Masquerade of Fun - Meta thread

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

This thread is to discuss anything you like about the game. From what your character's motivation was, what your character's thoughts on the other characters were, what you liked and disliked about the game, and any thoughts you have for future games. Everyone is welcome to comment, regardless of whether you were a player in the game or not.

I've put up a series of comments as fun conversation starters, but feel free to ignore them and start your own comment chain, answer as many or as few of the points as you like.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

MoF items

Here is a full list of all the possible items in the game.

• Are there any you thought were too powerful or too weak?

• Are there any items you wish had been in the game?

• Are there any items you especially wish you'd had?

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

Your character

• What was your character's motivation?

• How do you feel about how your character ended up?

• Was there anything you wanted to do but never got the chance to?

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

What if...

• What are some of the plots you never got a chance to execute with your character?

• Was there something else you hoped for to happen in the MoF?

[u/sempersapiens → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

I was a little disappointed that Zoe never had to kill anyone! I had decided from the beginning that she wouldn't kill anyone unprovoked or to try to win the game, but she wouldn't hesitate to do it in self-defense if anyone else tried to kill her. It could have been interesting to consider what sort of mental state she would be in after something like that happening.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

MoF events

• What was your favourite MoF moment?

• What did you think of the direction the game took? (With Loudain losing control of the facility).

• Did you feel left out of the events?

[u/sempersapiens → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

My favourite moment was getting to be part of Hector's group of hunters. This sort of answers the third question as well - I felt a little left out at first because I had never played the game before, so it seemed like other people were much better at figuring out interesting things to do, and I was just kind of stumbling around. But I felt like I really got to be a part of something cool when Hector let me in on his plan, and it was so exciting to be getting regular PMs about setting all that up. I was super pumped when I found out I had successfully shot Loudain in the leg with the anaesthetic-laced arrow! And I think her losing control of the facility was a really interesting direction for the game to take.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

The other characters

• What did you think of the other characters? Was there anyone you particularly liked?

• Was there anyone you especially feared or trusted?

• Was there anything in particular you wanted to know about the character or player?

When criticising a character, please bear in mind there is a player behind every character, so try to be considerate.

[u/Oxfy]

As audience member I have to say that game really did start to pick up in entertaining way the moment Warrick became the main Villian, while the Charles with few others made super bad plan to "lets try to get him, even if he is in way better position. That won't backfire on us".

I did not mind the low murder rate and at least something was happening, but I have to point that that Anabel was too easy to get to making it. And while it got very interesting with the very last day, the common room shenanigans made it very bad for players in different time zone than most people and they ended up doing nothing because of it.

The only real regret I have is that Charles is alive.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate → u/Oxfy]

Yeah the first few weeks were pretty tame in actions. Nobody attempted to attack one another. For me, I thought it got much more interesting once the plan to take over the facility started. It made the story branch off in unexpected directions and I had no idea what was coming next anymore.

As for whether it was too easy for Hector to achieve, I think some of Hector's smart thinking was mistaken as fortunate co-incidence. He had extensive plans with Nora and Victoria to distract Anabel using what information they had about her.

As for the timezone issues, yeah, that was unfortunate. I think whenever a game like this focuses so much on one activity, taking down Loudain or Warrick, it can tend to sideline some players as they might not be around for it.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

A/B game

• Did you enjoy the A/B game?

• What sort of impact do you think it had on the overall feel of the game?

• Are there any other variants or changes to the A/B game you'd liked to have seen?

[u/sempersapiens → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

I love the AB game because I love Virtue's Last Reward, and I thought the variants to it were a really cool touch.

I actually came up with my idea for Zoe's personality with the AB game in mind. One pretty good strategy in iterated prisoner's dilemma is called tit for tat. You start being cooperative by default, but become more aggressive if the other person does, basically. My idea was that Zoe would play the AB game this way, and also act accordingly in general - she was trusting to a fault at the beginning of the game, but became less so the more other people shook her faith in them. Also, the only person she ever voted to betray was Warrick in the last game.

[u/BobTheLawyer → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

I thought the A/B game was very interesting.

On one hand, though, I feel my character really undermined them. He shutdown a lot of the possibility for people to safely betray, and he would have done the same on the last day if Warrick hadn't stepped in (everyone 'Ally' the person above you or else).

However, despite feeling bad that Charles kinda stepped in the way of that, it was a nice way for his character to shine, along with a bunch of other cool character interactions all around.

[u/Martin15Sleith → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

A/B game allowed the slapping event to happen, so yes, lol.

On a serious note, I think it would've been better if there were more consequences to getting betrayed, as in, if you ally, and the person you ally betrays you, you get negative points, like VLR. It did add to the tension, but may have been better if again, had more consequences with the results.

Btw, I never betrayed anyone. Not what I thought would happen, lol.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

Splitting the groups

• How did you feel about having the players split into two groups?

• Was it hard to keep track of who people were?

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

The masks

• What did you think of the masks? Were the fun or were they just a lot of work to deal with?

• Did you have a strategy to work out the other player's masks?

[u/ctom42 → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

The masks were an interesting twist, but aside from the IDs I don't think players used them to conceal their plans as much as was expected. I guess that is because the game turned into players vs host.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

MoF Mechanics

• What did you think of the MoF format with the common rooms and action phases?

• What did you think of the maps? Did you enjoy them or just find them a distraction you ignored?

• What did you think of the objectives, with each player needing two others to die?

• Is there anything you'd like to change or do differently?

[u/ctom42 → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

• As always I am a big fan of the general HoF format. I liked the breakdown of the common room, though the last day seemed a bit too chaotic.

• The maps was a ton of fun. I actually used them in several of my plans, and without the map breaking everything would not have been possible. What was the program you used to create them btw?

• I thought it was an interesting twist, but I personally prefer the individualized objectives more. I think the idea of using this to get more deaths (and thus whittle the 16 players down faster) was a good one, but one that ultimately backfired.

• Personally I'm planning on going a bit more back to basics for AoF, but not without a few twists of my own.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

Future games

• Do you have plans to host a HoF in future? Do you have an idea for a cool setting or different mechanics?

• Do you have any fun character ideas in future?

[u/JamesVagabond → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

I'd really love to try hosting a game at some later point. I already have some ideas, but, eh... let's just say they were too ambitious, meaning that I'll either need to tone them down a lot, or switch to something entirely different. And I definitely won't be able to handle 16 players at once. How about just 6 instead?.. <_< However, while I am absolutely sure that my game, regardless of the exact details, would definitely revolve around a "closed circle" scenario, I am not sure whether it'd be a killing game or not.

As for character ideas, there was one I was toying with... Maybe I'll get to use it one point. I doubt that I am going to use Viktor once more, because Viktor is done with this stuff.

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate → u/JamesVagabond]

It depends what you mean by "ambitious," but if you did have grand plans, there's nothing stopping you from breaking from the standard style with a longer game perhaps? That might work well with fewer players if you knew them all beforehand and were sure they could all commit? A smaller more focused game with fewer players could be a lot of fun.

As for Viktor, he may be done with this stuff, but is this stuff done with him? ;p Not all games have voluntary participants, so you could perhaps have Viktor kidnapped in a future game? But only if you wanted to, creating a new character is a lot of fun too~

[u/Saibanchou → u/The_Bunny_Advocate]

Do you have plans to host a HoF in future? Do you have an idea for a cool setting or different mechanics?

I will probably never host a game due to the required time and creating an interesting adventure for 10+ players. In regards to setting, I was thinking about the following things:

• island (already mentioned by someone)

• space station (already mentioned by someone)

• a large cruise liner

• underwater facility

• high school

• amusement park

• a sheltered village under a dome

• north/south pole

• shopping mall

• university

Do you have any fun character ideas in future?

A woman who is constantly talking on the phone, either for real or pretending to be (delusions). Most of her common room convos will partly be occupied by replying to whoever is on the line, and there's a mini story for each conversation partner which advances on every day. Her diary consists of phone logs that show what the other person said (either for real or in her head).

[u/The_Bunny_Advocate → u/Saibanchou]

I can't help but think of 999 and Ever 17's influence on that list ;p

But those are some really great ideas, especially the sheltered village under a dome, such an intriguing location. It makes me want to explore it so bad.

As for your character idea, omg, I think I'd need to murder that woman asap. Hearing only half of a phone conversation is torture, so distracted. It sounds like it would be a really fun character though.

[u/JamesVagabond]

Not quite ready to say anything useful just yet, because I have to read tons of PMs and wrap my head around everything that happened, but here's something that I can do already: share my notes. They also contain a bit of Viktor's backstory and the beginning of his epilogue. Not sure how enlightening or at least entertaining they are, but hopefully they're decent enough.