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Source: (consider it) Thread: Circus: Mafia - Over by Christmas
Eliab
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# 9153

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Continuing the tradition of historically-themed Mafia games, it's time I ran one.

For those who haven't played before, the rules for the last game can be found in this post. The rules for this game will be substantially similar - although the roles in play will be different and will be decided when I know how many people are playing.

Mafia - Over by Christmas

Hotel Des Ramparts
Ypres
Belgium

April 1917

Spring in Flanders, and once again the Allied High Command plans the next major offensive which will win the war. This time, the focus is on the fiercely contested Belgian town of Ypres.

After three years of conflict, not even the dullest and most hide-bound of Field Marshalls can imagine that victory will come easily, and therefore the distinguished British officer, General Sir Herbert Zurcon, has been sent to Flanders to prepare a definitive report on the sector, and submit his proposed plan for the forthcoming battle. Sir Herbert has set about his work with characteristic ability and enthusiasm, but unfortunately for the Allies, a group of conspirators has learned of his mission and is determined to see that neither he, nor anyone in whom he may have confided, should live to deliver his recommendations.


The player characters are the soldiers and civilians attending meetings with General Zurcon in the Hotel Des Ramparts close to the frontline at Ypres, or who are otherwise hanging around in the area for reasons best known to themselves. They can come from any of the belligerent powers (which at this point includes much of the world) or be volunteers or interlopers from any non-belligerent. Military and civilian characters are both encouraged - General Zurcon wants to have as wide a range of experience and opinion as possible before crafting his scheme to end the war.


Please sign up here - I'll allow at least a week for players to register, and then define and assign everyone's roles. I'm intending to have a few more, but much weaker, specials than we have previously, which I'll sort out when I know how many players we have.

I would prefer players to decide character names and backgrounds only after they know their role, but the SoF-Mafia convention of choosing these on sign-up is too firmly established for me to overturn. You may therefore either define your character now, or simply sign in and introduce yourself later, at your discretion.

The game title, is, of course, hopelessly optimistic. We will be taking a break for the Christmas period when we get to that stage.

[ 03. May 2011, 13:37: Message edited by: Chorister ]

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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The Red Cat Goddess is back in the fray as a normal player [Smile]
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Autenrieth Road

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Hooray! Mafia!

I'm definitely in. I've never understood about deciding public persona only after knowing role: wouldn't you worry that you might give away something about your role in your persona?

All the same, I don't know who I want to be yet.

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Truth

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I've never understood about deciding public persona only after knowing role: wouldn't you worry that you might give away something about your role in your persona?

Yes - that's why I do it. Everything IC on the thread should be a potential clue.

But mine is the minority view. No one is bound by it here.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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Imaginary Friend

Real to you
# 186

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Everything IC on the thread should be a potential clue.

Sorry to be dense, but what does IC mean? Is it a simple homophone? [Hot and Hormonal]

And I'm in for the game. [Smile]

--------------------
"We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass."
Brian Clough

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Autenrieth Road

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IC = In Character

OOC = Out Of Character

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Truth

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Adam.

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# 4991

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I'm in for another game and happy to wait until I know my role to pick a character. Though, you'll all have to work out whether I'm odd-bluffing or even-bluffing...

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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog

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CuppaT
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Me, too.

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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Adam.

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# 4991

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quote:
Originally posted by Imaginary Friend:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Everything IC on the thread should be a potential clue.

Sorry to be dense, but what does IC mean? Is it a simple homophone? [Hot and Hormonal]

And I'm in for the game. [Smile]

Wot AR sed... though it's also true that everything icky should be a potential clue. No superfluous ick, please.

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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog

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Imaginary Friend

Real to you
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Ah, thanks. [Smile] I like the idea too, so I shall wait until I know who I am before I decide who I am (if you see what I mean!)

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"We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass."
Brian Clough

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Sylvander
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# 12857

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I'd like to join, too.
Will I get killed immediately if I take a German character?

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A martyr is someone living with a saint.
2509

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Dafyd
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I'm in.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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An die Freude
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If people with less than 50 posts (but some lurking experience) are allowed to join, I'm in. I have some experience of Mafia and followed the previous thread intensely.

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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH

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Imaginary Friend

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JFH (and anyone else lurking), you are very welcome! The more the merrier. [Smile]

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"We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass."
Brian Clough

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Jay-Emm
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# 11411

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I'd like to join too
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Pax Romana
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I want to play, too.

Pax Romana

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********************
I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.
James Thurber

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Antisocial Alto
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# 13810

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May I play? (I'm a total n00b at this.)
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Wet Kipper
Circus Runaway
# 1654

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I'll not join in this time, but will watch

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- insert randomly chosen, potentially Deep and Meaningful™ song lyrics here -

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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505

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More holiday fun? Yay!

All I will say is that this time I bags running the local bar; but I'll wait to decide whether my character is military or civilian, male or female.
Cheers!

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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.

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Autenrieth Road

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Bar? Is that competition for the Smudgeson Tea Room?

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Truth

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leonato
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# 5124

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Great another game!

Count me in.

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leonato... Much Ado

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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
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Hm . . . you know, I would almost play Lt. Madoc's (presumably future) superior officer—but we all know he survives this little run-in with the assassins. [Devil]

I'm in.

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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.

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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Bar? Is that competition for the Smudgeson Tea Room?

I know, I was also planning to open the Red Cat Café. Guess I'll have to think of something else now (sulks) [Biased]

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Rent my holiday home in the South of France

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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505

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Hmm...the Folies Bergere Belgique perhaps? Or the Red Windmill of Wipers might keep the troops a bit happier... [Razz]

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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.

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Hennah

Ship's Mother Hen
# 9541

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Can I play? I've followed the other games with amusement but never actually joined in.

Hen

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Never stand behind satan in a Post Office queue: the devil takes many forms.

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Autenrieth Road

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Awesome, we're up to 15 players. Come on in; the more, the merrier!

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Truth

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Eliab
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I said I'd give it a week, but we have enough players signed up for a game now, and no one new joined yesterday. So I'll start assigning roles soon.

Anyone lurking - this is your final recruitment call. Join up, your country needs you.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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Amorya

Ship's tame galoot
# 2652

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Go on then. I've been trying to decide how much time I have, but since I was just lynched in the other game I was playing (and was a simple villager, damnit!), I guess I should be OK [Smile]

Amorya

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Autenrieth Road

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Ooh, a role! A bright shiny new role! Three cheers! Is it here yet?

(Bounces up and down excitedly.)

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Truth

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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894

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quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Ooh, a role! A bright shiny new role! Three cheers! Is it here yet?

quote:
From: Eliab
Your role is: First To Die.
Sorry; either you get lynched on the first day, or you get taken out as soon as it's dark. Sucks to be you!

[Devil]

--------------------
“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.

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Eliab
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OK, I've cleared a chunk of space in my PM box for gaming business (so anyone out there who was expecting a reply from me to one, well, you aren't going to get one now) and we're good to go. PMs with roles will follow as flood control permits.


The Rules

The structure will work like this:

1. Morning. The public results of any night actions, and the roles of any newly deceased characters, are revealed.



2. Prosecution. All players have 24 hours to nominate someone they think guilty. A player may nominate one character only. There is no limit to the number of players who may nominate. Nominations cannot be retracted.



3. Defence. After nominations close, there will be an opportunity for the accused to answer. I will close the defence phase if (a) all the accused have explicitly rested their cases; (b) discussion seems to me to be at an end; (c) I judge sufficient time to have elapsed. Assume a minimum of 24 hours. No new nominations are allowed in this phase.



4. Voting. Voting is compulsory and an absolute majority is required to lynch a character. Further discussion is permitted during voting, but votes once cast are irrevocable.



5. Lynching. One unlucky character may be lynched. That player may post a death scene.



6. Evening. The roles of any characters who have died since morning are revealed.



7. Night. All characters with night actions should PM me – a character may take only one night action even if they have multiple roles. Discussion is allowed during the night, but if you receive a PM from me telling you that you are dead, then please stop talking. You may post a death scene if you wish.



8. Dead characters: as soon as you are dead you may no longer communicate in any way about any information you may have in any post or speculate about the role of any other character (unless explicitly permitted to do so).



9. Discussions. You should only discuss matter by PM or e-mail (or otherwise than on this thread) if your role explicitly allows this.

--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
Eliab
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# 9153

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The Roles

The following main roles are in play:

Conspirator The conspirators oppose the Allied scheme for yet another summer offensive in Flanders. This (it may surprise you to learn) makes them the bad guys. Between them they can murder one person each night as the killer's night action. The first PM to reach me from the conspirators will be acted upon, and the sender of it will be the killer. Conspirators may discuss the game privately amongst themselves if they wish. The conspirators win as soon as they form a majority of survivors and no possible special role activity could change that.

Traitor The traitor would be a conspirator if only he could find one of them to join up with. The traitor may investigate one person each night – if the person investigated is a conspirator, the traitor becomes one too. Until then, he counts as an ally, but cannot score an allied win. The traitor only wins if he manages to defect AND the conspirators win.

Allied soldier/civilian Everyone else is loyal to the Allied war effort - or at least will pretend to be in preference to being murdered. The allies win as soon as all the conspirators are dead.

Nurse The nurse is an allied soldier or civilian who is especially skilled in treating battlefield casualties. So you’re thinking that she can save the life of someone who is murdered, right? Wrong. This is Passchendaele. People die like flies here. What the nurse can do is target up to two other characters for treatment as a night action, and if either is killed, will make their last hours sufficiently bearable that he gets to participate in the next prosecution phase, and can freely reveal anything they know or suspect. A victim will have seen something of his killer so will always have some useful information. Then he dies, and it’s on to the next patient.

Fanatic The fanatic is an allied soldier or civilian who is a believer in some cause that is unpopular but not automatically treasonous – it could be that she’s a Bolshevik, or a pacifist, or possibly just an awkward sod. This makes her good at noticing when other people are up to no good. The fanatic can investigate one person each night and will learn whether they are a conspirator.


In addition to those, there may be any or all of the following supporting roles – each represents some field of military expertise (the expert is not required to be a military character – there are plenty of civilian armchair experts after three years of war). These supporting roles will be assigned amongst all players regardless of their other allegiances or abilities. Therefore knowing that someone is (for example) an artillery expert tells you absolutely nothing about their loyalty. They could have any of the main roles as well.

Expert: Artillery Years of proximity to very big guns has made the artillery expert a little deaf. It is impossible to have a surreptitious conversation with her. Whatever her real allegiance, she appears innocent to the fanatic and the traitor. She can identify the fanatic and the traitor if they approach her, but cannot distinguish between them.

Expert: Aviation The dashing young men of the various flying corps never go down without a fight. When the aviation expert is killed he wounds his killer (if lynched, he may choose any other player). A wounded character misses their next two night actions.

Expert: Sapper The sapper has a bomb. As a night action he may set it to explode near another character. When he is killed, it will detonate, killing the target. The sapper may move the bomb to a new target once per night (this counts as targeting both the old and the new recipient). If the sapper is killed while planting or moving the bomb, it will not explode.

Expert: Special Brigade An expert in chemical warfare – she may once in the game make a gas attack as a night action. The target is gassed. Anyone else who performs an action targeting someone who is gassed will be gassed as well. Gassed characters are killed. The nurse may treat gas casualties without danger.

Expert: Infantry The infantryman has been around long enough to develop a strong sixth sense. He will not be killed by bomb or gas attacks.

Expert: Military Police The military policeman would like to be a detective. Unfortunately, by 1917, everyone is now wise to his tricks, and will instinctively act innocent as soon whenever he’s around. As a night action he may investigate one character. He won’t find anything out, but will prevent them from taking any action of their own.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153

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You should now all have your roles. Feel free to introduce yourselves.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
Autenrieth Road

Shipmate
# 10509

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Nurse Rhoda Autenrieth trudged down the muddy street, wondering where everyone was. The weak spring sun struggled to be seen through streaks of clouds. She wasn't the head nurse, able to keep even the most badly wounded soldiers alive for an extra day of life. No, she was just an average civilian who had joined the Red Cross hoping to be of more use than sitting at home rolling bandages.

She set her cap more firmly on her head and twitched her blue cape around her against the gusting wind. Wasn't there a teashop, or maybe a bar, in this town?

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Truth

Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505

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Battista Lalonde pushed back his white hair, picked up the wheelbarrow that was full of his stock in trade, and scooted it down the road to his newest place of trade. As he bumped the barrow down into the crypt of the bombed out church, he wondered how long he would be in business this time; before everything was blown to buggery once again.

He stowed the dirty bottles behind the 'bar' - a stone sarcophagus with a polished marble top on it - and then picked up the rough sign he'd made to take it outside. The front was now two or three miles down the road, though that wouldn't stop the artillery and air raids from falling regularly behind the lines. But the survival of his family meant he needed to be here. He shrugged his gallic shoulders and hung the old board with it's burnt lettering from a rusty nail in the broken wall. Batty's Bar was back in business.

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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.

Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
An die Freude
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# 14794

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Lord Jarvis Fastolfe of Harrisford cast a look around. He was here for two reasons. First of all, he was to visit his third son, Algernon, who was supposed to be here, and secondly he was here for the chocolate, that marvellous elixir of life, that joy to be relished, that relic of the gods, and of course the one good reason to ever leave England.

Incidentally, his son was not stationed in Belgium as he had first thought, but by some strange misconceivement of his aristocratic mind he had managed to misinterpret his son's placement at the office of the military attaché in Bern for a placement as an officer at the military attached to Belgium. Might have had something to do with chocolate. Ah well, two places without history - none worse than the other, really.
The chocolate, on the other hand, was marvellous.

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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH

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Adam.

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# 4991

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Lieutenant Hart looked around around his new station. It was good, full of all the tools he'd need to do a good job... make that a spectacular job. It wasn't quite as good as the kitchen he'd ran at the Grand Hotel before the War, but compared with three years of kp in the trenches, it was state of the art. It did strike him as typical military insularity to insist that the kitchen at these meetings had to be run by a soldier, but he wasn't going to complain if it was his ticket out the trenches. Finally, he'd be able to stuff cherry tomatoes without having to use his entrenching tool!

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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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Lt Dai Lycatell was invalided out (apart from one of his feet which was still somewhere near the German lines). He looked out the window. Another cloudy day. No luck for the fellows still in the Trenches. He left the hospital and limped down the cobbled street to the cafe. Bombed out again. However, a local seemed to be setting up a bar in the ruined church. Ah well. Dai sat down and started to compose a poem.

This war is bad.
It makes me sad.
Our generals are raving mad.

It needed work, he thought.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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Second officer Lavinia Hodge, WRNS, is at her post in the telegraph room. She’s rather surprised that she was allowed to join up after her escapades in the suffragettes, but she supposes they can’t have investigated her past too thoroughly. She rather hopes by proving her worth out here on the front line, she shall advance the cause of women once all this unpleasantness is over.

It’s been a bit slow today. She thinks about tapping out VOTES FOR WOMEN on her telegraph machine just for fun, but decides against it.

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Rent my holiday home in the South of France

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Adam.

Like as the
# 4991

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Lt. Hearte realized that in all the excitement, he managed to mis-spell in his name in his introductory remarks. Hearte by name, Hearte food served by nature.

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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog

Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003  |  IP: Logged
Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411

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Corporal (Jacob) Marley was disappointed that his first posting was not to the front. All his friends would be coming back from Berlin, as Heroes.
Would he be able to charm the ladies back in Blighty with his tale of standing outside a mansionette by a hedge shouting who goes there? Even the local French whores (and various apparently respectable people, typical Frogs), only wanted him to let them through to their commissioned assignations. He sulked and continued his smoke.

Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged
Autenrieth Road

Shipmate
# 10509

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Palm Sunday, and a bar was open. April Fool's Day, too. She had thought the bar sign might be a joke, but no, when she descended the broken steps the crypt was already half full of men, and completely full of cigarette smoke. She walked up to the barcophagus. "What have you got?"

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Truth

Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505

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Battista looked up with a broad grin and sized up his new customer. Several of the tommies were already on their feet and elbowing each other and two of the diggers had instantly appeared on each side of the nurse. "Geez, it's a sheila!" said one of them. "On her own!" said the other.

Batty sometimes wondered at the intelligence level of these Australians. "Mademoiselle," he whispered. "Do not be alarmed. They are like leetle puppies and will not 'arm you. Per'aps you would like some wine?"

He pulled out a dusty bottle and one of his five unbroken wine glasses. The troops all knew to bring their own pannikins with them for a drink; but he did have a few decent drinking receptacles left. He also had a few special bottles put aside, in hope of being able to celebrate the end of this bloody war. But he was the only one who knew where they were stashed. He ran his hand gently along the stone slab. "Unless, of course you would care for some of the local cider, Mam'selle?"

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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.

Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
leonato
Shipmate
# 5124

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Conte Leo di Leonato, a Major in the Italian tank corps was disappointed to be in Belgium. Italy had already changed sides once in the war and he couldn't really understand why they were now in Belgium where the weather was terrible and the food even worse.

But at least he had little tank, which could go very fast, in reverse, when it wasn't broken down, and if things went well the war could be over soon.

Trying to look on the bright side, he hums an aria from Aida to cheer himself up.

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leonato... Much Ado

Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The fanatic can investigate one person each night and will learn whether they are a conspirator.

Question, asked in public because we may want to base collective decisions on the answer:
a) if the fanatic investigates the traitor after the traitor has defected, does the fanatic identify him or her as a conspirator?
b) if the fanatic investigates the traitor before the traitor has defected, does the fanatic identify him or her as a conspirator?

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
a) if the fanatic investigates the traitor after the traitor has defected, does the fanatic identify him or her as a conspirator?

Yes. The traitor becomes a conspirator for all purposes after defection.

quote:
b) if the fanatic investigates the traitor before the traitor has defected, does the fanatic identify him or her as a conspirator?
No. The fanatic only identifies conspirators, and the traitor isn't one until defection.

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
Hennah

Ship's Mother Hen
# 9541

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17-year-old Agnés Machant scratched another mark in the tree with a rusty nail. The rope swing that used to hang in the tree had been reduced to a raggedy knot of threads on a bough. Agnés could remember her father putting the swing up in '06, she and her brother would spend hours on it.

She wondered idly where her family were now. The farm had long since ceased proper function and she was doing her best to keep the few remaining chickens contained in the dirty yard. Food was becoming more and more scarce, and were it not for the kindness of some of the older members of the village she is sure she would have starved long ago. She worries what will become of her - the attentions of some of the English soldiers stationed nearby have been most unwelcome, although (so far) they have only amounted to catcalls and a few shouted remarks which, although she speaks no English, the content of which is made perfectly clear by lurid gesture.

Agnés decides that she cannot remain waiting for something to happen. She has thought about lying about her age and joining the nursing corps, but she never did have a particularly strong stomach. She decides that there must be something happening down at the old Hotel as she's seen some important-looking figures coming and going when she's been out foraging for food and information. She resolves to head there to find out.

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Never stand behind satan in a Post Office queue: the devil takes many forms.

Posts: 925 | From: The Henhouse, Beside The Seaside, Kent | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153

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Dusk. General Sir Herbert Zurcon stands at the edge of the Menin road and surveys what he can of the front lines through field glasses, doing his best to ignore the unseemly carousing and indiscipline of the soldiers and staff around him. He makes a mental note to order a series of company-strength trench raids to keep the men’s morale up. And if the attacks are made mainly with the battalions overdue to be rotated out of the line, the casualties taken will not even reduce the fighting strength for the summer offensive.

As he studies the ground, the general’s smile gives way to a pensive frown. That he can take the enemy front line is not in doubt. A massed attacked behind a creeping barrage will do the job, as it always does. The only question about that is how many thousands of men will die doing it, and, crucially, whether the German casualties will exceed that number. But that will only be the first phase of the battle – victory will depend on repelling the inevitable counter-attack, and that means getting the second wave – with engineers, infantry, mortars and machine guns up to the forward positions quickly. Quickly, through the Belgian mud and poison gas, and past the strongpoints and hold-outs that the artillery were not able to reduce. That’s the problem, and that’s what Sir Herbert is here to solve.

Tanks. That’s the key. Lots of tanks. But where? Use them to spearhead the infantry assault, and so get the first wave into the German trenches? Or deploy them against the likely strongpoints and screen the second wave as it consolidates the gains? A hard, hard choice...

...The short screech of a whizz-bang breaks in on the general’s thoughts, and a member of his staff blinks in alarm and rushes forward to tell his commander to take cover. Then the explosion hits the man with full force, sending up a clattering rain of metal and loose cobbles.

Sir Herbert looks down with distaste at the mess of mud and subaltern’s brains that spatter his newly-issued boots, gum, thigh, and he feels a quite irrational irritation at the man for interrupting his chain of thought. What was his name? Rawlins? Rawson? Australian chap, anyway.

That’s it, by God! Anzacs! Or Canadians, in a pinch. Spry, plucky blighters, the lot of them. A brigade of Anzacs would be ideal. They can be told off to assault the likely pockets of resistance, and save the tanks to open up the weak spots. Excellent – and it saves the second line the sight of knocked out British tanks, which is never good for morale. Soldiers are often squeamish about being told to assail a position that has already repulsed a tank attack, but a few more infantry corpses never upset anyone. By Jove, he’d have to commend young Rawkinson for that one!

A plan forming in his august military mind, General Zurcon orders his driver to take him back to the Hotel des Ramparts for a peaceful night’s sleep.

[ 09. December 2010, 10:34: Message edited by: Eliab ]

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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794

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Lord Fastolfe of Harrisford is nearly run over by some madman in an automobile. Who the Turk might that have been? He seemed to be wearing a general's uniform, but had the unmistakable chin of a groundling. The lower classes were entering all sorts of positions these days, and even demanded the right to power! As if power was something abstrct, that could be divided into portions, nay, rations! The only rational was of course to trust that power belongs with leadership - and no man born of woman could lead better than a nobleman, a true English nobleman. Good Lord, some of these parvenus didn't even have a century of English blood in them, not even Scottish! They wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between Belgian and Dutch chocolate! Speaking of which, Fastolfe thought to himself, I wonder if they serve a decent hot chocolate at that facility down the road, "Battered's"...?

[ 09. December 2010, 11:15: Message edited by: JFH ]

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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH

Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009  |  IP: Logged
Imaginary Friend

Real to you
# 186

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Sgt Harry Bournemouth lumbered his way into the bar. Pulling his infantry issued metal cup from his pocket, he rasped "whisky, now" and waited for something to happen. Nothing did. "Fine, some of your grape piss then if that's all you've got". By now, the rest of the room had become quiet and even the Australians were staring. Harry was distinctive: He had been in Ypres in 1915 when the Germans had attacked Bellewaarde with chlorine gas and while his unit had sustained heavy casualties, Harry had initiated a counter-attack which had held the German advance up for a couple of hours. But the gas had caused his lungs irreparable damage, and he was evacuated during the retreat and sent home to England to convalesce. But now he was back: not fit for front line duties, but he had wangled a job in the Army Ordnance Corps arranging the supply of munitions to the front.

The barman tentatively poured a half-cup of wine. Harry was a well-known drunk and it was clear that he'd managed to scavenge something illicit before he came to the bar. "What the fuck are those Aussie pricks doing here?" he asked rhetorically before downing the wine in one gulp. "They weren't giving you any hassle were they, love?" A nurse was stood near to where Harry had landed. "If they start getting on your tits then let me know and I'll make sure they don't do it again." With that, Harry's lungs decided that they had made enough effort and sent him into a convulsion of thick-sounding coughing. By the time he recovered, someone had put the phonograph on and the background noise had relieved the tension.

After another 15 half cups of wine, a promise to the bartender that he would make good on his tab by the end of the week, and an attempt to start a fight with the Australians, Harry staggered out of the bar and back to his billet to sleep off the effects of his evening's entertainment.

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"We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass."
Brian Clough

Posts: 9455 | From: Left a bit... Right a bit... | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged



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