for GTW

I'll start things out with Eugene Chin's idea for discouraging inactivity and replacing inactive players with dead players:

@eugene-chin, on Oct 5 2008, 08:15 PM, said in GTW Game 32:

Hey.

It's absurd that this game is dying from inactivity, when two of the most active players were killed off in the first round. (Since this has happened to me in every game I was an Innocent in six times running, I'm particularly irritated about that.)

Seeing as lemonyscapegoat and orcaloverbri9 didn't put in an actual vote last round (and orca isn't even paying enough attention as to who is still alive ), and would be eliminated anyway if they miss this round's, I propose the following:

Instead of killing them for inactivity; take their roles and give them to me and mrxak.

Y'know. Take out players who aren't playing and put in people who will.
At the very least, the threat of this may make viruses banking on a lurker-win get up and act instead.

(EDIT) If I ever host a game, I may use that:
Dead players may request to replace, and assume the role of, a player who has missed two consecutive votes.

And my argument against it:

View Postmrxak, on Oct 7 2008, 01:55 AM, said:

Hmm, you know, thinking about this, maybe it's not such a good idea. People coming back from the dead, even if they have different roles, can break the game. People may have grudges, and use their resurrection to go after the people that voted them out. Bad guys who specifically targeted a particularly good player to get them out of the game may face that same player coming back again and again. Intelligence agents who died without revealing what they knew may come back and get a chance to spill the beans. Bad guys who died may come back and know exactly who the remaining bad guys are. Somebody who was voted out for using a terrible strategy may come back and end up ruining the game further. There's probably more situations I haven't thought of too. I think I have to vote against this idea.

The best solution to the no vote issue, is for people to vote so this doesn't become an issue to begin with. Failing that, eliminate them from the game after two missed votes, not necessarily consecutive. Let that be motivation to show up. I wouldn't terribly be opposed to not letting people play in the next game either if they got eliminated in such a fashion.

I'm thinking the next time I host, I'll see who missed two votes in the previous game, and bar them from playing in my game without some serious assurance that whatever caused them to not show up the previous game is history. Then, I'll simply give everyone playing a single no vote round. If they don't vote again after they used their no vote, they're gone, and I will argue that they be barred from the next game. Additionally, should there be a tie between one player who has voted and one player who has not, the player who has not voted will vote for themselves to break the tie in the final tally.

I welcome comments, and any other hosting issues people want to bring up. If you have more general GTW things to discuss, such as player strategy, etc., that's unrelated to hosting or the game rules, please use another topic.

You can't forget about extenuating circumstances, such as if someone has a death in the family or has to study for a test or something. While I'm not sure the idea of replacing inactive players with those that have been 'killed' by previous votes would really work out well, it can't be a blanket ban on someone if they have a legitimate reason for not being around. Of course, that means if someone's just not voting because they're bored and not paying attention, they wouldn't receive the same consideration as someone who enjoys the game but has had to stop by less/at all due to real life.

Like I said, if they can give me serious assurance that the cause of their repeated absence in the previous game is history, they would not be barred from my game.

Also, I should think if they had a major test to study for, so major that they can't take 30 seconds to make a single short post with a vote in it once every two days, they shouldn't have signed up to begin with.

Perhaps, but the length some games start, you may not have a test until near the end. shrug We'll see how things play out. I've locked the GTW hosts topic for now because I don't think we'll be needing xander to host for some time.

I think it should be based upon "activity" and not "voting." If somebody shows up to the game and makes a stupid post about how they don't like a particular person or something, and then leave, that would be considered "activity" and "abstaining" on the vote. Maybe the players should be allowed an "abstain" vote just so that they can be on the record for having voted, and then they can change it within the round. These are just ideas...

@adam_0, on Oct 7 2008, 02:02 PM, said in Let's Talk Hosting Issues:

I think it should be based upon "activity" and not "voting." If somebody shows up to the game and makes a stupid post about how they don't like a particular person or something, and then leave, that would be considered "activity" and "abstaining" on the vote. Maybe the players should be allowed an "abstain" vote just so that they can be on the record for having voted, and then they can change it within the round. These are just ideas...

When I host, I don't consider abstaining to be activity. An abstention is the same as not voting. If you don't vote, you aren't contributing to the game. I kick players out if they miss two consecutive votes, or three votes total, and I count abstentions/no votes as self-votes. So, honestly, I think that is something that you need to leave up to the host.

xander

@mackilroy, on Oct 7 2008, 02:18 AM, said in Let's Talk Hosting Issues:

Perhaps, but the length some games start, you may not have a test until near the end. shrug We'll see how things play out.

Still, a 30 second perusal of a topic and a one-liner post is too hard to make once every 48 hours?

I agree with darwinian too, an abstention is the very definition of not voting.

xander's suggestion of having players who haven't voted/abstained count as a vote towards themselves is an interesting idea in my opinion.

But I do think that players who consistently sign up for games and not show up should be punished in some way, and I agree that they should probably be banned from games if they can't come up with good reasons for being absent. The problem is that this is the internet; excuses can be easily come up with, or faked, if you will. These people are playing GTW; if they're good players, they will know how to dodge a question relating to why they were absent.

This, of course, assumes that the players are all just slackers and have no real lives. It may not prove to be accurate in the long run, but it's still something to consider.

@jacabyte, on Oct 7 2008, 05:45 PM, said in Let's Talk Hosting Issues:

xander's suggestion of having players who haven't voted/abstained count as a vote towards themselves is an interesting idea in my opinion.

But I do think that players who consistently sign up for games and not show up should be punished in some way, and I agree that they should probably be banned from games if they can't come up with good reasons for being absent. The problem is that this is the internet; excuses can be easily come up with, or faked, if you will. These people are playing GTW; if they're good players, they will know how to dodge a question relating to why they were absent.

This, of course, assumes that the players are all just slackers and have no real lives. It may not prove to be accurate in the long run, but it's still something to consider.

Yeah, xander's idea is what I was going to include, but decided it was easier for accounting purposes for them to only vote for themselves if the vote is tied and they will cast the vote to vote themselves out. Same result, just slightly easier to keep track of the non-voters.

@jacabyte, on Oct 7 2008, 05:45 PM, said in Let's Talk Hosting Issues:

But I do think that players who consistently sign up for games and not show up should be punished in some way, and I agree that they should probably be banned from games if they can't come up with good reasons for being absent. The problem is that this is the internet; excuses can be easily come up with, or faked, if you will. These people are playing GTW; if they're good players, they will know how to dodge a question relating to why they were absent.

I don't see why someone who doesn't care enough to play would care enough to be able to make an excuse.

And your average day teenager? He doesn't care enough to do his homework or the dishes or mow the lawn, but he does care enough to come with an excuse for sitting in front of a television or computer all day long. I don't see why he would care about his chores enough to make an excuse either.

Circular logic; if they don't care enough to play then they shouldn't sign up. That's an unwritten rule of conduct that has been broken enough times to need to be enforced, apparently. Since people who aren't playing are signing up, then they must care enough about the game to be able to make up an excuse, if not participate in game play.

But someone who's not participating isn't even getting anything out of the game.
If we say to them "Sorry, you can't play this round, you didn't even play at all last round," it's not changing anything at all. Why should they care enough to make an excuse? Are they just getting their rocks off by having their name on the player list?

Yeah? But that still isn't stopping them. No, I don't know what their motivation is; all I know is that they're not participating for whatever reason. You're right, they're not getting anything out of the game either.