It's 1979.  The United States of America looks weak after its long, painful defeat in Vietnam.  Inflation and unemployment are rising at an unprecedented rate.  The Iranian Revolution has decimated the nation's oil supply.  The nation is in turmoil.

Following orders straight from the Kremlin, the KGB has activated sleeper cells within suburban Maryland.  Your neighbors, people with jobs and families just like yours, may be secretly working to strike the killing blow on Washington.

Who will you trust?

---

Lynch vote operates as normal; if at least 50% of the players have voted for one person, that player is killed and his or her role and victory conditions (VCs) are revealed.

Victory Conditions:

Most Innocent roles will have their victory conditions determined randomly, giving them unique motivations and goals.

First, one of these two VCs is rolled:

Fanatic - A fanatic does not need to live in order to win the game.  Innocents have a ⅔ chance of having this condition.
Survivor - A survivor cannot win if he or she is killed.  Innocents have a ⅓ chance of having this condition.

Then the allegiance-based VCs are rolled:

Patriot - A patriot can only win the game if all of the KGB agents are eliminated.  Non-Survivor innocents have a ⅔ chance of having this condition.
Traitor - A traitor can only win the game if all of the CIA agents are eliminated.  Most innocents have a ⅓ chance of having this condition.
Neutral - Neutral players do not care about the KGB or CIA agents being killed.  Only Survivors can have this condition; they have a ⅓ chance of any of the three allegiance-based conditions.

Innocent Roles:

Cop (Innocent) - Night Ability: May discover somebody’s victory conditions, but not their role.  The Cop’s identity is public from the beginning of the game.  Possible VCs: Any.

Husband and Wife (Innocents) - Two players who know that the other is not a CIA or KGB agent, but nothing else about one another’s victory conditions.  Possible VCs: Any.

Student (Innocent) - Starts with only the Survivor victory condition.  At any point during the game, the Student may choose to become a Patriot or a Traitor (via PM to me).  Can not win the game unless he or she decides to become one or the other by the end of Night 3.

Senator (Innocent) - Day Ability: May demand a hearing of any player during the day, twice per game.  That player’s role and victory conditions are immediately and publicly revealed.  Starts with the Patriot victory condition; the other is determined randomly.

Reporter (Innocent) - Automatic Ability: Every other night (starting on Night 2), the Reporter discovers the proportion of Patriots to Traitors.  His count can be off by as much as 10%.  Possible VCs: Any.

Vigilante (Innocent) - Night Ability: May kill a player, once per game.  Starts with the Fanatic victory condition, the other is determined randomly.

Grumpy Old Man (Innocent) - Starts as a Fanatic Patriot, and his VCs cannot be changed.

Fellow Traveler (Innocent) - Starts as a Fanatic Traitor, and his VCs cannot be changed.

CIA Roles:

All CIA agents are Patriot Fanatics.

Counter-Intelligence (CIA) - Night Ability: May discover any player’s role and victory conditions, once per night.

Indoctrination Expert (CIA) - Night Ability: May turn any innocent player into a Patriot, once per night.  If a KGB agent is targetted with this ability, the Indoctrination Expert is killed.

Covert Operations (CIA) - Night Ability: May kill a player, once per night.

KGB Roles:

All KGB agents are Traitor Fanatics.

Spy (KGB) - Night Ability: May discover any player’s role and victory conditions, once per night.

Brainwasher (KGB) - Night Ability: May turn an innocent into a Traitor, once per night.  If a CIA agent is targetted with this ability, the Brainwasher is killed.  (If an innocent is targetted by both the Indoctrination Expert and the Brainwasher, even on different nights, that innocent permanently becomes a Neutral Survivor.)

Assassin (KGB) - Night Ability: May kill a player, once per night.

Double Agents:

There may be a Double Agent within the ranks of the CIA and KGB simultaneously.  This player does have a concrete victory condition, and will be either a Fanatic Patriot or a Fanatic Traitor.  The precise nature of the Double Agent's powers and capabilities is unknown.

Endgame:

The game is over when all 3 CIA agents or all 3 KGB agents have been killed.

Sign up here!

Hello, my name is Kazz.  I've spoken with a few of you about my idea, but now I have decided to publicly exclaim it here.  That's the kind of thing that you do when you are very excited.  First, however, I feel that I must tell everybody the full truth about my recent activity.  That part won't be easy or fun, but it would be unfair for me to let some of you know and not others; secrets are a burden.

On the morning of Monday, March 25th, I gathered several of our fine kitchen knives and began to cut my arms and wrists.  I will spare you the details, but the self-attack lasted from 10:00am to roughly 3:00pm.  For those five hours, I was in a strange, nihilistic, marijuana-fueled ecstasy.  I'll remember it as the most terrifying moment of my life.

My conscious brain returned to me around 3, and I contacted my wife (whom you know as Lady Duke) and told her I needed to go to the hospital immediately.  At first she didn't know why, of course.  She stopped asking questions when I said "there is a lot of blood."

I was driven to a local hospital, where I was kept for roughly 48 hours.  I received a few dozen sutures in each wrist; they are still there now.  After 48 hours, I was taken to a mental health facility, where I remained for 5 nights under close observation.  I met a few incredible souls there, and I am thankful for every moment in that ward, as difficult as it was.

Up until the attack, I had been consistently self-medicating my anxiety and depression with pot.  It would force me into an "up" state; unfortunately, it would do this no matter what was going on.  It was easy to simply smoke myself happy, and I'll be resisting that temptation for the rest of my life.  If I'm lucky, and I can keep my strength, I will never smoke again.  (I've already long since sworn off alcohol; MAGfest is going to be a very different experience now.)

After a very long struggle, which will never truly be over, I have found clarity.  I know my life will not be easy, and I thank God for that.  I am deliberately choosing a difficult path, and I want you to walk it with me.  I have been pushing people away for a very long time.  Now, I want to invite all of you into my life; to stay, if you wish.

For the first time in 28 years, I have found ambition.  I have a goal that I believe in, and I understand my place on Earth.  Even if I fail, I wish to be proud of the work I do and the effort I put forth from here.

It seems I know a thousand people like me: intelligent, but lost.  We've never been able to do what we truly want.  Conceited as it sounds, I believe I was born to be an assembler, organizer, and leader.  I have confidence in myself, in my ideas and the potential of my work, and I want you to feel the same way.

So, here is the point.  I am going to start a videogame company.

Announcing here, now, and for all time, the founding of:

kodePunc;

I have assigned myself the job of Project Director.  I will be handling boring minutiae, tedious accounting, and lots and lots of planning.  I have one goal in mind at the moment: create a videogame.  There will be several hundred steps and probably a few years before this goal is reached, but I'm prepared for the long haul.  I know too many people with too much potential to let them waste it; so, I am recruiting.

My strategy is simple: I am going to organize a very large list of tasks, major and minor.  I'll handle some myself, but I'm smart enough to know that I can't do everything, and that things would be a tragic mess if I tried.  The rest of the tasks will require people to step forward and volunteer to take them on.  I'm subscribing wholeheartedly to my father's management philosophy: "Tell Why, Ask How."  I will give you a good reason to complete the job at hand, and then I will let you decide the best way to do so.  For this to work, I must trust you to get the most out of yourself.

The first project will be completed in two phases.

Phase 1: Organization and Development of an Alpha

Videogames, whether they are "art" or not (and I am not interested in the debate), are the combination of many artistic disciplines: storytelling, art, music and sound, acting, so on.  The best part is that they are wrapped in an interactive package, where the player is participant and often protagonist.  It is a rare opportunity to build an experience for someone else, and I'm very excited to try.

I wish to create a simple game.  I'm avoiding the word "casual"; Farmville is called a casual game while people pour thousands of hours into it, and that doesn't sound very casual to me.  I want to create a game that's as fun and interesting to play for ten minutes as ten hours.

I do, of course, have a few ideas myself, but I'm not interested in sharing them publicly just yet.  First, I want to describe the type of game that I feel would be best for this project.

Gamers have two minds; the action-oriented mind (excited by blasting aliens in Galaga), and the strategy-oriented mind (interested by outsmarting one's opponent in Chess).  The best games, as well as every human sport, involve both.  My father's philosophy applies equally here; a game should give the player a good reason to play, and then make success or failure dependent entirely on the player's concentration and effort.  Each failure must be caused by the player's own actions, and mistakes must be able to be remedied through practice and patience.  The only satisfying victories are hard-won and deliberate, and those victories must be celebrated and rewarded.  Luck is only a function of risk management; plodding low-risk strategies can work, but nothing beats a thrilling high-risk maneuver for the win.  The player must always be in control of his own level of risk and potential benefit.

Enough theory; I'm thinking that the most interesting and fruitful platform for development is the iPhone/Android, although as a PC gamer from birth I cannot disregard the potential of Steam.

Insert many months of discussion, design, and labor here.

At the end of Phase 1, we launch a Kickstarter for our project and raise enough funds to complete Phase 2.

Phase 2: Conversion to Beta, Refinement, and Preparation for Release

I pray, with every fiber of my being, that I am strong enough to reach this phase.  I can't begin to imagine what it will truly entail, but my hypothesis is that the interest and funding generated by the Kickstarter allows me to compensate volunteers for the hard work that has been done to this point, as well as greasing the wheels for the completion of the project.  I have a lot of research to do before I can make any financial or timeline estimates for this phase; part of living with anxiety is learning to become patient, to breathe, and to pace myself.  So, I will admit to no plans for this phase as of this posting.  I believe that we can get here in time, and will have a much clearer idea of what to do at that point.

It's time for my final thoughts, I suppose.  I've been writing this for over an hour, sitting in a cold garage at 3 in the morning, unabashedly wearing hoodie-footie pajamas and stopping, only reluctantly, to feed myself.

I'm asking you to join me.  This is a true commitment, for a future together.  I want to be part of something that is bigger than myself, bigger than the company I create.  Consider the beaver: industrious, yet humble, he is born without a place in the world.  He must create his own, damming up rivers and filling his own pond, and building his home there, stick by stick.  That's me, and it can be you, and it can be all of us.  Let's create our own place.  It doesn't have to be big, and I doubt we will become rich.  However, I believe that we are smart enough and talented enough to make a living from our shared passion.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope to hear from you.

- Kazz

* RED ALERT *

Attention XCOM Operatives:

I have grave news.  The extraterrestrials have perfected their ability to remotely control the human mind.  We know for a fact that they are presently using this technology on two of your fellow soldiers.  The aliens have access to their every memory, and can perfectly mimic their former personalities; men and women that have been enslaved in this manner cannot be saved.  They must be destroyed.

We have provided you with two devices capable of detecting psychic energy; they require a full day to recharge, so use them wisely.  A pair of flamethrowers have also been secretly given to certain of your comrades, and a box of grenades has been ordered through Amazon and should arrive tomorrow.

It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to quarantine you in the barracks.  You must annihilate the alien threat.  If you succeed, I can release you.  If you fail, the Earth's last line of defense against the aliens will die with you.

Godspeed.

XOXO The Council :3

---

Operative Roster:

Bakari
Cohen
Garcia
Grabowski
Guzman
Mahamud
Moreau
Russo
Saito
Schmidt
Young
Zhang

12 soldiers remain.

Guzman has the extra test today.

---

All rules are exactly the same as in Thing4.  Refer to them here: http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=6581.0

Small flavor changes: Dynamites are now referred to as Grenades, and Things are now referred to as Aliens.

There is no time limit for Day 1.  Everybody must check in before testing/voting can proceed.  Self-testing is not allowed, but self-voting is.  Be sure to bold all actions and votes.

HEY GUYS

my name is Kazz.  I've received Special Permission from Friday to run a THING game.

We will use EXACTLY THE SAME RULES that were used in Thing4.  http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=6581.0

With one exception.  We will be running the game with anonymous accounts.

I'll be creating them and giving them out myself, so you don't have to worry about registering accounts.  I'll PM you your game account name and password when the game begins.

Sign up here PLEASE

You Sunk My Wolfpire!

A bizarre objective-based hybrid of Werewolf and Battleship(tm)

Rules here: http://goo.gl/ug3Jp


(ooh, a fancy map!)

Sign up below!

The Mad King

A werewolf-style game for about 13 players.

There are two teams: the Kingdom and the Rebellion.  The old King has passed away, and his heir is a dick.  Therefore, he must be overthrown.

However, he has infiltrated the rebellion with a group of loyalist spies, or something.  Also his wife is dressed up in disguises.

Objectives:

The Kingdom wins if the Mad King is alive, and the number of players loyal to the Kingdom is equal to or greater than the number of those loyal to the Rebellion.

The Rebellion wins when the Mad King is killed.

There are a few possible third-party roles with their own objectives as well.

Kingdom Roles:

The Mad King - His identity is public from the start of the game.  He is immune to all night actions.  He may not be lynched until the Guardians are killed.  He may post whatever he likes, boasting and ranting and taunting the Rebellion.  He is, of course, included in the Kingdom’s private conversations and decisions.  The Mad King does not vote, and therefore does not count toward the Kingdom’s victory condition.

Guardians (2) - These men are responsible for keeping the Mad King safe.  If they are killed, the Mad King becomes vulnerable to lynching.  (The Mad King can never be targetted by night actions, even if the Guardians are dead.)

The Mad Queen - If the Mad King is lynched, and the Mad Queen is alive, she automatically sacrifices her life to allow the Mad King to survive for another day.

Mercenary - A player with no special powers who is loyal to the Kingdom.  (This role is unlikely to be included in a 13-player game; if the game gets larger than that, Mercenaries can be added to increase the Kingdom’s starting numbers.)

Kingdom Night Actions:

The Kingdom may perform a few different actions at night.  He may murder, arrest, or torture someone, and he may execute or release prisoners in his dungeon.

The Kingdom must choose one of the following actions each night:

Murder - The Mad King orders his assassins to slaughter a player in the street.  Using this ability on a Commoner causes a severe penalty.

Arrest - The Mad King’s soldiers capture a player and throw him into the dungeon.  (The Kingdom may arrest players whose allegiance is to the Kingdom.)

Torture - The royal sadist gets to work on a prisoner in the dungeon, revealing that player’s role to the Kingdom.  (This is a purposely high-cost seer action.  This way it is possible to gain information by default, but finding another solution would be preferable.)

The Kingdom may perform any of these actions freely during the night:

Execute - The Mad King may kill any number of his imprisoned players during the night.  These players may not have been arrested on the same night as their execution; they must have spent at least one day in the dungeon.

Release - The Mad King may release any number of imprisoned players during the night.  Those players will be included in the day phase.  (There usually isn’t a good reason to do this, but the option is included.)

The Dungeon:

While in the dungeon, players may still post and PM freely.  However, they may not vote or use any abilities/night actions.

There is a 25% chance, each night, that a player in the dungeon will automatically escape on his own.  If that player was to be executed, he will survive instead.

A player in the dungeon may choose to pledge his allegiance to the Mad King.  This is done secretly, by PMing the GM and the Mad King.  A player who does this will be automatically released that night, and his victory condition is permanently switched to align with that of the Kingdom (under most conditions; see below for notes on third-party roles).

Clarification: A player who is arrested must always spend at least one day phase in the dungeon.  Even if he wants to declare allegiance to the Mad King, he must sit in the dungeon for one day, and he will be released and switch allegiances the following night.

Rebellion Roles:

Scout - The Scout is a seer-type.  Each night, he may choose a player, and discover that player’s role and allegiance.

Knight - An honorable gentleman who served the previous King.  His hatred for the Mad King is boundless.  He can not switch allegiances, and will always remain loyal to the rebellion.  If anyone attempts to kill or arrest the Knight, he is protected, but only once per game.

Assassin - A vigilante-type with high night priority.  Each night, he may choose a player, as well as a stance.
Aggressive: The assassin will attempt to kill the player, no matter what.  He runs no risk of losing his ability.
Cautious: The assassin will check on the player’s allegiance.  If the target’s allegiance differs from the assassin’s, the assassin will attempt to kill the player.  If the target and the assassin are on the same side, however, the target will survive, and the assassin loses his night ability.
(The Cautious stance is good for alleviating the potential risk of a maneuver, especially toward the end of the game.)

Priest - The Church is very influential, and the Mad King’s soldiers dare not interfere with the will of God.  The Priest may choose a player.  That player may not be killed or arrested that night.  The Priest may not choose a player in the dungeon.  He may protect himself, but if someone attempts to arrest or kill him while he's doing so, he loses his ability after that night.

Thief - A sneaky gentleman who despises the Mad King’s stance on crime; there’s entirely too much of it and the city is flooded with wannabes.  Each night, the Thief may attempt to free a player (including himself) from the dungeon.  He has a 75% chance of success.  (Note: The Thief will not be notified whether the target escaped due to his action or due to pledging allegiance to the Mad King.)

Leader - The leader of the rebellion begins the game normally, but may choose to reveal his identity during the daytime.  When he does this, he chooses another player; that player’s role is also publicly revealed immediately.  (The leader may switch allegiances normally if arrested.)

Commoner - The commoner is a normal citizen, without explicit ties to the rebellion.  If the Mad King chooses to murder (not execute) a commoner, the public backlash is tremendous, and the Kingdom loses the ability to murder or execute people for one night.

Third-Party Roles:

Two or three of these third-party roles will be included in the game.  It is unknown which of these roles will be selected; it will be random.

Scoundrel - This seer-type trades information for his life, looking out only for himself.  The Scoundrel may choose a player each night, and he learns that player’s role and allegiance.  The Scoundrel wins if he survives until the game ends.

Turncoat - This vagabond is not to be trusted.  He begins the game with a random allegiance, and may choose to change it each night, as many times per game as he wishes.  However, he may not change his allegiance on consecutive nights.  (If arrested, he may pledge his allegiance to the Mad King normally, but he may switch it back to the Rebellion on the next possible night.)  The Turncoat appears to be a Rebellion-aligned Commoner to most seer actions; only the Scoundrel can see him for what he really is.

Vengeful Warrior - This soldier believes his family was killed by another player (chosen randomly).  He doesn’t care about the ongoing war; he only wants revenge.  The Vengeful Warrior wins if he is alive when his target is killed.  (After this happens, the Vengeful Warrior aligns himself with whichever side was responsible for his target’s death.  Therefore, it is possible for the Vengeful Warrior to win twice.)

Blood Magus - This sorceror wishes to rule the Kingdom himself; however, the spell he must cast is rather complex, and involves risking his own life.  During the night, he may predict that he is going to die during the following day or night.  He must also guess whether he will die by lynch or by night action.  If his prediction comes true, he wins, the Mad King dies immediately, and the Blood Magus becomes the new Mad King.  If his prediction is false and he is not killed, he is weakened, and he may not make a new prediction for one night.  If his prediction is false and he is killed... well, he dies.

After the Blood Magus’s prediction comes true, the game proceeds, and his secondary win condition is tied to that of the Kingdom from that point forward.

A Note on Allegiance and Win Conditions for Third-Party Roles:

The Scoundrel, Vengeful Warrior, and Blood Magus do not have an allegiance to begin the game.  If they are arrested, they may pledge allegiance to the Mad King like everybody else; however, this does not change their win conditions.  From that point forward, the player will count toward the Kingdom’s win condition as an “allied player” but will not necessarily win if the Kingdom wins.

If the Vengeful Warrior’s target is still alive, and the Vengeful Warrior pledges allegiance to the Mad King, his win condition remains the same until the target is killed, at which point his secondary win condition will change to reflect his new allegiance.

The Blood Magus win condition is to correctly predict his own demise, whether he has sworn allegiance to the Mad King or not.  If he succeeds, then his win condition immediately aligns with that of the Kingdom.

The Scoundrel’s win condition never changes; he must survive until the game ends.

There are no third-party win conditions which cause the game to end; the game continues until the Mad King is killed or the Kingdom players and those who count as Kingdom-aligned outnumber the other players in the game.

Night Priority:

Night actions take place in the following order:

Protections -> Assassin’s Kill -> Kingdom’s Action -> Seer Actions

All protections occur in secret, including the Knight’s automatic self-save.  Nobody will be notified as to why a kill or arrest failed (although, presently, only the Knight can resist arrest).

Furthermore, the party responsible for a killing is not revealed; assassin kills and kingdom murders are reported the same way (unless the Kingdom is responsible for killing a Commoner).  Arrests and executions, however, are publicly revealed.

--

Sign up here!  To begin at the conclusion of Caithness' "Oedipus Wolf" game.

please

visit link in news bar please

http://www.neurohack.com/transcendence/Downloads.html

The screensaver centers on a starship in battle with a bunch of other starships and the AI runs everything and it is very fun to watch and it loads quickly and it doesn't have anything annoying like sound or anything.

also there's a spaceship roguelike that it's based on but the screen saver is what i'm really excited about here