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[Jerick]

Through all of this drama something has been nagging at the game designer part of my mind. There is a massive flaw in the mechanics. All the game mechanics encourage deescalation and punish reckless actions and escalation heavily, this is fine and can lead to an interesting and much more political game but the issue lies in exiting the gambit. There are no draws. The means to exit a gambit gracefully are severely limited as a result which in turns locks out deescalation as a reasonable course. The only options in most cases are risking escalation which can punish everyone and is harshly discouraged by the rules or accept a loss. This is meant to make us weigh the risks of our actions I'm sure. But in essence the game mechanics punish players for entering a gambit at all which is bad because of how easy it is to get drawn into one.

[Ghazkull]

I'm seriously starting to give up here.

Its not about being tame or not being tame, you acted in an active gambit where you should not have acted. The power level of three acts combined. Thats enough power to create three Knights, enough power to create three Species, enough power to lay waste to continents, raise them and lower them.

It is not about what you did with those acts its the sheer power used int hose acts.

Retconned was your previous itnerference in an active gambit. There are only parts of that discussion left so there is no point quoting that in.

Since when did I allow random low-profile cards glimpses into the blasted Hall of the Gods?

Random low profile? He is the Magi of Truth, in sheer power-levels he is as strong as your Knight of Making.

Furthermore, he's chained up so deep that a glowing Knight made of sun-metal can't find him. NUKE didn't specifically give directions nor an invitation to go visit the prisoner in the dark, so letting this emissary do so is just blatantly skewing his actions.

By this point i refusse to answer to it, because i have answered it at least three times by now, go up and read my other posts.

I don't think that any of Varalin's actions, especially not the cave-sealing, qualify as Act-based escalation.

I'm starting to believe you are trying to kid with me here. Even if we ignore the acts for a second, it can't get much more escalating then point 20 size writing
But more seriously, her actions prohobit and inspire worship simultaneously so yes, escalation. But that aside read what i wrote above in regards to the rest.

She wasn't interfering with the worship of other gods, and almost wasn't interfering with worship at all.

*looks at giant wall preventing blood sacrifices and thus worship of god(s).*...yes,yes she did.

I've just looked through all three of her acts, and none is as invasive as the Emissary of Truth being created in the caves. That Emissary actually WOULD'VE been directly swaying worship, yet ATH's much more passive actions (Although the gift of passion is, well, dangerous) somehow inflated the gambit to Lifestealer proportions?

The Emissary was created outside of the gambit my friend. Later actions by Armiles drove the Acterians into its arms, it came into the gambit as an unbound card via Armiles escalation basically. The Acterians were driven into its arms through no action of its own, what happened afterwards was unbound actions by someone in a gambit.

((yay more ninjas...seriously the timing))

The relevant action has been retconned out of existence by now, but Abstract has been told before that such actions would be invalid and would have major repercussions. If you scan the OOC closely you might find parts of the discussion.

And the invalid action was still processed? I like exploiting unintended consequences and all, but the escalation was flagrantly against the rules and shouldn't have been processed at all.

Also now that I'v read the other complaints, it is a biiit odd that the Emissary was able to look at Not-Olympus but then again, the Great Act used to create doesn't state that mortals/other entities can't look at it. This is GM dickery (or creativeness :p) that I can enjoy. I actually like how legalistic you have to be when phrasing actions, which is why I find the flagrant rule-breaking being allowed as a mistake. A very big mistake with many many many consequences that should not have been allowed.

wat, was retconned?

All three of my acts are pretty tame overall. My third act is more a general increase of the tears in general then just affecting the acterians for example. My second is giving them a gift. My first is not touching any of them and making a wall.

You have to recall that Acts are ludicrously powerful from the perspective of a mortal. If they were Minor Acts then I think they would be fine.

Micelus, it would have been completely illegal and the acts would have simply vanished(done nothing) if Varalin wasn't part of the Gambit. As in if House Acter wouldn't have been within the Gambit, thats a yes, the actions would not have happened, since they were flagrant rule-breaking of the Gambits. this has been shown before in the retconned Action where Varalin tried to influence the Acterians but was physically(metaphysically?) rebuffed and told that any actions she took would be impossible.

I believe it was also dropped that any further dickery of such kinds would carry negative consequences of the worst kind.
But through Acter she was in the Gambit, as in her House was part of the Gambit, and here it gets interesting with the rules.

Imagine a game of professional boxers if you will. If a third person runs into the box ring, and begins punching one of the fighters he gets dragged off, and whatever happened there is treated as not having happened. If however one of the boxers suddenly pulls out a knife and starts stabbing the other boxer, we can assume that he will be disqualified and thrown out.
If she was not part of the gambit her action would have been invalid, but by being part of the gambit her action was not invalid but rather illegal. Cheating in short. This actions causes the disqualification of her house but the actions still happened.
And there si were the comparison begins to become lopsided but i think you get what i mean.

As for Minor acts, those are not a thing in this game, since i  found them mostly useless and pesky extra work.

((why...two more ninjaes...argh, im gonna answer you in the next post before this gets too long)

[Glass]

...Lu's Consort wasn't allowed in the Gambit. Why would Varalin?

Furthermore, the only god's worship that she interfered in was her own, not that of any of the gods involved in the Gambit.

EDIT: Minor Acts would be very useful, because they'd allow us to do stuff without breaking all the mortals' minds the way we did to the Acterians.

[micelus]

Yeah I'm really getting where you're coming from Ghaz, but the game isn't in real-time so an illegal action can be stopped before it happens, unlike the figurative knife-wielding boxer.

[Ghazkull]

Through all of this drama something has been nagging at the game designer part of my mind. There is a massive flaw in the mechanics. All the game mechanics encourage deescalation and punish reckless actions and escalation heavily, this is fine and can lead to an interesting and much more political game but the issue lies in exiting the gambit. There are no draws. The means to exit a gambit gracefully are severely limited as a result which in turns locks out deescalation as a reasonable course. The only options in most cases are risking escalation which can punish everyone and is harshly discouraged by the rules or accept a loss. This is meant to make us weigh the risks of our actions I'm sure. But in essence the game mechanics punish players for entering a gambit at all which is bad because of how easy it is to get drawn into one.

Aye, thats the point
As divine beings you are supposed to be drawn constantly in gambits, the game is supposed to be somewhat competititve after all. But making it too easy to exit the gambits causes people to constantly leave them. We can already see that where everyone tries to avoid any sort of conflict.
The thing is if players usse low-profile cards, there is no escalation to be had, it all centers around the mortal conflicts, which is the subtle influencing of things <- which is rewarded.
That aside escalation is not punished it merely carries its own price. You can have all the power...at a price. Or you can move subtly...at a price. You can give up...at a price. Everything in the Gambits carries a pricetag, the rewards are huge but so are the risks.

Essentially, the issue is that in order to get to the current position, something that wasn't allowed had to have gone through.

EDIT: Has anyone even recieved a Minor Act? How would we even get one?

Mentioned in post above. Minor acts are not existing, they were existing in previous Pantheon Games, which is what micelus is referring to. They were mostly useful for Ascendant characters (mortals attempting to become gods) and very weak gods, as a way of still influencing the world, while representing their relative weakness in comparison to greater divine beings. Since we have no Ascendant characters or demigods, the Minor Act has become moot and thus been removed from the mechanics.

((all the ninjas, all the time))

@micelus: so it would have ben retconned, which last time was real fun wasn't it? I abhor retconning, it confuses things, makes them a mess to sort apart and generally horribly destroys the flow of the game, instead of mindlessly posting actions left and right the players are encouraged instead to stop, think and strategize as to what implications the actions they do might carry. Also simply asking in OOC is also an option.

@Glass, he wasn't physically in the gambit and so wasn't Varalin. Because none of their cards were played, but they were still in the gambit by association with the House of Acter/Might. Both their fortunes would have risen or fallen with the success/demise of Acter/Lu.

She interfered in Ralkiesis worship, by splitting the Acterians apart she prevents the blood sacrifices, who also go to Ralkiesis and his Emissary.
RE: minor acts, read above somewhere.
Nothing prevents you from engaging in non-divine actions. Because thats basicall what minor-acts are. Nothing prevents you from becoming the equivalent to the Odinic wanderer travelling among your worshippers unseen...this has after all been done before already by several of you.

[micelus]

Well, meep.

I can't really say anything further. The GM is of one mind and most of their players another. We're not getting anywhere.

Mentioned in post above. Minor acts are not existing, they were existing in previous Pantheon Games, which is what micelus is referring to. They were mostly useful for Ascendant characters (mortals attempting to become gods) and very weak gods, as a way of still influencing the world, while representing their relative weakness in comparison to greater divine beings. Since we have no Ascendant characters or demigods, the Minor Act has become moot and thus been removed from the mechanics.

The mechanics you posted previously directly mentions Minor Acts, just soz you know'

[Glass]

So, in other words, she interfered in the worship of yet another god that wasn't involved in the Gambit, when she wasn't physically in the Gambit. Which somehow escalates the Gambit.
Seeing the disconnect?

[NUKE9.13]

I can't really say anything further. The GM is of one mind and most of their players another. We're not getting anywhere.

Yeah, I have a dozen things I'd like to say, but there's no sense in continuing this discussion.

[Ghazkull]

Ah gob shite...just saw it...welp you got me there.

But yeah at the power level they currently have, the gods in this Universe can take infinite Minor Acts.
___________________

@Glass how about you stop trying to find some logical fallacy in my posts and try to understand what i wrote before:

Its not about being tame or not being tame, you acted in an active gambit where you should not have acted. The power level of three acts combined. Thats enough power to create three Knights, enough power to create three Species, enough power to lay waste to continents, raise them and lower them.

It is not about what you did with those acts its the sheer power used in those acts.

What she did with those acts is irrelevant, its the level of power used within it.
Also the fact that she wasn't physically in the Gambit yet acted within it nonetheless is the entire fucking problem, not a saving grace


Sidenote: Ralkiesis would have entered the gambit this turn if it wasn't for Kol.

((*facepalms in frustration due to more ninjas*))

[Glass]

...so it wasn't one of the boxers pulling out a knife, it's some random person coming in from the sidelines and punching one of the boxers. Or pulling out a gun, I guess, or started punching someone but didn't know that their fist had explosives embedded in it. Or maybe I guess one of the boxer's sister or something. Or maybe somebody was over being a janitor and accidentally pointed their broom, which was, unknown to them, a sniper rifle, at one of the boxers. Still a problem here. Why didn't she get brushed off the same way I had been?

And for a different matter... Acter's entire goal in the Gambit was to get the others to leave the Acterians alone. That has now happened, albeit due to Kol going completely batshit crazy. And neither Phal nor Lu is getting the worship they wanted.

[chubby2man]

Well I guess I see where you are coming from now Ghaz, but it still feels like it was out of proportion.

It's like if America, Russia and France were discussing the fate of a little third world country. Though there is some maneuvering and propaganda going on in the background, all the parties come to agreement. Just as they sign in, little third world steals a third of everyone's nukes, a third goes to random other countries, and then a third explode. Suddenly third world country is a regional power. Argentina and Mongolia are world superpowers, and America, Russia, and France are now fighting mutant coachroaches.

I like the concept of escalation, but when it doesn't seem like the players are the ones escalating, it can lead to a disjoint like this.

[micelus]

Well I guess I see where you are coming from now Ghaz, but it still feels like it was out of proportion.

It's like if America, Russia and France were discussing the fate of a little third world country. Though there is some maneuvering and propaganda going on in the background, all the parties come to agreement. Just as they sign in, little third world steals a third of everyone's nukes, a third goes to random other countries, and then a third explode. Suddenly third world country is a regional power. Argentina and Mongolia are world superpowers, and America, Russia, and France are now fighting mutant coachroaches.

I like the concept of escalation, but when it doesn't seem like the players are the ones escalating, it can lead to a disjoint like this.

Tbf, I'd play the shit out of that if it was a game.

[Glass]

France? Probably more like Belgium or something, with the caveat that Belgium had a pre-existing claim.

[Jerick]

Aye, thats the point
As divine beings you are supposed to be drawn constantly in gambits, the game is supposed to be somewhat competititve after all. But making it too easy to exit the gambits causes people to constantly leave them. We can already see that where everyone tries to avoid any sort of conflict.
The thing is if players usse low-profile cards, there is no escalation to be had, it all centers around the mortal conflicts, which is the subtle influencing of things <- which is rewarded.
That aside escalation is not punished it merely carries its own price. You can have all the power...at a price. Or you can move subtly...at a price. You can give up...at a price. Everything in the Gambits carries a pricetag, the rewards are huge but so are the risks.

I apologize but I'm rather bad at explaining things let me try again; when deescalation is impossible escalation is inevitable. Cards are limited and what ones people have are random. Players even being able to play low profile cards is uncertain. If we had more control over how and when we enter a gambit this wouldn't be as much of an issue and if we players were rational creatures that could weigh the risks and rewards effectively it probably wouldn't be an issue at all. Once in the thick of a gambit players will be immensely unwilling to let their enemy profit from winning. Because we can be pulled into gambits the price is often too high and the reward undesired. But that's where the politics should come in as it did this time. Arguments, negotiations, promises and underhanded betrayals it was all political maneuvering up until the agreement was made and they found out that draws aren't a thing in this game. In order to secure a draw concessions and agreements have to be made which is where all the interesting politics stuff lies. But when draws are impossible the only options are winning and losing and people will invest their resources irrationally in order to avoid losing. It shuts down discussion and makes politics less likely overall. And irrational resource usage in this game leads inexorably to escalation and escalation leads to disaster for all involved. This means in general there are three possibilities in any gambit;

• You give up quickly and the enemy wins and receives great benefits
• The enemy gives up quickly and you win and receives great benefits
• No one gives up and things escalate so everyone suffers

The only time it's a good idea to get involved in a gambit is when your sure the enemy will cave immediately and will not try and contest the gambit. But since gambits get started at the drop of a hat in this game that's impossible. There is only space for negotiations when you can let them leave a gambit gracefully.

[chubby2man]

Yeah it was a former colony or something, so you guys had a questionable past with them but now you are trying to do good by them, while America and Russia are in there for the resources... and uh democracy.

But in game it didn't feel escalated. I feel like a better result would have been the universe shaking and our current situation is what we would have seen due to our actions. We probably would have ended up in the same place due to us going "aww shit" and lobing cards around and blowing each other to win, but at least it would feel more as a result of our actions.