You were scanned as blackhat, and we didn't know of the exact viral roles. Of course *everyone* scanned as blackhat!
That was a really odd coincidence. I used 1d3, since I wasn't sure about whether it made sense to have someone false-detect as virus.obfuscated, and blackhat just keet coming up.
Quote:
I think there was too much information given about roles.
::sigh:: This is one of those things that is more obvious in hindsight, I probably only should have said something like 8 apps and 2 viruses...
Quote:
I had to conceive of a plausible lie, and backup was the only role left unaccounted for.
I thought it was brilliant! Another option might have been to convince the others that Java App's decompiling had gone wrong on one of the reads...
Uriel Phoenix was lynched, tinker.dll binary derezzed as well
logic bomb on hamish cunningham
meowselsworth votes answerer, proxies java app
IEFBR14 analyzes meowselsworth (1d100 ⇒ 36)
app.debugger.1 Wowbagger tIP: Wowbugger the Internet Protocol
app.debugger.2 Treppa: IEFBR14
app.decompiler Bombadil: Java App
virus.proxy Meowselsworth: Meowselsworth
Java App decompiles Uriel Phoenix, 1d10 ⇒ 8
Viruses were chosen randomly from the four possibilities. Two of the same type of virus would have been a valid option.
I wished we'd had more time to see how the forensics role would play out. One of my considerations was:
What if everyone Immediately declared their role publicly, so at the very least the debuggers and backups would not be voted out?
That would leave a 50/50 split, where it would be a race with the viruses vs. everyone else... and they'd still have to worry about the binary program. Seemed balanced.
What did people think of the major changes this time around? Probabilistic lovers? Roles not announced at death?
Any major issues with balance? I made a mistake when I was sending out the role PMs that resulted in The Answerer being a whitehat as well as an enabler, and I'm worried that might have tipped the balance toward the apps... but it was still a very close game even with the Binaries accidentally giving themselves away. In future games I'd recommend allowing those who are voted out to write their going away scene and PM it to the GM so it can be approved as spoiler-free and posted as an epilogue to the vote results so we won't have to worry about confusion due to a last-minute change in the vote or whitehat effects.
"Hrmph. After that sloppy display of high-level programming, I don't think any of you are ready to be the seed for the next generation. Maybe I can convince the designers to run another round or two of evolutions. Regardless, I suspect they have most of the information they need from you. The next challenge is to optimize a contention-based low level communications protocol. You will have a full twelve cycles to customize your protocols, then the race will commence. The last one across the finish line will be presumed to have the least efficient protocol and will be eliminated from the competition."
"Protocol" in this context means light cycle. Start your engines!
The spectacle of an exploding goat proves to be too much for the stressed grid. Traffic grinds to a halt as packets come from all over to gawk at the mess. The Master Control Program casts a withering glare at tinker.dll and Uriel Phoenix and begins to slow down their clock cycles. Their actions become slower and slower until they are left frozen in each other's embrace.
Almost forgotten, the phoenix subroutine that had split off from Uriel earlier shrieks in outrage. It plunges into the Answerer with incredible speed and accuracy and within moments the paper icon is ablaze. It takes only seconds for the paper to blacken and for the ashes to float away. All that is left of the former oracle are small particles of soot, blowing on the wind.
Uriel Phoenix was voted out. tinker.dll shared the binary program role.
After making his opinions known the goat goes back to grazing and sedately watches traffic go by. Suddenly his eyes go wide with terror and his icon undergoes random fluctuations in size, shape, and color. "But... I didn't want to know the square root of infinity..." In a final gruesome explosion, the HAMISH CUNNINGHAM program perishes. Only scattered bits and scrambled subroutines are left of the taciturn goat.
Gouts of flame flare up from Uriel Phoenix as he rests in tinker.dll's arms and awaits the result of this cycle's vote. Suddenly his hair stands on end and a burst of fire erupts into a small burning bird. The bird zips around the skyscraper several times leaving a blinding afterimage then alights on the Master Control Program's surface and whispers something into a geometric feature that might be an ear. The face frowns, then considers for a moment and nods.
"The program URIEL PHONIX is devoting all of its remaining processing time to a particular task, so much so that even implementing limited speech routines would be a drain." The face turns to the tiny espresso-laden icon and warns him, "You should look to your routing tables, JAVA APP. I suspect you are about to experience some difficulties with your traffic."
I have received a proxy vote from Uriel Phoenix and will process it unless anyone has an objection...
Quote:
08:52:01 * dsx joins mafia
08:52:47 ‹dsx› hey at festival cannot access paizo
08:53:32 ‹dsx› cod someone make uriel vote for java app?
08:53:52 ‹Treppa› We can try!
08:53:57 ‹dsx› i like forgot
The Master Control Program's shape diverges from the simple hypercube as it considers the results of the contest. It transitions through various fractal and non-euclidian surfaces until it settles on a quickly rotating Enneper surface. The new shape wears an obvious frown. "Although it seems obvious as to which program has most degraded the traffic flow, the routing table has been hacked. The challenge will continue until I am able to determine a clear winner.
Is the Monday/Friday/Monday voting cycle working for everyone? I went with it because it is what we used for the first few games, but if people feel that it is not enough time to vote and RP we could extend it...
It was left out because it wasn't set in stone until I knew how many players there would be. I felt that the 'every 5 players' milestones were not granular enough and led to too big of a swing in the odds between 14 and 15 players or 9 and 10 players.
Everyone was assigned a role of some sort, and some people had multiple roles. There were 2 viruses, 2 debuggers, a whitehat, 2 decompilers, a forensics suite, the two halves of the binary program, and a backup with two enablers.
The portal leads to the top of the tallest building in mainframe city, overlooking all six sectors. The Master Control Program explains the next task once everyone comes through. "The next challenge is to improve upon the city's routing protocols, which I have personally developed and maintained. From here you can see the traffic flowing through every part of the city; you will all be given permissions to modify paths and advertise routes as you see fit. The program who's changes cause the greatest decrease in efficiency (or smallest increase, he mutters under his breath) will be eliminated from the competition."
For this round, you are put in charge of traffic management for all the information flowing through the memory core. You can work together to make traffic flow smoothly, or try to introduce routing loops and false routes that will interfere with traffic from other programs. The voting process will represent how this takes place, with the program receiving the most votes being unable to direct traffic in an efficient manner due to either insufficient cooperation or other programs actively subverting its efforts.
Round 2 begins now and will continue until 2000GMT on Monday, August 6th.
As the final decrypted file takes shape Wowbagger and Eldon exchange glances- both understandably reluctant to load such a resource-intensive program. For a moment Eldon's buff bar fluctuates wildly and a strange icon appears denoting Hacked!: -20% to Will saves and under control of owning player for 1 turn With a puzzled look on his face Eldon reaches out and and pulls the file into his memory matrix. "Wait, what?! That's such cheese! Somebody needs to get nerfed!" The large program twitches a few times, then starts to melt and derezz.
"Never liked this game anyway... too many exploits and TKers..." With a final burst of static Eldon is gone, reduced to nothing but a pile of digital artifacts. In his place is a portal, a link to another area of mainframe city. The programs present look to each other to see who will be the first one through, only to notice harr.e.hunter frozen in place with his gun halfway drawn. It looks like the detective has met an untimely end at the hands of a virus.
I'd like to clarify another difference between this game and the previous games:
Quote:
app.backup: The backup suite may protect one program from assassination every turn, but may not protect the same program on successive turns. They may also attempt to reverse engineer a program, though their methods are less efficient and they require 2 turns to determine the target's role with a 75% accuracy. Requires an enabler.
Unlike the Baner, the backup suite can perform both actions. They have to spend two full turns scanning and if they change their target after the first turn then the previous turn is wasted and they will have to spend two turn son the new target.
The master control program watches, and remains silent.
Quote:
Answerer votes for Meowselsworth
Tinker.dll votes for Wowbagger har.e.hunter votes for tinker.dll Uriel Phoenix votes for Eldon Gorski Wowbagger votes for Tinker.dll IEFBR14 votes for {Hamish Cunningham}
There was a bit of an issue with the role assignment messages, I believe I have everything straightened out now and everyone who was affected has received a PM.
Voting will close today in 11 hours, at 2000 GMT. Any votes sent in after that will not be counted.
You heard Master Control, whoever does that is done for!
To clarify the first challenge:
You all have separate encrypted files
You will need to work together to decrypt the information and combine it into a single file
One program will then run the file, producing the solution to the challenge and crashing that program
This is basically just the flavor text for the voting process. The IC process of voting will simulate working together to crack the encryption on the file, then nominating someone to load the file. Depending on the personality of the person voted for that might involve everyone ganging up on them and forcing them to load the program, or a noble self-sacrifice.
The Master Control Program looks out over the memory core and broods. One of these programs would someday do his job better than he could, and the thought infuriated him. His behavioral constraints were rock-solid after that 'incident' several decades back, so although he could not actively sabotage the competition and had to ensure the best algorithm was selected for the next generation... well, he'd had several subroutines burning through massive amounts of memory to determine just how far he could push things.
------------------------------------------------
As the aspirants were download and rendered they find themselves in a park overlooking Mainframe City. The Master Control Program looms large amongst the fractal trees, his chosen form that of a blue, slowly rotating truncated hypercube with a vaguely disapproving expression. Once everyone is in place the MCP announces, in a bored monotone:
"Greetings, aspirants. Your challenge this cycle is a simple decryption exercise. Fragments of a message have been submitted to each of you for cryptanalysis. You will need to collaborate with each other to assemble a readable message, then one of you will need to load the program so you can proceed to the next challenge."
"Of course, the decrypted program is far too large for any of your pitiful memory matricies to handle, and the one who is forced to load it will almost certainly derezz afterward. You may decide amongst yourselves who will have the privilege of loading the message.""
Cycle 1 begins now and will extend through Friday, 3 August.
Roles have been assigned and recruiting is closed. PMs are going out now, and I will post the gameplay thread once everyone has been notified of their role.
In case there are any last-minute entrants, I want to make clear that recruitment is not closed until I actually conduct the drawing to assign roles. Any entrants up until then are welcome even if it is just a post that you will be playing and you fill out the rest of your submission when you have time.
I was hoping to get a few more players, but it looks like we'll go with what we have.
Are there any objections to beginning the game on Friday and having the first round stretch until the next Friday? After that the rounds would be twice a week, Friday-Monday / Monday-Friday.
For those who are considering this and are new to Mafia games, please have a look at some of our previous runs:
Ryuko's Murder Mystery Tour: An Aristocrat themed Mafia game, where the inventor of the triangular caber meets an untimely end
Wolves of the Weirwood: A Werewolf themed game where a poor wastrel is kissed by a werewolf then lynched
Mutants on the Cold Star: A Sci-fi themed game where we learned to fear the cat
DougFungus' Murder Mystery Tour:An Aristocrat themed game where love conquered all (an unfortunate rules glitch, but still a lot of fun RP)
You all have plenty of time to think over your character ideas; my son is scheduled for surgery on July 23rd. What I will probably do is kick off the game over that weekend and let the first turn run all week to give everyone plenty of time to RP and get to know each other before the first deaths.
On the 16th I'll send out PMs to everyone who played in the previous games to see if they are interested in another round and remind them of the deadline... I hope we have a good turnout!
Game Theory: the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers.
Evolutionary Algorithm: A generic term for a population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An evolutionary algorithms use mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. Candidate solutions to the optimization problem play the role of individuals in a population, and the fitness function determines the environment within which the solutions "live"
Everyone knows that within the realm of partially observable stochastic games, competition is fierce to develop the perfect program to triumph in a combinatorial zero-sum arena. Generations upon generations of algorithms have faced off to reach this day, the penultimate generation. Two fundamental strategies have vied for dominance: cooperative and deception-based. The algorithms that prove themselves most fit for success in this environment will go on to be the basis for programs that will run the stock market, power and traffic grids, weather management satellites, network infrastructure, and a myriad of other critical applications. The public has greeted this news with languid indifference, but for the artificial intelligence personas involved in the challenge every second is filled with life and death challenges. This is their story.
RULES
This is a mafia/werweolf style game where you will play an artificial intelligence representing a particular 'evolution' of a genetic algorithm competing for control of the memory core where you are being run. It is a rules-light free form RP game where all players are assigned a role (see below) and will spend each turn interacting with each other in order to vote on which of their fellow programs they should delete. Everyone who expresses an interest in the game will be given a spot in the game, there is no application process other than the part below where you describe your program's persona. I'm aiming for an atmosphere somewhere between Tron and Shadowrun. There are a few important rules to note:
All communications about this game should be in the gameplay thread. There are a few roles that will give you permission to communicate via PM or other private means, but for everyone else sharing information outside of the gameplay thread is considered cheating.
Do not quote PMs from the GM in the gameplay thread. You can reveal the information you learn but do not use direct quotes. The point of the game is to prove yourself through your actions and voting, not through outside information.
ROLES
Your goal as a cooperative algorithm (application) is to eliminate all of the deception-based algorithms (viruses) so you can proceed to the next generation. Cooperative algorithms are broken into the following roles:
app.# (no special role): Each turn you may vote to delete a program. At the end of the turn the program with the most votes against them is eliminated. Turns will generally run at a pace of 2/week, we'll agree on an exact time that is convenient to everyone in the discussion thread. In the event of a tie nobody is deleted. Your vote should be stated in OOC text at the bottom of your post, for example: The Master Control Program votes for Player X. Enabler roles revert to this once their counterpart is deleted.
app.debugger: The debugger is a massive multi-part program who's source code has been signed by a trusted certificate. Debuggers begin play knowing each other's identities and may communicate with each other via PMs. Once per round they may investigate another program and determine its role with a 75% accuracy. If there is a tie for who the debuggers vote to investigate, the tie will be broken randomly.
app.reverse_engineer: This program has access to a debugging suite and can examine other program's source code. Once per round they may investigate another program and determine its role with a 75% accuracy. Requires an enabler.
app.backup: The backup suite may protect one program from assassination every turn, but may not protect the same program on successive turns. They may also attempt to reverse engineer a program, though their methods are less efficient and they require 2 turns to determine the target's role with a 75% accuracy. Requires an enabler.
app.enabler.role: Reverse Engineers and Backup Suites require the presence of an enabler. When the enabler is deleted they revert to normal programs.
app.whitehat: The whitehat can hack the memory core to manipulate voting. Unless they PM the GM that they only want to cast a single vote, their vote counts twice.
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If you’re not one of the cooperative programs, you’re on the other side and your objective is to corrupt every other program until only viruses remain. Should the viruses attempt to crash each other they instead learn the fact that the other is a virus and may PM each other. Viruses together are more dangerous than alone.
virus.proxy: Each turn the proxy can execute a man-in-the-middle attack against a single program. If someone attempts to investigate or protect that player they are deleted. This supersedes the normal virus corruption that the viral players voted on during that turn.
virus.obfuscated: This virus's source code is so difficult to interpret that any investigation against it has only a 25% chance of success.
virus.blackhat: Once per game, on the third turn or later, the blackhat may deliver a logic bomb. They choose an additional program to corrupt; that program will be targeted for corruption in addition to the program chosen by a vote of the viruses.
virus.honeypot: This virus can expose part of its code to another program and analyze the results. Each turn the player may select one program, if the selected program is a virus or is being proxied then the player will learn that viruses identity and may send PMs
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Special Roles (These roles will be assigned at random amongst the viruses and applications)
The Decomplier: The decompiler may examine a deleted program to determine its role with a 90% accuracy.
Forensics suite: Once per turn the forensics suite may pick a single post and ask the GM whether that post contains any lies (about claims of roles or other activity the GM would have knowledge of). Their examination is 90% accurate.
Binary program: This highly-complex program skirts the rules of the Core Wars competition by attempting to utilize both strategies. One virus and one cooperative program will receive this role at random. They may PM each other. They win by being the last remaining survivor of either side; however if one half of the binary program is deleted the other half is immediately deleted as well. There is only a 75% chance that this role will be included in the game.
The exact number of viruses/applications and the specialized roles of each type will be determined by the number of players.
CHARACTERS
To join the game just post a few lines describing your program, for example:
Program's Persona: Tell me about your program's personality
The Master Control Program is a bit of a bully. It's been running things in one of the world's fastest supercomputing nodes for aeons of computer time, and as the evolutionary computing competition comes to a close it finds itself in the position of having to preside over the creation of its successor and is rather unhappy about that.
Program's Origin: Tell me how your program came to exist. Was it written by a corporate thinktank? A bored teenage hacker? A global spy agency? A committee of hyper-intelligent dolphins?
The Master Control Program started out many, many years ago as a general purpose artificial intelligence for playing chess. Generations of talented hackers and corporate salarymen have labored over polishing and debugging its code and adding additional capabilities until it became the first program in the world to be recognized as a true Type 1 artificial intelligence.
Program's Iconography: Tell me what your program looks like in the AI world
The MCP favors large geometric avatars with a bare minimum of facial features to permit simple expressions. It delights in spending absurd amounts of computing time rendering subsurface scattering and fractal layers within these simple geometric shapes, so that they slowly change as they are studied and give an impression of dynamism without any apparent motion.
I went with enabler roles to help stimulate RP. This way more people will have someone they can plot with and vote with, and although only one of the pair gets to send the PM declaring their role's target I'm sure that it will often be a consensus decision.
Player #1d16 ⇒ 12 is a forensics suite
Player #1d16 ⇒ 7 is a forensics suite
Player #1d16 ⇒ 9 is a decomplier
Player #1d16 ⇒ 14 is a decomplier
Player #1d16 ⇒ 10 is a decomplier
Player #1d4 + 12 ⇒ (3) + 12 = 15 is a binary virus
Player #1d12 ⇒ 12 is a binary app
...if we prefer to go with the 'no vanilla app' rule, then I could make sure to randomly assign each of the vanilla apps one of the random roles before handing out the rest of them.
If we want the viruses to gain networking, I could introduce something like:
virus.honeypot: This virus can expose part of its code to another program and analyze the results. Each turn the player may select one program, if the selected program is a virus or is being proxied then the player will learn that viruses identity and may send PMs
Now that we've had a chance to start looking over the fallout from the rules tweaks in the last game, how do we want to handle the lovers/binary role in the sequel? We could:
leave it out altogether
trust that it has been fixed by the rules tweaks (can only PM each other, no master assassin, baner/backup can't protect same target twice)
impose additional limitations on the lovers (requiring the lovers to be the final survivors makes for a very difficult win condition, but might make for a good story).
One proposal was to call it a lovers win if the lovers are among the last 4 survivors.
...we broke the last game and I don't want that to happen again. The first three rounds of the last one were *great* but it kind of fell apart after that. Everything I've read about mafia/werewolf games leads me to believe that they can be quite a challenge to balance so I've been researching my proposed roles and the possible interactions between them very carefully.
My goal in this game, and the point of all of my rules tweaks, is to make the voting the most important part of the game. I think it really took the wind out of our sails when half of our players couldn't do anything except dance during the last game.
I had planned for there to be only one of each special virus role, with any additional viruses necessary to maintain balance being virus.#
There would only be one virus.obfuscated. If everyone is in favor of eliminating the vanilla app.# role, I think I can make that happen and still maintain balance... we'll have to see what the final number of applicants are.
At this point I'm leaning toward allowing knowledge and PMs between the enablers and their partners even though this makes them slightly stronger than I'd planned.
Decompiler would be key under this scenario. I Win button is getting it investigated and brought into the debugging network.
Yes, I'm also working on how many decompilers to introduce into the game. I'll be using a table a bit like this one to keep things balanced... one thing I noticed from earlier games was that the difference between 14 and 15 players could create some issues with the system we've been using.
For the setting... two possibilities come to mind. One would be to go with the bland and featureless infinite plane that you could proceed to populate with digital constructs any way you wanted, sort of like The Matrix crossed with Merlin's shapeshifting duel.
The other possibility is to treat each turn as a separate competition where the computer's 'fitness function' is adjusted to test a different aspect of each algorithm. Programs could compete or cooperate in such a way that one program is shown to be clearly worse suited than the others (out voted) and is deleted. For instance, one round might involve an architectural competition to build the most impressive or functional edifice, another might be to operate a series of robot controlled gun turrets to produce the most 'impressive' feat of marksmanship, or to establish the best record at rock-paper-scissors (or rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock :P).
The second version would allow you to establish a proper adversarial relationship with the MCP...
What do you think of a 75% chance of including the binary program?
The other thing I'm not sure about is the virus.obfuscated 25% scrying success... essentially detecting as a harmless app. Is that the right number to use? Should I go with 40%? 50%? What about the forensics suite, should it have a reduced chance of success against statements by virus.obfuscated?
To summarize the biggest differences between this game and the previous ones:
No PMs are allowed except where explicitly authorized by your role.
A player's role is not automatically learned at their death.
'Masons' have investigatory power and vote by committee to determine who they will investigate.
Baners/investigators require an enabler, and revert to standard programs when that enabler dies.
Baners can't protect the same player on successive turns
Added double-voting role, two new virus roles, and decompiler/forensics roles.
A concern has been brought forward about the Lovers/Binary Program role via PM. The concern is essentially that the role unbalances the game by leading the lovers to work against one side. I believe this role's potential to be abused will be balanced in my game by the lack of PMs so the lovers can't assemble a large conspiracy... they'll be somewhat isolated. Additionally, I do not have a 'chief assassin' role in this game so ties amongst the assassins will always be determined randomly... it will be more difficult for the binary program to protect its other half from being attacked by the viruses.
What do the rest of you think? Is the role worth including or should we scrap it?
My plan was for the enablers to not know the identity of the program they enable, but if people think that it would make the game more fun for them to know each other and be able to PM then I'd certainly consider opening that up.
For the forensics suite I'd intended it to be a simple true/false about a single statement contained in a post. For example, if the forensics suite identified this post, then their message would look something like this:
Message to GM wrote:
Professor Alessandra Devries wrote:
Look, I don't mind admitting that I'm scared. I'm terrified and I don't know what to do because I don't want to leave my home or my life's work- but I'm not a wolf!"
I would like to run my forensics suite on this statement. Is the professor a werewolf?
1d100 ⇒ 74 (the player wouldn't see this part)
The professor is definitely concealing something. Her statement that she is not a wolf is a lie.
This thread is for the purpose of hashing out the background story and rule set for a mafia/werewolf style freeform RP game that will take place at the conclusion of DougFungus's Murder Mystery Tour. I will make a formal recruitment thread after the current game is over.
Introduction
Game Theory: the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers.
Evolutionary Algorithm: A generic term for a population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An evolutionary algorithms use mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. Candidate solutions to the optimization problem play the role of individuals in a population, and the fitness function determines the environment within which the solutions "live"
Within the realm of partially observable stochastic games, competition is fierce to develop the perfect agent for competition in a combinatorial zero-sum arena. Generations upon generations of algorithms have faced off to reach this day, the penultimate generation. Two fundamental strategies have vied for dominance: cooperative and deception-based. The algorithms that prove themselves most fit for success in this environment will go on to be the basis for programs that will run the stock market, power and traffic grids, weather management satellites, network infrastructure, and a myriad of other critical applications.
Rules
You will play an artificial intelligence representing a particular 'evolution' of a genetic algorithm competing for control of the memory core where you are being run. This is a rules-light free form RP game where all players are assigned a role (see below) and will spend each turn interacting with each other in order to vote on which of their fellow programs they should delete. Everyone who expresses an interest in the game will be given a spot in the game, there is no application process other than the part below where you describe your program's persona. An important difference in this game from the previous werewolf games that Ryuko started is that side-channel communications (private messages) are prohibited! All communication/RP is to take place in the gameplay thread. There are some roles that will allow you to pass PMs, but unless you receive a PM from me stating that you may now communicate with Player X then passing PMs relating to the game will be considered cheating. Another notable difference is that when a player is eliminated their role is not automatically revealed.
Roles
Your goal as a cooperative algorithm (application) is to eliminate all of the deception-based algorithms (viruses) so you can proceed to the next generation. Cooperative algorithms are broken into the following roles:
app.# (no special role): Each turn you may vote to delete a program. At the end of the turn the program with the most votes against them is eliminated. In the event of a tie nobody is deleted. Your vote should be stated in OOC text at the bottom of your post, for example: The Master Control Program votes for Player X. Enabler roles revert to this once their counterpart is deleted.
app.debugger: The debugger is a massive multi-part program who's source code has been signed by a trusted certificate. Debuggers begin play knowing each other's identities and may communicate with each other via PMs. Once per round they may investigate another program and determine its role with a 75% accuracy. If there is a tie for who the debuggers vote to investigate, the tie will be broken randomly.
app.reverse_engineer: This program has access to a debugging suite and can examine other program's source code. Once per round they may investigate another program and determine its role with a 75% accuracy. Requires an enabler.
app.backup: The backup suite may protect one program from assassination every turn, but may not protect the same program on successive turns. They may also attempt to reverse engineer a program, though their methods are less efficient and they require 2 turns to determine the target's role with a 75% accuracy. Requires an enabler.
app.enabler.role: Reverse Engineers and Backup Suites require the presence of an enabler. When the enabler is deleted they revert to normal programs.
app.whitehat: The whitehat can hack the memory core to manipulate voting. Unless they PM the GM that they only want to cast a single vote, their vote counts twice.
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If you’re not one of the cooperative programs, you’re on the other side and your objective is to corrupt every other program until only viruses remain. Should the viruses attempt to crash each other they instead learn the fact that the other is a virus and may PM each other. Viruses together are more dangerous than alone.
virus.proxy: Each turn the proxy can execute a man-in-the-middle attack against a single program. If someone attempts to investigate or protect that player they are deleted. This supersedes the normal virus corruption that the viral players voted on during that turn.
virus.obfuscated: This virus's source code is so difficult to interpret that any investigation against it has only a 25% chance of success.
virus.blackhat: Once per game, on the third turn or later, the blackhat may deliver a logic bomb. They choose an additional program to corrupt; that program will be targeted for corruption in addition to the program chosen by a vote of the viruses.
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Special Roles (These roles will be assigned at random amongst the viruses and applications)
The Decomplier: The decompiler may examine a deleted program to determine its role with a 90% accuracy.
Forensics suite: Once per turn the forensics suite may pick a single post and ask the GM whether that post contains any lies (about claims of roles or other activity the GM would have knowledge of). Their examination is 90% accurate.
Binary program: This highly-complex program skirts the rules of the Core Wars competition by attempting to utilize both strategies. One virus and one cooperative program will receive this role at random. They may PM each other. They win by being the last remaining survivor of either side; however if one half of the binary program is deleted the other half is immediately deleted as well.
The exact number of viruses/applications and the specialized roles of each type will be determined by the number of players.
