Unfortunately not. I was my real one. I had a tasty backpack with not much in it and as expected someone tried to grab that in a dense crowd. While I was holding on to that and prevented that theft, someone else must have managed to get my actual wallet. Without me noticing. So, credit cards and some cash are gone. Not very much cash, since I don't take much with me. But it's still an annoying hassle to have all these cards invalidated and replaced - and find a way to get some more cash for the remaining week without those cards. We'll see.

Also, dibs on a player spot in the next game.

Incidentally, for future games I'd like to request two additional universal rules:

* No using avatars or forum titles for softclaims/breadcrumbing. I find this degrades the play experience by inappropriately extending the remit of what must be considered for reading other players; I believe MU has a similar rule. There is no way to moderate the contents of a player's forum title or avatar in line with the no-edit rule (which can be easily overseen), so I feel this should be banned.

* No extensive references to previous games. I find such references exclusionary to newer players, and extensive discussions of how X player played in Y game turn the community into an insular circlejerk. There are more than 50 games on this site, and a singular Mafia game will span hundreds of posts. It's just not appropriate to expect newer players to be able to partcipate in discussing older games, and such discussions distract from the active game.

Doing either of those takes away from the camaraderie of the game.

A.An avatar is an avatar and if someone chooses to focus on someone's avatar as an indication of alignment then they deserve whatever repercussions happen from it. I have changed my avatar before in a game just for grins and giggles to see if anyone picked up that it was in reference to the game, and it had nothing to do with claiming. This is not MU, and if people want to play on MU then they should go there and not force MU rules here.

B. So we are playing a game and someone wants to go "Hey remember when we played such and such game before and you did such and such thing", oh wait that's a no no now. I would not want to play in any games where someone's forcing me to not say what I want in game.

A. I find this argument fails to connect in any way with your stated point about camaraderie. I'll discuss this point in more depth after the current game. For what it's worth though, players such as myself, Damnation, SirPrimalform, and JoeSapphire long predate much of the current meta discussion clique, and are in fact founding players of GOG Mafia, so suggesting a move to MU seems...well, I shouldn't have to spell that out.

B. Note the word "extensive". Something like half of the current game's posts reference older games, and players who aren't part of that circle have expressed feeling out of their depth. At several points I have been inclined to call a moratorium in the current game.

Yeah, I'm with trent on this.

Changing your avatar is perfectly acceptable, if you want to use it to breadcrumb a role or just get in the spirit of the game I don't see why that should be disallowed.
Sure, changing it multiple times during a game and using it to send messages would be different, but I think that could be seen and judged on a case by case basis (and as the only players likely to try and speak in a way as to not be seen would be scum, also likely to get you lynched).

If we had a larger player base maybe, but up until this game where a bunch of the older players rejoined the player base has only been just larger than the amount of people in most games, so it's only natural that we refer to games we have jointly played together. I don't see that banning this would work in anyway.

Shouldn't be discussed right now.

As mere player I say "no way", I wouldn't want to live in such world.
As former GOGFather currently on prolonged leave, I would have to think about it but hoenstly, I don't think it is something it should be universally enforced. It is not somethihng that breaks the game in any way so I don't feel it's something GOGFather should dictate.
I think referencing common past is very usual thing, not only in mafia and restricting people from talking about it? That's not feasible, IMO.

If mods want that, they can add that to their own personal rules, but I would advise against that and I personally would be unwilling to join such game.

A. If I had wanted to change my avatar this game to the Battlestar Galactica to immerse myself into the game and was told I could not that takes away from the camaraderie.

B. Telling someone what they can and can not talk about in a game is censorship, and I will not be part of a game that is forcing censorship.


I also was not suggesting anyone move to MU to play, just if you want to play by MU rules then play a game on their site but don't force the MU rules onto this site.

Neither of the two should be discussed while a game is in progress, let alone by the mod of said game.

If a discussion is to be had after the current game has ended, I have a few things to say.



[emphasis added]

And the part I highlighted does?

I'm out of this discussion until after game #53 has ended.

I'm not sure whether you're wilfully misunderstanding me, but per the rule I suggest you wouldn't be prevented from changing an avatar for a game; it would just preclude your avatar being used for a softclaim or breadcrumbing. As for censorship, do you consider the prohibition against cryptoclaiming, betting, and posting the contents of your role PM to be censorship? Games have rules, games based on conversation have rules based on conversation.

Without fresh blood communities stagnate and die. There was a point at which this forum had three or four games running at once, and it used to be common for multiple games to be running in parallel. The fact that this community has dwindled to the point where a game can only run every few months or so and there are only enough people in the community for a single game speaks to a cultural tendency to exclude new players; if a community is excessively close-knit, it prevents new people joining. In recruiting for the current game I've seen several comments about feeling too out of depth to play due to the entrenched meta and apparent need to read several previous games in order to engage with the game. That should never be the case. This community grows by members of the GOG forums following active games and wanting to join in; spectating is as much a part of the game experience as actually playing is. Once you start linking to all manner of previous games and lumping those onto the reading list for following or playing in the current game, the apparent commitment needed becomes immense.

I'm happy to delay discussion on these points, but suffice to say that I am deeply displeased at some of the themes of the current game. I personally wouldn't want to play in my own game as it currently stands, so that bears bringing attention to.

I'm not willfully misunderstanding anything, but who is to say that any avatar change you select could not be construed as softclaiming or breadcrumbing. It would have to be either allow avatar changes like it is now and has always been or to not allow avatar changes at all.

The point you make on cryptoclaiming is to prevent cheaters, and that has nothing to do with censoring what people say about previous games while in a current game. There is no hard rule about revealing role PM information, I just don't like it as it breaks games.

Please do not discuss games in progress or any topics related to them.

Definitely, but in the time (four years?) I've been playing (and my start coincided with quite a few others starting) we've had quite a few people join but few who really stuck around for more than a few games at best.
To be fair I don't even really play any more as the time and energy commitment required is far too great.
The GOG forums aren't a friendly happy place where people are looking to engage in this kind of thing any more so new blood is rare, other than one incident with a player we as a community have never been anything less than thrilled if new people want to play, and we do everything we can to make them welcome and to ensure they enjoy the games.
Unfortunately that isn't always enough, and you can't force people to play.

No one is required to read previous games, I honestly can't remember most of them and I played in them. I certainly wouldn't reread them. Sure, we refer back to previous games and things that have happened but if new people or outsiders don't understand the relevance we would always be happy to explain what is meant.
We're not playing with a bunch of strangers, we're playing with people we have known for a long time (years in many cases) and talked with in games and in the general forum (and possibly other places too), it's hard not to reference things that happened in your shared past if they are relevant.

If you know that there's a rule prohibiting avatar/title-based softclaims or breadcrumbing, then it would follow that there would be no serious question of an avatar or title being used to influence the game; if there was any doubt about it, the mod would ask the player in question in private if it was. If it came to light that the change was part of a softclaim/breadcrumbing strategy, that would clearly result in penalties, but I'd like to believe that people would act in accordance with the rules.

Regardless of whether it's listed as a universal rule, not quoting your role PM or other private communication with the mod is a standard rule of the game. As stated, I have no interest in making an absolute decree that players cannot talk about old games, simply in reducing the perceived bar for entry for new players.

In line with Vitek's comments, I'd like to end this discussion for now until the present game has ended.