Update 3 - July 28
So, that was contest 1, and it went well, almost exactly 24 hours so I don't feel it represented a bog down to the game, hope to keep them short and sweet, either over-Night-phase or like this, but anything less than 48 hours for a max would unfairly handicap people who weren't here that day, not worried about RBIRL cases but I don't expect everyone to look at the thread every single day.

Incidentally, no one could have died form the contest, I'd have said so outright but it didn't occur to me. That's not to say there aren't contests with results that might leave a player, roleblocked for a day, missing a vote, or even dead, but those are generally late-game possibilities that exist primarily to shake up stalemates should we have one pop up. I don't expect that, but especially when tinkering out with roles and basic mechanics I like to make sure there are effects to break stalemates, back in Mad Muad for instance a few players had things to help prevent that, Beet had a one-shot NK ring for instance that had a really long recharge time so that if things ended up on some horrible Day 10+ stalemate he'd suddenly have a NK again, and so on. But for the most part, the contest are for carrots not sticks, you're competing for a reward not to stay alive. And even the late game contests tend to favor a reward as opposed to the alternative, like a one-shot double-vote. Thery're basically there to be the Sudden Death or Lightning round, if one is necessary, I did not expect that to be the case but I prepped them when there were 600 possible roles (most repeats of course) and a huge number of combinations, so it was entirely possible one might have come up where stalemates were possible and I prepped with that in mind, more or less ripping off my Crisis severity standards from the Dune game. Whichever the case, the very first one being entirely cherry-picked and non-random so I could introduce everyone to the idea and slide in some more plot, I certainly wouldn't have been leaving any lethal options hanging around, for the players anyway, NPCs are entirely expendable I've got plenty to use even without having to make them up from whole cloth or borrow unused ones form the table.

So I'd emphasize, don't get too distracted by the contests, they're handy and hopefully interesting but they won't hand you victory.

Update 2 - July 28
Note sure if I got around to posting these but you can do any necessary character research at the Dresden wiki and normal wiki. Incidentally while Burt Decker is a minor character from one of the short stories Jim Sheridan is not. Also, since I'm guessing Beet's douple-post and erasure request and FT's follow up request and my reply will disappear into the ether, should you double post just edit [edit: double post] or something into the title and FT can come by and delete it. I take it as a given no one will be trying any end runs on that score. The usual editing rules apply, stick (edit) or (table) in them if you do, EPWOP for everything else, same old same old.

Main thing of course is we have our first contest in play, these are designed to run in the background to the normal game, the first one is short and simple, others may be longer in duration and more complex, but I'll say upfront that I won't throw anything at anyone that I think will take a lot of time or require some sort of advanced knowledge, and while they can help or hurt you, none of them are absolutely necessary to the game nor even particularly vital. A little extra flavor, a little room for those who groove to mystery and deduction to stretch their legs. Afterwards I'll ask everyone for 3 ups and 3 downs to the game, which I've found works as well after game sessions as it used to after missions, and I'd appreciate if everyone would try to make at least one up and down about these contests we'll be doing, partially so I can refine it or scuttle it for future use, and partially that so if any upcoming mod wants to use them they can hear those areas for improvement too, so they have them or they know it's a really bad idea after all and can bypass torturing us with it again

Update 1 - July 25
I could have sworn I posted this already, maybe it got eaten by airport gods... anyway, here's how this worked for this 'master list' of which I've spoken, there was a list of 100 character entries, not all were unique but more than 70 names appear on it, with some repeats making up the remainder, each assigned a number 1-100 which was later randomly rolled. Each of these entries had 6 role entries next to it, as an example, since she's not a player but was instead randomly selected from unused wardens (possibly all) to fill the NPC role in the intro:
# Character Name Affiliation Will Skill Energy Flesh Role 1 Role 2 Role 3 Role 4 Role 5 Role 6 Always on
11 Anastasia Luccio White Council 1 1 1 0 Vanilla OS Vigilante Doctor Elite Bodyguard Goon Goon None

You'll have to eyeball that on your own, excel doesn't paste well into text. Pretty much every character had at least one each of vanilla, Role, Scum. In Luccio's case, Doctor is somewhat shoe-horned in as it is on some other characters to increase the odds of one appearing in the game, pretty much everyone had a vanilla, Luccio's last two entries don't actually say just 'goon' incidentally but that's a tad redacted. "Affiliation" in this version of the game is mostly for handy reference, would have been a bigger factor in a large game. The affiliations in the game aren't secret, just redundant. The last column, "Always on" say "None" for most characters and most of those it doesn't say 'none' for is because I used it as a handy place for notes, but for those who I wanted some ability on regardless of their random role, that's where that would be.

Incidentally, the way those roles would have converted to the template we're in, OS Vig would either have stayed a 1-Shot NK as either 1+RPS or maybe a 1+RPSX, or have maybe a every-night use or non-consecutive use at 0+RPS or 0+RPSX. Doc's wouldn't use RPS though they'd connect into the system, Elite BG would have worked like a weakened doc with a 0+RPS NK tacked on, or something along those lines. If the RPS thing turns out to be popular with the players I'll knock out a list of major role conversions to it as an appendix to the main rules but they were all converted on the fly. Note that stats are unrelated to role, this isn't exactly true, some roles would add to someone's stats, like bulletproof. I would let players see their own, but I'm reluctant to do that as it may represent some unbalancing effect. We'll do one more as this character is kinda a throw away I put in on accident and just didn't remove and I don't think narrowing things down from 100 to 98 screws much with things

# Character Name Affiliation Will Skill Energy Flesh Role 1 Role 2 Role 3 Role 4 Role 5 Role 6 Always on
65 Spike Mafia 0 1 0 0 Vanilla Vanilla OS BP Goon Goon Scum OS NK


So Spike, bit of a thug, worked for the mafia, has low stats and about a 50/50 of being scum or town, vanilla either way but doe have one small role on each, OS BP - a single use bulletproof vest and a single use NK. Had he gotten an single-use vest I'd have added 1 to his flesh score probably, maybe 1 to two stats instead. Had he gotten the OS NK, he'd have gotten either a single 1+RPSS kill or a 0+RPSX kill.

By the way, 'on there on accident' because he never appears alive in the series, and Spike's specifically on my mind because it was the character name of James Marsters on Buffy, and Marsters happens to be the guy who read all the Dresden unabridged audiobooks... for those who don't know I'm an audiobook junkie, and he's not the one reading the new one, a bit of useless trivia for you. By the way the in the title is just a visual flag, I'll flip saber color when I do updates or dump then off itf it's been a while, etc.