PBW : Paranoia2

[PvK]

Spirit of the Rules didn't hold up well in the Last game. Without a clear definition, people played to different victory conditions. Hopefully the spirit can be explained quite clearly beforehand, so players may most or all agree on what game they are playing, and not get surprised when the game ends in a way that seems to violate the spirit they had in mind.

E.g. Last time the weakest player made almost no effort to stay alive, and got practically all his neighbors to hate him by attacking them, ignoring their gifts, etc. Another player who was one of the strongest then decided to try to hold the weakest player hostage to convince his target to destroy his own system grav shields, because he didn't think he could beat his target, and when that didn't work, he just killed off the weakest player (who wasn't his target) to end the game. It seemed to me those were both pretty big violations of what I thought the spirit of the game was, since the main rules were:

1. Stay Alive
2. Kill your target.
3. Keep all other players alive.

PvK

[Unknown_Enemy]

Wrong, it was the Drachir who decided to end the game, and did it.
Then, the politic that was used did not work, but nothing in the game can nor must prevent you from choosing who will NOT win.

It is part of paranoia.
So I would say that the rule to keep other empires alive is not mandatory. It is just an obligation as long as you think you can win.

You seem to be quite bitter about this game. I also notice you discuss much the details of the rules, but did not join.


[ November 26, 2003, 22:23: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

[PvK]

I'm pointing out the weaknesses of the Last game, in case it saves some of the players of this game some grief later on. Seems like it'd be good to benefit from past experience. I'm not bitter about the Last game, though I did end up feeling like I wished I hadn't spent a lot of time playing the end game, because of the anticlimactic ending. The game was still interesting. I wouldn't've guessed that players would get so apathetic and suicidal and end the game for everyone else out of ennui or whatever it was. However I wouldn't be interested in playing a game with the same weaknesses. It seemed pretty clear to me that such a game should not have a way to easily perpetuate a target, meaning no clever but easy loopholes (such as trading an escort for a boarding ship stacked with a colony ship next to an empty planet). And, that the rules should be very clearly agreed on beforehand, especially as regards players who stop caring about trying to win, and just go and end the game. If it's a valid move to end the game by killing someone besides your target on purpose, shouldn't that be at least defined in the victory conditions? Does the player who ends the game in a loss on pupose lose worse for being responsible for it? Or do they get some sort of consolation prize, so killing anyone else can be seen as a secondary objective? Does the person whose target died really win, even if they weren't even nearby when it happened?

PvK

[Unknown_Enemy]

Originally posted by PvK:
I'm pointing out the weaknesses of the Last game, in case it saves some of the players of this game some grief later on. Seems like it'd be good to benefit from past experience. I'm not bitter about the Last game, though I did end up feeling like I wished I hadn't spent a lot of time playing the end game, because of the anticlimactic ending. The game was still interesting. I wouldn't've guessed that players would get so apathetic and suicidal and end the game for everyone else out of ennui or whatever it was. However I wouldn't be interested in playing a game with the same weaknesses. It seemed pretty clear to me that such a game should not have a way to easily perpetuate a target, meaning no clever but easy loopholes (such as trading an escort for a boarding ship stacked with a colony ship next to an empty planet). And, that the rules should be very clearly agreed on beforehand, especially as regards players who stop caring about trying to win, and just go and end the game. If it's a valid move to end the game by killing someone besides your target on purpose, shouldn't that be at least defined in the victory conditions? Does the player who ends the game in a loss on pupose lose worse for being responsible for it? Or do they get some sort of consolation prize, so killing anyone else can be seen as a secondary objective? Does the person whose target died really win, even if they weren't even nearby when it happened?

PvK

Of course previous edition had weakness. However, you can put it the way you want, but the player who most agressively pursued victory became the winner. So I disagree on the "anticlimactic ending". More, as soon as you agree to jump in paranoia, you join a game of "sudden death". You will almost surely end up as a looser in perfect health. And the winner may not deserve his victory.

And no, there is no second place. One win, all other lose.

But what you wrote should send a strong warning to all Paranoia2 players : if someone is in position to destroy another empire, then the end game does not lie anymore within your reach. You're not anymore controlling the situation.
Political implications may be..upsetting.

But before we start, and before I hand over control of the game to Tesco, I will write an email to all players to summ up the rules of this game. I'll try to be as crystal clear as possible. If someone find a loophole, once reported, Tesco will have to deal with it (lucky guy, he is !)


Oh, just a thought, but the fact that paranoia1 created such strong feelings is just a hint of what a great game it has been. If we are only half as successful, Paranoia2 will be a bLast.

[Joachim]

Heh Unknown_Enemy,

I'm sure you have already noticed this but scout and freduk have indicated they are using the same ship set.... Obviuosly this will be a rather serious problem when the game gets a going.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Damn.

Thanks for the info. I'll ask the Last arrived player to fix that.

[se5a]

goodie!
I got there first
I already gave the tara set up on the adamant game.

[se5a]

ok how about this for end game.

"No more origanal population"

and if pop traiding is allowed then state that traiding population BACK is not. (this will stop players from traiding some population to another empire, using that empire as a "piggy bank" to get the population back if needed.

[PvK]

Originally posted by se5a:
ok how about this for end game.

"No more origanal population"

and if pop traiding is allowed then state that traiding population BACK is not. (this will stop players from traiding some population to another empire, using that empire as a "piggy bank" to get the population back if needed.

What if they capture their own population back? That could still be done by agreement to keep a weak target player alive. It would be a chore for the admin to have to prove that population never passed through another empire by one means or another.

(just trying to be helpful (raises shields ))

PvK

[Unknown_Enemy]

Sticking to "dead=no more planets".