Minitrial 105 // Results & Dissenting Report

[Ame]

"Stop!! Enough of this, this- back and forth over nothing! I'll be contacting the police in the morning. In the mean time, everyone, tell me who you think is responsible for this mess!"

Everyone, in order, goes up to Elinor and tells them who they believe is the culprit.

"Okay everyone, I am now going to reveal to you all the results of this, well- Kangaroo Court would put it kindly- sham trial."

SPOILER: Click to show

{Who Killed Kenneth?}DIO, one vote.
Kenneth, one vote.
Mabel, two votes.
Dipper, two votes.
Dio, two votes.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Who killed Dipper?}DIO, one vote.
Ethel, one vote.
Kenneth, one vote.
Dio, two votes.
Dipper, three votes.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Who killed Kyle?}Ethel, one vote.
Dipper, one vote.
Karen, two votes.
DIO, four votes votes.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Now what?}Elinor stands among you, and lets everyone know the results.

"While we have, by community discussion, indicted DIO for the murder of Kyle, and Dipper of suicide, it is not yet clear who has killed Kenneth. As such, I shall exercise my authority as the head of House Penvellyn. I believe that Dipper's suicide only makes sense in the even of a murder-suicide. As such, I believe Dipper killed Kenneth, and himself. As such, allow me to state!"

"Kenneth was killed by none other than Dipper! In addition, Dipper committed suicide! The crime that happened to Kyle Rosenthal is entirely unrelated! As that was committed by DIO!"

THUD!

What was that?! You all look around, and see DIO lying unconscious on the floor. And behind him, stands Bridgette Penvellyn, holding a plank.

"Don't worry- He's not dead. Yet. Elinor and I will deal with this man. The rest of you, we ask to remain here for the night. We won't make you sleep in that room, though."

Together, Elinor and Bridgette drag DIO up the stairs, and disappear for a while. You feel like you can hear screams coming from below you. Once they return, you think Elinor is slightly bloody.

"Well now. I'm sure we can all come up with a story as to what happened to that man, can't we?"

TRIAL END
Result: All Correct!

[Ame]

What's this? Listening music? This better not be too long.

No promises.

So, as you all know, this was a pretty unorthodox minitrial. There were a lot of new features, and things that happened in this mini that either hadn't happened before, or had happened to a much lesser extent. Or at least, not on this scale.

So, let's go over everything.

For one, the most unusual and unorthodox thing, in this entire thing, I believe is Dual Players. Followed by Puzzles, Investigations, Isa's Movement Rework, Actions, Dual Blackeneds, and finally, Split Voting. But before I go over these concepts in depth, I wanted to start out with an apology to the players.

This trial was a lot. It was probably too much even. Well. Maybe not. You did get 100%. So all the whinging I heard, you still got it correct. But regardless of that fact, there was so much information here. 3 Floor Map, 20 truth bullets, 14 characters, two NPCs, and over 110 actions. (specifically, 111. 10 for each character, and one joint A6.)

You guys did well. You should all be proud. Not only was there so much to go over, but you got it all correct. I want to take a moment and say, Congratulations. Especially to Bloom, who was the only player to get all three votes correct. Almost everyone got one vote correct, and so for that reason alone, I think that trial went quite well.

One of the things I wanted to do, going into this trial, was experiment. As a host, that's what minitrials are all about. Experimentation. I want to mess around with ideas that I have, and see what works. And so I did. It was also an opportunity to give some new players a taste into DRG, which is an added bonus.

Perhaps some members of the community think that's not good. Well. That's okay. That's their opinion, and they're entitled to it as much as I am. However, I enjoy testing new ideas. This isn't. New for me either. Go back and look at Minitrials 29 or 78, Game 95B, or Angels of Death. It's impossible to deny that I try to experiment and find what I like, even if it ends in failure, like game 95B or minitrial 78 did. 

And just before we get into new mechanics. The word count. Not including A6, which is around 270 words and pretty constant. I wrote a lot. Like. a lot a lot. The total word count for each players action is as follows:
Turkey Lurkey - 664 Words
Agent Gwodboi - 796 Words
Jane Penvellyn - 741 Words
Ethel Bossiny - 817 Words
Karen Rosenthal - 986 Words
Mario - 748 Words
Luigi - 861 Words
DIO - 859 Words
Dio - 904 Words
Mabel Pines - 740 Words
Panty Anarchy - 919 Words.

And so, this is too much. Per Player, it works out to being:
Bloom: 1,730 Words
Peterparker: 1,828 Words
Sage: 1,256 Words
Skullmaster: 1,018 Words
Lukely: 1,131 Words
Jash: 2,033 Words
Tetsu: 1,010 Words
Codeskull: 1,189 Words

I don't disagree that this is too much. Hell, I know better than most people would it's too much. I was the person who wrote it. It took me three days to write all of this, then add the investigations, truth bullets, room descriptions, et cetera. I understand! I know! But that is just how I am. I enjoy writing, even if at times it's very exhausting.

Now. Enough of my rambling. Let's go over Mechanics.

Dual Players.
This was fun! I really enjoyed this, and would encourage hosts to do the same in the future, if they had the opportunity. I adored seeing my blackeneds figure out two very interesting ways to use their second character. Dio as an accomplice, and Mabel as a completely innocent bystander. Two very different ideas that worked out well, I think. That being said, I cannot comment on dual players without the following caveat. If you intend to host dual players, I genuinely encourage you to find a cohost. Otherwise, you're doubling the amount of players you have in a trial, and that gets really hard, really quickly.

Puzzles and Investigations.
Hooo boy. This one is a bit more polarising. I think that an investigations section is good, fun even! However. I made a crucial mistake. I shouldn't have combined trial and investigations. Initially I did this to save on time, but it wouldn't have made a difference, as trial ended up going for 4 days (including voting phase). Having a designated Investigations Phase, and then allowing players to investigate further during trial would have been a significantly better way of handling this. Next is puzzles. I mean yeah! there's absolutely no reason not to have puzzles in a mini-trial. Provided they don't lock key evidence. You could make a case that mine did, but I vehemently disagree, as this trial is totally solvable without the evidence unlocked with said investigations. The other thing I want to mention about Puzzles is Puzzle Difficulty. In this map, there were two routes into the Armoury, both with entirely different sets of puzzles. If you got stuck on one route (which did happen), there was the option of going to the other route. I was a little disappointed that this didn't happen, especially considering I went out of my way to show off both routes to the spotless to give them options, but that is how it is.

I think the reason that this occurred is because the Spotless were rushing, due to investigations eating into Trial time. Something entirely circumventable by having a designated investigations phase. The other thing that I did, which, no one gave as much as a drop of notice about, was a work around. Bridgette Penvellyn served two purposes. One, as a victim NPC, which didn't happen. The other was that she would know all the solutions to the puzzles, and all you had to do was solve her, quite simple puzzle to unlock access to her. This did not occur. At all. Despite two spotless players knowing about this during the night. (One to a lesser extent than the other).

Isa's Movement Rework.
This is both a blessing and a curse. There are aspects of this system I really enjoyed. Especially the removal of spotting players moving, and the direction in which they head. To that end, it is an absolute godsend which simplifies movement, and makes writing alibis infinitely easier than it would otherwise. The downside of this, is doubling the amount of actions written, which ballooned how much I needed to write substantially. Perhaps by itself, it isn't too bad. But in combination with dual players, it effectively meant I had to write for times the amount of actions for a player. I know that playing this system is very fun and rewarding though, as because it simplifies movement so much, you don't need to worry about getting headaches wondering about timing and if you missed someone or not, despite them being in the same room in the same action as you. I think this is one I would use again, but maybe with a cohost.

Actions.
I loved this. For the players who sent me six full actions, writing their alibis was a total breeze. This is absolutely something I will be reintroducing if I ever host a minitrial again. I suspect it also allows the players to have more engagement and joy with the game, as they now have a bit more of a stake as to what happens with their characters during the night. It also eliminates (largely) the eternal issue of, oh god, what do i have this character do. Which for me, can absolutely stunt my ability to write, for hours on end. My only other note on this, is that I should have been clearer about my expectations as a host from the get-go. I did mention how I was expecting players to send actions, and that I was hosting six actions, but apparently I should have explicitly stated that I expected six actions from my players. Some players only sent me a few words. Some a few lines. Some a paragraph or two, and some six whole actions. The players who sent me more, did more. The players who sent me more, I could give them more unique, more fun, and faster written actions than those who didn't.

Dual Blackened.
Wooah boy. I did enjoy this. And I think it was actually well balanced, given the trial and number of players. I think that this was good. I don't actually have any complaints about having two blackeneds. And hearing the response from Jash and imagining the pure dread he had when he realised that he wasn't the only blackened makes me laugh even now. The only thing I think is worth mentioning with dual blackeneds is that it only worked because there were so many potential victims. If you had less than, say, 8 players running around, I don't think it would work. There just wouldn't be enough information from spotless players to actually solve either murder.


Vote Splitting.
And finally, vote splitting. Again, no notes for this. I enjoyed this mechanic a lot. It was a necessary one given the, two blackened three victim we found ourselves in, but honestly, I might just incorporate it from now on. It's nice to see players actively show interest in trial and think about their answers, instead of just pressing like, or the button with the most votes. It also wasn't terribly inconvenient to count up the votes.

And this brings us to the end of my thoughts and feelings. Overall, I think the trial was a success, and I learned a lot as a host about certain things. But, I understand that I'm not the only person with opinions. If you have any, I would love to hear from you in a civil and constructive way.

If you'd like to read my host sheets, you can do so here
Google Docs
Google Sheets
TLDR: Kuma! you, you Kuma! Go read my Kuma!ing post.

With Love, Taka.

[⋆⋅ Sage ⋅⋆]

Yeehaw, time to post my opinion.

What worked:

1. Dual players

This was a really cool idea and I loved being able to play two characters at once. It opens up a lot of possibilities such as being your own accomplice, and I think it has a lot of promise for future minis, so long as the added number of alibis doesn't overwhelm the host.

2. Player-run alibis

While not a new phenomenon, it's always nice when players get to have a little more agency on what they do during mini trials. I feel like it makes players more engaged if they get to send in goofy things they want their characters to do, because they're gonna be more excited to see how it turned out!

3. Multiple blackeneds

Also not a new phenomenon, but a very welcome one. I love multiple blackened trials. And you did a really good job crafting both intertwining stories for this trial.

What didn't work:

1. Unclear host expectations

You already mentioned this, so I won't go too far into it. Just going to post my personal experience here. So first of all, in the sign-ups, you said: "Everyone is required to send me a dm on Discord, telling me what they'd like their character to do during the night."

I wasn't sure if you wanted 6 actions worth of information, so I asked.

In this thread, you said, "I did mention how I was expecting players to send actions, and that I was hosting six actions, but apparently I should have explicitly stated that I expected six actions from my players." Wellll... I specifically asked your expectations and you told me it didn't matter if I sent them in full actions or just a paragraph saying what my characters would do. I suppose your expectations changed after seeing how much work it was going to be, and that's perfectly understandable.

2. Host burnout

There was a lot that went into this mini, so I understand why there was host burnout. But it really takes away from the experience of a mini when A) the mini is delayed B) puzzles are unclear, and even need to be edited partway through due to host error and C) the actions feel thoughtless. I will go more into this.

I don't know about anyone else's actions, but mine felt disjointed. For the first half, I didn't get the names of anyone I encountered, just "a young boy" or "a blonde woman". This is fine if it's consistent, but partway through, it changed and I was getting names all of a sudden. My actions were also unclear in some parts; I had to deduce through other people's alibis to find out when Kyle left me at the end of the night. On top of this, there were 3 instances in my actions where Karen 'heard' a noise. Karen is deaf, and this is something I made clear to you. Some of my actions reflected that you knew this, but some didn't. To a player, it feels like not much thought was put into them, which doesn't feel good.

3. Too much going on

Lemme preface this by saying that I love when people try new things in minis. I like puzzles in minis, and I like investigations in minis, but they have to be done right. For example, having investigations within trial -- this is something that takes up far too much of our limited time. Even in main games, investigations do not take place during trial. It would be too bloated otherwise. There is even a precedent in mini trials for a separate investigation thread to go up before the trial does, such as in Mini 25 and Mini 31. If you were to do investigations in a mini again, I would strongly suggest doing it like this.

And as for the puzzles, well... Having them in a mini is fine, but again, if they take up too much of the players' time and focus, the actual murders get pushed to the sidelines. Especially in the case of the runic puzzle, which first of all started with the incorrect tarot cards, and then we were operating off the wrong runic alphabet (I will take the blame for posting the wrong one, but in my defence, I had no idea what I was looking at and just googled runic alphabet and found one that matched). That puzzle was posted at 3:12 am on 12/3 and was solved at 1:48 am on 12/4. We spent almost a full 24 hours (half of a normal mini trial's run) on that puzzle. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't thinking at all about the murders during that time.

In conclusion, you pulled off a very ambitious mini. Everyone will have their own opinion on whether it was a success or not, but y'know, we did get it right in the end. Just wanted to put my two cents out there, as both a player and someone who has also hosted a very ambitious mini that crashed and burned and earned me and Mao a talking-to from the admins. RIP