soulping | Takshaka

Takshaka

[Your room today is that of a cozy statesman’s meeting office, with a round table to sit at and a cheap coffee maker with those cookies you find in libraries sometimes on a small serving desk in the corner. The table is emblazoned with a very stately looking flag with a Snake featured prominently on it. Christmas decorations abound all around the room. There’s even a Christmas tree in the corner! Wow, that tinsel looks pretty innocuous, doesn’t it? It’s so pretty and red… wait isn’t it traditionally supposed to be silver? Oh well.]

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[On the table is a tablet which is powered on to some kind of selection screen and a sealed letter, containing the rules of the game once opened and read:]

Welcome to the Christmas Contraband game, Wisps. As you should (but probably don’t) know, the setting of this game is that of a world where Christmas is outlawed. You control the great nation of SNAKETOPIA. However, the children of your nation still know what Christmas is, and they want things which can only be acquired through… less than legal channels. As Heads of State, this means it’s your job to acquire those presents for your own children, or else you face termination. However, you also need to prevent breaches in your own economy. That means you’re also going to be acting as a customs inspector to stop other countries from stealing presents from your country.

The rules are simple: The tablet in your room has two fields to fill out. The first is how many presents you will be attempting to smuggle from the other country. You can choose any number between 0 and 10 presents, and this will be your ‘attacking’ number. Below that is how many you will be searching for. You can either call ‘pass’ to allow everything through, or call ‘doubt’ for a number between 1 and 10 presents. Now then, on to the possible results of smuggling and catching smugglers.

PASS: The smuggler is successful! Their nation adds however many presents they attempted to smuggle to their score. If none were taken, then no points are gained.

DOUBT # EQUALS OR EXCEEDS # OF PRESENTS SMUGGLED: The smuggler is caught! All presents the smuggling nation attempted to take go to the inspector’s nation, giving them the points instead.

DOUBT VS 0 PRESENTS SMUGGLED: The smuggler was actually innocent! In order to avoid a nasty international incident, the inspector will have to pay restitution. Half of the amount of what was doubted is deducted from the inspector nation’s score and given to the smuggler. This amount is always rounded down to a minimum of 1 (so if DOUBT 9 is called, you would lose 4 points and they would gain 4 points).

DOUBT # IS LESS THAN # OF PRESENTS SMUGGLED: The smuggler successfully sneaks the presents by and manages to feign innocence. Their nation adds however many presents they attempted to smuggle to their score. In addition, Half the amount of what was doubted is deducted from the inspector nation’s score and given to the smuggler.in restitution for the ‘incorrect claim,’ as above.

You have until the timer on the tablet reaches 0 to enter your choices. Please note that once finalized, these choices cannot be changed. If no choice is made within the time available, your move will be considered 0 presents smuggled/PASS

Edited 2014-12-20 07:51 (UTC)

Your tablet’s heading changes. ‘Now engaged in dealings with: Dragonville’

You have until 7:45 pm EST to turn in! Please make clear how many (if any) presents your nation is smuggling, as well as either PASS or DOUBT and the number of presents being called.

Dragonville?

Tiamat, I think.

What do we know about them?

[Thinking...]

Not much, honestly. They're loud and brash. They'll know us, though.

What will they know about us, then?

In the bad games, we're known to never harm others, we don't play when possible, and we're trustworthy. Most teams look down on us a bit for it, honestly.

In normal games, though, they think we're good people, I think. I would guess our best way to do this is to doubt ten, but smuggle none.

We'll follow your tactics. We can hardly guess what every other team might do without first seeing them in action.

Thanks. We'll see how it goes and figure out how to go from there.

Smuggle 0
Doubt 10

8 pleasantly-wrapped presents are currently on your nation’s table! They cannot be opened at this time.

Your tablet’s heading changes. ‘Now engaged in dealings with: Dogland’

Also, a status update has appeared in its notifications...

Barghest, huh... They used the same strategy we did.

You have until 8:45 pm EST to turn in! Please make clear how many (if any) presents your nation is smuggling, as well as either PASS or DOUBT and the number of presents being called.

It appears most teams thought along the same lines.

Good thing Tiamat didn't.

Barghest... Their team makeup keeps changing, so I don't know them well, but they were friends with one of our old teammates, Sparrow. I think they're mostly the reclusive types.

They are very reclusive. They are also not very talkative.

The question now is how will everyone react upon seeing the last round's strategy. Will teams repeat their previous actions, or will everyone change now they've been revealed?

I wonder if they'd use the same strategy twice in a row... If we play the same as last time, at least the worst-case scenario only has us lose five points, and we'll average out if they play the same way too.

Barghest used to be really, um, kind of paranoid? They have changed a lot, but I do not know if that aspect has changed, since teams tend to have some similar aspects no matter what. The most paranoid way, may be what they do.

That is the big point...

If we repeat the same strategy as last time, in the worst-case we lose 5 points, and if they do the same, we average out to no change. We still have a positive score, so we don't need to take risks, I think. There's no need to come in first place.

[thinks...]

Some aspects of teams stay the same, even as the team changes, right? What if they are still as paranoid, too? Since, I do remember them being kind of, um, really paranoid.

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Takshaka

RULES

ROUND 1

DISCUSSION

TURN-IN

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ROUND 2

DISCUSSION

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