GAME OVER!

15th: Henry
14th: Primate
13th: Eric
12th: Zersch
11th: KC

-JURY-

10th: Miko
9th: Herm
8th: Alex
7th: Nofo
6th: Josh
5th: Boc
4th: Wikey

-FINALISTS-

Runner-Up: Brian
Runner-Up: TiB
Winner: Dylan

http://www.ndimforums.com/gameofthrones4/forummain.asp

Every season I like to use this thread to poll the players and pick their brains a little bit about the format. As you know, every season's format is different and that's pretty likely to continue

This format was closer to s3. We had The Small Council during the first large chunk of the game before switching to the Condemn/Spare format towards the end. What'd you think, any tweaks you would make? Which of the two did you prefer? And if you've played throughout the series which format did you prefer the most so far? I had so many variations in mind for this one and it took much longer than usual for me to decide which one to go with, so I've got a good amount of tweaks I can make based on your feedback

GIMME YOUR THOUGHTS

Just Seb @ 4/5/2018 23:36

Who let Dyl win. Smh

You by not playing

No one using the Council betrayal was definitely the saddest part, I wanted to see that happen so badly

I took a big risk with the king/queen not having safety bit. BUT TO BE FAIR...they were always safe (: . I think a Council betrayal was probably just unlikely to happen so winning the throne was still a strong bet you'd be safe. Plus the fact that 2nd and 3rd always ended up being safe too. With the worst two challenge performers marked, I didn't want the season to be toooo much about challenge skill so I figured it'd balance it out if the people at the top weren't necessarily 100% safe

I will say this format made things so unpredictable. Both of the formats this season really. As a round started it was pretty impossible to predict who might be leaving that round, things could twist in all kinds of directions depending on what roles people landed in

We nearly hit the 4 year anniversary of GoT3

I will definitely be doing a s5 sooner rather than later. Certainly not 2022 (:

One other thing I nearly did was a subforum for every pair of players. So instead of communicating via PM, you would have one hidden subforum for you and every other player. Only the two of you and spectators would be able to see it obviously

Would you guys like that/hate that/make no difference? It'd essentially be the same for you guys since PMs convos are threaded style anyway. The difference would be that me/spectators could finally read all convos / players can read other convos after the game ends. Do you think subforum style for communication would push you to talk to people faster/more frequently than PMs?

Wouldn't really be too much work to set up even though there'd be a lot, it's something I could do well ahead of time bit by bit

thisisbad @ 5/5/2018 1:01

yeah I might not be alive then. I keep going back and forth between this is nerve wracking i'll never play again and hurry up and get it started already. That 24 hour challenge was evil. Sleeping on my couch and having my alarm go off every 30 mins had my gf questioning my sanity.

Ahhh TiB, such an ORG virgin. I have challenge stories for you that will boggle the mind

Boc @ 5/5/2018 2:48

And I think the format was pretty balanced, maybe the best one yet? I don't really remember the details of the previous ones though

Season I [King’s Choice]
King’s Challenge. Winner is King/safe. King chooses one player to enter the duel and a Hand who will also be safe. The dueler picks one player to face off against, cannot pick King or Hand


Season II [Factions]
Two factions of players. King’s Challenge to find one King per ‘tribe’, that player is safe. Each faction votes one of their own into the duel. The two players from rival factions fight to the death.

Season II.I [Peasant’s Choice]
At the ‘merge’, the King is safe, everyone votes for one person to duel, that one person chooses anyone but the King to face off against


Season III [The Hand]
King’s Challenge. Winner is safe. All peasants vote one person into the arena. At the same time, the King privately chooses his Hand. The peasant vote and Hand choice are revealed at the same time. If the Hand choice was the player to receive the most votes, they are pardoned and the second highest goes into the arena instead. The Hand always chooses the second dueler


Season IV [The Small Council]
King’s Challenge. Top three form the Small Council, bottom two are Marked for death. Council chooses one of the two to go into the arena. If their decision is split then whoever was left out goes in instead . At the same time, all peasants vote for a second person to go into the arena

Season IV.II [Spare/Condemn]
Later on, the King’s Challenge winner is safe, the bottom is Marked for death. The King decides to spare or condemn the Marked player while the peasants vote to send someone into the duel. If condemned, Marked player will fight whoever was voted in. If spared, Marked player is safe and the two with the most votes duel instead


S1/3 also had the whole thing with the King remaining in power if their dueler choice was victorious and they were usurped if their pick was slain. That meant less King’s Challenges and a faster game (mostly the reason why I did it that way). But I’m glad I did away with it. This season wasn’t AS brisk because of it but it’s overall worth it

I think each one has its merits and its issues. S3/4 allowed for more strategy so I preferred them, they were more unpredictable. S1/2 were dicey in their own way because if you have a bad relationship with dueler #1 then they could easily pick you to be dueler #2

I wouldn’t mind seeing Spare/Condemn play out from the start of a season. Partly because I just really like the visual of a thumbs up or thumbs down to decide someone’s fate (: . It’s v thematic

I liked s3’s but I had to save time somewhere for this one and waiting for the Hand to show up and pick the second dueler always bumped the duel posting time around. I don’t think it happened often but it sucked waiting til the next day for them to make that choice

I’d LOVE to do an all-live season sometime but obviously some of you couldn’t do that. It’d be so fun to meet each night for a King’s Challenge/vote/duel all in a row. Obviously challenges would be adjusted to make sure each night would go quick. It’d be five live nights and then a non-live weekend round. Probably a two week game, I’d just have to find a group capable of making those times

I also far prefer coming up with live challenges. I don’t like flash games either but they can be lazy/useful to pepper in here. It’d be easier to get rid of them if the season was live

Josh @ 5/5/2018 5:53

I wasn't a HUGE fan of not being safe if you weren't in the top 3 but I think that's because I really like challenges. Also less flash games. I was so ready to compete in the arena because the previous duels were like puzzles and things like that and then I got hit with a flash game and it was O V E R.

In previous seasons the King would decide which type of duel the two would compete in from four categories. Either puzzles, speed posting, flash game, or misc. That gave the King more power if he wanted a particular person to die and knew what they were good/bad at. But for this one I pre-picked a fairly even number of all four because I didn't wanna have to have a challenge written up at hand depending on what the King picked (:

Nofo @ 5/5/2018 9:12

Why is Josh so celebrated in orgs? He sucked here.

owow

Nofo @ 5/5/2018 9:15

Curtis @ 5/5/2018 8:38 I’d LOVE to do an all-live season sometime but obviously some of you couldn’t do that. It’d be so fun to meet each night for a King’s Challenge/vote/duel all in a row. Obviously challenges would be adjusted to make sure each night would go quick. It’d be five live nights and then a non-live weekend round. Probably a two week game, I’d just have to find a group capable of making those times Stranded does it so there's totally an audience for it

Well yaw, I could've gotten away with it with the Saus crowd. Shadow's done a full live season for his series

Just easier with an ORG crowd than with the FE crowd but maybe someday I'll grab a mix of both and run it

thisisbad @ 5/5/2018 10:21

I didn't mind that the king wasn't safe. The only time anything bothered mewas the last condemned person got to choose who to fight.

You would've hated the first two seasons then. Whoever was picked to go into the duel always chose who would face them

If only I could read PMs like the FFA’ers think :(