Fall of the Matrix: Game Over!

[Mastermind of Sin]

Mod comments:

ABR recklessly led the town all game, and he even claimed a scum kill that he wasn't responsible for to get more town cred. That didn't turn out well for the town.

Kublai Khan played The Oracle brilliantly, it made watching the game hella fun, especially when Agent Smith (Kison) got accused of being a Cult Recruiter.

Morpheus dying early made the Matrix Mafia weaker and the Merovingian Mafia stronger, which was interesting since the Merovingians still died first.

I believe the setup was fairly balanced, since we did get all the way down to 3 players at the end. Even though Kison had both of his protections left, he barely made it through with them, since KK's fake message could have gotten him lynched and dramonic tracked him the same night he killed dramonic, so that was very close as well. I'm leery of making SK's too weak, and I think the town just kinda shot themselves in the foot overall. In the future I might only give the SK one of the two protections, but I dunno.

What did you guys think of the Helios mechanic? I think it helped a lot for keeping game tempo going and preventing this from being a 6 month long game.

[Mastermind of Sin]

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[MrBuddyLee]

Congratulations, Kison, well played. Looks like Yos and I were the only people who voted you.

Yos, when you're not messing around with policy lynches, you do a great job of ferreting out scum. Your instincts were really good this game when you weren't dinking around with vez and RC.

Llama, why did you claim early again?

The Matrix scumteam looks a touch underpowered in a game with so many nightkills, but I'm interested in hearing more about why the scumteams are balanced.

Not sure why Zindy claimed scum.
It was super lame that MoS modkilled me. His game, he gets to make the call, but in my opinion it was a terrible decision.

Neat game other than that, and other than the inevitable presence of malingering townies in large games like this.

[HezLucky]

The Matrix scumteam looks a touch underpowered in a game with so many nightkills, but I'm interested in hearing more about why the scumteams are balanced.

This.

I thought between the two of us we played a good game and yet we had no chance whatsoever of winning.

[LlamaFluff]

Llama, why did you claim early again?

My role suggested sanity issues and multiple factions, one of which I would get a negative result on. I figured in a 25 player game where I would be able to get a guilty result on maybe three or four people, tops and possibly have a few miller roles out there, I would do better to just draw the NK when I couldn't trust my results or own reads too well. Everything pointed to the my role easily being able to screw over the town through the wording, and I was actually right in a majority of my assumptions.

[Mastermind of Sin]

The Matrix scumteam looks a touch underpowered in a game with so many nightkills, but I'm interested in hearing more about why the scumteams are balanced.

This.

I thought between the two of us we played a good game and yet we had no chance whatsoever of winning.

Hmm, in retrospect I might have actually given them commuter abilities, although it ended up not mattering since Hez got killed while killing LlamaFluff, and no one ever tried to kill Zindaras. I personally would have taken my chances rather than claiming scum if I was in Zindaras' place, but I do think it was genius the way he played it after the claim, spewing some truthful statements and a lot of distracting bullshit that wasn't true at all.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Llama, why did you claim early again?

My role suggested sanity issues and multiple factions, one of which I would get a negative result on. I figured in a 25 player game where I would be able to get a guilty result on maybe three or four people, tops and possibly have a few miller roles out there, I would do better to just draw the NK when I couldn't trust my results or own reads too well. Everything pointed to the my role easily being able to screw over the town through the wording, and I was actually right in a majority of my assumptions.

Llama, in actuality, the wording in your role pm only had to do with the Matrix Mafia's investigation immunity. Had you lived longer, your ability would have outright killed either of the Merovingian Twins. Your role was just a straightforward cop, I just made sure to word it in such a way that did not guarantee correct results, which was to be a clue to you that there may be investigation immune roles in the game.

[Amrun]

I just want to take this moment to say that my reads were amazing in this game.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Congrats Kison!

DeathNote........................... -____-

[Albert B. Rampage]

I don't follow the logic of not voting for confirmed scum with 4 player LYLO. DeathNote, seriously -__-

I would have killed Kison if you had voted Zindaras right away.

[Porochaz]

Well done Kison, you deserved the win.

[SensFan]

Well done Kison, you deserved the win.

[Kison]

I was sad when Internet Stranger died.

[Albert B. Rampage]

I was happy.

Then I died.

Less happy.

[DeathNote]

Well... looks like I messed up my SK read... Even if we did lynch zindaris and you targeted Kison, we still would have lost. He had a night protection. It looks like Town really was screwed in that lylo position.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Well... looks like I messed up my SK read... Even if we did lynch zindaris and you targeted Kison, we still would have lost. He had a night protection. It looks like Town really was screwed in that lylo position.

Technically, town could have won by lynching Kison, and then having both Zindaras and ABR kill him while he killed Zindaras. More likely, though, if you had lynched Kison, Zindaras would have "hid" again, and Kison and ABR would have tried killing each other. That would have left the town in a Prisoner's Dilemma with Kison, Zindaras, and DeathNote alive, where Zindie and Kison would have had to either kill each other and give the town a win or agree to lynch DeathNote and try to go for happily ever after between the two of them.

[Zindaras]

Not sure why Zindy claimed scum.

It was the only real option I had. I had stupidly claimed pro-town program when LlamaFluff posted the question to the town. I considered just outright going back on what I said before, but a simple isolation would've revealed that, and I felt that people just wouldn't be

that

stupid, and if they would've been, I wouldn't deserve the victory anyway. Given the fact that Kublai Khan died as the Oracle (that's also why I needed him dead: I needed him to not be the Oracle), the best I had was a Keymaker claim, but that would've been suicide. Merovingian scum was the best claim I possibly had. I'm honestly a tad surprised that people didn't figure that out, but meh.

I kept hiding because I kept expecting Albert to shoot me. I didn't really care about getting into his good graces after the Vig claim because of it. I also expected there to be a Don to my Agent, and I desperately wanted to avoid crosskilling with him, as it would outright lose us the game.

I honestly somewhat considered an SK during lylo, but figured that Albert would be logical (it also explained how the hell he survived so long). Kison was an option I did think about a little bit (I thought he was scum because of his reaction to my claim) but I didn't really have a lot to play with.

The more I look at this setup, the more I wonder how Hez and I were ever supposed to win this game. Hell, I would've preferred to have the Twins' roles over the Agents', and they got a Don extra. The only plus we get is that the hiding makes one of us potentially immune to the cop (but not even as in a GF). And the characters. My god, the characters. The Oracle is basically the only surprise alignment, and Link is the most minor character in the game (and I don't think there's a protagonist in the movies who gets more screen time than Link and wasn't in this game). If a Twin or an Agent (or even the SK) triggers his protection, what the hell is he supposed to claim? Hell, town could've basically run blind on its win condition and a working knowledge of the movies.

I'm quite pleased we managed to catch the Cop, but it's a shame that now I would've preferred him alive so he could take Kison out of the picture for us.

Kison played an excellent game. I suspected him at times, but he was never at the top or the bottom of the list, which made him just slide by perfectly (not too townish to attract attention, not too scummish to attract votes). I'm honestly glad that he won the game in this way. It also means that I don't have to whine about his stubbornness in not voting Albert with me. I seriously wanted to strangle you after the whole "no negotiating with terrorists" line.

The fact that it went down to endgame doesn't mean it was balanced. The fact that all the scumteams were tiny meant that the most likely outcome was an endgame. As Hez's death shows, a crosskill in this game is stupidly debilitating, especially for the Matrix.

It was nice to get a first, though. I don't get a lot of firsts anymore. I'd never claimed scum before.

[Zindaras]

Well... looks like I messed up my SK read... Even if we did lynch zindaris and you targeted Kison, we still would have lost. He had a night protection. It looks like Town really was screwed in that lylo position.

Technically, town could have won by lynching Kison, and then having both Zindaras and ABR kill him while he killed Zindaras. More likely, though, if you had lynched Kison, Zindaras would have "hid" again, and Kison and ABR would have tried killing each other. That would have left the town in a Prisoner's Dilemma with Kison, Zindaras, and DeathNote alive, where Zindie and Kison would have had to either kill each other and give the town a win or agree to lynch DeathNote and try to go for happily ever after between the two of them.

That's just a lot of sentences to say "town was screwed."

[Zindaras]

Oh, by the way, Helios is a good mechanic. It's one of those nice, simple mechanics which just gets the job done. The game ran like a charm (mostly).

[Zindaras]

Llama, why did you claim early again?

My role suggested sanity issues and multiple factions, one of which I would get a negative result on. I figured in a 25 player game where I would be able to get a guilty result on maybe three or four people, tops and possibly have a few miller roles out there, I would do better to just draw the NK when I couldn't trust my results or own reads too well. Everything pointed to the my role easily being able to screw over the town through the wording, and I was actually right in a majority of my assumptions.

You

tried

to draw the NK?

Man, that's just weird.

Oh, by the way, we killed you only over the pro-town program thing, not the weird claim-retraction thing. I almost decided otherwise because of that.

[Zindaras]

I've been doing some reading and thinking: there's almost certainly an SK or a cult in this game. If there's a cult, I'm guessing Zindy is a second vig due to the Yoskill. Zindy doesn't suspect either of us, so we can keep him alive.

My suggestion: we leave Zindaras alive to be killed by other scum as he's a fairly obvious kill. Instead we take a shot at a lurker and try to nab some hard to lynch opposing scum and/or likely cult. I'm thinking Primate.

*laughs*

Why was I an obvious kill though?

[Mastermind of Sin]

@Zindie: Fair enough, honestly I think I was too worried about the town being underpowered because I'd put 6 scum and a neutral in the game, with 4 kills a night. That's why I didn't give you guys safe claims, mostly. I was also counting on the fact that the site meta is for major roles to be given as safeclaims, so I expected that to be a self-balancing factor against mass claim. I didn't want to make mirroring scumgroups, so I structured them both a little differently, but like I said I think an actual commuter role would have made more sense for you guys.

Just off the top of my head though, there were some roles not in the game that people could have claimed (not that you would have known they were safe claims, but if you delved far enough down you could have found something reasonable):

Humans -

Lock
Niobe
Tank
Dozer
Mifune
Zee
The Kid
Mouse
Apoc
Switch
Councillor Harmann

Programs -

Seraph
Merovingian's Wife (Persephone?)
Rama-Kandra (the guy in the train station)
Keymaker

So yea, I wouldn't say it was easy, but there were options other than just claiming scum. If I thought I could hide from kills, I might have also just claimed townie, drawn ABR's kill, and hoped the SK would kill ABR.

Either way, I loved watching you play, Zindie, and I <3 you for coming back to play in my game. Thanks! ^.^

[Zindaras]

@Zindie: Fair enough, honestly I think I was too worried about the town being underpowered because I'd put 6 scum and a neutral in the game, with 4 kills a night. That's why I didn't give you guys safe claims, mostly. I was also counting on the fact that the site meta is for major roles to be given as safeclaims, so I expected that to be a self-balancing factor against mass claim. I didn't want to make mirroring scumgroups, so I structured them both a little differently, but like I said I think an actual commuter role would have made more sense for you guys.

I think Town could've used an unkillable itself, or maybe split up the Cops in two parts (one who finds Merovingians, one who finds Matrix&SK). Town had a hard time, with the Doc getting randomly killed and the Cop found out. Link was a good role. I would've liked more of those.

I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of this many scumteams, especially when it means the individual scumteams have to be so weak. I mean, all we got over a Newbie scumteam was the hiding thing. It's just that crosskills are such an unbelievable pain in these games.

I am aware of the site meta, but it never really came into play here. Morpheus and Trinity died without claiming, while Neo was confirmed town from his claim. I think the town figured out that the usual meta didn't really apply here.

Just off the top of my head though, there were some roles not in the game that people could have claimed (not that you would have known they were safe claims, but if you delved far enough down you could have found something reasonable):

Humans -

Lock
Niobe
Tank
Dozer
Mifune
Zee
The Kid
Mouse
Apoc
Switch
Councillor Harmann

Programs -

Seraph
Merovingian's Wife (Persephone?)
Rama-Kandra (the guy in the train station)
Keymaker

So yea, I wouldn't say it was easy, but there were options other than just claiming scum. If I thought I could hide from kills, I might have also just claimed townie, drawn ABR's kill, and hoped the SK would kill ABR.

Oh, I agree with this list, in principle. The problem is that we lynched Toon Fighter over claiming the Keymaker, as he was too minor. All the other roles were just so huge (except maybe Link, but that claim came very late and it was difficult to change course at that point). I considered a number of the humans, but discarded them because there's really nothing that sets the individuals apart: besides the councillor, none of those scream a particular role to me. I had a plan which involved claiming Oracle and Seraph with Hez, but I'm glad we didn't go through with that.

Either way, I loved watching you play, Zindie, and I <3 you for coming back to play in my game. Thanks! ^.^

Thank you. I enjoyed the game as well. The last two days were especially hilarious. How often do you get the opportunity to pull so many gambits in one game?

I'd also like to thank the rest of the players. I enjoyed the experience and the opportunity to play with a number of people I had never gotten to play with before.

[Ranmaru]

Hey. Sorry guys, I tried my best early on. I thought Brian and Poro and Lainy were scum, but I was 2/3... I was gonna make a case on Brian but I was too lazy. Luckily, he was town. YAY.

I did enjoy this game!

[Ranmaru]

I was happy.

Then I died.

Less happy.

This made me chuckle.