Welcome to the third game of ESPIONAGE, a simple and fun forum game concept for everyone! This time around, we're going to do a special team version of the game where you'll be assigned a partner at the onset. Don't forget to sign-up by posting in this topic, and feel free to add any opinions or questions you may have!
Keep in mind: In this variant, you are allowed to privately communicate only with your partner but no other players. Your only other PMs regarding the game will be to send in your votes and/or actions (depending on your role) to the GM.
Round GM: Yuri Iwamoto
Phase Results: Daily @ 4:00 PM EST
Start Date: February 23rd @ 4:00 PM EST
Changes in this round:
This section will be updated periodically should new rulings be decided prior to the start of the game.
An all-new variant of the game known as Team Espionage operates very much so like the original game but with a twist: players are now randomly assigned a partner at the start of the game. In this variant, there is one team of Detectives, one team of Spies, one team of Informants, and several pairs of civilians. Unlike in the normal game, you are allowed to communicate in private messages but ONLY WITH YOUR TEAMMATE. All votes and actions (such as Investigate and Execute) target a team, not an individual player. Teammates must work together to decide on actions and votes, with only one member of the team being required to send their actions to the GM. If both players send in actions to the GM, whichever arrived the latest will be taken as their action for a given phase. Civilian teams will all receive lists of 5 in the form of teams, not individual players. Naturally, civilian teammates will receive the same list per team. Any team that does not vote will automatically vote for itself, in accordance with the recent central ruling change.
**NEW** The Informants are now in! The new role added last round will be included in this round as one of the teams!
The Game
Espionage revolves around the interplay between two special roles: the Spy and the Detective. The goal of the Spy is to eliminate the Detective by whatever means possible, while the goal of the Detective is to assist the other players in locating and arresting the Spy. In Team Espionage, there are two players for each role who work as a team to find their opponent counterparts. The remaining players are each likewise divided into teams of two, with civilians tasked with identifying and eliminating the Spy team before they escape. Civilian players are all given a unique list of names of fellow teams, with each list containing, among other civilians, the names of a special role team. The list could be generated with either the Spy team or the Detective team in mind, but both could appear as well. It is the job of each civilian team to work their way through their list and decide who can be trusted and who cannot. Do note that lists cannot in any way be shared with anyone who is not your assigned partner, be it privately or publicly.
During each phase (typically lasting 24 hours in total), each team is expected to send in their vote via PM to the Game Master (GM) for who should be arrested as the Spy team. Whichever team receives the most votes will then be arrested and removed from the game (ties result in no arrests). If the arrested team is the Spy team, the civilians and Detective teams win the game. If the arrested team is the Detective, the Spy team then begin their escape—the civilians then have two phases to arrest them or else they lose the game (the amount of phases remaining to catch the spy is reduced to one should less than half of the original total players remain). The results of the vote are revealed by the GM at the end of the phase, announcing any arrests that have resulted from the vote as well as who voted whom.
In addition to voting for the daily arrest, the Spy and Detective teams each have special abilities unique to their roles. Neither receive lists at the beginning of the game and instead are to rely on their abilities to progress in the game. The Spy team has the ability Execute in which they are able to kill another team each time the Spy team survives a phase. The Detective team has the ability Investigate which allows them to definitively check whether one specific team is or is not the Spy. These abilities are used in addition to the daily vote and the results of which will be sent privately by the GM once each phase's results are announced. The special role teams are not permitted to specifically mention the results of their abilities to any outside player in any form, instead having to indirectly and creatively sway public opinion without exposing their identity.
For the daily vote, the Spy team will be attempting to mislead the public while also attempting to mislead the investigation. The Detective team will be attempting to sway public opinion in order to see the Spy team arrested. For each civilian team killed by the Spy team, the list they received at the beginning of the game will be partially revealed to the public.
General Rules
Do NOT discuss the game in private messages or anywhere that is not the original game topic with anyone other than your assigned partner.
You may not correspond with other players or teams other than your assigned partner about the game while it is ongoing. The only other person you should contact in private apart from your assigned partner is the GM. The GM will assist you with anything you may need help with.
Once you are arrested, you are out of the game.
You can consider yourself dead once you have been arrested. This means NO contact about the game, in any form whatsoever, to any living player for any reason whatsoever. You are no longer permitted anything game-related to post in the topic of the ongoing game until it has reached its conclusion. If you have any questions, you may send a PM to the GM anytime.
Your team is required to vote for the daily arrest.
If you do not vote, your vote for a given phase will be a vote for yourself. For example, if a team doesn't send in a vote for a phase, the inactive team will already have a vote against them going into the results of that phase. As such, you are strongly urged to vote or else you'll be out of the game pretty quickly.
The game will end with either a Spy & Informant or a Civilian & Detective victory.
If the Spy team is arrested, the game ends immediately and the Detective team and civilians win. If the Detective team is executed by the Spy team or is arrested in the daily vote, the civilians then have only two phases remaining to find the Spy team and arrest them before they escape. If less than half of the original starting players remain, however, only one phase will remain before the Spy team escapes. If only the Spy and Detective teams remain at the end with no other civilians still in play, the Spy team wins automatically.
As a Civilian: You must not reveal the content of your list to the public for any reason or in any form.
Your list is unique to your team and is meant to inform your decisions and help your team and only your team along. Apart from your partner, you will not know who is friend or foe and are expected to attempt to catch the Spy team while avoiding arresting the Detective team.
As the Detective team: You are advised to be discreet.
Hide yourselves the best you can from the Spy team while attempting to catch them. However, you are not allowed to discuss or in any way hint or acknowledge the results of your Investigate ability. If you have suspicions about someone, you must appear as a civilian with common suspicions would and get creative in how you reveal information. Use of your Investigate ability is to be sent prior to the end of a phase, preferably along with your choice for the vote that day.
As the Spy team: You are free to lie.
You are encouraged to mislead other players within the confines of the game topic. Hiding your identity is paramount, thus blending into the civilian population is ideal. Use of your Execute ability is to be sent prior to the end of a phase, along with your choice for the vote that day.
As the Informant team: You must protect the Spy team.
For all intents and purposes, you are a pair of corrupted civilians who are now partners of the Spy team. If you are Investigated by the Detective team, you will not appear any different than a normal civilian team. However, unlike a normal civilian team, you are NOT given a list at the start of the game and must only pretend to have one to blend in with others. You will be told the identities of the Spy team at the start of the game but are NOT permitted to in any way contact those players except through creative public posts in the game topic. However, the Spy team can use a special proxy messaging system through the GM known as an Order. This is a message sent by the Spy team that will be forwarded to the Informant team. The Spy team can use Orders throughout the game and can use them to request information from the Informant team including their identities (such as saying, "One of you post in the game topic something including a hug so that we know who you are, and the other one of you post in the topic something including an ellipsis"). However, even once the two teams have established one another's identities, they may not communicate outside of Orders forwarded by the GM at the end of each phase.
Only civilians receive a list.
The Detective team will rely on their Investigate ability to progress, while the Spy team will rely on their Execute ability. Each civilian's list will be completely random and will be generated to contain the names of one team holding one of the two primary special roles of the (Detective team or Spy) team. However, a list may also contain the names of both the Spy and Detective team players, so it is cautioned to be careful before making assumptions. The size of the list will include five names in games that include at least ten players. Upon death (but not arrest), a civilian list will be partially revealed with two names shown and the rest presented as illegible.
No wills are allowed.
Last wills and testaments are not permitted for use in the game. If you are killed as a civilian, two names on your list will be revealed upon death.
The Spy & Detective are not forced to use their abilities.
Special roles do not have to use their abilities on a given phase. For example, the Spy may wish to not use their kill ability to, for whatever reason, create an alibi or cause confusion amongst civilians. This is not especially recommended due to a lack of kills creating less opportunities for the Spy, but it is an option.
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