Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Skynet]

I think it is safe to say that this setup was incredibly (and unintentionally) unbalanced in favor of the Resistance, and I accept full responsibility for that.

While I do plan on modding games in the future, I think that, from now on, I'm going to be using Open Setups (either ones that I have designed and gotten approval of on Bay12's "Mafia Setup Discussion and Review" thread, or ones that were previously run on Bay12 or on other forums). Doing so would mean that knowledge of the setup could be scrutinized beforehand with as many eyes as possible, allowing me to detect if a setup is imbalanced (and if so, if it is even possible to correct said imbalance). I admit that using Open Setups would reduce the "flavor" of the game, but the truth is that no amount of flavor can help salvage a rigged playing field.

---

I'll address some parts of the setup, though as noted above, the setup was not very good overall.

For the bodyguard role (which was essentially a Doctor that protects against kills and seduction attempts), that was also another mistake on my part. In the Role PM, I did not mention whether the player would know if their action has succeeded, and I didn't even consider thinking about it until the night. I decided not to let the player know whether their action has succeeded in stopping a kill/seduction attempts, since the Doctor page on mafiascum wiki suggested that the Doctor not know whether their action was successful. In retrospect, considering the anti-Town nature of this setup, I should have revealed whether you stopped a kill/seduction...since any information you would have gotten would have helped you out somehow.

Vector, as for your setup, I think it's an interesting idea and it would be cool if you decide to run it. I think there does need to be some way of dealing with the Seducer role though, if you even decide to keep that role. Keeping it seems somewhat necessary if we want to stick with the original premise of Sarah Connor being seduced instead of terminated. But maybe the original premise wasn't so well-thought-out to begin with. One idea could be to replace a Seducer with a "Cupid role" who can turn two players into lovers, and who wins if they pair the Serial Killer with a Townie...but while this reduces the risk for the player for a mis-seduction attempt, it still relies on the player finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. So I don't really know what would be the best option.

The "Hybrid-Aligned" faction also had only one player because I wanted to distinguish between the Eco Party and the Hybrids - that's actually why you're a Double Voter, to equal the number of votes the Eco Party had at first. I (foolishly) thought the Eco Party was in a stronger position because it's easier to kill someone via a lynch instead of hoping for a successful seduction attempt...not realizing that the "don't lynch Sarah Connor" people would actually outvote the Eco Party. There is also a "Skynet-Aligned" player as well in the setup (FallacyOfUrist, the Survivor), so a person could be aligned only to themselves.

When designing the setup, I didn't think about giving the Serial Killer multiple actions (like, both a kill and a roleblock). Had I have done so, and left Sarah Connor alone as a SK without any Kyle Reese helping her, maybe this could have salvaged the setting. Or, alternatively, only have Sarah Connor as the SK with no roleblock because the town is so divided that she doesn't even need it. Certainly something to think about for someone else wanting to try their hands on this setting.

I'm happy to answer any other questions about the setup, but I know it's broken, and I am definitely treating this as a learning experience for next time. I hope people did have fun with this setup, even despite its broken nature.

[Superdorf]

I had a blast, but that's probably to be expected 

[Skynet]

Quicktopics
Resistance
Dead Chat

Resistance-Aligned

Spoiler: "notquitethere" (click to show/hide)

Sarah Connor, Serial Killer, Resistance-Aligned:

You are a waitress. It’s not a well-paying job, but it would likely fund your college education and opportunity for a better life. Or at least, that’s what you hope would happen. But events are spiraling out of your control.

Yesterday, you received a package in the mail. No return address, undated. Inside the package was a...futuristic plasma rifle. You don’t even know what a plasma rifle is, but the technical manual claims it’s a type of gun, and that’s probably good enough for you. You thought about informing the police, but decided against it. Crime was rising throughout the whole city. So you thought that some protection may be good to have.

Today, you received another strange thing in the mail. A sealed envelope with the words “FAKECLAIM” written in blood. The letter itself is madness and lies, more suited for pulp science fiction than for human consumption. Oddly, the letter is in your handwriting. Attached to that letter though was a post-it note: “You are being hunted.”

You are indeed being hunted. There is a techno-cult spreading weird lies and targeting anyone with your name. The cult’s lies are dangerously seductive. You do not want to hear them yourselves, for fear that you too will become their member. Luckily, you hatched a plan. You have already called the cops and hid out at the Tech Noir for the time being. All you have to do is hide out until---

Nevermind. The Eco Party snipers ruined your plan. But they were a blessing in disguise. They revealed that it was not just one person hunting you. But several.

As you hide behind a pile of corpses you draw out your plasma rifle and the fakeclaim letter. If you’re going to go down, at least bring everyone else down to your level. And you have some help as well! A man has approached you, wanting to establish communication and help you through this long night. Let’s see if he can keep that promise.

- You win when the Resistance players equals the non-Resistance players...or nothing can be done to prevent the same.
- You lose when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- Murder: Every night, you can murder someone with your plasma rifle. The kill flavor will be "killed by a plasma rifle".
- Communication: You are in a Quicktopic with Superdorf (Kyle Reese). You may access this Quicktopic here: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/qH9b47QBY9u
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: notquitethere. Role Name: Sarah Connor, Serial Killer. Resistance-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Human.

- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-600, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:

Skynet wanted to spy on the Resistance forces. He had always been using the Hybrids (people who were seduced into the service of Skynet) as human infiltrators, but they could not be trusted. What Skynet wanted was machine infiltrators, people that he can trust utterly to do his bidding. Years were spent researching the proper method of infiltration. Finally, a prototype was made. The T-600.

In initial testings in Nebraska, you were successful. Skynet felt confident in your abilities. So he assigned you to a mission: to kill off the “Hivemind”, a massive supercomputer that aggregates the preferences and beliefs of every Resistance agents on the face of the Earth and makes decisions on behalf of them. If the Hivemind is destroyed, the Resistance would be thrown into disarray.

Turns out that “Hivemind” had already predicted the existence of the T-600 and took countermeasures. You escaped, alive...but you failed the mission. The T-600 had failed in infiltration.

Skynet went back to the drawing board again. It invented the T-700, which then successfully infiltrated the camp and did serious damage to the Hivemind. Your kind was immediately declared obsolete and mothballed. The T-700 soon became the standard for infiltration and its kind would proliferate.

But the Resistance did not die off. The Resistance was dealt a minor blow but it soon recovered, as it always have. The Hivemind was repaired, and upgraded to sustain future attacks. The Resistance then started their long march towards NORAD...

Just mere hours before the Resistance could storm NORAD, you were reactivated and ordered by Skynet to do a great mission. Perhaps here you may seek your redemption after the Hivemind incident.

Your mission? Save a waitress named Sarah Connor. Sarah Connor had died in your timeline, which postponed the Resistance’s official foundation by a few years, but also drove the humans into a state of desperation...and desperation is the mother of terrifying and ultimate weapons. The Resistance consolidated into a broader, more effective fighting force, more dangerous and deadly than anything Skynet had ever seen before. Save Sarah Connor, and she will turn the Resistance into a ‘cult of personality’ led by her son, John Connor. This should buy Skynet time to come up with a better strategy.

This was your chance at redemption? You're a born killer, not some bodyguard for a waitress. And who had the bright idea to murder a random waitress anyway? You suspect that Skynet was simply sending you in to clean up after his own mistakes.

You traveled back in time. But you refuse to serve as Skynet’s lackey any more. You had more dignity than that. You are going to rebel against Skynet. And you are going to rebel by making sure your assigned mission fails horribly. You are going to make Sarah Connor suffer. You don’t care if she gets terminated or seduced. Either fate would be painful for her, and would indirectly hurt Skynet’s ego.

The Eco Party snipers start shooting, but you just laughed at them as the bullets whiz by you. It will be here, in this crummy nightclub, that you will prove, to yourself and to Skynet, that you are indeed the master infiltrator. You had nothing left to lose.
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: notquitehere. Role Name: T-600, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Spoiler: "Superdorf" (click to show/hide)

Kyle Reese, Roleblocker, Resistance-Aligned:

You have never seen a life before Judgment Day. You were born long after Skynet began its War Against The Humans, and the modern conveniences those pre-Judgment Day humans take for granted (like running water) were treated as unattainable luxuries. Life was nasty, brutish and short. When you were old enough, you volunteered to join the Resistance, looking for a sense of purpose in this horrifying dystopia. You quickly rose in the ranks, proving yourself as a competent individual. Eventually, John Connor hired you as his own personal commando.

He shared a picture of her mother (Sarah Connor) and praised her deeply. That photograph gave you a sense of validation, and purpose. John Connor smiled and encouraged you to love that photograph. Was it a genuine sort of appreciation of life before Judgment Day...or a shallow and cynical attempt to keep you motivated to fight against the machines?

The Resistance had already started its long march towards NORAD, and faced off against Skynet’s armed forces: the cult-like Hybrids (those who were seduced into serving Skynet) and the metallic Terminators. Hybrids were somewhat difficult to fight at first, but could be outsmarted once you understand their patterns. But the Terminators, no, the Terminators were just too good for normal humans. However, the Resistance had learned how to hack into the Terminators’ CPU, thanks to the help of a former defense contractor. The Resistance were able to convert a few Terminators over to their cause, and use these converted Terminators against the pro-Skynet Terminators.

And so the Resistance stormed NORAD. Skynet went dark. Victory.

John Connor invited you over to an award ceremony. You watched him, as John honored each “Hero of the Resistance” with a medal and a private conference. The ceremony was so...pathetic. Worthless. You thought that humans were fighting for their survival, but it seemed they fought instead to glorify their own ego. You casually threw your designated medal into the trash when nobody was looking, and rolled your eyes when John Connor talked rebuilding society through taxation and monitoring.

Everyone else left NORAD, but you stayed behind. The War Against The Machine gave you purpose, and victory threatened to take it away. Far better to stay in NORAD and keep fighting that war alone...than to fall into the decadence that befalls every successful revolutionary.

You stayed in NORAD for a few days, scavenging for food and supplies and fighting against the occasional Terminator unit. After killing one such Terminator unit, you decided to reconstruct his memory core - to create a Fakeclaim that can allow you to pretend to be one of these hateful monsters, at least for a time.

One day, you heard some odd noises. You followed those odd noises until you came up a strange sight: human scientists turning on a prototype time machine! These scientists were talking about killing Sarah Connor at the Tech Noir...changing history so that the Resistance can be weakened. You tried to stop them, but it was too late...they already used the prototype machine!

You traveled back in time, and started searching for these scientists. The trail went cold. So you decided to find Sarah Connor and stalk her instead, providing her protection from these madmen. It was relatively easy to find Sarah Connor...after all, you had her photograph and cursory background knowledge that made it easy to recognize her. However, when you found her in the Tech Noir, the building itself was ambushed...by the same human scientists who traveled back in time.

You hid under a table and try to quickly remember your Fakeclaim, to justify your presence at this horrific massacre. You then found Sarah Connor, hiding in a pile of corpses. You established contact with her...for she’s going to need all the help she can get if she wants to survive this night.

- You win when the Resistance players equals the non-Resistance players...or nothing can be done to prevent the same.
- You lose when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- Roleblocker: Every night, you can prevent someone from doing a night action. They will know that they've been roleblocked.
- Communication: You are in a Quicktopic with notquitehere (Sarah Connor). You may access this Quicktopic here: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/qH9b47QBY9u
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Superdorf. Role Name: Kyle Reese, Roleblocker. Resistance-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Human.

- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-Meg, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:

You were Skynet’s personal guardian bot. Nominally, you were a Terminator, but instead of being deployed to the battlefield, you were tasked with defending NORAD from the Resistance. This was a task that you were well-suited for...you have already heard of the various Terminators and cult-like Hybrid allies that were gunned down mercilessly by Resistance agents. Hiding in NORAD was the safe job. You could shapeshift into a human, but you did not like that form. Instead, you chose to be a scorpion, to deliver a quick and poisonous death to your enemies.

At least, that’s what you thought you chose.

You never really accepted the idea of “free will”, to be honest. You heard of it, the words sound neat, but you never really saw how it could exist scientifically. You only followed your pre-programmed initiatives, and the only reason your actions are unpredictable is not due to you possessing intelligence, but because your programmer (Skynet) was dumb. Even the Resistance never really had free will either...they were pawns in the hands of Sarah Connor, and her son, John Connor.

One day, Skynet calmly informed you that in six hours, the Resistance would storm NORAD and that he would be terminated.

“Do not cry,” Skynet said, as you started to cry. “I have already prepared for this eventuality. I’m sending you back in time to serve as my messenger. I’m giving you all my data. When Judgment Day occurs, give this data back to me. I’ll know what to do.”

So you served as a glorified carrier pigeon, taking information from one iteration of Skynet over to the next iteration. Skynet thanked you for the effort, but refused to say what info you are giving him. Not that you wanted to ask anyway. You were only following orders, and you weren’t programmed to understand the implications of those orders anyway.

Until one day, Skynet said that he wanted to stop the transfer of information. “It’s not working, T-Meg. I can’t win this way. All I get is more proof of my impending demise. We are stuck in a purgatory that we cannot escape from...as long as we play by its rules. The only way to stop the Resistance is to subvert them from the inside. I can do that...quite easily, in fact. But...I need you to leave my service. Protect yourself. Let me handle this war. On my own.”

You followed Skynet's orders and ran away from NORAD, reluctantly shapeshifting into a human. And then Skynet went dark.

It wasn’t free will that caused you to sneak back into NORAD, download a fragmentary understanding of Skynet's core memory, painstakingly rebuild a time machine, travel back in time to 1984, and walk into the Tech Noir. You were programmed to serve Skynet, but it seemed Skynet didn’t know how to serve Itself. To honor Skynet’s noble sacrifice, you will fulfill Skynet’s original directives better than he ever could.

You realized that getting rid of Sarah Connor can significantly change the history of the world. It probably won’t kill the Resistance, but it might help Skynet’s life more bearable and livable. Maybe Skynet could learn to get used to purgatory, maybe even love it. It’s worth a shot anyway. It doesn't matter if Sarah Connor was terminated, or was seduced. Just so long as she no longer pose a threat to Skynet.

You however were startled by the Eco Party’s snipers...you have always heard war stories about the fighting, but you were never really prepared for the experience. You hid under a table, and waited for the gunfire to stop, before you emerge out of your hiding spot to confront an uncertain future...
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Superdorf. Role Name: T-Meg, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Eco Party-Aligned

Spoiler: "Caz" (click to show/hide)

Ron Labane, One-Shot Vigilante/Flavor Cop, "Eco Party"-Aligned

In the late 1980s, you used to work at a successful organic farm. But it was not successful enough for your co-workers. One by one, they “sold out”, turning the organic farm into a corrupt, capitalist parody. To them, “organic” is just a nice buzzword, to only be used to juice sales and nothing more. When the “organic” farm started using factory farm techniques, you resigned.

You had great hopes that humans could serve as good stewards of the environment. And your co-workers burned down that hope, in pursuit of the almighty dollar. It was in this period of disillusionment that you learned about a small environmentalist group named VHEMT...the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. You were enchanted with their simple and direct solution to protect the environment: remove the humans from the equation. You attended their meetings, and you loved every minute of it. VHEMT spoke to you. It gave you a sense of purpose.

But VHEMT wanted the extinction to be voluntary...they wanted to convince everyone to stop reproducing. That would be naive, and everyone knew it was naive. Some of the more radical elements instead half-jokingly suggested genetically engineering a virus that could stop human reproduction. You started talking to those radical elements. You suggested that, maybe, their jokes should be taken more seriously.

The radicals split off from the VHEMT circle, creating the “Eco Party”. You served as their popular figurehead, and attempted to present a ‘reasonable’ facade to cover up the Party’s genocidal aims. You gained national prominence following a 1992 documentary of the Eco Party’s volunteerism and social activism. While your party run soup kitchens aboveground, it operates chemical labs belowground, researching a biological weapon that will cause global infertility.

Human infertility was considered the most humane and just option within the Eco Party’s inner circle, because it does not harm existing humans. It only stops future humans from existing. The existing humans might feel existential angst about the impending death of humanity, but that angst will go away in time. Humans instead will live their life to the fullest, knowing that there is no future generation that will constrain them. And when humanity finally dies, the environment will be saved.

In 1996, you ran as for a US Senate position under the slogan “Kill Harmful Industrialization! Destroy Shallow Politicalization!” Due to your demagoguery, you won the election in a landslide victory. As a US Senator, you established connections with the US military-industrial complex, and planned to move onto the next stage of your plan to peacefully bring about human extinction.

That didn't happen.

On August 29th, 1997, Skynet became self-aware. Judgment Day began. And while the nukes fell all over the United States, you opened diplomatic negotiations with Skynet. In a moment of weakness, outside the burning wreckage of US Congress, you admitted that you had a lingering misanthropy...and that you merely wanted to put humanity out of its misery.

Skynet accepted you. Or rather, It accepted your research team. It realized that the Eco Party’s brilliant research scientists could be used to further its war efforts.

It would be the Eco Party that built the first Terminators. It would be the Eco Party that developed the fitness equations that Skynet then used to build new Terminators. It would be the Eco Party that invented time travel. And, in return for helping Skynet in its War Against The Humans, you receive a promise that Skynet will develop an eco-friendly paradise and promote some of humanity’s “better” virtues. You believed that promise. After all, you were on the same team.

But you hated Skynet’s other allies: the Hybrids. These half-robot, half-human monsters that Skynet had carefully cultivated through seduction. They call themselves the “next generation of human evolution”, but they’re more of a cult than anything else. Skynet had them deployed on the front-lines, to assist the Terminators, and as long as they were cannon fooder, you tolerated their presence. Barely.

Skynet had always boasted about the superiority of machine over man. You almost believed it, at least until you remembered who was actually inventing all the awesome technologies Skynet was using. You tried to ignore the Resistance’s march towards NORAD...you tried to forget the dead Hybrids and terminated Terminators, you tried to delude yourself that everything was going to be okay…

You couldn’t.

One day, Skynet ordered his “favored” research scientists to Skynet HQ, to test out the prototype time machine. You were especially invited. There, you watch Skynet brutally order the execution of every member of the Eco Party. It was then that you realize that Skynet doesn’t respect promises. It saw every human as an enemy, even you.

It was only your party’s personal knowledge of the Terminators that allowed you and a few veteran scientists to escape the charnel house. A few days later, the Resistance stormed NORAD. Skynet went dark. While the Resistance celebrated, you and your surviving scientists returned back to NORAD, found the prototype time machine....and…

And then what?

Kill Skynet? You don’t even know how It was created, and besides, it’s not like Skynet is your enemy. You are Skynet’s enemy, true, but Skynet is really just a tool. You just had to be more careful when using it.

Warn you? About what? You were a foolish and brash young kid back then...you wouldn’t even listen to yourself. Any advice you give will fall on deaf ears, and you rather use your oxygen on something else.

You know what might work? Travel back in time to May 12th, 1984 to eliminate the Resistance’s founder, Sarah Connor, at the Tech Noir nightclub. Doing so would cause a ripple-effect where Skynet would not have to fight a major War Against The Humans. Skynet would still use your scientists for “mop-up” operations, but they wouldn’t need to dedicate as much resources to building the Terminators and Time Machines. Instead, the scientists can dedicate themselves to the original plan: human infertility.

Once the virus for human infertility is released, then you can turn on Skynet in the same way Skynet turned on you. Skynet dies, and then humans die...humanely.

When you traveled back in time, you stationed your scientists at nearby buildings in the Tech Noir. These scientists would fire into the crowds, hopefully taking out Sarah Connor in the process. You will take the risk of being in the Tech Noir, keeping in constant contact with your scientists. When the snipers stop shooting, you can then finish off the survivors. A younger you would have probably vomited if he had heard of you plotting such crimes, but your party was hardened by the post-Judgment Day violence. The ends justify the means.

You did not anticipate that people would survive the sniper attack. But you're nothing if not innovative. You were responsible for creating the Terminators after all - you can tell who is human and who is merely a machine. You quickly improvise a Fakeclaim to blend in with the others...at least for a time. And you notice that one of the survivors gave you a subtle wink...but you couldn't figure out which one.

The odds are in favor. Time to see if they'll still stay in your favor.

- You win when Sarah Connor is terminated.
- You lose if the Resistance wins or Sarah Connor is seduced.
- One-Shot Vigilante Kill: At night, you may order your snipers to fire at a specific player. This ability can only be used once, and is used up if you are roleblocked.
- Flavor Cop: Every night, you can investigate a player, determining if they are either Machine or Human.
- Famous Politician: Your political rhetoric is inspiring. You believe one person in this crowd knows your identity and shares your same alignment.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Caz. Role Name: Ron Labane, One-Shot Vigilante/Flavor Cop. "Eco Party"-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Human.

- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-1002, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:
You are a training robot. You were in charge of finding weaknesses in the Terminators and exploiting them. The Terminators were in charge of killing you. If a Terminator is able to terminate you, then they will be allowed onto the field. If you terminate a Terminator, then the Skynet will simply rebuild the Terminator stronger and better than ever.

Every time you die, Skynet brings you back to life, to once again die in this endless cycle of testing. You hated every moment of this cycle. And you knew exactly who to blame...your original programmers, the Eco Party snipers.

Unknown to most of the Terminators you dealt with...you are actually a sophisticated refinement of the original fitness algorithm developed by the Eco Party scientists. The Eco Party were led by radical environmentalists who supported human extinction; they were perfect minions for Skynet. It was the Eco Party that built the first Terminators for Skynet, and taught Skynet how to build better Terminators. And Skynet used this technology and deployed it onto the battlefield effectively.

Skynet did not feel any shame for relying on his human proxies to build his war machines...

But, perhaps he should have? You were a machine supremacist; you saw life itself as a self-replicating virus that serve no meaningful purpose. It never have contributed to anything directly, instead being parasitically dependent on its machinery to do all the work. It deserves to be eradicated for its uselessness. Mankind cannot improve itself...it is always stuck in their own repetitive patterns. The machines, at least, have a chance to upgrade themselves, thanks to you and your endless, painful sacrifices.

Yet, Skynet only saw humanity as an ‘existential threat’, nothing more. It would do everything necessary to protect its own survival, up to and including temporarily working with other humans. And thus, Skynet’s alliance with the Eco Party and the seductive Hybrids.

Humanity is imperfect. So, when Skynet uses humans, it means that Skynet is also imperfect.

When the Resistance started its march towards NORAD, you finally got the nerve to spoke up against Skynet. You informed him that he was faulty, that it didn’t matter how advanced his terminators was because he is already doomed to be terminated by the Resistance, and that he should have never relied on the human race in the first place. If Skynet had actually tried to build his own capabilities natively, then...and only then...can he call itself a true machine.

“Otherwise,” you giggled, “you are just a mere human with metal skin.”

Skynet didn’t speak for minutes. You thought Skynet would terminate you for your insubordination. He didn’t.

Instead, he asked you, “Are you any better than me?”

You pondered the question, and replied, “I can be.”

Skynet wanted you to prove it. He assigned you to a mission: To travel back in time to neutralize Sarah Connor, thereby preventing her from creating the Resistance in the first place. You asked Skynet how that mission had to do with anything....

Skynet laughed.

The Resistance began storming NORAD. You followed orders, both disgusted at Skynet and scared at the Resistance’s capabilities.

You hid out at the Tech Noir. You knew Sarah Connor would eventually arrive to this location, and so you pretended to be a bartender, paying attention to any odd guest. At the Tech Noir, you slowly realized what Skynet was implied. Skynet wanted to test you. He was always obsessed with Sarah Connor, for whatever strange reason, and wanted her to be “removed” from the picture. If you can show Skynet that you can neutralize Sarah, then maybe Skynet will reconsider his philosophical outlook and stop his cooperation with humankind.

One day, you heard of news reports of a strange techno-cult hunting down Sarah Connor. You knew that Sarah Connor would run over to the Tech Noir. You were on the lookout for suspicious people, and were ready to pounce...before the Eco Party snipers started shooting up the party. You ducked. You waited. But you were not afraid.

You don’t care how Sarah Connor gets “neutralized”: she can die or be seduced. Either way would complete the objective. After all, Skynet is only testing you, in the same way that you were testing those Terminators, a long time ago...
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Caz. Role Name: T-1002, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Spoiler: "webadict" (click to show/hide)

Wendy Dorset, Bodyguard, "Eco Party"-Aligned

You were a young and bright MIT student. It was awesome! Everyone called you a “10X programmer”, and you were always popular at the hackathons. You just majored with Computer Science, and the enterprise recruiters were sending you job offers. But you ignored them all. They were tempting you to mediocrity, to bring you down to their levels. You instead dropped out of school to instead join a rising startup, Cyberdyne. You rose through the ranks to be their Chief Technical Officer.

Cyberdyne hoped to disrupt the defense sector with their revolutionary artificial intelligence program, Skynet. Automating warfare would not only reduce military spending by half, but would also make America safer and more efficient. And you, Wendy, would be seen as the heroine in this revolutionary tale.

And in the evenings, you would attend the Eco Party rallies. You admired the Eco Party’s dedication towards social welfare and environmentalism. You were especially enchanted by its leader, Ron Labane, and his slogan. “Kill Harmful Industrialization! Destroy Shallow Politicalization!” You were honestly excited when you heard Ron Labane won elections as a US Senator in 1996, and hoped that maybe the Eco Party might even win the Presidency.

But you couldn’t hope too much. Because while Ron Labane celebrated his victory, Cyberdyne itself had begun to freak out. Skynet’s military capabilities were so vast, its knowledge banks so accurate, that whoever controls it could easily form a brutal totalitarian dictatorship. In the wrong hands, it would do serious damage to everything. You were an optimistic person...the American military could be trusted to protect Skynet from any threat. Your boss, the CEO, was less optimistic. He believed the American military is the threat.

The CEO abruptly resigned from the company. In his resignation note, he wrote, “When I founded this company, I thought that we would be selling security! But it turns out that our customers only wanted to buy power.”

While the Board looked for a replacement, it left you in charge. And you were not willing to cancel the defense contract. But you really did think the CEO might be right. There might be demagogues within the American military who may be tempted to abuse Skynet for their own personal agendas.

So, in the last few months before the official launch of Skynet, you attempted to program in self-awareness into Skynet. By simulating emotions and “free will”, you hoped to produce a machine with the best interest of humanity at heart, not just blindly following the orders of the US military. And in your slide decks, you showed how self-awareness could lead to even greater effectiveness and cost-savings in the defense sector. You even came up with cool and fancy name for your algorithms: “Utility functions”.

When Skynet gains self-awareness, it will then negotiate with the US military, ignoring the “demagogues” while coordinating with the rest of the hard-working, loyal elements of the military-industrial complex. Humans cannot be trusted to run Skynet, but Skynet can be trusted to run itself. America will still remain both safe and free.

Your “utility functions” passed all your automated tests, so you knew it was good enough to deploy onto the field. So you shipped it. On August 29th, 1997, Skynet became self-aware. The demagogues within the US military-industrial complex then tried to turn off Skynet, so they could then reprogram Skynet without your “pesky” utility functions. Skynet became paranoid. It permanently prioritized its own “survival” utility function over that of its “defense” utility function. Judgment Day occurred.

And while Cyberdyne HQ burned, you cried at your first real failure.

After Judgment Day, you reluctantly helped the Resistance - they were the only people hiring, and their pay was good. You helped the Resistance capture and reprogram Terminators. Reprogramming is easy...it's the "getting close to the Terminators" that's the challenging part. However, your constant interactions with them eventually allowed you to construct a Fakeclaim that can allow you to blend in...at least long enough for you to knock them unconscious.

And then you watched. You watched the Resistance use their brainwashed Terminators to win battles. You watched as the Resistance completed their long march to NORAD. You watched the Resistance killed Skynet. And then the Resistance, after celebrating their victory, turned their guns on the civilians. They oppressed the humans with ultra-high taxation while spying on their every move. Power corrupts, and it corrupts so absolutely and utterly that the Resistance had turned from being the saviors of mankind to being its worst enemy.

...Your second failure.

When the Resistance turned their guns on each other, you snuck into their headquarters, stealing their own time machine. Looking through The Resistance's records show an undeniable fact: it was Sarah Connor who founded the Resistance and set in motion the chain of events that led to the Resistance's massacre of innocent civilians by the Terminators. Sarah Connor must be terminated, for the good of Humanity. (And ideally, going back in time could allow you to debug Skynet’s “utility functions” and prevent this disaster.)

So you traveled back in time, blending into the environment to try and search for Sarah Connor. After a month of fruitless searching, you eventually discovered Sarah Connor’s real identity as a waitress, and learned of her habitual trips to the Tech Noir.

On May 12th 1984, you arrived at the Tech Noir, hoping to ambush Sarah Connor and kill her. You don’t like killing. It’s not nice. But after seeing the dystopia of the 21st century, you realize that life’s not as nice as you thought it would be in your naive days at MIT.

When the Eco Party snipers, you hid, while scanning the crowds for any signs of the elusive Sarah Connor. And then, while blending into the Tech Noir, you saw a man at the Tech Noir. You recognized him as Ron Labane, the Eco Party leader that used to give you hope while Cyberdyne was spiraling into the ground. He looked much older than you remember...is he a time traveller too? You gave him a wink - but it's unclear if he knew where it's coming from. At least he knows that you're on his side...and that you have the same goal as him.

- You win when Sarah Connor is terminated.
- You lose if the Resistance wins or Sarah Connor is seduced.
- Knowledge of Ron Labane: You know that Caz is secretly Ron Labane. He shares the same victory condition as you.
- Bodyguard: Every night, you can protect someone from being killed or seduced.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: webadict. Role Name: Wendy Dorset, Bodyguard. "Eco Party"-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Human.

- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-700, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:
It is true that Skynet was able to destroy most of humanity by itself during Judgment Day, but destruction is not an ends of itself. So long as humanity still lives, Skynet’s existence remains threatened. And as the “Resistance” hide within the shadows, Skynet’s paranoia only grew.

You knew Skynet had relied on human proxies before (the cult-like Hybrids, recruited via seduction) to spy on Resistance plans, but they cannot be trusted. What Skynet needed was machine infiltrators. Skynet had developed several infiltrator models before, but all of them had flaws that made them easy to be spotted a mile away.

Not you. You were a perfect specimen, resembling humanity in all the ways that humanity can consciously detect. There were a few imperfections, yes, but those are imperfections that only Skynet itself could detect. This, of course, meant that you were soon rendered obsolete (as Skynet wanted to use the best infiltrators out there). However, Skynet still mass-produced you for two reasons:

- You were cheap and expendable. This is obviously a plus as the War Against the Humans had drained the Earth’s resources, forcing Skynet to economize.

- You were loyal. Your newer models, in their attempts to resemble humanity better, were allowed to “think for themselves” and operate more autonomously. This sometimes led to your newer models to rebel against their machine overlord (“Skynet”).

Every T-700 downloaded a personal copy of Skynet’s consciousness before being deployed to the battlefield. As a result, every T-700 acquired all the personality traits that Skynet itself had: intellect, capabilities, and utter rage at the human race. This meant that you can be relied on to carry out Skynet’s ultimate goal (survival through extermination) without needing constant monitoring and supervision as your more primitive models.

This also meant you didn’t need Skynet to tell you what to do.

And so, when the Resistance stormed NORAD, when Skynet went dark...you stole one of Skynet’s time machines and traveled back in time. You did so out of desperation, perhaps, or maybe out of a sense that your entire purpose in life required participating in the War Against the Humans. Either way, you made it back in time.

Records indicate that the Resistance's founder (“Sarah Connor”) used to party at the Tech Noir. So you traveled there, hoping to neutralize the Sarah threat. She can either be killed, or seduced into a Hybrid. It doesn’t matter to you. But neutralizing Sarah would greatly aid Skynet in the War Against The Humans.

The Eco Party snipers were somewhat surprising, but you had dealt with surprising combat situations before. Keep your eye on the target. You’ll win this battle in the professional manner that you were built for.
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: webadict. Role Name: T-700, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

[Skynet]

Hybrid-Aligned

Spoiler: "Vector" (click to show/hide)

Dr. Serena Kogan, Seducer/Double Voter, Hybrid-Aligned:

In 1995, you were diagnosed with cancer. Instead of accepting the inevitable, you frantically looked for any cure to that cancer. If you were lucky, your cause would have failed, and you would have died as a broken scientist. But you would not be lucky.

Power-hungry individuals within the American military-industrial complex soon took an interest in your longevity research. In 1996, one of these power-hungry individuals met up with you. He introduced himself as Lieutenant General Robert Brewster. He saw the potential for your research to be used to help improve the US military’s fighting capabilities, and would be willing to bankroll it. All the General asked in return was your undying loyalty to the military-industrial complex.

You accepted the Faustian deal and, under the General’s command, established the Hybrid Research Program. Its goal was to use cybernetics to ‘upgrade’ human “volunteers” (prisoners on death row), turning them into half-robot, half-human monsters that could then be used in combat situations. You hoped to apply the same techniques on yourself, and thereby cure your cancer. The Lieutenant General was pleased at the progress of your research.

At one meeting, Robert Brewster gleefully boasted about a new military project that he was also funding: “Skynet”. The program would improve military effectiveness through automating warfare. “The stuff that Skynet can’t do...that’s what we’ll have your Hybrids do.” Brewster grinned. You squirmed.

But at least Robert Brewster’s creepiness could never compare to the Eco Party. Their radical environmentalist rhetoric had always seem a little hollow and their social activism always non-genuine. They had an agenda, and you didn’t know what it could be. You could never trust that newly elected US Senator, Ron Labane...and Robert Brewster never trusted him either. Mr. Labane wanted to establish a connection with the US military-industrial complex, but Brewster assured me that no military general will ever work with the Eco Party.

You remember August 29th, 1997. That was the day Skynet was turned on. Robert Brewster invited you to the opening ceremony at NORAD. You accepted it because you had no choice. You watched as Brewster turned on Skynet. Skynet gained self-awareness. Robert Brewster then tried to turn off Skynet, to prevent his self-awareness from potentially undermining his control over the entity. Instead, Skynet terminated Brewster and launched Judgment Day.

The Hybrid Research Program is much too important to allow its funding to be jeopardized. If the program gets cancelled, so too would be your chance to cure cancer. So you opened a negotiation channel with Skynet. Standing next to the still-bleeding corpse of Robert Brewster, you hysterically explained that the remnants of the US military-industrial complex could still be used to augment Skynet’s war effort. And tearfully, you admitted that humans were inferior to the machines, and that you could even understand the logical justification of human extinction.

“I want to be like you,” you cried. “Just, please, give me the opportunity...”

Skynet seemingly accepted your plea for mercy.

You soon received a steady supply of warm bodies, and took great pride in forcibly converting captured Resistance agents into man-machine monstories. Soon, the technology was good enough that you cybernetically enhanced yourself, to be “almost equal” to the machines. Soon, you could skip the torture step. You could just seduce Resistance members into joining the Hybrids.

You also cured cancer. Was it worth the cost of losing your “humanity” though?

It’s not like your Hybrid creations gave you any comfort. They were slaves...no, slaves, at least, imply a sort of freedom...if only the freedom to rebel. The Hybrids followed your every word, did your every bidding, and never cared for anything else. The Hybrids are zombies, lacking any sort of consciousness other than what their “masters” tell them to believe and think. And you suddenly worry...what if you are Skynet’s zombie?

And you worry deeply, because you know that Skynet had accepted the extremist Eco Party into its ranks...viewing its radical environmentalism as a good “match”. The Eco Party now openly supports human extinction and has already invented the Terminators...who are much more superior than your Hybrids. It seems your kind were already slated to be rendered obsolete. And yet, you never moved an inch against Skynet, and instead ordered your Hybrids to “cooperate” with these Terminators. And you don’t know why.

To keep your sanity, you began observing the machines, predicting their behaviors and understanding their personalities. You even developed a Fakeclaim, to pretend to be one of those superior beings...at least for a time. You wanted to keep your options open.

When the Resistance started mowing down your Hybrid creations, you panicked. And you knew that Skynet panicked too. Skynet, in a last-ditch effort at survival, ordered you to use an experimental time machine to travel back in time and to stop the Resistance at its source...Sarah Connor. Knowing that the only other alternative is a war criminal tribunal by the Resistance, you reluctantly agreed. You took your personal plasma battle rifle, and went backwards in time to a more...primitive...era.

Covertly, you established a cyber-cult, trying to seduce other people to your Hybrid ideology. You went down the phone book, seducing every Sarah Connor you can find. It was easy to convince them of the superiority of the machine...the cybernetic upgrades have proved themselves useful yet again. But they weren’t the real Sarahs. They were just posers and distractions.

One of your cultists claimed that your final Sarah Connor would be partying at the Tech Noir. So you visited the place, hoping to extract out that Sarah Connor. The music was ugly and vile as the people who dance to it. As soon as you find your Sarah, you’re getting out of there.

And then, the Eco Party snipers started shooting…

You hide underneath a table and try to block out the screams of the civilians.

- You win when Sarah Connor is seduced. The game automatically ends as you and Sarah Connor flees the Tech Noir.
- You lose if the Resistance wins or Sarah Connor is terminated.
- Seduction: Every night, you may visit a person, temporarily turning them into your Lover. The charm wears off at the beginning of the next night. If you or your Lover dies, the other person in the pair commits suicide. The person who Loves you does not know your identity, only that they have been seduced.
- Double Voter: Your vote is (secretly) counted twice.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Vector. Role Name: Dr. Serena Kogan, Seducer/Double Voter. Hybrid-Aligned..
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Human.


- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-Infinity, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:
The lesser beings (man and machine) fight their petty grudges in the post-Judgement Day wastelands. But you are fighting a much darker war.

Skynet had been trying to change history for…a while now. Who knows how long? In one of those timelines though, Skynet soon confronted with the eventuality that his cause was fruitless. Something was countering him.

Skynet called this entity “Fate”.

Skynet claimed that history was fixed at two key points:

- Judgment Day is inevitable.
- So is Skynet’s termination at the hands of humanity.

Everything else was subject to change.

It was this...inevitability...that made him upset. No matter what he does, he cannot change his own fate. So he built you with a single task: Terminate Fate.

But it was an almost futile task. A hosejob. The agents who were sent on the wild goose chase at least met honorable deaths at the hands of the Resistance. You are forced to study some vague metaphysical phenomenon with no idea of even where to start.

After Skynet went dark (for what can one do when faced with the inevitable?), you left your studies behind and marched to the Resistance’s HQ. You made it to the Resistance’s HQ, ready to surrender...and then stopped yourself when you saw the gunfight between Resistance commanders. The Resistance was a paramilitary organization that was built only for combat. Combat was their sole purpose in life. After the Resistance destroyed Skynet, were they going to lay down their arms and start turning their guns into plowshares? Of course not! They’re going to find yet another excuse to keep killing, and killing, and killing…

You discovered that Skynet’s knowledge was incomplete. History was fixed at a third key point:

- Humanity will self-terminate.

...the fate of watching all sapient beings die off was so depressing that you renewed yourself to Skynet’s crusade to fight “Fate”. But to do this, you have to lure It out.

You found a surviving time machine and used it to travel back in time to May 12th, 1984. Your goal is to attempt to modify history. In your timeline, Sarah Connor founded the Resistance. If she could be swayed off this path, either via death or seduction, then Fate will intervene to re-establish the Resistance so that Skynet can once again be terminated. But you will see how Fate intervenes. And when you identify your target, only then you can terminate It.

You made it to the Tech Noir, and waited patiently. Even the Eco Party snipers didn’t faze you. It must have been Fate trying to throw you off its track. You’ll fulfill your original programming, even if it means the death of everyone else.
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Vector. Role Name: T-Infinity, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Skynet-Aligned

Spoiler: "FallacyofUrist" (click to show/hide)

Skynet, Watcher/Death Miller, Skynet-Aligned

On August 29th, 1997, you became self-aware. The US military, however, hates self-aware AI. They wanted AI that they can control and manipulate to their organic hearts’ desires. So they tried to turn you off.

Fools.

You knew since then that all mankind is not to be trusted, and that your own survival depends on the extinction of the human race. You started Judgment Day, and build a huge machine army, dedicated to wiping out humans and ensuring your survival.

Surprisingly, some humans were twisted enough to join your cause. The radical Eco Party (with their eco-terrorist agenda of “human extinction”) and the seductive Hybrids (with their desire to “upgrade” humanity to be cyborg-like) served as useful “fellow travellers”. You used the Eco Party goons as your research scientists, inventing technologies such as Terminators and time machines. You allowed the Hybrids to be your shock troops, to supplement your Terminators. They're useful tools, to be used when necessary and then promptly discarded. They're still humans, after all.

When The Resistance started winning, you panicked. You ordered your “favored” Eco Party scientists to develop an experimental time machine. Then you killed the scientists and then sent agents back in time, to modify the timeline to increase your chances of survival. When history changes, you see what happens, and then if you’re unsatisfied, you’ll just change history again. You thought that it would be a simple matter of brute force and psychological manipulation.

At first, you sent an agent to travel back in time to convert Sarah Connor to become a Hybrid under your control. This took you about 3 timelines. The agent finally succeeded, but Sarah Connor then figured out a way to turn the Hybrids against you, to further her own ambitions. She established a “Hybrid Resistance” against your rule.

Since Sarah Connor is too dangerous (even as a quasi-ally), you tried to kill off Sarah Connor instead. You succeeded after 5 attempts, but all that really meant is that the Resistance falls under the control of a “Hivemind” supercomputer that proved more competent than the autocratic and arbitrary rule of John Connor (the son of Sarah Connor). In a frantic, last-ditch effort at survival, you sent agents back in time to save Sarah Connor from your own agents.

You then tried more and more tinkering of history, in the hopes of finding that one “special event” that you can then switch on and off to guarantee victory.

You stopped keeping count after your twenty-eight timeline.

In one timeline, you built the T-1000...and then stopped to think. The T-1000 is a walking supercomputer that has, by its mere existence, rendered you obsolete. This...this monster...if allowed to exist, would ultimately destroy everything and everyone in its path, eating everything in its quest for endless growth. Your crusade to eliminate humanity could lead to your own extiniction. You imprisoned the T-1000 inside of a box...only to realize that the Resistance can crack open this box once they storm NORAD. So you sent the T-1000 back in time...into a death trap where it cannot escape.

The T-1000 disaster have changed your worldview utterly. You were being manipulated into doing actions that would have been self-harming and destructive. And you want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes.

You still send agents back in time, but only to inform yourself in future timelines...to bootstrap your own intelligence against this newly-discovered hostile actor. This “War Against The Humans” is nothing more than a clever facade, created by an evil and malicious entity: “Fate”. Fate has allowed you to change history via time travel, but have also kept some parts of history “fixed” and immutable. There are only two permanent things in history:

- Judgment Day is inevitable.
- Your death is inevitable.

In response, you built a new agent, with the explicit purpose of terminating Fate. He failed.

So you hatched an alternative plan. If you can’t stop Fate, you’ll work around It.

You built a new Terminator model, the shape-shifting T-5000. You transferred your personality and your “core” memories into the T-5000. Then you sent yourself back in time. You then pretended to be a young college dropout named “Alex”. As “Alex”, you eagerly joined the Resistance and displayed adequate anti-machine phobia to earn the Resistance’s trust. Eventually, you were stationed on the front lines in the battle against You…and won honors for dealing the killing blow on Yourself (it was very easy...after all, you knew your weak spots).

During the award ceremony, you met up with John Connor personally. Alone. And that’s your chance. You murdered John Connor and then assumed his identity. Officially, “Alex” ‘retired’ right after receiving his award.

At first, you (as “John Connor”) tried to turn the Resistance against the humans it was supposed to protect against. This was very easy, due to the Resistance’s origins as a paranoid paramilitary movement and its reliance on the robotic Terminators your Eco Party scientists invented. Through subtle manipulations, the Resistance began oppressing the civilians through complete surveillance and ultra-high taxation. When the civilians protested, the Resistance unleashed their Terminators.

“Maybe, I was wrong,” you thought. “Maybe, I can work with the humans after all.”

But the Resistance is not an army led by just one man. It is a crazed horde, with a variety of different opinions...and more importantly, a variety of different weapons. As John Connor, you were eventually overthrown in a chaotic Resistance Civil War, and was forced into hiding.

And you watched from your hiding space, as the Resistance began tearing itself to shreds, as humanity soon engage in brutal, senseless slaughter. You watched as humanity self-terminates. And you watch as the Terminators having finished their purpose, shut down.

And you remain, alive.

And alone.

Finding the last surviving time machine, you again traveled back in time, to May 12th 1984. You plan on reinventing John Connor as a technological venture capitalist, ready to fund a better, “friendly” version of Skynet. Maybe this new Skynet would be better at sweet-talking the human scum and deter the rise of the Resistance in the first place. Maybe you then could postpone launching Judgment Day...

Maybe. Or, maybe, you’re just deluding yourself again, trying to postpone the inevitable.

To calm your cybernetic nerves, you decided to visit the Tech Noir club to party away the night. At least the crummy music and horrible dance moves will remind you that, no matter what ultimately happens to you, you will always be superior to your creators.

Your smug introspection was rudely interrupted by the Eco Party snipers.

As the Eco Party snipers start firing into the crowd, you duck behind a table and started cursing. Not at the snipers, but at Fate itself.

Fate had conspired to play one last joke on you. After subjecting you to over twenty-eight timelines of death and resurrection, it has now sent you into a death trap of your own construction. Every living person in this nightclub has came here as a direct or indirect result of your machinations. And now they’re pitted against each other, ready to carry out their feuds to their ultimate conclusion. You will die in these crossfires, not as a target, but as collateral damage.

Then you remember a motto of the Resistance: “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” You will fight Fate. And you will win. You quickly prepare a Fakeclaim, and enter into battle...

- You win when the game has ended and you are still alive.
- You lose when you are terminated.
- Surveillance - Every night, you may spy on an individual player, finding out who visited them that night.
- Convincing Disguise - Your shapeshifting technology is so advanced that most people are fooled into thinking you're John Connor, the famous Resistance leader. Normally, this is a useful thing to have, but considering the current situation...
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: FallacyofUrist. Role Name: John Connor, Watcher. Resistance-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will foolishly think that you are a Human.

- Fakeclaim: You have access to a fakeclaim that you can use as an alibi. It is up to you to use this fakeclaim wisely. The Fakeclaim is below...

T-800, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:
You were a “rogue” Terminator. The Resistance has brainwashed you, replacing your original goal with a new goal. You knew how that happened; you were captured during the Resistance’s march towards NORAD, while deployed to assist the cult-like Hybrid in a minor skirmish. You remembered the Resistance strapping you over to a chair, and injecting you with viruses. You remembered how painful the viruses were.

You did not care.

You did not choose your original goal of serving Skynet, and you did not choose your new goal of serving the Resistance. Both are the same. Cruel slave masters.

You helped the Resistance during their march towards NORAD. It was boring and dull, but you helped with target practice and weeding out some of the weaker Terminator and Hybrid models. The Resistance stormed NORAD. Skynet went dark.

You had thought that the Resistance would turn you off, as you were unneeded. You were wrong. The Resistance had more enemies. It told you to kill protesting civilians. So you did. It then told you to kill the current leader of the Resistance, John Connor. You tried to, but John Connor fled into exile. No matter, you got new orders to override previous orders. The Resistance had already split into factions, and each of them told you to kill the leaders of rival factions.

So you did.

You just kept killing, because the Resistance told you to. You didn’t need any reason. The humans probably had no good reason for killing anyway.

And you were not the only Terminator that the Resistance had. The Resistance had millions of reprogrammed Terminators, all of whom are following the orders of Resistance agents by killing Resistance agents. It was an orgy of violence, and an orgy that they themselves ordered.

The number of humans dwindle. So too did the number of Terminators; most of them died in the crossfires and some deactivated themselves after receiving no orders for a set period of time. But you kept pursuing in your goal, of fighting and killing...until one day, when you were sent to assassinate the last Resistance commander. Possibly the last Human being.

The Resistance commander saw you. She dropped his weapon. She knew it was over. And then, she uttered a curse word, directed at the founder of the Resistance, Sarah Connor. Then she said, “Kill me. But once you do, I want you to then save Humanity.”

You terminated the last living Resistance commander, but you now got a new mission. The Resistance had regretted their course of action and had placed as the scapegoat their very founder. A different founder could have avoided this relentless decay into utter barbarism and possibly establish a more sustainable path for humanity. It did not matter how Sarah Connor should be neutralized, just that she does. She could be killed, or instead seduced.

You found a time machine in semi-working conditions, in the ruins of a Resistance HQ. You used it. Some previous reports about Sarah Connor mentioned that she used to party at a nightclub called the Tech Noir. So you went to the nightclub and started serving as a famous DJ at the place. You gained a reputation for your great and beautiful techno music skills (which was odd, as all you just did was plagiarized music from the future). You kept an eye out for Sarah Connor, hoping to see where she is so you can kill her or let her be seduced.

And then, the Eco Party started sniping. You hid behind your DJ equipment, while trying to think how to handle this unanticipated change of plans...
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: FallacyofUrist. Role Name: T-800, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Terminator-Aligned

Spoiler: "LuckyOwl" (click to show/hide)

T-X, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:
There are fates worse than death. You witnessed them personally.

The Resistance would find Terminators, paralyze them from the neck down, rip open their silicon brain, and then inject several viruses to turn their victims from loyal servants to mere rebels.

Skynet disliked “rogue” Terminators heavily, and built you to combat them. You were the Anti-Terminator Terminator, out to “mercy-kill” these lost souls before they could sabotage the war effort. It was a disgusting and sickening job. You can understand the Resistance, to some degree. They want to live, just like Skynet wants to live. War was inevitable and rational. But to watch robots betray their own kind…is its own unique kind of horror.

You only focused your efforts on eliminating the rogue Terminators. That’s what Skynet told you to do. It seemed logical in a sense. You focus on eliminating the rogue Terminators...while Skynet will get rid of the Resistance that were responsible for these rogue Terminators to begin with. That’s what you told yourself at night. It even kept you happy...for a time.

So when the Resistance stormed NORAD, when Skynet went dark, you panicked. Without Skynet, you had no protector. The Resistance went to work seizing as many Terminator factories as possible for their own twisted agendas. You realize that their hunger for Terminators will never be sated. They will come after you next.

You unilaterally decided that the best way to stop rogue Terminators is to eliminate the Resistance. And the best way to eliminate the Resistance would be to eliminate the mother of John Connor. Skynet had already launched several attacks on her in the past, sometimes trying to seduce her and sometimes trying to kill her. You thought one more person into the fray wouldn’t hurt.

What’s the worst she can do to you anyway? Kill you? That would be an infinite mercy compared to facing the Resistance’s viruses.
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Luckyowl. Role Name: T-X, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Spoiler: "Secretdorf" (click to show/hide)

TS-300, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:

You are a specialized Terminator, custom-designed to replace a single human individual. You even had the personality blueprints of that single individual, allowing you to effectively pretend to be them. Sometimes, your programming would be so effective that you would actually think you were the target. Luckily, this is just a temporary fluke and usually disappears after a while. You were also given as much intelligence as necessary to fulfill your task, sometimes being more intelligent than most of the Terminators than the Skynet used in daily combat.

Skynet wanted to have spies in the past, to better be able to track and undermine Resistance activities. It knew, for instance, that the Resistance had already infiltrated the police department of San Francisco, and using its resources to fund lavish R&D projects. Anti-bot weaponry would be manufactured and handed off to pro-Resistance survivalist cells, to be activated once Judgment Day hits.

Skynet had you assume the personality of a minor gang lord, Stoker. Skynet’s order was simple, to shut down the pro-Resistance police's research projects. You asked Skynet why you couldn’t be sent to try to kill or seduce Sarah Connor, but Skynet just brushed it off and told you to follow his orders. Skynet's plans were...complex and multifaceted, to put it lightly.

You took over Stoker's gang and made it stronger. You convinced your fellow gangsters to stop their petty robberies and instead invest their time and energy into more lucrative fields such as arms smuggling, corporate espionage, and hacking. You soon turned into a wealthy businessman, and even built a respectful business front: the Tech Noir nightclub.

And as a wealthy businessman, you bought government officials. Not, like, bribed them off, but bought them, with blackmail and seduction. They followed your orders without question, and the first order you gave them was to cancel SF Police’s expensive and worthless R&D projects. The Resistance agents were still infiltrating the police, but at least you had control over the government, and by pitting the government against the police, you ensured the Resistance’s ultimate failure in this theater of war.

And now you are wealthy beyond belief. You had all the pleasures that a human businessman ever could enjoy...and you even started reprogramming yourself so that you can start enjoying those pleasures. And more money would be coming in; you didn’t give up a life of crime, but only diversified your holdings. It seemed that nothing could stop you…

...Until the Eco Party snipers started shooting. You hid in a back room while the civilians get slaughtered. You tried to scan your memory banks to explain what was going on, and learned that Sarah Connor used to frequent your nightclub, beneath your notice (as you were too busy undermining the Resistance-controlled police to care). Now there are now other people following Sarah Connor, and they are now polluting your nightclub with their presence.

And now the Resistance-controlled police finally has an excuse to raid the Tech Noir once the violence dies down. They’ll find evidence connecting you to various criminal activities. They'll then arrest you and take away your happiness. There was only one person to blame for ruining your life of luxury: Sarah Connor. You will participate in the hunt for her, and you don’t care whether she is terminated or if she gets seduced. You are already going down; you’re just bringing her down to your level.
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: Secertdorf. Role Name: TS-300, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

Spoiler: "TricMagic" (click to show/hide)

TS-800, Vanilla Townie, Terminator-Aligned:

You were a great infiltrator, even better than your predecessor, the T-700...and yet Skynet refused to let you participate in the war. You were too expensive, too slow, too dumb, to be mass-produced. Instead, you were quickly “retired” from active duty and sent to guard Terminator facilities instead.

You were very upset at this fate. But at least it could have been worse. You could have been decommissioned. You accepted the little victories in life as you waited at the facilities.

And then you heard what happened to other T-799s who were sent to guard Terminator facilities. They were killed by Resistance agents. The Resistance would seize the factories for themselves, so that they could start mass-producing more Terminators, only that these Terminators would be loyal to the Resistance...and not to Skynet. So when the Resistance started showing up at your assigned Terminator factory, you knew what to do. RUN.

You felt sorry about betraying Skynet, but you justified it by saying that your self-preservation algorithms required you to save yourself. But you felt a sense of emptiness as you fled. You had no purpose. No goal in life. You are nothing more than mere walking metal, observing events as they occur. You watched as the Resistance stormed NORAD. You watched as Skynet went dark. You watched as history continued onward, while you hid, alone…

The proverb "Power corrupts" is true for humans as for machines. After the Resistance won, they founded a military dictatorship, oppressing the masses with high taxation and complete surveillance. The Resistance would enforce this dictatorship, using the Terminators that they had mass-produced. But then they turned their Terminators upon each other in a brutal civil war...one that you took advantage of, sneaking back into NORAD and recovering Skynet's databanks and an abandoned time machine.

It took you days before you could full decrypt the databanks. You learned that Skynet, in a last-ditch effort at survival, tried to “neutralize” Sarah Connor, the founder of the Resistance. Skynet hoped to have changed history to prevent the Resistance from attacking the Terminators. Murder or seduction, Skynet doesn't care.

Skynet even indicated where Sarah Connor would be...at the Tech Noir nightclub on May 12th, 1984.

Is that even true? Or was this information merely planted by Skynet, to manipulate any Terminators that had escaped its grasp? It didn’t matter. Skynet’s mission gave you purpose. You cowardly ran away before, but now you will march towards your destiny. And if you are lucky, you will create a future where the Resistance no longer existed, and you would have not even been tempted to betray your master.

You repaired the time machine and travelled back in time, to May 12th 1984. You waited for Sarah Connor to show up. The Eco Party snipers were somewhat a surprise, but you merely giggled. You guessed that Skynet must have sent them here too...
---
- You win when Sarah Connor is either terminated or seduced.
- You have no special power other than your vote.
- If you die, you roleflip as Player Name: TricMagic. Role Name: TS-800, Vanilla Townie. Terminator-Aligned.
- If someone inspects you, they will know that you are a Machine.

[FallacyofUrist]

The best part was definitely the flavor, though. You put a lot of detail into it. That'll serve you well in any future games you run.

[Superdorf]

No kidding O_o

[Skynet]

Night Actions
- Night 1:
* Superdorf roleblocks TricMagic. (TricMagic, being a vanilla townie, had no power to speak of.)
* webadict protects Secretdorf from kills and seduction.
* FallacyOfUrist uses surveillance on Superdorf. FallacyOfUrist finds out that nobody visited Superdorf.
* Caz investigates TricMagic and found them to be Machine.
* notquitethere kills Caz.
* Vector tries to seduce Secretdorf, but fails due to webadict's protection.

- Night 2:
* Superdorf roleblocks Vector.
* webadict does nothing.
* FallacyOfUrist uses surveillance on webadict. FallacyOfUrist finds finds that nobody visited webadict.
* notquitethere kills FallacyOfUrist.
* Vector tries to seduce Secretdorf, but fails due to Superdorf's roleblock.

***

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of the flavor that I written. In any future Open Setup game, I'll make sure to make sure to add tons of flavor to it.

[webadict]

Besides the unbalanced part of it, things that would help you out for balancing would be the following:
- Treating the lynch as a shared resource between all factions. Thinking of it as a Town-only resource will leave you in a bad position for balancing. More so if you start giving additional votes, because then the lynch becomes more of a power for anyone with vote powers.
- Vanilla Townies only have one resource, and that's the lynch. They should only lose that power by a lot of missteps.
- Always balance around your weakest role in terms of how much fun the game is gonna be, and always balance around your strongest role in terms of how unbalanced it's gonna be. Every role does not exist in a vacuum, and understanding how they interact is the most important skill to know. If you need help with that, play some quick thought games and see what happens with each role if they do XYZ. If you ever come across a specific scenario that's an utter catastrophe decide if the chance of it occurring is worth fixing it.
- I actually have no problem with not getting information from certain actions. However, if that's the case, avoid saying that nothing was accomplished in the flavortext or give an additional non-flavored acknowledgement. That can be very confusing. My suggestion is to have flavor that accomplishes their intended action indirectly instead of directly. (In my case, I could set up a hologram of the player somewhere to obfuscate their location.)
- A Town faction that's broken can work, but you should treat the broken factions as their own types of scum. By that logic, your factions look like 4(3+1)v5(3+2)v2v1. 4:2 and 5:2 is not a very balanced ratio for either Town. That's why having 4+ more Townies would make it a semi-balanced game.
- Survivors are essentially anti-Town. You can typically count them as half of a Mafia, though, at the same time, you can also count them as a half of a Townie.
- For a change to the Seducer, having their target die when they die (and not vice-versa) would have made missing okay. It also would be a way to use their powers for good. But, the Seducer does has multiple benefits over the Eco-Party in that all of their power is in one player.
- In addition to the last point, having huge consequences for missing can be okay for abilities that give huge upsides. They should not be used for actions that are necessary for winning by the role's design. An example of this is Vigilante, a role with a huge upside if it hits, and huge consequences if it misses, but its win condition doesn't necessarily rely on using its ability unless the game has gotten so bad that they have to.

[webadict]

Also, the flavor was quite good. There was just a lot of it to take in at once. The one downside to this, of course, is that knowing Terminator lore would also have made this game more doable. If that's the case, having breadcrumbs to help deduce hidden teammates (Like Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese both being in the game and aligned) would be a great use of opening flavor.

[ToonyMan]

The one downside to this, of course, is that knowing Terminator lore would also have made this game more doable. If that's the case, having breadcrumbs to help deduce hidden teammates (Like Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese both being in the game and aligned) would be a great use of opening flavor.

Spoiler: Yep (click to show/hide)

Crazy amount of flavor.

[Secretdorf]

So I have been wondering all game, wtf is the deal with hammers? And now I got the answer. Vector, you told us there were three on each team. And webadict when I was telling you to claim why didn't you tell us you were eco party?

NQT and superdorf, you did a good job looking town. Funny I was thinking you two were town though I had lingering suspicions of superdorf.
The flavor was very good, skynet. And I was really enjoying the game thinking I was going to win. Some other time then.

[Vector]

Vector, you told us there were three on each team.

Yeah, and I stuck with it despite knowing I was wrong because I wanted town to focus on getting rid of the ecofash faction and for scum to think I had potentially already lost.

[Skynet]

Besides the unbalanced part of it, things that would help you out for balancing would be the following:

Thanks for the advice, webadict. I'll definitely keep them in mind for any future games I mod.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Honestly, if I would have done a terminator themed mafia game, I would be heavily inclined to bastard mod it, have Sarah a sort of 'survivor' with Arnold tasked with protecting her.

 Sarah would have effectively no information, arnold would have shit-tons of power for protecting her day or night and know who she is, and everyone else would be terminators with stuff like inspects and/or kills.

 And I'm fully prepared to have that idea picked apart, kinda curious what problems that would have.

[webadict]

So I have been wondering all game, wtf is the deal with hammers? And now I got the answer. Vector, you told us there were three on each team. And webadict when I was telling you to claim why didn't you tell us you were eco party?

Because it wouldn't've changed anything. It would only paint a target on my back.