Would you prefer to be eliminated at...

[Judge Sam]

I am curious. Some of you have had both, so you have personal experience.


If you had to be eliminated in a given episode, which would you pick?

[Tenchi]

Simply put I hate the stress of losing since everybody mistrusts you, something like in Survivor games where people don't want to talk to you or share strategies since they want to vote you out. Yeah, its a really crappy feeling (I got my share this episode). I'd rather go quick and painless with an Imprisonment than to go with the stress of an Exile and the depression that everybody hates you.

[Reicheru]

Well I've survived to the end twice now and lost... once as a spy, once as a citizen. I'd rather not do it again, thanks very much! I'm 0 for 3 now... I think only Trey has a record that bad!

[Tenchi]

I know... Id repeat this from somebody in Spies two:

That person said to Tyson/Reicheru

"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride"

[Bebe]

Paul (Jakub) said that. He's always expressed a strong desire to marry a man and dress in a poofy white dress.

[Jessica]

Impris, I hate being voted out.

[Bruce]

Am I the only one that's going to say Exile? I've never been exiled, so I don't know whether it sucks or not ;D

[Jakub]

bebe said:

Paul (Jakub) said that. He's always expressed a strong desire to marry a man and dress in a poofy white dress.

Well just have to find you a poofy white dress and we'll be good to go.

[Shane]

If you get Imprisoned, and in the later game (after the first 2), it basically means you were doing something right, and were a threat to the Spies. Why else would they Imprison you?

I was honored to get the fifth one, though, I'd much rather have stayed around.

[Bebe]

I agree with Shane - it's sort of an honor to be imprisoned in some cases. There are exceptions - like when you're imprisoned just to throw everyone off, or to set someone up, or because the spies think you're annoying.

I haven't been exiled in a game of Spies, but I can't imagine it could even remotely be considered a positive experience when everyone gangs up on you and thinks the game is better off if you're not in it.

[Trina]

well i think it depends on the type of exilement as well. If you're willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of a player with a role for example. Like if I knew people were going to vote a player with a IMPORTANT role out, I do all I can to get people to vote me and in that instance, you be like a "good sacrifice" and better than being impriosned.

But yeah, I agree that imprisonment is much better.

[Judge Sam]

I'm really curious about this, and I'd like to see how everyone would vote.


I'll put in my own opinions after so I don't influence the voting. ;D

[Carrie]

While it does suck to have everyone suspect you and be exiled, I'd still take it over being imprisoned. At least with exile, you usually know when you might be going and you have a chance to defend yourself. There is no chance like that for imprisonment, especially early in the game. Just ask Leena.

[Reicheru]

Exile. You have one last chance to rip into people. With imprisonment you go out with a whimper, not a bang.

The ironic thing is, the one time I WAS exiled, I didn't get the chance to really say anything at all, because it was the finale. I would've loved to have beaten Karl to death with Rodney's bloodied corpse, but what can you do, eh?

[Reicheru]

...Or beaten Rodney to death with Karl's bloodied corpse. Never accuse me of being predictable!

[Arthur]

Imprisonment. It's definitely frustrating when you have the Spies cornered, and one Citizen doesn't get it right. When I saw the votes going back and forth, Tenchi was always one ahead of me. After Sam said that Tenchi only needed one more to get eliminated, I knew I was getting the last two.

[Tenchi]

Well even before the votes were read, we KNEW (except Claire) that I was going and we are going to lose. I was the only one with Raphael that time doing emergency stuff so Raph can win it for us. Bebe and Jessica was like bitching for an hour (I was doing a bit of it too ). So yeah, the whole thing really came as a surprise.

[Reicheru]

LOL. I knew we had lost the moment Sam said he wouldn't reveal who had voted for who. That meant that it was a close vote between two people, and the spies wouldn't risk dividing the vote unless they were pretty sure they'd won (even though as it turned out they weren't)... Also, if Arthur HAD gone, reading out his votes would make it pretty clear who the spies really were straight off, which is why I think Sam withheld the information about who voted for who.

What I think was cruel though, was that Sam actually forgot to invite Arthur back into the chatroom afterwards, and I had to do it! Sam - you know how to make friends and influence people.

[Judge Sam]

Admittedly, I have little to no experience as I've never played a game like Spies before (if anybody knows any games like this or just any good places to play mafia, point me there I'd like to play . Actually I did play one game like 3-4 years ago that was like Spies, it had aliases and fake screennames and was werewolves. But I got imprisoned in that one like night two, then I never heard anything else about the game because the host kept everything a secret for episodes that never showed up. Then he refused to tell me anything about it even like 2 years after it was over lol.


I found the website! kymkyhgq.vividreality.org/Transformation2/episodes.html It isn't finished, but the first 2 days are up. I was 'Byron.' =) Maybe I'll search for the e-mail of this guy and ask him who the wolves were. =)

[Trina]

Omg i played in his games. They are awesome lol. I played in like the Labyrinth and died immediately though <_<

[Judge Sam]

Again, I don't have much personal experience but it seems to me that I would vastly prefer being Exiled, which is why this poll surprised me.


I guess there is an element to Imprisonment where you can go like "well it's not my fault I got imprisoned, it's so random, so I'm not to blame" whereas for Exile, there is some blame on yourself which some people don't like feeling.


But it's the opposite for me! There usually is some reason why someone is Exiled - and that's good, that's part of the game. Every mistake you make is a lesson to learn how to play the game of Spies better the next time. You're getting better at the game as you play it, just like any other game or sport.


But Imprisonment... bleh. It's just so random and, especially early on, the criteria is so undefined. Being eliminated is the worst thing that can happen to someone in the game. To have the worst thing happen to you due to something that is largely out of your control and not something you can (for the most part) strategize to survive seems so dumb to me. I'd say early Imprisoned people are in some ways robbed of their game. To me it feels borderline unfair. I know in normal, real life mafia games they only last one night and you play them over and over so being killed isn't such a big deal. But these games are a month long, and they only come around every few months. It sucks to have your experience ended so early based on a somewhat random occurrence.


That's my opinion on it anyway. More on what I think about Imprisonment later, I've got a long post coming up for those that like to talk about mafia theory. =)

[Bruce]

admin said:

But Imprisonment... bleh. It's just so random and, especially early on, the criteria is so undefined. Being eliminated is the worst thing that can happen to someone in the game. To have the worst thing happen to you due to something that is largely out of your control and not something you can (for the most part) strategize to survive seems so dumb to me. I'd say early Imprisoned people are in some ways robbed of their game. To me it feels borderline unfair. I know in normal, real life mafia games they only last one night and you play them over and over so being killed isn't such a big deal. But these games are a month long, and they only come around every few months. It sucks to have your experience ended so early based on a somewhat random occurrence.

Exactly! With Imprisonment you can get blindsided and leave the game not having done what you intended on doing, at least if you know you're getting Exiled you can prepare for it and sometimes save your own rear in the last seconds, it's hard to convince spies not to imprison you if you don't know it's coming :/ Or know who the spies are ;D And if you can't save yourself, you can at least shake things up and make a big impact on the game.

[Bebe]

I think you guys are approaching this as "Well I can't stop my imprisonment, but I can stop my exile". And that's not the issue here.

Yes, it sucks to be imprisoned early, as Sam said, but guess what? It sucks to be exiled early too.

Yes, it sucks when imprisonments are random, but exiles can really be random too - especially the early ones where people are just grasping at straws.

Yes, exiles are learning experiences, but so are imprisonments. Having played 3 Spies games, I've learned a few things about avoiding imprisonments as well as exiles. There's strategy there too.

I haven't really seen a Citizen exile that's had a big impact on the game. I haven't seen any exiled Citizens go down in a blaze of glory. Exile's not as romantic as I think you pro-Exile people think it is.

[Anneliese]

I firmly believe you can stop your own imprisonment, or at least lie your ass off for 4 weeks trying to do so... In some cases it made me more prominent in the spies eyes, but I think that me just running around like a chicken with my head cut off made them think that I really was psycho and might not know what I was doing.

At any rate, if you don't believe that, Reicheru surely prevented her Imprisonment - the spies didn't vote her off cause she trusted Tenchi so much, but also the fact that she was such a strong personality that ran in the wrong direction made her little to no threat to them. That, in a way, prevented her from leaving (at least from Imprisonment).

I feel like in a game like Mafia, you can prevent Imprisonments OR Exiles easily, not both. To be able to prevent both (as a human) REALLY is where the skill factor lies

But still, being Imprisoned is NOT as bad as having everyone generally "dislike" you enough to think you're a spy. Because when you are a spy and people think you're a spy, then the comradery you shared is dead.