TWG CIX: The Borderland sign up

[stdio]

​Bad news people, it’s The Borderland not Borderlands. Sorry about that.

This is a revised version of twdog’s timer game (TWG 101), so you might all ready know the basic concept. Theme wise, it’s loosely based on “The Borderland”, a 1963 episode of The Outer Limits that failed to fully realize it’s very intriguing premise and was most famous for being one of the inspirations for an obscure little indie game no one ever heard of called Half Life.

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In a laboratory, one of the great scientists of the age has discovered a way to create a gateway, to another plane of existence, a surreal reality adjacent to our own. It’s been dubbed The Borderland and it’s a mysterious poorly understood place that seems to affect our own in strange and confusing ways.

I said a great scientist, and indeed he is, but sadly a scientist whose genius has hitherto been unrecognized by the ignorant masses. Well, today that changes. Some people, the timid, the small minded, the hacks ... might think that sending unmanned probes would be the best way to explore this place. That it’s just too risky to send humans thorough incredibly unstable and experimental portals that we only vaguely understand. But this is SCIENCE!!! damn it! We have no interest in what those bumblers in the academy think! Called me a madman did they! A charlatan did they! Well, who is crazy now!!! They laughed at me, the fools, I’ll show them all!

We WILL open the gateway to The Borderland, go in it, through it, and beyond. Of course, we must ensure that the power levels for the interdimensional gateway are kept constant because any unexpected fluctuations could have catastrophic consequences. Not that anything like that would happen, why, the only way such a thing could happen is through deliberate sabotage!

Now, all I need is a few volunteers. It’s perfectly safe, no doubt about that.

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In this game, we’ll have the usual wolves vs. humans maul/lynch mechanics. But there will also be a “gateway power level” that decreases every day and night (this replaces the end of world timer in TWG101), and if it reaches zero the maul or lynch is skipped. Players can optionally make a private choice to increase the power level, but if the power goes too high then, well, that will have consequences too.

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Current players (11):

ryvvn
7-zark-7
dfer
rekard
admetus
sphenodont
okaros
aldax
Jrsthethird
blindsniper83
hellheart

[Ryvvn]

In

[7-zark-7]

In-ish. What is your start date?

Technically I have this week off. In reality that means I'm playing mister mom while my wife catches up on wife stuff. My kids are literally riding me around the house leaving no hands free to game on.

More (or less) in a bit,

7z7

[stdio]

In-ish. What is your start date?

Day 1 starts on the 20th

Given that we're trying to do 2 games a month, and that you want to give people time to sign up for the game, I'm wondering if we shouldn't maybe start signups for the next game while the current one is ongoing. Maybe post the signup thread on day 4. The game is usually about half over then, and besides, day 4 is the day of reckoning. Whatever people want to do of course, it's not my call

[dferrantino]

In-ish. What is your start date?

Day 1 starts on the 20th

Given that we're trying to do 2 games a month, and that you want to give people time to sign up for the game, I'm wondering if we shouldn't maybe start signups for the next game while the current one is ongoing. Maybe post the signup thread on day 4. The game is usually about half over then, and besides, day 4 is the day of reckoning. Whatever people want to do of course, it's not my call

Pretty sure I mentioned that needing to be a thing when we switched to the current model, so yes, definitely start doing this.

Also in.

[rekard]

I will play

[Admetus]

In! I missed the last one of these. It sounds straightforward enough. Never vote to extend, easy win.

[sphenodont]

In.

[Okaros]

An Interdimensional gateway, huh? What could possibly go wrong!

[Aldax]

In

[Jrsthethird]

I will play.

[7-zark-7]

what the hell. Game on.

More in a bit,

7z7

[Blindsniper83]

in

[stdio]

It just occured to me I should make an ars post, so I created an account to do that. Now I just need to spam enough posts to use the PM system ...

[dferrantino]

One of the other mods got overzealous and deleted your post. I'm flogging them now.

[dferrantino]

Also might have deleted your account...

[stdio]

lol!

edit:


I don't really post to ars, so if you or whoever wants to make the post that's fine by me.

[Hellheart]

In. May RP if my anxiety dies down enough before this starts.

I would totally RP Cave Johnson if I could pull that off, but sadly that's beyond my capabilities. There'll be enough material to keep that up for weeks.

[Okaros]

I would totally RP Cave Johnson if I could pull that off, but sadly that's beyond my capabilities. There'll be enough material to keep that up for weeks.

Future opportunities will arise, I'm sure. Maybe roleplay lifting weights for a while to bulk up for the role?

[dferrantino]

lol!

edit:


I don't really post to ars, so if you or whoever wants to make the post that's fine by me.

You're good to go now, but you'll have to recreate stdio. The Sam apologizes.

[stdio]

The Sam apologizes.

Let's be honest, he's an iostream fan, isn't he?

[Okaros]

Let's get to work people, these trans-dimensional gateways aren't going to test themselves!

[7-zark-7]

Do we have wormsign? Because that just doesn't seem sanitary or on target at all...

More in a bit,

7z7

[Okaros]

No sign of life from the gate yet.

[stdio]

Sorry everyone for dropping off the face of the earth.

So initially I had planned this game to have a bunch of exotic rules and roles, plus a 3rd party dead faction that’d be coming into the borderlands from another universe, kinda like the combine in half life. Unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers to support all that, and I’ve made some attempts to pare things down, but it’s just turning into a giant unbalanced mess that people aren’t going to enjoy, and we’re already a day late on even getting started.

So I’m starting this game right now and it’s going to be a vanilla game with standard rules and roles. Wolves get a roleblocker, humans get jailer and vig.

Besides, the last game was extra special, so this might be a palette cleanser.

[stdio]

roles are out, let me know if you didn't get one

[stdio]

I made the dayboard read only for people not playing but might want to follow along, let me know if you'd like to be added to the dead board

[DastardlyOldMan]

Bah, I was burned out on the crazy-special games; would've jumped in for vanilla.

Keep me read-only for a couple of days as a potential replacement if something pops up, and then you can add me to the dead, please.

[Ryvvn]

Did an email ever go out for this game to increase signups? FCM's pretty bummed she missed out, and I forgot to directly mention it to her.

[stdio]

I sent out an email to the "email optin group" so I'm not sure what happened there. Anyway, I've got 3 people that haven't picked up their role PM, so adding another player and randomly re-rolling that group lets me put her in the game while still having some secrecy

[Ryvvn]

Okay, I'll tell her to keep an eye out since EoD is looming.

[stdio]

she should be ready to go now