I fully understand your viewpoint. I saw the game differently, of course. I felt that this game had most of its charm because there was some underlying roleplaying associated with it. Otherwise it's more a game of whoever has the most free time (and active members of their faction) wins, and that is less interesting to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diamondeye
Suppose for example all we ever played was vanilla mafia, and all we ever talked about was who the mafia were and why. No side jokes, no roleplay, no characters, no backstory, no funny/interesting writeups, nothing juicy, just the skeleton of the game itself. Blech!
This could be a game about who outvotes who the best, and who out-assassinates and who gangs up on whom the best.
That's less interesting to me than character development. I was less concerned about winning/losing, and more concerned with my character. I even played him as villainous to start with so that it would be possible for someone to actually have.... reasons.... to remove someone from the game first. People like to draw out the game and have fun with it, and the only one you can really think to remove first would be a slimy, hateful politician who isn't reasonable. I played my character as such, for fun, and to provide context for the game to advance. But I added more personality to it than that;
I envisioned him as a fat, bloated businessman, a shrewd politician, and somewhat idealistic about the merchant class being the true power behind the Republic, cynical about most other things. I pictured him as indifferent towards the religious faction, as that doesn't have much to do with business, and to him, it's such a waste of money. I pictured him as hostile toward the Populists, as he viewed them as vermin, trying to take his money, jealous of his success. I pictured him as grudgingly tolerant of the Civic faction, spotting them as a potential ally to gain power for himself, but hesitant towards and distrustful of them. The only faction he had any real respect for would be the Military faction, because soldiers always seemed to need supplies delivered, weapons made, grain shipped, horses bought, fleets commissioned, and kept barbarians from pillaging his shops. And the slaves, of course. Conquered enemies meant more slaves to trade.
Interested in keeping the Merchants powerful, but unwilling to die for this or any other cause, was this Mercantile Senator. Considering his rapport with the Military faction, and the fact that they had kept his faction from becoming extinct, and their support in removing the Populists, I felt it was in-character to look for a peaceful solution to the political problem. Think of him like you might the CEO of big banking firms. Do they want political power? Yes.... do they want to create civil wars to gain it? Not really.
I had layers to the character, however. With Secura choosing a rather attractive avatar for her character, I decided that my character wasn't a big pile of money and grease wearing a toga, but there was some sort of humanity to the character; even a glob of a Senator was still a Senator, and his money could attract the lower sort of riff-raff to his side if he wanted, but he wasn't interested in that. As disgusting as a character as he was, he had finer taste in women, and imagined only those sort of women that were beyond his reach; ones he could actually admire.
I imagined he fancied the Commander Secura character, even though he knew it wasn't going to happen. But he felt he could win her respect; friendship perhaps. After showing much loyalty to the Commander, and having subtle overtures of a more direct alliance overlooked, he started to feel ignored, and that weakened his connection to the Commander's character, and the Military faction in general. Near the end, when it was obvious the Mercantile were the faction that had been the most consistently loyal to the Military faction, but the Military faction continued to protect the hated Populists, the character contemplated seriously cutting all ties and openly opposing the Military. But, I also felt that he needed to give the Secura character another chance to make things right. Relations cooled, and he started working with the Civic, and focused on business first. There was a crossroads where Secura's character could have continued supporting the Populists, and that would have been the end of friendly ties.
That was the point where Mercantile had grown powerful enough, and the Consul faction (military) had grown powerful enough, that civil war was an option. Given how weak the Populists were at the time, and how powerful Civic and Mercantile were combined, I felt the stronger position was his. Civil war was a viable and possibly winning option. But it would still be out of character for him to call for such.
Two things; the character is shrewd enough to realize that the Populists needed to be destroyed at any cost first, so that Military would be right and properly isolated, and surrounded by Mercantile and Civic. Then the position would have been stronger. But the character is also sentimentally tied to the Commander Secura character, and he felt obligated to give her one more chance to forge a real alliance to destroy the Populists.... and then, depending on how the Military faction acted in the night, he could consider whether a Civil war was necessary. His opinion of the Military faction hinged entirely on how willing the Consul was to settle down and work together; if they would refuse, he would realize he could do nothing to even look like an equal in her eyes, and that the Mercantile faction was nothing but a stepping stone to power for her. As such, his faction, his livelihood, even his life would be in constant danger with them around. He would have realized they were a grave threat to the Republic, and therefore declared a Civil War, brokenhearted.
His initial dislike of the Populists could have been overturned, but I expected Romanic and Diamondeye to go out of their way to reverse my opinion of them. They were at times cordial enough to affect his opinion, but the rumor-spreading and backdoor politicking (however justified) just convinced the character that the Populists were scum that needed to be crushed. The opinion of the Religious faction would never have been all that great, especially after the behavior to get rid of the Mercantile faction with the Populists. But as both factions had been under heavy fire, and weren't able to vote as often as other factions, there was a kinship there, and Religious felt betrayed by the Populists, so there was a common enemy. His opinion of the Civic faction was always cool, however, if he needed to turn against the Military, he would have reconsidered his opinion of them and dismissed his earlier skepticism.
Anyway. I wanted there to be a bit more roleplaying, too; I felt the mechanics of the game (the voting every hour) sometimes got in the way of character development, and the focus on "winning" the game.... meh. I was in a previous thread war, and the only reason I joined it was to give the underdog faction a fighting chance and give a more climactic ending. In a surprise upset, the tide of the war eventually turned and that faction won.
I liked a lot of the roleplaying by the other players. It helped make the game much more immersive. I felt that the votes should have reflected some aspect of advancing the story or developing the characters; I think too often the votes were cast merely to try to win the game by rote, mechanical means; simply continue voting until you win.
I like treachery, backstabbing, loyalty, friendships, cutting quips, and delicious scandals. The voting was the least interesting part of the game to me.
I am sure some would have preferred a more... explosive, dynamic ending with a clear victor. It's easy enough to imagine; Secura exiles me and the Military faction crushes Slashandburn in a quick but brutal war, without any context or motivation for such a conflict beyond the desire to win the game. The context for such an ending was missing; but any character could have provided it. Slash could have triggered the war without my permission; Double A or Secura could have been more bloodthirsty or had directly attacked the Mercantile faction more at night; there were a bunch of ways that could happen, but ultimately, none of those triggers were pulled, and all the peace buttons were pushed.
Anywho. I'm sure this outcome doesn't appeal to everyone, but those are my thoughts. It was fun, for sure. Hope everyone had some.
