The Current Situation

[Alydar]

Apologies for the pause; I needed time to weigh my options and figure out how this round was going to proceed. Long story short, Heather has resigned. The level of difficulty of the tournament, as well as the pace of the current game, has proven too much for her. With this sudden resignation, there become logistic difficulties from my end.

The best answer would be to bring in a Substitute. As some of you may have noticed, our Substitute situation is quite lacking. I've contacted our reserves, but there's only so much to expect on short notice. We can continue with only three players, but it means that you guys don't get to play all of the games. It's something that I would certainly like to avoid.

Should no Substitute appear to take over, my suggestion would be to bring in a player from the Winner's Round to compete with the three of you. That player could get profit or debt but is in no risk of elimination. Heather would be eliminated, and one of the three of you would be eliminated. The player competing with you would be decided through popular choice from the three of you, as well as consent from the joining player. Should that fail to fill the gap, the best option would be to count your matches against Heather as wins by default and move forward.


Please respond by post, PM, or Skype message regarding whether or not you would like to compete with a player from the Winner's Round. If you would already like to offer suggestions, go ahead. If a Substitute responds, this conversation is moot, but I don't want to delay any longer if it can be helped. For the time being, I've paused both of your games, so the three of you can discuss this without having to worry about your games at the moment. Yes, this means the end of Russian Roulette will probably be delayed, but my hope is that we can set up times on Skype to speed through the endgames.

My apologies again for the delay. This caught me by surprise, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to handle this in a short time.

[sorintheseeker]

Thanks for the update!

I can definitely see both points of view.

On one hand, it would suck not to play one of the games by declaring any game against Heather to be an auto-win. That's not the most fun.

On the other hand, it would suck to have two players eliminated by swapping in a Winners Round person. Also if I was a Winners Round person swapped in, with no threat of elimination, I would play the games completely differently. My goal would be to gain favors and deals in exchange for losing. (I personally don't care about debt/winnings of yen.) That would change the nature of the games both in design and to make them more political, which I doubt was factored into when the games were created. It would change from skillful playing with the winner's round person to "If you lose, I'll give you....." Which I don't think would be any fun.


What if we continued playing all 3 games while continuing to look for a substitute? We're only at the start of 3 games, which might take a month or so in total anyway. We can continue to look for a substitute while playing out the 3 games. Maybe game #2 17 card poker Whitelion vs Fiona can start simultaneously right now. Then if a substitute is found, they can always catch up by playing two games at once (not ideal, but doable). That way we have more time to find someone without stalling, games can continue, and if someone is found, that person can catch up by playing 2 games at once. What do you think?

[WhITelion]

Aug 19, 2015 16:00:12 GMT Alydar said:

Apologies for the pause; I needed time to weigh my options and figure out how this round was going to proceed. Long story short, Heather has resigned. The level of difficulty of the tournament, as well as the pace of the current game, has proven too much for her. With this sudden resignation, there become logistic difficulties from my end.

TL;DR: We need a new player.

The best answer would be to bring in a Substitute. As some of you may have noticed, our Substitute situation is quite lacking. I've contacted our reserves, but there's only so much to expect on short notice. We can continue with only three players, but it means that you guys don't get to play all of the games. It's something that I would certainly like to avoid.

Should no Substitute appear to take over, my suggestion would be to bring in a player from the Winner's Round to compete with the three of you. That player could get profit or debt but is in no risk of elimination. Heather would be eliminated, and one of the three of you would be eliminated. The player competing with you would be decided through popular choice from the three of you, as well as consent from the joining player. Should that fail to fill the gap, the best option would be to count your matches against Heather as wins by default and move forward.

My take on this:
1) Bringing in a Substitute: Solve all problems, but we need a fresh one.
2) Bringing in a player from Winner's Round: Personally, I think that this wouldn't work.
The Revival Round is designed around giving people the chance to advance after being eliminated in the main game.
Giving a participant immunity from elimination has the potential to break the game like what sorintheseeker stated.

Please respond by post, PM, or Skype message regarding whether or not you would like to compete with a player from the Winner's Round. If you would already like to offer suggestions, go ahead. If a Substitute responds, this conversation is moot, but I don't want to delay any longer if it can be helped. For the time being, I've paused both of your games, so the three of you can discuss this without having to worry about your games at the moment. Yes, this means the end of Russian Roulette will probably be delayed, but my hope is that we can set up times on Skype to speed through the endgames.

Delay is acceptable.

My apologies again for the delay. This caught me by surprise, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to handle this in a short time.

Anyway, to sum up, my solution from best scenario to worst:
1) A Substitute responds. (I assume that your side has ran out of backup players, so minimal chance)
2) Fetching someone from Winner's, but he/she/it has to undertake the same risk of elimination in exchange. Nothing is free. Doing this can potentially bring the number of players left to 11 by next round, or 7 if ties happen. Because no one likes to play Musical Chairs with 7 players... No.
3) Fetching... A Dealer. Yes, this is absurd, but I can see this working somehow.
4) Default wins.

My commentary is in red.
Time for some mathematics:
In a 4-player game, with this particular situation, assuming that three players have a default win:
A: 1-0
B: 1-0
C: 1-0
D: 0-3
Leading to two possible results, no tiebreaker required thus there would be no way to insert the last game in.
Moving forward up the ladder, option 3) can now kick in.
The players who advance have the choice of playing a Dealer for more cash. If they refuse, fine. If they accept, they would play their missing games.
Option 3) cannot stand on its own because a player with an infinite bankroll is absurd regarding elimination games.
Options 2) and 1) cannot be combined with other options, and resolve as normal.
About sorintheseeker's option:
Sure, I'm fine with playing two games, if it comes to that.

[Alydar]

So. Waiting for a Substitute requires a Substitute to be available and ready to play quickly, which is an unknown at the moment. If a Substitute becomes available, that will be the default option.

Getting someone from the Winner's Round definitely has problems. On one hand, having someone in the game who's not facing threat of elimination is not how the game was meant to be played. On the other, I doubt that anyone from the Winner's Round would agree to take on another game AND threat of elimination. It's the "cleanest" solution, but I'd prefer only to go along with it if the three of you agree.

Ignoring the Heather games has another problem: you guys miss out on a game. Fiona misses out on Russian Roulette, sorintheseeker on 17 Card Poker, and WhITelion on Stationary Roulette. Also, trophy problems, if you guys care about them.

Regarding an option of playing a Dealer for more cash... I can definitely keep my behind-the-scenes off the site and away from the rest of the Dealers, to keep things fair. Realize that Confessionals are visible to Dealers, so your strategy reveals would have to be kept to Skype/PMs with me. If the three of you agree to this option, I can go through with that. Know that the Dealer would keep the same restrictions as the rest of you regarding money.

Another option that I've been considering and have recently decided is worth presenting: 3-player round-robin. Each of you plays against each of the other two in each of the games. This means that each of you have two games to play. You have separate banks against each player, and the average of the two will be your endgame total. Twice as many games means twice as many victory points and whatnot. It also probably means altered trophies. But whatever, it's doable. My main concern is that it's twice the work on your ends...


That gives us 5 options:
1) Substitute (you guys can't vote on this; if it happens, it happens)
2) Winner's Recruit (would like unanimous agreement here; if so, the Winner's Recruit is not at risk of elimination, and only one of you three will be eliminated)
3) Dealer Proxy (optional vs.Dealer instead of vs.Heather; requires unanimous agreement on this option)
4) Round Robin (twice the everything; probably unanimous as well)
5) No Heather (default option; each of you misses out on a game)

#1 is the best but is out of our hands. #2-4 are varying, and I'd prefer you all to be fine with whatever option we go with, if we go with one. If you guys can't agree on things, #5 is the default option. Oh, and if you guys have more options, I'm open to hearing. For now, I'd like to hear which of #2-4 you guys are fine with doing. Public or private approval is fine by me.

[WhITelion]

Descending order of preference:
1)
3)
4)
5)
2)

[Fiona]

I'll go with 1,2=3=4,5. Inserting an winner does change the dynamics significantly, but I wouldn't say that change is necessarily for the worse.

[sorintheseeker]

I don't like the idea of a dealer or a winner's round player substituting in, I think it creates more problems than it solves.

I don't think it's a problem at all for us to auto-win one game, no big deal. I like the solution I presented in my previous post.

The round robin idea sounds intriguing. I don't understand the "separate banks" thing though and I don't get how our money would factor into each game / the total / the end result.


~first choice~
1
5
.
.
.
.
.
.
4
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
2=3
~last choice~

[Alydar]

For the Round Robin idea, money would work as follows:

Each of you has 150 chips to use against each opponent. So sorintheseeker would have 150 chips to use against WhITelion and 150 chips to use against Fiona. At the end of Russian Roulette, your chip totals carry over into 17 Card Poker. Say sorintheseeker vs. WhITelion ended with sorintheseeker at 135 chips and WhITelion at 165 chips. Say sorintheseeker vs. Fiona ended with sorintheseeker at 200 chips and Fiona at 100 chips. Going into 17 Card Poker, sorintheseeker would have 135 chips in his game with WhITelion and 200 chips in his game with Fiona.

Now, let's say those were the endgame totals. You were each lent 300 chips, and we're collecting 200 of them. Instead of each being worth 1M yen, each is worth 0.5M yen. So 135 + 200 = 335. Return 200 -> 135 chips. Each is worth 0.5M yen -> sorintheseeker earns 67.5M yen. That said, if you play poorly, you can certainly lose money as well... Though remember, victory points are separate, so winning is often more important than money. As with the other options, only one of the three of you would be eliminated.


At the moment, #2 and #3 seem off the table. If people are fine with #4 (Round Robin), we'll go ahead with that shortly. If not, we'll go ahead with #5 (default). That said, if one of you really wants #2 or #3, there's time to present benefits to each other and possibly bring them back onto the table.

[Alydar]

Player #25 (shadow) has helpfully decided to take over for Heather. As such, the games should resume immediately. If you guys would like to set up a time with me and your opponent to try and go through the rounds more quickly on Skype or the forums, you may do so. In the meantime, the games will go at their normal pace. The Fiona vs. shadow game may have a slightly longer setup phase to accommodate the newcomer.

Thank you for your suggestions and input, and apologies once more for the delay.