GM Feedback thread

[st.cronin]

Thought this might be a place where we could collect impressions of various things. I thought there were two things from the Beckinsale game we should talk about:

- The pm thing. When something like this happens (a player pming the wrong players), what's the right thing for gms to do?

- The 24 hour clock. This is the second game I've run with this schedule, and some people have said they like it, but I would like to get more feedback on it. Would something like this be feasible with, say, a morning or early afternoon deadline?

There may be other things people want to chime in on.

[hoopsguy]

PM thing - I don't have a 100% answer on that, except encouraging the situation to be made public as quickly as possible so everyone is playing with the same information. It sounds like some people were trying not to act on information that they had as a result of this incident, and I'm sure that was not fun for anyone invovled.

24 hour clock - I'm worried about having a morning/afternoon deadline in terms of participation. Normally we have a majority of the players in a game around at the deadline, who have the chance to impact the outcome as it nears a conclusion. I am guessing that this would not occur with a 3PM EST deadline, due to people's work commitments. Is that the end of the world? Probably not, but it is a significant change.

[Alan T]

Morning deadline would likely be rough due to half the people still being asleep (west coasters) and the east coast people on their way to work or wherever.

Afternoon deadline would probably be doable since everyone would be awake and the majority have some form of access from work, but in large I agree with hoops that the majority of people seem to be able to get on between 8pm EST and 10pm EST and that seems the best time for any deadline that there is an advantage to being around during.

On the PM thing, you and I chatted some already on it, but I don't really have a good answer beyond what i said before. That is just one of those things about WW games.. sometimes mistakes will happen and there isn't really a good fix.

My guess is that it led to the lynch in this game alot easier due to a lack of direction that people had for a different candidate at the time. If I had to guess this type of thing wouldn't have received as much scrutiny if it had been a player already scanned, or who had been instrumental in getting rid of a wolf, or there was some other direction to move in.

[Barkeep49]

FTR, I think having a 24 hour continuous clock has an impact on gameplay, particularly given our late last minute lynchings of people, though I do admit it has some major benefits in terms of participation.

[Passacaglia]

I didn't have a problem with the 24 hour deadline in the Rome game. If the deadline is in the evening, I often miss it anyway. But I guess with the 24-hour deadline, there's no time where people are afraid to talk things out, waiting for the night kill.

I'll offer up my game as a guinea pig for an afternoon deadline and 24-hour day, 0-hour night. It would *have* to be in the afternoon, though, since I don't think I'd have time to compile everything in the evening.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

I love the 24 hour deadline. For those of us that have weird work schedules and don't have access to FOFC at work, it really allows us to play. I just wish the deadline was pushed back a little bit more. Maybe 10 PM Eastern.

[Barkeep49]

What's the difference for people with a 24 hour deadline and just a normal game with a 10 PM Eastern Deadline?

[Jonathan Ezarik]

The 24 hour system allows us to discuss and even vote during the night. If it's a normal game with two deadlines, a lot of the time I'm already at work before night actions are processed so I'm not able to get a vote in or contribute anything until I get home from work (and usually too late to add much anyway).

[tanglewood]

I think for a game like the last which was relatively simple a 24 hour game worked very well. In a more complicated mult-role game I'm not so sure, as I think players would like to have at least some time after the voting to digest their options.

As for the PM thing, I told Cronin at the time that I thought the game should have been restarted with roles reassigned. We were only on day 1 so it shouldn't have been a big deal. The only thing I could think of that would be affected would some players would know the mechanics of certain roles and two would know of the mason role, which could easily have been solved by making all the roles and rules public. I think that situation would have been preferable to the one which developed.

[Alan T]

Yeah, i can see the 24 hour system being really handy for people in Chief Rum's situation, where often he has to leave for work before the day actions even start, thus he isn't even allowed to put a vote out there.

When I first did a 24 hour clock game, I did it specifically for Narcizo and Chief Rum knowing their situations and that it would hopefully make things easier for them to be involved.

I don't really have a good reason for why I haven't done a 24 hour clock game since then other than I didn't feel it fit the game that I ran very well. I can definitly see the advantages for people with odd schedules or different time zones though.

[JHandley]

The PM Thing: At the point when it appeared that it had really affected DC, I think removal is the right move. Oliegirl was completely screwed. It was mid-game and no one had any good leads on wolves. So, we were going to flock on anyone if we had something close to a good reason.

I brought it up because it was a huge elephant in the room that everyone was trying to avoid. Must have been almost painful for the people she PM'd.

I'm not blaming Cronin and I'm not blaming DC, mistakes do happen. Who's to blame isn't the issue, it's the resulting actions that are the issue. To me, it's like a foul in sports. May not have been intentional, but the fact remains it took place. If you hit a batter, the batter gets first. Holding in football is 10 yards. If you make a mistake in WW, the result is almost always a kill.

24 hour deadline. I'm speaking from complete ignorance on this as I don't have experience with any other game. However, do the vets think this may have contributed to the wild swings in activity? Daily, there was nothing going on during the day right up until about an hour and a half till deadline and then suddenly, people came in out of the woodwork, votes swung wildy, analysis popped up. Again, I don't know, just something I thought I'd throw out there to add to the discussion.

[DaddyTorgo]

I love the 24 hour clock thing. Don't really see any disadvantages to it

[hoopsguy]

I don't think the 24 hour clock was the issue with the late voting. I think there was a real hesitancy of people to build arguments within the thread. Alan and Barkeep, two guys who like to go post-hunting, were out of the game earlier. Tanglewood, who was providing vote-tracking information to analyze, followed soon after. It felt like the wolves were systematically pounding the people who brought forward a framework for voting.

I clearly remember NeonChaos doing some research as well, but it was to save RendeR rather than to identify a wolf.

[Lathum]

As for the PM thing I think it changes on a per situation basis.

The 24 hour deadline didn't bother me as an ordinary villager but as someone who isn't around at the deadline and sometimes 6-7 hours before I think it would be a challange as a player with an important role. I see the reason for it but when I have a role I prefer to digest what happened with the lynch before I make my descion for night, to much can happen at the deadline.