|
|
Post by Judge Sam on Sept 7, 2009 3:55:33 GMT -5
Sam Lies Week Sam Lies Week was a collection of themed events that took place in Episode #7. The idea behind theme weeks is that they intertwine an activity, a challenge, and another event with a theme that spans that Episode. In this case the theme was a bastard host - one that could not be trusted to tell the truth. The premise for Sam Lies Week was simple. For the duration of Episode #7, Sam could not be trusted. He would tell the players exactly Three Lies over the course of the week. Everything else was the truth. At the end of the week, he would reveal what the three lies were to everyone. As I explained in the introductory post for the Week, during the theme week I would also joke around with the players a lot. These sarcastic statements and practical jokes may or may not count towards the official three lie count. I was excited for this theme week because I had never been a bastard mod before. If you're not familiar with the concept in forum mafia games, sometimes there are entire games where the mod 'cannot be trusted.' He might systematically lie to you about role results, alignments of players, or even who gets eliminated. Part of the game is to figure out if the host is lying to you and use that to your advantage to get true information. Through six Spies games I had been completely trustworthy. Sure I didn't come out and say everything I knew but everything I said could be relied upon as fact. Contrast this with the many other players in the game who were likely lying at every turn. I started Sam Lies Week off by posting a message where I expressed my everlasting joy and adulation of everyone in the game.  I praised their wit, razor sharp sarcasm, and inventive comedy. Especially their jokes where they tell me that they think I am in fact a Spy, and perhaps they should vote for ME to be eliminated at Exile. I told them that knee-slapping joke never gets old, not even after hearing it at 53 separate Exiles even going back to the very first Spies three years ago:  While incredibly sarcastic, that message was not one of the official lies. It's actually true, honest!  Meanwhile, the Spies were working on carrying out the most devious and diabolical official lie of them all. Some of the players had voiced inklings that maybe something with Imprisonment (night kill) would be fishy... but Sam wouldn't really bold-faced lie about something that important, would he? More on that coming up. The first lie of Sam Lies Week would be just as insidious, but much more benign. In fact it only consisted of five words! woo, happy birthday to me! Those five words weren't even on the Spies site. I put up that as my AIM away message and to my delight, well-wishes started rolling in.It made me feel so fuzzy inside! Who doesn't like to be wished a happy birthday? So, yeah, like maybe it wasn't really my birthday but whose keeping track, really? Turns out it is just as fun to be wished one anyway.  I wasn't sure if it would catch on with everyone but soon I was fortunate enough to have not one, but two birthday threads with maybe 20 people wishing me a fantastic birthday.  |
|
|
|
Post by Judge Sam on Sept 7, 2009 3:57:21 GMT -5
So from there we move to the Activity of Sam Lies Week. Part of Sam Lies Week was to say a lot of things that people would think are lies because they are fishy or look untrue, but are actually the truth. I wanted to have a lot of great fake-outs. Activity #7 - Tell Me What You Really Think was one of those things. It was a survey. Players would fill out the survey with people's names and then the results would be collected and posted. No one's specific answers would be revealed. Here were the questions: 1) Who is the most astute and logical?
2) Who is the most inactive and worthless?
3) Who is the biggest bitch?
4) Who would you most like to be friends with outside the game?
5) Which citizen would be most likely to lie about having a role when they really don't have one?
6) Who is the most emotional?
7) Who needs to get on AIM more?
8) Who should people listen more to?
9) Who has the thinnest skin?
10) Who needs to have some original thoughts and stop bandwagoning?
11) Who is the most skilled mafia player?
12) Who, if you saw them walking towards you on the sidewalk, would you nonchalantly cross the street to avoid making eye contact with them? Even if they whole 'it might a lie' thing didn't factor in to this, those answers might cause plenty of drama on their own lol. Click here to see the results, where Gretchen is labeled worthless, Georgia the biggest bitch, Kirsten the most friendly, Ariel the one with the thinnest skin, and Tiberius needs to stop bandwagoning.  While surprising and revealing, most people were able to shrug off other's opinions of them. However, the 'worthless inactive' Gretchen took the criticism particularly hard. This despite the fact that she had been gone on a vacation for 5 days and then disappeared completely for a week after that: She asked for a replacement but later decided to remain in the game. While that particular one hit home, there were many other playful jokes thrown around by me and the players in the game. The mood was light-hearted as another part of Sam Lies Week was playing practical jokes on the players. On AIM I chatted with a few players and poked fun, 'accidentally' telling Mirela about a person named Vivian who was 'very important' who I then begged her not to tell anyone about. I also took the chance to play a practical joke on Spy Pete: Meanwhile Ariel was about to play an elaborate practical joke of her own on the fellow players with a fake role claim. Ariel claimed to be the Gravedigger who could resurrect a player and bring them back into the game. The catch? She needed ten of her fellow players to take part in the ritual by posting a specific message consecutively. If someone broke the chain, the whole thing was screwed up and no one came back.  Ariel posted a thread in the Burg instructing the other players to follow her instructions and not ask questions: "Post I wish to resurrect Yvette. Don't forget the bold. Don't ask questions. I wish to resurrect Yvette." Things were going great because nine of the required ten players had posted the unbroken chain correctly. Yvette was 'about to be revived!' Surely if this went through, Ariel would be ecstatic as Yvette was her very best friend in the game throughout the three short episodes Yvette was in it. But it was not to be...  I will ask questions thank you. I can't see how it is bad. But uhm.. are you implying that we 15 players can not defeat 3 spies? Or do you just wish Yvette to do your work for you? With just one more post needed to go Georgia broke the chain! Tons of blame, arguing, regret, and disappointment ensued in these two separate threads which you can read if you want to hear about who is really to blame. Georgia blamed Ariel for being demanding in her post while Ariel pretended to act pissed (remember this is all a lie lol).  Oddly enough, Ariel decided to never reveal the truth, maintaining that she actually was a Gravedigger all the way through the game because she thought it would give her needed cit points. It was pretty funny watching people try and post "the correct way" and argue about a bunch of crap haha. I got a kick out of it. |
|
|
|
Post by Judge Sam on Sept 7, 2009 3:59:07 GMT -5
Next up came the challenge for the Episode, Challenge #7 - The Test. It was a simple exam of 25 questions about Spies 6 so far. Unfortunately a lot of it is in-jokes so unless you played the game you might not get it. Some highlights: 12) Of all of Roxy’s posts made publicly on Monday, June 22nd, (CDT) and Tuesday, June 23rd up until 1:44 AM CDT, how many of them contain insulting, demeaning, or snide statements towards someone else? A) 0% B) 21% C) 35% D) 57% E) 82% F) 93% G) 100%  In 82% of cantankerous Roxy's public posts over a 24 hour period she insulted someone! 22) Which of the original 32 player’s name is also the name of a popular computer font? (typeface) Look at the leaderboard up top and guess! See answer key for the answer. 13 players raced through this challenge live against each other. The winner would receive their first pick of a collection of prizes. Even last place would receive a prize as there was something for everyone. The prizes were divided into three categories: Immunity, Power, and Silly. You can see the full powers as well as who got them right here. Silly was things like vandalize the leaderboard up top or change someone's avatar picture temporarily. Immunity was an upcoming Immunity for Imprisonment or Exile. Power was a few different things. Unfortunately for someone, the #1 Power - an investigation - was one of Sam's Three Lies. The person who ended up choosing this prize would not receive an investigation at all. In fact, no matter who they chose, they would receive back 'citizen.' Devious! Ariel ended up zooming past everyone and beating Pete by just 12 seconds to claim first place with a time of 51:40! She had won the challenge on the very first day of the game as well. You can see the full times here. Ecstatic at her second victory, Ariel eagerly chose the first power prize! She was overjoyed to have an investigation, because there had been one person she had her eye on for awhile now. Quite publicly in fact she had been pushing Rey as a Spy loudly and frequently for the past two weeks. Unfortunately for her, no one would listen. Finally, it was her chance to confirm to everyone what she knew was true! For Ariel, not only would she be disappointed when she was told Rey was a 'citizen', but she would be furious again when Sam revealed that that was a lie, Rey's alignment was unknown, and that she had won first place in the challenge and received absolutely nothing. Ariel is still actually to this day quite perturbed about that! ;D Amongst all these activities the game of mafia continued on. Actually the challenge happened after Imprisonment which is where the final of my three lies played out. So let's roll back to the beginning of the episode and talk about the final, most sinister lie: the fake Imprisonment. |
|
|
|
Post by Judge Sam on Sept 7, 2009 4:00:19 GMT -5
In Episode #7, the Spies were told to select both a fake Imprisonment and a real Imprisonment. The fake Imprisoned person would be revealed as the night kill for Episode #7 and would be under the impression that they were gone. The person who was actually Imprisoned would stick around for a few days... until the three lies were revealed and they were snatched away. At that point, the fake Imprisoned person would come back. For full details, click here.That thread also shows the Spies discussing on how they should play out this fake Imprisonment twist. They had a few plans. They ended up deciding that Jenya should be fake Imprisoned. Jenya had a role that the Spies knew about so roleblocking her would help. Additionally, after Jenya was Imprisoned, the Spies could leak this role information publicly because Jenya was gone. When she came back, they would now have an excuse to Imprison her for real and not be caught in the act. Jenya had told others to watch the Spies if she was Imprisoned. Imprisonment #7 - Inter-Dimensional Travel was part two of a three part Imprisonment trilogy. It's a really good story which you can read from start to finish here.At the end of Imprisonment #7, Jenya was Imprisoned and the third lie had gone into action. Rey started blabbing about Jenya's role in the spies6 chatroom literally a minute after the announcement. Rey would later get blamed for this, but it was actually Jason the Spy who posted full details of Jenya's role and everything she would have wanted out there if she was gone. Jackpot. But not for Jenya, who was an absolutely amazing player and contributed an endless amount of awesomeness to the game. It was probably the most heartbreaking thing I've ever done and as you can read in her final words, it sucked. But fortunately (?) for her, she would be back soon (and for the rest of the game, actually). So cruel!  Meanwhile in the loser's lounge the entire place was enraptured in the Jenya/Mirela are Spies theory that everyone believed. As soon as anyone new entered the loser's place they were immediately presented with Mei Yun's 26-lettered evidence collection of Jenya's spyhood and initiated into the Jenya/Mirela cult. So the loser's lounge was pretty much thinking her Imprisonment was a lie. But the people in the game believed it was real and would be shocked when she re-entered the game after Exile #7. We're almost done with the story of Sam Lies Week but here are some extras I managed to squeeze in. First, I posted a Spies 6 flavor story called Tale of the Three "Murders" a real life tale about the fight between corporations and unions. In the short anecdote, an evil corporation tries to convict a union leader of three made-up murders - but then the 'victims' start appearing around town! Click the link for the story. Second, as a challenge prize, Mirela got to vandalize the leaderboard up top. This was posted at the top of the site for a few days: Each picture has an in-joke haha. Boris and Roxy got to continue their never-ending war of words with prizes they won from the challenge. (Boris got 10th and Roxy 13th, so they got crappy 'Silly' prizes.) Boris changed Roxy's avatar to that of a mentally disabled person in a Superman costume while Roxy changed Boris's name to Creeper. Finally, Oswald was replaced for the second time leading some people to think something fishy or an official lie might be going on with him. |
|
|
|
Post by Judge Sam on Sept 7, 2009 4:01:56 GMT -5
It was now time for Exile #7 where amongst all the lies the players had to try and vote out another Spy. You can read the transcript of the live chat here.Ariel said she loved me now but she wouldn't be in 30 minutes when the three lies would be revealed! During all this we still had an exciting vote to conduct. And actually it was one of the more surprising votes of the season. I could probably write another equal-length explanation of it all haha but instead you can check out the Episode #7 forum for people's confessionals and the Burg for more information. In short, people were pretty certain Amelia was a Spy. Instead of Exiling the 'known' Spy, a medium-sized group of people secretly banded together via AIM chats to blindside Thor who they thought had a link with exiled-Spy Iris. It was a surprise to the other half of the game when Thor left and turned up Citizen. Exile #7  THOR (10): Amelia, Georgia, Jason, Ariel, Pete, Mirela, Kirsten, Gretchen, Roxy, Khaled
 AMELIA (6): Thor, Rey, Levi, Tiberius, Boris, William
 LEVI (1): Oswald
 Thor's Alignment: CitizenSo a few people in different places were speculating on what the lies were, and a lot of them were right. But for many the surprise three lies were about to be revealed in spectacular fashion. It was now time for Jenya to return and for the final lie to be revealed. But who did the Spies choose to truly Imprison? In their discussion thread, the Spies talked about eliminating smartie Kirsten, part time investigator William, or trusted Tiberius. They ultimately settled on William. But the players in the game had no idea that it was William. And so when Jenya came back, the first thought on their minds was that it was them who was truly Imprisoned and already eliminated from the game for good... And now it was time for the players to find out who was truly Imprisoned. To reveal, I told a very short story involving all of the players at a party. The last one at the party would be kidnapped and Imprisoned! (Everyone else got so drunk they forgot it all.  You can read the short and cute story by clicking there and scrolling down like 75% of the way. So Sam Lies Week was over. Jenya was back, Ariel and Gretchen were pissed, and I didn't return my birthday gifts. I explained the lies fully here. To recap: 1) My birthday is not June 22nd, it is March 27th.  2) At the Challenge I told you a reward would be an investigation, that was a lie. Whoever won the 'investigation' would simply be told that whoever they used it on was a Citizen. Regardless if the person selected was a Citizen or a Spy, they would be told: "_____ is a citizen." Devious. 3) I lied about Imprisonment #7. Jenya was not Imprisoned. For the real Imprisonment story you can check it out here. William was the one really Imprisoned. And that was Sam Lies Week! |
|
)
