Thanks for reminding the community why you're awful to play with.
I'm still firmly of the opinion that "having a bad personality" is not ever a justification for permanent blacklisting. I think that option should be reserved for deliberate sabotage of games, repeated serious rules violations, or issues related to banning from MTGS as a whole. Nothing he's done has come close to that.
I'm not a big fan of TS's playstyle, but having just now read the offensive posts from Star Trek, I agree that blacklisting is extreme. I think a 3 month suspension at most would be advisable.
I think advertising in general is a good idea. I also have no problem with anyone using anything I've put on this site to write flavor for future games - so long as I get a token "inspired by" credit or something, I have no qualms with anyone appropriating my work and putting their own spin on it, editing canon, etc. I'm just happy so long as something cool comes of it.
The biggest limitation at this point seems to be people who can and want to write that much flavor. I know from having seen the pieces that Az at one point was working on blowing the story in Inheritance out into a whole arc, which would be cool to see, but that was years ago, and I suspect he just doesn't have the time to work out all the requisite elements. The same thing happened with the follow-up to Ozone Underground, trying to put a capper on the David Klein story (and that's not even mentioning the fact that I never even finished some of the role PMs in OU).
The Asphodel Meadows (and to a lesser extent, word-count wise, the rest of my games) was largely fortuitous, because I was a lazy high school/college student with a lot of time on my hands for producing literary whirligigs. Even if I didn't have my own offline writing to work on, I just don't have the time for that sort of thing anymore, and I'm definitely not the only one. It's one thing to sell the site on its reputation, another to sell it on its potential.
One idea would be to try to break the work up into pieces - get four or five co-mods/co-writers to segment the work of one really big project, whether based on an existing IP or just on the writers' reputations. Give the people on MU lots of links to what's come before to try to draw them in. But I don't know who'd be crazy enough to sign up for that job, either.
I always assumed that it should be stacking order of what type of setup finished last, with the limits of however many of each type of game we're running in consideration.
Since I'm next on the PCQ slot, I will be happy to hold my game off until the Specialty queue clears out once Mind Screw is over.
You're actually second in the PCQ, behind me.
My game is comparatively very simple and hopefully quick - 12 players, no special roles, no nights - so I don't think running it and a specialty concurrently would be a problem for player counts, but I'm also willing to step aside if we want to shove the specialties through.
One option would be to put the people on the Specialties list into the PCQ, but give them a handicap, like two free votes. That way, they still have to prove the game is worthwhile, but are advantaged over someone starting from square one.
Of course, if the experience of Mind Screw should teach us anything, it's that a game could be voted up in the PCQ with much enthusiasm and still take an eternity to fill up and be coming to its end slowly and painfully. (With no disrespect to Tar, whose game is really cool; I think the age of Mind Screw/super-high complexity games on this site may be coming to its end.)
I think the difference is that there isn't enough tweaking of the base setup to make it feel even a little unusual. Add more french vanillas; add more weird variants on the usual cops and docs and vigs and etc. Do like arimnaes did, and fill your game with fun weird stuff, instead of just a bunch of vanillas. You can have normal and not vanilla. You can have chocolate!
That sounds really dumb, but hopefully you get my point.
Xyre, the Council actually implemented that rule (not Void!) after we had a handful of setups that only got half-assed reviews, one review, or no reviews and flopped spectacularly (Starcraft comes to mind, for example). And in certain instances where mods have ignored reviewer feedback and plowed on ahead, it's generally had negative feedback. It's a check in place for the sake of the players as well as the mod.
Oh, don't misunderstand: I knew this wasn't Void's doing at all. I just posted it here because I think open setups are worth an exception more broadly (and not just because that's my new niche, either).
Having just now come upon this rule, I want to bring it to a greater debate, because I think it's a bad rule and a hassle: the mandatory review rule.
I'm of the opinion that (a) the rule's purpose is not literally to require that every setup get someone to give it some special attention, but rather to make sure people don't just put their setups on the list without considering balancing/whether their setup needs review, and (b) there are some setups for which review is a waste of time.
Case in point: I want to run a second of my experimental open minis. Not only is it pointless to get a review for it, since the setup is open and intuitive, but I'm of the opinion that a reviewer could not definitively say whether the setup is balanced or not - because that's the point of the setup! I make many disclaimers to the effect that the setup may be imbalanced and that it's up to the players to decide whether they should play or not, and the last one I ran went over without a hitch for precisely that reason.
Furthermore, I don't think there's a great distinction between my setup and the types of setups that very obviously don't need to be reviewed - setups that have already happened before, and super-simple setups in a similar vein (i.e. vanilla townies vs. vanilla mafia).
I suspect my case is just due to Void being extra-cautious, but I'd still like some consideration whether this rule needs to be so immoderately written or enforced.
What would I need permission wise in order to run another bastard mod game? From what I can tell it has been 3 years since the last one, and I am kinda feeling the urge to design one.
Those kinds of urges can be controlled with medication.
I would be interested in seeing people come up with gimmicky Minis, like my idea for Arsonist Mafia.
Open setup:
1 Arsonist
X Vanilla Town
Arsonist targets a player at Night, douses them in gasoline.
Once, during the game, Arsonist can strike their match and everyone gassed up will die in the fire.
Town wins when the Arsonist is dead. Arsonist wins when they're one of the last two players alive.
Things like that. A game within Mafia.
I wonder if you could do that game with two competing Arsonists and 10 townies, and if one arsonist decides to strike his match, all doused players by either Arsonist go up (except that an Arsonist can't commit suicide in this way - an Arsonist can only be lit up by the other Arsonist's match).
I'm still firmly of the opinion that "having a bad personality" is not ever a justification for permanent blacklisting. I think that option should be reserved for deliberate sabotage of games, repeated serious rules violations, or issues related to banning from MTGS as a whole. Nothing he's done has come close to that.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
The biggest limitation at this point seems to be people who can and want to write that much flavor. I know from having seen the pieces that Az at one point was working on blowing the story in Inheritance out into a whole arc, which would be cool to see, but that was years ago, and I suspect he just doesn't have the time to work out all the requisite elements. The same thing happened with the follow-up to Ozone Underground, trying to put a capper on the David Klein story (and that's not even mentioning the fact that I never even finished some of the role PMs in OU).
The Asphodel Meadows (and to a lesser extent, word-count wise, the rest of my games) was largely fortuitous, because I was a lazy high school/college student with a lot of time on my hands for producing literary whirligigs. Even if I didn't have my own offline writing to work on, I just don't have the time for that sort of thing anymore, and I'm definitely not the only one. It's one thing to sell the site on its reputation, another to sell it on its potential.
One idea would be to try to break the work up into pieces - get four or five co-mods/co-writers to segment the work of one really big project, whether based on an existing IP or just on the writers' reputations. Give the people on MU lots of links to what's come before to try to draw them in. But I don't know who'd be crazy enough to sign up for that job, either.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
My game is comparatively very simple and hopefully quick - 12 players, no special roles, no nights - so I don't think running it and a specialty concurrently would be a problem for player counts, but I'm also willing to step aside if we want to shove the specialties through.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Of course, if the experience of Mind Screw should teach us anything, it's that a game could be voted up in the PCQ with much enthusiasm and still take an eternity to fill up and be coming to its end slowly and painfully. (With no disrespect to Tar, whose game is really cool; I think the age of Mind Screw/super-high complexity games on this site may be coming to its end.)
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
*gets it on his shoes*
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
That sounds really dumb, but hopefully you get my point.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Oh, don't misunderstand: I knew this wasn't Void's doing at all. I just posted it here because I think open setups are worth an exception more broadly (and not just because that's my new niche, either).
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
I'm of the opinion that (a) the rule's purpose is not literally to require that every setup get someone to give it some special attention, but rather to make sure people don't just put their setups on the list without considering balancing/whether their setup needs review, and (b) there are some setups for which review is a waste of time.
Case in point: I want to run a second of my experimental open minis. Not only is it pointless to get a review for it, since the setup is open and intuitive, but I'm of the opinion that a reviewer could not definitively say whether the setup is balanced or not - because that's the point of the setup! I make many disclaimers to the effect that the setup may be imbalanced and that it's up to the players to decide whether they should play or not, and the last one I ran went over without a hitch for precisely that reason.
Furthermore, I don't think there's a great distinction between my setup and the types of setups that very obviously don't need to be reviewed - setups that have already happened before, and super-simple setups in a similar vein (i.e. vanilla townies vs. vanilla mafia).
I suspect my case is just due to Void being extra-cautious, but I'd still like some consideration whether this rule needs to be so immoderately written or enforced.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
GET IT RIGHT
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Those kinds of urges can be controlled with medication.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
It is if someone does it!
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
I wonder if you could do that game with two competing Arsonists and 10 townies, and if one arsonist decides to strike his match, all doused players by either Arsonist go up (except that an Arsonist can't commit suicide in this way - an Arsonist can only be lit up by the other Arsonist's match).
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia