Policy Discussion: Invitationals

[mith]

I've been meaning to do something on this topic for a while... I guess now is as good a time as any.

We haven't had any true invitationals in a while (nearly a year). Partly this was due to the queue changes, with invitationals being classified under (the still loosely defined) "Special Games", and of course there are other reasons too.

I have been thinking about them, though, and would like to get some sort of system in place for having regular invitationals (but without oversaturation). Minvitationals in particular I feel do have the potential to be special events for the participants and great learning tools for readers of the games, if they are done well.

So, here are a few ideas regarding this, followed by some questions.

a. All invitationals will be run by proven moderators. Currently, the Special Games requirement is 5 completed games to

request

permission. I haven't actually checked to see how many moderators even have that many games, so that may be adjusted. The important thing here is not the number, it is that the moderators have a reputation of high quality setups, writing, and game-management.

b. The most common thought for choosing players for invitationals is to choose the "best" players (whether from the entire site, or some subset of the site)... whatever "best" means. So, my current inclination is to have a yearly Minvitational of the best players on the site. However, I'm not sure what the best way to go about choosing the players would be.

c. jeep suggested that other criteria could also be used to select players. For example, one suggestion which I liked was an invitational for the Scummies winners. We wouldn't want to get too ridiculous with the criteria (as it would defeat the point of having invitationals at all), but I'm sure there are a handful of criteria out there aside from "best players" which we could use on occasion.

d. In addition to a couple Minvitationals a year, there is occasionally a special occasion for a larger invitational. The two I've run were both milestones (Mafia 40 on the GL, and the Five Year Anniversary Invitational cross-site). As it happens, we have another anniversary (this time 5 years for mafiascum.net) coming soon, and I've had a couple ideas for something special to do for that.

Questions:

1. Do you think we should have invitationals at all?
2. About how many invitationals per year is a good number?
3. What type of game should invitationals be (basic normal, themed)?
4. How should the "best" players be chosen?

Other thoughts are of course welcome.

[KaleiÐoscøpe]

1: yes. It requires people to do their best and be respected (and for those who want it: ego boosting)
2: 1 half a year/every 3 months?
3: Basic normal. It requires the "real" skill
4: Polling... Make sign ups and let everyone sign up... then make groups of 10 and let them vote for the three best players (checkbox!) and repeat until you have the amount of players you want...

[Mr Stoofer]

IIRC public nominations for the 5 Year Invitational caused some consternation...

[Thestatusquo]

1) I enjoy the idea a lot.
2) I think once a year sounds about right, keeps them special.
3) I think that it could perhaps rotate. Or maybe even be left up to the mods discretion. I do not like the idea of it just being basic normal, since in my opinion those tend to be the most boring games to play/read.
4)Me!!! J/K. I like the polling system as described above. Let people apply via PM for a certain amount of time, and then create a thread where people can pick 3-5 or so, on a check box poll. That way its like allstar balloting, and it's all anonymous so no one gets mad. Perhaps you might even want a requirement for who can join, such as 3 or more completed games, or whatever amount of stringency you want.

[Fiasco]

1) yes
2) maybe 1 big game and 2-3 minis a year
3) if themed, it should be a theme with very broad appeal
4) voting sounds like a bad idea; I'd use a small panel of people who 1) are generally respected (maybe listmoddish types), 2) have been on the site long enough and played enough games, and 3) don't want to participate in the invitational themselves

[Thok]

1. Yes
2. One large game and one to two smaller games would be ideal, IMHO.
3. I'd go with lightly themed; there should be a touch of a theme, but not enough for one to deduce game information. (Exceptions; I have no problems with heavily themed Meta-games [games with the MS community as a theme])
4. Rotate between mod choice (moderator chooses based on his whim), nominations (people select who they want to see in a game), and applications (people apply to be in the game, followed by some selction process, aka Verbose). I do not expect these to be done 33-33-33% of the time.

[Mr Stoofer]

It seems that I'm the only one against invitationals. I think they are divisive and can only lead to friction amongst the community. The nominations process for the 5 Year Invitational threatened to do just that, leading to some people (e.g. MeMe) refusing to have anything to do with it. It was also clear that a number of other people (not me!) were genuinely upset at not being nominated.

Isn't the fact that invitationals seem to have died out an indication that they are not what we are about?

[Fiasco]

Maybe the inviter(s) should be anonymous people who are trusted by the mod.

[Thestatusquo]

I don't understand what is going to be divisive about an anonymous poll.

[Glork]

1. Do you think we should have invitationals at all?
2. About how many invitationals per year is a good number?
3. What type of game should invitationals be (basic normal, themed)?
4. How should the "best" players be chosen?

1. Absolutely. The invitationals that I've read so far have been very good reads.
2. I'd say 2-3. Thok's suggestion of one large and two themed seems pretty reasonable to me.
3. A mixture of some kind... like Fiasco said, themed games should have some broad appeal.
4. I'd suggest a secret ballot of some kind? Perhaps you could set up a Pollster account and have people PM their nominations/votes/whatever to said account. I'd like to think that it would avoid hurt feelings between players who do or don't find each other talented or enjoyable.


Like Stoof said, there can be an issue with players feeling miffed about not being nominated or chosen to play. I won't argue that there's a level of pride invovled with these sorts of things, and there's no way to objectify whatever criteria used to select players. I do like the idea of having a game for Scummie winners, provided all of them are willing to play. I know that PJ and I have talked in the past about our "ideal" player lists for a mini game, and we chose based on who we thought would be the most

fun

to play with, even if they aren't necessarily the most "talented" players. However, that kind of criteria is also entirely subjective. One thing I would emphasize is that we keep active/reliable players in the game(s). Players with a tendency to flake out or disappear for periods of time can really hurt a game. And while I understand that it's unavoidable at times (especially if a game lasts for longer than a couple of months), but I would find myself wanting to blackball certain players for consistently/repeatedly needing to be replaced in games.

[Zindaras]

1: Yaus! Can't go wrong with games where the best of the best, the cream of the crop, are put together in one big slaughterfest.

2: 2-4.

3: If we're doing multiple invitationals, we can try multiple possibilities here.

4: Public polling seems like the best idea to me.

[Fiasco]

People might try to drum up support. (edit: this was in response to TSQ)

I don't see how letting everyone vote would make for a fairer or more interesting selection of invitees. It's more work, too. Anonymous unaccountable elites for the win.

[KaleiÐoscøpe]

Well, it'll be worth it. And I agree with glork's point 4.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

1. YARR!
2. 1-2
3. I'd also consider something like a Kingmaker Invitational to be a good idea, but in general it should probably be basic normal.
4. I'm 50-50 between the Mod and a sitewide poll.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't think I understand why invitationals need specific handling under the rules... Is it just that a single mod is likely to have a hard time hand-picking 20-some players who all want to play that game?

[mith]

I think public nominations are a horrible idea; it wasn't my intention for the FYA invitational, and I'm sorry I wasn't more clear when I started the thread, and that I didn't step in sooner when people did start putting them in the thread.

I do think public input would be fine, PMed or whatever. Just counting nominations would be a poor way of determining anything, however.

[mith]

I don't think I understand why invitationals need specific handling under the rules... Is it just that a single mod is likely to have a hard time hand-picking 20-some players who all want to play that game?

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but I just realized I haven't addressed it, so I'll do that now...

It's not really explicitly stated anywhere, but the general queueing policy is that all games sign up on a first-come-first-served basis. Maybe it wouldn't be an issue anyway, but if any mod could decide to make their game invitational, I think it might become far too common and cliquish. So, that's why they're handled differently under the rules, rather than just falling under one of the ordinary categories - this is just an extension of our past treatment of invitationals, which got the "rubber stamp" from me before they started.

[pablito]

1. Yes, I think Invitationals are going to be well-received.
2. 1-2, I think it's something to be eased into..to be sure that invitationals could work out with the current MS population.
3. Normal large, the player list and mod should be the main attraction.
4. I like the idea of having inviters being a small number of anonymous people who are trusted by the mod and mith. I don't like the public polling because there could be too much politicking and ballot stuffing and I don't like having one person being solely responsible for the list either.

[Cubsfan4ever]

Invititationals are just a chance for "superior" players to feel special about themselves and revel in their greatness. Who needs 'em?

[Mr. Flay]

Invitationals don't have to be about "best of the best". There was a Teen-vitational or something with an age-based criterion once, wasn't there? Single-gender games might be interesting, and we've had a few attempts/proposals about foreign-language games (which I think should just be a separate queue if we ever get enough of them).

mith, didn't Verbose 2 have a vetted player list though? I didn't think it was classified as an Invitational, and it didn't precisely follow the "first-come-first-lynched" strategy you outlined above. Also, I know some mods have a minimum time-on-site requirement, and there are a few players that have been refused from regular games.

I agree with Stoofer that public nominations probably didn't suit and I'm glad to see they won't be recurring, but some sort of input/feedback/nomination from people other than the mod(s) would still be good, I say.

a) You may want to clarify if Newbie Games count (or count as half, or whatever) for the 5-game requirement. The setup is given to the mod and the timeframe is a lot shorter, so it may require some tweaking to actually tally the full range of experience you want. I've got 22 games under my belt for example, but 18 of them are Newbies.

1-2) Yes, continue them at some level. I think the biggest complaint about the last one had been worked out. They should be rare and special though, not a way to bypass the queues. If anything, I'd increase the requirements, per my comment above. Not sure how yet; Scummies for Mods?
3) Largely irrelevant in my view. If we trust the mod to run an Invitational, they can design it to their preference, right? Maybe put some size caps in place for "normal" Invitationals (20 or less players?) to keep them from overrunning the site, but... on the other hand, Theme Park already has no queue. Any "theme" or flavor should be broad enough in appeal to be attractive to the span of players you want to invite, of course. An Invitational isn't the place for Naruto Mafia. I'd rather see Normals and Mafia Mutations than "Theme" games in the sense of source material.
4) I like JEEP's idea of having

certain

Scummies qualify players for a Best of MafiaScum Minvitational. Obviously

Most Likely to Die Night One

isn't a good example...

[mole]

You mean being killed Night 1

isn't

an indication that you're the best player? ;)

[Zindaras]

I've seen two other Invitational setups. One used a jury to select 18 players, then left the last 6 to a public poll. The second was an all-public thing, and I didn't really like it.

[mith]

mith, didn't Verbose have a vetted player list though? I didn't think it was classified as an Invitational, and it didn't precisely follow the "first-come-first-lynched" strategy you outlined above. Also, I know some mods have a minimum time-on-site requirement, and there are a few players that have been refused from regular games.

I was going to mention these as exceptions, or as examples of "pseudo-invitationals" even... but I don't really see them the same way.

Some games do have prerequisites. And I don't have a problem with that. That isn't to say I think most (or even many) games should do so - and the Mini and Open games signups are out of the hands of the mods anyway.

Verbose was like that to some extent; in the end, the application process was more a hoop to jump through. I knew anyone that wasn't up to playing that style of game would never both with an application in the first place, and we ended up getting the same number of applications as we had spots to fill. (It also started well before the new queue rules; so I wasn't necessarily being consistent with how I feel about things now anyway.)

As for "banned" players, that's a bit more of a touchy subject. What I don't want to see if mods refusing players they just don't like, or have some personal grudge against. We've had problems with that in the past.

This is really a discussion for another thread. I stand by what I said, that it is the general policy, but there are certainly some grey areas that could be looked at more closely.

[Rainbow Brite]

the thing about invitationals is that if we make too much of a big deal of it, it's easily read as not being in it is a mark of disapproval.

i've been in effectively-invitational games that were low-profile minigames and they were good fun, but i doubt anyone got upset about not being in them because most people weren't any more aware of them than any other minigame.

so really it depends on what the purpose of the invitational is. if it's to be a focus of the site's attention as the marquee game of the year, then that's a bad thing, because exclusion from it is meaningful. if it's a way of putting together a bunch of players so as to create a unique play environment - one where all share a particular approach to the game, thus the invitational nature means that each player in the game will make the game that much more enjoyable for each

other

player in the game - then that's a good thing.

any large invitational is probably likely to have elements of both the upside and downside.

i think in terms of small/low-profile invitationals, any non-first-come-first-served player recruitment basis needs to be monitored, but the principle is one that's sound and healthy in moderation.

[petroleumjelly]

1. Do you think we should have invitationals at all?
2. About how many invitationals per year is a good number?
3. What type of game should invitationals be (basic normal, themed)?
4. How should the "best" players be chosen?

1.) Yes. But not necessarily traditional "invitationals".
2.) I suppose 1-3 would be sufficient (I like the possibility of 2 Minis and 1 Large spread across the year). I would be thrilled to read one involving current players, let alone be able to play in one, personally.
3.) Depends on the Mod. Just so long as the theme does not require background information (like you have to have seen a specific movie, or something) the game should be fine.
4.) I think the application process is the way to go.

Personally, I am not so much interested in an "invitational" as I am interested in a game free of players who I believe will significantly ruin the gaming experience. There are some players who simply have a tendency to screw up, or to lurk, or to flake out, or to be purposefully unhelpful. It's just no fun looking at the player list and having to think "jeez, if I draw mafia, I really hope my partners don't include X, Y, or Z". I think players are entitled to play games where they look at the player list, and would feel confident being paired with

any

other players.

A simple application process should be able to test the enthusiasm of players. I personally considered Verbose 2 to essentially be an invitational in this sense, as it was well-played by everybody, and I would have been delighted to have been partnered with anybody (and I was already delighted being with MBF and CES as Satanic Nuns to start with).