun and all but going through the entire round's posts is too much exhausting already. and that's just my civilian point of view. what more if i was spy/informant/detective? aside from checking everything, i still have to think about strategies and think how i will play out the round. so yeah, the spy might order the informants to post stuff in the count to forever game for example and hide it. it's already too tiring to review all the posts so i say no to incorporating other games into this. UNLESS OTHERS THINK OTHERWISE,.. then maybe go ...wait, or are you talking about a different game? ~.~

and about the informant thing. yeah. one reason i kinda wanna oppose that is if i'm informant... it'll be boring in the end... on second thought, maybe not? xD Togop, you can actually do something creative about it

other thoughts, people?

--edit: oh ooops... double post. sorry. i thought someone would have already posted something

[dumytru]

I'm not sure if I want to agree with transparent text. I actually went to your post in D2, knowing that it contained transparent text.
But even so, I missed it. It was so small I didin't even noticed (even blank lines get highlighted). So there was only a little white spot in the selection.
I'm sure most players didn't noticed your hidden message.

BUT--- if we allow transparent text and people know it, then it'll be alright. The key here is that people know about it.

---

Okay, here's an idea.

This is another special-role. It doesn't have any special-abilities, but as long as he's alive, the Detective will be able to send the results of his/her investigates to the civilians. The GM will post them at the phase change.
The thing is the Detective won't be able to do it every phase, but only once in three phases.
This means that 1/3 of the investigates will be made public.
This may make it too hard on the Spy side, and I'm not sure I agree with it myself, but it might turn out interesting.
I want to hear your opinion as well.

I thought of something else as well, but I forgot about it. (it probably means it's not very important).

[bash7353]

I would propose the rules to say something like

Every message posted in the game's topic must be in such a form that any player can reasonably be expected to fully understand its meaning without additional effort. Players are not to try to convey messages that it can be expected only some will become privy to. Exceptions apply to anything related to abilities Order and Investigate.

That would mean transparent text, any languages other than English, and text so small you can't read it with the naked eye, among other things, would be banned. That ensures no one attempts to share information with some while withholding it from others and thereby, in a way, circumvent the 'No Private Messages' rule.

Ultimately, it is up to next round's gamemaster to make the final decision on that.

Okay, here's an idea.

This is another special-role. It doesn't have any special-abilities, but as long as he's alive, the Detective will be able to send the results of his/her investigates to the civilians. The GM will post them at the phase change.
The thing is the Detective won't be able to do it every phase, but only once in three phases.
This means that 1/3 of the investigates will be made public.
This may make it too hard on the Spy side, and I'm not sure I agree with it myself, but it might turn out interesting.
I want to hear your opinion as well.

I'm not entirely sure we need a role to do that sort of thing. Of course, we can implement some sort of rule that will make Investigate results public regularly, but I don't really find myself in favour of that at this point. We definitely don't need another role to do that, though.

Another thing I want to say is that it was fairly boring when at the end everyone knew for sure I was the informant and thus even if I said something it would be disregarded. I think we should try to avoid that somehow.

That is pretty much going to happen every time the Detective dies as long as the lists are as I've suggested it. In my opinion it is the only viable option to, on the one hand, have lists continue to be useful as well as, on the other hand, ensuring that allowing Civilians to share them doesn't break the game.

[Kleene Onigiri]

"Every message posted in the game's topic must be in such a form that any player can reasonably be expected to fully understand its meaning without additional effort. Players are not to try to convey messages that it can be expected only some will become privy to. Exceptions apply to anything related to abilities Order and Investigate."

I think if you write it like that, it'll be too vague, especially for new players that didn't read this whole discussion.

[bash7353]

I'm not saying just adding that to the rules will solve it. It would have to be further explained.

It's also just suggestion. It seems many here are actually in favour of keeping transparent text allowed. We can do that as well. Our next GM will have to decide that.

The important thing is to make sure it's plain what's allowed and what's not. That 10221 thought transparent text is allowed while Stop thought it wasn't last round was unfortunate.

[dumytru]

Oh, you changed your username.

[Fujiwara]

Mini Espionage

There is now a bot available for playing mini espionage on #espionage_graveyard on irc.rizon.net. The bot (CakeBot) is currently not available 24/7 though.

Commands

!start
Initiates a game.

!join
Let's you join the game.

!quit
Let's you quit the game, as long as it hasn't started yet.

!list
Shows a randomized list of players.

!startgame
Starts the game.

!terminate
Terminates the game - careful, this will abort currently running games as well.

.phase <minutes>
Sets the phase length to <minutes> minutes. Can be used before and during the game.

.swap <old player> <new player> [Ops and Half-ops only]
Swaps in <new player> for <old player>. Can be used before and during the game.

Private commands (can only be used in private messages to CakeBot):

!status
Shows your intro message (role, actions, list) plus any actions you have submitted for the current phase

!vote <player>
Sends in your vote for <player>.

!kill <player> (Spy only)
Sends in your kill for <player>.

!order <order> (Spy only)
Sends <order> to your informant(s) at the start of the next phase.

!investigate <player> <player> <player> (Detective only)
Sends in your investigate for the 3 players. The players cannot be dead or found innocent before. Each name can only be submitted up to 2 times.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[Togop]

There was a little problem during the campaign espionage round, that initially we were only arresting players who had failed to vote. I was thinking that inactivity already penalizes you in terms of not getting votes, so a lower penalty (like -1 for people who haven't submitted any votes) seems more appropriate. After all, the point is to arrest the person with the lowest support, not the person amongst the low-support ones who misses the voting phase.

[Jd-]

It is a tough penalty for inactives and of course the ideal situation would be that everyone is playing every phase. Unfortunately, I think we always have to ensure that inactive players are most susceptible to being eliminated from the game as far as voting goes. If they stay in, the latter rounds will be weighed very heavily in the favor of any Spy still in the game. It's really difficult to balance against inactivity, because you have to ensure that there's no advantage to pretending to be inactive. To avoid the -5 penalty, all a given player has to do is allocate some of those votes; they can get -3 or -2 or -1 if they cast some of them.

With that said, my idea for the next round will aim to try something even more different.

[Togop]

The point is, campaign voting already provides a severe penalty for inactivity: you simply can't earn votes while being inactive. However, missing a day is different from inactive.

Unfortunately, I think we always have to ensure that inactive players are most susceptible to being eliminated from the game as far as voting goes.

Not if there is a strong sentiment towards arresting someone else.

[Jd-]

Annnnnd the first post has been updated courtesy of SA.